Love, Nina (25 page)

Me: How come you're late? I gave you an alarm call.

Stella: My kimono sleeve caught fire on the grill pan.

Me: What were you cooking?

Stella: I was lighting a fag.

Stella was a bit put out because we all laughed—she hadn't got into the comedy mood yet.

She did cheer up when the
Educating Rita
type girl turned up (also late) with a Wimpy breakfast bap but no bra on. Stella couldn't help mentioning it to her (her bra-less-ness). Rita seemed surprised and even checked by looking down her own shirt.

Rita said she gets this “phantom bra” thing where it feels like she's wearing a bra, even when she isn't. Stella, who knows about bra fittings (apparently), said the phantom-bra feeling is a sign of wearing a too-tight bra and it leaving an imprint. Stella's advice: get a looser-fitting bra.

Told MK about this later at supper.

Me: So it felt like she'd got a bra on and she hadn't.

MK: Oh dear.

Me: She looked terrible.

MK: Oh.

Me: Have you ever had phantom bra?

MK: Bra, no. Socks, yes.

Love, Nina

*  *  *

Dear Vic,

Your strawberry thief reminds me of Stella's garden robber.

In 5th floor coffee bar:

SH: He leapt over the hedge.

Hippie Ruth: Did you
see
him?

SH: No, we were watching
Bob's Full House
.

Me: Did he take anything?

SH: Three items off the washing line.

Hippie: The bastard. What did he take?

SH: One item was my silk kimono (
sad face
).

Me: I thought that caught fire.

SH: Yeah, it did a bit, that's why I'd put it through the wash.

Me: What were the other items?

SH: Delicate items.

Me: Pants?

SH: Yes, if you must know.

Hippie: Sick bastard.

Me: Did you call the police?

Hippie: Huh, more sick bastards.

The police advised Stella against hanging intimate garments on the line in full view of the street (corner plot). They also said that dogs are a good deterrent as are gravel moats (give-away crunching sound when a thief walks on it). She's going to put her smalls on the storage heater from now on, even though there's a sticker saying not to.

Stella wasn't bothered about the pants but was upset about the kimono—it coming from an exotic aunt who also gave her a box of illegal cigars that she won't let the boyfriend smoke (nice box).

Told them about it (knicker theft) at supper at 55 (which they enjoyed)…but it led to me recalling the “Coleman's fouling incident” of 1981. I thought they'd like it, but they didn't much.

Me: But—this is the thing—he pegged them onto the line again, after.

MK: After what?

Me: Soiling them.

MK: Eew!

AB: (
aghast
) Oh no!

Me:
No!
Not like
that
,
only with mustard.

Both:
Eew!

It put a bit of a downer on supper really. So I changed the subject to Mary Hope's disappointment with her new Zanussi (temperamental on the spin). I think she might be overloading. She washes
all
the bedding
every
week.

I mentioned MH washing all the bedding every week and somehow it seemed to bring us back to the subject of soiling, so I didn't say anything else.

Then AB said Zanussi is just Electrolux in disguise and things improved a bit.

Love, Nina

*  *  *

Dear Vic,

Misty talked me into going shopping with her (John Lewis). Then, in spite of saying she was “extremely depressed,” bought vitamins, fingernail buffing things and tons of cosmetics and makeup and special shoelaces to match her shoes. Her basket didn't seem like the shopping of someone on the brink of suicide, it looked like the basket of someone keen to live life to the full.

Told this to MK.

Me: She bought tablets to make her eyes brighter, yet claims to have lost the will to live.

MK: Virginia Woolf had just had her hair done.

Me: When?

MK: When she drowned herself.

Me: God!

MK: (
shrugs
).

Me: So, making an effort doesn't mean…

MK: Not necessarily.

Me: Maybe it's all part of the run-up.

MK: Maybe.

Will: Enid Blyton had just opened a can of ginger beer.

Sam: (
suddenly interested
) Enid's not dead, is she?

Anyway, Misty seems better now her shoelaces are the right color and she's got tidy fingernails. But I suppose, with what I know now, that could be a cry for help.

