Kate Atkinson: Case Histories

She'd been revising with Josh in the churchyard of Little St. Mary's. It was hot and they'd started fooling around a bit, no one ever went in that place, but then there was a rustling of leaves as if an animal were making its way through the summer vegetation, and then a man's face suddenly popped up from behind a gravestone and she'd shrieked in a really girly way, and Josh had got all manly despite having his jeans round his ankles and shouted at the guy to fuck off and then they had collapsed with laughter. She thought the man looked vaguely familiar but it was only when he ordered half a lager shandy from her in the bar a couple weeks later that she realized he was the Jessops' lawn-mowing neighbor, but she couldn't remember his name. Luckily he didn't seem to recognize her at all.

By then everyone had gone: Christina had gone to teach in Tanzania for a year, Ayshea was spending the summer in France, Joanna was Euro-railing with Pansy, Emma was in Peru (Emma, for God's sake!), and Josh was a camp counselor in the middle of nowhere in Michigan. She felt like she'd been deserted. They all agreed to meet up in front of the Hobbs Pavilion on Parker's Piece in ten years' time, but how likely was that really? Mr. Jessop had tried to organize a "farewell get-together" for his class but everyone had been busy – not that she would have gone. She hadn't seen him since he'd tried it on with her. Dad, bless his heart, said, "Don't you want to go traveling then, Laura?" even though it would have been his idea of living hell for her to be abroad somewhere, somewhere he couldn't pick her up from in the car at the end of an evening.

Then she bumped into him coming out of Heffers Bookshop and she said, "Hello," in a neutral kind of way because it wasn't as if she was looking to get into a conversation with the guy or anything, and then the next day there was this teddy bear left on the doorstep, not that really she connected the two things, not consciously anyway, it was just this stupid-looking bear, an ugly, pink thing with eyes that were all wrong, not like the cute old-fashioned ones Laura had piled on her bed. The bear on the doorstep was the kind of thing that someone with no taste would buy if they thought you liked teddy bears.

She went up to London for the day (she was beginning to hate everyone for having left Cambridge for the summer). She visited the British Museum and then went and bought some new clothes, but it wasn't much fun on her own. She didn't see him getting on at King's Cross but she saw him walking into her carriage about ten minutes after the train had pulled out of the station – she was sure he was looking for her, even though when he spotted her he tried to look surprised. Luckily, there were no empty seats round about her, but when she got up at Cambridge he followed her down the carriage and stood at the door with her and spoke for the first time, saying, "Are you getting off here?" which was a bloody stupid question as it was obvious she was, but she just said, "Yes," and then when they were on the platform he said, "Can I give you a lift home? My car's in the car park," and she said, "No thanks, my Dad's meeting me," and hurried away from him. And she remembered his name was Stuart. Kim was right, he was pathetic. She couldn't go and see Kim anymore because that would probably mean seeing Mr. Jessop. She phoned the house a couple times and he always answered and she put the phone down and said nothing. The last time, he'd shouted into the phone, "Kim – is that you? Where the fuck are you?" so she figured things couldn't be too good between them.

Her last night in the bar and he came in and sat in the corner and made his one half-pint of lager shandy last an hour. When he got up to leave he said to her, "I don't know why you're ignoring me," and she said, "I don't know what you're talking about," and he said, "You know there's an incredible bond between us, you shouldn't deny it," and she was suddenly furious (the guy was a fucking nutter, for God's sake) because she'd been feeling sorry for the guy but really he was just intruding into her life uninvited – just like Mr. Jessop – and she said, "Look, just leave me alone, will you? My dad's a solicitor and he could make real trouble for you if you keep turning up like this," and he said, "Your father can't stop our love," and then he slunk away, and the bar manager said, "Everything okay?" and she said, "Yeah, just some guy who can't hold his drink." Of course, she would never have told her father. He would have worried himself to death. And anyway Stuart Lappin was harmless. He was a total freak, but he was harmless.

The good thing about working in the bar was that she only worked the evening shift and had the day to herself. It was going to be a real drag being stuck in an office all day for the rest of the summer. Dad was so happy and he was upset that he had to go to Peterborough instead of being there for her first day.

She made him promise to walk to the station because he was (supposedly) on a new, healthy regime after he'd been to the doctor.

"Don't forget your inhaler, Dad," she'd said to him as he was leaving the house, and he patted his jacket pocket to prove it was in there and said, "Cheryl will show you the ropes. I'll be back in the office before lunch, maybe we can go out?" and she said, "That would be nice, Dad. And then she saw him off at the front door, kissing him on the cheek, saying, "I love you, Dad," and he said, "Love you too, sweetheart," and she'd watched him walk down the street because she suddenly had a horrible feeling that she wasn't going to see him again, but when he got to the corner and turned back to look at her she gave him a cheerful wave because she didn't want him to know that she worried about him because he worried enough for the two of them.

She watched him disappear round the corner and felt her heart fill up and she wondered if she'd ever meet anyone she loved as much as her father. And then she cleared the breakfast table and loaded the dishwasher and made sure the house was clean and tidy for them both to come home to later.

No more slaters, no more Garys and Craigs and Darryls. No more Philip and his yapping Pekingese. No more Oxford. No more old Amelia. A fresh start, a new person.

She had thought it might be an orgy, but it really was just the barbecue they had promised ("Oh, do come.") and the conversation was about the difficulty of finding a good plumber and how to keep snails off delphiniums ("Copper tape," Amelia offered and they all said, "Really? How fascinating!"). The only difference was that they were all naked.

When she arrived on the riverbank (feeling overdressed and terrified), Cooper ("Cooper Lock, erstwhile history professor at St. Cat's, now a ne'er-do-well,") strode toward her, his balls swinging, and said, "Amelia, you came, how wonderful," and Jean ("Jean Stanton, lawyer, amateur rock climber, local Conservative Party secretary") rushed up, all smiles and small bouncing breasts and said, "Good show. Everyone, this is Amelia Land. She's so interesting."

And then she had swum naked in the river with them and it had been just as she remembered it except that there was no swimming costume between her body and the water and she could feel the plants and weeds streaming over her body like thick wet ribbons.

And then they ate grilled sausages and steaks and drank South African Chardonnay as the twilight deepened and then later she had lain next to Jean, in Jean's pine sleigh bed in an attic room painted white and scented by Diptyque candles, the cost of one of which would probably have kept a family in Bangladesh for a year. But Amelia managed to ignore this fact, as she managed to ignore the fact that Jean was the secretary of the local Conservative Party (although obviously Jean's politics couldn't remain off the conversational agenda forever), and Amelia could ignore these things and many other things because even though Jean was in her fifties she had a hard, lithe, brown body that she slid along Amelia's own pale, soft body (she felt like a sea creature that had been shelled), and Jean said, "You're luscious, Amelia, like a big ripe melon," and the old Amelia would have snorted with derision at this point but the new Amelia cried out like a startled bird because Jean was lapping at her labia like a cat ("Oh, call it a cunt, Amelia, don't be shy,") and giving her her first-ever orgasm.