Together

by Julie Cohen

  13 April 1962

  Cambridge, England

  She was rushing across the station concourse, late to meet Polly’s train, searching for a glimpse of curly hair, when she saw him.

  He was wearing a denim jacket and he had a rucksack slung over his shoulder, and he had paused, bowing his head to light his cigarette with a match cupped in his hands, when he glanced up – and he saw her too. Even at a distance, even across a crowded station, she could see his eyes were dark.

  She couldn’t breathe. He stared at her as she was staring at him, and this was completely not something you did, you didn’t stare at strange men in stations, but the side of his mouth quirked up in a smile. It wasn’t a flirtatious smile, not exactly – it was more like . . .

  . . . more like wonder.

  She looked away, then looked back. He was still staring at her. He seemed to have forgotten about his cigarette. He raised his hand, as if to wave, and she raised hers, as if to wave back.

  Hello, she thought.

  The tannoy spoke. ‘The train arriving on platform three is the delayed eleven fifty-five train from Norwich.’

  Delayed. Platform three. She turned away from the man and saw the train pulling in on the platform. Automatically, she hurried towards it.

  But when she glanced back over her shoulder, he was still there, still watching her. It was almost as if they knew each other already.

  ‘Em!’ Polly’s voice, and the sound of running footsteps. She collided with Emily in a tangle of skinny arms and legs. ‘I am so excited,’ she began right away. ‘I sat on the train next to this group of boys and they kept on looking at me but I didn’t look back, I just looked out the window but I watched them out of the corner of my eye. Do you think they thought I was older because I was travelling by myself?’

  Emily regarded Polly’s untidy hair, her skinny frame, her freckles and her crooked-toothed smile. If anything, she looked younger than twelve.

  ‘They thought you were a sophisticated, independent woman,’ said Emily. ‘They probably thought you were a student here.’

  Polly punched her arm and giggled. ‘I’ll never even get into Cambridge. I’m not as clever as you.’

  ‘Keep studying,’ said Emily, taking Polly’s suitcase. ‘Oof. What have you got in here, rocks?’

  Polly leaned close and whispered. ‘Make-up. Don’t tell Mum!’

  ‘Where did you get make-up?’

  ‘Woolworths. I’ve been saving my pocket money and hiding it in my wardrobe. I wanted to put some on while I was on the train but the lavatory was occupied the whole time. Also, I brought some records to play. I wanted to bring my record player but it wouldn’t fit and you have one anyway, right?’

  Emily began to walk them down the platform, Polly skipping beside her. Her hands were shaking a bit. She gripped the suitcase more tightly to stop them. ‘I’ve got my portable, but there’s a better one in the JCR. I mean, the Junior Common Room.’

  Polly inhaled in rapture. ‘The Junior Common Room. I’m going to hang out in the Junior Common Room.’

  Emily suppressed a smile. ‘Have you eaten?’

  ‘Mum gave me sandwiches.’ She held up a squashed paper bag with some grease stains on it. ‘But I was too excited to eat on the train. Also, they were egg. Who eats egg sandwiches on a train? Everyone would smell them.’ She theatrically tossed the bag into a bin as they passed. ‘Goodbye, stinky sandwiches. Don’t tell Mum.’

  ‘I have a feeling that’s going to be a continued refrain this weekend.’

  ‘But you won’t tell her, will you?’

  ‘Do you think I’m likely to tell Mum anything, after everything I had to do to get her to let you stay with me overnight? I’d be in just as much trouble as you. More, because I’m supposed to be the responsible adult.’

  They crossed the concourse and Emily hesitated by the exit, searching the people waiting.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ Polly asked.

  ‘No one. I mean, nothing.’ She looked around again briefly, though she was chastising herself even as she did it. She wouldn’t recognise him again even if she did see him. And he was long gone, anyway.

  She linked her arm through her younger sister’s. ‘I’m glad you didn’t eat the stinky sandwiches, because we’re meeting Christopher for lunch.’

