Page 5 of Break the Ice

‘Love you guys too. Mom… don’t worry.’

‘I will always worry, Joshua. Speak soon.’

She hangs up as I look around my university accommodation, my home for the past six months, remnants of sticky tack on the walls from previous tenants, brown stains on the floor that I try to ignore. I remember when I first came here to London. I’d taken a cab from Heathrow with three bags and a brand-new orange windbreaker. When I entered this box room, with its cold floors and window that wouldn’t open more than six inches, strangely, I loved it. It was my new corner of the world, far away from everything I knew. The change that was necessary. Never mind the rodent problem in the communal kitchen and the guy two doors down who only ever plays Kings of Leon. It was the novelty, the brilliant accents, the new faces. And what a place to be – surrounded by grand bridges, a monarchy, red buses, fish and chips – studying for my research fellowship at one of the best universities in the world. London was an escape at a time in my life when I really needed her.

‘Hello hello.’ A knock on the door grabs my attention, and when I open it Zhang, one of my PhD graduates, walks in, a gift bag in his hands.

‘What is going on out there?’ I pop my head out and look down the corridor. All the other students are packing their bags but also seem to be having a group Christmas karaoke leaving party that involves singing Wham’s ‘Last Christmas’ on repeat, stampeding up and down the corridors, and chanting people’s names while they down shots. It is loud and festive and really feels a lot like living in my mother’s Christmas sweater.

‘JOSH! COME SING WITH US!’ a group of excited kids across the hall scream at me. ‘WE HAVE SHOTS!’

‘Later! Maybe! Make sure you take out your trash!’ I tell them.

‘BINS!’ The students here love to correct my American English.

‘Top bins?’ I reply. That’s a football term I learned on a soccer field trip to see Arsenal play. It’s met by a group of the guys cheering wildly. See, I can be cool when the moment dictates.

I turn back to Zhang. ‘Christmas and overexcited teens. How are you?’

He smiles at me, shaking his head. Zhang lives off-site, away from the students, and thinks it’s hilarious that I’m here among the youngest undergraduates playing den mother, sometimes picking them up off staircases when they’re drunk, occasionally doling out love advice to girls crying in the kitchen over their giant bars of Dairy Milk chocolate. ‘I wanted to drop in… I got you a gift.’ Zhang was the first person to welcome me to the country, the university. The first person to tell me the best rice plates to eat in Chinatown, the one who sometimes brings me home-cooked meals, and flat whites in the morning. If you want to thank anyone for my new glasses, it’s Zhang because he is fearless in his eyewear choices. Today he’s going for blue frames that he has expertly matched with his Adidas tracksuit.

‘Zhang, you shouldn’t have, but…’ I go over to my desk and open a drawer, get out a gift and hand it over. ‘Great minds…’

He beams widely. ‘This is very well wrapped, Joshua,’ he says, examining it from all angles.

‘What can I say, it’s a gift. The joy of being a projective geometry expert, it’s all in the angles.’ It’s always been my thing. He should see my origami. I watch him opening it and his eyes light up. It’s a sticker book related to some K-Pop group I know he’s obsessed with. He thinks it’s hilarious and holds it closely to him.

‘I feel bad. I got you Milk Duds and apple cinnamon Pop Tarts,’ he says.

I peek in the gift bag and grin, then go over to hug him. ‘Then this is absolutely perfect, my friend.’

Zhang looks around at all my well-labelled boxes. ‘I like your Christmas tree. It’s so cute.’ He looks over to my tiny three-foot tree, my USB lights and pompom decorations. Did I make those one evening while I binge watched Killing Eve and ate two whole packets of Jaffa Cakes? Yes, I did. Will I take it to the Premier Inn to brighten up my room? I will. ‘You know, you could come and spend Christmas with my family? I’m going to be with my cousin in Acton. Frank is great. You’d have to sleep in the utility room with me on a blow-up bed, but you’d be very welcome.’

I shake my head as he flicks through the pages of my books. ‘I kick. You don’t want to share a bed with me, kid. You’re not headed back to Singapore?’

‘I can’t afford the flights. Plus, it’s nicer here. Christmas is just a day in Singapore. Here they have that time between Christmas and New Year where the British people just sit there and do nothing but eat for a week. Everything shuts down, it’s nice. Carrie in calculus calls it the festive perineum.’

I chuckle in reply. ‘Well, do relax, it’s very well deserved. Thank you for all your hard work this semester, it’s appreciated.’

He puts a hand on my shoulder. ‘Joshua, do you have plans? What are you actually going to do on Christmas Day?’

‘I’m going to eat and sleep and make merry.’

‘On your own?’

I nod. ‘I’ll take walks, watch Christmas films. Please don’t worry about me.’

‘But a hotel? Look, have you thought about housesitting?’ he asks. ‘I’ve done it a few times in the summer months between rental contracts. You live in someone’s house when they’re on holiday, you feed their fish, water their plants. Sometimes they pay you.’ I stop packing for a moment to listen. ‘It’s just a thought.’

‘Surely that’s worse. Rolling around big houses on your own?’ I tell him.

‘Or not. Sometimes they have all the good TV subscriptions,’ he jokes. ‘I stayed in a house once that had a hot tub in the garden. I sent pictures to my mother and pretended I’d come into money and was now a millionaire.’

I envisage that for a moment. Even somewhere with a fireplace where I could make s’mores on my own, where I could heat up a TV dinner to go with my Die Hard.

‘Maybe.’ There is a sudden loud thud on my door and Zhang goes over to open it. Behind it, a student is lying on a sled, dressed as a very bad Santa. Why are you on a sled? Who’s put soap all over the floor? Plus, that is one bad beard, dude. Don’t you have to pack? I walk over.

‘JOSH! AMERICANO! PARTY ALL CHRISTMAS WITH MY HO-HO-HOS!’ he says in a faux gangster accent, throwing up gang signs. He then jumps up and does a strange dance where he thrusts his hips several times. And then barfs, right on my doorstep.