From The Moment I Saw Him .... (12 page)

One day, I was in my room, when there was a knock at
the door, and Sofia Kinski stood there.

I had seen very little of her during the last
eighteen months.  She’d spent most of second year at a university in Italy -
she was a linguist - and this year, she was not living in college, so our paths
rarely crossed.  Now she loomed in the doorway, brightly dressed and exuberant
as always, and I felt a tiny throb of apprehension.

“Sorry to bother you, Eithne.  I can’t find anyone
else in, and the machine’s empty.  Can I borrow a Tampax?”

“Yes, of course.”

I went to my cupboard, and found what she wanted.  
Sofia cast her bag down on my bed.

“Thanks.  Back in a jiffy.”

She disappeared to the loo.

I had been making a cup of coffee, and when she
returned, it seemed only polite to offer her one as well.

We chatted warily for a few minutes.  She was
intending to use her linguistic skills working in PR after Finals, and I had no
doubt that she would end up getting whatever she wanted - she had that
essential ruthlessness about her.  I told her about Marsham and Hunter, and she
seemed impressed.  After a while, she said

“And how are things with the lovely Nick?”

“Good, thanks.  He’s not got a job yet, but he’s
working on it.”

She regarded me with those black, devious eyes.

“It must have been nice for you, getting back
together the way you did.  Don’t you ever worry he’ll dump you again?”

“We’re not schoolkids any more.  How’s your love
life?”

“Well - men come and go.  I don’t have your facility
for faithfulness, I’m glad to say.”

She looked at her watch.  “I should be on my way. 
Thanks for the coffee.”

Sofia got up, and shrugged on her jacket.  I had the
feeling there was something she wanted to say, but didn’t quite know how.

“One thing ...” she paused, her hand on the
doorknob.  “You and I are very different creatures, Eithne, but I think you’ve
been very lucky to have this time here with someone you obviously adore.  You
might want to remember that in future.”

She was gone, leaving me apprehensive and a little
puzzled.  Sofia would always be a mystery to me.

Eventually, the dread week of Finals loomed.  It was
quite an ordeal, several days of three hour exams without a break, when, in
serried ranks of desks in the gloomy, echoing surroundings of the Examination
Schools, we would be tested on all we had learned over the last couple of
years.

Nick finished the day before me, so I was not able
to help him celebrate, but when I staggered out of my last exam, he was there
with a bottle of obligatory champagne to share.

“Freedom at last.  How does it feel?” he asked,
giving me a hug.

“It’s wonderful.  No more Beowulf,” I replied.

Simon Williamson, of all people, walked by, entwined
with a red headed girl whom I recognised vaguely from lectures.

“Hi Nick, hi Eithne.  Good to get it over with,
isn’t it?”

 He clapped Nick on the back.  “By the way, great
news about America, well done.”

He was cut off by a mad whirl of celebrating
students.  I looked at Nick in surprise. 

“What’s that about America?” I asked, with a sudden
feeling of apprehension.

“Well - I didn’t want to tell you until after the
exams.”

 He looked away, with a slight grimace.  “The fact
is, I’ve been offered a job on a new magazine starting up in New York.  It’s a
great opportunity, I can’t turn it down.”

I was stunned into silence.  He glanced at my face.

“Don’t look like that, it won’t be for ever. 
America’s not the moon, we can visit back and forth and call each other.  I’ll
certainly be at home for Christmas, to see Rosine’s baby.”

Rosine was expecting a baby in November.  The
thought was not very consoling.

“It’s France all over again,” I said dully, leaning
against some railings.

“What?  No, of course it’s not, I’m not going to
walk away like that.  But, listen, Eithne, you must realise that life was going
to get more complicated after Oxford.  We’ve had a lovely time, but things were
always going to be more of a challenge afterwards.”

“I thought we were going to have a lovely time in
London together,” I said.

It was a bit of a sore point with Nick that he had
not been offered a job on
The Times
, but I imagined he had been pursuing
other options in the capital.

