You Must Be Sisters (2 page)

They were joined by the troll girl who had an easy, sensible face and big jean-cramped thighs.

The Kleenex girl turned to the troll one. ‘Glad I went down to dinner with you. I felt quite nervous.’ She poured out the coffee. ‘I’m funny that way.’

‘I went by myself,’ said Laura, ‘and I felt awful. All those faces. They’re all new like us, aren’t they?’

‘Except for a few post-grads and mature students.’

‘Isn’t that a deadly name,’ said Laura. ‘
Mature students
. So terribly kind. It makes them sound about eighty years old …’

And so they chatted – about nothing much, it was true, but the unstrenuousness of the repartee made it all the more comforting. Out of the mass had emerged these two faces, the Kleenex and the troll one. They might not be soul mates but they were reassuring, as this mug of Nescafé was reassuring.

Later she unpacked and dragged her trunk into the corridor.
She
stacked it beside the others. Each had initials on its lid; she felt less frightened of A.H., M.F.A., K.L. now. Were they even, perhaps, feeling the same as she was? She wandered outside where the windows of the other blocks shone brightly; identical windows, rows and rows of them. In some, shadows moved; in one a figure leant out, dark against the lamplight. She could see the glowing point of his cigarette. She gazed at that shape; compressed into its blackness seemed to be all the people she soon would get to know. She gazed at the glowing point;
meet me
, it said.

Ah yes, she was glad to be here. Boring at home, wasn’t it? And her parents were so extremely annoying. Back in her room she stamped it as hers by peeling some colour plates from her ‘German Masters of Painting’ book and pinning them on the wall. And then she undressed and slid into her own bed, the skin over her face tight from washing and her body chilled by the strange, starchy sheets.

LAURA WAS SURE
she got less letters than anybody else at Hall. The J pigeonhole always seemed to be stuffed with Joneses and Johnsons but never with Jenkinses, and the whole scene at breakfast seemed to be bent heads, rustling paper and secret smiles. Was she being over-selfconscious? Probably. Sometimes she got an overdue note from the library which, at a pinch, could last her through the cornflakes, but nothing could stretch it out through the bacon and eggs.

Of course she’d got a long, prodding sort of letter from her mother, but she hardly counted that. It was two weeks before she found a letter from Claire.

Claire’s handwriting was poised and regular, the sort one sees on blackboards at school. Claire’s writing had always been the same. When they were younger, hers, unlike Laura’s, had never gone through the various distortions – Greek ‘e’s when they had been fashionable at their school, funny flat writing with square, instead of loopy, tails and then, later on, that beautiful, careful italic that comes with one’s first Osmoroid. Claire’s writing had
always
been settled as hers, Claire’s. A strong-minded girl, that was why.

It was a nice fat letter. You got your money’s worth with Claire.

Dear Laura
,

How I long to hear all your news! I have a thousand questions – about your room, your friends – have you got a lot yet and are they all dreadfully clever? About your work – difficult? Stimulating? In fact, about everything. You have a slaveringly eager reader here
.

I’m writing this in the Staff Room. The new headmaster has stunned the whole school by having a CLUB FOOT. Imagine that first assembly. Every word of his invigorating and stern address floated harmlessly away, unheard, as a thousand eyes were fixed, fascinated, on it. Did it hurt? How was he going to get down the stairs when his speech was over? Above all, what did it look like when his boot was off? Not a rustle, not a sniff, no one even picked his nose. Never has there been such total absorption. He must have been awfully pleased
.

New tenants have arrived in the flat upstairs
–
an unmarried couple. Because they’re unmarried, every sound I hear through the ceiling – thuds, rhythmic taps
–
I presume to be them On The Job, as my boys sentimentally call it or, as my West Indian ones say, Doing a Rudeness. I bet they’re just clearing out the kitchen cupboard
.

I’ve been home once or twice but little to report. They miss you a lot, of course, and Holly too. All their daughters gone. I’ve been down to see Holly at school and she seems to love it, though what she feels in those dark hours when the dorm lights are off, only she knows. I looked into the youngest girls’ dorm and all the battered, one-eyed teddies on their pillows would make the strongest man weep. I wonder if you and I would have been different if we’d gone to boarding school
.

