The Bearded Tit Part 14

Time was up.

We dressed hurriedly in breathless silence, and then dashed through the sodden city streets so JJ could meet up with her lift home from the theatre.

The shady doorway of David's second-hand bookshop next to the graveyard of St Edward's church did no justice to our goodbye.

Why was she crying so much?

'Why are you crying so much?' she asked me.

'I'm happy,' I said weakly.

'Things will be different now,' she said. 'I love you.'

'I know. And I love you.'

After more tears she ran off and the night took her little hand, put its arms around her and swept her away.

THE LONGEST WEEKEND.

I hurried back to the college bar, walking on air. Was Svalking on air' already a lazy cliche by the mid-seventies? I can't remember but 'walking on air' was definitely what I was doing after JJ went home that night. That's what it felt like, and those are the only words I can come up with to describe it, so we can safely say that, for all its faults, the phrase is well worthy of its cliche status. hurried back to the college bar, walking on air. Was Svalking on air' already a lazy cliche by the mid-seventies? I can't remember but 'walking on air' was definitely what I was doing after JJ went home that night. That's what it felt like, and those are the only words I can come up with to describe it, so we can safely say that, for all its faults, the phrase is well worthy of its cliche status.

I wouldn't be seeing JJ till Monday morning so this promised to be a very long weekend. But it was my first weekend in my 'new home'. I was a different person now. Notwithstanding the fact that I wasn't the only person in the world ever to have made love, I felt, that night, that I was the newest member of a select club. I was a cut above ordinary humans now. I had touched the hem of G.o.d's robe. I was a conquering hero. I had returned from a gruelling and b.l.o.o.d.y nineteen-year-long war and was now back triumphant among the people of my village. I could see it in people's eyes, the way they glanced at me, the way they stopped and stepped back a pace to look me up and down admiringly. Did I notice a subtle deference that wasn't there before? A slight tilt of the head as they spoke to me, perhaps, the hint of a genuflection? I was a different person. I had grown in stature; metaphorically, perhaps, but others would surely see it physically. I felt so different that I wondered briefly if my friends would recognize me at all. Who is this n.o.ble stranger swaggering down the steps towards us? He looks familiar but there is something kingly about him, something majestic and magical, something that is special, beyond the reach of us poor humans. I opened the doors to the college bar and went in. I can't recall my entrance exactly but I feel sure the packed room fell silent, that there were fireworks, bra.s.s fanfares and resounding cannonades.

'Eh, McGrath, your flies are undone!' sneered Headbanger.

'You're all red-faced and sweaty,' said one of the pair known as the t.w.a.t-twins. 'You look as if you're having a heart attack.'

I brushed away these lesser mortals and found Kramer at the bar.

'Where have you been?' he asked, handing me a pint. 'I came to your room.'

'I was out,' I said failing to keep the beaming from my face.

'Sure you weren't pretending to be out? I thought I heard heavy breathing coming from your room. And I smelled candles.'

I winked at him and said, 'Poltergeist!'

'Bless you!'

'I was in a special place,' I said, trying to sound mystical.

'A special place? The clinic? Have you caught something?' Very down to earth, Kramer, and never missing an opportunity to talk 'medically' if he could.

'I've been in the sky actually.'

'Cloud cuckoo land?'

'Flying.'

Kramer shook his head. I felt a wave of pessimism approaching. 'Trouble with flying is crash landing. Have you noticed how only planes that are flying crash? Planes don't crash when they are on the ground.'

'Haven't you ever heard the expression: 'Look on the bright side'?'

Kramer raised his eyebrows dismissively. 'OK, find me the bright side and I'll look on it.'

'I've had the best night of my life tonight.'

'Do I infer from that that you and JJ have finally gone beyond the 'holding hands, swapping scientific bird names and giggling in the corner of pubs' stage?'

'I think it's safe to say that things will be different now.'

I was feeling almost delirious and it was wonderful to be immune at last to Kramer's unremitting defeatism.

'You mean things can only go downhill from here,' he grumbled.

I laughed, put my arms around him and kissed him.

He recoiled. 'I'll put that down to alcohol,' he said. 'You dearly haven't had enough.'

I didn't sleep that night. When I wasn't hovering a few feet above the mattress, I was sniffing the pillowcase and sheets for any trace of JJ's perfume, any trace of her body, any trace of two hours ago. I tried to relive every moment. I worked backwards from the hurried and tearful goodbye. I thought about every moment of our love-making. Strenuous but effortless. Fragile but indestructible. Momentary and eternal. Our early nerves and self-consciousness had been quickly overwhelmed and vaporized by the flames.

'It's my first time,' I had whispered to her.

'Try to make it your first time every time,' she'd replied, and I was free.

I couldn't wait for the next day, and the next, but mainly the next. The following daybreak was exceptional. Sat.u.r.day morning must have been up all night preparing such a resplendent treat for me: a huge spread of tangerine sun and icy blue sky.

I was up so early I even b.u.mped into a sanctimonious clutch of Christians on their way to breakfast in Hall.

'Morning, chaps!' I chirped at them. 'Great to be alive!'

They rounded on me as a unit and stared defensively as if waiting for the b.o.o.by trap to go off. I wonder if they had an inkling that my ponding had been averted and that Degsy and Lobby had them them in the cross-hairs. in the cross-hairs.

'Praise the Lord who has given us this beautiful day!' I added, as the chapel doors shut behind them with a hollow echo.

I realized the rest of the day was going to be a struggle. I urgently needed to do something to take my mind off JJ and love and s.e.x. Of course! Why didn't I think of this earlier? I could do some work. I could read the relevant books and write one of the essays I was supposed to write. It had worked briefly on Friday morning. Work, the last resort. If you cannot do something that is useful, constructive or fun, you might as well work. If anything was going to neutralize my newly awakened libido it would be some transformational generative grammar.

