Robert Goddard - Borrowed Time

“Too deeply, I suppose. I mean, it was all a charade. Of course it was. I know that now. A game of froth and gaud in which the key to winning was to take yourself deadly seriously while pretending to treat everything as a joke. I played the game. But I mistook it for the real thing. So the shallowness of the other players baffled and enraged me. They didn’t seem to understand that arguing an academic point and appreciating a fine painting in the Fitzwilliam were the same thing: a celebration of individual superiority. I soon came to believe that I felt more, sensed more, understood more, grasped the essence of being and doing and thinking more, than the whole trivial pack of them put together.

“It started from that. My dissatisfaction with the people I got drunk with or went to bed with. It turned into contempt for their lack of maturity. I longed to escape their puking and prattling. I longed for older wiser friends to debate the virtues and vices of the world with. But they weren’t to be found in Cambridge. I felt like a hungry man offered a shopful of candyfloss. Like a philosopher put to work as a baby-minder.

“Then, during the Lent term of my second year, I met Sarah. We went out a few times. It didn’t come to much. Not even sex. But I happened to be the man she had in tow when she went along to the private view her mother had arranged to launch Oscar Bantock’s exhibition. I nearly didn’t go. She actually had to come and get me when I didn’t show up at her room. Things were cooling off between us pretty rapidly by then. Besides, I hated Expressionism. I also had a fixed mental picture of the artist and his patroness. A raddled old bohemian running to fat and some horse-faced socialite offering cheap wine in exchange for cheap compliments. That’s what I expected. And in Oscar Bantock it’s more or less what I got. But Louise? She was a different story altogether.

“The gallery was a small but exclusive place. Crowded that night, of course. A grinning mob of so-called aesthetes expelling enough hot air to steam up the windows completely. We pushed our way in. Sarah made straight for her mother. To ensure her presence was noted, I suppose. That’s when I first saw Louise. It was like an electric shock. I mean, it was instantaneous. She was so beautiful. She was so… mind-blowingly lovely. I just gaped at her. I remember thinking. ‘Why aren’t these people looking at her? Can’t they see? Don’t they realize?’ You met her once yourself, so maybe you understand. She was incredible. She was the woman I’d been longing to meet. And in that instant, before Sarah had even introduced us, I knew I’d have to have her. To possess her, body and soul. It was as simple as that. Over the top, of course. Absurdly unrealistic. Totally mad. But I never questioned the instinct for a moment. It was so strong I felt certain it had to be right.

“I only spoke to her for a few minutes. We didn’t discuss anything profound or meaningful. But that didn’t matter. The tone of her voice. The movement of her hair when she laughed. The haunting coolness in her eyes. It was as if they were branded on me. I’d have done anything for her. Gone anywhere to be with her. I was in her power. Except she didn’t know it. Which left my infatuation to feed on itself. Outright rejection at the start might have nipped it in the bud. But she was too polite-too sensitive-for that. I managed to muscle in on a lunch she had with Sarah the next day. I contrived to be hanging around Sarah’s staircase when Louise called on her to say goodbye the day after. I was the archetypal bad penny. Louise probably thought I was trailing after her daughter. That must be why she suggested I visit them in Sapperton during the Easter vacation. But Sarah was having none of it. After her mother had gone, she made it obvious she didn’t want to see me there.

“I went home at the end of term assuming I’d soon forget about Louise. But the sterility of life in Surbiton only reinforced the yearning to be near her. I knew they had a town house in Holland Park. So I went up there one day and called round. To my surprise, Louise answered the door. She was alone. Sarah was out with friends. Rowena was at school. Sir Keith was at his surgery. I claimed to be in the area by chance. She invited me in. Offered me coffee. Said she didn’t know how long Sarah would be. I said it didn’t matter. And that was true. The longer the better, as far as I was concerned. Just to be with Louise, just to look at her across the room and listen to her speaking, just to feel her attention resting on me when I was speaking… It seemed like a glimpse of paradise. And having her to myself, however briefly, seemed like an opportunity I couldn’t afford to let slip. When she went into the kitchen to fix me another coffee, I followed her. And that’s where I told her. In the time it took the kettle to boil.

“I’d already imagined how she was going to react to my declaration of undying love. A hesitant admission that she felt the same way. Then a passionate surrender. She’d let me kiss her. Maybe even let me take her upstairs and make love to her. Or arrange to meet me next day at some classy hotel, where we’d spend the whole of the afternoon and evening in bed. Later, we’d start planning our future together. Discuss where we were going to run away to. All self-deluding nonsense, of course. All so much folly and arrogance. But I was so taken in by the fantasy I’d created that it’s actually what I expected to happen.

“Needless to say, it didn’t. The first thing she said when I’d finished was, ‘Oh dear.’ She seemed more embarrassed than angry. Almost sorry for me. She tried to let me down lightly. She took me back into the lounge and gently explained the impossibility of what I’d suggested. She was a happily married middle-aged woman with a daughter my own age. There could be no question of her betraying her husband. With me or anyone else. Strangely enough, she didn’t seem particularly shocked. Perhaps other men had poured out their hearts to her in similar circumstances. Perhaps she was used to being the object of hopeless adoration. ‘This is just a phase you’re going through,’ she said. ‘A phase you’ll soon grow out of.’ She spoke of it so lightly, so dismissively. As if I was some silly little boy with a crush on her. I could have hated her if I hadn’t loved her. And in a sense I suppose that’s when I started to. Hate as well as love, I mean.

“But love’s the wrong word anyway, isn’t it? It was an obsession amounting to mania. I loaded everything of meaning and significance in my life onto her. I made winning her a test of the very purpose of my existence. A test I was bound to fail. Because she wasn’t interested. Not a bit. She wasn’t even worried by me. Not then, anyway, though later… She didn’t take me seriously, you see. That was the worst of it. I could have her pity. Even her scorn, if I persisted. But never what I wanted. Never, come to that, her respect, now I’d shown my hand.

“She very politely threw me out. Reckoned it would be best if I didn’t wait for Sarah. But she promised not to tell her anything. ‘Let’s forget this ever happened,’ she said. ‘Let’s write it off as an unfortunate misunderstanding.’ I suppose that’s what it was in a way. A misunderstanding. She just didn’t understand that I really meant it. And I didn’t understand how preposterous what I meant really was.

“But as for writing it off, that didn’t seem possible. I called her several times over the next few days. Put the phone down if somebody else answered. Spoke if it was her. I begged her to reconsider. Pleaded with her to give me a chance. Just one meeting. Just a few minutes of her time. Eventually, she agreed. We met in a café in Covent Garden. Her mood had changed by then. If I persisted, she said, she’d inform the college authorities. So far, nobody else knew. But if I didn’t stop now, everybody would know. Sarah. My parents. My fellow students. My director of studies. My tutor. In my own interest, I had to give up. Immediately. As she very much hoped I would.