Really, she thought briskly, kicking back the bedcovers, this is ridiculous. Why can’t I find someone real, by daylight?
She went into the bathroom and looked at her shiny early-morning face, its eyebrows raised at itself in scrutiny. She started brushing her teeth. But where, in this huge city, can I find him? Just at this moment there must be hundreds of young men in their prime, lathering their faces, the same grey light coming through the same frosted window; they must be thinking just the same thing; but when can we meet? Lucky old Laura, she must be meeting hundreds.
Her eyes travelled over the faded wallpaper; she saw the millions of other faces at their early-morning mirrors, men’s faces and women’s, sprightly ones and tired ones, handsome and plain, and each person wondering what to wear today and whether to brush his hair to the side or perhaps forward? A cityful of souls all around her. If she let it, London could render her helpless.
‘I say, Claire!’ Yvonne’s voice hissing through the door. ‘I say, Clary, you’ve got a letter!’
It was from Laura. Claire took it into the kitchen.
‘Gosh,’ said Yvonne, padding up behind her in her quilted dressing-gown, ‘do read it! I’m longing to know all about University Life, the lucky thing. I bet she’s got loads of boyfriends!’ She opened the bread bin, peered in it and sighed. ‘You know, my diet starts today and it says I must have grapefruit, but grapefruits are so dear I decided I’d just have a teeny slice of toast instead. Do you think that’s all right, Claire?’
‘If it’s really small.’
Claire took the letter into the sitting-room. Nikki, her other flatmate, had entertained last night and it was full of overflowing ashtrays. Claire drew back the curtains; the houses opposite, solid Clapham redbrick, stared back at her.
Thanks for your letter. I loved your description of The Foot. How’s life at the flat with Nikki and the terrible Yvonne?
Talking about terrible things, I girded my loins and went to a Freshers’ Ball last week. Truly a cattle market with all the males lined up one side and all us females, giggling and drinking halves of cider, up the other. At some mysterious signal half-way through the evening we converged, and I was glued to a succession of manly chests, some belonging to biologists, some to medics, once to a person who called me Norma and once to a person who called me Gloria. I kept up a bright stream of chatter that at moments of stress, especially with the Gloria one, became even brighter. ‘Er, what exactly is an isotope?’ I would say, furtively trying to push down a creeping hand. You’ll be relieved to know I got back to Hall unravaged.
Work is harder than I expected. It’s a shock to change from being top of one’s class at school to being just any old average student. We have a fine yellow stone building for psychology and a lab full of rats that I’m getting very attached to. Boys in my class look rather moist and young, but in the second and third years there are dishier ones who wear old leather coats, things like that. Mummy and Daddy would disapprove of them –
‘Grub’s up.’ Yvonne padded in with a tray. She gazed down at her piece of toast. ‘Gosh, Clary, you’re so lucky being slim. I wish I was like you. Oh dear, and I forgot to buy some saccharine, so I’ll just have to have a spoonful of sugar. I can’t bear tea without sugar. Do you think that’s all right, Claire, just this once?’
‘Just a small one.’
‘But even if I have a teensy-weensy one that’ll make a difference, won’t it?’ Yvonne looked plaintive. ‘I mean, every little bit counts, doesn’t it? But don’t mind me; go on with your letter.’
Bristol is rather romantic, and Clifton is the oldest and most beautiful bit, just near the university. It’s all elegant but tatty terraces, most of them Georgian. But Addison Hall is right away on the other side of the Downs in suburbia. It’s glassy and modern, 4 men’s blocks, 4 women’s, a dining block where we work our way through mounds of chips, and a common room. The Hall stalwarts, like pub regulars, are making themselves clearer now, what with committees being set up and jolly functions to get us all to know each other. After this first year nearly everyone will move out into flats or digs.
