Love, Nina (29 page)

I tried to convince them that it would be great to meet the playwright of the actual play they would be seeing that evening. But they had their hearts set on AB.

Me: Well, OK then, I'll ask him to come over, but he might be in a foul mood.

GM: Is he moody?

AX: (
looking anxious
).

Me: He can be very prickly if disturbed.

GM: Oh, he seems so reasonable when you see him on the box.

I rang him from upstairs.

Me: Would you mind coming over to say hi to my granny?

AB: Well, I'll say hello (
pedantic
)—when?

Me: Let's get it over and done with, but don't be too nice. And don't hang around too long.

AB: I'll do my best.

Soon, AB arrived in his coat and was
very
nice to them (too nice). They fawned round him like the two old ladies do with Basil Fawlty. GM quoted some of the Cambridge Footlights stuff to him and he encouraged her by laughing and then remembered he'd sent her a “Get well” and she was charmed that he'd remembered and told him about it (being ill and recovering) and he made a health enquiry and then Auntie X joined in and said about when she'd been ill and they ran through their illnesses and then both said they were never ill—touch wood.

GM spoke about seeing the great Joss Ackland in
Lloyd George Knew My Father
and Fenella Fielding in
Hobson's Choice
at the Haymarket Leicester and how that theater really has some marvelous shows etc.

After AB had gone.

GM: Well, he was
charming.

AX: Not at all difficult.

Me: You got him on a good day.

GM: He was
lovely.

AX: What a lovely, lovely man.

GM: Would you be able to get hold of the other chap?

Me: Michael Frayn?

GM: Who?—Oh no, Jonathan Miller.

Me: No, he's moved away.

GM: Has he? Where to?

Me: Derby.

GM: Jonathan Miller's moved to Derby?

Me: Yes, he wants peace and quiet.

AX: In Derby?

Me: The Peaks.

GM: What a shame, we'd have loved to meet him.

Love, Nina

*  *  *

Dear Vic,

Will says his school motto is “slowly does it,” which can't be true, they're constantly at them to work harder.

Sam: What actually is a motto for?

MK: A reminder of the aims of the school or whatever.

Sam: The list of rules.

AB: More a guiding principle.

Sam: Oh yeah, we
do
have one of those.

MK: What is it?

Sam: Don't block the toilet or anything.

Misty is hanging out at Mornington Gym. She made up a thing where she says she's an art student and she goes and sketches the men jigging about in their vest and pants.

Her friend gave her the idea. This friend does the same thing at the South Bank theaters, “sketching” the actors rehearsing. It's a way of meeting a fit bloke or an actor.

Misty says the only problem is when the blokes ask to see the sketches her friend has done. They're just stick men.

Never know what to call Granny Wilmers. Can't call her Cesia, I don't know what it means. I'm not familiar with it (like Stella's Gunter). I can't call her Mrs. Wilmers—that would be ludicrous—and I can't keep calling her Granny, that's worse. I try to avoid saying anything. Yesterday when she came here, I started to say Mrs. Wilmers but veered off and said “Mrs. Granny” and got a confused look from MK.

Love, Nina

PS Misty has given up coffee and tea due to caffeine-induced insomnia. Sleeping like a log now, on Barleycup.

*  *  *

Dear Vic,

Will wants to do a sponsored thing for the school.

Will: We choose either a sponsored walk, run or silence.

Me: Which do you fancy?

Will: Sponsored silence.

MK: No, do the walk.

Will: No, the silence is the best—I can read and watch telly while staying silent.

MK: I think you should do the walk.

Will: Why?

Me: It's like the beginning of a novel.

MK: (
looks annoyed
) What?

Me: Where a child begins a sponsored silence, becomes obsessed and
never speaks again?

MK: No, it's just too easy.

So I was thinking, that could be my new novel (about the sponsored silent kid). I've been working on my semiautobiog novel and am really wishing I could just get on with it and not have to keep writing essays about other writers and theorists. Not to mention the dissertation.

