I didn’t give John a thought over the Christmas holidays.
I stayed with my parents in Kent in the house where I’d been brought up and still called home. I spent my time at parties with the offspring of friends of my parents where I stood against walls and thought, I’m too old for this. I’d been going to similar parties since my teens and they hadn’t got any better. I was simply incapable of playing the right game. As soon as I walked through the door of the Exeter house in the New Year at the start of the second term, I knew I had to finish with Graham. I’d been leading him on for no reason other than the fact that he was there. I didn’t feel anything for him other than friendship. I just hoped Alison didn’t know what we’d been up to.
Graham didn’t understand the problem. He was hurt and I felt dreadful about it.
The next day I sat in the university coffee bar, nursing my cappuccino in its Pyrex cup and saucer and shrinking against the window, hoping to be invisible.
The wellies were out in force, standing in large groups in everyone’s way and encouraging their friends to jump the queue and join them. They’d claimed me as one of their own during my first year – which was one of the reasons I’d left – and I didn’t want them to do so again.
The swing doors behind me whooshed open then banged shut and a figure raced past me, before wheeling round and falling to a crouch in front of me.
‘Neep,’ it said.
I hardly recognised him. Gone was the cloak. Instead he was wearing a brown corduroy jacket with brown corduroy trousers, a black polo-necked jumper and black boots. Stylish. Gone was the beard and some of the hair. He had a dimpled chin, I noticed, and serious green eyes. Almost, well yes, almost handsome.
‘You look . . . different,’ I stammered.
‘I went to my parents’ for Christmas,’ he explained. ‘My mother re-equipped my wardrobe.’
I nodded. I didn’t know what to say. We seemed to have gone beyond small talk.
‘The Albion Band are playing in the Great Hall tomorrow night,’ he said. ‘D’you want to come?’
‘Oh no, I couldn’t,’ I blurted out. He’d caught me unawares. I didn’t know how to respond. ‘I’ve got far too much work to do.’
A few days later Alison and I were in Cornwall House again, relaxing over our usual glass of wine, when I saw John on the other side of the room. He had his trousers tucked into his boots like a Cossack. He was racing over to talk to some woman – small, round, dark curly hair, pretty. She was smiling at him.
I leaped to my feet and placed myself between him and her.
‘We’re giving a supper party in the house next week. D’you want to come?’
Even though we had no specific plans, Alison and I had been thinking about doing something like a supper and she agreed to help even though she was horrified when I explained whom I’d invited.
She made the main course – something with mince – and I made a banana and lemon cake for pudding from a recipe of my mother’s. We invited a few other people.
John wore what looked like a new sage-green shirt. He had two helpings of my cake. After supper, when we all retired to the sitting-room and played records, he parked himself on the floor.
I looked at him and the clouds in my head rolled back. A voice, as if from a clear blue sky, spoke out. ‘This man will interest me for the rest of my life. I’m going to marry him.’
It wasn’t a declaration of intent. It was a vision of the future.
When everyone else had gone to bed, John and I lay together on cushions in the sitting-room’s bay window.
The air crackled. We didn’t touch each other. The feeling was too intense. What sort of a conflagration would we create if we did?
A sparkling blue mist seeped at speed into the corner of the room and formed into a cloud which crossed the room to hover above us.
‘What is it?’ I whispered.
‘I don’t know,’ said John.
So he saw it too.
It was if the power of our feelings had caused something from another world to enter this one. Even though it was beautiful, it was almost malevolent.
Or perhaps it was our fear that made it that way.
At last John sat up. ‘I must go home,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a cat to feed. I’ll be back tomorrow.’
‘What is it?’ I whispered.
‘I don’t know,’ said John.
So he saw it too.
It was if the power of our feelings had caused something from another world to enter this one. Even though it was beautiful, it was almost malevolent.
Or perhaps it was our fear that made it that way.
At last John sat up. ‘I must go home,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a cat to feed. I’ll be back tomorrow.’
The next day I paced the house. I made a cauliflower cheese in case John was hungry when he arrived, if he arrived.
As it grew dark, he appeared.
We hurried up to my room and as soon as we were inside it, before I’d even had time to close the door, he said. ‘We have to get married.’
Gone was the fool, gone was the nutter. He looked serious and worried, like a grown-up. But then I felt the same.
I put my hands over my face. ‘I know. But you’re so unsuitable.’
As it grew dark, he appeared.
We hurried up to my room and as soon as we were inside it, before I’d even had time to close the door, he said. ‘We have to get married.’
Gone was the fool, gone was the nutter. He looked serious and worried, like a grown-up. But then I felt the same.
I put my hands over my face. ‘I know. But you’re so unsuitable.’
