Harriet Evans - I Remember You

‘Well, I’ve got more to lose,’ Tess admitted. ‘I grew up here.’

‘True,’ Jane Austen said, ‘but I’d have thought teaching Classical Civilization in a failing comprehensive in South London and getting some teenagers who don’t care about anything to even remotely be interested in the Roman Empire is worth much more than impressing Mrs Flibberty-Jibbit of Langford, wouldn’t you?’

Tess paused. Then she said, ‘Good point, there, Jane. Do you mind me calling you Jane?’

‘I do, rather. I prefer Miss Austen. Next?’

‘Well, I’m worried about money.’

‘Aren’t we all, dearie,’ said Jane Austen. Tess realized she was now making her sound like someone from a Carry On film. ‘Proceed, my dear Tess,’ she amended.

‘I need a flatmate, otherwise I’m screwed,’ she said. ‘I’m really stupid.’

‘Yes, that is rather naive of you, committing to this house without a companion to share the rent,’ said Jane Austen. ‘Did you place an advertisement outside the inn?’

‘Yes,’ said Tess.

‘Well, why don’t you go down the pub tonight and ask Mick if anyone’s interested?’ That wasn’t quite right. ‘Mayhap you should repair to the inn and enquire as to the results of yon advertisement placement.’

‘I was in there yesterday…and the day before,’ Tess said sadly. ‘He’s going to think I’m stalking him.’

‘Ask Adam to meet you there, then,’ said Jane Austen, rather impatiently.

Tess sighed. ‘I texted him. He said he’s busy tonight.’ She cupped her chin in her hands and said gloomily, ‘He wouldn’t tell me what he was doing, either. I think he’s bored of me. Already. He’s my only blimming friend here and he’s trying to ditch me.’

She breathed out heavily, making a sound like a car engine winding down.

‘Well,’ said Jane Austen reasonably, ‘it sounds to me as if you are in need of some new acquaintance. After all, you left London for a fresh start. Think of what Will would think if he saw you, sitting all miserably by yourself here, moping around?’

That was it.

‘You’re bloody right,’ Tess said aloud, as she stood up. ‘Honestly, Tessa Tennant. What’s wrong with you? Get a grip! You’re out of London, you’re back here in this lovely town. No more tube strikes, no more congestion charge.’ She took a deep breath. ‘No more waiting ten sodding minutes to be served at the pub, no more strange men staring at you on horrible bendy buses, no more skinny teenagers staring at you in TopShop, and definitely no more horrible boyfriends going off with girls with stupid names!’ She thumped her fist on the wall; it echoed, disconcertingly. ‘You’re back! It’s good! You’ve got a bloody good job and you’re lucky!’

Somewhere in the eaves of the old building, a bird trilled, an early evening call. ‘There you go,’ Tess told herself firmly. She stared at the picture again, and it stared impassively back. ‘Now, go to the pub, get a drink, and cheer up.’ She shut the window and dumped her now-cold cup of tea on the kitchen draining board.

‘Thanks, Jane!’ she yelled, as she headed towards the door. ‘I’m off to the pub! See you later!’

She collected herself. ‘I’m going mad,’ she said softly, shaking her head at the print, which hung by the front door. ‘Sorry.’

The Feathers had been in Langford for four hundred years. In its day, it had been one of the great coaching inns, the resting place for the beau monde on their way down towards the great estates of the South-West. Charles I had hidden in a cellar there for a couple of weeks, and Beau Brummell had stayed the night before visiting the Roman Villa and signed the visitors’ book. ‘ Passing comfortable ,’ he had written. ‘ A charming little town, Langford. I pay you my compliments. Brummell .’ Langford, which had always thought of itself as a deeply correct place, and regarded with suspicion the new claims of towns like Bath (vulgar nouveau Regency), Stratford-upon-Avon (American tourists everywhere) and Rye (smugglers’ money!) had col lectively swooned at this, back in the day. In fact, nearly two hundred years later, it still continued to swoon; the visitors’ book was in the great hallway that led through to the dining room; in a glass case, open at the page on which Mr Brummell had flirted with the town. The Feathers was, geographically and symbolically, at Langford’s very heart for this reason.

The dining room had huge wooden settles, carving it up into different sections, so that coachman and nobleman could eat in the same room, but not be troubled by the other. A huge, leaded oriel window, giving out onto the high street, let in the light, and at the back there was another window, with a perfect view of the countryside as the town sloped down the hill, stopping before the valley, with the Vale of Langford opening up before them.

Tess, coming into the dining room on that March evening, armed only with a copy of Persepolis , which she was re-reading, and the paper, was struck once again with the sensation that hit her: the clear, seductive light, the musty, clean smell, the quiet reassuring sounds of a working pub on a slow Wednesday spring night. The bar, a long L-shaped affair, was low and welcoming. Tess pulled up a stool, waiting for Mick to appear, her eyes scanning the blackboard for the day’s specials: she was suddenly very hungry.

And then, from the corner of the bar behind her, someone spoke.

‘Scuse me,’ said a husky, female voice. ‘Can I take this stool?’

Wheeling round, Tess looked up suspiciously to find a girl about her own age looking at her. Of course. It was That Girl. That Girl, as she had wittily christened her in her own mind, was staying at the Feathers, and was the sort of person, based solely on outward appearances, that Tess had always secretly yearned to be. Sophisticated, mysterious, effortlessly glamorous; Tess had seen a Mulberry handbag swinging from her arm as they’d passed in the street a couple of days ago. Tess had been pinning up her advert, wrestling with a rusty pin and a hard wooden board; That Girl had sashayed past, smiling pleasantly at her. That Girl’s long, glossy hair was—well, toffee-coloured, that was the only word for it. Her clothes just sort of hung off her, like they were meant to. She definitely wasn’t a local, That Girl.

‘Er,’ said Tess, pushing the stool next to her away from her, swiftly, feeling like a spotty teenage boy. ‘Here, of course…Yes.’

That Girl pushed her hair away from her eyes, behind her shoulders. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m Francesca.’ She smiled, briefly, and held out her hand. ‘I saw you yesterday, didn’t I? Are you staying here as well?’

‘Um, no,’ said Tess, sitting upright. She wasn’t dwarfishly short, but she was self-conscious about her height, and girls like Francesca made her feel peasant-like, a pear-shaped lard-arse. She smiled and tried to flick her hair out behind her back too, but her thick dark locks were too short and unwieldy. They swung back in her face like bouncing wire wool, so instead Tess shook her head, nonchalantly, trying to pass this off as a normal cool hair-move, and said, ‘I live here, actually. Just moved back from London.’ She felt this was necessary, she didn’t know why. ‘How about you? Are you on holiday?’

Francesca stroked a corner of the small blackboard with her long creamy fingers; the chalk smeared into swirls. ‘Not exactly,’ she said. ‘I’m just staying here for a while. I’m from London too.’ She looked down, and was silent.

‘Oh,’ said Tess, not sure what to say next. ‘Well.’ She cast a glance around the almost empty pub. ‘It’s a great town, anyway.’