The Very White of Love: the heartbreaking love story that everyone is talking about!. S Worrall C

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СКАЧАТЬ after tankard of warm beer followed by shots of Bell’s. Hugh Saunders, who is also up at Oxford, had driven over from Gerrards Cross, one of a network of friends in south Buckinghamshire Martin got to know while staying with his Aunt Dorothy during the school holidays. As children, they rode bikes together, played golf and tennis, and later courted the same girls. A couple of old friends had also come down from Aylesbury. It’s the holidays. Four weeks away from Oxford University where Martin is about to start his second year. Four weeks with no essays to write or tutorials to attend. Aunt D. and the rest of the family are off fly-fishing in Scotland. He can come and go as he pleases, stay up as late as he wants, drink too much.

      From the Red Lion they’d driven to the Royal Standard of England: a cavalcade of cars swerving down darkened lanes. Hugh bet him half a crown that he’d get to the pub first. ‘Nobody beats the Bomb!’ Martin shouted, as he leapt into his racing-green Riley sports car, pulled his goggles down and raced off down the narrow lanes, throwing the Bomb into blind corners at sixty miles an hour, Hugh’s headlights so close to his rear bumper that Martin kept thinking at any second Hugh’s Alvis would come crashing through the back window. On the hill down from Forty Green, the crazy fool had tried to overtake him! Their spoked wheels almost touching, it was all Martin could do to keep the Bomb from mounting the hedgerow.

      At the Royal Standard, they’d laughed and told stupid jokes about girls, but mostly they had talked about cricket. At closing time, Martin invited everyone back to Whichert House, where they stayed up most of the night, drinking Irish whiskey until they passed out in the living room. As the birds began to sing, Martin climbed the stairs to the little, yellow-painted room in the eaves where he’d spent much of his childhood.

      His eyelids are practically taped together. He squints at the framed painting on the opposite wall. A circus scene. A relic of childhood. During school holidays, he would lie here in bed counting the different animals. The tigers in their cage. The bear. The elephant on its chain. Now, his mouth feels like it has grown fur inside it during the night. His breath smells like a rotten cheese. He groans. Then he remembers. He has to get to the post before it closes.

      ‘Bugger!’ He leaps out of bed and throws on his clothes. ‘Bugger!’

      Splashing cold water on his face, his eyes stare back at him from the mirror, like two piss-holes in the snow. He tries to smooth his tousled hair, to no avail, then races down the stairs, three steps at a time; grabs the parcel and rushes towards the front door. Scamp, Aunt D.’s Jack Russell, races after him, his claws scratching on the flagstones and barking at the slammed door.

      Bright sunlight makes Martin’s eyes wince. It’s been crazy weather. Spring, the coldest on record; June, the rainiest; now, England is hotter than Spain. He grabs his bike and pedals down the drive, parcel in one hand, handlebars in the other, shoots out onto the Penn Road, spitting gravel and almost colliding with a furniture van. The driver blasts the horn, shakes his fist. Martin waves a cheeky apology, pedals on. It’s only a mile. If he hurries, he’ll make the post office before it closes.

      On the high street, stockbrokers with bellies that hang down like aprons waddle along proudly beside large, pink-skinned women with piano-stool calves. Shop girls in pencil skirts sashay arm in arm towards the Wycombe End – cheeky, giggling, up for it, as boys in boots and braces catcall after them.

      Martin throws the bike against a lamppost, sprints towards the entrance of the post office, put his shoulder to the door . . . and falls through empty air, across the floor. What he sees, when he looks up, seems a hallucination caused by a malfunction of the nervous system due to his overly enthusiastic intake of alcohol. A Fata Morgana. A phantom, dressed in a loose, blue and white cotton dress, cinched at the waist with a crocodile skin belt. Slender neck. A dusting of freckles. Kissable lips. Very kissable lips. What he notices most, though, in those brief seconds, is the cascade of chestnut-coloured hair tumbling over her shoulders. And those eyes. Clear, blue and full of hidden depths, like a cove he once swam in off Cornwall.

      ‘I’m so sorry!’ He struggles to his feet, clutching the parcel to his chest. Flicks his hair out of his eyes. Gawps.

      ‘I think that’s what’s called a dramatic entrance.’

      Her voice is bright, musical. Like a bell, or a harp.

      ‘I didn’t want to miss . . . ’ His furred tongue tries to form the next word, twists about in his mouth, like a worm doused with petrol.

      ‘The post?’ She tilts her head to where the line snakes back from the window.

      He flounders, tries to look tough, manly. Like the matinée idol, Douglas Fairbanks.

      ‘Well, if you hurry, you’ll still catch it.’ The girl pushes open the door and flounces out.

      Martin stares after her, noting the sway of her hips inside the blue and white summer dress; the proud, haughty bearing. He wants to dash after her.

      ‘Martin? Dorothy Preston’s nephew?’ A diminutive, white-haired woman comes through the door.

      ‘Hallo.’ He opens the door for her, stares over her shoulder. ‘Mrs Heal, isn’t it?’

      ‘Yes. How’s your aunt?’

      ‘Fly-fishing in Scotland.’ He holds up the parcel. ‘Sorry. Got to get this off to her.’

      ‘Do give her our regards . . . ’

      He joins the queue. Seconds turn into minutes. It’s one of the fixed laws of the universe. When you enter a post office, no matter where it is, in what country, time moves at a different speed. Post office time. He checks his watch. The queue shuffles forward. If he hurries, she might still be out on the street. One minute, two minutes, three minutes. His head is going to explode.

      ‘Parcel to Scotland, please.’ Martin drums on the counter with his fingertips.

      The counter assistant takes the parcel and weighs it. ‘That’ll be one shilling and five pence, please.’

      Martin pulls the money from his trouser pocket, pushes it under the window and runs out. The postmistress calls after him.

      ‘You’ve given me two pence too much!’

      But Martin is already out on the street. He looks left, looks right, grabs his bike and pedals off, scanning the crowds for that blue and white dress. Vanished. At the top of London End, he turns around and cycles back towards the post office, mutters to himself. This is really stupid, you know. You nearly knocked her over! She’s not going to talk to you. Don’t make a fool of yourself.

      He turns and begins to cycle slowly back towards Knotty Green. A gleam of chestnut hair. A blue and white dress. He whips round and pedals furiously back down the street, almost knocking over a small boy in a school blazer. She disappears cycling down an alleyway. Martin follows, at breakneck speed.

      ‘Hey! Watch where you’re going!’ A heavy-set man in a trilby shakes his stick in the air. ‘Bloody idiot!’

      ‘Sorry!’ Martin waves an apology, charges on between high brick walls. She is there now. Up ahead of him, just twenty yards away. A couple comes out of a jewellery shop. Martin swerves to avoid them, tips over, crashes into the opposite wall. The bike falls to the ground, wheels spinning. The couple snicker and walk on. Martin leaps back in the saddle, pedals furiously on.

      ‘Hallo again!’ he says, as he draws level with the girl. She stares through him. ‘The post office? I was the person . . . ’

      ‘Who СКАЧАТЬ