My early days were spent – still are – in an agony of not letting myself be seen alone and wistful-looking. I mean, I like being alone, but it’s difficult to show that one’s liking it and not just being left out. I met a frightfully boring girl from school and we fell into each other’s arms with wild relieved cries of recognition, and neither of us had the slightest thing to say to each other when we were in the same classroom all those years –
‘I say, Claire!’ cried Yvonne. ‘Look at this.’ She held out a printed form. ‘It came through the post this morning and it says they’ll send us this super series called “The Miracle of Your Body”. And if we send off now, we can have the first book free! Look, all we have to do is send off this stamp they’ve given us –’
‘The big red one,’ said Claire, ‘with the YES PLEASE on it.’
‘That’s right. It’s very simple.’
‘And if you don’t want it you send the narrow grey one that just says NO.’
‘That’s right. Oh Clary, it’s got such lovely-sounding things in it. Some of the Most Moving Photographs ever Taken of the Miracle of Childhood …’
‘No, Yvonne.’
Anyway, enough for now. Please come down as soon as you can so I can show you everything. I’m making my room so special. But wait until I know more than about two people so I can introduce you to a nice lot. I’m buried in Freud who becomes more and more fascinating.
Love,
Laura
‘Finished?’ asked Yvonne. ‘Tell me all about it. I bet she’s got all the Men hanging on her little finger already. She’s so nice-looking and so brainy too! That’s what they like – not just a pretty face. Oh, I do envy her.’
‘So do I. I’ll show it to you tonight. Must dash now.’
Claire got into the Morris Minor that she shared with Laura and drove through the streets towards her school where 1,300 tough and restless pupils waited for her.
Those first weeks of autumn, Laura did the same things as everybody else. She walked across the Downs and into town for her lectures, none of which she had started skipping. She took painstaking notes. She rewrote her notes when she got back to her room. She sat long hours in the library working or, when the hot-pipe against her back seeped too deliciously through her skin, slumped asleep over her scattered textbooks, a real student.
She bought mugs for her room and, to be extra-special, real coffee instead of Nescafé. At first it was just the troll girl and the others who dropped in to gossip and speculate about everyone else. But soon they drifted their separate ways, and Laura found herself drawn into a group of English Literature students who did boisterous studenty things, like taking her out to a scrumpy pub where she drank two pints, cloudy and with lemon slices floating on the top. They sat in a swaying row, making up limericks. At closing time they linked their arms and linked their Bristol University scarves to become a knotted chain, and they staggered over the Downs to a late-night chipper.
Sitting on the grass with them, swallowing her fried cod, wiping her hands on the dewy grass and gazing at the figures munching in the moonlight, Laura felt a pang of nostalgia, already, for what she was doing. Memories in advance. These were the jolly things she’d tell her children about one day.
Then it irked her to be such a typical student. She could just imagine what her mother would say – Oh, Laura’s having a simply marvellous time, up to all sorts of fun and such nice young men. Rushing about, off to funny little pubs, up all hours; you know what students are like …
That annoyed her. Definitely, now she thought of it. It washed the spice out of the incident. For, by some mysterious process, the minute her parents approved of something it became devitalized. Now she thought of it, that Len who worked at the butcher’s – hadn’t his fascination sprung from the simple fact that her parents were appalled? Their horrified politeness had made him look so virile.
She gazed up at the 300 identical windows of Hall. No, she wasn’t going to be like everybody else, was she? Hadn’t she always been the sort to break out? No more of this cosy studenty life. The fact that she could write about it all, uncensored, in a letter home, made it suddenly tame.
three
THE MORNING AFTER the moonlit cod Laura ventured into the Berkeley Café. Up till now she hadn’t dared; on peering inside, all she had ever seen was a blur of faces, and she was sure she’d know none of them. It always seemed full of older students, the ones who lived not in safe little Halls but in independent flats. She would like to be like them.
The Berkeley stood opposite the library. With its mock Tudor panelling it had a genteel tea-rooms atmosphere, but only at first glance. No Barbara Cartland hair-dos here. Laura got herself a coffee and peered through the smoke.
She could just make out a tableful of second year psychologists, the sort she admired, the sort who lived mysterious lives in flats and roared round Bristol on motorbikes. Leather coats, dark glasses, wild hair … they looked intriguing and existential and unsuitable. She took a breath and casually approached their table. Her excuse was that she slightly knew one of them, the one with the pale ropes of hair; he was called Andy.
