When the door creaked open a few minutes later, she hurriedly pretended to concentrate on her notes, watching out of the corner of her eye as a tall young man with dusty brown hair strode down the central aisle, peering between the bookshelves, clearly in search of a person rather than a book. He was wearing a shapeless cabled grey jumper that looked home-knitted, and loose black jeans, from the bottom of which protruded the pointed toes of scuffed desert boots. He clicked his fingers as he walked, as if keeping beat to some rhythm inside his head.
Eleanor adopted a studious frown and started to copy out a sentence from one of the dense texts in front of her. Beowulf is composed of 3182 alliterative lines…
‘Excuse me?’
She glanced up. He had wide blue eyes and a clean-shaven face. A year or two older than her, she guessed. His hair was remarkably thick, the sort of hair that swelled outwards as much as it grew downwards. He had a pencil tucked behind one ear and several pens sticking out of his front jeans pocket, snagging on the hem of the jumper.
‘Have you seen Miss Coolham?’
‘Er… I don’t think so. Who is she?’
‘The college librarian,’ he said, clearly surprised. ‘Very tall, quite old. Hair like a Luftwaffe pilot. Scary lady.’ He pulled a face. ‘She normally sits over there, under Samuel.’ He gestured at the large desk set at the foot of a plinth sporting a marble bust of a man with a bulbous nose and long hair.
‘Samuel?’ Eleanor echoed faintly, inwardly still cowering at the ignorance of having forgotten the name of the person in charge of her own college library.
‘Johnson. The dictionary man.’
‘Yes, of course, the dictionary man.’
Later, Nick would tell her that she had looked terrified, and that this had both amused him and made him faintly curious. At the time, he had merely shaken his head, disappeared between the bookshelves and then re-emerged with a heavy leather tome, which he settled down to read at the other end of her table.
Eleanor laboured on, making more notes, doing her best to look engaged and scholarly.
‘That sounds painful,’ he said at length.
‘I beg your pardon?’
He pushed his book away and tipped his chair onto its back two legs, crossing his arms and hooking his knees under the table for balance. ‘Your stomach.’ He grinned. ‘Unless there is a gremlin living under your section of carpet.’
Eleanor felt the blood rush to her face. Only too aware of the rumbles emanating from her empty stomach, she had been working with one arm pinned across her lap in a bid to stifle the worst.
‘Call me Sherlock, but my guess is you haven’t had lunch.’
Eleanor shook her head, still dry-mouthed with embarrassment.
‘Me neither,’ he confessed cheerfully. ‘We could grab something together if you like. Miss Coolham can wait. And, frankly, with all the noise your innards are making, I’m not taking in much of this anyway—’
‘God, sorry—’
‘I was joking,’ he pointed out, looking bemused. ‘I’m Nick, by the way. Nick Wharton.’ He leant across the table, all mock formality now, to shake her hand.
‘Eleanor. Keating.’
‘So, do you fancy a bite of lunch, Eleanor Keating?’
‘Yes. Okay. Thanks.’ She set about trying to tidy away the circle of books, which tumbled, messing up her precious markers.
‘You could just leave that lot,’ he ventured after a few moments. ‘I mean, it’s hardly likely to get nicked, is it?’
‘No. Yes. Of course. Good idea.’ Eleanor fumbled the books into yet more chaos, aware of him watching and of what felt like the liquid state of her brain.
He held the door open for her to go down the entrance steps first, announcing as they set off that he knew a good place in the Covered Market.
Outside, the November wind tore at their clothes, rendering it impossible to talk even in the relatively high-walled protection of the college’s main quad. Once in the high street, Eleanor double-wrapped her scarf round the lower half of her face and concentrated on keeping up with her escort’s long stride, sneaking sideways glances to marvel both at the apparent warmth of the heavy cabled jumper and the simple pleasure of walking beside someone who was taller than her by several inches. He had to be six foot three at least. He moved loosely, hands in his pockets, cocking his head at the handsome spired buildings and the grey sky as if it was a balmy summer day.
