The Forever Girl

by Alexander McCall Smith

“No, I am enthusiastic. Very. Yes, I’ve found somebody whose company I really enjoy. And I think he likes me too.”

  “That’s important.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “He’s a really good musician. In fact, he can do most things really well. He’s a keen skier too. I’ve never learned, but he’s good enough to be in the university team. But he doesn’t have time to do it – he’s an organ scholar and they have to spend all that time in chapel.”

  “It sounds great.”

  “It is. I know it is. I think I mentioned we were going to go to Italy. He knows these people. His dad is pretty grand, actually, and they have all these wealthy friends with villas in Italy and so on. He’s been invited, and he says I can come too. We’re going to go in the summer.”

  “You must be very happy.”

  “Of course I am. But I know it’s not going to last.”

  She looked at him with concern. “You shouldn’t say that. How do you know?”

  “Because these things don’t. I’m being realistic. They don’t last all that well in the straight world, let alone if you’re gay. It’s more difficult, I think. It just is. People don’t meet at university and stay together. They get bored with one another.”

  “I thought that was changing.”

  He sighed. “A bit, maybe. But not all that much.”

  “I hope that it will for you.”

  “Thank you.” He paused. “And you? What about you?”

  She looked beyond the guests. The two helpers Margaret had brought – a Jamaican couple from her church – were laying out more plates. They both wore white, as Margaret did when she went to church.

  “Me?” she said. “I’m fine. I suppose I’m fine. Yes, I’m all right. Yes …”

  He reached out to her.

  “Because of …”

  “Because of him. Yes.”

  “You can’t.”

  “I know I can’t. I know what I should do. People keep telling me. My mother. You. Everybody. Although you told me once not to give up – remember? Then, when you wrote to me, you said something different. You said what everybody else says.” She made an effort now, and composed herself. “I’m going to be fine. I’m going to live my life, and I’ll try to get as much as I can out of it, but all the time I know I’m going to think of him. Sad, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t think so. Not sad in the sense of being pathetic. Sad for you otherwise, I suppose.”

  “It’s forever,” she said quietly. “Whoever is up there in the sky looked down on me and said – ‘It’s forever for you.’ ”

  The tension was defused. “You sound like Margaret.”

  “Maybe. But she believes it. I don’t.”

  “You don’t believe there’s somebody up there … allocating things for us?”

  She shook her head. “I believe there may be something – I don’t know why, but I just think there is – but it’s not a man with a white beard.”

  “Or a woman?”

  “No. If it were a woman, she wouldn’t make things so hard for women.”

  They laughed, but she thought: would it be less embarrassing to talk about a goddess than a god?

  “When I was a boy,” he said, “I thought I would get struck by lightning if I said things like that.”

  “I saw some lightning today,” she said. “In that storm.”

  “I wonder who was struck.”

  “I didn’t see. But I bet they deserved it.”

  They looked at each other and smiled. She wanted to kiss him at that moment, and she wondered whether he would object. A chaste kiss, to the cheek; a kiss that would say everything about everything; about the value of old friends; about how she wanted him to be happy forever, in spite of his belief that happiness, for him, in his own view of his situation, was likely to be temporary. But surely all happiness was temporary, she thought – or most of it. That was what made us aware of it – the fact that it was a salience, something that stood out from our normal emotional state. She would not describe herself as unhappy, and yet she knew that she could be happier than she was at present. She would be happy if James were with her, which he was not; and, she thought, he never would be. She heard a snatch of song on the radio – a line from a folk tune – that resonated and somehow seemed right for her. The singer reflected on things that could never be, or at least would never come about “until apples should grow on an orange tree”. Until then, she thought; until then. The song finished and was gone, and she had not heard its title or the name of the singer. The plaintive line, however, remained in her mind. Until apples should grow on an orange tree.

  28

  James went to Glasgow at the end of the semester. He sent her an e-mail a few months later, but it did not say very much. She read it and re-read it, and then, resolving that she would treat it as nothing special, deleted it. Ted gave her news of him from time to time, and when Ted eventually paid his visit to Edinburgh she invited James to join them for a meal. The distance between the cities was not great – forty-five minutes by train – but they were different worlds, it seemed, and he rarely made the journey. On that occasion he was away – he played rugby for a university team and they had a match that weekend in Inverness. Ted seemed relieved that James would not be there.

  “It is nice to have you to myself,” she said. “And besides …”

  He looked at her quizzically.

  “I’m over him,” she muttered.

  “Are you? Really?”

  She shook her head.

  “You see,” he reproached her. “You should listen to me.”

  “I will. Eventually.”

  He looked doubtful. “Try harder.” And then added, “I like Padraig. What’s wrong with him? I don’t see anything. Mind, you get a bit closer to him than I do …”

  “Padraig’s fine,” she said. “He’s considerate and witty and I like him a lot.”

  “Like?”

  “Like.”

  Ted shrugged. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? Liking and loving really are different. But I’m not here to lecture you.”

