HOLLY
Autumn 1992
Ten
Holly’s heart hammered thick and fast as she leaned against the tree trunk. Seven a.m. and her breath rose through the early morning mist and beaded into moisture that clung to each stark branch.
Her chest hurt. She had managed this run four times this week and it wasn’t getting any easier. Her body wasn’t used to pushing itself: games being something she’d shirked as much as possible, her scholarliness a creditable excuse. ‘Well, I suppose you could miss it to prepare for your Oxford exam,’ Mrs Thoroughgood had said – and her exclusion had become permanent for her presence on the netball pitch contributed little and was never sought by the team that was burdened with her.
Now, though, she was paying for that slothfulness. Her face, she knew, was a shiny red, and there was sweat clagging beneath her bra straps and dampening her armpits: even more of a reason to hide away. They hadn’t come past yet. The men’s first eight. And she’d make sure she was well on her way, or hidden back from the path, when they did. The fear of being seen was the only thing that drove her on, that prevented her from collapsing in a pile on the grass where her body so clearly wanted to give up. Of course, to prevent detection, she could just run slowly back to college, face turned downward, weaving through the smallest passages in the hope of seeing no one. But then she wouldn’t see them. She wouldn’t see him.
A voice in a megaphone; the rhythmic slick of oars on water; the hum of a bicycle strumming the towpath. She sprang back: like one of the does in Walsingham College deer park, though in damp black leggings and cheap trainers, as ungainly as an overweight eighteen-year-old could possibly be. She flattened herself against the trunk, watching as the first boat seared past: the epitome of synchronicity and power. Eight young men at the pinnacle of their fitness working in unison, urged on by their cox and the coach, whose bike sped alongside them. There was a rhythm and a beauty to what they were doing: their oars sculling the water without a splash; their bodies bending forwards and leaning back in a seamless, continual motion. Even if she wasn’t interested in one crew member – the stroke; the leader; the most skilled and competitive – they were a joy to see.
She ran on, keeping her distance, though she knew they were too preoccupied to see her; would pay less attention to the floundering fresher who possessed not one item of college sports kit than to the swans who hissed, imperious, from the banks of the Isis, and rose from the water in a flurry of hard-beating wings. At some point, the boat would turn and come back: would streak back up towards the boat club and she would have the chance of watching his face, tense with effort and concentration, as he shifted forwards and leaned back, driving his team-mates onwards, setting the pace. She would try to time her running so that she managed to see him before she lumbered back towards where she’d left her bike. Her breath became more ragged, her chest aching, as she pushed herself onwards. How to time it so that she would just glimpse him?
And then they had sped past, and she was pounding along the sandy path, back towards the colleges; a shot of adrenalin searing through her as she reeled from her hit for the day. They would train again tomorrow and she would be here, though there was a tutorial at nine and she could feel an essay crisis looming. Still this – seeing him – would power her through; would make her write her essay on sensuality in Middlemarch more sensitively and with more authority. University was about education – but an education gained in so many ways.
Sometimes, she wondered if she was becoming obsessed. But her behaviour seemed quite in keeping with the feelings of these literary heroines. The physical excitement she felt when she saw him; the way in which her breath grew lighter or her stomach tipped over, was what infatuation was about. Even hearing his name was enough to make her feel lightheaded. ‘Oh, really,’ she’d say if Sophie mentioned him, and would adopt the casual nonchalance her friend had once shown. She made sure she was never around the two of them, would duck her head on the rare occasions they were together and he entered college. And he was, she was sure, completely oblivious of her.
Just the once, he caught her eye. She was racing to her room and heard footsteps thundering down the stairs from Ned Iddesleigh-Flyte’s, above her. Two pairs: Ned’s, from the sound of it, and someone unknown’s. They sped past as she reached her door and stood back to let them bound past.
‘Cheers,’ Ned called in passing. Chairs, she mouthed, as the second figure barged past. ‘Sorry – sorry!’ He held both palms up and flashed her a smile, his green eyes emitting warmth and the confidence that he would be forgiven – of course he would be forgiven – then bounded ahead without waiting for an answer.
‘That’s all right,’ she called down the stairs. Her voice sounded high-pitched, weak and ineffectual, as it petered down the staircase. She waited – but there was no reply.
Things could have become trickier when Sophie became involved with him. ‘Seeing him’ was how she rather coyly put it, for no one would ever claim to be going out with James Whitehouse. It wasn’t just that he wasn’t the kind of young man who could ever be possessed by anyone, it was also that no one wanted to appear less than cool.
In fact their relationship made things easier. He rarely came to college, except late at night, and so there was no risk of being seen, of her infatuation being guessed at. And yet Sophie couldn’t resist confiding in her: hinting at her insecurities, seeking reassurance about whether this meant he really liked her. And, of course, regaling her with the latest exploits of the Libertines, of which James was a member, all whispered in the breathy knowledge that she shouldn’t really be sharing this but she was going to do so anyway; all divulged, in part, out of a desire to shock.
Sophie chatted too about the New Year’s Eve party she would be throwing at her parents’ home in Wiltshire, while they were in London. James, she very much hoped, would be going and the set she hung out with in college: girls studying classics and history of art who came from the same sort of background: fathers in banking; houses in the country; ponies and tennis lessons; skiing holidays; a private education culminating in boarding for the sixth form at a good public school. Holly had nothing against Alex, Jules or Cat; was sure they were perfectly nice, though they had made little effort to be friendly to her. She didn’t expect to be invited, and yet it smarted as the term progressed and it became increasingly clear she wouldn’t be. She waited, half-hoping that the issue might be raised; but as the details changed from a party to a dinner party, she realised she had never even been considered.
Should she raise it as a joke? And then she imagined Sophie’s pity. ‘Oh sorry. It didn’t occur to me you’d want to come.’ Or, even more bluntly: ‘Oh Holly, it’s not your sort of thing at all.’
As the term raced to its end, she realised that she had entered into an unspoken contract with this girl who both entranced and appalled her. She would increasingly shoulder the workload – do the weekly translation and make notes for the essay that she would photocopy at the newsagents in Holywell Street – and in return Sophie would allow her to vicariously experience her life.
And that was fine. The casual kindness was enough: the requests for reassurance, the snippets of gossip, the acknowledgement of her across a packed dining hall with the kind of radiant smile that stopped her in her tracks and that warmed her. That said that, even if she wasn’t the right type, she was a friend of sorts.
And then, one evening, she came across them both in the gateway to the college and managed a hello, the syllables thick in her throat so that she almost had to cough them up. She barely looked at him: was just aware of his presence, his broad shoulders in a charcoal wool jacket, not his rowing kit, for they were going to dinner, collar turned up, framing the hint of a smile. She smiled at her friend, her face flushing as she mumbled some nonsense about needing to find a book in a pigeonhole, and quickly ducked out of sight.
‘Who was that?’ she heard him ask Sophie, as she busied herself in the porters’ lodge, searching for the nonexistent hardback.
She waited, her ears straining to hear her answer, avoiding the porter’s eye.
‘Oh that?’ said Sophie. ‘Just my tutorial partner. No one important.’
And she took James’s arm, clinging to it as if she was a delicate specimen who needed protecting, and swept off into the night.