“Go back to sleep, then. You’ve got healing to do.”
Aunt Nora slept in until almost noon, or at least, she didn’t come downstairs until then. I was working on different compositions for my sketch of Paul. This was the most time consuming part of the project, deciding on what to paint, what angle, what kind of lighting, and what sort of mood to create.
“Morning!” I said.
“Afternoon.” She smiled.
“Are you hungry?”
“No, not really.”
I got up from the couch. “You want a sandwich? Or something fancier?”
“I really am not hungry.”
“Porridge? Or, cream of wheat?” I didn’t know how to make porridge.
“Maybe something like that would be nice.”
I followed her unsteady, rocking steps to the kitchen. The new keys were laid out on the counter and I handed her one. “The locksmith came by this morning.”
“Oh, were you able to pay them?”
“Yeah.” She had written out the check the day before.
The only cream of wheat she had was the microwave kind, so I made her a bowl while she sat at the table and rested her head against her hand once more. She really did look exhausted. I put her bowl of breakfast in front of her.
While she stirred her cream of wheat I dug out the slightly stale loaf I’d made toast from that morning and set about fixing myself a sandwich.
“I loved your sketch of Paul.”
“Mmm, it was rough. It needs to look exactly like you remember him.”
“You’ve got such skill. So much talent.”
“Thanks. I-”
My celllphone rang. “Hello?”
“Hello, this Eliza?” The voice was male, and British.
“Yeah, hi.”
“Hi, this is Colin.”
Colin? As in Colin Radcliffe? The hot nurse? My pulse sped up. “How are you?”
“Sorry?”
I winced. Every time I came over here, I slipped and used that phrase, “How are you?” and many Brits either didn’t understand, thought I was asking, “Who are you?”, or thought it was funny to respond with a long litany of complaints. I never really understood the humor there. “Sorry, I should say, ‘you all right?’”
“I’m good, yeah. Listen, would you fancy meeting up sometime?”
Aunt Nora looked at me expectantly, one eyebrow raised. I shook my finger at her.
“Sure,” I said, trying to play it cool.
“We could go ‘round to the pub-”
“I don’t drink.” I bit my lip and wondered if I’d even had to say that. I’d never “been ‘round to the pub” in my life. Was the alcohol required?
“What? Not at all?”
“Nope.”
“You’re teetotal?”
“Um, I don’t know what that means.”
Aunt Nora spoke in a voice that was way too loud, “Would he like to take you to Carfax Chippy?”
I clapped my hand over my mouth to keep in the laughter that bubbled up.
“Carfax Chippy?” said Colin.
“She – ahem – sec.” I took the phone from my ear and tried to shake my finger at my aunt again as I let all the giggles out, but she was most unrepentant. “Sorry, she was just telling me about her first date with her husband at Carfax Chippy.”
“You’ve got to be joking.”
“I take it the place still exists?”
“Ye-ah... why, do you want to go there?”
“No. It’s just an inside joke. Ignore her.”
“Why didn’t he just take her to a kebab van? I mean, if you’re going to set the standard low.”
“Hey, it was a romantic moment for them. No mockery.” To Nora I whispered, “What’s a kebab van?”
Only, Colin heard me. “They’re the white vans you see parked around in the evenings. They sell chips and jacket potatoes and kebabs made from meat that’s sort of congealed on an upright spit. There’s one over on Broad Street that sells chips with cheese and curry sauce. Or even better, chips with cheese and mayonnaise-”
“You’re kidding.”
“I’m not taking you to one. A bloke’s gotta have standards. If you want fish and chips, we could go to the chippy, though? They do a nice fish and chips.”
“Sure, that sounds nice.”
“You free Friday evening?”
“Yes, that’d work.”
“Right, you know where Carfax Tower is?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Shall we meet there at about seven?”
“Okay.”
“All right. I’ll see you then.”
“See you then!”
Aunt Nora had her hands placed primly in front of her on the table and looked up at me with expectant, glowing eyes as I hung up.
“Um, kebab van, to eat chips with cheese and... I don’t know. Sounded disgusting.”
“Sorry if I ruined a romantic date.”
“I’m joking. We’re going to get fish and chips.” I felt like I was sixteen all over again. I’d never dated a non-Mormon. I had no idea what I was doing.
Carfax Tower was square, built from stone, and always looked a little lopsided to me. It rose up from the corner of Cornmarket – a pedestrianized street with a lot of shops – and the High Street.
Because it was July, the sky was still light, and the tower cast a pale gray shadow, under which stood Colin. I was glad I caught sight of him from down the street, because my breath caught for a moment. He wore casual jeans and a shirt that was unbuttoned halfway down his chest. It suited him. Those warm brown eyes of his were fixed on his cellphone.
I composed myself as I threaded through the crowd of foot traffic and made my way to his side. “Hi,” I said. “Hope I’m not late.”
