CHAPTER 21

Justinian and Josie were now walking into the main hall, Justinian fastening his trouser belt, smirking his self-satisfied smirk. 

“You don’t love him, Caz!” Josie cried.  “Justinian and I love each other.”

”Oh, for Heaven’s sake!” Caroline retorted.

“It’s time we were honest with each other,” Josie bleated on.  “We've been hiding our feelings for so long.”

Caroline rolled her eyes.  “Spare me!”

Josie appealed to Justinian.  “I feel like the mistress - which is ridiculous.”

Looking down on them from the wall was Harold Macmillan, the cuckold, whose wife would ring her lover from his living room.  Like him, Caroline was clinging to the last shreds of her dignity.  She spun round to Hilary and threw out an angry glare like a stone.  “What are you gawping at?  I told you to get out!”

Hilary gasped.

“I suppose you’re happy now!  You never liked Justinian!“  Caroline finished putting the pieces of Neville Chamberlain into a shopping carrier.  “Get out!  All of you, just get out!  I'll finish clearing up myself.  It’s my poor dad who’ll be paying the bloody deposit.”

“Come on,” said Andy, grabbing Hilary's arm and leading her out.

Nick, on the other side, put his arm around her waist.  “Better leave poor Caroline to sort herself out.”

“But she’s all alone in that place,” Hilary sobbed.

There were just four of them standing in the street outside the Holborn Conservative Association Hall, Hilary, Andy, Nick and, Charlotte, as Justinian and Josie seemed to have walked off by themselves.  “We’d better go home,” said Charlotte.

Hilary held open her palms.  “But I can't go back to Caroline’s now!”

“It’s 1am and you’ve nowhere else to go,” retorted Andy.  “You weren’t very tactful, were you?”

“What was I supposed to do?” Hilary flared.

“Leave it, leave it,” said Nick.  He reached in his pocket.  “We’ll get a cab.”  Nick had more money than any of them and, for once, he affected no pretence. 

After the taxi had deposited Hilary and Charlotte at Caroline’s house, Charlotte unlocked the door and switched on the light.  “You can sleep in my room if you like,” she offered, without much enthusiasm.

“Yes, please,” said Hilary in a subdued voice.  She took her lilo and her night things from Caroline’s empty room and set them down on Charlotte’s floor.

“Justinian and Josie have been going on for some time,” said Charlotte.  “He would bonk everything that moves.  He tried it on with me, but I'm not that desperate.  I don’t know whether Caroline realised or not.  She’s been so preoccupied with Mrs Thatcher and everything.”

“She wants to go and work for Central Office, doesn’t she?”

“Caroline and I wrote in some months ago,” said Charlotte.  “And, last week, they sent a letter saying they’re not recruiting.  They won't be recruiting for some time, not until the next Election – which could be as late as 1979.”

The following morning, Hilary returned to Caroline’s room, to gather up the rest of her things and to pack her bag.  Caroline lay in her bed, her fair head buried in her pillow, apparently asleep, even though Hilary must have made enough noise to wake her.  Hilary wished she would wake, so that they could talk, but Caroline slept on.  Exhausted and miserable, Hilary walked to St Luke's, where Andy was tidying up his room (which by male students’ standards, wasn’t too bad), as he always did when he was upset.  That evening, Hilary returned to Rushloe and her thesis, which had to be handed in to the typist by the last Friday of term, and this deadline saved her mind.  Hilary resolved to go and see Caroline and make things right with her as soon as she returned to Water Langley for the Easter holidays, but, when she reached Essex, she discovered that Caroline had disappeared to the Dordogne with her family.  Hilary and Caroline hadn't quarrelled like this since the Lower Vths, when Jane Adams had tried to appropriate Caroline as her “best friend”. That had all subsided within a few days and, Hilary expected, Caroline would come bouncing into her house on her return from the Dordogne, as if nothing had happened.

As Hilary’s final university exams were in May and June, she had a lot of work to do over the vacation.  And there were other things happening: the Newtons had invited her to join them in Marbella for a week in July; and Margaret and Constance were planning a joint 21^st birthday party in the village hall for herself and Andy.  Hilary sent Caroline an invitation to her 21^st party as a matter of course, but Caroline had not returned to Water Langley when Hilary left to start the summer term.  A few days later, Margaret bumped into Caroline’s mother, Julia, in the Co-op. 

“Caroline went straight from France to her house in London,” Margaret reported to Hilary over the telephone.  “She’s got exams too, hasn’t she? 

“I bet she’s not up-to-date with her work!” retorted Hilary.  “All she could think about last term was Mrs Thatcher!  And Justinian!”

“I think she’s up-to-date now, Hil,” said Margaret.  “From what Julia was saying, she and Geoffrey kept her working in the Dordogne.  And she’s now applying to do an MBA at LSE next year.”

