doing my postgraduate degree. Not even my mother would cal me handsome. I had curly brown hair, a pear-shaped nose and skin that freckled at the first hint of sunlight.
I had stayed on at university determined to sleep with every promiscuous, terminal y uncommitted first-year on campus, but unlike other would-be lotharios I tried too hard. I even failed miserably at being fashionably unkempt and seditious. No matter how many times I slept on someone’s floor, using my jacket as a pil ow, it refused to crumple or stain. And instead of appearing grungy and intel ectual y blasé, I looked like someone on his way to his first job interview.
“You had passion,” she told me later, after listening to me rail against the evils of apartheid at a ral y in Trafalgar Square, outside the South African embassy. She introduced herself in the pub and let me pour her a double from the bottle of whiskey we were drinking.
Jock was there— getting al the girls to sign his T-shirt. I knew that he would find Julianne. She was a fresh face— a pretty one. He put his arm around her waist and said, “I could grow to be a better person just being near you.”
Without a flicker of a smile, she took his hand away and said, “Sadly, a hard-on doesn’t count as personal growth.” Everybody laughed except Jock. Then Julianne sat down at my table and I gazed at her in wonderment. I had never seen anyone put my best friend in his place so skil ful y.
I tried not to blush when she said I had passion. She laughed. She had a dark freckle on her bottom lip. I wanted to kiss it.
Five doubles later she was asleep at the bar. I carried her to a cab and took her home to my bedsit in Islington. She slept on the futon and I took the sofa. In the morning she kissed me and thanked me for being such a gentleman. Then she kissed me again. I remember the look in her eyes. It wasn’t lust. It didn’t say, “Let’s have some fun and see what happens.” Her eyes were tel ing me, “I’m going to be your wife and have your babies.”
We were always an odd couple. I was the quiet, practical one, who hated noisy parties, pub crawls and going home for weekends. While she was the only child of a painter father and interior designer mother, who dressed like sixties flower children and only saw the best in people, Julianne didn’t go to parties— they came to her.
We married three years later. By then I was house-trained— having learned to put my dirty washing in the basket, to leave the toilet seat down and not to drink too much at dinner parties.
Julianne didn’t so much knock off my rough edges as fashion me out of clay.
That was sixteen years ago. Seems like yesterday.
Julianne pushes a newspaper toward me. There’s a photograph of Catherine and the headline reads: TORTURED GIRL IS MP’S NIECE.
Junior Home Office minister Samuel McBride has been devastated by the brutal murder of his 27-year-old niece.
The Labour MP for Brighton-le-Sands was clearly upset yesterday when the Speaker of the House expressed the chamber’s sincerest condolences at his loss.
Catherine McBride’s naked body was found six days ago beside the Grand Union Canal in Kensal Green, West London. She had been stabbed repeatedly.
“At this moment we are concentrating on retracing Catherine’s final movements and finding anyone who may have seen her in the days prior to her death,” said Detective Inspector Vincent Ruiz, who is leading the investigation.
“We know she took a train from Liverpool to London on Wednesday, 13 November. We believe she was coming to London for a job interview.” Catherine, whose parents are divorced, worked as a community nurse in Liverpool and had been estranged from her family for a number of years.
“She had a difficult childhood and seemed to lose her way,” explained a family friend. “Recently attempts had been made for a family reconciliation.” Julianne pours half a cup of coffee.
“It’s quite strange, don’t you think,
I had stayed on at university determined to sleep with every promiscuous, terminal y uncommitted first-year on campus, but unlike other would-be lotharios I tried too hard. I even failed miserably at being fashionably unkempt and seditious. No matter how many times I slept on someone’s floor, using my jacket as a pil ow, it refused to crumple or stain. And instead of appearing grungy and intel ectual y blasé, I looked like someone on his way to his first job interview.
“You had passion,” she told me later, after listening to me rail against the evils of apartheid at a ral y in Trafalgar Square, outside the South African embassy. She introduced herself in the pub and let me pour her a double from the bottle of whiskey we were drinking.
Jock was there— getting al the girls to sign his T-shirt. I knew that he would find Julianne. She was a fresh face— a pretty one. He put his arm around her waist and said, “I could grow to be a better person just being near you.”
Without a flicker of a smile, she took his hand away and said, “Sadly, a hard-on doesn’t count as personal growth.” Everybody laughed except Jock. Then Julianne sat down at my table and I gazed at her in wonderment. I had never seen anyone put my best friend in his place so skil ful y.
I tried not to blush when she said I had passion. She laughed. She had a dark freckle on her bottom lip. I wanted to kiss it.
Five doubles later she was asleep at the bar. I carried her to a cab and took her home to my bedsit in Islington. She slept on the futon and I took the sofa. In the morning she kissed me and thanked me for being such a gentleman. Then she kissed me again. I remember the look in her eyes. It wasn’t lust. It didn’t say, “Let’s have some fun and see what happens.” Her eyes were tel ing me, “I’m going to be your wife and have your babies.”
We were always an odd couple. I was the quiet, practical one, who hated noisy parties, pub crawls and going home for weekends. While she was the only child of a painter father and interior designer mother, who dressed like sixties flower children and only saw the best in people, Julianne didn’t go to parties— they came to her.
We married three years later. By then I was house-trained— having learned to put my dirty washing in the basket, to leave the toilet seat down and not to drink too much at dinner parties.
Julianne didn’t so much knock off my rough edges as fashion me out of clay.
That was sixteen years ago. Seems like yesterday.
Julianne pushes a newspaper toward me. There’s a photograph of Catherine and the headline reads: TORTURED GIRL IS MP’S NIECE.
Junior Home Office minister Samuel McBride has been devastated by the brutal murder of his 27-year-old niece.
The Labour MP for Brighton-le-Sands was clearly upset yesterday when the Speaker of the House expressed the chamber’s sincerest condolences at his loss.
Catherine McBride’s naked body was found six days ago beside the Grand Union Canal in Kensal Green, West London. She had been stabbed repeatedly.
“At this moment we are concentrating on retracing Catherine’s final movements and finding anyone who may have seen her in the days prior to her death,” said Detective Inspector Vincent Ruiz, who is leading the investigation.
“We know she took a train from Liverpool to London on Wednesday, 13 November. We believe she was coming to London for a job interview.” Catherine, whose parents are divorced, worked as a community nurse in Liverpool and had been estranged from her family for a number of years.
“She had a difficult childhood and seemed to lose her way,” explained a family friend. “Recently attempts had been made for a family reconciliation.” Julianne pours half a cup of coffee.
“It’s quite strange, don’t you think,
Similar Books