Laura sat down and spoke to the nearest one: ‘Would you like a cigarette?’
‘Not for me,’ he answered. He had a stubbly chin. He reached out for a packet of French ones. ‘Not those; can’t taste them any more.’
He sat back in a cloud of strong, acrid smoke. They went on with their conversation.
‘It was shit,’ said the third one, who had dark glasses. ‘Christ, once that guy could direct.’
‘Remember those shots,’ said Stubbly Chin, ‘outside the hut?’
‘“The Red Desert”. How could anyone forget. The way he handled her indecision. Those grainy close-ups.’
There didn’t seem a lot Laura could contribute here. What was this desert business? She longed to know, to be one of them. She gazed into her coffee cup, occasionally sliding her eyes to the faded Levi’d thigh of Stubbly Chin, who was next to her.
Then Stubbly Chin said: ‘I’m getting into alchemy. Might write my thesis on it – you know, the alchemist’s power over the brain, the way, like, he altered concepts of time.’
‘Far out,’ said Andy.
‘Bosch’s the guy to study. Anyone got any Bosch books? His pictures just radiate alchemy.’
‘I’ve got a Bosch book,’ said Laura. They all turned.
‘You have?’
She nodded, blushing.
‘Hey,’ said Stubbly Chin. His name turned out to be John. ‘If you happen, like, to pass Wellington Crescent one day – number 6 – that’d be really nice. You could drop it in.’
‘Oh yes, I will.’ She felt the blush deepen with pleasure. She’d contributed at last.
They talked of other things. She watched them. Funny how what they said was different from what their eyes were doing. While they spoke, their eyes were flickering round the café, restlessly.
‘I’m thinking,’ said Dark Glasses, ‘after I get out of this place, of getting it together in the country. You know, a few friends, growing all our own stuff.’
‘Sounds nice,’ said John. ‘Really nice. Imagine most of this lot,’ he gestured round the room, his voice assured, his eyes – could they be almost anxious? ‘I can just see them, you know, nice safe house, mortgage, telly – you know, like the whole family scene.’
‘Ghastly,’ agreed Laura. How well he put it! Why then did she feel uncomfortable, shifting about in her seat?
‘Ah, my girl, just you wait. Wait till you – what d’they call him – your Mister Right comes along. You’ll be up to your ears in life insurance and dinner parties once a month.’
‘No I won’t,’ said Laura. ‘I’m just going to have lovers.’ Now that sounded good.
‘We’ll see, we’ll see. Anyway, catch me living a tiny life amongst all those other tiny lives way out in – well, Harrow or somewhere.’
Laura looked down at her hands. Shame that he’d actually said Harrow; as if he knew. Never, ever must she let it slip out.
Walking up the street later, she shook away her unease. No, she decided they impressed her terribly. Such a change, they were, from the good-natured young lot at Hall, and such a change from those chinless wonders she was sometimes unfortunate enough to meet in Harrow, who actually asked her father ‘What time would you like her back, sir?’ and dreadfully uncool things like that.
That Sunday afternoon Laura went for a walk. She walked across the Downs and into Clifton. She was beginning to know her way around the alleys, terraces and curving streets, and easily found Wellington Crescent. It was a beautiful day in early November, and the golden sun lit the façades of the houses, façades whose shadows deepened as the crescent curved round in a large arc.
Actually, she was a bit chilly in her T-shirt but she hadn’t brought a coat, partly because it had been warmer when she’d started out, and partly because she’d decided not to wear a bra, and with her nipples obvious as anything through the material she looked liberated. Outside number 6 she hesitated and took a breath.
John answered the bell. He looked at her blankly.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I’m Laura. Er, remember?’
‘Oh yeah. We met in the Berkeley.’
‘Right. I’ve brought that book.’
‘What book?’
‘The Bosch.’
‘Ah. I remember. Come in.’