“Well - not for a while maybe.” 

He was quiet for a moment.  “I thought you’d be
pleased for me.”

I caught at his hand, and held it tightly.

“Well, obviously I am, but I wish it wasn’t going to
take you to the other side of the world.”

All around us, people were laughing and shrieking
with the animal high spirits of youth.  We were the only two in the crowd with
solemn faces, and I felt cheated of my celebration.

“I hate Simon Williamson,” I exclaimed petulantly. 
“Why couldn’t he keep his stupid mouth shut, so I could have enjoyed the end of
Finals without this spoiling it?”

I don’t think Nick knew what to say.  He waved the
bottle of champagne.

“Shall we open this?”

“No.  What is there to celebrate?”

I knew I was being petty and babyish, but I couldn’t
help it.  We stood there, looking at each other, neither of us sure what to do
next.  I was horribly reminded of that scene in his garden three years before.

Eventually, he said,

”Well, are you coming to the Finals party in the JCR
tonight?”

“Yes - no - I don’t know, probably not now.” 

Jo came spearing through the crowd towards us.

“God, you look awful, did you find that a tough
paper, Eithne?” she demanded, seeing my downcast face.

“No.  Nick’s just told me he’s got a job in New
York,” I said bitterly.

“What, for the summer?” she asked him.

“Er - no, permanently,” he murmured. 

“My God.  Nice one, Nick.”

She whirled round on him, eyes indignant.  “Well, at
least you let her finish her exams before springing it on her,” she exclaimed.

“To be fair to Nick, someone else let the cat out of
the bag,” I said.  “I suppose he was going to tell me some time.”

Nick thrust the champagne bottle at me.  He looked
bleak and his eyes were hostile.

“You’d better take this anyway,” he said.  He turned
on his heel.   “Not much point in me hanging about here.  I hope I’ll see you
tonight.”

We watched him stride away, and a terrible blank
feeling overwhelmed me.  After a while, we got on to the 2B bus back to
college.  I was trying to keep tears at bay, and Jo kept up a babble of
desultory chatter to cover up my distress.

Back at St Hugh’s, she dragged me straight to
Emily’s room, where I sobbed on the bed while they discussed this bombshell
which had hit me.  I felt as though the rug had been pulled from beneath me yet
again.  Jo was very upset on my behalf.  Emily, however, took a more considered
view.

“Look at it from his side, Eithne,” she said.  “I’m
sure his first choice would have been a job with a London title, and in that
case none of this would have arisen - you could go on seeing each other without
a problem.  But if the jobs don’t materialise, you can’t blame him for taking
up another offer; he has his career to think about.  It doesn’t necessarily
spell the end for you, lots of people keep long distance relationships going -
look at me and Rupert.”

I hadn’t thought about it in that way.  I sat up,
and wiped my tear stained face with my arm.

“But the surest way of ending it is to make a fuss
like you did today.”

I flinched slightly at this.

“I know it’s awful for you, but you don’t want him
to go away with the memory of you weeping and wailing and making a song and
dance,” she continued.  “He needs to go off with something positive, so when
he’s away, he can remember why you’re important to him.”

We sat in silence, while she made tea.  I was
beginning to feel awkward about my earlier behaviour.

“It was such an unexpected blow,” I said
eventually.  “It reminded me of the time before we broke up, when he went off
to France and that was that.”

“It may not be like that again,” Emily replied with
conviction.  “Look how long you’ve been seeing each other since you got back
together.  It’s a different relationship now.”

We drank our tea, and I began to feel better.

“I suppose I ought to go to the party,” I murmured. 
Jo stood up.

“We’ll all go,” she said, laughing.  “We’ll go
dressed to kill and you, Eithne, must be the belle of the ball.  That’s what
you want Nick to remember.”

