Page 49 of The Christmas Invitation
Nessa was an orphan and, as she freely told everybody, an heiress, with American trustees who doled out the generous allowance with which she bought arty and expensive clothes and treated her circle to cream teas and the like. Since she was small in stature and already plumply curvaceous, I thought too much of this would soon render her quite spherical.
She was generally considered very pretty, having a short upper lip, a thick, creamy skin, fine white-gold hair and eyes of an unusual light greenish-blue.
I had forgotten most of these details until recently, when something brought them back to mind …
But more of that later, for I must tell you about something wonderful that happened in my second week at Oxford: I came face to face with Henry Doome in Cornmarket Street!
I’d have known him anywhere. He was a taller, wirier version of the boy I’d last seen in Starstone, with his handsome, bony face, straight Grecian nose and bright, cornflower-blue eyes. The wind was whipping his flaxen hair about and he looked as if he’d dressed in the first garments that came to hand that morning.
I don’t expect I’d changed much either: the same tangle of dark curls and over-generous aquiline nose.
‘Clara, there you are,’ he said, as if he’d expected to meet me that morning. ‘Still poring over the runes?’
‘I’ve moved on to hieroglyphs and cuneiform, Henry,’ I replied. ‘Are you still scribbling the odd ode?’
We grinned at each other and then embraced warmly, though such public demonstrations of affection between undergraduates were discouraged.
And from that moment, the years that had parted us ceased to exist and our lives joined up again quite seamlessly.
We were in separate colleges, of course – they were not co-ed then – and our studies mainly pursued different courses, with some overlapping, like Ancient Greek. But we became as inseparable as was possible under the circumstances.
How wonderful it was to have a friend with whom I could talk on an equal intellectual footing and without constantly having to explain myself – just as it had been when we were children. But we were also soulmates, who could laugh together and share dreams of the future. I had no doubt that Henry would one day be a renowned poet, for his work was already then beginning to be published. For his part, he was absolutely certain that I would rise to be an eminent epigrapher.
17
Eaten Up
Soon after tea, Lex announced that he would have to go back to the pottery, but Clara and Henry wanted him to stay for a proper Sunday dinner of nut loaf, with roast potatoes, onion gravy and all the trimmings.
‘I hate you missing out on a good feed,’ said Tottie, as if she’d just filled a nosebag with oats for him.
He certainly didn’t look malnourished to me. His tall, broad-shouldered frame had filled out with what I suspected was solid muscle in the years since I’d last seen him. Probably due to pummelling the hell out of giant lumps of clay and carting huge pots about.
‘We usually have dinner at about one on Sundays, instead of in the evening,’ Clara explained to me. ‘Then have Welsh rarebit or something simple later. But with the tree and everything, today’s different.’
‘I’m sorry I’ll miss dinner too, Clara,’ Lex said, ‘but I promised Al I’d be back to help unload the kiln tonight. We’ve got a big order of urns heading off to a stately home tomorrow – a Christmas present from the owner to his wife.’ He grinned suddenly and added, ‘He asked me if we did gift-wrapping, but I think he was joking.’
‘If he’s not, I hope he has a couple of strong men to help him do it,’ said Henry.
‘He particularly wanted them to arrive tomorrow, because his wife’s away and he can hide them in an outbuilding.’
‘Let’s hope they’re what she really wanted for Christmas, then,’ said Clara. ‘I know it’s what I want – another lovely giant pot for the garden.’
‘Just as well, since that’s what I always give you and Henry,’ he said. When his face relaxed into amusement, he suddenly looked so much like the younger Lex I’d tumbled headlong in love with at first sight, so very long ago … First love, not the lasting kind.
Mind you, my second love didn’t prove all that durable, either.
‘I think I told you that Lex makes the most amazing huge antique-style pots and urns, didn’t I?’ Clara asked me. ‘At least, theirshapesare like antique ones, but when you look closely at the decoration and mouldings, you realize they’re very contemporary.’
‘The ones encrusted with barnacles or coral do look like antique ones, dredged up from the seabed,’ said Henry. ‘We must take you down to Terrapotter one day, Meg. I’m sure you’ll be interested.’
I really was and would have loved to have visited Terrapotter … provided Lex and Al were not there, not to mention Lisa’s younger sister, though she at least would have no idea who I was.
As if he’d read my mind, Lex said insincerely, ‘Yes, why don’t you come, Meg? Al and I would love to show you round.’
‘That sounds so irresistible,’ I said.Not.
I got up. ‘Well, I’m going to take Clara’s portrait into the studio and look at it for a bit, so I’ll say goodbye now, Lex.’