Love, Nina

*  *  *

Dear Vic,

Took Stella to Camden to meet S&W and MK.

Sam: Who do you support?

SH: The Owls!

MK: Are the Owls Sheffield
Wednesday
?

SH: I think so.

MK: You
think
so?

On the way out:

SH: Mary-Kay's really nice, isn't she?

Me: I wouldn't go that far.

SH: Thought you liked her?

Me: I do.

Back inside, Stella gone:

Me: Well?

Sam: She supports the Owls.

MK: Well, hardly.

Me: She's nice at college.

MK: Thought she didn't do any work.

Me: She does now.

MK: Why all of a sudden?

Me: She's got a crush on a lecturer.

MK: I thought she had a chap at home.

Me: She does, but she's having a harmless crush as well.

Will: Her eyebrows were funny.

Me: She plucked them.

MK is doing a new food thing: roasted peppers. Put whole red peppers under the grill and cook them (turning) until black all over. Then place them in a plastic bag and leave to cool. Then peel them and chop them up and sprinkle with a bit of balsamic vinegar of Modena and olive oil. They're a faff but nice.

Will made a Mother's Day card at school for Mary-Kay. It's a swirly pattern with a poem inside.

Mum is playful, Mum is fun.

Mum always gets things done.

Me: That's lovely.

Will: I know.

Me: She'll love it.

Will: Yes.

Sam: He didn't write that himself.

Will: (
smiling
) No, I copied it from the kid next to me.

Me: Why didn't you make up your own?

Will: That one did the job.

Sam bought her a card from the paper shop. It said: “Mum you're COOL!”

And had a picture of a woman apparently trapped inside a deep freeze.

Love, Nina

*  *  *

Dear Vic,

Acorn Club sounds v. good. S&W and me talked about it for ages.

Me: He found it where he'd hung it two years earlier and a tiny oak shoot was growing from an acorn he'd left in his pocket.

Sam: When?

Me: When he returned from the war.

Sam: An oak tree?

Me: Well, a tiny shoot, from the acorn.

Sam: Did it mess the coat up?

Will: (
tuts
) It's just symbolic.

Sam: OK, but did it ruin the coat?

Will: You're ruining the story.

Me: The next day another old man told his story—an apple was left in his pocket.

Sam: (
bored
) Did an oak tree grow?

Me: Not an
oak
.

Sam: What, then?

Me: A tiny apple-tree shoot.

Sam: He copied the first man's story.

Me: It's a story lots of people claim as their own.

Sam: Once I left some raisins in my pocket.

Will: Did you find a tiny grape vine?

Sam: I did actually.

Will: Liar!

I'm going to tell PH about it. He'll love it. It's pure
Autobiography & Fiction.
He might use it with the next bunch of students.

Love, Nina

*  *  *

Dear Vic,

Sam and Will are chalk and cheese. Sam's perceptive whereas Will's inventive.

Example. Pippa wanted to meet for lunch and insisted I bring Sam and Will, but then spoke in code the whole time about new boyfriend.

Pippa: He's better at exercising in the mornings, so we often have to get up early—if you get my meaning—for a jog.

Me: Oh.

Pippa: If I badger him to
exercise
in the evenings, he goes along with it, but it never comes to much.

Me: Right.

Pippa: I'm more of a night owl, so we'll see how it goes.

Me: Mmm.

Pippa: I'm not a morning person, especially, you know, for
exercise.

Later, at supper:

AB: So, where were you lot all off to this lunchtime?

Will: We met Pippa for lunch.

MK: What is she doing these days?

Sam: (
laughing
) Her new boyfriend likes riding the hobbyhorse in the morning.

MK:
Riding the hobbyhorse?

Sam: Y'know, doing the dirty stuff.

Will: No, she was talking about jogging, you pervert.

MK: (
to me
) Which?

Me: Sam's right. She was trying to talk in code.

Will: Oh, was she? I'm just too straightforward.

Me: She kept nicking Sam's chips and even dunked into his egg.

MK: Is that code too?

