Starting point turning p.., p.11
Latin Lessons, page 11
Her favourite was of a girl carrying a waterpot, her second was a carved, column fragment, and the last was a late Romano-British cast of a young boy, whose weathered face rather resembled Freddy’s. They lined a winding path through the shrubs and trees between various other, more modest little statues and reproductions she’d picked up over the years. The result was effective and unusual. Fenella was certainly no gardener, but she liked her little sculpture park.
While her guests carried their coffees to the stone benches at the end, she fetched cushions to soften the seating. Olivia and Bel both drew Susie to one side and immediately began to interview her in greater depth, perhaps in what they thought was a gentle, subtle way. But Fenella knew Susie well enough to know she’d be way ahead of the pair and know quite well what they were doing.
Fenella decided to chat to Niamh, whom she didn’t know well yet at all. They sat some way apart from the others and fell into easy conversation. Niamh was heavily into preparing for a Viva exam for a PhD in Irish women painters she was close to completing, through the University of Dublin. Niamh was also a direct descendent of Grace O’Malley, the sixteenth century Irish pirate queen, and she had the looks and wild beauty to match. Hearing her soft Irish accent made Fenella feel uptight, conventional, and stiff in comparison. But her smile was warm and her concern for Fenella’s romantic conundrum genuine. Olivia must have filled her in with all the details.
“Livie’s told me something of your worries,” said Niamh. “I can surely see the attraction. Susie’s a force of nature, and such a pretty lass.”
Fenella glanced across at Susie. Attraction was hardly a strong enough word. She was mad about the girl, who was so much more than pretty. “She’s bright as a button as well, too bright for me to cope with, and scarily direct. I just don’t see what I can offer her, why she even likes me. She’s highly gifted as well. But intellect and emotional maturity don’t often sit easily together. I have no idea why she’s attracted to me though.”
“Don’t you?” Niamh ran her fingers through her untamed hair and twisted it into a rough bun behind her neck. “Might it not be natural good taste?”
“No,” Fenella said and straightened a little on her cushion. “She lost her mother to cancer in her early teens and is still scarred by it. I think it’s a mother she needs, not a seductress.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Love is love, and I believe, given half a chance, it will always find its way through the rocks. I fell for Olivia the day I went to her office in search of a publisher for my late mother’s manuscript. And there were big complications. Her sister had also died of cancer, and the whole family was still recovering. We now share a house with her five nieces and nephews and their father, a very head-in-the-air marine biologist.”
Fenella gave a little shudder. Coping with two children was challenging enough, but five? “Was it easy, joining them all?”
“Not at first. The elder of the daughters truly hated me. But it’s all forgotten now. Our age-gap simply adds an extra dimension. Our blended family straddles three decades, and I can sometimes understand the young ones’ point of view better than Livie can. But she’s also very patient with me, when I get especially pig-headed and stupid about things. We simply all love each other. That’s the secret ingredient.”
Niamh almost made Fenella believe in a similar outcome for Susie and her. But she couldn’t see it happening. Susie was too young, too brilliant, too fragile. “You’re at least five years older than Susie though. She’s barely out of her teens and can’t even drink alcohol legally in America. I’m the opposite of being the right partner for her.”
“Not from where I sit. Livie says that you’re the most brilliant woman she knows—after Bel, of course—and she knows everyone. And you’ve been through the mill of two divorces, you’re raising two grand boys on your own, and you can’t pretend you don’t exude sex appeal in bucketsful.”
“Niamh! That’s outrageous! Of course I don’t!” Fenella laughed at the total Irish blarney. She was far from a wonder woman.
Niamh’s eyes twinkled as she wagged her finger. “Oh yes you do. And I speak as a connoisseur of female allure. Believe me, anyone, man or woman, would be proud to have you as their plus one anytime in any place. God, I’d fall for you myself if I hadn’t married Olivia!”
Fenella didn’t know what to say to that. “So, if you’re right, what would you advise? Am I deluded or wicked, to cling on to a tiny glimmer of hope that it might one day work out?”
“You’re neither of those things. If you and Susie love each other, I don’t see any great obstacles. You can hold off for a while if it makes you feel any better. But I reckon she’s tougher than you think. Okay, she’s young, but time will cure that soon enough, won’t it? If you want my advice, open your arms and let her in. Don’t drive her away. Olivia let me in and look how that worked out. She saved me. I can’t imagine any other life now other than being madly in love with her. She’s the centre of my world.”
The passion in Niamh’s final words took Fenella aback. She could only nod in response. So what she felt about Susie wasn’t an aberration? Other saner women could feel something similar.
“Shall we go in?” she asked when the afternoon grew colder as the damp rose. Fenella carried the coffee tray, Susie gathered up the cushions, and the others followed them back inside the house. Bel went through to the lounge and gently shook Bryony awake. “I’ll drive us home, my darling,” Fenella heard her say. “You can still snooze all the way back to the cottage.” They lived twelve miles from Oxford, near to the A44 past Woodstock, and Bryony commuted back and forth to the hospital. Married bliss. Fenella was surprised to see how Bel had settled down into such mundane happiness. She couldn’t believe such a thing would ever be possible for her.
“Unfortunately, we need to hit the road as well,” said Olivia a few minutes later. “Traffic down the M40 into London on a late Sunday afternoon can be awful.” She hugged Susie tightly, kissed her on the cheek, and whispered something Fenella couldn’t hear.
Fenella wondered what their earnest conversation had really been all about. Then they all had a group hug, and their electric cars purred away down the avenue. The motivation for her invitation might have failed, but as an example of two successful gay age-gap marriages, the lunch had proved a shining success. The only trouble was it hadn’t solved the problem. She was as much in love as ever, and judging from the way Susie kept eyeing her like fresh meat, her American houseguest had been even more aroused by the examples of lesbian happy endings she’d shown her.
