This Is All (93 page)

‘I have another idea about that. I’ve been thinking that I’d like to do a doctorate. You get intellectually stale teaching at the same level all the time. I’ve been down quite a bit recently, as you know, and that’s why. I’m not learning anything new. I need to do some regular study that will stretch me and excite me again, not for work or promotion but for the sake of it. The OU do postgrad courses. Why don’t I sign up for a PhD and we’ll work for our degrees together? Then we can help keep each other’s nose to the grindstone.’

What need was there for discussion? After a few minutes of telling each other how brilliant we both were, and having a drink on it, and me feeling breathless relief and thanking Julie, we calmed down and logged onto the OU website there and then, printed out the details, and started the process for registration.

‘And,’ Julie said, ‘as my contribution to help you and Will, I’ll pay your OU fees, so you don’t need to worry about that.’

Mrs B.’s retaliatory attack came the following Wednesday. I was sent for just before the end of school. She’d turned up and conned the head into allowing her to see me ‘on a private matter of some urgency’. The head even vacated her room so that Mrs B. could talk to me there. (‘No surprise,’ Doris said, when I told her what had happened, ‘she buys her clothes from Mrs B.’s shop and I’ve seen them in convivial chats at Mario’s.’ Again: not what you know but who you know.)

She was vile. Didn’t I realise I was ruining William’s entire future? Didn’t I realise he was way out of my class academically, not to mention, she might add, socially? How could I behave so crassly? Was I utterly selfish, not to mention arrogant? Had I no consideration for other people? Couldn’t I see what distress I was causing? Wasn’t it obvious we were
making a terrible mistake? She couldn’t imagine why my father was colluding in it. William and I were far too young and inexperienced to
live together
(she might have been talking of a hideous disease). Couldn’t I see that William would very soon realise his mistake and then he’d resent me for the rest of his life? She had appealed to me once before and had thought I had seen sense. But not at all! I had deliberately deceived her. Even so, she was appealing to me again. ‘Give up this misconceived plan. Leave my son alone and allow him to do what is clearly best for him, and take his place at Cambridge.’

This time I was ready for her and didn’t stand meekly by and say nothing. Besides, I was older and not so malleable after Edward and Cal. And if I had even a smidgeon of doubt about what we planned, Mrs B. banished it.

‘Mrs Blacklin,’ I said, when she eventually drew breath, ‘I don’t want to make an enemy of you. I know you resent me. I’m sorry about that. But you’ve no right to speak to me the way you just have. I don’t know whether Will and I are making a mistake or not. People I trust think what we’re doing is right. And Will wants it as much as I do, as I’m sure he has told you. Even if it turns out to be a mistake, it won’t ruin Will’s life – or mine. If I thought it would I wouldn’t do it. I have too much respect for myself as well as for Will and I love him too much to hurt him like that. As you’ve pointed out, we’re still young. If we are making a mistake we’ll have time to put it right, and Will has assured me his place at Cambridge won’t be lost. I wish you could accept it and help us. But whether you can or not, I won’t give up. And that’s all I can say.’

If it were possible for a human being to breathe fire, Mrs B. would have despatched me in a puff of smoke. As she couldn’t she merely glared at me for a while, uncharacteristically speechless.

And then with words spoken with even greater venom, she
said, ‘You are
despicable
,’ turned on her elegant heel and stalked from the room.

That night I told Will his mother and I had had an exchange of views but kept the venom to myself. Why stoke up the cycle of resentment? Somewhere someone has to break the circle or there’s never any hope of change.

How I hate exams! They came and went in a haze of worry and sleepless nights and panic revision and sweated days and the certainty of failure. I hadn’t the energy or the confidence even to think of our plans, never mind to do anything more about them. Will, a lover of exams, finished at college without either a flicker of worry or a touch of sadness that he was leaving, and was back home before mine were done. He and his mother were so at loggerheads he couldn’t stand the atmosphere at home, so he lodged with us, and with his usual singleness of mind, turned his attention to the organisation of Tree Care.