Me: No, she
literally
dunked a chip into Sam's egg.

AB: What a liberty.

Love, Nina

*  *  *

Dear Vic,

Stella invited me to supper (at her house). Went back with her after lit theory seminar (my worst, her best). I just sit there thinking what's everyone on about while she's joining in with the nonsense.

It's a nice walk up to her house and a bus sometimes comes and will stop even between stops so it's worth starting to walk. But Stella jumped into a taxi saying she was treating herself due to having a supper guest (me) and needing to prepare the meal. I felt sick in the taxi due to the air freshener (coconut with sunglasses on dangling from mirror) and Stella rambling on about Terry Eagleton. Then, ages before we got to her house, she asked the taxi to drop us and we walked the rest of the way. This was because she didn't want the boyfriend to know about the taxi.

The boyfriend is very observant apparently (recognizes the
sound
of a taxi two streets away). They're on an economy drive and he likes to catch her out wasting money (ditto she him).

Where Stella lives doesn't smell like London. Although it technically is. It smells of privet and Right Guard. London-proper smells of the bricks round a fireplace. And, at Gloucester Crescent, coffee and floor polish and overripe melons.

Stella's house isn't that nice. It's all carpety and cupboardy and there's no window in the kitchen because of unfinished renovations. The worktop is a door on its side and the fridge is in a hot little cupboard and smells of rice.

Stella went to make some tea and I talked to the boyfriend. He's funny and made clever comments. He was watching the horse racing in his boxer shorts. He told me he'd got an accumulator on (but not to tell Stella).

Boyfriend: So, Nina-from-Leicester, why are you here?

Me: I don't know.

Boyfriend: So, you're not taking the existentialism course, then?

Me: No.

Boyfriend: Who paid for the taxi?

Me: What taxi?

Boyfriend: The one that dropped you outside the fire station ten minutes ago.

Stella came in with three teas (no milk available). We watched the racing for a bit and the two of them bickered until Stella revealed supper plan: Bird's Eye Steakhouse Grill Dinners. The boyfriend jigged his legs about and said, “Bird's Eye Steakhouse Grill Dinners, yabadabadoo.”

I don't know if he was serious, but they both seemed brighter at the prospect of the Grill dinners. We went to the corner shop, which was called Cleanthus Stores, and bought the Bird's Eye Steakhouse Grill Dinners (frozen) and a pint of semi-skimmed milk. She put them in the oven at gas mark 6 for 30 mins. They were ready at 5 o'clock. They had a cup of tea with it.

Ginger cake for pudding.

Then the boyfriend went to play snooker in Plumstead and Stella showed me the garden—forgetting that I'd seen it before when the council birdman came round. I didn't bring all that up again. She particularly wanted me to see the washing line (crime scene). Easy target (corner plot). I could see a low area of hedging where the thief apparently entered and exited again with Stella's kimono.

I walked back down to Woolwich Arsenal. No bus, no taxi. It took ten mins max.

Back at 55. Told MK the bare bones. She liked about the accumulator and the Bird's Eye Grills best.

MK: How was supper with Darby & Joan?

Me: You mean Stella & Boyfriend?

MK: Yes.

Me: Stella is funny.

MK: She didn't seem very funny when she was here.

Me: That's because she was trying to be serious and polite.

MK: She needn't have.

Me: People
do
that.

MK: That's their lookout.

MK has high expectations of everyone, even polytechnic students. She expects as much from Stella as she does from her Salman Rushdie mates. Unrealistic. Like Nunney, who expects the same high standards (though not the same exact things).

Love, Nina

*  *  *

Dear Vic,

All choosing our dissertation (extended essay) subjects. Five thousand words on the subject of our choice (pretty much).

I have decided to do Carson McCullers, author of
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
(which I absolutely loved when I read it a couple of years ago). The Student from Luton is doing The Plays of Samuel Beckett. The Hippie is doing Images of the Female in telly advertising from 1955 to 1985. Popeye is doing
Moby Dick.
Stella had trouble deciding between Althusser (Marxist bloke) and Philip Larkin.