Love, Nina (17 page)

MK: How much did you put in?

Me: A dash.

MK: It's meant to be a teaspoon. It's porridge, not a marinade.

Love, Nina

*  *  *

Dear Vic,

I'm moving into Mary Hope's spare room. It'll be my digs while I'm at Thames Poly. The house is great (as previously reported) and Mary and Polly and JDF are great. Plus the fact that Polly is not only brainy (literaturewise) but funny too.

MK isn't 100% happy about me going there but she isn't 100% unhappy either and that's the way it goes. She'll be pleased in the long run. Just needs time to get used to it.

Me: Mary has said I can live in their spare room.

MK: Oh.

Me: I thought you'd be pleased.

MK: That you'll be psyching out the new nanny and putting grenades in our supper—great, can't wait.

Me: And I'll be able to look at Sam's eye.

MK: There is that.

Anyway, all feels very strange and I haven't even gone yet.

Nunney's gone to Sussex.

Love, Nina

*  *  *

Sep 1984

Dear Vic,

Watching England play (E. Germany?). My last telly football match at 55. I didn't mention this to anyone else, decided to just enjoy it.

Sam: (
speaking to Bobby Robson
) What do you go and pick two bloody Ipswich players for (
taps the screen
)?

MK: Stop tapping the screen.

Sam: (
to Bryan Robson
) Come on, Robbo.

MK: Stop putting your hands all over the screen.

Sam: Come on, England.

Sam: I can't watch. I hate football.

Will: It's only a friendly.

Sam: (
to Bobby Robson
) It's only a friendly, Bobby (
taps screen
).

MK: Sam, stop touching the screen.

Sam: I can't watch.

MK: Neither can we—all we can see is your hands.

I felt sad at the end. But didn't say anything.

I don't think Mary Hope & co watch much football whereas MK and S&W watch as much as possible. So I'll have to come round here for it. Not that I like it that much, but I like watching it with them. MK mentions if a player has nice hair and Sam puts the Vs up to the ref and Will covers his face at the tense bits. They're just themselves watching football only more so.

Love, Nina

II

1984–1987

Dear Vic,

Moved into Mary Hope's house on Regent's Park Terrace. It's v. nice.

Started Thames Polytechnic.

First day was just getting to know stuff and sorting out options etc. Second day actually had a seminar. History of Western Thought.

We had to go (in pairs) and use the library and write a short paper to prove or disprove the existence of God. I looked round the room looking for someone to pair with and ruled out anyone (a) with spiky hair (b) over fifty (c) stupid-looking (d) posh. This left one person. A girl called Stella Heath (northern, perm, thin white belt). She said, “I'm Stella Heath,” and then spelt it out for me (H-E-A-T-H).

She wasn't as brainy as I'd thought she was going to be. She hadn't read a single thing off the summer reading list and wasn't familiar with the Cogito ergo sum thing (Descartes: I think, therefore I am…etc.) and is only at Thames Poly due to getting unexpectedly bad grades.

She was a bit of a letdown, to be honest.

Me: I chose you because you seemed brainy.

SH: I'm not really.

Me: It might've helped if you'd read the summer reading list.

SH: I was working in a doughnut booth at Butlin's till last week (
defensive
).

Off we went to the library and looked up all the relevant bits of Modern Western Thought and Stella Heath kept putting a Vicks Sinex thing up her nose (summer cold).

We spoke a bit each of our argument (God Does Not Exist) and the bloke (Peter Widdowson) said we made a coherent argument via Descartes, and that that was what he was hoping for.

He did say that students more often proved the
existence,
rather than the
non
-existence, of God via Descartes, as that was what Descartes would have wanted, but not to worry, we'd got the gist.

So I was pleased. Had a cup of tea in the refectory and Stella Heath told me her mother was an Alan Bennett fan. How funny. I didn't say anything (about AB) but it just shows how popular he is.

Then I came home, to here. And it's great and I'm lucky to be a student and have such a great home, but I'm missing S&W & MK and feel a bit strange about it all.

Keep seeing them going about their business across the gardens and want to go round and see them and to tell AB about Stella Heath's mum being a huge fan. But won't yet.

Love, Nina

PS I know how AB feels now.

*  *  *

October 1984

Dear Vic,

Sam refuses to walk round to Regent's Park Terrace on his own now—since he got cornered by Yogi at the railings. Yogi's owner (next-door-but-one) did her best to smooth things out.

Woman: (
to Sam, through letter box
) Yogi was probably as scared as you were.

Sam: (
inside, talking through letter box
) I don't think he was.

Woman: He's very friendly really.

Sam: So am I.

