The weather continued to be cool and muggy.  Only on Christmas cards does it snow at Christmas.  Prime Minister, Mr Heath, brought in the New Year with the Three Day Week, and Caroline spent the time (when her family truly believed she was writing an essay) reading “The Daily Telegraph”.  Hilary had the sense now that her holiday in Water Langley was an hour-glass running out, and now regarded the pre-Christmas period, which she had used up worrying about the Pearces, as a waste.  The Pearces were gone and their nasty and ridiculous words with them.  Now, ahead of her, were the bare wooden floors of Crofton Hall, a gas-fire hissing from a garish, tiled grate, the persistent smell of cabbage – and Christine.  She had hardly thought about Christine all holiday.  Now, she would have to think about Christine during almost every living moment.

Margaret and Hilary set off for Rushloe on a gloomy, January afternoon, a persistent fine drizzle clinging to the windscreen, and, with little traffic on the road, they reached Crofton Hall early.  She unloaded her cases from the car and trundled inside.  She didn’t want to be there, but it had never occurred to her not to return to university.  As she walked past the students’ letter rack, she wondered if Andy’s post card from Marbella might have arrived but it hadn't.  Her room was empty and bare, as Christine hadn’t arrived yet – a small blessing.  Hilary unpacked her kettle, mugs and teabags, and was making tea for herself and her mother when Miss Thomas, the assistant warden, knocked on her door.

“Good evening, Hilary,” she said.  “Hope you had a good Christmas.  I’m afraid Christine Burton has been taken into hospital with appendicitis.  She won't be returning for several weeks.”

“How many weeks?” Hilary asked, trying not to sound too eager.  She supposed she ought to try to feel sorry for Christine.

This, of course, put a different complexion on things!  After Margaret had gone, Hilary spread her own things all over the room and was so engrossed that she didn’t go down for dinner until five to six.  The long, refectory tables in the dining room were by then almost full, as keen types would bag their places anything up to thirty minutes beforehand, but, there was one empty chair, opposite Amy and Bryony, who shared a room along the corridor. 

“Where’s Christine?” asked Bryony abruptly, as Hilary sat down.

“In hospital.  Not back for several weeks.”

Amy and Bryony significant exchanged glances and, after Grace at the end of the meal, Amy said, “Want a coffee?”

Hilary drank coffee with in their room, even though she detested Nescafe.  Bryony (from Surrey) was, like Christine, reading maths and Amy (from Birmingham) was reading English.  At the beginning of last term, Hilary had supposed that they would all four become friends, and they might have done, but for Christine wanting to convert Amy and Bryony also.  Amy wore her hair in the “page boy” style (which Edna had never heard of) and her hair, blonde and fine (like Hilary's) curled under beautifully.

“I just blow dry it,” she explained. 

“You wrap it round your brush,” Bryony added.

“Yes,” said Amy, picking up her brush and demonstrating.  “You need a round one, though.”

Hilary watched carefully.  “I haven't got a hair-dryer.  Mum’s got one, which she doesn’t use, but it’s at home.”

“Borrow mine,” said Amy.

Next day, Hilary bought a round brush, then washed her hair and experimented, using Amy’s hair-dryer.  She couldn't manage making her hair curl under but, after a while, Amy took over.  “It won't look fantastic the first time.  Your hair, sort of, has to get used to it.”  It didn’t look bad, though, better than Edna’s efforts!

Andy’s post card from Marbella and a letter, addressed in his handwriting, arrived together, several days later.  Hilary read the post card as she opened the letter.  It was raining in Marbella, he said, most of the shops and cafes closed and, all in all, rather boring, he wrote, to Hilary who had never been abroad.  His letter consisted of one piece of lined paper, written in a linear scrawl - “prescription pad writing”, as Margaret would say.

“Dear Hil,” he wrote. “Have passed exams!  Am so happy!  Was almost dying in car on way to London.  Really thought I'd failed, what with being in hospital at end of last term and everything.  Had to go and look at notice board as soon as got here.  (Caretaker opened up medical school for me specially.)  Bet Mum’s now in mood because didn’t say goodbye properly.  Oh, bloody Hell!

“But, Hil, I'm just so happy.  (Nine students have failed.)  My mark 67%.  (Average 68%.)  Can't believe that have come in middle.

