I now feel certain we shall marry.
You need this explanation more than he does. Martyn, as I said once before, is quite fearless in his feelings about me. He accepts, without of course knowing why, that a part of me remains for ever closed to him. He can handle disappearances, separations, and silences in a way that you can’t. You know him so little. Believe me he is remarkable.
You both could understand my little story. Only you need to hear it.
I travelled a great deal as a child. The process of endlessly starting in fresh schools, with new friends and strange languages, draws the members of a family very close indeed. The family becomes the only constant. We were a close family. My mother certainly loved my father in those early days. Aston and I were all-in-all to each other. We told each other everything. We shared each other’s problems. We became an invincible duo against every childhood adversity.
You cannot imagine what such a closeness is like. When it starts so early you see the world always, and in every way, through twinned souls. When we were very small we shared a bedroom. We fell asleep to each other’s breathing, and with each other’s last words in our ears. In the mornings we gazed at each other and at each new day — together. Whether we were in Egypt, the Argentine, or finally in Europe, it simply didn’t matter. The world was Aston and me.
Aston was much cleverer than me, academically clever. Oh, I did perfectly well. But he was brilliant.
My father, to his credit, had resisted sending him away to school when he was seven. He decided in our teens, however, that it was essential we both go to boarding-school in England.
My boarding-school was a perfectly proper one in Sussex. In the beginning I was miserable without Aston. But I adjusted.
Aston, however, seemed to change. He was always quiet, but now he withdrew more and more into his studies. He seemed to make no friends. His letters to me were full of sadness.
I told my father that I was worried about Aston. The school, when my father talked to them, put it down to a difficult period of adjustment.
Our first holidays (we missed each other at half-term) started strangely. I ran to Aston, my arms and legs ready to grasp and hold him. He put his hand over my face, and pushed me away, saying:
‘I’ve missed you too much. I don’t want to look at you. I don’t want to touch you. It’s too much. Tomorrow, I’ll look at you.’ And he went to his room.
My father was away. Mother put Aston’s non-appearance at dinner down to over-excitement.
His door was locked when I went upstairs. I heard him call to Mother when she knocked, ‘It’s OK. It really is OK. I just want to have a quiet, early night. I’ll be fine in the morning.’
And in the morning he did seem fine. We talked, played, and laughed as before.
But later, in my room, he told me of his terrible fear that I was the only person he would ever love. I was shocked, and even a little frightened by his intensity.
When the holidays were over and we went back to school he didn’t reply at first to the letters I sent him. Then I received a note that read ‘It’s easier if you don’t write.’
I didn’t tell anyone. What would I say? My brother misses me … too much. I missed him a great deal, but not too much. It was a question of degree, you see. Who can judge these matters? Certainly not a young girl.
I continued to write to him. He didn’t reply. At Easter he gave me my letters back unopened, and said, ‘Please, it’s easier, it really is easier when you don’t write. I miss you more and more. I cannot see how I can live a separate life. But I must. I have no hope of any other life, do I? You are changing. The boys at school talk all the time of girls — girls like you. One day, one of them will take you away from me. Completely away.’
‘But Aston, one day you and I will have boyfriends and girlfriends. We’ll grow up and marry. We’ll have our own
You need this explanation more than he does. Martyn, as I said once before, is quite fearless in his feelings about me. He accepts, without of course knowing why, that a part of me remains for ever closed to him. He can handle disappearances, separations, and silences in a way that you can’t. You know him so little. Believe me he is remarkable.
You both could understand my little story. Only you need to hear it.
I travelled a great deal as a child. The process of endlessly starting in fresh schools, with new friends and strange languages, draws the members of a family very close indeed. The family becomes the only constant. We were a close family. My mother certainly loved my father in those early days. Aston and I were all-in-all to each other. We told each other everything. We shared each other’s problems. We became an invincible duo against every childhood adversity.
You cannot imagine what such a closeness is like. When it starts so early you see the world always, and in every way, through twinned souls. When we were very small we shared a bedroom. We fell asleep to each other’s breathing, and with each other’s last words in our ears. In the mornings we gazed at each other and at each new day — together. Whether we were in Egypt, the Argentine, or finally in Europe, it simply didn’t matter. The world was Aston and me.
Aston was much cleverer than me, academically clever. Oh, I did perfectly well. But he was brilliant.
My father, to his credit, had resisted sending him away to school when he was seven. He decided in our teens, however, that it was essential we both go to boarding-school in England.
My boarding-school was a perfectly proper one in Sussex. In the beginning I was miserable without Aston. But I adjusted.
Aston, however, seemed to change. He was always quiet, but now he withdrew more and more into his studies. He seemed to make no friends. His letters to me were full of sadness.
I told my father that I was worried about Aston. The school, when my father talked to them, put it down to a difficult period of adjustment.
Our first holidays (we missed each other at half-term) started strangely. I ran to Aston, my arms and legs ready to grasp and hold him. He put his hand over my face, and pushed me away, saying:
‘I’ve missed you too much. I don’t want to look at you. I don’t want to touch you. It’s too much. Tomorrow, I’ll look at you.’ And he went to his room.
My father was away. Mother put Aston’s non-appearance at dinner down to over-excitement.
His door was locked when I went upstairs. I heard him call to Mother when she knocked, ‘It’s OK. It really is OK. I just want to have a quiet, early night. I’ll be fine in the morning.’
And in the morning he did seem fine. We talked, played, and laughed as before.
But later, in my room, he told me of his terrible fear that I was the only person he would ever love. I was shocked, and even a little frightened by his intensity.
When the holidays were over and we went back to school he didn’t reply at first to the letters I sent him. Then I received a note that read ‘It’s easier if you don’t write.’
I didn’t tell anyone. What would I say? My brother misses me … too much. I missed him a great deal, but not too much. It was a question of degree, you see. Who can judge these matters? Certainly not a young girl.
I continued to write to him. He didn’t reply. At Easter he gave me my letters back unopened, and said, ‘Please, it’s easier, it really is easier when you don’t write. I miss you more and more. I cannot see how I can live a separate life. But I must. I have no hope of any other life, do I? You are changing. The boys at school talk all the time of girls — girls like you. One day, one of them will take you away from me. Completely away.’
‘But Aston, one day you and I will have boyfriends and girlfriends. We’ll grow up and marry. We’ll have our own
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