We're doing a lot of literary theory this year and it's not very inspiring. I'm not that interested in translating what a load of brainboxes think about things, but loads of students get all excited about it. They love it.

The same students who don't say a word when we're talking about something amazing, i.e. the fantastic play
True West
(about two chalk and cheese brothers). But when it's a book of someone's rambling theory, they read it and get excited and keep wanting to “debate.” Even shy red-tips Fee pipes up with the occasional snippet.

Keep meaning to make a start on my dissertation. But it's like anything you keep meaning to do—you don't and you start resenting it.

Love, Nina

PS In that chicken recipe, I forgot to say: add one wineglass of cider.

*  *  *

Dear Vic,

Mary-Kay has two mates that we call the brainy blokes.

There's the American brainy bloke (American, beard, big, brainy) and the English brainy bloke (English, stubble, small, brainy).

Sam and me reckoned the English brainy bloke was the brainiest. Will reckoned the American one. They don't come round that much and never together, so it's hard to judge them.

Sam and me think the English brainy bloke is brainiest because we never know what he's on about and he can't say his Rs (Sam thinks not saying your Rs is a brainy trait). Will says the American brainy bloke seems brainier because he speaks quietly but clearly and we can understand what he's going on about.

We asked MK which of them would come out top in a contest and she said probably the American brainy bloke. Will punched the air “Yes!” and Sam and me asked why the American.

“Because he can write,” she said.

Meaning it's not how much you know but how well you communicate your knowledge. And that was a lesson for us all.

Then on Saturday the English brainy bloke popped in and we studied him.

I didn't understand much that he said, apart from “Could you let me have a teaspoonful of Bovril?” He was all over the place but MK kept up well.

I thought he'd brought a thin dog with him and left it by the bins (a dog very similar to Ted Hughes actually) but it turned out it wasn't his dog, just a dog snooping round our bins.

But then he demonstrated (a) his braininess and (b) his failure to communicate via the dog.

Me: Is that your dog out there?

English Brainy Bloke: (
doesn't look round
) I doubt it since my last canine companion died in 1967.

Me: Oh.

Bloke: (
looks out, sees dog
) Kai me ton kuna!

Me: Is it yours?

Bloke: No, but it resembles Anubis—Guardian of the Scales, Weigher of Hearts.

Me: Oh.

Will: (
to me
) An Ancient Egyptian thing.

Love, Nina

PS Then when the bloke went, he seemed to take the thin dog with him. As if it was his all along.

*  *  *

Dear Vic,

Congratulations re your exams. God I wish I were as clever as you. I'm struggling to understand a bunch of poems and a story at the moment. I've read them and all I have to do is demonstrate that I grasp the basic ideas. And there's you…You could enter our brainy contest.

Nunney came over last night and we went out for mussels (nice but a bit gritty). Café is under new management and the mussels came with no shells on. Nunney was appalled, saying the shells are the point and that serving them without is like rolling someone's cigarette for them (if they like rolling their own).

Before we went out, had a game of cricket with S&W. After cricket the subject of the brainy blokes contest came up.

Sam: The American won, but they're both brainy.

Will:
Very
brainy.

Nunney: Hmm, as brainy as Michael Frayn?

Sam: Brainier.

Nunney: I don't think so. Michael Frayn is so brainy, he's mates with Bamber Gascoigne.

Me: OK—Michael Frayn—could he slip into Ancient Egyptian at the drop of a hat like our runner-up?

Nunney: (
tuts
) He translated Chekhov's
Cherry Orchard
—in his spare time.

Me: From what language?

Nunney: (
sarcastic
) Chinese.

Will: But Chekhov was Russian.

Nunney: That's how brainy he is.

Sam: Frayn-the-Brain wins!

Nunney explained that for people of their generation (Michael Frayn and our two brainy blokes and other forty/fifty-year-olds), being brainy is their
raison d'être
(reason for being) and they just keep learning and trying to remember everything they learn.

Will: Life's just one long game of
University Challenge.

Sam: They're not just know-it-alls.

Me: They are, but they can't help it.

