Love, Nina (23 page)

Me: They just want to sleep here.

MK: Is this the one who masturbates all the time?

Me: Well, once a day.

MK: Yes, but
where
will he be having his once-a-day?

Me: (
realizing
) Oh, yeah.

MK: As long as he's safely in your quarters.

When they arrived, Pippa said they'd go in S&W's beds. I said no.

Pippa insisted. Again I said no.

Pippa: Why not?

Me: Because of the (
quietly
) wanking.

Pippa: Oh, that! (
laughs
) He has an evening bath if we're away.

I daren't tell MK that—she uses our bathroom sometimes and she'll have thoughts and visions. I've already had visions. Also, the plughole sometimes regurgitates.

College is great. The girl (Appleseed) who kept showing off about her grandfather being a Swedenborgian and her grandmother being a suffragette has been cautioned over plagiarism. Whereas I got a B+ for my Romanticism essay and a note at the bottom saying, “You might consider this area for your extended essay.”

Proves the theory that you get good marks if you type. The essay was awful and nonsensical.

Hope all's well with you and the Fiat Panda.

Love, Nina

*  *  *

Dear Vic,

Here's a copy of my
Autobiography & Fiction
essay.

PH liked it so much I got an almost unheard of A+. I've never had one before and I told him that.

Me: I've never had an A+ before.

PH: It's a fine piece of writing.

Me: Thank you.

PH: I don't suppose you'll ever get another A+.

Me: How do you know?

PH: You don't write A+ essays.

Me: I just did.

PH: That wasn't an essay.

Anyway. I'm just pleased to have got an A at last. Noticed tutor PH had a slice of lemon in his tea. I kept staring at it thinking it was a biscuit he'd dropped in. Then I caught a whiff.

I'm sending it to you (the essay) because you're very much in it.

Hope you like it.

Love, Nina

*  *  *

Dear Vic,

I don't mind that you didn't like the
Autobiography & Fiction
essay.

I will send you the next excerpt if you really want to see it, but don't blame me if you hate it. And remember, it'll cost a pound to photocopy, so you'd better like it—or at least not complain about it.

Remember what I said. There's always a lot of autobiography in fiction and fiction in autobiography. It has to be that way otherwise they'd be unreadable (except by the author).

Love, Nina

*  *  *

Dear Vic,

Stella is hanging around with a hippie called Ruth. She's got red gums. Stella says it's because she takes speed to stay alert in nightclubs and lectures. Apparently she's burning the candle at both ends.

Me: Her gums are bright red.

SH: (
proud
) That's because she takes a bit of speed.

Me: Rubbish, it's because she doesn't brush her teeth, or floss.

SH: How do you know?

Me: I see plaque build-up.

SH: She's busy in the mornings, early lectures etc.

Me: Not too busy to put parrot earrings on.

Anyway, this hippie Ruth is clever. In an essay that I read, she wrote the following: “Lenin was a man of narrow dogma…(such and such a thing) threw his ruthlessness
into sharp relief.
” I don't even know what that means. And I think that's why Stella likes her (clever). Not only that, she talks like a lecturer:

Hippie Ruth: You say he didn't like his mother but he didn't write another word after her death.

SH: Maybe he was driven by the hatred.

Hippie Ruth: That's way too simplistic.

SH: Right.

See, like a lecturer.

There's a rumor about her, which may or may not be true. If true, it makes me like her a bit. People say she hangs around the refectory looking out for people leaving, and then she swoops in for their leftovers. Apparently she never has to buy a single meal but dines out on pizza crusts and discarded salad garnishes and so on.

One time she finished off Stella's ham torpedo before she'd actually finished, but Stella didn't say anything.

Me: That's the thing about hippies.

SH: What is?

Me: It's all love and peace, then they're nicking your lunch.

SH: She can't stand waste when so many are starving.

She's got it down to a fine art. I have to admit it's impressive, the determination and the timing.

Love, Nina

*  *  *

June 1985

Dear Vic,

Very worried about our end of year exams (you fail, you leave). I shouldn't fail and I've done lots of work and got good grades up to now, but I'm not good at exams as last year's E demonstrated.

Stella and the hippie and some others have been revising together at Stella's house and having coffee and biscuits etc. I have opted out of this because that kind of thing annoys me. But I have the feeling I should go. I said no thanks the first two times because I can't stand the hippie. Now they've planned a third event and Stella hasn't asked me.

Back at 55.

Me: I'm worried about the exams.

MK: You did OK with the A level and all you did was moan.

Me: I didn't do
that
well.

MK: You did OK.

Me: I didn't do OK. I got an E.

MK: I thought you got an A.

Me: No. I said I got a C, but I actually got an E.

MK: (
exasperated
) How can we ever believe a word you say?

Me: You're talking as if everyone else in the world tells the truth the whole time. They don't…it's only you who's clinically honest.

Sam: It's true, people sometimes lie.

MK: Well, you two certainly do.

Will: She told
me
she got an E.

MK: You told Will the truth but lied to everyone else?

Me: Yes, because he'd done badly in a test.

Will: And I can take the truth.

Love, Nina

*  *  *

Autumn term 1985

Dear Vic,

Thanks for great time.

Crime & Punishment
on the train. By the time we reached Kettering he'd confessed (and been overheard). I was annoyed (why speak so loud about committing murder?) and switched to Stendhal (same course), then ate some KP nuts.

Thanks for a great time. Still laughing about the dog show—having to lift Belle up onto the hay bale for the judge, and him looking her in the eyes. It was comical. You don't find it funny because you do it a lot (dog showing) whereas I don't and seeing an old bloke inspecting a dog like that seems funny.

Back at 55, the house smells of butterscotch because a mystery person spilt sugar on the cooker top (and didn't bother cleaning it up).