“Oh, is she?”  Hilary herself had considered taking a postgraduate course, but, as her grandmother had said. “What’s the point?  You need to get out to work, girl!”  “What about the party?  Caroline will be coming, won't she?”

“Well, no,” Margaret replied, “Julia also said that Caroline’s got an internship with a company in America for the summer.  She won't be here.”

Hilary was disappointed, but, as Andy wrote in his next letter, the most important thing now was her exams.  She mustn't get distracted.  Andy's exams were earlier that year, at almost the same time as hers, but, that year, she didn’t even notice the usual Andy exam traumas.  Maybe he kept them to himself.  Maybe he didn’t have any traumas.  She just went on studying, in the manner in which she had always studied, a revision timetable stuck to the front of her file, with regular tea breaks and meal breaks, never continuing much beyond ten in the evening, when she would join Amy and Bryony on the lawn at Crofton Hall and drink Woodpecker cider from plastic bottles in the warm light evening. 

Six weeks later, in the blistering heat of summer 1976, sweltering under a gown and mortar board, Hilary graduated with a 2(1) History Honours degree.

Hilary loved Marbella: the oven warmth that swept over her as she got off the plane, the bright sun, the vivid flowers, the fierce rat-a-tat-tat of the Spanish language, the foreignness of it all.  She loved the villa, which, compared to the Bowles’s usual Wells-next-the-Sea guest-house, was luxurious: blue and white, Andalusian marble floors (no carpet?); solid hardwood furniture; ensuite bathrooms with loos with buttons (no flush handles?) and the extra loo-shaped thing called a “bidet”.  (Hilary didn’t know what that was for.).  Best of all was the small balcony, with its curved, classical marble balustrades, where you could stand with a drink and watch all Marbella walk by.  The Newtons, as usual, were there for a fortnight, but Hilary was to fly home, by herself, after just one week, ostensibly because of Wells-next-the-Sea the following week, but, she sensed, they didn’t want her there for the whole fortnight.  Andy was thrilled to have her: on the first evening, he rushed her around, showing her the swimming pool, the beach and the boats of Puerto Banus.  Robert said very little and John was, as usual, very polite, urging her not to stand on ceremony and pressing alcohol on her several times a day.  Constance was being Constance: for two and a half years, Hilary had sensed that Constance did not welcome her as Andy's girlfriend, however much her own mother, Margaret, might say otherwise.

The second day, the first full day of their holiday, Hilary and Andy spent by the pool and, when they returned to the villa in the early evening, Hilary’s skin was angry red.  “Well, Hilary, of course you’ll catch the sun if you stay out in it all day!” snapped Constance.

“It didn’t look red until I got up here,” Hilary protested.

“You never see yourself burning in bright sunlight,” said John. 

“You’re fair haired and fair skinned, Hilary,” Constance went on.  “whereas we just go brown.  Andy, you should’ve thought on!”  She reached into a cupboard.  “You’d better use some after-sun.”

“Thank you,” said Hilary.

Constance turned to John.  “Are we going to the alimentacion?”

Robert giggled as they walked out.  “Dad’s going to buy liqueurs.”  He hugged his skinny knees.  “Dad’s going to buy liqueurs.”  He walked over to the overhead glass cupboard which separated the living room from the kitchenette and opened it to reveal a shelf of multi-coloured bottles, which put Hilary in mind of a child’s paint box.  “Look, Hilary!”

“Dad likes to buy liqueurs,” Andy added.  “They’re very cheap at the alimentacion and taste disgusting.  Robert, you haven't had a swim today.  Why don’t you go in now?  Hardly anyone in there at the moment.”

Robert walked over to the balcony and checked.  “Yes,” he said slowly, “only eight people, and no children.” 

“Robert hates being in the pool with other people,” said Andy, as Robert shut the door of the apartment.  “He hates the feel of their wet flesh against his.”

“I'd better put this after sun on then,” said Hilary, as she and Andy watched, from the balcony, Robert wandering down to the pool and Constance and John ambling, arm in arm, towards the shopping precinct.

“I'll do it for you,” said Andy, taking the bottle from her.  He rubbed her shoulders, slowly and sensuously, kissing her shoulders as he rubbed.

“You weren’t very subtle, were you… I mean, with Robert.”

“Robert doesn’t pick up on things.  I've been looking at you all afternoon, in that white bikini,” he added, pushing her straps down.

“I don’t have sunburn… there!” 

“Pity!” he moaned.

“Andy…Your parents or Robert could come back at any minute.”

“I know!” he groaned.

“You haven't done very well with that after-sun, Hilary!” exclaimed Constance, returning half an hour later.  “You need to get it on your arms and your knees.  Give the bottle to me!”