Eleanor had passed through the Covered Market several times but only to enjoy its jumble of artisan stalls and peer through the windows of its boutique shops. Nick led the way to a tiny café she had never noticed, a handful of tables in chequered cloths next to a counter in front of an open cooking range. He instructed her to commandeer the only free table while he queued for two plates of sausages, baked beans and scrambled egg, having assured her that it was the only thing on the menu worth eating and offering to pay.
He ate ravenously, talking between mouthfuls about the travails of being a third-year medic and how if it hadn’t been for the pressure from his father, a consultant neurologist, he would have applied to read English.
‘I’d even like a crack at Anglo Saxon,’ he admitted ruefully, after Eleanor, sufficiently restored by some food and the openness of his manner, had confessed to the creeping sense of despair over tackling the Beowulf essay. ‘It’s a bit like German, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t know what it’s like. I’ve never done German, only Latin and French, but that’s a fat lot of good.’
‘But what about the rest of your year – how are they getting on?’
‘They sort of keep to themselves. There are only six of us and they’re so brainy compared to me… the boys especially. There’s one other girl, Megan, but someone told me she’s really into the Christian Union…’
‘Oh blimey, you’ll want to steer well clear of her in that case.’ He paused briefly in his eating to skewer a finger to his temple. ‘But I bet those others aren’t brainier than you,’ he went on amiably. ‘Boys are really good at pretending to appear as if they know what they are talking about. Trust me, I know.’ He closed his mouth around his last forkful of beans, his dark blue eyes flashing.
Eleanor smiled back shyly, her mind fast-tracking through the unpromising males with whom she had hitherto been acquainted, all of them classmates, some of them glib talkers, some not, like Charlie Watson, with his big kind face and thickset body, who had carried his own silence and shyness like a heavy load. It had been one of the main reasons she had felt drawn to him.
‘It’s mostly bluff,’ Nick concluded, watching her carefully, ‘remember that. So where did you go to school, anyway?’
‘A tiny place in East Sussex, Broughton – you wouldn’t have heard of it.’ Eleanor hesitated. It didn’t seem a good moment to mention that she was the daughter of a vicar. A motherless daughter of a vicar. Even without the Christian Union thing, all of it felt embarrassing, like something that needed confessing to, rather than fodder for general conversation. ‘I am the first person in the entire history of the school to have done Oxbridge,’ she said brightly instead. ‘I only managed it because I had masses of extra lessons. There was this teacher there who liked me… she…’ Eleanor stopped. She had been about to say that Miss Zaphron had believed in her, but it sounded too grandiose.
‘Wow. Congratulations in that case. Loads of people feel daunted here at first,’ he added kindly. ‘It soon wears off. Don’t be afraid to use your own brain would be my advice.’ He beamed at her encouragingly.
Eleanor felt her insides dissolve, not with hunger, but something else that she would have found impossible to describe; close to embarrassment but more pleasant, and without the side-effect of the red face. It somehow made it difficult to continue eating. ‘So, you would have liked to study English?’ she prompted, grabbing at the question purely as a way of diverting attention from the sensation.
‘Oh yes. Sort of. In my dreams, at least.’ He sat back, smiling and pushing his empty
plate away.
‘And who are your favourite writers… if you don’t mind my asking?’
It was like she had pulled a trigger. He seemed to explode forwards onto his elbows, landing with such vigour that the table tipped sideways. ‘Amis. Obviously.’ He held the table down, as if it might leap again of its own accord.
‘Obviously.’ Eleanor slowly carved a tiny piece of sausage. She assumed he meant Martin rather than Kingsley. But she hadn’t read either.
‘Mainly for The Rachel Papers, but Money is right up there too. Then there’s Fowles, because of The Collector. And D. H. Lawrence, not so much for Sons and Lovers, or even Women In love, or Lady Chatterley – not that one can discount any of them, but in my view The Rainbow is his true masterpiece. And then there’s Forster of course, not so cutting-edge but still a genius; though when it comes to geniuses, Nabokov has to take the biscuit, for Lolita, obviously, but then there’s Laughter in the Dark and…’
Eleanor gawped as he plunged on, scooping up Conrad, T. S. Eliot and Shakespeare in his wake. It was like watching a small typhoon. A typhoon which made her heart race.