  ‘At a student pub?’ She said it with the same reverence she’d pronounced ‘Junior Common Room’.

  ‘In Fitzbillies.’

  ‘Can I have a real coffee?’

  Emily rolled her eyes in the way expected of an elder sister. ‘If this is what you’re like without caffeine, I can’t imagine you with a coffee under your belt.’

  ‘But can I?’

  ‘Oh, all right. If only in the spirit of scientific enquiry.’

  ‘Don’t—’

  ‘I won’t tell Mum.’

  She took a last look around outside the station before starting down Station Road towards the centre of town.

  Polly kept up a running commentary on everything they passed and saw. She’d been to Cambridge more than once, but everything seemed to be new this time, without their parents with her. She mentioned students on bicycles, the buildings, the shops, even the trees, and Emily tried her best to be attentive and not look up and down the pavements, peer through the windows of cafés and shops, looking for dark hair and a denim jacket. She caught a flash of faded blue in the window of a used-book shop and paused, staring. Polly proceeded several paces before realising she was alone.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ she demanded, returning to where Emily was transfixed on the pavement. The flash of blue was gone, disappeared between the bookshelves.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Emily quickly. ‘Can we – do you mind if we pop in here for a minute?’

  ‘Books?’ said Polly doubtfully. ‘Can’t we go in a record shop instead?’

  ‘I just need to look for something.’ Her heart was in her throat as she pushed open the door. Emily loved this shop but she hardly noticed the warm scent of books, the colourful spines. She hurried to the end of the first bookshelf and peered around it. There was no one there.

  What am I going to say? Am I going to say anything? What could I possibly say?

  I’ll say – I’ll say ‘Hello’. That’s a start.

  She swallowed and went deeper into the shop. It was nearly deserted on this sunny day, and she passed shelves and aisles, from Fiction (General, Alphabetical) to Poetry to Art History to Chemistry until she heard a male cough in the row next to her.

  Emily closed her eyes for a moment. She bit her lip.

  Just say ‘Hello’.

  She walked deliberately to the end of Divinity and rounded the corner.

  ‘Hell—’ she began and the man standing there, in a light blue jacket with an open book in his hand, turned around and he was in his forties with hardly any hair at all.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, and retreated quickly to where Polly was standing by the door, gazing sulkily at a small selection of science fiction paperbacks.

  ‘I didn’t find what I was looking for. Sorry. Let’s go to lunch.’

  Christopher was already in Fitzbillies, shoved into a corner table in the busy café. He stood when they entered. ‘Hullo Poll,’ he said, ruffling her hair. Polly pulled a face at him at the little-girl treatment.

  ‘Paulina,’ she announced. ‘I want to be called Paulina while I’m here.’

  ‘But that’s not your name, is it? I thought you were a proper Polly.’ Christopher smiled at Emily and took the suitcase from her, placing it carefully near the side of their table. ‘What would you like, Poll? An orange squash?’

  ‘A coffee.’

  ‘I promised her one,’ Emily told him. ‘Do you want to go up and get it, Polly? You can get one for each of us.’

  ‘Paulina,’ corrected her sister. />
  ‘Paulina. And do you want to order our food as well? I’ll have a cheese toastie, and Christopher will have Welsh rarebit. And order what you like for yourself?’

  ‘Welsh rarebit, ugh.’

  She wrinkled her nose and stuck her tongue out at Christopher, who looked sternly at her. Emily fished the money out of her purse and gave it to Polly quickly before Christopher could argue about whose turn it was to pay. Polly went to the counter. There was quite a long queue, which she joined with an air of happy importance.

  ‘She got here all right then,’ Christopher said, pulling out a chair for Emily and sitting back down. ‘Sorry I couldn’t go to the station with you.’

  ‘She’s convinced all the boys on the train were flirting with her.’

  ‘She’s a child!’

  ‘In her own mind, she’s twenty at least.’ Emily smiled fondly at her sister, who was studying the menu on the wall as if she were making a grave decision. ‘Mum didn’t want her to come, but Dad convinced her.’

