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‘OK, OK!’ Tess said. ‘Where are we going later?’
‘I’ll explain in a bit,’ Adam said. ‘I hope you’re pleased.’
Tess pulled her ponytail out and rubbed her scalp, letting her hair fall about her shoulders. She looked around her again, frowning. ‘Well, I’m back.’
She had to remind herself how, back in Balham before Christmas, dumped, unemployed and miserable, the job at Langford College had seemed, quite literally, like a miracle. Not only was it a job, which in these times was a rarity itself, especially since she was a Classics teacher and not someone providing a necessarily indispensable teaching service, but it was also a way out, a new start, a way to leave behind the misery she’d felt and start over again. But now she was here…It was eighteen months since she’d been back; even longer, she realized now, since she’d really taken stock of Langford, of what were to be her new surroundings. Like someone walking through their new house and wondering if they’ve made a terrible mistake, she now saw the town again, as if through fresh—and rather dismayed—eyes.
Take, for example, the high street. It was like walking through Toy Town. The shops looked smaller; the church of St Mary’s at the end was tiny. Even the side gate, the entrance to one of the medieval lanes that skirted around the edge of town, seemed minute to her, as if a child could climb over it. Compared to London, to her old street in Balham, which was three times as long as the high street, it was hilarious. She’d forgotten, when she first went to London, how huge everything seemed, even though she knew it already. How it took her a term of wandering around Bloomsbury to get used to it, the size of the squares, the vast classical columns of the university buildings, the height of the houses, even the size of the theatres. She was taken to the ballet by a boyfriend from university, and Covent Garden seemed as huge a football pitch.
And the shops! Everything here was either an antique shop or a gift shop or a tea shop, or else a crappy homestores place that only seemed to sell frozen Findus pancakes and ready-made Yorkshire puddings. She peered into the window of a shop called Jen’s Deli, noting with some relief that there was at least one shop that sold parmesan and prosciutto. She may have lived in Balham, but even Balham had a shop that sold Poilane bread.
‘Penny for them,’ said Adam’s voice, behind her.
‘What?’ said Tess, momentarily disconcerted. She glanced up, and saw his reflection in the window, watching her. She brushed her hair out of her face. I was just thinking how glad I am that at least there’s a half-decent shop here that sells fresh parmesan. She was ghastly. ‘Oh, well. Nothing!’ she said brightly. ‘So—tell me. How’s it going? How is—everything?’
For a while now, Tess hadn’t known the best way to ask what Adam was up to, but she knew it drove him mad, the pussyfooting. After Philippa died, people pussyfooted all the time, half-asking him what he’d do. ‘You’re—not going to Cambridge? Ah! What will you do here instead? A job at the pub? Sounds like a good one, Adam, keep you behind the bar instead of in front of it, eh! Ha! Ha!’
‘Ah, so you’re working in the museum now too? Well, no one better than Jane Austen! If that’s what you’re going to…So, how long do you think you’ll be—oh, you don’t know, well, of course, that’s absolutely right, isn’t it! Quite right.’
To Tess’s father Frank, who had asked Adam straight out a couple of months after his mother died, why he wasn’t going to Cambridge, why he wasn’t even going to defer for a year and then go, Adam simply replied, ‘Things have changed, I’m afraid. I’m not going.’
‘I think Philippa would have wanted you to go,’ Tess’s father had said. Tess had watched, terrified, her fingers in her mouth.
Adam had said, evenly, ‘I know she’d have understood why I’m not going. There are reasons why. She would understand, trust me. Thanks, though.’
‘What for?’ Dr Tennant had said, bewildered.
‘For asking directly in the first place,’ and Adam had said it so politely that Tess had looked at him, almost in despair, and then at her mother whose hand flew to her chest, as if clutching her heart in some sort of pain. He was heart-breaking, this young man, completely alone in the world, prepared to throw away his best chance at life. But what could they do? They couldn’t bind him and bundle him in the back of a van, then drive east and dump him outside the gates of his college. And there was no one else they could talk to, either. All Adam—or Frank or Emily—knew about Adam’s father, the Irish professor, was that he’d moved to America many years ago, and there were no details for him; Adam wasn’t even sure of his surname.