  The visit was a success, and he came back to Edinburgh later that year. She went to Cambridge, and Ted put on a picnic for her by the river. He took her to Grantchester and recited Rupert Brooke’s “The Old Vicarage” by heart, learned, he told her, specially for the occasion.

  “You’re very clever,” she said teasingly. “How many boys can recite Rupert Brooke and understand about art and everything? And be good-looking at the same time. How many?”

  “I’m not good-looking.”

  “Yes, you are. You’re everything a girl could want.”

  He laughed. “Except for …”

  “Who cares about that?”

  He affected surprise. “Are you asking me to marry you? Really, Clover, you’re rather forward, aren’t you?”

  She said that she would be happy to be married to him. “We could have a pact. If nobody else ever asked us, then we could settle down together.”

  “I’d love that,” he said. “No, I really would. I could promise that I wouldn’t ever look at men and you could promise to look the other way.” He became serious. “Does Padraig mind? Does he mind your going off to see another man like this? Some men would be jealous.”

  He said this with a smile, and then winked at her.

  “He’s not the jealous type.”

  “Good.” Then after a pause, he asked, “Are you going to stay with him forever?”

  She did not reply immediately. She had not really thought about it, but now that she did, she realised that this was not what she intended. And the fact that she had not thought about the question itself provided the answer.

  “No.” The word slipped out.

  “I thought you wouldn’t.”

  “Things are all right at the moment. We enjoy being together. It’s …”

  “Comfortable? Is that the word?”

  “Maybe. But what’s wrong with being comfortable?’

&nbs
p; He thought that nothing was wrong with it. But he pointed out that one could go to sleep if one became too comfortable.

  “And what’s wrong with going to sleep?”

  What was wrong with being asleep, he said, was that sleep amounted to nothing, and that the more you slept the shorter your life – your real life – became.

  “Oh well,” she said.

  “Yes,” he said. “Oh well. So how long are you going to keep Padraig? Until you finish at Edinburgh?”

  “I’m not that calculating.”

  “But that’s what’s probably going to happen.”

  It was, she conceded, and he was proved right. Over the three years that followed, she stayed with Padraig. They did not live together, but they spent much of their spare time in each other’s company. In those three years, she saw James four times – twice at parties in Edinburgh when they happened both to know the host, once in a pub in Edinburgh after a rugby match between Scotland and Wales, and once, by chance, in the street. Although brief, each of these meetings seemed to open a wound that she had thought closed. James was kind to her – as he always was – and treated her as an old friend whom he saw very occasionally but was always pleased to meet again. But that was all. She did not see him with a girl, and hesitated to ask, even if he asked after Padraig. Ted had hinted that James had met somebody in Glasgow but he had been tactful and had not said much. She had closed her ears to the information; she did not want to hear it.

  The meeting in the pub was the most difficult one for her. She was there with Padraig who had gone to the game at Murrayfield Stadium and had arranged to meet her for a drink before going out to dinner. Padraig was at the bar, ordering the drinks, and she was standing in a crush of people, looking for somewhere to sit. James had appeared beside her, and had leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. He was with several male friends, whom he introduced to her, but she did not get the names.

  “You’re here with Padraig?” he asked.

  She glanced towards the bar. It was taking time for Padraig to be served. “Yes, I am. And you …”

  “Pity.”

  The word was muttered, and she thought she had misheard him. But it had sounded like it; it had sounded like pity. She caught her breath. Pity. Did that mean that he hoped that Padraig was over – that she was free to go out with him? She closed her eyes momentarily, feeling dizzy.

  The moment passed, and she thought: he did not say it. It was what I wanted him to say – that’s all.

  He spoke about the rugby. “I’ve been at the game,” he said. “Scotland played okay – not brilliantly, but okay enough.”

  “They try,” said one of his friends. “They try but in rugby it’s not a question of trying, but scoring tries.”

  She looked at James. I’m standing next to him, she thought. I could easily say to him, James, I’ve wanted to say something to you for years now and here we are standing in this bar and I have the chance and …

  The moment passed. Padraig returned with drinks and James went off with his friends. She could not stay.

  “I don’t want to stay here,” she said to Padraig. “I’m really sorry. I’m not feeling well.”

  He was solicitous – he always was – but she turned down his offer to accompany her home and left by herself. The street outside was filled with rugby supporters. Some of the Scottish fans, draped in tartan, were singing a song about ancient wrongs; she avoided them and went down a quieter side street. She stopped and looked in a shop window – the first shop window she came to. There was camping gear on display, and outdoor clothing too. There was a large picture of a young man and woman standing on top of a Scottish mountain, a cairn of stones by their side. She looked at them, and at their smiles. She turned away and began to walk down the street again. She felt the tears in her eyes, and within her a bleak emptiness – a feeling of utter, inconsolable sorrow over what she did not have. For all the time that had passed – for all her efforts – he could still do that to her. It was her sentence, she decided, and it seemed that it was for life.

