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Authors: Tessa Hadley
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so silly. Buy her some fish and chips or something.
Hilary was too tired not to be obedient. She put on her mac and followed Neil downstairs, as if their fatal passage round the city had to recommence. At least this time she wouldn’t be carrying her case. She waited on the street outside; he said he had to fetch the others.
—By the way, he added, not looking at her,—I shouldn’t mention anything. They just think Sheila’s got a tummy bug. They’d be upset.
—OK, Hilary mumbled. Furiously she thought to herself that she wouldn’t have spoken to his friends about her sister if he had tortured her. ‘You silly little man,’ she imagined herself saying. ‘How dare you think I care about upsetting them?’ She tipped back her head and looked up the precipitous fronts of the houses to the far-off sky, studded with cold stars.
She noticed that Neil had put on shoes to come out this time: a pair of gym shoes, gaping without laces. His friend Julian had jug ears and long dyed blond hair; Gus was shy and lumpish, like a boy swelled to man-size without his face or body actually changing to look grown-up. Becky was a pretty girl in a duffel coat, who giggled and swivelled her gaze too eagerly from face to face: she couldn’tget enough of her treat, being the only girl and having the attention of three men. She knew instinctively that Hilary didn’t count. Even her patronising was perfunctory: she reminisced about her own A levels as if she was reaching back into a long-ago past.
—You’ve chosen all the easy ones, you clever thing! My school forced me to do double maths, it was ghastly.
—Are you sure you’re not hungry? Neil said to Hilary as they hurried past a busy chip shop with a queue. —Only if we don’t stop we’re in time for the pub. You could have some crisps there.
Hilary gazed into the bright steamy window, assaulted by the smell of the chips, weak with longing. —Quite sure, she said. She had never been into a pub in her life. There was a place in Haverhill where some of the girls went from school, but she and Sheila had always despised the silly self-importance of teenage transgression. It was impossible to imagine ever wanting to enter the ugly square red-brick pub in the village, where the farm labourers drank, and the men from the estate who worked in the meat-packing factory. Neil’s pub was a tiny cosy den, fumy light glinting off the rows of glasses and bottles. The stale breath of it made Hilary’s head swim; they squeezed into red plush seats around a table. Neil didn’t ask her what she wanted, but brought her a small mug of brown beer and a packet of crisps and one of peanuts. She didn’t like the taste of the beer but because the food was so salty she drank it in thirsty mouthfuls, and then was seized by a sensation as if she floated up to hang some little way above her present situation, graciously indifferent, so that her first experience of drunkenness was a blessed one.
When the pub closed they came back to the house and sat around a table in the basement kitchen by candlelight: the kitchen walls were painted crudely with huge mushroomsand blades of grass and giant insects, making Hilary feel as if she was a miniature human at the deep bottom of a forest. She drank the weak tea they put in front of her. The others talked about work and exams. Becky was doing biological sciences, Gus was doing history, Julian and Neil seemed to be doing English. Hilary couldn’t believe that they sounded just like girls at school, scurrying in the rat-run of learning and testing, trying to outdo one another in protestations of how little work they’d done. Not once did any of them actually speak seriously about their subjects. Hilary felt so deeply disappointed in university life that on the spot she made up her mind to dedicate herself to something different and nobler, although she wasn’t clear what. Neil and Julian were concentrating upon sticking a brown lump of something on a pin
Hilary was too tired not to be obedient. She put on her mac and followed Neil downstairs, as if their fatal passage round the city had to recommence. At least this time she wouldn’t be carrying her case. She waited on the street outside; he said he had to fetch the others.
—By the way, he added, not looking at her,—I shouldn’t mention anything. They just think Sheila’s got a tummy bug. They’d be upset.
—OK, Hilary mumbled. Furiously she thought to herself that she wouldn’t have spoken to his friends about her sister if he had tortured her. ‘You silly little man,’ she imagined herself saying. ‘How dare you think I care about upsetting them?’ She tipped back her head and looked up the precipitous fronts of the houses to the far-off sky, studded with cold stars.
She noticed that Neil had put on shoes to come out this time: a pair of gym shoes, gaping without laces. His friend Julian had jug ears and long dyed blond hair; Gus was shy and lumpish, like a boy swelled to man-size without his face or body actually changing to look grown-up. Becky was a pretty girl in a duffel coat, who giggled and swivelled her gaze too eagerly from face to face: she couldn’tget enough of her treat, being the only girl and having the attention of three men. She knew instinctively that Hilary didn’t count. Even her patronising was perfunctory: she reminisced about her own A levels as if she was reaching back into a long-ago past.
—You’ve chosen all the easy ones, you clever thing! My school forced me to do double maths, it was ghastly.
—Are you sure you’re not hungry? Neil said to Hilary as they hurried past a busy chip shop with a queue. —Only if we don’t stop we’re in time for the pub. You could have some crisps there.
Hilary gazed into the bright steamy window, assaulted by the smell of the chips, weak with longing. —Quite sure, she said. She had never been into a pub in her life. There was a place in Haverhill where some of the girls went from school, but she and Sheila had always despised the silly self-importance of teenage transgression. It was impossible to imagine ever wanting to enter the ugly square red-brick pub in the village, where the farm labourers drank, and the men from the estate who worked in the meat-packing factory. Neil’s pub was a tiny cosy den, fumy light glinting off the rows of glasses and bottles. The stale breath of it made Hilary’s head swim; they squeezed into red plush seats around a table. Neil didn’t ask her what she wanted, but brought her a small mug of brown beer and a packet of crisps and one of peanuts. She didn’t like the taste of the beer but because the food was so salty she drank it in thirsty mouthfuls, and then was seized by a sensation as if she floated up to hang some little way above her present situation, graciously indifferent, so that her first experience of drunkenness was a blessed one.
When the pub closed they came back to the house and sat around a table in the basement kitchen by candlelight: the kitchen walls were painted crudely with huge mushroomsand blades of grass and giant insects, making Hilary feel as if she was a miniature human at the deep bottom of a forest. She drank the weak tea they put in front of her. The others talked about work and exams. Becky was doing biological sciences, Gus was doing history, Julian and Neil seemed to be doing English. Hilary couldn’t believe that they sounded just like girls at school, scurrying in the rat-run of learning and testing, trying to outdo one another in protestations of how little work they’d done. Not once did any of them actually speak seriously about their subjects. Hilary felt so deeply disappointed in university life that on the spot she made up her mind to dedicate herself to something different and nobler, although she wasn’t clear what. Neil and Julian were concentrating upon sticking a brown lump of something on a pin
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