‘He was a lepidopterist, did you know?’
It took a moment to realise he was expecting a response. ‘A… what? Who?’
‘A butterfly lover. Nabokov. And as soon as I found that out, I just thought it was significant… I mean…’ A new group of students were hovering, pointedly eyeing their empty plates, clutching discarded coats and hats, their faces pink and steaming from the outside cold. Nick did not seem to notice. He was still talking in a rush. ‘Take Lolita – it’s almost like he has ensnared this beautiful specimen of youth, of nascent sexuality, and he wants to keep it – to keep her – pinned under a glass so he can scrutinise and feed off it and…’
‘Isn’t The Collector also a bit like that,’ Eleanor ventured, seizing one of the rare moments when he paused for breath, ‘at least, doesn’t a girl get taken prisoner…’ She lost courage, having only indirectly heard about the Fowles book from Camilla, who had pronounced it the creepiest thing she had ever read; but Nick was already slamming the tabletop in delight.
‘Brilliant. That’s a great thought. A great connection…’ The people clutching their coats exchanged glances and shuffled to another vacated table. ‘Fowles and Nabokov as literary lepidopterists… hey, that works really well.’ He sat back, subdued but visibly pleased. ‘I like the way things connect if one looks at them hard enough.’
‘“Only connect” is Forster’s mantra, isn’t it?’ Eleanor burst out, still shy, but starting to enjoy herself. ‘In Howards End? It’s the only one of his I’ve read, but I really enjoyed it. “Only connect the prose and the passion and both will be exalted…” or something.’
‘Wilcoxes and Schlegels.’
‘The Wilcoxes being the Prose, the Schlegels the Passion.’
‘Joining forces.’
They looked at each other happily. Nick had a wide, generous mouth, Eleanor noticed, crammed with astonishingly even teeth, and there was a fleck of egg on his cheek, which she dearly wished she could brush off.
‘Wouldn’t they let you swap subjects?’ she asked eventually. There were a million other things she wanted to ask or say. She was aware of them queuing up inside her, full of excited hope, bumping into one another. But there would be other conversations, she told herself. Other opportunities. He was in her college after all and only in his third year. Medical degrees took ages – she couldn’t think straight enough to remember how long. And she was only in her first term. This was just the beginning. Her skin tingled.
Nick was shaking his head glumly in response to her question. ‘They’d say no. Subject-changing is really frowned upon. More to the point, my father would kill me. Literally. A knife through the heart. While I slept. Whoosh.’ He demonstrated with his fork, flashing a ghoulish smile. ‘Though medicine isn’t too bad,’ he rushed on. ‘In fact, I sometimes think I might make quite a good doctor.’
‘Oh, I bet you will,’ Eleanor cried before she could stop herself. She never wanted the lunch to end. Ever. It was too perfect. There was something coming off him, a sort of confidence – she felt it in waves across the table, not crushing her like all the other male confidence she had encountered, so bullying, so point-scoring, but something generous, holding her up, it felt like.
A man with a dishcloth over his shoulder rapped the table to get their attention. ‘Are you two going to get anything else or not? There’s other folk waiting to sit down.’
Eleanor leapt to her feet, apologising, but Nick took his time, because the guy deserved it for sheer rudeness, he explained, once they had left and were standing under the row of beef haunches and plucked turkeys outside the butchers next door.
‘Back to the library then.’ Eleanor dared to inject a note of regret into her tone.
Nick pulled back one of the heavy sleeves of his jumper to check his watch. She glimpsed fine gold hairs on his wrist and lower arm.
‘I’ve got to be somewhere else. I’ll catch Miss Coolham another time.’
Disappointment pumped inside her chest, making her miss a breath. ‘Bye then. Thanks for lunch.’
‘Bye.’
Eleanor ducked into the throng of shoppers streaming through the market, letting it carry her towards the High Street. Not looking back felt important. She did not want him to detect the extent of her reluctance to be walking away. But suddenly he was in front of her again, striding backwards, laughing as he bumped into people.
