by Julie Cohen
He shook his head. ‘Sorry, Cynthia.’
She huffed. ‘What, you don’t have any money? I’m supposed to be impressed by your nicking a boat?’
‘I have some money,’ he told her, ‘though it’s pretty wet right now. I mean that it wouldn’t be a very nice thing to do.’
‘What wouldn’t be a very nice thing to do?’
‘For me to spend any more time with you while I’m thinking about someone else.’
‘You mean her? That girl?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you’ve just met her!’
‘To be absolutely fair, Cynthia, I’ve only just met you, too.’
She jumped off the wall with a swish of skirts. ‘You are such a bastard,’ she said, and stormed off as fast as her heels would allow her.
‘I prefer “bounder”,’ he said to her back.
Chapter Thirty
She waved Polly off on her train at ten past four on Sunday, making her promise to ring the college and leave a message that she’d got home safely. Then Emily dawdled. She took far too long to walk back to Newnham, and still more time tidying her room. Polly was like a whirlwind – everything in Emily’s room was subtly misplaced because of her presence.
She definitely wasn’t going to meet Robbie. It was a bad idea. She should check through her essay before she gave it in tomorrow, anyway. She’d tried to plan ahead and get all of her work done early because of Polly’s visit, but a whole weekend was a lot to spend without doing any revision at all.
She sat on her bed with her copy of her biology textbook and her lecture notes and stared at her own handwriting as if it were that of a stranger.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt this way before.
He had a deep voice but his accent was soft, not so hard on the Rs as other Americans she had heard. There was something relaxed about it. Something that made her want to smile.
He probably wouldn’t even be there on the riverbank. He’d probably have found another girl to pursue by now. One he rescued from a tree or something.
And she had a date with Christopher tomorrow. A real date, which she’d hardly had any time to think about. That wasn’t something she could do unprepared; it would require a whole consideration of tone, a whole adjustment of feelings.
A whole lot of forgetting how it had felt when Robbie had tucked her hair behind her ear.
She threw the book on to her bed and walked around her room. Christopher had twisted and tortured that pound note when he’d asked her out. It had been a real effort for him; he’d been afraid of her answer. He cared so much about her that he was willing to risk their friendship. Not like the way Robbie had tossed out an invitation, urged her to meet him as if it were the easiest and simplest thing in the whole world, as if he was so cocksure that she would do it, as if any objection she could make was laughable.
‘He’s an arrogant sod,’ she muttered.
But he was so beautiful.
She checked her watch. It was ten past five.
She ran down the staircase and across the quad and out past the porter, who called after her, ‘Careful as you go!’
He was waiting for her on the backs not far from Clare Bridge; he’d rolled his trousers up and his feet were in the river. She remembered his confidence in the water yesterday, and then he looked up as she approached and she didn’t think about anything, not about his swimming or the fact that this was a bad idea.
She felt simply glad to see him.
His face lit up entirely, as if someone had turned on a switch. He jumped up and ran to her, putting his hands on her shoulders. For a dizzy moment she thought he was going to pull her into his arms and kiss her and she didn’t think she would be able to help herself from kissing him back, but he just grinned at her and looked at her, drinking in her face.
She drank in his. His eyes were dark, dark brown, with thick dark brows above them. His hair was a little long, uncombed and untidy. He had a wide, generous mouth, a straight nose that turned up a little bit at the end. His skin was tanned and he hadn’t shaved for a couple of days.
‘I’m so glad you came,’ he said to her.
‘Where’s your . . . date?’ she asked.
He had the grace to look slightly sheepish, but only slightly. ‘That’s over, Emily. She wasn’t pleased with me. But I’d only met her yesterday afternoon.’
‘You only met me yesterday afternoon.’
‘You’re different.’ He slid his hands down her arms and clasped her hands in his. ‘God, you’re beautiful.’
Emily felt her cheeks flushing. ‘You say that to everyone, I’m sure.’
‘Not like I mean it.’ He regarded her for a few more moments; Emily gazed at his shirt. It was wrinkled, and unless she was mistaken, it was the same one he’d been wearing yesterday.
‘So is this what you’d planned when you asked me to meet you?’ she asked his shirt. ‘We could stand here and look at each other?’
‘I’d be happy with that,’ he said, ‘but maybe you’d like to sit on the bank and talk with me for a while. I brought a little picnic.’
The little picnic was a punnet of strawberries and a bottle of red wine. Emily slipped off her shoes and dangled her feet in the water while he pulled an impressive-looking penknife from his pocket and uncorked the wine.
‘I don’t have any glasses,’ he said, holding the bottle out to her. Emily shrugged; she was already doing something foolish, why not drink wine straight out of the bottle on a Sunday afternoon? It warmed her throat and her belly. She passed it back to him and he took a drink, tilting his head back so that she could see his throat as he swallowed.
She wanted to touch it: the cords of his neck, the dark stubble, the tanned skin.
‘So who are you, Emily?’ he asked, handing her back the bottle. ‘Tell me about yourself.’
‘I’m a medic,’ she said, and then clarified, ‘A medical student. In my second year at Newnham.’
