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

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      Outside Blythe Cottage, Martin opens the door of the Bomb and watches as Nancy turns sideways, lowers herself into the car, swings her feet in after her and smooths her dress over her knees in one fluid movement, like water sliding through a mill race, except Scamp is kissing her face. She’s wearing a new hat: a red, Robin Hood-style cap.

      ‘Is that new?’ He knows girls love you to notice their clothes.

      ‘Do you like it?’ She tilts her head to the side. ‘It’s French.’

      ‘Je l’adore.’ He closes the door after her, runs around to the other side, lifts Scamp off the seat and tosses him in the back.

      ‘Poor old Scamp.’ Nancy reaches back to pet him, as the Riley takes off, like a racehorse. At the corner, Martin presses the clutch, slips the gearstick out of fourth, revs the engine, double declutches, slides it into third, swings through the bend, accelerates, shifts up. Hedges scroll past. The sun breaks through the clouds. A herd of brick-red Hereford cattle amble across a field. Martin slows, then turns right down a narrow lane. The branches of the trees meet overhead, like the ribs of a Gothic cathedral.

      Nancy giggles, holding on to her hat to stop it from flying off. He leans over and kisses her on the cheek.

      ‘Did I pass the test?’

      ‘The knitting needle test?’ Nancy’s laugh is snatched by the wind. ‘Definitely.’

      At the village of Penn, Martin cuts the engine and clambers out of the Bomb. Scamp races off, in hot pursuit of rabbits. Martin grabs a tartan rug and they set off down a footpath towards Church Path Wood.

      Deep in the wood, there is an ancient oak tree. Roughly the same distance from Blythe Cottage as Whichert House, it is the perfect cover for their trysts. Some say the oak dates back to the time of the Spanish Armada, more than four hundred years ago. It’s not the most beautiful tree in the wood. The oak’s limbs are crooked with age, like the arthritic limbs of an old man. There are gnarly lumps on its branches. Whole sections no longer bear leaves. But they have come to love the tree, as a friend and protector.

      On one side of the trunk is a heart-shaped hole from a lightning strike. The wood is still blackened, though the seasons have long since washed away any trace of soot or charcoal. On stormy days, they have sometimes squeezed inside and stood pressed against each, kissing and giggling in the dark, like two children playing in a cubbyhole under the stairs, as the wind shook the leaves above their heads and the branches creaked and scraped against each other.

      Martin spreads the rug under the tree and they lie down, staring up through the canopy of leaves. A cloud floats across the sun, the sky blackens and a few drops of rain begin to fall. Nancy pulls her cashmere cardigan tighter around her.

      ‘What do you want to be . . . ?’ Nancy lets the question hang in the air.

      ‘ . . . when I grow up?’ Martin laughs.

      ‘Well, let’s start with when you leave Oxford.’

      ‘I don’t want to be a lawyer, for a start.’

      ‘That’s what you’re studying, isn’t it?’

      ‘I know. But I find it so dull.’ He sits up and lights a cigarette. ‘I’d love to write . . . ’

      ‘Poetry? Like your uncle?’

      ‘Not sure I have the talent.’ He blows a smoke ring, then swallows it. ‘How about you?’

      ‘I think I can confidently predict СКАЧАТЬ