He was only just eighteen, and he was alone in the world. There wasn’t really anything the Tennants could do now, except watch out for him, help him as much as they could. Watch, as everyone’s favourite boy passed his twenties living in the small cottage where he had grown up with Philippa, never clearing out her possessions, and alternating jobs between the bar of the Feathers and the Jane Austen Centre, where he worked behind the front desk two and a half days a week. He never talked about his mother, or what might have been. Never.
Looking at Adam now, Tess knew she wasn’t going to get an answer out of him.
He said, ‘Things are the same as they’ve always been.’
‘Still working at the Feathers? I didn’t know the barman when I went in to drop my stuff.’
‘Yep,’ said Adam. ‘Suggs is doing a couple of nights a week there, actually.’
Suggs was Adam’s best friend and his housemate in the cottage.
‘How’s the Jane Austen Centre?’
‘Oh, you know,’ Adam said. ‘Pretty full-on. Tiring.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, you know. We’ll have to rearrange Her Glove soon, and some people are talking about moving the furniture in the Writing Room. Phew.’ He saw her expression. ‘I’m joking, you idiot.’ He pushed her gently. ‘It’s dead, deader than a dodo. Especially this time of year. We get tourists, but it’s ten a day at best. Even I can cope with tearing off ten ticket stubs.’
Tess was embarrassed, and tried to cover her embarrassment. ‘Right. I see. Well, it sounds like you’re keeping yourself busy!’ He gave her a strange look. ‘Er, let’s take a look in here, shall we?’ she said, almost wildly, and pushed the door of the deli open before Adam could stop her.
‘No—er—Tess—’ he called after her as she went inside, but she ignored him.
‘Hi,’ said a friendly-looking person behind the counter, wiping her hands on a tea towel. ‘Can I get you anything?’
She was beaming in a welcoming way which made Tess, less than two hours off the train from London, instantly suspicious of her. ‘Just looking, thanks,’ Tess replied repressively and turned to the shelves.
‘They’ve got some good stuff in here,’ Adam said, in a low voice. He swivelled round, so they were both facing the shelves. ‘Nice pasta, and the vegetables are fresh. They get them from George Farm, it’s a good arrangement.’
‘I love cooking,’ Tess said. She sighed with pleasure.
‘How long are you staying at the pub for?’ Adam asked her.
‘Till I find somewhere,’ Tess said.
‘You should have stayed with me,’ Adam said. ‘It’s ridiculous, you paying to stay there.’
‘I didn’t—’ Tess began, then she stopped. ‘That’s so sweet of you.’ She patted his arm, touched and grateful for the presence of him, and shook her head.
‘That’s OK,’ Adam said, still in a low voice.
‘Why are you speaking so softly?’ Tess said. She turned back to the counter. ‘Perhaps I should get some—’
‘Adam?’ said the friendly girl eagerly, her pale face lighting up. ‘I thought it was you. Hi—hi there!’
‘Hi, Liz,’ said Adam neutrally. ‘How’ve you been.’
He said this not as a question, more from a need to say something. Tess watched this exchange with dawning understanding.
Liz wiped her hands on her tea towel again, beaming with pleasure. ‘It’s good to see you! I wondered where you’d been.’
‘Ah—ah.’ Adam took a step back, and Tess smiled wryly, looking at her feet. Just like the old days; nothing had changed. She knew what was going to happen next.
And it did. ‘This is Tess,’ Adam said, putting his arm around Tess and squeezing her shoulders. He kissed the top of her head. ‘Tess, this is Liz. She’s from London too.’
‘Actually, I’m from Nantwich,’ Liz said. ‘But I live here now. Moved down here last year.’ She held out her hand bravely, smiling a little too enthusiastically. ‘It’s great to meet you, Tess!’
‘Yes,’ said Tess, shaking her hand. ‘You too.’ She cleared her throat. ‘I’ve just moved back and it is great to catch up with people like Adam,’ she said woodenly. ‘Because he is my oldest friend. And is like a brother to me.’
‘Right! Right!’ Liz tried and failed to hide her pleasure at this news, and stared at Tess with something like adoration. Adam, meanwhile, glared at his oldest friend with something like loathing.
‘So—’ Tess went on, evilly, getting into her stride. ‘It’s great to meet you. Are you two—’
‘That wasn’t fair,’ Adam said a couple of minutes later, as he bundled Tess out of the shop, having guilt-bought far too many overpriced deli items and leaving Liz smiling pleasantly behind them.