His room was painted white. It had a rumpled mattress on the floor with an Indian bedspread over it, a lot of books, and on the wall a blown-up photo of what she couldn’t swear wasn’t a huge breast, very close up. Could it be?
‘Lovely room,’ she said.
‘Yeah. Like some tea or something?’
‘Yes please.’ Yes, on closer inspection it couldn’t be anything else.
He disappeared and she sat down on the bed, wondering whether she was welcome or not. But he didn’t have anyone with him, and he was so glamorous and a second year and all. Surely she could stay for some tea?
He sat down beside her and poured it out. Then he reached for one of his yellow cigarettes and lit it.
‘Can I try one?’ she asked, looking at his hand as he gave it to her. What exactly had she come for? Could she admit it, even to herself?
It was very strong. She gulped down some tea.
‘You dig Bosch, then,’ he said.
‘Oh yes. He’s so, well, strange.’
‘Quite a guy, Bosch. His obsession with the anus, for instance.’ Haze hung in layers round the room. He blew smoke out; the layers split, flimsily. ‘As the erogenous zone. I prefer the good old front-entry myself, don’t you?’
‘Oh yes!’ she laughed.
‘I’ve yet to meet a chick who liked it, really liked it, from the rear.’
She laughed again, knowingly, but felt uncomfortable: having had it neither from the front nor the rear, ever. And aged nineteen too.
He went on: ‘Anyway, perhaps one day I’ll meet one and realize what I’ve been missing. But most English girls are so hung-up.’
‘Oh no,’ she replied with spirit. ‘Not all of us.’
‘Most of you. Not like French chicks. Now, they know how to turn a guy on. Wow, can they use their bodies. Sex is important to them.’
‘It is for us too.’
‘But just how important? You’re – what’s your name – Laura, right? A guy screws you; it’s cool, right?’ He leant back across the bed and stretched out his legs. He blew some more smoke into the haze. ‘But which matters most to you, the guy or the fuck?’
‘Well … it depends.’ She was getting into deep water here, but she didn’t know how to change the subject. She took another drag and another gulp of tea. She couldn’t think what else to do so she drained her cup, taking a nice long time about it.
‘For those chicks it’s the fuck,’ said John. ‘Pure and simple.
It’s really, like, beautiful. No pretence.’
‘Yes.’ She thought for a moment. What could she say? ‘Yes, I agree. There’s something depressing about sincerity unless it’s very intense and real.’ She wasn’t quite sure about that but it was better than nothing.
‘It’s amazing,’ he went on, ‘the fantasies, the compromises people swathe round themselves when all they want is a good screw.’
‘Yes. People kid themselves. It’s all their silly upbringings.’
‘Right. You know, you’re a girl after my own heart.’
Laura felt herself glowing.
‘Come here,’ he said, and pulled her back beside him. He started stroking her hair.
She tried to relax against him. After all, wasn’t this really what she had come for? To start being liberated and adult?
‘Hey,’ he said, ‘talking of that, why’re we sitting here like a pair of idiots? I’m stacked like a fucking chimney.’
Before she knew it he’d unzipped his trousers, taken her hand and – heavens! plonked it on something stiff and stout.
Frozen with terror, she stared at the wall, at the books, at the goose-pimply photo, at anything.
‘See what you’ve done to me?’ he murmured. He took his hand away and hers was left there, ludicrously clasping it like a handle. She didn’t look at her hand. She disowned it.
‘Feels good, doesn’t it,’ he said. ‘See? You’ve turned me on.’
Quickly she snatched her hand away and struggled up. ‘Er, I think I ought to be getting back,’ she gasped, still not looking at him. ‘I really must.’
‘Hey, relax. What’s the matter with you?’
‘Nothing,’ she replied, primly smoothing down her hair and addressing the wall. ‘Really, I, er, have so many things to do. Heavens, look at the time, too!’
‘Look at me, for Christssake!’ She heard the zip being pulled up. ‘Why this coy virgin crap?’
Because I am a coy virgin, she thought wildly. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I just, well, don’t feel like it.’ Why can’t I be honest?
You Must Be Sisters Page 2
