The People on Privilege Hill (14 page)

Lily took Elizabeth's arm and they started off towards the car park. “Elizabeth—you don't know how jealous we all were. You were so fearless. So positive. And getting the hell out ... out of all this college stuff. Getting your life right. Knowing exactly what to do. Even at nineteen. And not coming back—”

“I wasn't fearless,” she said. “I was a romantic fool. You should all have stopped me.”

“We should?”

“Well, you could have, Lily. You could have
made
me come back.”

“But you were unapproachable. Olympian. We were scared stiff of you. You were so sure. So wonderful and beautiful.”

“I was a mess.”

 

Lily said, looking up at the scroll of Latin over the gates, “You know, it's the place I remember. The atmosphere. The Eng. Lit.'s all pretty hazy. All those lectures. All that reading. When I try to remember Keats now, it turns into Shakespeare and Shakespeare's all quotations. All that Anglo-Saxon, I've forgotten the lot.”

“Glad it's not just me,” said Elizabeth. At the car park she said, “What a wonderful car. Is it yours?”

 

At Paddington station Lily went with her on to the platform to find the reserved first-class seat and several men, some quite young, looked at Elizabeth with admiration and she smiled at them. Then she walked back with Lily, to see her off the platform.

“Bye, Elizabeth,” said Lily. “It's lovely you came. We'd none of us forgotten you, you know. We never will.”

“Don't count on it,” said Elizabeth, then her face looked blank. Over Lily's head she said, “I don't suppose you ever see him?”

“Never. For goodness sake, Elizabeth—he was all yours. Utterly yours.”

“Who?
Who
was?”

“Well, Ernie of course.”

“Yes, Ernie,” she said. “Ernie. You see—I had some notion that Ernie might turn up today.”

 

 

 

“The Virgins of Bruges” and “The Latter Days of Mr. Jones” were first published in
The
Spectator
in 1996 and 2003 respectively. “The Milly Ming”, “Babette” and “Learning to Fly” were “Woman's Hour” readings on BBC Radio 4, and “Learning to Fly” was published in the
Sunday Express Magazine
in 2000. “Waiting for a Stranger” was published in
Country Life
in 2002.

 

 

 

 

 

Jane Gardam is the only writer to have been twice awarded the Whitbread Prize for Best Novel of the Year (for
The Queen of the Tambourine
and
The Hollow Land
). She also holds a Heywood Hill Literary Prize for a lifetime's contribution to the enjoyment of literature.

She has published four volumes of acclaimed stories:
Black Faces, White Faces
(David Higham Prize and the Royal Society for Literature's Winifred Holtby Prize);
The Pangs of Love
(Katherine Mansfield Prize);
Going into a Dark House
(Silver Pen Award from PEN); and most recently,
Missing the Midnight
.

Her novels include
God on the Rocks
(shortlisted for the Booker Prize),
Faith Fox, The Flight of the Maidens
and
Old Filth
, a
New York Times
Notable Book of the Year.

Jane Gardam lives with her husband in England.