‘It wasn’t fair of you to do that to me, the old routine again,’ Tess said firmly. ‘Or to that nice girl. I remember you and your ways, Adam. But poor Liz doesn’t know about you.’
‘What about me?’ Adam said tetchily.
‘That the main reason you work at the Feathers is to pick up women,’ Tess told him. ‘And that you should be in the tourist guide as a well-known landmark.’
‘I only slept with her a couple of times,’ Adam said, ignoring this.
Tess hit him on the arm. ‘“I only slept with her a couple of times,”’ she mimicked, crossly. ‘God, men. You think that means it doesn’t mean anything! Oh, you are so useless. She’s mad about you! She’s been waiting for you to call her!’
‘Well…’ Adam said. ‘I bet that’s not true. I mean, I like her, but—’
‘Oh, I know, you can’t be bothered to actually talk to her, after you’ve shagged her,’ said Tess, and it came out sounding angrier than she meant.
‘Don’t split your infinitives,’ Adam said, brightly. ‘Call yourself a Classicist?’
‘It’s not funny,’ Tess said. They walked down the road towards the pub and after a pause she burst out, ‘God, sometimes I really hate men.’
Adam glanced at her swiftly, and was silent for a moment, then said, ‘So, er—have you heard from Will?’ He patted her arm. ‘Don’t hit me again. I’m serious. I’m sorry about you two, I thought it was all going well.’
‘I thought so too,’ said Tess. ‘I was wrong, obviously.’
‘Do you know why…’ Adam began, and trailed off.
‘Yeah. He’s seeing someone else.’ Tess said. Adam nodded. ‘Someone called Ticky.’
‘I don’t know what that means.’
Tess gazed up at the thick white January sky. ‘No, I don’t either. Except I hate her.’
‘You see, just like a girl,’ Adam said. ‘You should hate him, he’s the one who did you wrong.’
‘You sound like Mae West,’ Tess said, trying not to sound miserable.
‘I mean it. I never thought he was…’ he trailed off again. Tess nodded, and shoved her hand through the air in a ‘I know, I know’ gesture. Adam had met Will a couple of times and she had come to accept—so she told herself—that there were some people with whom Will was not destined to get on. Adam was one of them. He was too ready to laugh, too ready to take the piss out of Tess; they knew each other too well, perhaps, for Will ever to be the third side of the triangle.
Will had not been a laugh-a-minute. Indeed, that was one of the things that Tess had originally liked about him. Here she was, this poverty-stricken teacher, frittering her twenties away in South London pubs, wearing too-short skirts and drinking Pernod and Black, her only claim to cultural superiority being that she taught Classics (though bribing bored fourteen-year-olds with a bloodthirsty description of the Emperor Nero’s brutal murder of his mother Agrippina as a back route to telling them about the fall of the Roman Empire did not necessarily indicate the highest levels of academic achievement, she knew). Their friend Henry, whom Tess knew from university and Will from school, had introduced them at a birthday party. It was a hot summer’s day and Tess was wearing a shirt dress which emphasized her curvy form; her eyes were sparkling, her thick dark hair shining, and she had a tan, having just returned from two weeks in Greece with Fiona, another friend from university.
Will had been impressed with this clever, pretty girl and—height being a sensitive issue with him, since he stood less than five foot six inches high in his shoes—what he particularly loved was the way her tanned face looked up to his, her blue-grey eyes smiling at him, as she described her holiday. He had barely listened as she talked, and so he never heard that they were staying in an all-inclusive resort, and to his question, ‘Did you go to Mycenae?’ never heard the answer, ‘Well, we went to a karaoke bar called Mycenae Mike.’ He merely smiled as she chattered, wondering how easy the promising shirt dress which revealed just enough of her breasts would be to remove.
Three dates did it; by then Tess, who had been rather unsure about him at the beginning, since he was so unlike her in so many ways, had fallen for his adept flattery, and by Christmas she was head over heels in love with him. For the first year all was wonderful; Will liked the fact that she was a little different from his usual (tall, thin, blonde, posh) girlfriends, and Tess for her part liked the fact that he was a little different from her usual (young, puppy-dog-eager) boyfriends. Their differences were a badge of honour in her eyes: they weren’t each other’s usual type, she told herself, and anyone who’d care to listen, including Adam. That’s what made it work so well—to start with.