And MK's got a new jacket she doesn't like. Silky, but hard. Silver-gray (borderline shiny). She says it's noisy.

MK: (
walks
) Listen.

Me: I can't hear anything.

MK: Well,
listen
.

Me: (
listening
) What? The faint sliding?

MK: That's it.

Me: You're swinging your arms.

MK: That's how I walk.

Me: I've never seen you swing your arms like that.

MK: I move my arms—everyone does.

Will: A zombie doesn't.

Sam: Stephen doesn't.

Later, same subject.

AB: It rustles,
very
slightly.

MK: (
marching around, listening
).

AB: No one'll hear it, it's not offensive.

MK: I'm offended.

She can't return it because she's worn it and ripped the pocket (with all the marching around). I can't have it—too shiny for college and a bit small (she's a stick).

Discussed Will's holiday homework project—to produce one edition of a newspaper. Will is considering doing a
Camden Review of Books
but not sure it fills the brief.

Will: I'm not sure.

AB: What will satisfy the teacher?

Will: Just ruining the school holiday will satisfy her.

Glad you loved
Red Hanrahan.
I'll also give you J. M. Synge's
The Aran Islands.
No forcing a story around a big idea. He goes to the islands and looks around and listens to the tales of the islanders and writes it all down.

Here's a bit for you:

An old Aran man is telling J. M. Synge about a man who killed his drunken father with a blow of his loy (spade) in a passionate row, fled to the Aran islands and threw himself on the mercy of some Aran folk. They hid him and even when the police came over and offered a cash reward, the islanders wouldn't give him up. “After all,” says the old man, “would anyone kill his father if he was able to help it?”

Simple. Just telling what people are doing and saying. No moral. No symbolism.

Love, Nina

*  *  *

Dear Vic,

Will's fussy school having a crackdown on scruffy handwriting.

Will: You can't change it (
handwriting
) at my age, it's fixed.

Me: You can—I had scruffy writing, then I copied someone's nicer writing and it's been nice ever since.

Will: Whose?

Me: I don't know, but s/he didn't like school dinners.

Will: How do you know?

Me: S/he had written about it on a desk.

Will: What?

Me: “Eat school dinner & puke ya fucking guts up”—it was just a few zigzags and loops (I demonstrate).

Later:

Will: (
to MK
) I've improved my handwriting.

MK: Let's see.

Will: (
shows her a page full of lines: “Eat school dinner & puke ya fucking guts up.”
)

MK: Golly, it
is
better. But what are you writing about?

Will: Something Stibbe told me. Apparently it helped her at my age.

MK: Very good (
glances at me. I carry on shredding cabbage
).

In Will's novel
Scooby the Lost Dog
, a kind-hearted tramp whistles at Scooby to alert him to a loose burger bun (“swit-Swoo!”).

Me: What's this “swit-Swoo”?

Will: That's the tramp whistling.

Me: It sounds like a wolf-whistle, not an alert.

Will: Well, he
is
whistling to a dog.

Me: If he's whistling to get Scooby's attention, it should be “swoo-Swit.”

Will: Should it?

Me: “Swit-Swoo” is more when a pretty girl walks past a building site.

Sam: How would you know?

Love, Nina

*  *  *

Dear Vic,

The second year is going to be much harder work than the first. I can already tell. I
haven't
chosen women's this and women's that (like Stella has) because I can't stand hearing the other students (women) rambling on about how unfair everything is/was. So I'm stuck with difficult stuff like The Novel. Which is probably going to be all about novels—the history, the early novels, the anti-novel, the nouveau novel, the neo-novel—basically, everything to make you sick to the back teeth of novels.

Told Will never to take a course like that if he's still determined to write a novel. He said he might go on to movies.

A boy at Will's school has told him about the Mile High Club.

Will: X's uncle is in the Mile High Club.

Sam: Yeah, 3-5-9-18-1-5 is in that club.

Will: I think not.

Sam: He is.

Will: What is the Mile High, then?

Sam: It's a club.

Will: Yes, but what sort of club?

Sam: (
on phone
) Dad, hi, it's Sam. Are you in the Mile High Club? (
Listening
) Oh, OK (
hangs up
).

Will: So, is he?

Sam: Not that he remembers.

Will: No one you know is in the Mile High Club.

Sam: Mum might be.

Will: Doubt it—she never goes on a plane, much.

Love, Nina

PS Mile High Club reminds me: terrible rumor at college. A bloke from politics options has broken his thing. It got bent “too far the wrong way.” I didn't know that could happen. Do you know if it can?

*  *  *

Dear Vic,

November: a horrible month. “Cloud for most, rain for many” was the poetic weather forecast. I'd have added “so both for quite a few” since it's clearly not an either/or situation.

J. M. Synge has introduced me to the Irish word (for November) Samhain (pronounced
sawshain
) which suits it better.

Me: I hate November.

Will: Why?

Me: Dark, cold and a whole winter to get through.

MK: January seems worse.

Will: I hate February.

Sam: Oi! I was born in February.

MK: February
was
very nice in 1972.

Will: Well, for one day.

Sam: The 2nd (his birthday)?

Will: No, the 1st.

It's cold and dark and I have to wear shoes and socks and I hate that warm feet feeling.

Love, Nina

PS Thanks for info on broken things. God, that's awful. How come I never knew? Do they bandage, or leave to mend (like my collarbone)?

*  *  *

Dear Vic,

Hard work at Poly, but good.

Reading James Joyce (I
love
him, especially
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
).

Me: (
to MK
) I love James Joyce.

MK: You do?

Me: Yes, it's amazing.

MK: What is?

Me: I'm reading
Portrait of the Artist…

MK: (
tuts
) Read
Ulysses.