Read Online The Snowing and Greening of Thomas Passmore by Paul Burman - Free Book Online

weak bastard that I am, so I grab my damp coat and sidle out into the bleakness of an icy night to trudge the five bitter miles to bed.
    She had the widest eyes of glistening burnt umber that ever smiled, a flow of hair that was deep chestnut brown and lips of rose, but more than that she glowed, and sometimes when I’m at other parties or sitting in a pub or listening to a band I look for her.
    When I see her two months later at the Spring Dance, chatting with a friend of mine, and without the other moths clamouring for her light, it’s so far beyond all probability it’s as though a greater force is in play – a syzygy. Sometimes, the yoking of the sun and moon to the earth creates king tides and bizarre cross-currents, which wash up exotic treasures, the flavours of other worlds. Everybody has some luck once in a while.
    It’s the first Saturday in March and the first day in ages it hasn’t slashed down with rain from morning to night. All the same, the sports field next to the Students’ Union Hall is flooded and I’ve had to weave between vast puddles in the car park to get to the entrance. Even though the forecast promises a week of brighter weather, spring doesn’t feel any nearer and, at that point in the evening, it’s impossible to imagine winter ever coming to an end.
    â€œHow ya going, Andy?” I say, unwrapping my scarf, unbuttoning my coat and letting him punch me on the shoulder. “You managed to get across then? I didn’t think you were going to make it.” He lives twenty miles away, and Saturday night buses aren’t reliable.
    â€œJez decided to come – the DJ’s a friend of his – and he’s giving us a lift back to Abetsby, so everything’s hunky-dory.”
    â€œHunky-dory,” I repeat and laugh. I’ve never heard this old-fashioned expression used by someone my age before, but it sounds good. They probably think I’m stoned. “Everyone’s fishing for hunky-dory,” I say and laugh some more.
    She’s looking at me and smiling, so I shrug and say, “Hello.”
    Andy makes a joke I don’t hear, then says: “Kate, this is T.P; he’s –”
    â€œHunky-dory,” she says.
    â€œGone fishing,” I say.
    Andy winks at me. “Fly fishing.”
    â€œTeepee?” she says. “Like a wigwam?” She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear.
    â€œTom,” I tell her. “Tom Passmore.”
    â€œI’ve seen you somewhere before, Tom. D’you live in Northampton?”
    â€œNenford,” I say. “But I saw you at a New Year’s Eve party last… well, last New Year’s Eve. I don’t think you’d have noticed me.”
    â€œOh. I wish it had been some other time. That wasn’t a night to remember.”
    â€œYou looked like you were having fun.”
    She shrugs. “Not really. I drank too much. It wasn’t good.” She looks at Andy and then says to me: “Will you dance with me?”
    Andy laughs.
    How easy she makes it seem.
    â€œUm,” I say.
    She pulls a strand of hair away from her mouth. “You’re not one of those cowards who won’t get out and dance until the floor’s packed, or you’re too pissed to know you’re dancing, are you?”
    â€œUsually,” I admit.
    â€œBut not tonight? You’ll dance with me tonight, won’t you?”
    I look to Andy, unsure what their relationship is. Don’t want to get in his way. But then think: what the hell. He’s not that close a friend.
    He reads my hesitation and deliberately misinterprets it. “I don’t want to dance with you, Tommo. You’re not my type.”
    â€œHe dances by himself,” Kate says, raising her eyebrows as if it’s some form of self-gratification, like masturbating, that everybody does now and then, but few admit to. “We’re very old friends. Very platonic.” She kicks