Chapter 1

I was 19 when it happened. 19 and living away from home for the first time. Home was a mum and dad and a conservative upbringing that kept me on a very tight rein. No late nights, no wild parties, no straying from the straight and narrow path of good clean living that they decided. Well, of course, I had tried my best to rebel against their rules and such a constricted lifestyle, but the best I was able to do was snog a spotty boy one time when we were on holiday at the seaside and they had gone shopping and had left me with strict instructions not to stay too long in the sun and to make sure that I didn’t get sunburned as I have fair skin and burn easily in the sun. Of course, I took advantage of their absence to chat to a boy who was sunbathing near me and we ended up snogging in the dunes behind the beach. I was 16, and that was the extent of my rebellion – until I was 19.

My name is Elizabeth, but everyone calls me Liz. I was an only child and after I finished my A levels at a 6th Form College near where I lived, I was accepted by my first choice of university. Actually, it wasn’t really MY first choice, but my parents’. They had decided that I should apply to a university where I would not have to live in student accommodation, but where I could be supervised by my grandfather. Grandad lived alone after my granny had died a few years ago. My parents had offered him the option of selling his house and coming to live with us, so he came to live with us as a trial, but after he came and stayed for a few months, he declared that he preferred to manage on his own, and returned to his own house. While he was living with us, I found that he was quiet and slightly reserved when he was around me, but as I was busy studying for my A levels, I didn’t really have a lot of time to interact with him. The fact that he lived in a city far from my home town meant that over the years, I had never seen him and granny a lot, so he was a semi-stranger in my life.

It was fortunate that he had decided to return to live alone as it meant that I could live with him when I was accepted in the university in his town. Well, my parents thought it was ideal which is why they insisted that I should apply to that university as my first choice. I wasn’t sure how much freedom I would have living with grandad, but I did know that it would have to be better than living at home, so I mentally shrugged and resigned myself to yet more years of close adult supervision. That’s why I was pleasantly surprised when I finally started my first term at uni and was left alone with my grandad by my parents.

Grandad was 64 years old and I was 18, so I was afraid that we would not get along. In fact, I couldn’t have been more wrong. It was the end of September when I moved into his house, and began my new life as a university student. The weeks flew by and I barely noticed that grandad didn’t lay down lots of rules for me to follow. It was only when I went back home for Christmas that I realised how free I was living with him compared to living with my parents. For one thing, he didn’t ask me to recount in detail what I had done every day which was one of my parent’s common habits. Another thing was that he didn’t give me a strict time when I had to come home. Instead, he gave me a key to his house and advised me about the times of the buses that passed there. I have to admit that I was a little scared to go out alone at night because my parents had never permitted me to do so. However, when one of the girls I had met in a lecture asked me to go to a party, I was really excited to see what real student life was like, so I finally plucked up courage and asked my grandad if I could go. Imagine how surprised I was when he nodded and told me to make sure I dressed warmly as the nights were getting longer and the weather had turned chilly. I was nervous and shy at the party, and I didn’t stay late, but I began to think that maybe living with grandad was not so bad after all.

My second term passed almost as quickly as the first one, and I found that I had made several friends who included me in their social life. Grandad never enquired too deeply about where I was going when I joined them on visits to local pubs or to the cinema. My life at that time might appear to have been boring to some people, but to me it was a taste of freedom that I had been denied for so long. However, one thing that was missing was romance or even a date with a boy alone. I always went with a group of friends but none of the boys seemed keen to ask me to go out with them alone. This made me feel a little insecure, but at the same time I was a little relieved because I had had no experience with boys apart from that one time when I was 16 at the beach.

At the end of the second term, I had my 19th birthday in April. Grandad took me to a restaurant in town for a nice lunch and asked me if I would like a glass of wine with the meal. I knew that this would horrify my parents, but I nodded that I would like some, so he ordered a bottle of white wine. Although I had been to pubs several times with my new friends, I had always been careful not to drink more than a few small bottles of alcohol mixed with juice, and I had never been drunk. I had never tasted wine, and I had no idea of how drinking more than a few glasses would affect me. I felt woozy by the time we had finished the meal, and on the bus home I felt drowsy and laid my head on grandad’s shoulder.