Border Crossing (19 page)
‘Pretty well, and you?’
‘Not so bad.’
No explanation for his long silence, but then none was required. They had slipped back into the intimacy of their first meeting.
‘Whereabouts are you on your course?’
‘Finals this year.’
‘And then?’
‘I’m doing the MA in writing. It’s been a bit of a rush getting a portfolio together, but Angus has been very good.’
‘Angus MacDonald? You got in touch?’
A stab of jealousy that amazed him. He would have said he was incapable of such a reaction, and yet jealousy was unmistakably what he felt. Just as Martha would be jealous when he told her about this meeting. He thought about it, and decided to be amused. It was Danny’s gift.
‘I went on one of his courses,’ Danny was saying. ‘Very salutary.’ He didn’t say how.
Tom turned to look back the way they’d come. The lights in the teaching block were being switched off, one by one. Against the night sky, the building looked like a huge liner sinking, the lights, first on one deck, then another, going out, until everything was dark.
I won’t ask you your new name,’ he said, smiling.
‘No, better not. I’ve made up my mind about one thing though.’ He was looking towards the bar with its crowds and music. ‘If it happens again, I won’t run. There has to be a time when you say: “No, I’m just not running any more.’
Tom nodded. ‘I think that’s right.’
‘Well.’ A shadowy smile. ‘It’s been nice seeing you again.’
‘How are you, really?’
‘I get by.’ He hesitated. ‘I don’t fight her now. She’s got a right to quite a few of my brain cells.’
They’d come to a fork in the path. ‘You’re over there,’ Danny said, pointing. ‘Keep on the path. It brings you right round to the front door.’
They shook hands. Tom watched him walk across the grass to the bar. As he reached the terrace, a group of people sitting at one of the tables called out a name that Tom convinced himself he hadn’t heard, and Danny went over to join them. One of the girls kissed him. A young man threw a proprietorial arm across his shoulder. Tom wondered if either of them knew who he was.
But no. Danny would have learnt to take what he wanted and keep a safe distance. There was no limit to what Danny might learn.
And that’s the way it has to be, Tom thought. He was looking at success. Precarious, shadowed, ambiguous, but worth having nevertheless. The only possible good outcome.
The smell of lilacs was overwhelming. Tom closed his eyes for a moment, shutting out the sight of Danny and his friends, and saw instead, with almost visionary clarity, a woman with white hair walking down a garden path, five or six cats following her, their tails raised in greeting. She lifted a handful of dry cornflakes to her mouth and ate them, peering into the sun she could hardly see, enjoying its warmth on her face.
There, under the lilacs, with nobody to care or know, he stood for a moment in silence, remembering Lizzie Parks.