I think I could write a Sam Shepard–style play (like
True West
—about sibling rivalry) about the two brainy blokes. About a brainy rivalry where they end up trashing their typewriters and shouting in Ancient Egyptian and Russian and throwing lines from Chaucer and Chekhov at each other and translating the insults into different ancient languages.

Mentioned it to Nunney and he said it might not be very popular.

Nunney told me about his dissertation (again). It's a psychological analysis of how people compare themselves with other people (something along those lines, I wasn't listening that closely). He was very interested in mine but still wonders why I chose Carson McCullers.

Nunney's using an own-brand washing powder, so smells different. I told him that, and he just tutted and said, “It's all they have on campus.”

It's all they have on campus. Things like that really annoy me. I said, “Get some Daz while you're off campus,” but he said he'd got better things to do.

Hope all's well with you.

Love, Nina

*  *  *

Dear Vic,

The rest of Leics trip was fine except leaving Dad's I knocked a cactus off a shelf. We were in a rush so he said to leave it. Awkward ending.

Funny traveling back on a Saturday. Football fans around and a feeling of it being a good day. As opposed to the gloomy, shut-down feeling you get on a Sunday (which would be my normal day for coming back).

Back at 55 MK was 100% tied up with getting ready for this big thing and asked me to fetch an antique white shirt that she was possibly going to borrow from a friend (to wear at the thing). So I went to the friend's flat to fetch it.

Me: Hi, I've come to get the shirt for Mary-Kay.

Friend: (
tuts
) She seemed bored to death when I was describing it.

I waited in the kitchen area while she fetched it. Blue and white cups hanging on a long row of hooks equally spaced out. “Nice mugs,” I said. But she deliberately ignored me.

This friend of MK's is considered to be a very nice, jolly person (and she is, I've seen her being very nice to everyone) but she's not keen on me. Not sure why. Maybe MK's said something about me that the friend took offense at.

Friend: (
handing over shirt
) She won't want it.

Back at 55.

MK: What did she say?

Me: She hopes you like it.

Mary-Kay took one look and straightaway said it wouldn't do and I may as well take it back (straightaway).

Me: I'll take it tomorrow.

MK: Take it now, and then it's done.

Me: Ugh, I can't face going back there.

MK: Why?

Me: She'll be offended and she doesn't like me.

MK: She'll be offended tomorrow and still won't like you and it'll be a Sunday.

What a coincidence MK referring to the gloomy Sunday thing I'd just thought to myself on the train. The days of the week are very powerful—i.e. I will always hate Thursdays because of a friend of mine at Gwendolyn Junior having piano lessons on a Thursday and not walking home with me and that was fifteen years ago. I used to dread Thursdays and the ten-minute walk without that friend. It was symbolic.

Anyway, I took the antique white shirt back and the friend lived up to her jolly reputation (did a nice laugh) and seemed quite pleased (to have predicted the rejection).

Love, Nina

PS Also saw GM while in Leics. New car. She called the sun roof a “sunshine roof,” which I thought was nice.

*  *  *

Dear Vic,

Yes. You're spot on. Feel a bit left behind Nunney-wise.

He's doing a radio show now with another bloke and wearing a baggy suit.

Also, talks endlessly about girls, especially one in particular, doesn't realize he's doing it. Also, mentioned that a girl slapped him round the face the other day, and that says it all.

Went to stay in the new house in Brighton, it's right on the Falmer branch line so you hear the trains, which I love. He lives with three others. They all wanted to watch Madonna concert on telly which I thought disappointing.

Nunney is working hard on his thesis (the Sussex University word for dissertation) and rambled on about it. He has devised a questionnaire so that when he states this, that, or the other psychological thing, he can back it up with evidence from a thousand (roughly) specially devised questionnaires.

I have offered to take some of the questionnaires and pass them round at Poly. N was v. grateful because one of his mates, who promised to get a load filled out, has just broken his femur.

Nunney smoked dope. I tried a puff or two and felt relaxed for the first time in my entire life. You can see why people like it.

Told MK about the girl slapping Nunney.