  She didn’t have to explain any more than that to Christopher, who had met her family, and been home with her on several occasions. She’d met his parents too. He had an overprotective mother who made even her hypercritical mother look like an amateur when it came to nagging.

  ‘Here.’ Christopher pushed a pound note across the table at her, and she shook her head and pushed it back to him.

  ‘I can afford it,’ she said.

  ‘I can better afford it.’

  ‘I’ve saved up, and I like to give my sister a treat.’

  He didn’t put the note back in his pocket, but began folding it into a tight rectangle.

  ‘Did you get your essay done?’ she asked.

  He shook his head, a movement that made his glasses slide down his nose, but his hands were too busy folding and refolding the pound to push them back up. ‘It’s in on Monday morning. I’ve got to do more work on it today and tomorrow, so I can’t spend the weekend with the two of you. I’m sorry, Emily.’

  ‘Oh, that’s too bad,’ said Emily, though she had to admit to a small speck of relief that she wouldn’t spend the weekend mediating between her sister, who wanted to act grown-up, and her best friend, who wanted to act like Polly’s indulgent uncle. ‘Can you join us in Hall for dinner? You have to eat, even if you’ve got a lot of work to do. I can have another guest.’

  ‘I’ll do that. Emily—’ He glanced at Polly, who still had several people ahead of her in the queue. He unfolded the note, and rolled it into a narrow cylinder with his long fingers. ‘I need to ask you something.’

  ‘Oh yes, sorry, you were about to say something when I had to run for the station?’ She’d completely forgotten about it in the rush to meet her sister in time, and then those split seconds as she’d entered the station, when she’d seen . . . whoever it was.

  Her throat tightened a bit at the thought of whoever it was. His eyes had been so intense, so direct.

  She didn’t think she had ever been looked at that way before, with so much naked desire. Out of nowhere, from a stranger.

  Christopher had twisted the pound note tighter, into a thin roll.

  ‘Chris, what did that poor money ever do to you?’ She laid her hand on top of his for a second to stop him from tearing it and he looked up so sharply that she pulled her hand away.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘On Monday night – I mean, any night is fine, but I say Monday because I’ll have my essay done and Poll will have gone home. So, on Monday night, do you – will you have dinner with me?’

  ‘All right,’ replied Emily, wondering what all the money folding and babbling was about. Christopher and she ate together several times a week, alternating Formal Halls between their two colleges and other times grabbing a sandwich between lectures. ‘Why Monday?’ she asked, sweeping a bit of spilled sugar off the table and on to the floor. ‘Is there something on the menu you don’t like?’

  ‘I mean, have dinner. Properly. In a restaurant.’

  It was her turn to look up sharply. ‘A restaurant? You mean not in college?’

  ‘I just . . . I’ve been wanting to ask you for ages, and my sister said it would be best if I – if I asked you on a date. Somewhere nice.’

  She stared at Christopher’s familiar face: pale, with his shock of sandy hair falling over his forehead, his horn-rimmed glasses slipping down his nose. The same face she’d been looking at since they’d first become friends, in between Professor McAvoy’s anatomy lectures in the first month of their first year. He’d been one of the few medics who hadn’t tried to ask her out. She hadn’t had any illusions that the invitations to drinks and films and late-night revision sessions had been out of any intrinsic attractiveness on her part. It was pure curiosity, and a point of male honour, for the other medics to proposition the very few female students on their course. She’d turned them all down, and now, midway through their second year, they’d stopped asking.

  But Christopher had never tried. Christopher had always been her safe, easy, no-expectations friend, her brilliant friend who inspired her, her thoughtful friend who helped her and noticed when she was struggling or sad. Some of the other medics in their year and people at their respective colleges thought they were a couple because they spent so much time together. She and Christopher had laughed about it.

  Had she been the only one who was actually laughing?

  ‘Christopher . . . ’

  ‘I know,’ he said fervently. There was a spot of pink on each of his cheeks. ‘I know, you’ve never thought of me that way, but I can’t – I can’t carry on as we have been without at least trying.’