‘Hey, you don’t fancy coming to the PPP on Saturday night, do you? They’re showing Rosemary’s Baby. A classic. Mia Farrow… Oh, but you’ve seen it,’ he cried, misreading the shadow of doubt that crossed her face, which was about the acronym rather than the invitation. PPP, she had learned recently, referred to an academic course. Philosophy, Psychology and something she couldn’t remember. Now it was a cinema.
‘I haven’t seen it.’ She laughed. ‘Mia Farrow gives birth to the devil’s child, doesn’t she? Who could refuse an invitation to see that?’
‘My thoughts exactly.’ He laughed too, turning and falling into step beside her.
‘My dad’s a vicar,’ she said in a rush as they emerged onto the High Street. ‘At home, thinking about devils having babies, let alone going to see them, is banned.’
‘Another reason to go.’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Porter’s lodge at seven? If I don’t see you before.’
‘If I don’t see you before,’ she echoed.’ Her face ached from grinning.
In one of Camilla’s many women’s magazines she had read an article about the importance of ‘playing hard to get’ if a man took your fancy. But, really, such tactics were impossible, and unnecessary, Eleanor reflected happily, giving Nick a wave as he took off up the High Street, pausing to admire the grace and agility with which he wove through the crowds. Why would two people play hard to get if they liked each other?
She strolled back towards college with her arms swinging and her scarf free and flying, the cut of the cold November air now only making her feel more alive.
5
March 2013 – Cape Town
Outside, the muggy March afternoon had turned thunderous. Silver slugs of drizzle were trailing down the big square hospital windows. Nick could never suppress a mild outrage when the Cape weather was poor, in spite of rain always being sorely needed. They were out to dinner that night and he didn’t have a coat, let alone an umbrella.
Pat Driscoll, his secretary, put her head round the door. ‘Your wife just left a message. She’s running late and will meet you at the restaurant. She said she tried your mobile but it was off.’
Nick rummaged for his phone, lost under the pile of papers on his desk. As usual he had put it on silent for a consultation and then forgotten. ‘Thanks Pat.’
His secretary hesitated, hanging off the door. ‘Is it still okay for me to go early?’
‘Oh goodness, your daughter’s birthday, how could I h
ave forgotten? Yes, go now. This minute,’ he commanded with mock ferocity when still she hovered. ‘And I’m on an admin stint, you’ll be pleased to hear.’ He rattled his in-tray, a pagoda of papers and patient files. ‘No stone unturned.’
Pat laughed. ‘Thanks, Doctor Wharton, see you tomorrow.’ She paused to adjust the Monet print that hung beside the door. A few minutes later he heard the soft thwack of her footsteps receding down the corridor.
Nick turned his phone’s volume back on, wryly noting the number of missed calls from his wife. The dinner was with old family friends of hers, a couple she liked and he barely knew, so the chances were she would let it pass. With Donna, one never knew.
Nick sighed, embarking on a desultory shuffle through his in-tray and then shifting his attention to the greater administrative task of filing emails. He worked quickly and ruthlessly, going back over the weeks to weed out whatever correspondence he could, and saving more important letters under their various relevant subject tabs. It was thirty minutes before he reached January and the flurry of exchanges with old friends. Seeing Kat Keating’s name, Nick experienced a sudden visceral memory of the turmoil she had once caused him; a reminder of what he had eventually been so relieved to walk away from twenty years before.
And yet it would be decent to round things off, he reasoned, give them a proper end.
Pressing the reply button, he wrote:
Dear Kat,
Just a quick, very late thank-you for your reply. Trust me when I tell you that I am happy – and not remotely surprised – to hear how well life has turned out for you.
As you say, good luck with the next forty.
Cheers,
Nick
As he pressed send, his mobile rang, displaying Donna’s number. Nick picked it up at once, saying warmly, ‘Hello, hon, Pat gave me your message. That’s fine. I’ll meet you there. I just hope it’s something nice that’s caused your change of plan?’
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