The test that afternoon required the team to rescue one of them who was supposed to have been injured while working high up in a tree, and to lower the victim to the ground, where they were to administer first aid for a broken leg. For each test one of the team was put in charge so that his/her qualities as a leader could be assessed. That afternoon it was Will’s turn. And because Hannah was the lightest of the group she was chosen as the victim.
I was stationed beside the tutor, James, a rugged out-of-doors man in his thirties, kindly, but not one to waste words. I felt foolish, dressed in an oversized yellow boiler suit Will had dug out of a cupboard, a regulation white hard hat that made me look like one of those cartoon characters with a round blob for a head, and my feet like bulldozers in a pair of Will’s forester’s boots packed with newspaper to make them fit. I shouldn’t have changed out of my own clothes, however inappropriate. At least then I would have looked like myself and not like an incompetent version of one of them.
James watched every move the team made, ticked off a list of items and scrawled unreadable comments now and then on a mark sheet clamped to a clipboard, grubby from his tree-soiled fingers. He was punctilious. But close though his inspection was, it was nothing compared to the minute examination I made of Will’s every glance, every facial expression, every physical contact, whenever he was anywhere near Hannah, which he was quite often during the hour it took to complete the test. The worst was when they’d brought Hannah to the ground and were dealing with her ‘broken’ leg. Will took off her boot and sock, rolled her trouser up above the knee, and felt her leg, pretending to check for damage before ‘finding’ the break. It seemed to me that Hannah was enjoying it far too much. Higher up, she kept groaning with mock pain, higher up, and when he was above the knee the groans modulated into exaggerated shrieks of pleasure, which evoked laughter from the others.
James confined his inspection to the test. My invigilation continued every second of the rest of my visit. I wasn’t so foolish as to give myself away by staring all the time. I could during the test, because I was meant to be watching that and Will was far too busy to take any notice of me. Afterwards I made sure only to look directly for any length of time when it was expected that I should, as when being talked to or when he – or Hannah – was the object of everyone else’s attention. But indirectly I was observing them second by second out of the corner of my eye, because you can often learn more with brief surreptitious glances than you can from looking a long time straight on.
And just as James had a check-list of items by which to judge the performance of each member of the team, so I compiled my own interior check-list, a catalogue of proofs that Will and Hannah were more than team-mates, more, even, than just good friends.
I had plenty of opportunity. After the test, we returned to the college. They went to their rooms to shower and change. I went with Will to his room, where I changed back into my own clothes while he showered and dressed. We didn’t even kiss. The team were all very quick and took me into their dining hall where we sat together at the same table. They scoffed vast quantities, as if they hadn’t seen food for months. And then went to the bar, where we sat round a table sloshing beer. Because Will was driving me back to my hotel, he didn’t have more than one, and as I dislike beer I didn’t either. But that didn’t prevent Will getting as high as the others. They joked and teased, they discussed the test and how this and that could have been done better, they gossiped about tutors, argued about politics and conservation, they asked what I was doing (but weren’t, I felt, that interested, only being polite), they sang tree songs I’d never heard before, and all the time my catalogue grew, and the longer it grew the more despondent I became.
Item Will is happier than I’ve ever seen him. I know because (a) he is more relaxed, (b) he is more talkative, (c) he throws himself into everything the team does, (d) he belongs wholeheartedly like he never did at school; no restraint. And the others like him. They defer to him, he’s the centre all the time, not just because he was leader for the test. He’s one of them.
Item Whenever they can be, Will and Hannah are together. Examples: (a) They sat beside each other during the tutor’s pep talk before the test. (b) They sat beside each other during his talk afterwards. (c) She walked back to college with Will and me (the others followed behind). (d) She sat beside him during the meal (I sat opposite). (e) She sat with us in the bar, me one side of Will, she the other. (f) She came to the car with us when we left and waved us off.
Item Whenever they glance at each other they smile with the kind of bright-eyed private smile of people who are special to each other.
Item When things are being said in discussions or jokes are being made, they often give each other a look that is an unspoken private comment.
Item She brought him his pudding. She also brought mine, but I’m sure she always does this for Will. She put her hand on his shoulder as she put the pudding down in front of him and muttered something into his ear that made him laugh.
Item When the team were talking about work, she and Will referred to each other and listened to each other more than they did to anyone else. I think they talk about everything together, you can always tell when people do that.
Item She left her file of lecture notes under her seat in the dining hall. She remembered it when we were in the bar. Will went back and got it for her as if that was the natural thing for him to do.
Item When it was her turn to buy a round of drinks, she stood behind Will with her hands on his shoulders while she took the orders.
Item There were a few minutes in the bar not long before we left when she and Will talked quietly and seriously, heads together, while the others were joshing around. They attended to each other so carefully that the rest of us might as well not have been there. At one point she put one hand on his knee and stroked his arm up and down once with her other hand, as if reassuring him.