  When the time came for her to graduate, Padraig, who was about to embark on a master’s course, was awarded a six-month travelling scholarship. He chose to spend his time in Florence and Paris, with three months in each city. He told her of the award and shyly, and rather hesitantly, invited her to come with him. She sensed, though, that the invitation was less than wholehearted, an impression strengthened by the fact that he seemed relieved when she said that she had other plans. These plans were barely laid – her parents had offered her a gap year, which she had decided to take, but beyond that she was uncertain as to what to do. She had thought of going to Nepal with a friend who had taken a job as a teacher of English, but nothing definite had been arranged.

  “I think we need to split up,” she said. “I don’t think you really want me to come to Italy and France with you.”

  “But I do,” he protested. “I wouldn’t have asked you if I didn’t.”

  “I’ll just get in your way.”

  He seemed hurt. “What do you mean by that?”

  She spoke gently. “Things come to a natural end, Padraig. It’s nothing to get upset about. We’ve had three years – more actually – and now …”

  He looked resigned. “Your problem, Clover, is that all the time you’ve been with me, you’ve been in love with somebody else.”

  She was unable to answer him. Had it been that obvious?

  They sat and stared at one another in silence. She felt empty, but she could not rekindle something that she knew now, just as he did, had run its course.

  Eventually Padraig spoke. “I suppose you can’t help it. I don’t hold it against you for exactly that reason. It’s your … how should I put it? It’s your burden. But I must admit I feel sorry for you. You’re in love with somebody who isn’t there. He just isn’t in your life. I’m sorry, Clover, but I think that’s really … really pathetic. Sad.”

  His words struck home. He just isn’t in your life. But he was. He had been a friend to her over all these years. She rarely saw him – that was true – but he was always so nice to her when she did see him. He smiled at her. He clearly liked her. He was kind and showed an interest in what she said to him. He was in her life. He was. And as for Padraig’s pity – she did not want to be pitied, and told him so.

  “All right, I’m sure you don’t – and I’ll try not to. But for God’s sake, don’t let it completely ruin your life. You only have one life, you know. One. And you shouldn’t try to live it around somebody who isn’t living his life around yours. Do you see that? Do you get that?”

  She wept, and he comforted her. They would always be friends, he said, and she nodded her assent.

  “Don’t wreck your gap year, Clovie,” he whispered. He rarely called her that; only in moments of tenderness. “People fritter them away. Do something with it. Promise?”

  She promised.

  “And don’t spend it thinking about him. Promise?”

  She promised that too, and he kissed her, gently, and with fondness, in spite of what he had said – and what he had thought – setting in this way, with dignity, the seal on an ended relationship.

  29

  Nepal proved easy to arrange, being simply a question of money, which her father, having agreed to fund a gap year, provided without demur. The organisers of Constructive Year Abroad, though, were unable to fit her in to their programme until six months after her graduation. They had other suggestions to fill the time – a three-month engagement as an assistant (unpaid) in a Bulgarian orphanage? She would be working for part of the time in an orphanage in Nepal – the rest of her time would be on a school building programme – and she was not sure whether she wanted to spend too much time on that. They understood, of course, and suggested a conservation programme in Indonesia. That, though, was unduly costly and she decided to save her father the expense. To stay in Edinburgh until she left for Nepal would be cheaper, she felt, and she could get a casual job for a few mont
hs to cover her expenses.

  She wrote to Ted, who had arranged to spend a year teaching English in Lyons: “I feel vaguely guilty about the whole thing. The Nepal thing costs serious money and surely it would be better if we were simply to give them the money to do whatever it is I’m meant to be doing there. I can’t get it out of my mind that this is all about people whose families have got money – you and me, Ted, let’s be honest – pretending to do something useful but really having an extended holiday. A year off; just off. That’s what it is, isn’t it?”

  He wrote back: “Yes, of course. They don’t really need you in Nepal. But, okay, you won’t be doing any actual harm, will you? I suppose if they sent gap year people to build schools that actually fell down then there’d be a case for not doing it at all, but you’re not going to do that, I take it. There’ll be people – real people – out there who will make sure that whatever you build is going to be done properly, or at least not dangerously. So don’t feel guilty. Sure, don’t feel heroic, either, but not guilty. And as for having money, well, we don’t really have it, do we? Our folks are admittedly not on the breadline, and they do happen to live in a tax haven, but they’re not going to support us forever and we’re going to have to earn our living. On which subject, any suggestions? You know what I’m thinking of being after I finish teaching English to the French? A marketing trainee. There’s a firm near Cambridge that has actually offered me a job one year from now, unless the economy takes a nose-dive. How about that for glamour? Would you like to join me? We could do marketing together; just think of it.”

  The job she got in Edinburgh was at a delicatessen that also served coffee. She was to be in charge of the coffee, which she found that she enjoyed doing. The owners, a middle-aged couple who had taken on the business only a few months previously, were still learning and were good-natured. She was happy in her work and made a number of new friends. She had remained in Ella’s flat, which was not far from the delicatessen, and it occurred to her that it would be simpler not to go to Nepal at all. But if she felt guilt about her expensive gap year, how much more guilty, she decided, would she feel if she did nothing with the year. She remembered Padraig’s advice – his exhortation – that she should not fritter the year away. Padraig had approved of Nepal when she had told him about it.