I've been attempting to use this extended metaphor as the basis of a poem, but haven't quite cracked it yet. Anyway, all the best for the new academic year. I'll drop you a line as soon as I'm settled and then maybe we can …
“Who are you writing to?” she says, her eyes blinking sleepily in the evening sun.
“Just Mum,” I say. “How was your swim?”
“Very refreshing. Except I've got something in my hair.”
“Want me to pick it out?”
“Yes, please,” and without putting on her top she strolls out onto the veranda, and sits down on the floor between my knees.
“D'you want to put some clothes on first, maybe?” I say.
“D'you want a smack in the teeth, maybe? …”
“People can see! …”
“So what! God, Jackson, I swear, it's like going on holiday with Mary-fucking-Poppins …”
“You know, you really do swear much too much.”
“Just shut your face and look, will you? See anything?”
“Uh-huh. Looks like oil or tar or something.”
“Is it coming out?”
“Not really.”
“Think it might be easier to do in the shower?”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“So—you coming then?”
“Yeah. All right.”
So here we are. It's early days, of course. The original idea when we talked on the phone was that as we traveled around we'd definitely get separate bedrooms, or at least a room with two single beds in, but that plan proved too expensive, and sort of fell to bits on the third night, after a very long, frank conversation and a whole bottle of Metaxa brandy.
But, anyway, like I say, here we are. I'm not really where I expected to be, or even necessarily where I wanted to be, but, then, who is? And I didn't expect her to be here with me either, to be honest. She still swears too much, of course, but she makes me laugh a lot too. Which doesn't sound like much, but actually didn't even seem possible just a few months ago. So it's all right.
It's actually pretty much all right.
All young people worry about things, it's a natural and inevitable part of growing up, and at the age of sixteen my greatest anxiety in life was that I'd never again achieve anything as good, or pure, or noble, or true, as my O-level results. And I suppose I still might not. But that was all a long, long time ago. I'm nineteen now, and I like to think I'm a lot wiser and cooler about these things.
Acknowledgments
Thanks are due to the following people for their input, support and jokes: Mari Evans for her superb editing; Jonny Geller and all at Curtis Brown; Deborah Schneider, Bruce Tracy and all at Random House/Villard. A particular debt of thanks is also owed to Hannah MacDonald for her invaluable advice, and to Roanna Benn for her early enthusiasm. Also Douglas Kean, Michael McCoy, Josh Varney, Nicola Doherty, Emma Longhurst, Justin Salinger, Tamsin Pike, Christine Langan, Camilla Campbell, Nicholas Wilson-Jones, Olivia Trench, Susie Phillips, Crispian Balmer, Sophie Carter, Eve Claxton, Matthew Warchus and Nell Denton for wearing that dress. For dramatic purposes, certain deliberate alterations have been made to the University Challenge rules and filming procedure—apologies to any purists.
I am indebted to innumerable reference books, but in particular the Encyclopædia Britannica and Peter Gwyn's University Challenge: The First 40 Years, both of which no home should be without. I would also like to offer sincere thanks to Bamber Gascoigne, Kate Bush, Jeremy Paxman and the 2002 champions, Somerville College, Oxford, for their unwitting inspiration.
Most of all, I would like to thank Hannah Weaver, who is on every page whether she's aware of it or not.
DAVID NICHOLLS is the author of The Understudy, which
has been optioned for the screen by Tom Hanks's Playtone
Productions. He is also a successful television screenwriter
whose British credits include I Saw You and Rescue Me, both
of which he created, as well as the third season of Cold Feet
(seen on Bravo in the United States). He cowrote the screenplay
for the film adaptation of Sam Shepard's Simpatico,
which starred Jeff Bridges, Sharon Stone, Nick Nolte, and
Albert Finney. He lives in London.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products
of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual
events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2003 by David Nicholls
All rights reserved.
This work was originally published in Great Britain
in 2003 by Hodder and Stoughton,
a division of Hodder Headline.
Hal Leonard Corporation: Excerpt from “Cloudbusting,” words and music by Kate Bush, copyright © 1985
by Noble and Brite. All rights in the U.S. and Canada controlled and administered by Screen Gems–EMI
Music, Inc. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Excerpt from “Perfect Skin,” words
and music by Lloyd Cole, copyright © 1985 by EMI Songs Ltd. All rights in the U.S.
controlled and administered by EMI April Music Inc. All rights reserved.
International copyright secured. Used by permission.
eISBN 978-0-307-49132-9
www.villard.com
v3.0
Starter for Ten Page 34