I’d never thought of him as a businessman, but I quickly saw how much he enjoyed it. Doris set him up with accounts and record books. They decided he should wait to see how things went before applying for a business start-up grant. Dad fixed him up with a desk and a phone in the office. He and Arry toured the area, noting the addresses of properties that could do with some tree or hedge maintenance. He visited the arboretum and let them know what he was doing, in the hope that they might put some work his way.

His confidence and energy rubbed off on me, and his excitement about what we were doing made leaving school easier than it would have been otherwise. There were the usual leavers’ high jinks followed by lakes of sentimentality and cataracts of tears on the last day, especially at final assembly, during the inevitable singing of ‘God be with you till we meet again’, followed by gift-giving and over-the-top goodbyes to favoured teachers. As my mind was already on Will
and our plans, and as I wasn’t saying goodbye to my favoured teacher, my own plunge into the emotional wallow was more sympathetic vibration with my departing friends than heartfelt regret. School had been good to me, I’d enjoyed it on the whole, it had brought me friendships and Julie and Will and my love of reading and writing and my desire to study. It might seem mean of me to leave it with so little sorrow, but I think perhaps I’m always more affected and emotional by beginnings than I am by endings. Once I accept that something is finished I let it go without upset and get on with the next thing. Endings have only the weight of the past in them. But beginnings carry such a weight of decision – this route not that, this choice not that – and such a weight of possibilities that they cause me far more excitement and far more anxiety than giving up something that has had its day.

Leaving school did bring to a head another end. In the days after my last day at school, the desire to set up my own home grew stronger and stronger. So for two weeks after I left, Will and I concentrated on setting up Tree Care, and finding a place for us to live.

Scene Three

Conceiving

It is always easier to plan than to do.

Plans are dreams of what might be; reality is the disappointment of what can be.

Plans are neat; reality is messy.

Or as Mr Robert Burns put it, ‘The best laid schemes o’ mice and men/Gang aft a-gley.’

Our plans didn’t exactly go a-gley (though at times I thought they would), but like all plans, turning them into reality required adjustment, improvisation, compromise and acceptance of what could be done, rather than the ideal
which, in the euphoria of our brain-teasing summer evening in the garden, we had dreamt of doing.

Dad thought Will and I should go away for a holiday before we set to work and even offered to fix up something for us, but Will being Will wanted to get on without delay and I was in the mood to follow rather than oppose.

The first thing we did was write and design a flyer, advertising the services of Tree Care, Will dictating (I choose the word carefully) the content and me determining (ditto) the design. An A4 sheet of textured, recycled paper, printed in three colours on both sides, folded twice to make a leaflet of six slim pages, including two pictures of Will (one a portrait, one of him in full gear working on a tree). This took a day.

Next day we toured the town and surrounding area, delivering flyers to likely-looking properties.

Then the waiting began.

But not sitting, twiddling our thumbs. I wanted to settle the question of where we would live and to move in. We checked the letting agents and the accommodation ads in the local rag. Even for poky places, the rents were way out of range of anything we could hope to earn straight away, which we were determined to rely on rather than sponging off parents. Doris drew a blank from her clients. Being August, most of them were on holiday, and those who weren’t had nothing to offer.

A frustrating week went by. No contacts for Tree Care, no luck with accommodation.

‘You could always live in a tent,’ Arry said.

I laughed. Will didn’t.

‘Only joking,’ Arry said.

‘No no,’ Will said. ‘You’re right.’

‘
No no!
’ I said. ‘I am
not
living in a tent, not even for you, William Blacklin.’

‘Not a tent,’ Will said. ‘But what about a caravan?’

‘What sort of caravan and where?’ I said, wary and serious, knowing the look on Will’s face meant decision.

‘The sort on wheels that you tow behind a car. Or behind something a bit tougher than a car, in the case of the one I have in mind, because it’s a big job with built-in shower and loo.’

‘And where is it, and why d’you think we can have it or afford it – even if I agree?’

‘It’s in my brother’s garden, and I think he might lend it to us till we fix something else. He only uses it for holidays and he’s had his this summer.’

‘Great!’ Arry said.

‘O lordy,’ I puled. ‘A
caravan!
And do I want to live in a caravan in your brother’s back garden, however big it is and however nice your brother and his family are? Didn’t we say we want to be away from family?’

‘How d’you know till you try it, and we can always move it somewhere else.’