Item It was after that, when I went to the loo, that she followed me and made a point of telling me how well Will was doing and how everybody liked him and how much he helped her, especially with the physical stuff – tree climbing, tree surgery, etc. – that she wasn’t very good at and for which she wasn’t really strong enough, and said how much Will talked about me, and how much she’d been looking forward to meeting me. ‘Well, here I am,’ I said, and she said, ‘And you’re exactly like I expected from what Will’s told me and from the photo of you in his room.’
Hannah in Will’s room. That’s what niggled. That’s what inflamed my suspicions. That’s what aggravated my jealousy. Hannah in Will’s room. When? How often? Why?
I hadn’t lived in a college. I didn’t know that resident students are in and out of each other’s rooms all the time, I didn’t know how little they bother about who comes in, who is there or when or for how long. Maybe I’m too ‘territorial’, maybe I’m too private, too secretive, and not sociable enough. I know I grew up as an indulged only child who had not just one room of my own but two, and maybe that conditioned me. But whether it’s my inborn nature or my upbringing I don’t know, but it’s how I was, and how I still am.
Besides, it wasn’t only ignorance of student life that made me suspicious. There was another reason. Will had always been as protective of his privacy as I was of mine. I’d only ever been into his room at home twice in the months I’d known him. I knew that was because Mrs Blacklin didn’t approve of my being there. But I also knew, because we’d talked about it, how carefully Will kept his room to himself. He even locked it when he went out. If he wasn’t like that now he must have changed completely during his few weeks in college. I could see he was different, more outgoing than he used to be. But did people change that much in so short a time? Or had he changed because Hannah meant more to him than I did?
As we drove back to the hotel I doubted Will – seriously doubted him for the first time. And for the first time was seriously devious with him. I didn’t want him to know of my suspicions because I didn’t want to
hear his explanations – his excuses. I couldn’t bear the thought that ‘my Will’, who might not be ‘my’ and only ‘my’ Will any longer, would lie to me. While being devious with him, I couldn’t abide him being devious with me. Liars abhor other liars, as thieves denounce theft among themselves and as criminals require complete honesty of the police. But if I faced him with my suspicions and he confirmed they were right, confessed that he and Hannah were ‘an item’, that would be worse for me than him lying. My already shaky world would be shattered.
But one deception breeds another in an endless chain.
When Will asked what I thought of the college I said it was great – beautiful – I could see why he liked it so much and was so happy there, all of which was true. What I didn’t say was that because it was so small and so cut off from other places and other people I thought it was a bit ingrown, a bit too insular. When he asked me what I thought of his ‘friends’, I said they were very nice and I could see how much they liked him and he them and how well they got on, which was true. (But ‘nice’! When we lie, the bloodless words we use often betray us. As when people say something is ‘interesting’ when they don’t like it. We talk then in verbal Lego: we slot together bland prefabricated words and phrases that make sentences as mechanical and squared-off and impersonal.) When he asked me about Hannah, I said I thought she was lovely (which she was) but didn’t say I thought she was a threat. He said she knew more about trees than any of them, even most of the tutors, she helped him with his essays, he helped her with practical stuff, she was the only one who liked classical music, she played the cello, she hoped to go to Cambridge to study with Oliver Rackham. He really envied her, he said, and was wondering whether he ought to try for the same course after all. I listened to this encomium in raving silence.
By the time we arrived at the hotel, I wanted to pack up and go. For a while we talked about home. I didn’t talk about my growing friendship with Julie – the first time I hadn’t told him about something important to me (itself a kind of lie).
‘You seem a bit off,’ he said at one point. ‘Are you okay?’ I said my period was due and was hurting a bit. Another fib. He told me to lie down and he’d give me a massage. He knew that often helped. I let him and inevitably that led to us making love. For the first time I faked it. And I hated myself more for this lie than for all the others put together.
Will had another early start next day. The team had one more test in order to complete that part of their course. It would be finished by lunch time. We’d planned that I would go with Will and watch, then we’d spend the afternoon on our own together, and I’d catch an evening train home. When he got up I told him I felt ill (which was not a lie, I felt sick from unhappiness), I didn’t want to be a wet blanket, maybe it would be best if I went home that morning. He suggested I stay in my room till lunch time, maybe I’d feel better by then and we could spend the afternoon however I wanted. I said I had some work to do for school next day and feeling the way I was it would be better to go home and get it done and have an early night. ‘Is there something else?’ Will asked. ‘Have I done something wrong?’ No, I said, lying again, no, but I could see why he’d tried to put me off coming to see him, he was so busy. ‘But you’re here now,’ he said, ‘and it’s worked out okay, hasn’t it? And we could have the afternoon together. Why waste the chance just because you’re feeling a bit off colour?’