Thus it was that at nine o clock, the three of us
made a dramatic entrance into the party, Jo with her hair up and wearing a
Victorian high necked frock, Emily in hot pants, and me in a minidress which I
had been saving for a special occasion, teamed with fishnet tights and heels,
with my hair at its cleanest and bounciest.  There was a definite hush as we
walked in, and everyone gazed at us as we stood in the doorway.  I heard a
voice say,

“Well, one of them’s mine,” and Nick walked across
to claim me.

I gave him a huge hug.

“I’m sorry about this morning,” I said.  “It was
such a shock.  I am pleased for you, but I don’t want you to be away for too
long.”

“We’ll have a great time when I do come back.”

And then, within a few days, Oxford was over. We had
learned to take that happy, settled, part of our lives for granted, and now the
real world was about to give us all a kick in the pants.

Although I realised I had no choice but to accept
Nick’s decision to take the American job, I was very unhappy about it.

He explained that the opportunity had arisen via an
American friend from Balliol.  His wealthy publisher father was launching a new
monthly magazine,
Sphere
, a mix of lifestyle and intellectual content,
and they wanted to have a young British writer on the staff to cast a fresh eye
on aspects of American life.  I remembered Nick travelling to London to meet
the publisher just after Easter.  I had not thought very much of it at the
time, but he had obviously made the right impression.

His mother insisted that they take a family holiday
in France again before Nick left in early August, so I did not see him very
often before he departed.  We spent an emotional night together at his house
before he flew to New York. 

“I’m sorry, I can’t face coming to the airport to
say good bye,” I said.  “I’ll only cry and embarrass everyone.”

 I could hardly bear the thought of months going
past before we met again.  Who knew what might happen in that time?  I realised
that life would be more than a little exciting for Nick in a new country and in
a new role, and wondered whether American girls would find him as irresistible
as British ones did - I was afraid I already knew the answer to that.

Despite our happy terms together at Oxford, he had
never told me in so many words that he loved me.  Emily insisted that his
commitment to me over this time meant more than words, but I would have liked
to have some acknowledgement from him that our relationship was special.

“Don’t forget that it’s going to be exciting for
you, too, starting work in London,” he reminded me.  “It’s only for a few
months, and then I’ll be back at Christmas.”

No tears from Nick then, but plenty from me after I
had kissed him goodbye.  I did try hard not to weep in front of my parents.  They
were already uneasy on my behalf about our separation, and I didn’t want to
encourage questions about our future intentions - I couldn’t have answered
them, anyway.

The only bright spot was that Jo and I were now able
to live together.  She had landed a job in personnel with a London department
store, and knew an old school friend with rooms to rent in a flat in Parsons
Green, just off the New King’s Road.  Emily and Rupert were finally going to be
living in the same place, in Cambridge, where they were both doing PhDs, and I
took some heart from the fact that their relationship had lasted through
lengthy times apart.

My room in the flat was tiny, but we had a big
sitting room and kitchen to share, and I liked Jo’s friend Francesca from the
start.  It felt like being back at college all over again, and I was grateful
for their company now that I was, for the time being, a single girl.

I missed Nick terribly, and once he had gone, I
couldn’t wait to start work at Marsham and Hunter.       

The agency occupied a large office block close to
Leicester Square.  There were five other graduate trainees, myself and another
girl, who was a researcher, and four men who were also Oxbridge graduates.  I
scrutinized my fellow trainees as we waited nervously in Reception on the first
morning, and wondered how such apparently dissimilar people had been recruited. 

On that first day, I was assigned to an account
director who managed a group of clients, and after sorting out the admin
connected with my arrival, he took me out for a very nice lunch. 

“So ..... Eithne.”

  My new boss lit a cigarette and surveyed me across
the table.  “Tell me about yourself, and why you want to work for M and H.”

I disliked that kind of question.  I didn’t find
myself very interesting, I suppose, and I had a sudden flashback to that chilly
park years ago and my first conversation with Nick.