‘Why not give it a go?’ Arry said. ‘You could do a lot worse.’

‘Then you two can live in it, if you’re that keen,’ I said, ‘and I’ll stay in my beloved room, thank you.’

But we looked, of course. It was one of those big bruisers that puts you in mind of a monster shoebox with windows. In this case, windows draped with lace curtains. The curtains can go for a start, I thought as soon as I saw them. Which thought I should have known indicated I’d live in it if I had to. And I have to admit that it was attractive
for a caravan
. Everything was fresh and clean. It had the appeal of a grown-up Wendy house, with all mod cons, except for no washing machine, and
no bookshelves
.

‘Well?’ Will said.

‘Where’ll we keep our books?’ knowing I was only asking out of perversity.

‘We’re not going to live in it for ever. We’ll have the ones we need and leave the rest where they are for now.’

‘And the laundry?’

‘Doris won’t mind if we use her machine once a week, will she?’

‘There’s only one room. We said we need our own spaces.’

‘It’s only a stop-gap. It’ll do for a while. Have you a better suggestion?’

‘No.’

‘Well then?’

‘I’ll think about it.’

‘You could always try it for a week or two,’ Arry said. ‘See how you get on.’

‘What do we do about water and electricity?’

Will said, ‘We’ll run a pipe for water and a line for electricity from my brother’s house. We’ll pay him for the use.’

‘You mean, we live in it here?’

‘If we’re just trying it out. No point in moving till we know we want to use it for longer. And we have to find somewhere we like to park it.’

‘It’s not near the house,’ Arry said. ‘You’re on your own really. And you can come and go without anybody bothering you.’

Which was true.

I said, ‘I won’t even ask about the loo.’

‘There’s a tank,’ Will said. ‘Forget it. I’ll deal with it.’

‘If you ask me,’ Arry said, ‘you’ll be hard pushed to find anything better. There’s many a couple would give their eye teeth for such a pad.’

‘Well …’ I said, ‘in the circumstances.’

‘Good,’ Will said.

‘You’ve made the right decision, colleen,’ Arry said.

‘I haven’t decided anything,’ I said. ‘You two have. I don’t know why I’m letting you talk me into it.’

‘Because we’re wonderful, we are indeed,’ Arry said, ‘and you just can’t resist us, you can’t at all, hard as you try.’

*

At home that evening there was huffing and puffing, Doris huffing, Dad puffing, but in the end they reached the same impasse I’d reached with Will: what else was on offer? Dad again argued for us staying at home; Doris again opined it was important for us to be on our own, even if it meant living in a caravan for a while; and ’twixt and ’tween them they licked the platter clean, Dad gave in, and the decision was made that we’d live in the caravan for ‘a trial period’.

The discussion moved on. Next item on the agenda – our life was dominated by the new business and run on management lines these days – was a vehicle for Will’s work. He explained the problem. Customers would expect the cuttings from trees and hedges to be carted away as part of the service. Will couldn’t do that in the boot of his car. But we couldn’t afford a pickup or other suitable vehicle.

Dad wanted to know if there would always be a lot of stuff. Will said it would vary with each job.

‘No problem,’ Dad said, ‘you hire. If there’s not a lot, hire a trailer for your car. If there’s too much for a trailer, hire a vehicle that’s big enough. Build the cost of each hire into the price you charge the customer. That way, you don’t have to lay out for the purchase of a vehicle, you don’t have running costs for it, or road tax and insurance, you don’t have parking problems when you aren’t using it, and you only spend what you can charge for.’

Another case of: Why didn’t we think of that before?

‘Because you still have a lot to learn about business,’ Doris said.

‘So we oldies,’ Dad said, ‘do have our uses after all.’

Within two days we were installed in the caravan. Not that it was difficult. We only had to move our clothes, some bed linen, our essential books, CDs, laptops and other gear, some food and basic ingredients for cooking, and that was it. A car load from each of our homes, Will’s accomplished while his
mother was at work. The caravan was fully equipped with kitchen utensils, crockery and cutlery. Will and Arry fixed up the water, an electrician friend of Arry’s fitted the electric line in return for an unspecified favour from Arry about which I felt it best not to enquire.