‘That’s you done for then.’
I laugh. ‘Women were often diagnosed with “hysteria”. It’s from the Latin word for womb . . .’
But Georgie is looking at her phone and I sense that I’ve lost my audience. As we join the M25, I say casually, ‘What did you think of St Jude’s?’
‘It was OK,’ says Georgie. ‘That Edmund was a bit of a freak. He’s studying Classics and he rows. You know, like in the boat race that they have on TV.’
‘I know.’
Georgie giggles suddenly. ‘I liked Professor Henry though. And he liked you.’
I am manoeuvring my way through three lanes of traffic but, when I can, I say, ‘What do you mean?’
‘All that “I’d like that very much”,’ she adopts a deep, patrician voice. Incidentally nothing like Henry Hamilton’s. ‘He wants to see you again.’
‘Nonsense.’ But I can’t help being slightly pleased. I think about Henry’s assumption that my book will be published one day. I suppose that’s the world he lives in. You write a book and it gets published. It’s not like that in the real world. I wrote to a few agents when I got the idea of writing about R.M. Holland and one was fairly interested. But I haven’t got a contract and sometimes I don’t think the book will ever be finished. I’ve written about sixty thousand words and on low days I think fifty thousand of them are utter shite.
A few miles later, Georgie says, ‘Can Ty come round tonight?’
I try to keep my voice light. ‘I thought we’d just have a quiet evening. We could get pizzas in.’
‘Ty likes pizza.’
I say nothing.
‘We can’t see each other tomorrow because he’s working.’ Ty works at a pub in the village. I suppose I should be pleased that he does something (that he’s not a ‘layabout’) but somehow it’s only a reminder that he’s not only old enough to drink legally, he can actually work in a bar.
‘Please, Mum.’
‘Oh, OK,’ I say.
There’s no point in ruining the day, after all.
Ty comes round promptly at seven. He looms in the doorway in his leather jacket and I can see exactly why Georgie likes him. He’s good-looking in a very grown-up way; dark hair, hint of stubble, muscles very much in evidence. I watch Georgie surreptitiously as she takes his coat and asks him about pizza choices. She doesn’t seem infatuated but I hope she’s too cool to show it even if she is. She mocks him for wanting pineapple on his pizza (too right!) but he just grins at her in a lazy way and refuses to rise. I like that and I like the way he refuses a glass of wine, opting instead for water. While we’re waiting for the pizzas I ask him about his family. He’s from Kent and was brought up by his grandparents after his parents died in a car crash (I think Georgie had already told me this sad fact).
‘My grandma’s very cool though,’ says Ty. ‘She’s got the internet and everything. She’s a silver surfer. She goes to classes at the library.’
‘How old is she?’ asks Georgie.
‘Not that old. Seventy-five.’ Point to Ty.
‘That’s ancient.’ Point deducted from Georgie.
‘I mean it in a good way,’ she says, when I protest. ‘Old people are, like, well wise.’
‘Gran always says I should listen to her because she’s wise,’ says Ty, ‘but, then again, she follows Kim Kardashian on Snapchat.’
I’m quite impressed. I’ve only got the vaguest idea what Snapchat is.
The pizzas come and we eat them in front of the TV. It’s the usual Friday night topical quiz show stuff and, while Ty has never heard of Michael Gove (lucky him), he’s quite funny about Ian Hislop and Private Eye. He’s clearly not stupid. Ty and Georgie sit on the sofa and I share my chair with Herbert. He’s always wary of male visitors and watches Ty underneath his fringe. Ty, for his part, seems quite nervous of Herbert.
‘I couldn’t have a dog when I was growing up because of my allergies,’ he says, sneezing as if to prove a point.
‘Poodles are good for allergic people because of their fur,’ says Georgie. ‘It’s more like wool.’
‘Herbert’s only part poodle,’ I say. But, by the end of Have I Got News For You, Herbert consents to let Ty pat him.
Georgie wants to watch Graham Norton because some brainless celebrity is on it. I’m torn. I’m tired after the drive and want to write my diary and think about the day, about the letters from R.M. Holland and the meeting with Henry. But should I leave Ty and Georgie downstairs unchaperoned? Simon would say definitely not. He’d want me to stay here glaring at them, possibly wearing a lace cap. This decides me. I’m not going to do Simon’s dirty work. I say goodnight and go upstairs. Funnily enough, for once Herbert doesn’t follow me. He stays in the sitting room, perhaps because the fire is still burning. Anyway, it’s good because he’ll definitely bark if Ty lunges at Georgie. I don’t want to think of lunging, or of any of the other components of teenage snogging. It makes me feel old and sad and slightly pathetic. I don’t want to be a repressive parent or — worse — a jealous one. But I haven’t kissed a man since Simon left me. That’s been my choice, I know, but, right at this minute, that doesn’t seem much of a comfort. I remember DS Kaur asking me whether Ella had a boyfriend. Should I have answered differently? Told her the truth about Rick?
At any rate, Herbert’s presence does the trick. Ty has gone before the end of Graham Norton. I hear a brief goodbye in the hall and Georgie takes Herbert out for his last wee. Then both my babies come upstairs to bed.
I think I’ll go to sleep quickly but the day’s events keep rearranging themselves in my head: the drive, the ancient buildings grouped around the quad, the office with H.H. Hamilton on the door, the letters, Mariana, the ravening beast. After a while I give up and put the light on. I look in my bookcase for something reassuring to read — P.G. Wodehouse or Georgette Heyer — and see my battered copy of Tennyson. Holland said he prays that Mariana’s name wouldn’t prove to be a bad omen. I flick through the thin pages to find the poem.
Upon the middle of the night,
Waking she heard the night-fowl crow:
The cock sung out an hour ere light:
From the dark fen the oxen’s low
Came to her: without hope of change,
In sleep she seem’d to walk forlorn,
Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn
About the lonely moated grange.
She only said, ‘The day is dreary,
He cometh not,’ she said;