I was lying in bed. Will was standing beside me, naked, in arm’s reach of his beautiful body that had always spelled me with every kind of yearning – to gaze at it for ever, to caress it for ever, to take care of it and protect it, to be held by it, to lie on it, for it to lie on me, to be entered by it – a yearning for all of this at the same time. He gave me a long, quizzing look. ‘You’ve never let your period stop us doing something we wanted to do before,’ he said. I almost gave in. The words were gathering in my throat, when he added, ‘The others, they’ll miss you. Hannah especially. She told me last night she really liked you.’
The spell broke. Had Hannah been there too, on Will’s body? Had he been with her where he had been with me?
‘Sorry, Will,’ I said, ‘but I have to go home.’
He didn’t say anything more, but pursed his lips, turned away and went into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.
7
‘Work,’ Julie said, ‘that’s the answer. Work hard at school to occupy your mind. Work hard at your music to untangle your emotions. Read and meditate to keep in touch with your soul. If it’ll help, I’ll keep you company when I can. And if you like, we’ll jog together to keep your body fit and help sweat the poisons out. I think you might be misjudging Will, but even if you aren’t, these things happen. We all have to learn how to live through them without giving up. You’re no different from anyone else. Remember Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet suffer love’s labour’s lost. At one time or another most of us do. You said the way you’re feeling is like being tossed about in a storm. And it is, I know, I’ve been there. It’s like being in a tempest when it’s happening and you’re sure you’ll be torn apart. But the storm passes and though you may be shipwrecked and washed up on a foreign shore, all’s well that ends well. It might not be as you like it. It might not be the end you wanted. But you’ll survive and you’ll be glad you have. You’ll see. Believe me.’
And I did. I believed her. I needed to believe something or I’d have fallen into the slough of despond again. But believe in what, when your world seems to be falling apart? I didn’t believe in God. In any god at all. I didn’t have religion. I was Christian only because I was born in a Christian country – or a country which says it’s Christian. At such a time, when you do not believe in something, you can only believe in someone. Someone you trust so completely that their strength can help carry you through. Just then, there was no one I could trust like that, except Julie. So I accepted what she said. And as it turned out, the biggest help, the times I liked best during the next few weeks, were our daily meditations together. I would go to her house after school and would meditate for half an hour (the most she would allow me to begin with). Then, while she continued for another hour, I would sit beside her and read whatever she set for me.
When I got home from Julie’s on the Friday of the week after my visit to Will, Edward Malcolm called. Had I decided about his offer of a Saturday job? To be honest, I’d forgotten about it. People say all kinds of things at parties, and mostly they never follow them up. At the time, I’d thought Mr Malcolm was just being nice. But here he was, wanting an answer. He needed someone quickly, and if I didn’t want the job, he’d have to find someone else.
Work was the answer, Julie had said. She and school filled the weekdays. But the prospect of weekends on my own seemed like a desert. A job with Mr Malcolm would fill the Saturdays and earn me some money. And spending money when you’re rock-bottom low in spirits is as comforting as bingeing on food. (I read somewhere the other day that we’ve become a compulsive consumer society because we’re a depressed society.) So I said yes, thanks, when should I start? Tomorrow, he said, his office at nine.
8
Stop. Wait. You know what’s going to happen next. As soon as I told you about Edward Malcolm at Dad’s promo you knew what was going to happen. Probably, you guessed when I told you about him coming to our table in Mario’s. Stories are like that, even true stories like mine. Anton Chekhov said something like, ‘If you mention a gun in the first act, you’d better make sure it’s used by the last act.’ Why? Because if you don’t the reader will feel cheated. Why mention the gun if it doesn’t matter? Stories can’t tell everything, so everything they tell has to play a part in the story. Readers expect it.
So you know, you’ve guessed, what’s going to happen. But I had to tell you about how we met and my dispirited state at the time because I want you to understand that what happened wasn’t just a cheap adventure, or that I engineered it. Nor did Edward.
‘Were you after me from the start?’ I asked him
once, after we’d become lovers. ‘Was offering me a job part of an evil plot to seduce me, you dirty old man?’
‘Certainly not!’ he said in his ironic huffy-pompous voice, and didn’t laugh. But ironic or not, he never laughed when I made fun of his age. ‘I liked the look of you, who wouldn’t? I thought you were attractive and how lucky Will was.’
‘You thought I was attractive?’
‘Yes.’
‘You mean sexy?’
‘But not just in a sexy way. You’re more than that. And it’s the more than that that makes you sexy. To me, anyway. Compris?’
‘No.’ I said. I did, but was still suffering – needing to be bolstered, needing to be admired, needing to feel wanted – so I was hungry for details. ‘Examples, s’il vous plaît.’
‘Well, let’s see. You’re intelligent, and I admire intelligence.’
‘Thank you kindly.’
‘You’re funny. Witty is what I mean, which is better.’
‘Am I?’
The vulnerability that praise undresses.
‘You think about things. You actually enjoy thinking.’
‘I do?’
‘And you don’t accept easy answers. You say what you think—’
‘I try to. I want to.’