Longing to see you. I think I’ll be able to get down towards the end of term. The car is going well – it’ll be your turn for it next term. Won’t it be posh! Having a car your first year at university. But Mummy says your Hall is right away in the suburbs so I bet it’ll be useful. You can make lots of friends by giving them lifts down to their lectures
.

Lots of love
,

Claire

Claire shared a flat on the ground floor of a red-brick Clapham terrace. It was a week later. She had just woken up from one of those devastating dreams where you fall in love – agonizingly, poignantly – with someone who in daylight hours would strike you as quite alarmingly unsuitable. Last night’s lover had been the Assistant Maths Master, a balding man with pudgy hands. Claire lay in bed, glowing with misdirected love, and gazed through the crack in the curtains at the grey glimmer of dawn. Why couldn’t her dreams show better taste? All that stuff about dreams showing one’s deepest desires was nonsense. Yesterday, the thought of being clasped in the plump arms of the Assistant Maths Master would have made her laugh. Today, still drenched in her dream, she would feel quite peculiar when she saw him sitting in the Staff Room, puffing his pipe and complaining how no member of staff seemed able to keep his locker tidy. It would all wear off in a few hours, of course, but it would be interesting to see her oblivious object, the glamour of her dream strewn incongruous as tinsel over the shoulders of his serge suit.

Really, she thought briskly, kicking back the bedcovers, this is ridiculous. Why can’t I find someone real, by daylight?

She went into the bathroom and looked at her shiny early-morning face, its eyebrows raised at itself in scrutiny. She started brushing her teeth. But where, in this huge city, can I find him? Just at this moment there must be hundreds of young men in their prime, lathering their faces, the same grey light coming through the same frosted window; they must be thinking just the same thing; but when can we meet? Lucky old Laura, she must be meeting hundreds.

Her eyes travelled over the faded wallpaper; she saw the millions of other faces at their early-morning mirrors, men’s faces and women’s, sprightly ones and tired ones, handsome and plain, and each person wondering what to wear today and whether to brush his hair to the side or perhaps forward? A cityful of souls all around her. If she let it, London could render her helpless.

‘I say, Claire!’ Yvonne’s voice hissing through the door. ‘I say, Clary, you’ve got a letter!’

It was from Laura. Claire took it into the kitchen.

‘Gosh,’ said Yvonne, padding up behind her in her quilted dressing-gown, ‘do read it! I’m longing to know all about University Life, the lucky thing. I bet she’s got loads of boyfriends!’ She opened the bread bin, peered in it and sighed. ‘You know, my
diet
starts today and it says I must have grapefruit, but grapefruits are so dear I decided I’d just have a
teeny
slice of toast instead. Do you think that’s all right, Claire?’

‘If it’s really small.’

Claire took the letter into the sitting-room. Nikki, her other flatmate, had entertained last night and it was full of overflowing ashtrays. Claire drew back the curtains; the houses opposite, solid Clapham redbrick, stared back at her.

Thanks for your letter. I loved your description of The Foot. How’s life at the flat with Nikki and the terrible Yvonne?

Talking about terrible things, I girded my loins and went to a Freshers’ Ball last week. Truly a cattle market with all the males lined up one side and all us females, giggling and drinking halves of cider, up the other. At some mysterious signal half-way through the evening we converged, and I was glued to a succession of manly chests, some belonging to biologists, some to medics, once to a person who called me Norma and once to a person who called me Gloria. I kept up a bright stream of chatter that at moments of stress, especially with the Gloria one, became even brighter. ‘Er, what exactly is an isotope?’ I would say, furtively trying to push down a creeping hand. You’ll be relieved to know I got back to Hall unravaged
.

Work is harder than I expected. It’s a shock to change from being top of one’s class at school to being just any old average student. We have a fine yellow stone building for psychology and a lab full of rats that I’m getting very attached to. Boys in my class look rather moist and young, but in the second and third years there are dishier ones who wear old leather coats, things like that. Mummy and Daddy would disapprove of them
–

‘Grub’s up.’ Yvonne padded in with a tray. She gazed down at her piece of toast. ‘Gosh, Clary, you’re so lucky being
slim
. I wish I was like you. Oh dear, and I forgot to buy some saccharine, so I’ll just
have
to have a spoonful of sugar. I can’t bear tea without sugar. Do you think that’s all right, Claire, just this once?’