“Sorry letter muddled.  Hope you understand it.  Do come and see me in London, Hil.”  This last sentence was underlined.

His happiness was infectious and she felt compelled to write back that instant.  Of course he had passed.  Anyone who worked as hard as he had must pass.  Hilary’s doubts never inhabited exams.  She had presumed all along that she would pass her O levels and A levels, not brilliantly, but well enough, and would, she supposed, gain a “good enough” class of degree.  In her reply, she told him all about blow-drying her hair, and, only after she had posted it, did it occur to her that Andy was not a girl and would not want to know about such things.

“Will look forward to seeing your hair when you come to London,” he wrote, in his next, a few days later.  “You will come and see me soon, won’t you?  Do you like Genesis?  I have just bought an LP by them.”

Hilary and Andy were now writing three or four times a week.  At the end of each letter, he would remind her of her promise to visit him in London, and she wished he wouldn’t.  How could she possibly go to London?  Even though Water Langley was only 70 miles from London, Hilary had only been there twice, both times on a school coach:  once, to see an international hockey match at Wembley in the Lower IVths and to the Tutankhamen Exhibition in the Upper VIths.  London was an awful place, said Water Langley.  Everything moved too fast and it was expensive.  Hilary was enjoying herself at Rushloe now, going around with Amy and Bryony, university parties, discos, and lots of chatting into the small hours.  One weekend, they went to the cinema to see “The Graduate”, starring Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft, a window into a very different world, of continuous sunshine and continuous sex, and, next day, Hilary bought a copy of Simon and Garfunkel’s accompanying soundtrack.  She copied it on to a blank cassette, meaning to send it to Andy, but then forgot to put it in the envelope.

“Don’t worry,” he wrote.  “Bring it when you come to see me.”

“I’m going home to Water Langley next weekend.  Why don’t you come home next weekend too?” she replied in irritation.

“No! ….. In Water Langley, we’d have to do, you know, Water Langley things.  In London, we can be ourselves.”

Hilary didn’t really understand what he meant, but she went home to Water Langley anyway (and he didn’t). 

She was walking into the grounds of Crofton Hall on Monday evening, after a pleasant, but uneventful, weekend, when she spotted a light in her window.  She hadn't left it on all weekend, had she?  No, she hadn't.  Christine was back.

“Hello, Christine.  How are you?” asked Hilary, through gritted teeth.  Christine had moved Hilary's things and dumped them on her bed.  The room wasn’t hers anymore.  It never had been, she supposed.

As soon as she could, Hilary bolted into Amy and Bryony’s room.  If she allowed Christine to cling on to her again, she could lose their friendship.  “She’s here!” Hilary groaned.

“We know!” retorted Bryony.  “She’s been here all weekend.  She came back Saturday afternoon, especially to go to CU on Saturday evening.”

“I can't bear it!” Hilary cried.  “I'll suffocate!”

Because of Christine, Hilary didn't check the students’ letter rack until she was walking into the dining room with Amy and Bryony.  “Who is this person who writes to you almost every day?” Bryony demanded, as she picked up Andy's latest.

“Oh,” said Hilary, “er, someone from home.”

“A boy?” demanded Amy.

“No … I mean …”

“No boy would write that often!” retorted Amy.  “My Phil just about remembers to ring me once a week.”

Christine was hovering in the dining room doorway, looking for somewhere to sit.  Andy would again ask her to visit him in London.  She couldn't cope with that now. 

Christine went to sit with a group of girls from the CU and Hilary, Amy and Bryony heaved a heavy sigh of relief, but she was back in their room after dinner (as she had every right to be, Hilary acknowledged), talking in her little girly voice, urging Hilary to attend yet another “special” CU meeting.  Christine’s boyfriend, Graham, reappeared, still wearing the “Carpenter from Nazareth requires Joiners” sweater and his inane grin, although they did go out after a few minutes

“I can't bear it!” screamed Hilary, to the walls of the empty room.  “I can't bear it!” she cried to the hissing gas fire in the mustard-yellow tiled grate.  She spotted Andy’s letter, still unopened.  She wrenched her writing pad from under a pile of books.  “All right then!” she cried to the letter.  “All right then!  Anything to get away from Christine!” 

Later, she rang Caroline and asked if she could stay with her next weekend.  “Yes, sure,” replied Caroline, with a preoccupied air. 

