The Sense of an Ending

Towards the end of the afternoon we took photos; she asked for ‘one with your friends’. The three of them shuffled politely into line, whereupon she rearranged them: Adrian and Colin, the two tallest, on either side of her, with Alex beyond Colin. The resulting print made her look even slighter than she did in the flesh. Many years later, when I came to examine this photo again, looking for answers, I wondered about the fact that she never wore heels of any height. I’d read somewhere that if you want to make people pay attention to what you’re saying, you don’t raise your voice but lower it: this is what really commands attention. Perhaps hers was a similar kind of trick with height. Though whether she went in for tricks is a question I still haven’t resolved. When I was going out with her, it always seemed that her actions were instinctive. But then I was resistant to the whole idea that women were or could be manipulative. This may tell you more about me than it does about her. And even if I were to decide, at this late stage, that she was and always had been calculating, I’m not sure it would help matters. By which I mean: help me.

We walked her to Charing Cross and waved her off to Chislehurst in a mock-heroic way, as if she were travelling to Samarkand. Then we sat in the bar of the station hotel, drinking beer and feeling very grown up.

‘Nice girl,’ said Colin.

‘Very nice,’ added Alex.

‘That’s philosophically self-evident!’ I almost shouted. Well, I was a little overexcited. I turned to Adrian. ‘Any advance on “very nice”?’

‘You don’t actually need me to congratulate you, do you, Anthony?’

‘Yes, why the fuck shouldn’t I?’

‘Then of course I do.’

But his attitude seemed to criticise my neediness and the other two for pandering to it. I felt slightly panicked; I didn’t want the day to unravel. Though looking back, it was not the day, but the four of us, that were beginning to unravel.

‘So, have you come across Brother Jack at Cambridge?’

‘I haven’t met him, no, and don’t expect to. He’s in his final year. But I’ve heard of him, read about him in a magazine article. And about the people he goes around with, yes.’

He clearly wanted to leave it at that, but I wouldn’t let him.

‘And so what do you think of him?’

Adrian paused. He took a sip of beer, and then said with sudden vehemence, ‘I hate the way the English have of not being serious about being serious. I really hate it.’

In another mood, I might have taken this as a strike against the three of us. Instead, I felt a throb of vindication.

Veronica and I continued going out together, all through our second year. One evening, perhaps a little drunk, she let me put my hand down her knickers. I felt extravagant pride as I scuffled around. She wouldn’t let me put my finger inside her, but wordlessly, over the next days, we developed a way to pleasure. We would be on the floor, kissing. I would take off my watch, roll up my left sleeve, put my hand into her knickers and gradually shuffle them down her thighs a little; then I would place my hand flat on the floor, and she would rub herself against my trapped wrist until she came. For a few weeks this made me feel masterful, but back in my room my wanking was sometimes edged with resentment. And what kind of a trade-off had I got myself into now? A better, or a worse one? I discovered something else I couldn’t understand: I was, presumably, meant to feel closer to her, but didn’t.

‘So, do you ever think about where our relationship is heading?’

She said it just like that, out of the blue. She had come round for tea, bringing slices of fruitcake.

‘Do you?’

‘I asked first.’

I thought — and it may not have been a gallant reaction — is this why you started letting me put my hand down your pants?

‘Does it have to head somewhere?’

‘Isn’t that what relationships do?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t been in enough of them.’

‘Look, Tony,’ she said. ‘I don’t stagnate.’

I thought about this for a while, or tried to. But instead kept seeing an image of stagnant water, with thick scum and hovering mosquitoes. I realised I wasn’t much good at discussing this sort of stuff.

‘So you think we’re stagnating?’

She did that eyebrow-above-the-spectacle-frame tic that I no longer found quite so cute. I went on,

‘Isn’t there something between stagnation and heading somewhere?’

‘Like?’

‘Like having a nice time. Enjoy the day and all that?’ But just saying this made me wonder if I was enjoying the day any longer. I also thought: What does she want me to say?

‘And do you think we’re suited?’

‘You keep asking me questions as if you know the answer to them. Or as if you know the answer you want. So why don’t you tell me what it is and I’ll tell you whether it’s mine as well?’

‘You’re quite cowardly, aren’t you, Tony?’

‘I think it’s more that I’m… peaceable.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t want to disturb your self-image.’