“Well, to be honest, there doesn’t seem to be much
available for female graduates if you don’t want to teach or work in personnel.  
But I went to some agency presentations at university, and I liked the fact
that women aren’t seen as second class citizens in advertising,” I explained. 
“Marsham and Hunter impressed me, because they were very honest about what to
expect, and the people from the agency made it sound like a lot of fun as well
as hard work.”

Don Rossi - my boss - laughed.

“They say it’s the most fun you can have with your
clothes on,” he said.  “It’s certainly a very stimulating business.  You’ll
have to be prepared to give as good as you get, so I hope you’ve got a tough
interior under that attractive exterior.”

I hoped I had, too.  If I didn’t, I’d need to
develop one fast.

Don went on to tell me about the clients, or
accounts, which he managed, and told me that I would be working on the Breeze
hair products range and a new breakfast cereal, due to be test marketed after
Christmas.  It sounded very technical, and I realised I would have to learn
quickly to keep up.

“Do you know London well?  Where are you living?” he
asked me.

“Not very well, really.  I’m flat sharing in Parsons
Green, it’s quite an easy tube journey to work,” I said.

“And I can’t believe anyone with your looks has got
through Oxford unattached?”

I smiled ruefully.

“I do have a steady boyfriend, but unfortunately
he’s in America for a while.”

Don was interested, and I found myself telling him
about Nick and the new magazine.

“Hmm - I think I’ve heard of it, they’re launching
in October I believe,” he said.  “I can see it’s a good deal for your
boyfriend, but it’s a bit tough on you.”

He signalled to the waiter for the bill.

“Good job you’ll have plenty to keep you occupied
here.  You won’t have time to miss him.”

He wasn’t wrong.  The first weeks went in a flash
because everything was so new and interesting.  As well as learning on the job,
the trainees attended workshops on different aspects of agency life, and at
first, I found the unfamiliar vocabulary and business of selling hard to
understand.  At night, I dreamed vividly about the agency and my colleagues,
and wondered whether things would ever fall into place for me.

I also discovered that my years of composing elegant
prose at university were not much help when it came to writing the minutes of client
meetings, a job which came my way early on, and which required a succinct and
factual style instead.

At least it kept me from thinking too much about
Nick.  We exchanged a few letters - mine long and descriptive, his short and inconsequential
- and I resigned myself to the fact that he was not going to keep calling me to
say how much he missed me.  Somehow, we could never manage to get the time
difference right.

 Weekends were the worst time.  Jo was also
unattached, and we spent our free days exploring the city, which would have
been great had we not both been nursing bruised hearts.  I felt that I was
seeing London through a veil of unhappiness, which muted its charm, and which
would only be lifted when I had my lover to share life with me again.

 My inexperienced eyes were quickly opened to the
ongoing amorous activity between staff members at the agency.  Not everyone was
involved, but there were many secret and not so secret flirtations and
relationships being conducted.  It was rumoured that my boss, Don, despite
being married and a dad, was having a liaison with a young lady copywriter, and
I wondered whether all offices were like this.

I got a lot of attention at first, but my firm
refusal of dates due to my absent boyfriend meant that word got round that I
was unavailable.  However, I did enjoy going to the agency pub next door
several evenings each week, to indulge in a little light flirtation and enjoy
the quick repartee of my exuberant colleagues.

I became great friends with a copywriter and art
director who worked together as a team.  Euan, the writer, was a wiry little
Scot from Glasgow, with the most amazing vocabulary, lots of it rather rude and
new to my innocent ears.  He was queer, or gay, as people were beginning to
say, whereas his creative partner Steve was married with a young child.  This
difference between them seemed to stimulate the ideas they generated and they
were a successful combination, always producing very original work.  They
decided early on that I was in need of their protection, and I was grateful to
them for helping me find my feet in this strange new world.

One Friday in November, I went to the pub with Euan
and Steve for end of the week drinks.