“See if you like that, Hilary,” said John, pushing a tiny glass of something bright turquoise in front of her.

Later on that evening, they walked through the villa complex on their way to one of Marbella’s many restaurants.  The Newtons had eaten there before.  The Newtons had done everything in Marbella before.  Marbella was stuffed with Newton family memories: the point from where Andy had dropped a chocolate ice cream into the swimming pool; the café, where they used to buy lunch, now selling slightly salacious magazines in a newly liberated country; the tree under which they used to sit to eat their lunch, not looking so good now, its leaves shrivelled and flaky..

“It’s just the drought,” said Constance.

“I read on the plane that they’re talking about making us use standpipes in Essex,” said John. 

“And there’s Alice’s Rock,” interjected Andy, pointing to a boulder on the side of the pool.

“Oh yes,” said John.  “One summer, Alice… I can see her in her little pink-striped swimming costume… She spent all holiday dumping off that rock and into the pool.”

“And,” Robert giggled, “she kept doing handstands in the pool and all we could see were her legs sticking up in the water.”

“How long have you been coming here?” Hilary asked.

“For about fifteen years,” said John.  “We love it here… Hang on!”

Several paces behind, Constance was still by “Alice’s Rock”, staring into the swimming pool, tears streaming down her face.

Hilary looked at Andy.  “My bloody sister!” he muttered.  “She was invited to come with us but she wouldn’t.  She never rings, never goes to see them.  She’s a stewardess, isn't she, jet-setting all over the place?  Families are just too boring.”

On Saturday morning Hilary and Andy took a taxi back to Malaga Airport, which was teeming with the Great British public, whingeing sunburnt children, in cheap Torremolinos t-shirts and flimsy Fuengirola sunhats, scrambling over each other and their luggage.  Hilary had seen a little bit of Abroad but now, it seemed, she had already returned to England. 

They checked in her luggage then queued in the cafeteria for half an hour for English newspapers, and drinks which they drank in less than a minute.  The newspaper said, England was even hotter than Spain.  “What are you going to do when you get back?” asked Andy, as they sat down on the tacky, black airport seats.

Hilary shrugged.  “Go to Wells-next-the-Sea.  Come back.  Then it’s our party.  On 4 August, we’ll be adults.  Do you feel adult, Andy?”

“No,” he replied, without hesitation.

“Nor me.”

For a moment, they both watched the English family in front of them struggle with stuff in plastic carrier bags.  “What I meant was,” he said, “what are you going to do about getting a job?”

“I suppose I'll have to write more applications.”

“Yes, you will.”

“It’s boring… when you know you won't get the job anyway.”

“You’ll get a job, sooner or later.  You’re a graduate, with a 2(1).”

“So are a lot of other people.  Nobody in the history department at Rushloe had got a job at the time we graduated.  Coming to think of it, history’s a pretty useless subject.”

“You’ll find something.”

“Everybody was going on more courses, PGCE mostly.”

“You fancy teaching?”

“No.” 

“What do you want to do, Hil?”

A flight was being called over the tannoy.  The heavily accented voice seemed to say “Manchester”, not Gatwick.  Andy looked at his watch.  “Maybe you’d better go to the departure lounge now.  Your flight will be called soon.”  They got up and started walking. 

“You know what I want to do?” she said at last.

“What?” he asked

“I want to be with you.”

“I want to be with you, but…”

She didn’t like the “but”.  “Andy, we’ve been going out for over two years.  We need to plan our lives… together.  Don’t we?... You know what I mean, don’t you?”

There was a last call over the tannoy for three passengers for Glasgow, in English, in Spanish and then in French. 

“I know what you mean,” said Andy, in a small voice.  “But Hilary… it’s no good.”

“What do you mean “it’s no good”?” she said.  “Andy…”  She couldn't believe this… Andy, her Andy, Andy who was part of her life, Andy who was part of Water Langley.  The whole airport heaved in front of her eyes.

In silence, they walked on. 

“Hil,” he said, at last, “I love you very much.  You know that, don’t you?”

At last they were at security.  Hilary had to stop, to get out her boarding card and her passport. 

“I've got two more years at St Luke's and then my resident house officer year.  That’s three years altogether.”

Hilary looked at the floor.  He tightened his arms around her.  She looked at the floor.  She was embarrassed.

“I do love you,” he said.  He pushed up her chin, to make her meet his eyes.  “I'm really sorry, but this isn't the right time.”

“I love you, Andy.  And, for me, it’s always the right time.”

A man in uniform was holding out his hand for her passport. 

“I'm really sorry,” he said again.  “We’ll talk about it again, at home.”

“There doesn’t seem to be any point,” she retorted, breaking away from him and handing her passport to passport control.