Woman: (
to me
) Would he like to come out and shake paws?

Sam: No fucking way.

Don't know what type Yogi is, but he's very small and friendly. Mary Hope thinks he's a Pekinese, but he's too fluffy in my opinion. She's a bit anti small dogs (her dog, Chilly, is a Labrador).

Now I have to walk round to meet Sam outside Joan Thirkettle's (halfway), which is annoying. Sometimes one of us has to wait there for the other, usually me. What must she think (Joan Thirkettle)?

Wondering about getting a stepladder for the back wall. Two stepladders.

MK is not getting along with new nanny that well. I'm guessing she keeps asking her if she's had a nice weekend…and has she had her hair done etc., which gets on MK's nerves. But there's no stopping some people. I know because she does it to me. She's too nice. I knew she would be.

I remember once, in 1982, asking MK if she'd had a nice weekend and I could see it didn't go down well so never asked again. Still don't, even to other people. I don't like it myself now.

For instance, Nunney on the phone the other day.

Nunney: Did you have a nice weekend?

Me: What?

Nunney: I'm being platitudinous.

Me: What?

Nunney: The gulf gets wider by the day.

And I had that annoying thing where you understand perfectly what someone means, but not till half an hour later.

I'm giving
some
people a special code for the phone so I'll know if it's for me. Otherwise I'm running up and down taking calls from Heal's for Mary.

Remember this: Dial my number, let it ring three times and then hang up. Wait a moment and ring back. Then I'll pick up (if I'm at home). If you don't do the code I won't answer and Mary or Polly will say I'm out. It's designed to filter out people I don't want to talk to and to save time. It's called the “three-ring difference.”

Sam knows the code but can slightly hear this phone ringing at 55 and it confuses him and he often goes to four rings before he hangs up. It still works though. Three or four rings are OK. Don't let it slip to five rings or it'll be picked up before you hang up.

Mary-Kay knows the code too, unfortunately. She rings now and again to ask if I've got things of hers.

MK: (
on phone
) Have you nicked the
Halliwell's
?

Me: No.

MK: The video card?

Me: No.

MK: What about the big stripy towel?

Me: No.

MK: The one with the green, blue, and red stripes.

Me: No.

MK: I can see it, in your room, right now, hanging on a chair.

Me: (
pause
) OK, I've got the towel but not the rest.

MK: How can I believe you? You lied about the towel.

Me: I wish I hadn't given you the code.

MK: Well, you did.

Mary-Kay likes the three-ring code and says she might adopt a similar phone-answering system for 55.

Me: It could get tricky for the people we have in common.

MK: We don't have people in common.

Me: There must be someone who rings us both.

MK: There
mustn't.

Me: God, no, there isn't. I'm just an offshoot.

Love, Nina

PS Please come and stay soon.

*  *  *

Dear Vic,

Thames Polytechnic is very good and I like being at college. Sometimes I see a reflection of myself walking along with my little bag of books (the texts) and I feel…thrilled is the only word I can think of. I can't believe I'm studying for a BA Hons Bachelor of Arts (don't know what the Hons bit means).

The lecturers know the stuff inside out and make it interesting and funny.

Lectures: You just scribble down everything the lecturer says (you have to be quick)—don't interrupt or put hand up, as it's strictly the lecturer talking.

Then go to the refectory for a coffee and talk about the lecture/lecturer. I'm having coffee almost all the time now. Learnt that bad tea is a lot worse than bad coffee (bad coffee is only a bit worse than normal coffee, especially if you prefer tea).

Then other people (non-attendees of lecture) turn up and ask to see people's lecture notes and copy them down. To be honest, I'm not keen on this ritual and think it's like doing someone else's work for them, but I go along with it so as not to look a cunt.

I can always tell which students have stayed on at school and taken A levels and which ones didn't. The ones who went through sixth form don't take sugar. The ones who left school before exams (like me) always take two sugars. Except for me. I'm more like the traditional students (sugarwise).

Seminars: for each seminar you have to have read a certain book or play and a bit of connected theory. Then you have the seminar and discuss certain aspect(s) of the text(s) for an hour.

This is your chance to be noticed as brilliant or idiotic. You must contribute (intelligently) to the discussion, otherwise it looks as though you haven't read the text(s). The academic might say, “Who's actually read this?” and “What's the point of coming?” to those who haven't. Sometimes people who haven't read the text are told they may as well leave the seminar and that's the ultimate shame. It nearly happened to Stella. She hadn't read the Alfred Lord Tennyson (not one single poem) but got away with it due to me having said something about Darwin in the coffee bar beforehand.

Tutor: What do we assume Tennyson's referring to here?