“So, Eithne - what news from the absent Nick?”
demanded Euan, holding his dry martini up to the light in an appreciative way,
before taking a large slurp.

My shoulders drooped.

“Nothing for a while.  I get the occasional
postcard, but that’s about it.  At least I know I’m going to get to see him
next month.”

I could not wait for him to come home at Christmas,
although he had already warned me it would be a flying visit.  Euan tutted at
me.

“I’m sure he doesn’t deserve you, hon.  Is he really
worth all this waiting and moping about?”

“Well, I’m not too mopey, am I?”  I looked across at
Steve for support.

     “No, babe, but it seems a shame you aren’t
getting out and enjoying yourself more.  London’s such fun while you’re young.”

I stared into my glass of white wine. 

“I do get to go to places, but it’s different when
you’re on your own,” I agreed, thinking how much more I would enjoy myself if
Nick were with me.

“Can’t you find someone to take you about who’ll be
happy just to be friends?” Steve asked.  (Shades of John at Oxford there.)  
Euan gave a hoot of laughter.

“Look at her, Steve, you think that’s going to
happen?  No, she’s either going to wait for Nick in a kind of frozen state, or
decide that he’s not coming back, and she’ll have to move on.  I think it’s too
early to predict which way she’ll go.”

They surveyed me in a worried sort of way.  Don
Rossi came past, jingling coins in his pocket on his way to the bar.

“God knows why you hang out with this pair, Eithne. 
Don’t let them get you into bad habits,” he said, with a grin.

“We look after her for you,” retorted Euan, with
dignity.  

November crawled into December, and there was much
festive merry making with Christmas lunches, and the agency Christmas party,
where some staff members drank so much they ended up sleeping it off on the
office floor.  By now, I was getting used to the excesses of agency life, and
nothing surprised me anymore.

I travelled back to Beresford the day before
Christmas Eve with a light heart, knowing I would be seeing Nick again the next
day.  But when I got home, my mother said he had arrived early, and my father
drove me straight over to the DeLisles’ house so I could see him.

It was bliss to be in his arms again.  He was still
the same, handsome Nick, and he was bubbling over with tales of the exciting
time he was having in New York.  His conversation was peppered with unfamiliar
words and phrases, and mention of colleagues and places that none of us knew. 

Nick’s parents were clearly delighted to have him
back as well.  We all enjoyed an evening devoted to the prodigal son, before
Rosine and Andrew and their new baby boy arrived the following day.

It was accepted that I would be staying the night,
but when we eventually got to his bedroom, he succumbed to jet lag, and it was
not until the next morning that we could make love.  By then, I was desperate
for the body I had missed so much.

I was sorry that Christmas had to intervene, because
the traditional rites hindered our spending time together.  I could not even
summon much enthusiasm for the Boxing Day party, because his old friends came
round to check out the traveller and hear all the tales.  As in the past, Nick
was very much the centre of attention, and I felt relegated to the background.

During the party, I went to help with heating up a
fresh bowl of mulled wine in the kitchen.  As I stirred in the spices and
fruit, Rosine came in, and asked me to hold the baby for a moment while she
went to the bathroom.

I wasn’t used to babies, and sat down uncertainly
with the snuffling little bundle.  The baby - Charles Andrew Nicholas - stared
solemnly at me with dark DeLisle eyes, and made funny little noises.  I smiled
gently at him, and wondered what it would be like to have one of my own one
day.

Nick crashed into the room in search of something,
and recoiled at the sight of me with the baby in my arms.

“Christ - don’t do that to me, Eithne.  You had me
worried for a moment.” 

He paused on the threshold, as if there was
something dangerous going on.

“Rosine asked me to hold him for a while,” I said. 
Something in Nick’s attitude disconcerted me.  I had noticed his complete lack
of interest in his nephew, and resented being made to feel like some sort of
conspirator in family life.  He sidled past me, eyes fixed on the bundle as if
it were a bomb which might go off at any moment.