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

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      ‘Poetry.’ She starts to go inside the bookshop. ‘And prose.’

      ‘Do you like Robert Graves?’ His voice is almost pleading.

      ‘He’s one of our finest.’

      ‘He’s my uncle.’

      Her eyes flicker with curiosity. ‘Do you write, too?’

      ‘Badly.’ He grins. ‘Mostly overdue essays. You?’

      ‘Notebooks full, I’m afraid.’ She laughs self-consciously and holds out her hand. ‘Nancy. Nancy Claire Whelan.’

      ‘Can I, er, buy you that cup of tea, Nancy Claire Whelan?’ he stammers.

      She studies him for a moment. ‘I think I’d like that.’ She smiles. ‘The books can wait.’

      They find a tearoom in the Old Town, packed with elderly matrons eating scones and cucumber sandwiches. Martin and Nancy install themselves at a table by the window, so Martin can keep an eye on Scamp, who he has tied up outside. They order a pot of tea.

      ‘Shall we have some scones as well?’

      ‘Tea is fine.’ Nancy unties her hair and lets it fall over her shoulders. Martin watches, mesmerized. ‘Thank you.’

      A waitress in a black and white pinafore sets the tea on the table. Martin pours.

      ‘It’s so amazing . . . ’ He checks himself, tries to sound less jejune. ‘Meeting you like this. Again.’

      Nancy takes some milk. ‘Was it a coincidence?’

      ‘Well, sort of.’ Martin blushes. ‘I suppose I was . . . looking for you.’

      Nancy smiles. ‘How old are you?’

      Martin is caught off-guard by her directness. ‘Nineteen,’ he says, flustered. ‘Almost twenty.’

      Nancy sips her tea. He notices how she talks with her eyes almost as much as her lips. If she is amused, her eyes narrow, like a cat’s. Surprise is communicated by a subtle raising of her eyebrows. When she laughs, her eyes flicker with pleasure. Each mood, the tiniest oscillation of emotion, is registered in those eyes, an entire semaphore of signals and reactions, which he is learning to decode.

      ‘How old are . . . ?’ Martin checks himself. Never ask a woman her age.

      She glances over the top of her cup. ‘Twenty-two.’

      ‘Do you live here?’

      ‘Yes. My father is a civil servant. Inland Revenue.’ She puts her cup down. ‘How about you?’

      ‘My father . . . ’ He hesitates. ‘Died.’ Through the window Martin sees a lorry full of soldiers. ‘Last year.’

      ‘I’m sorry.’ Nancy looks out of the window and registers the soldiers. ‘What about your mother?’

      ‘She lives in Wiltshire.’ Martin butters a scone. ‘In a nursing home.’

      ‘So what brings you here?’

      ‘My aunt lives in Knotty Green. I’m staying with her for a couple of weeks before term starts again.’ He looks across at her, proudly. ‘Oxford.’

      ‘What are you studying?’

      ‘Law and Modern Languages. Teddy Hall.’ He grins sheepishly. ‘A minor in partying.’

      ‘First year?’ Nancy smiles.

      ‘Second!’ Martin insists.

      Nancy stares out of the window, with a dreamy expression on her face. ‘I used to live in Oxford.’

      ‘Where?’ Martin’s face lights up.

      ‘Cowley.’ She pulls a face. ‘Not exactly the dreaming spires.’ Pauses. ‘By the Morris factory, actually.’

      ‘That almost rhymes.’

      ‘What does?’

      ‘Factory. Actually.’

      Nancy laughs. ‘It’s a very nice factory. Actually.’

      They laugh together, eyes meeting, then withdrawing, touching again, withdrawing. Like shy molluscs.

      ‘Where in Knotty Green?’

      ‘Whichert House?’

      ‘That Arts and Crafts house? Opposite the Red Lion?’ Nancy’s voice is animated.

      ‘You know it?’

      ‘I cycle past it all the time. I love that house!’

      ‘It belongs to my uncle, Charles, and my aunt.’ He arches an eyebrow. ‘Dorothy Preston?’

      ‘That’s your aunt?’ Nancy reacts with surprise.

      ‘Yes. Do you know her?’

      ‘My mother does.’ Nancy pauses. ‘From church.’

      ‘Small world!’ Martin smiles at the coincidence. One more connecting thread linking them together.

      Nancy lifts the teapot and refills their cups. Martin watches the golden liquid flow from the spout. Looks up into her eyes. Holds them. Like a magnet.

      They meet at the same tearoom every day for the next week or go for long walks around Penn. They are creating a story together, a narrative of interconnected threads and confessions, and each meeting adds a new chapter to the story. In between their meetings, Martin mopes about like a lovesick spaniel. He can’t concentrate. The books he is meant to be reading for the new term are left unread. His face takes on a distant, faraway look, as though he’s been smoking opium. But he is under the influence of drug far more powerful than opium: a drug called love.

      One day, they take the footpath towards Church Path Wood.

      Conversation has progressed beyond the mere exchange of biographies. Today, they are on parents. His mother’s ill health and depression since the death of his father. Her mother’s asthma. His special affection for his sister, Roseen. And how his parents farmed them out to boarding school when they were living in Egypt.

      ‘That must have been so hard on you.’ She squeezes his hand.

      ‘Aunt D. was more like a mother than my real mother,’ he says as they stop at a kissing gate. Nancy steps inside, Martin leans against the wooden rail. ‘Sent me socks and marmalade. Posted my books when I forgot them. Spoiled me rotten in the hols.’

      ‘And your father?’

      ‘He was the black sheep of the family: “a bounder”, I suppose you’d say.’

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