  His hand was less than an inch from hers on the table. She could feel the warmth from it. His blue eyes were wide and almost . . . fearful?

  ‘Can we try?’ he asked. ‘If it doesn’t work, we can go back to how we were. We can pretend it never happened. But can we please try, Emily? Please?’

  This was Christopher. Christopher who had gone with her to choose a new second-hand bike when hers was stolen, Christopher of the late-night revision sessions in the library, reciting Latin names together, Christopher who liked to line up his scalpels during dissections so that the bottoms of the handles were perfectly even, Christopher who knew just how she liked her tea with half a sugar in it, on whose safe chest she had rested her head on lazy summer term afternoons on the Backs, listening to his heart beating whilst she made daisy chains and drilled him on neurobiology.

  He was handsome, when you thought about it. He had a narrow face, blue eyes, a straight nose, a strong chin to offset his glasses. He was always smartly dressed. He was public school to her grammar school, and unlike most men she knew, he didn’t resent the fact that Emily was better at their subject than he was. Her friend Laura had had a crush on him this autumn, though nothing had ever come of it.

  Perhaps this was why.

  Polly arrived at their table, a little breathless. ‘I need more money,’ she demanded.

  Emily turned to her, glad of the interruption. ‘I gave you plenty.’

  ‘Yes, but I wanted a Chelsea bun too.’

  ‘Polly, don’t be—’

  ‘Use this.’ Christopher handed Polly the tortured pound note. ‘And order a bun for me too, will you? Do you want one, Emily?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘I might have another coffee after,’ said Polly in triumph, bearing away the money. Emily watched her go and wondered how to answer Christopher.

  ‘Well?’ he asked her.

  Emily looked at his mouth. She’d seen his mouth eating, talking, chewing on a pencil, smiling, pursed in worry. She’d never particularly thought about it as a mouth in its own right. He had smooth lips and his teeth were a little crooked, but in an endearing way.

  She tried to imagine kissing that mouth, where their noses would go, how Christopher wo
uld look that close up. Where they would put their hands, which were used to not touching each other.

  She didn’t have a lot of experience to base it on; she’d only been kissed once before, in sixth form, by Edward Norris, and as he’d been eating pickled onions it wasn’t particularly pleasant. Despite all the propositioning from the male medics, Emily wasn’t really the kind of girl that boys thought about kissing. She was too studious, too serious. She didn’t spend much time thinking about kissing.

  Though she hadn’t had to imagine kissing that man at the station, the one in the blue jacket. His gaze had felt like a kiss in itself.

  But that was a single glance from a stranger. That was silliness, a bit of fantasy, hormones running wild, too many times watching Brief Encounter. A little bit of madness that sent her running into book shops after a glimpse of blue.

  Real love wasn’t like that. She’d seen her mother and her father; she’d studied biology and psychology. Real love was based on mutual respect and trust, on shared goals, things in common. Real love lasted a lifetime, not a split second.

  ‘All right,’ she said to Christopher. ‘Let’s try.’

  ‘Let’s try it,’ he said to the girl with him. ‘I’ll push if you pay.’

  The shadows were getting long, later than they would where he was from; they were fifteen or so degrees further north here. Robbie liked how the buildings were all scrunched tight together and how they seemed to grow bigger as the day progressed. They had an hour or two till sunset, and the weather was warm enough that Robbie had abandoned his jacket on the grass as he lay here beside the girl, enjoying the sunshine, relaxed and a little sleepy from the beer.

  The girl screwed up her face. ‘I paid in the pub.’

  ‘So you did. OK then, it’s my turn.’ He jumped up and helped her up, too. She was cute, blonde with an hourglass figure, wearing a flowery dress, worked mornings in the newsagents on St Andrew’s Street and hadn’t taken much persuasion to join him for half a pint of bitter shandy, and then a few more halves, while she told him about how much she hated her job and that she lived in a flat on the Huntingdon Road with two other girls and that she had her own room.