The Story Continues

By popular demand, I continue here the story started in my recent ‘Australia 1975’ series of posts. If you haven’t read that yet, you'll find the first instalment here.

 

 Autumn 1977
 
The first time I saw him was in the bar of Cornwall House where I was sipping warm white wine with my friend and housemate Alison.
 
I’d met up with my parents in Sydney and trailed round after them through a succession of lunches and teas with posh rich Australians who could have been English. They looked and sounded just the same.
    Why my parents wanted me there with them, I couldn’t imagine, as I didn’t contribute anything to the proceedings, feeling as alien as I always had both in England and with those sort of people. I didn’t condemn the people. I blamed myself. My head started to ache.
    I went with my parents to the airport to see them off and as we approached the departure gate both my mother and I started to cry. My father hovered awkwardly. He was obviously upset too but he was old-fashioned. It was women’s job to cry and men’s job to look after them.
    I returned to Hampo and Charles’s house where I was staying and spent a week or so writing off for work – probably being an awful nuisance to the family, but they never made me feel that way. But my heart wasn’t in it. Something had changed. Australia had lost its magic.

    Was it that I didn't feel safe any more, that even though Australia was the far side of the world I could still be found?

    Was it duty that called, pity for my parents?

    Or did I feel deep down that my time in Australia had come to an end, and that for some reason it was time to go back?

    Whatever the reason, I didn't think too much about it. I acted on instinct and followed my parents home.

 
England seemed very small and cramped after Australia – small houses, small people, small views. Having been wearing sarongs and flip-flops for six months, I couldn’t get used to wearing proper clothes. It was so formal. So stiff. My real self began to retreat again.
    I did some temporary secretarial work, bicycling from my parents every day, and then I got a summer job living in and working at a pub on the Norfolk coast. After egalitarian Australia, the conditions were a shock. We were treated like serfs and not fed properly. My eating returned to being erratic, I filled up on bread and chips, and I started to put back on all the weight I'd lost in Australia.
    While I was at home, before I went to Norfolk, I sorted through all the stuff I’d brought back from London the year before and dumped in my bedroom at my parents’. Everything was in a terrible muddle. There was a huge pile of papers, and admin to be caught up with.

    I came across a letter from one of my tutors from my first year at university.

    ‘We’re sorry to see you go, but if you ever change your mind, do get in touch.’
    Yes, I thought. That’s what I can do – finish my degree.

    Except in Australia, I hadn’t stopped feeling bad for dropping out of ‘uni’, as I now called it Aussie-style. Perhaps I could redeem that chapter in my life.

    In any case, I realised now that I had to have a degree if I wasn’t to carry on doing menial work for the rest of my life.

    I had my savings from Australia. They would help even if I didn’t get a grant.
    The university welcomed me back. I was to repeat year one and at the same time proceed with year two.
 
I was now in my third and final year at Exeter university, living in a city house with Alison and three males. I hadn’t done much the previous year except study, seeing as I had so much catching up to do, but that was all right. I wasn’t at university for the social life this time. I was there to get a degree. It didn’t matter what the people were like.

   The first time I went to university I'd had such high hopes. Now I didn't have any. It made it a lot easier.

    It was a rowdy night at Cornwall House, the university’s new social centre. Sound bounced off the high brick walls and the floor-to-ceiling windows. It was hard to talk. Alison and I sipped our wine in silence and watched the goings-on.

    At a nearby table a group of males – rugby types – were taking off their trousers and showing their behinds. They thought it was hilarious. But nobody else did. They ignored them.

    People hurried past, to and from the library or their university accommodation, banging their way into and out of the cloakrooms and launderette next to us.

    ‘Anoraks’ (male science students with few social skills) and ‘wellies’ (rich students who had cars and lived in country cottages). Denim and beige. Loud voices. Hellos and goodbyes.

The man slipped into a chair at an empty table opposite us. He was wearing a red floor-length cloak with the hood up. He peeped out mischievously from the hood, as if daring people to look at him, while keeping his options open by hiding himself in his voluminous garment. A few straggles of long hair escaped from the hood. He was alone and silent.
    Exeter was a small university at the time with probably only a few thousand students. Everything took place on the campus so you did get to know most faces. I hadn’t come across this man before.
    And I hoped not to come across him again. A nutter, I decided. Best avoided.
    And that was that.
    Or so I thought.