Freya North - Polly

The shock of it!

Polly was immensely excited to see Cape Cod from the aeroplane window.

‘Do you know, it looks exactly the same as it does on a map!’ she exclaimed to her neighbour who was still wearing the blindfold. ‘Look!’ Polly urged, with a gentle but insistent nudge, ‘it’s like an arm, a crook at the elbow, a hand cupping the sea against it. Look!’

Her fellow passenger did indeed look and then retreated back behind his eye-mask hoping sincerely that no other cartographical features would solicit his neighbour before they landed in Boston.

As Polly waited at the luggage carousel, she suddenly had absolutely no idea who would be meeting her. In the event, she would have made a bee-line for Kate Tracey anyway, whether or not she had been brandishing the enormous board emblazoned with Polly’s name. Amongst the sea of faces and the barrage of name signs, Kate’s easy smile reached out to Polly immediately. As she approached, she marvelled at the coincidence that the name on the sign was indeed her very own.

‘Polly?’ the woman mouthed, from some distance.

‘Yes!’ Polly mouthed back, nodding and grinning.

‘Polly!’ the woman declared when they were close to, ‘hi there!’

‘Hullo,’ said Polly, a little breathless, ‘how do you do?’

‘I’m Kate Tracey, welcome,’ the woman said, gripping the placard between her knees so she could shake Polly’s hand heartily, ‘how you doing?’

‘Oh,’ said Polly, ‘absolutely fine, thank you.’

‘Good! This is Bogey. Bogey say hi.’

Polly hadn’t even seen the dog, having been preoccupied with Kate’s glinting eyes behind red-rimmed owl-frame spectacles.

‘Hullo Bogey!’ Polly declared, flopping to her knees and encircling her arms about the oversized Airedale’s neck while he slurped at her cheek. ‘As in Humphrey?’ she asked Kate.

‘Sure thing,’ Kate confirmed, trading the dog’s lead for Polly’s trolley.

‘I’m Fenton as in Roger and James,’ Polly explained, jigging to keep up with Kate who was slaloming effortlessly through the concourse towards the exit, ‘although I’m related to neither. Unfortunately.’

‘That’s too bad,’ rued Kate kindly, coming to a standstill, cocking her head and nodding at Polly, ‘I’m kinda partial to British photographers and British poets.’

Polly was most impressed.

‘I’ve had rampant affairs with both species,’ confided Kate through the side of her mouth while she walked. ‘Rampant!’ she all but growled. ‘In the sixties,’ she said, by way of justification.

Polly laughed.

I like this woman!

What’s she like then?

She’s head of art at Hubbardtons. I suppose she must be in her early fifties, but she’s quite trendy with her hair cut into a wonderful feathery crop and her face framed by these wacky specs. She has a round, sparkling face and chipmunk cheeks when she smiles. She’s wearing a lovely old leather jacket – which has obviously known no other owner – checked trousers and funky chunky boots. She walks incredibly fast and, oh how funny, she’s just clicked and winked at the newspaper-stand chap. He must be a hundred and twenty. Ha! Here’s her car and it’s a real slice of America – what they call a station-wagon, I think, with that faux wooden panelling along the side?

Do you know, I’m actually here! I’m in America, in the car park at Logan Airport. It’s not frightening, it’s fantastic. Can’t believe it. Wow!

‘All right! Here we go, luggage in the trunk, Bogey in the back, Polly up front with me.’

‘How long will the journey take?’

‘About three and a half.’

‘Bet that’s just round the block for you – rather than London to Liverpool for me. Is it scenic?’

‘Round the what? I’ve been to Liverpool, you know, in the sixties, of course. And yup, the route’s pretty.’

‘Fantastic! I’ve never been to America.’

‘You’re gonna have a lot of fun,’ said Kate, nodding sagely and tapping Polly lightly on the knee. ‘You’ll never want to leave.’ Polly tapped Kate back.

Oh yes I will. Everything I am is in the UK.

‘I like your checked trousers,’ she said instead.

Kate laughed, short and sharp. ‘They’re plaid pants over here.’

The journey passed quickly, Kate talking nineteen to the dozen while Polly’s eyes, like her ears, worked overtime to take in all she could.

School on Saturdays – nightmare!

Wooden houses. Big cars. Sidewalks. Very fat people. Fantastically thin people.

So I’m to have a room at Kate’s house for the first term.

Driving on the wrong side. Policemen with guns and cool glasses.

Term started last Thursday but the first weekly faculty meeting is this Thursday evening.

The most enormous trucks imaginable, huge radiator grilles quite menacing. Truck drivers up in the gods with baseball caps. Kids with baseball caps back to front.

There’ll be no more than twelve in a class – that’s phenomenal.

The Charles River. Sculling. Harvard round the bend and out of sight. Concord River. Connecticut River.

Kate, lovely Kate, stopping at a tiny bakery just across the state line, buying me a cinnamon bun and a double decaff coffee.

‘We’re gonna have a whole lot of fun. You’re gonna just love school, you’ll fit in a dream.’

Will I? Hope I live up to your expectations – you seem to have decided an awful lot about me.

It was dark when they reached Hubbardtons Spring but Polly was vaguely aware that the houses, for the most part, were white planked and that the dark, woolly masses looming in the background were the tree-covered hills.

‘95 per cent of Vermont is tree covered,’ Kate informed the squinting Polly. ‘Hell, there’s a nip in the air, come on in.’

The front door, it transpired, was never used. Kate explained it was for show and that the house would have looked kind of funny without one. Polly was led instead around the side of the house, up wooden steps to the wooden deck where three men drank beer from small bottles and, after brief ‘hi’s and ‘hullo’s all round, she led Polly into the house. Straight into the warm kitchen which smelt divine, passed a gargantuan fridge smothered with photos and various magnets, round a corner, up some stairs, along a corridor, down three steps and sharp left into an ‘L’ shaped room with a decisive chill to it.

‘Been airing it for you. It’s not really been used since Great Aunt Clara died.’

Polly looked horrified.

‘Hey! That was ten years ago. And she was one helluva lady. You want to unpack? You want a beer?’

‘Yes and no,’ said Polly. ‘I don’t think I like beer.’

‘Tell you what, I’ll fetch you one that’ll change your mind. And your life . I’ll put money on it.’

With Kate disappeared, Polly shut the windows and closed the double curtains; lace first, chintz second. She absorbed the details of the room in an instant: painted white iron queen-size bed with a handmade patchwork quilt, an old rocker with two slats missing from the back, a chest of drawers warped sufficiently for none to be closed flush, a bookcase crammed full, framed prints of Van Gogh’s bedroom, Monet’s water-lily garden and Cézanne’s gardener, and an exquisite watercolour of maple trees ablaze in the autumn.

‘Fall,’ corrected Kate, making Polly realize she must have been talking out loud. ‘Here you go,’ she sang, thrusting a cold bottle of life-changing beer into Polly’s hands, ‘I’ll be out the back with the guys. You take your time. We’ll have dinner in forty-five.’