‘I’ve asked myself if I knew when it went wrong,’ Tess said. They were walking towards the edge of town, down to the ancient walls. It was mid-afternoon but the sky was getting darker, almost as if night-time was approaching.
‘And what conclusions have you reached?’ said Adam.
She looked sideways up at him, pushing her hair out of her face, as they walked along the windy street. Here, at the edge of town, the breeze was often strongest, whistling through the lanes like a dervish. Tess wished she could tell him the truth. But he, of all people, was not someone she wanted to talk to about it. She gave a little wince, as if she were speaking an unfamiliar language, trying to frame the words correctly.
‘He—’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘He just went off me, I think. I wasn’t right for him.’
‘Well, it’s also that he wasn’t right for you,’ said Adam, but Tess wasn’t really ready to hear that, she still remembered the Will who stood up when she came back into the room, who was always on time, who sent her flowers to work on a regular basis, who bossed her around, in an amused, rather despairing way, which made her feel like a naughty schoolgirl, instead of the matronly teacher she feared becoming.
‘He wasn’t,’ she said, slowly. ‘But…I thought he was.’
‘Did you have the Dealbreaker, though?’ Adam said.
‘The what?’
‘Come on!’ Adam smiled at her. ‘You remember the Deal-breaker.’
‘My God, do you still use that?’
The Dealbreaker was Adam’s cut-off point, the moment when you knew, he said, by some tiny action, that this woman was never going to be for you—though he insisted Tess apply it to men, too. It was his excuse to be picky, she always thought. It had seen off Cathy (gobbled her food), Laura (pigeon-toed), Alison (never heard of Pol Pot) and Belinda (allegedly, hairy chest). Tess shook her head, wondering at him. Twelve years since she left for university, nine years since she moved permanently to London, and Adam was still working in the same place using the same terminology, pulling with the same frequency. But who was she to judge any more? She’d moved back here, after all, and she no longer had any idea who she was. He at least seemed to know.
‘Sure I do,’ he said. ‘It’s good, I’m telling you. There’s always a Dealbreaker. The fatal flaw. In any relationship, until they’re the One.’
‘There’s always a fatal flaw if you always look for one, Ad,’ Tess said pointedly. ‘So, what was the dealbreaker with Liz?’
‘I’m not telling you,’ said Adam. ‘Though it’s pretty bad.’
She stared at him, curiously. ‘Oh, go on.’
‘No,’ said Adam, and she knew he meant it. ‘What was the Dealbreaker with Will? Come on, there must have been one.’
‘There wasn’t…’ She shook her head.
‘Bollocks, Tess,’ Adam said. ‘Are you seriously telling me there wasn’t? I know there was.’
She said, slowly, ‘God, there really was.’
‘So?’
Tess laughed up at him, her eyes sparkling. ‘Not telling you either.’ He smiled. ‘Not because you won’t, honest. Just ‘cause—it’s—’ She shook her head again. ‘Too embarrassing. Get me drunk and I’ll tell you.’
‘That’s a promise,’ Adam said. ‘So,’ he said, changing the subject. ‘What do you need to do first?’
‘Find a place to live,’ Tess said. ‘No idea where to begin. I’ll probably have to get a flatmate, too.’
‘When do you start?’
‘Four weeks’ time. But my lease came to an end, and I just wanted to leave London,’ Tess said, walking fast to keep up with him. ‘Beside, they wanted me here early to prepare for the summer term.’
‘When did the job end?’
‘Last week,’ said Tess. ‘They’re folding my classes into Mr Collins’s—he’s the head of Classics.’
‘Two people teaching Latin and Ancient Greek at a secondary school in South London, eh,’ said Adam. ‘Wow.’
‘Wow exactly, and that’s why I’m the one who got made redundant,’ Tess said, in a small voice.
‘Sorry,’ Adam said, putting his arm round her again. ‘You’re back now. You’ve got loads of time to settle in, too.’
‘Exactly. I thought I’d use my redundancy to come down early and scout the place out for a bit, before I start at the college.’ She shook her head. ‘Funny, isn’t it. So posh. Going from Fair View comp to this.’