‘Newnham, is that part of the university? I’m not exactly up on all this college stuff.’
‘It’s a women’s college.’
He whistled. ‘You’re a med student at Cambridge?’ He regarded her with such frank admiration that she blushed again.
‘Don’t.’
‘Don’t what?’
‘Look at me like that. It’s so . . . American. And you don’t mean it.’
‘I do mean it. I’ve never met a medical student at a women’s college in Cambridge before, even one who doesn’t know how to punt.’ He splashed his foot in the water. ‘And besides, I am American.’
‘Why are you here?’
‘Other than because I was fated to meet you?’
She couldn’t help but laugh at that, but she said, ‘Stop it.’
‘Why? Why should I stop it?’
‘Because it’s . . . silly. We weren’t fated to meet each other.’
‘How do you know? We might be. We could be. This might be the first day of a very, very long life together, did you ever think that?’
‘No, I did not,’ she said. ‘Because you are a charmer, and I can tell that these are lines that you use on every poor unsuspecting girl whom you meet.’
‘Whom. I love it. I’ve never met anyone who says “whom”.’ He lay back on the grass, his feet dabbling in the water, his arms folded behind his head, and he looked so delicious and carefree that she took another gulp of wine.
‘I can’t talk with you if you do that,’ she said.
‘Do what?’
‘Flirt with me so much. I can’t take you seriously.’
‘OK,’ he said. ‘I won’t flirt with you at all.’ He stretched his arms out as if he wanted to embrace the world. ‘In fact, I’ll pretend that I’m not even slightly attracted to you and we can talk like two entirely genderless human beings, on a spiritual level
. Is that better?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re missing out, though. I’m better at flirting.’
‘I don’t mind.’
‘So, what made you want to be a doctor?’ he asked.
‘My father’s a doctor.’
‘That’s lucky. My father’s a drunk.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Robbie shrugged. ‘It’s OK. He’s a happy drunk. He spends all his wages in the local bar buying rounds, and everyone loves him. Except for my mother. They say I’m a chip off the old block.’ He closed his eyes for a moment, a line appearing between his brows. ‘Are you sure I can’t talk about how beautiful you are?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s too bad, because I’d much rather talk about that than my parents.’ He opened his eyes. ‘Actually, I’m here because of Dad. He was here in the war, an American volunteer pilot in an RAF Eagle Squadron. He flew missions over France. He was stationed at Duxford at first.’
‘That’s interesting.’
‘I think it’s the reason he drinks. Or one of them. It can’t be easy living your early life in constant fear.’ He shrugged. ‘Anyway, he doesn’t talk about the war, or what he did in it, and I was curious, so I hitchhiked up to the base.’
‘Did you discover anything?’
‘It’s closed. So no, not really.’ He propped himself up. ‘I’ll trade you the wine for a strawberry.’
He pulled the stem off a berry for her, and put the fruit in her hand. It was warm from the sun and when she put it in her mouth, it burst into sweet juice.
‘Look at that,’ he said.
She swallowed. ‘Look at what?’
‘You. I can tell how delicious that strawberry is just from the expression on your face. And now you’re blushing.’
‘Stop it!’
‘I’m not flirting. I’m stating facts. You have a very expressive face. Saying that isn’t flirting.’
She punched him on the arm, and he laughed and took a swig of wine.
‘You’re about a hundred times more clever than me,’ he said, ‘and you’re resorting to violence to prove a point?’
‘Shall we talk about the weather?’
‘Is this what English people do?’
‘It’s what we say to subtly insinuate that the topic of conversation should be changed. When we don’t want to resort to violence.’
Was it the wine that was loosening her tongue, or was it him? She’d never been any good at witty banter. At flirting. Maybe he was contagious. She felt fizzy, as if she were drinking champagne instead of warm red wine.
‘The weather,’ he said. ‘Skies are mostly clear, visibility good, it’s about forty-nine degrees Fahrenheit, high pressure with a light wind from the south-east. A low should come through in the next six hours and there’ll be rain.’
‘What are you, a meteorologist?’ she asked, impressed. Of course, he could be making it all up.
‘I’m a sailor. That’s how I got to England.’
He looked like a sailor. That tanned skin, his whipcord-thin, strong, agile body, and his hands were capable. She could picture him shinning up a mast, or whatever it was that sailors did.
‘You’re a long way from the sea here.’
‘I can’t help noticing the prevailing conditions, even as far inland as this.’
‘You can really tell the temperature without a thermometer?’
‘I’ll admit I may have been a little bit too precise to impress you. It could be fifty degrees.’ Absently, he hulled two more strawberries for her. ‘Anyway, Emily. Tell me about you. I know hardly anything about you, except for the things I’m not supposed to mention. I keep on asking, and you keep on changing the subject.’
‘Actually, I think you keep on changing the subject.’
He thought. ‘Yes, you’re right. OK, I’ll shut up. Tell me about yourself. How long have you wanted to be a doctor, what’s your favourite colour, what’s your favourite film?’
She counted off the answers on her fingers. ‘All my life, blue, Brief Encounter.’ She met his eyes when she said that, startled at herself, because her real favourite film was The Wizard of Oz. She’d seen it with Christopher last month.