He glanced up and his expression brightened with recognition. “Hello. Nope, not at all.” He slipped his phone into his pocket. We set off, weaving through the crowds. That’s the thing about downtown Oxford, it’s always crawling with tourists and locals doing their shopping. It was hard to have a conversation while we walked, but it wasn’t far. The chippy was down a little, narrow alley off the High Street. The only problem was that it was closed. Our progress was brought up short by a heavy wooden door.
“Blimey, I’ve never seen them closed.” Colin glanced at his watch. “Um, right, sooo, there’s a nice sandwich shop over on Broad Street that we could try? I mean, I’m not sure what you’d like.”
“That sounds fine, yeah,” I agreed.
We cut across to the sandwich shop and I paused to look at the nearest college, which was across Broad Street from us and a little further down. It had a square tower over its front gate, complete with parapet at the top. Otherwise, the front of the college was flat sandstone. Narrow windows were spaced in vertical columns and each column was topped by a triangular gable that jutted up through the roofline. The building was old, though I didn’t know enough about architecture to say what era it was from. “Is that Balliol?” I asked.
“I think so.” Colin shrugged. “I don’t know all the names of the colleges. Not from here originally.”
It was in the right place to be Balliol.
“Why,” asked Colin. “You want to go see it?”
“I’ll see if I can get in some other time. My aunt was just telling me about it. It’s where she met her husband and I’m trying to do a portrait for her.”
“Oh, right. Well, the trick is to wave at the porters on your way in and act like you’re a student.”
We went into the sandwich shop and I paid for my meal. I couldn’t tell if that was normal or if I’d breached the etiquette, or if Colin read anything in to my decision to pay. It was hard not to obsess over the details.
The shop, as it turned out, was about to close, so we got our food to go.
“Great,” said Colin. “First I tell you that I’m taking you to a kebab van, then to a chippy, and then I take you to a place that’s about to close.”
It was the
n that I noticed he was nervous. He did his best to act casual, but I recognized the darting gaze and self conscious posture.
That made it easier for me to relax. “My fault for saying no to the pub. I know nothing about pubs. I just assumed... I’ve barely ever been in a bar.”
“You’re joking.”
I shook my head. “Just when you have to walk through one to get into a restaurant-”
“You’ve never just spent time there, talking to people?”
“No.”
“None of your friends drink?”
“No, not really.”
“Who are your friends, then?”
“A bunch of very dull people? No, I shouldn’t say that. Um... I’m religious, and most of my friends are from the same religion.” All of them were, to tell the truth. I’d had friendships with a more diverse group when I was in school, but I hadn’t maintained any of those contacts. One thing about working as a gospel painter, it wasn’t like I was forced to mix with others at the office. It hadn’t occurred to me how one dimensional this made my social life, though.
He looked sidelong at me. “What religion is that?”
I had to tread carefully here. I wasn’t going to lie, but I didn’t want to make the situation more awkward than necessary. Even a religious person like me knows that this is one topic that makes most people squirm. “Is Christian non-threatening enough? And don’t worry, I’m not preachy.”
That earned me a smile as we stepped out of the shop.
“We could try to go see Balliol? I have no idea what’s inside,” he confided. “Maybe a nice place to sit.”
“Sure.”
We crossed the street, sauntered on in. The front gate was a stone arch and the porter sat on one side, behind what looked like a drive through bank teller’s window. We both waved to him and he waved back, then looked past us. It worked. “Wow,” I said. “Impressive.”
“What did I tell you? Now, where did you want to see?” He and I stepped into the quad and stood to one side of the front gate so that we’d be out of sight and earshot of the porter.
“Well, actually, we’ve seen it.” I pointed back over my shoulder.
“They met in the porter’s lodge?”
“That’s where she saw him first.”
“Sooo, do you need a better look?”
“Let’s look around inside first, before we get ourselves thrown out.” The quad had a large oval of grass, surrounded by a walkway, and the college walled us in on all sides. Young people who could have been students milled around, though given it was summer, I wondered if any would be in residence.
Colin led me across the quad to another archway of stone, which we peered through. There was more grass and sunshine on the other side so we went through and found ourselves in a bigger quad, also surrounded by stone buildings and carpeted with manicured grass and walkways. We exchanged a look.
“I have no idea where I’m going,” he said.
“Me neither. My aunt only came here for lessons. I don’t know where those would even have been.” There were other people sitting on the grass, though. “We can eat here, can’t we?”
“Looks good to me.”
We found a place to sit and opened up our sandwich bags. I took a bite of sandwich, which I barely tasted. I still felt anxious. This really felt like my first date ever. I didn’t know how this was supposed to work. If I’d been out with another Mormon, we’d go miniature golfing or something and end things with a handshake or maybe a hug. “So you’re not from Oxford?”
“Not originally, no. I’m from Reading. You know where that is?”
I shook my head.
“South of London. Not much else I can say about it really. I wouldn’t recommend going there to sightsee. Where in the States are you from?”
“Utah.”
“Oh... oh. So you don’t drink because you’re one of those... is Mormon the right word?”
“Yeah, that works.”
“Or is that a slur?”
“No. It’s not.”
“But you’re Christian?”