I returned to my room, took the appropriate books from my shelf, found an unstarted exercise book and began making notes. Without any hesitation, I waded into the semantic quagmire of deep structure, presuppositions, factuality and sentences like 'the horse miaowed'.

This was just the therapy I needed. The time seemed to flash by. Just as my brain was beginning to rebel, I looked up at the clock. 09.32.

'OK, who are you?' Kramer was standing in the doorway. 'Tell me now or I'll call the police!' Kramer reached over and picked up an empty wine bottle and waved it threateningly in my direction. 'Reading Chomsky? Making notes for an essay? What the h.e.l.l is going on? Just tell me who you are and what you've done with Rory!'

'Do you want a coffee?'

'This is outrageous! Is this what love does to you? Thanks for the warning!'

I got up to fill the kettle. 'I thought I'd do something constructive to take my mind off JJ.'

'Have you no consideration for your Director of Studies? How's he going to feel, what's he going to think if he finds out that not only have you done an essay but you've handed it in on time?' Kramer picked up my notebook. 'So that's the sum total of your morning's work?'

'Mind your own business.'

'Is this part of your essay then? 'I love JJ'.'

'p.i.s.s off.'

'How long did that take you?'

Then I remembered I was Kramer-proof.

'About twenty minutes. But I did several drafts.'

'It's a highly commendable piece of work.'

'Ah, I know what you're thinking: you're thinking it's just a formal sentence along the basic lines of subject-verb-object, but that's just the surface, Carl, old friend. I'm looking for something deeper. I want to know what is pre-wired deep in our grey cells that allows both of us to understand that apparently simple utterance, 'I love JJ'.'

He put the notebook down. 'Let's have a beer. Your brain obviously needs sedation.'

'No, I must get on with this. I'm doing a bit of course work precisely because I know if I don't I'll spend the entire day on the p.i.s.s and wake up tomorrow with a stinking hangover.'

'Suit yourself!'

What a stinking hangover I had the next day! Kramer and I had been up till four o'clock eating chicken soup laced with vodka despite Kramer's periodic prayers: 'Oh G.o.d, please don't let Aunt Sadie find out.' We'd managed to upset the Christians with our noise. At about 11 a.m. they'd sent word to the college authorities and Rex the Chaplain had come round to admonish and counsel us.

He'd staggered off about half three singing 'Nights in White Satin'. (Or possibly 'Knights in White Satin'.) Kramer and I had planned to get up early the next day and make it up to the Christians by attending the morning service. This we didn't manage, which was a shame. It would have been nice to see what they made of Kramer singing 'Hava Nagjla' and me doing 'Hail Glorious Saint Patrick'. Another time perhaps.

I emerged fully clothed from my bed about noon still snuffling into my pillow for the last lingering traces of Friday. Any effect was spoiled by the presence of neat alcohol and a large crusty stain of what I hoped was dried chicken soup.

I spent most of Sunday washing and debating whether or not to take JJ a present on the following morning. To take a gift would indicate that what had happened on Friday was a special occasion to be marked in some way. Not to take anything would suggest that Friday night, though special, was just something ordinary and normal which should become a luscious but everyday part of our lives together.

I'd ask Kramer.

He'd be full of objective advice and good sense.

What am I saying? No, I wouldn't ask Kramer.

He'd be full of dismal foreboding. I didn't want him spreading his diseased karma over my relationship with JJ. He'd probably advise me never to see her again.

'My advice...' Kramer shut his eyes in what I a.s.sumed he thought was the manner of a sage and put his joined hands to his mouth. 'My advice is that you should never see her again.'

'Don't be daft.'

'Be strong, move on. That was an episode of your life that's past. Be grateful for the experience, seek out pastures new.'

'You sound like a horoscope.'

'What star sign are you?'

'Pisces.'

'Ooh dear. It's a very bad week for Pisces. Be prepared for a nasty shock. Your life is about to change.'

'My life is is about to change. I know that. Things will be different now. Anyway, you don't believe in all that b.o.l.l.o.c.ks, do you?' about to change. I know that. Things will be different now. Anyway, you don't believe in all that b.o.l.l.o.c.ks, do you?'

Kramer grinned. 'No, of course I don't. I'm too realistic. Pragmatic. I'm too scientific and rational in my approach to things. Too cynical really.'

'I see.'

'Typical Aries, in fact.'

I held up a small, fluffy toy bird. 'Look. I managed to get a long-tailed t.i.t. JJ's favourite!'

'You've already given her a reed warbler. Don't spoil her!'

I laughed. 'It was a reed bunting. Reed warbler's a very different bird. Looks different, sounds different.'

'Do I look like I care about the difference between a reed bunting and a reed warbler?'

'Ah, well, that's because you're too egocentric. You don't know the names of things. You don't engage with the beauty of the living world.'

'I bet they're both small brown birds.'

'Well, yes, they are sort of, but-'

'There you are, you see. That's plenty of ornithology for a Sunday.'

I was tiring of Kramer and I had calculated that by now my bath would be ready.

'I've got to go and have a bath.'

'When did you start the taps running?' he asked.

'Twenty-five minutes ago.'

'Give it another ten minutes.'

'No, too long. The hot tap will be running cold then or some b.a.s.t.a.r.d will have gone in and nabbed it.'

I got up and Kramer left, stopping to ask, 'Are you going to Rex the Chaplain's Christmas drinks tonight?'

'Er...I could do. I don't want to be hungover tomorrow. A big day.'

He nodded. 'Oh yes, you've got a Spanish supervision, haven't you?'

'Oh yes, but also, it's probably the last day I'll see JJ before the holidays.'