“You all right?”

“Yes.  Got a bit of work to do.”

Hilary then rang home and her grandmother answered.  “I'm so worried about you, going to London,” she said.  “If you want to see Caroline, you can see her in Water Langley!  Anyway, you should be at your books.”

“I do my work, Granny.”

“You don’t want to be going to London!  It’s a very big place, crowded, full of beggars, and everything’s very expensive!  Mrs Phillips went to London three years ago and had her purse stolen.  You’ve got to be so careful.  You don’t know your way around, all them Tubes and things, and it’ll be dark when you arrive!”

It was dark when she went to the Rushloe Central Station after lectures to buy her ticket.  She saw the London trains, long winding carriages, headed by roaring dusty Diesel engines, sometimes two Diesel engines, edging in and out of the station, great pools of light disappearing into the blackness.  Granny was right.  Hilary didn’t know her way around.  Whereabouts exactly in London was St Luke’s Medical School and how would she find the place where Caroline lived? 

When she returned to Crofton Hall, Bryony dragged her into the room she shared with Amy.  “You know that girl Carol?  Doing psychology?  Room on the top floor?  Always in the hall library?”

“Sort of,” Hilary replied.  “Haven't seen her for a bit.”

“She’s having a nervous breakdown, isn't she?”  Bryony looked at Hilary significantly.  “She’s gone home!”

 “You could have her room!” cried Amy.  She pushed Hilary towards the door.  “Ask Miss Thomas!  Now!  Before someone else bags it!”

Carol’s room was smaller than the room she shared with Christine and it looked out on to the kitchen bins, but it would be hers and hers alone.  She didn’t hesitate.  She moved her stuff on Wednesday afternoon (the afternoon when students were meant to be “doing sports”), watched by Christine, who was actually quite upset.

“Why are you moving out?” Christine asked, her eyes filling with tears.

“Er … I just like … being by myself.”

“Last term, I thought we were friends.  Amy and Bryony don’t like me and you go around with them now.  Nobody likes me!”

Hilary threw the last few items into her case.

Christine gulped.  “Hilary, can we still be friends?”

“Yes,” said Hilary.  It said in the Bible that you should love your enemies.

That was Wednesday.  Next day, Andy wrote back saying he would meet her at St Pancras Station at seven.  Seven pm.  Friday. tomorrow!  But it was still Thursday and she hadn't left Rushloe.  It was lunchtime and she was in the university refectory, watching students wielding loaded trays and two nuns ordering the “All Day Breakfast”.  She, Hilary, was going to London on Friday - tomorrow. 

“Hello!” cried Bryony plonking her tray down on Hilary's table. 

“Hello,” Hilary said.

“You all right?”

“Have you been to London?” Hilary asked.

“Hilary, I come from Kingston-upon-Thames.”

“Is that near London?”  Hilary frowned. 

“It’s one of the London boroughs, yes.”

“I'm going to London tomorrow evening.”

“Whereabouts?”

“St Pancras Station.”

“What?  Just to the station?”

“No … I don’t know … I really wish I hadn’t said I’d go now.  Is London really terribly expensive?  And are there beggars?”

“They’re lots of homeless under the Embankment.”

Hilary wanted to ask what the Embankment was, but didn’t.

“Why do you have to go?”

Hilary hesitated.  On what level should she give her answer?  Would it be the “going to see Caroline” explanation she had given her mother and grandmother?

“I don’t get it!” Bryony said, after Hilary had given a very muddled explanation.  “You wrote to this bloke when he was in hospital, because your mum asked you to, but why have you gone on writing to him?  Do you fancy him?”

“No!” she retorted, quite shocked.  “He’s just someone in the village.  He and his brother used to get on the bus to school and he used to be in my class at the village school.  His mum, Constance, and my mum are friends.  He and I were born on the same day, 4 August 1955.  Mum and Constance – and him and me – were all in the maternity hospital together.”

“Ugh!”

“I just like writing to him.  I mean, as Amy says, blokes … blokey blokes … don’t write letters.”

“Men are logical and think vertically.  That’s why most maths students are blokes.  You know that men think about sex every seven seconds?”

Hilary’s mind boggled.  How annoying it would be to have one idea coming back into your mind every seven seconds!