Stella: Is it to do with Darwin?

Tutor: (
excited
) YES! Exactly. Tennyson and his cronies were reeling from the new theories, which questioned everything blah, blah.

I
always
read the texts plus extra stuff, but that's because I'm officially a mature student (20+) and we're the reliable ones. Plus I couldn't bear to not have read the text(s).

Stella says it shows a fear of authority. I say it shows I'm not an idiot.

One bad thing is I've had to pair up with this kid called Zig for a short project. We were paired by register proximity (I didn't choose him). Stella is paired with a posh kid with a fear of the marketplace (his words) called Henderson.

I don't know if mine (Zig) is a girl or a boy, which is awkward. All I know is s/he is reluctant to do any work and just keeps picking his/her nail varnish off and that s/he is disappointed there aren't as many punks as s/he was expecting in the Woolwich area. I know this because s/he's written a song called “Where have all the punks gone” about a lonely neo-punk. It reminded me of Will's lonely dog eating burger buns in Hampstead.

Round at 55. Moaning about Zig.

Me: I don't know if he's a girl or a boy.

MK: Does it make that much difference?

Me: Yes, we're doing slavery together.

MK: But why do you need to know?

Me: I just do.

MK: See him as a colleague, not a sperm donor.

(
AB arrives.
)

AB: How's it going at college?

Me: Really good.

MK: She's hanging around with Tootsie.

AB: And how about living with Mary and Polly?

Me: Great.

MK: She's taken half our stuff with her.

AB: No?

MK: Yes, she's a thief and a liar.

AB: No, don't say that.

MK: Yes.

Me: It was
one
towel.

MK: I'd have given you a towel if you'd asked.

Me: Yeah, but not that big stripy one.

MK: That's true.

Love, Nina

PS Tennyson (Alfred, Lord). Poems are good and a bit shocking. “Maud,” about a woman called Maud whose brother basically stops the narrator from seeing Maud. Narrator then kills the brother in a fight and has to flee.

I'm noticing that blokes in poems (and plays) are always having to flee and leave women to die of broken hearts (Maud dies of one). So that's the story, but ignoring that, the actual poem is good and there's a bit that starts “I hate the dreadful hollow behind the little wood” that's quite breathtaking.

*  *  *

Dear Vic,

Mary Hope held a belated little housewarming party at Regent's Park Terrace.

Jez and me and one of my friends from Thames Poly were the waiters. We just wandered about giving people glasses of champagne and little bits of bread and paste and it seemed to go well.

The morning after, the girl from Thames Poly came into my bedroom and said she'd had it off with X in Mary's basement flatlet.

Me: Oh God.

Girl: (
grinning
) Yeah, he was a real Brian Hooper.

Me: What do you mean?

Girl: He had an enormous lute.

Me: Oh.

Girl: (
giggling
) He nearly pole-vaulted out of the window.

Me: Oh no, are you serious?

Girl: Yes (
biting lower lip
).

It seems such a rude thing to have done in someone else's house (flatlet), with someone else's friend and after being paid by Mary Hope to take a tray round. She must've been flirting all evening instead of circulating properly and making sure no one had an empty glass (as instructed). Told Mary H (in case she'd got wind of it) and I wanted to distance myself from it.

Mary H didn't mind at all though, she thought it was “wonderful.”

Went to 55 for supper later and told MK. She thought it was “fantastic” and when AB arrived (with a can of Skol and a bowl like a horse's hoof with an old pudding in it) she straightaway wanted me to tell him about it.

MK: Tell him about the thing.

Me: Oh, you tell him.

MK: I can't remember all the names and terms.

Me: OK. The names are X and X and Brian Hooper and the terms are “lute” and “pole-vault.”

AB: Yes, enough, I get it.

MK: To caper nimbly in a lady's chamber to the lascivious pleasing of a lute.

Me: What?

MK: It comes from something or other.

AB: Say it again.

MK: (
quickly
) To caper nimbly in a lady's chamber to the lascivious pleasing of a lute.

AB: Anyway, there's not much left and it's a bit claggy, but would anyone like a spoonful of rice pudding?

I'm like AB now. I don't live at 55 but I go round all the time. And I think it's fine that I go round all the time. And they think it's fine. I'm halfway between a visitor and part of the household. When MK gets home from the office, she half expects me to be there and half the time I am there.

The nanny doesn't seem to mind, she's very welcoming, because she's nice.

I might have minded if, when I was the nanny, the Leeds United predecessor had kept popping in and cooking pancakes. But she didn't (keep popping in).

Love, Nina

PS Don't forget the three-ring difference if you phone.

*  *  *