“Yeah. It’s the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We believe the Bible and all that.” Plus some extra scriptures, I added in my mind. But again, I knew this wasn’t a topic to linger on during a first date.
“What’s Utah like?”
“Very pretty. Lots of mountains. Good skiing, but I kind of misspoke. I grew up in Utah. These days I live in Oregon. That’s in the upper-”
“Northwest, just north of California. Yeah, that’s the state that’s got the same landmass as all of Great Britain.”
“Really?”
“Without the sixty million people all packed in.”
“Really? The island is that small?”
“You mean your state is that big, don’t you?”
“Sure...”
He laughed. “Don’t pick on countries smaller than yours, all right?”
“Sorry.” This time I purposely lowered my gaze in a flirty way. “So when did you move out here?”
“For my job. Four years ago? How long you been a painter?”
“Ten years-ish?”
“Can I ask how old you are?”
“Thirty.”
He didn’t bat an eye. “Oh, right, well I’m twenty-seven. You’ve been working for a while, then.”
“I guess. I kind of scrape by doing prints and commissions. It’s not an easy way to make money, but it’s flexible. I can come over here to look after my aunt on a moment’s notice.”
“How long are you here for?”
“My return flight’s scheduled for a couple of weeks from now, but I really don’t know. It’s whenever Nora says she doesn’t need me.”
“How is she?”
“She’s fine. Just her usual, stubborn self.”
“That she is. Definitely a memorable case.”
“I’m sorry if she made your life difficult.”
He shook his head dismissively. “No, not really. The NHS staff treat people like sacks of potatoes sometimes, just toss them about and pay no attention to what they need. It was silly of them to send her to us, but I’ve seen odder cases. We had one little girl sent to us because the GP thought she had an eye tumor based on a photograph that someone took of her. I could look in the girl’s eye and see there was nothing. Bloke didn’t even know how to use an ophthalmoscope. Or we had a man once who had an upset stomach and the A&E told him he might have a tumor. No other symptoms, just nausea.”
“Sounds weird.”
“Yeah, it was.” He shrugged.
I wadded up my sandwich bag.
“So, right, tell me about how your aunt met her fella.”
“He walked through the porter’s lodge when she was there and she fell for him and... well, that’s pretty much all I know about what happened here. Later she saw him and he took her to Carfax Chippy.”
“And she liked that?”
“Well, I mean, she ran into him and he flirted with her and talked her out of going to supper at her boarding house. She was totally infatuated.”
“So if he’d taken her down a dark alley without a chippy at the end?”
“Don’t say that.”
“Sorry. Unromantic, I know. But I did work in an A&E for a while-”
“What is that? A&E?”
“I guess Americans call it the ER. Sorry to be morbid. I’ve just seen some spontaneous infatuations end badly.”
“That is morbid.”
“Eh, comes with the job.”
“So, no, he fed her fish and chips.”
“Well all right then. She was into that?”
“Sure. I mean, she’d only just seen him in the porter’s lodge. They didn’t talk or anything, and she thought he was the most gorgeous-”
“Okay, really? That really sounds like something that can end up in A&E. She’d never spoken to him before?”
“Please don’t rain on my parade. I’m trying to learn what I can about the love story so I ca
n paint her a portrait.”
“Right, sorry. Besides, I shouldn’t give you a hard time about going anywhere with a bloke you’ve barely ever spoken to before.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Good point.” I wondered if Hattie would get after me if she could see me now for not testing Colin with a few rejections. The thing was, she’d get after me because he wasn’t a member of the Church. Such people were beneath her notice, which was her prerogative. I just wished she wouldn’t declare it so vociferously in public.
“They must’ve had other dates, other than at the chippy,” said Colin.
“Yeah, I haven’t gotten that far in the story yet. I just got here.”
“Do you find that romantic? Seeing a guy and then having him be so... pushy? Would you like to be told where you should eat supper?”
“Well...”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Sorry, you just reminded me of something a, uh, friend of mine once said. He said the only difference between being a stalker and being the most romantic guy ever was whether or not the girl likes you.”
“Wise words. I mean, there are other differences.”
“Well, yeah.”
“But there’s something to that.”
“Yeah. If my aunt had never seen Paul before, I’m pretty sure him trying to haul her off to a chippy would creep her out. But, I mean, he was being flirty, trying to see if she was interested by asking her to do something little like that with him.”
Colin nodded. “If you say so. How old were they when they got married, then?”
“I don’t know. I’m guessing she was about twenty-one-”
“Twenty-one? That’s child marriage, that is.”
“Yeah, another thing about Mormons, they – or we, I should say – marry young quite often.”
“Are you looking to get married?”
“Eventually.”
“But you’re young. You’re only thirty.”
I suppressed the impulse to thank him profusely for saying that. He seemed sincere that I was too young to be worried about marriage, and if I showed him I felt otherwise, it’d probably push him away. Though, if he thought thirty was young, what did he think of his own twenty-seven years? Did he still consider himself to just be in the dating phase of his life? No commitments? It then occurred to me that he’d probably move in with a woman before marriage. That was a completely foreign concept to me.
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