‘A romantic,’ he said. ‘Good. And I like blue, too. For example, the colour of your – but I’m not allowed to mention that. Favourite book? Let me guess – Romeo and Juliet?’
‘Romeo and Juliet isn’t all that romantic, actually, and it’s a play. It’s mostly about two foolish people being in the wrong place at the wrong time.’
‘Isn’t that what romance is? Being foolish at the wrong time?’
‘My favourite book is The Hound of the Baskervilles,’ she said firmly.'It has no romance in it whatsoever.’
‘I like dogs. I’ll read it.’
‘What’s yours?’
‘Moby Dick.’ He reached for his bag, which was lying beside him on the riverbank, and took out a thick, battered paperback, which he handed to her. ‘It’s about whales and obsession.’
She turned it over. It was soft from handling, with a creased cover, and bits of paper stuck between the leaves. ‘It’s a big book.’
He held his hands to his chest, feigning heartbreak. ‘You seem so surprised. There’s a lot of time to read on a boat, and there’s only so much Jack Kerouac. Have you read it?’
‘No.’
‘Keep that one, then. I can pick up another.’
She reached for the wine, and when she drank from it she was surprised to find that it was nearly all gone. And the sun had gone behind Clare College, making it suddenly significantly cooler than forty-nine-or-fifty degrees. She rubbed her arms, which were bare in her short-sleeved blouse, and Robbie immediately sat up, took off his jacket and put it over her shoulders.
It smelled of him. Up till that moment she couldn’t have said what he smelled like, but this was him. Hair oil, an undertone of sweat, beer, cigarettes, grass, mint, teak. A hint of salt and sea air. It was the same scent she had breathed in when he had carried her across the river.
If you had asked Emily what her favourite smell was – if Robbie had included it in the questions that he’d asked her ten minutes ago – she would have said lilac, or a cake fresh from the oven. She would not have said: a jacket warm from a man’s body, a jacket that had not been washed for a week at least and probably much longer, with a worn collar and cuffs.
She couldn’t speak for a moment. It was exciting, this smell, and at the same time comforting. She hunched her shoulders to bring it closer, wrap it around her, buried her nose in the collar.
Then she realised what she was doing and she straightened up. ‘Thanks,’ she said.
‘Want to go for a walk?’ Robbie asked her. ‘You can show me your Cambridge; tell me about all your favourite places. I’d like to be able to picture you here. And it’ll be much easier for me not to flirt with you if we’re walking.’
But he held out his arm for her as they started walking, and she took it. Holding on to him, wearing his jacket, she felt a little bit as if she were floating.
The streets were quiet, and Emily kept her arm linked with Robbie’s as they walked. She was a little bit drunk but his arm was strong and steady, and he kept hers pressed close to his side. As they passed King’s College, Robbie paused.
‘Do you know this song?’ he asked her. He whistled a clear, pitch-perfect melody. Emily tilted her head, listening.
‘Bach?’ she said.
‘I don’t know. I heard someone playing it last night as I walked past here. I think it was some sort of concert.’
‘Do it again.’
He whistled it for her again.
‘The aria from the Goldberg Variations, I think,’ she said. ‘Was it on the piano?’
‘You’re a marvel.’ He smiled down at her and she had to catch
her breath. She couldn’t ever remember wanting to be kissed so badly in her life.
‘I’m mad,’ she said to him. ‘I’ve got to be mad, walking around talking about Bach when I should be studying. I’ve got an essay due tomorrow.’
He brushed her hair back from her forehead, tucked a strand behind her ear. ‘Some things are more important than essays.’
‘Not to a student, they’re not.’
‘This is more important,’ he told her. ‘Don’t you think? Can’t you tell?’
He ran his thumb along her cheek, so gently, as if she were delicate and could be broken. Emily shivered.
‘It is fate,’ he said to her. ‘I know you don’t believe in it and you said you don’t want me to flirt with you but since I saw you in the station, you’re all I’ve been able to think about.’
‘And that’s why you went immediately and met another woman.’
‘I thought you were gone. I thought you’d got on a train and I’d never see you again . . .’
His face was in shadow and she had no basis for believing him, but she did.
‘I don’t know you at all,’ she said. ‘This is all so quick.’
‘It has to be quick.’ He touched her bottom lip with his index finger and the longing threatened to knock her over.
‘Why?’ she asked.
He hesitated, furrowing his forehead in an expression that looked like he expected to be slapped.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘I’ve got to leave tomorrow.’
Her eyes widened. She stepped back.
‘Tomorrow? Why?’
‘I’m captain on a ketch to the Med.’
‘I don’t even know what that means.’
‘I’m working on a sailboat that’s leaving Lowestoft on Tuesday, to go to Italy.’
She stepped back. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I’ve been trying to ignore it. And I didn’t want you to be angry at me?’
‘I’m not angry at you.’ Though she was. She was angry with him for showing up and making her feel this way, if only for a few hours, and then disappearing. A raindrop hit her cheek, and she wiped it away. ‘Are you coming back to England?’
