be alone. Because wherever he chooses to live, in his mother’s flat or some revolting alternative, Laura cannot go through that pain again.
Marina has never sat next to a boy on a train before; until Combe she had hardly been on a train. A great ball of breath keeps being trapped in her throat. The scale of her unfitness to meet his parents is only just occurring to her. She is wearing all her best clothes: stone-washed jeans, maroon Marks & Spencer V-neck bought for her by Zsuzsi, in a smaller size than she likes (‘ Vair- y good. We see your bust’), the brown ankle boots which she rarely wears in case of scuffing, and her birthday green velvet jacket, of which she is so proud. ‘This is great,’ says Guy, nuzzling her neck like a horse.
‘Is it a long journey to, you know, um—’ she asks hopefully, fiddling with the paperback of Gogol’s Dead Souls which, after long deliberation, she has decided is not too pretentious to bring: it is a comedy, after all. She has been dreaming of a lengthy Tolstoyan train ride with serfs scything the cornfields; somehow she had even envisaged a sleeper compartment, in which Guy would attempt to kiss her.
‘God, I don’t know,’ he says, biting into a colossal cherry scone. ‘Blandford then Limehurst, Winsham St Peter, Goring Water, Goring thingy, Staithe. Shaftesbury, East Knoyle, lift to Stoker . . . less than an hour. Fifty minutes? Weekend trains aren’t up to much.’
The mere mention of weekends makes her stomach squelch with anxiety. He said his mother would clear this exeat with Pa Daventry, but surely it’s not as easy as that. It has all happened so suddenly; when she thinks of Rozsi she feels faint, even though, she tells herself, her mother won’t care, or even notice, so in a way it’s her fault.
Guy keeps grinning at her. When she accidentally rests her knee against his, he does not pull away. She looks at the spots on his temples and remembers the questing way that his lips met hers in the ticket queue, as a guinea pig’s might. Simon Flowers, she thinks, despite having decided to forsake all thoughts of him this weekend, Simon, I will ever be thine. She tries to remember how much money she has in her purse, in case she needs to flee.
‘You won’t mind if my father’s not there, will you? My sisters might be, but—’
‘Don’t you know?’
‘Why would I? One of them’s married, children, everything. Only Lucy lives with us. I just meant that maybe you were expecting my dad to be there. Because you, people, seem . . .’
‘I don’t mind.’
‘Good girl,’ he says and, with a soulful expression, tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. They have stopped at a tiny station. She keeps her eyes on two big black birds, crows or ravens or rooks, near the train track, which are fighting over a stone. One wins the battle; it flies towards them with the stone in its beak, over ridges of what Dr Tree calls ‘good Dorset clay’ and is almost above the train when a sound outside startles it. The stone falls to the ground, so close to her window that she can see it if she cranes her neck, which she does because one day she might regret not having looked. It is not in fact a pebble but something small, furry, bloody: a baby rabbit or mouse, or something worse. She looks away quickly, appalled to find she wants to cry.
Guy is telling a story about some boys pushing a master’s Vauxhall Astra into Divinity Hall. She is horribly nervous. As the rackety little train passes through Blandford Forum towards Shaftesbury, she witnesses one of those special effects for which the English countryside is famed. The raindrops racing down the glass suddenly slow. Sheets of gold pour on a distant field; the clouds tear open and the entire carriage is bright with winter sunlight. It must be significant. The train whispers ‘Alexander Viney’ with every rattle of the wheels. Are they wheels? She thinks of all the things she has forgotten to bring: perfume; sanitary
Marina has never sat next to a boy on a train before; until Combe she had hardly been on a train. A great ball of breath keeps being trapped in her throat. The scale of her unfitness to meet his parents is only just occurring to her. She is wearing all her best clothes: stone-washed jeans, maroon Marks & Spencer V-neck bought for her by Zsuzsi, in a smaller size than she likes (‘ Vair- y good. We see your bust’), the brown ankle boots which she rarely wears in case of scuffing, and her birthday green velvet jacket, of which she is so proud. ‘This is great,’ says Guy, nuzzling her neck like a horse.
‘Is it a long journey to, you know, um—’ she asks hopefully, fiddling with the paperback of Gogol’s Dead Souls which, after long deliberation, she has decided is not too pretentious to bring: it is a comedy, after all. She has been dreaming of a lengthy Tolstoyan train ride with serfs scything the cornfields; somehow she had even envisaged a sleeper compartment, in which Guy would attempt to kiss her.
‘God, I don’t know,’ he says, biting into a colossal cherry scone. ‘Blandford then Limehurst, Winsham St Peter, Goring Water, Goring thingy, Staithe. Shaftesbury, East Knoyle, lift to Stoker . . . less than an hour. Fifty minutes? Weekend trains aren’t up to much.’
The mere mention of weekends makes her stomach squelch with anxiety. He said his mother would clear this exeat with Pa Daventry, but surely it’s not as easy as that. It has all happened so suddenly; when she thinks of Rozsi she feels faint, even though, she tells herself, her mother won’t care, or even notice, so in a way it’s her fault.
Guy keeps grinning at her. When she accidentally rests her knee against his, he does not pull away. She looks at the spots on his temples and remembers the questing way that his lips met hers in the ticket queue, as a guinea pig’s might. Simon Flowers, she thinks, despite having decided to forsake all thoughts of him this weekend, Simon, I will ever be thine. She tries to remember how much money she has in her purse, in case she needs to flee.
‘You won’t mind if my father’s not there, will you? My sisters might be, but—’
‘Don’t you know?’
‘Why would I? One of them’s married, children, everything. Only Lucy lives with us. I just meant that maybe you were expecting my dad to be there. Because you, people, seem . . .’
‘I don’t mind.’
‘Good girl,’ he says and, with a soulful expression, tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. They have stopped at a tiny station. She keeps her eyes on two big black birds, crows or ravens or rooks, near the train track, which are fighting over a stone. One wins the battle; it flies towards them with the stone in its beak, over ridges of what Dr Tree calls ‘good Dorset clay’ and is almost above the train when a sound outside startles it. The stone falls to the ground, so close to her window that she can see it if she cranes her neck, which she does because one day she might regret not having looked. It is not in fact a pebble but something small, furry, bloody: a baby rabbit or mouse, or something worse. She looks away quickly, appalled to find she wants to cry.
Guy is telling a story about some boys pushing a master’s Vauxhall Astra into Divinity Hall. She is horribly nervous. As the rackety little train passes through Blandford Forum towards Shaftesbury, she witnesses one of those special effects for which the English countryside is famed. The raindrops racing down the glass suddenly slow. Sheets of gold pour on a distant field; the clouds tear open and the entire carriage is bright with winter sunlight. It must be significant. The train whispers ‘Alexander Viney’ with every rattle of the wheels. Are they wheels? She thinks of all the things she has forgotten to bring: perfume; sanitary
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