‘Just a small one.’

‘But even if I have a teensy-weensy one that’ll make a difference, won’t it?’ Yvonne looked plaintive. ‘I mean, every little bit counts, doesn’t it? But don’t mind me; go on with your letter.’

Bristol is rather romantic, and Clifton is the oldest and most beautiful bit, just near the university. It’s all elegant but tatty
terraces
, most of them Georgian. But Addison Hall is right away on the other side of the Downs in suburbia. It’s glassy and modern, 4 men’s blocks, 4 women’s, a dining block where we work our way through mounds of chips, and a common room. The Hall stalwarts, like pub regulars, are making themselves clearer now, what with committees being set up and jolly functions to get us all to know each other. After this first year nearly everyone will move out into flats or digs
.

My early days were spent – still are – in an agony of not letting myself be seen alone and wistful-looking. I mean, I like being alone, but it’s difficult to show that one’s liking it and not just being left out. I met a frightfully boring girl from school and we fell into each other’s arms with wild relieved cries of recognition, and neither of us had the slightest thing to say to each other when we were in the same classroom all those years
–

‘I say, Claire!’ cried Yvonne. ‘Look at this.’ She held out a printed form. ‘It came through the post this morning and it says they’ll send us this super series called “The Miracle of Your Body”. And if we send off now, we can have the first book free! Look, all we have to do is send off this stamp they’ve given us –’

‘The big red one,’ said Claire, ‘with the YES PLEASE on it.’

‘That’s right. It’s very simple.’

‘And if you don’t want it you send the narrow grey one that just says NO.’

‘That’s right. Oh Clary, it’s got such lovely-sounding things in it.
Some of the Most Moving Photographs ever Taken of the Miracle of Childhood
…’

‘No, Yvonne.’

Anyway, enough for now. Please come down as soon as you can so I can show you everything. I’m making my room so special. But wait until I know more than about two people so I can introduce you to a nice lot. I’m buried in Freud who becomes more and more fascinating
.

Love
,

Laura

‘Finished?’ asked Yvonne. ‘Tell me all about it. I bet she’s got all the Men hanging on her little finger already. She’s so nice-looking and so brainy too! That’s what they like – not just a pretty face. Oh, I do envy her.’

‘So do I. I’ll show it to you tonight. Must dash now.’

Claire got into the Morris Minor that she shared with Laura and drove through the streets towards her school where 1,300 tough and restless pupils waited for her.

Those first weeks of autumn, Laura did the same things as everybody else. She walked across the Downs and into town for her lectures, none of which she had started skipping. She took painstaking notes. She rewrote her notes when she got back to her room. She sat long hours in the library working or, when the hot-pipe against her back seeped too deliciously through her skin, slumped asleep over her scattered textbooks, a real student.

She bought mugs for her room and, to be extra-special, real coffee instead of Nescafé. At first it was just the troll girl and the others who dropped in to gossip and speculate about everyone else. But soon they drifted their separate ways, and Laura found herself drawn into a group of English Literature students who did boisterous studenty things, like taking her out to a scrumpy pub where she drank two pints, cloudy and with lemon slices floating on the top. They sat in a swaying row, making up limericks. At closing time they linked their arms and linked their Bristol University scarves to become a knotted chain, and they staggered over the Downs to a late-night chipper.

Sitting on the grass with them, swallowing her fried cod, wiping her hands on the dewy grass and gazing at the figures munching in the moonlight, Laura felt a pang of nostalgia, already, for what she was doing. Memories in advance. These were the jolly things she’d tell her children about one day.

Then it irked her to be such a typical student. She could just imagine what her mother would say –
Oh, Laura’s having a simply marvellous time, up to all sorts of fun and such nice young men. Rushing about, off to funny little pubs, up all hours; you know what students are like
…