CHAPTER
TWENTY
Susie insisted on stacking the dishwasher with all the lunch debris before picking up Freddy’s cycle helmet and her jacket and heading for the door. She didn’t want Fenella to think of her as a freeloader when it came to helping in the house, but Fenella seemed more concerned about where she and Freddy were off to.
“Don’t you remember? We’re going out for a proper bike ride, maybe as far as Headington,” said Freddy.
“No, don’t even think about it now,” said Fenella. “It’s too late. It will be dusk soon. Susie’s next lesson can wait until when her own bike will be available. I must tell the shop to fit lights to it.”
“Mum!” Freddy sounded annoyed.
But Susie wasn’t too disappointed. She only had one more evening there with Fenella, and it was precious time she wanted to protect. “It’s okay, Freddy. Your mom’s being sensible. I know you’ve got homework prep for tomorrow, and I have three double lessons to plan for school, as well as getting ready to move down to the college.”
Fenella looked at her and smiled. “Very sensible. Now come with me into the study, please, Susie. I want to talk about tomorrow.”
Susie followed Fenella into her book room, where half of one wall was covered in ten years’ worth of her monthly magazine. Susie wished there was time for her to start reading it. Every back issue on view would have an editorial article on its opening pages, and she wanted to read all of Fenella’s work. It would be the best way to understand her and mine her brain.
When they were alone in the study, Fenella shut the door and leaned back against it. Susie guessed what was coming. “Look, I know you have to be away to work early tomorrow. I can Uber to St Hilary’s. You don’t have to worry about getting me there.”
Fenella shook her head. “No, I’ll take you and settle you in. Do you think I’d abandon you to some stranger in a stinky car? I’ve already told Greta that I won’t be there before midday. No, what I want to talk about is something quite different. It’s deeper, which is harder to explain.” She pointed imperiously to her highbacked wing chair by the fireplace. “So bear with me. Sit down and hear me out.”
Susie swallowed hard before she sat on Fenella’s command and folded her hands. “Okay,” she said and tried to fight the tension in her shoulders. “Listening.”
Fenella paced back and forth. “Susie, my sweet… A new phase of your life begins tomorrow, and I wanted to say that you should embrace it with all you’ve got. Don’t think of me, don’t look back. Get in there and enjoy it to the full.”
“That’s what you’re being so serious about?” Susie frowned. “How could I not enjoy it?”
“No, listen to me. You’ve been gifted with an amazingly quick brain and a photographic memory. You love to read, and you love languages. But you’ve been living dishonestly.”
“No, I haven’t!”
“I’m sorry, but, yes, you have. It’s something I think you’ve been doing all your life, pretending to be much less complicated than you are.”
“Huh?”
“There, it’s a case in point. You know quite well what I mean, so don’t pretend otherwise. Express yourself as you really want to. You don’t have to dumb down your language and talk like a brainless teen anymore. No one here at Oxford will bully you because of your brainpower or your love of words.”
Susie’s thumbs pricked. Fenella had sussed out her little attempt at camouflage, and she wouldn’t have to carefully edit the way she talked anymore. She sighed with profound relief but was ashamed she’d even tried to disguise herself in order to fit in with what she called human beans (after the Borrowers), and she was even more ashamed now to have put Fenella into that category. Fenella openly appreciated scholarship and the love of learning, and maybe the rest of them in St Hilary’s and across the university would feel the same way. Could the immense loneliness of being Susannah Webster, the school principal’s kid, weirdo nerd and brainbox, finally be a thing of the past? “How did you know I was dumbing down how I talk?”
“By listening to you for a few minutes. You said British English was your second language. But until now, you’ve been translating your thoughts again into kidspeak when it’s obviously not your native language either. You can translate a page of Latin into perfect English, what we used to call Queen’s English, but talk like a dumb high school student half the time. You’re at least trilingual. And it’s such a waste of effort. You say you love me—”
“But I do. You know I do.”
“Then show me your real self. From now on, you have to be brave enough to share who you are, as I will have to learn to share as well. If this is going to work, then we need to be honest with each other.”
Susie held her breath. Was Fenella actually saying their relationship was going further than her clunking around in armour, while her lady Fenella sat up on the battlements, far above her, out of reach?
“I want to stretch you as far as you can go,” Fenella said. “I want to see your limits—if there are any. I think you have a genius inside you, but you’ve caged her for so long that she’s in danger of becoming a shabby tiger.”
“For tamed and shabby tigers, and dancing dogs and bears,” Susie said, quoting the original poem.
Fenella looked astounded.
“Sorry, it was in an old book my mom had. I didn’t know about dancing bears until I read the verse, and when it was explained to me, I couldn’t stop crying about them.”
Fenella smiled. “There, you’ve proved me right. You see, ideas and enormous thoughts bubble up all the time in that head of yours. There’s no need to hide your love of scholarship here. But I never again want you to pretend to be less intelligent than you are, especially not with me. Now, there’s something practical I can do to help you here. I’m going to talk to my friend Dr Stevie Pole in the Classics department and suggest she finds you a tutor who can keep up with you.”
“Oh, Fen, no. Please don’t. Please don’t do that. People have tried it before, and it always backfires. It never works. My dad wrote to my high school once, asking them to let me skip a grade, and it was terrible. The teachers thought I was some precocious attention-seeker, and the other kids all hated me. I told you about it. In the end, I taught myself how to pass the SAT tests when I was sixteen so I could graduate two years early.” Stupid tears threatened to sting her eyes.
Fenella gently pulled Susie out of the chair by her elbows. “I’m so sorry. Please don’t get upset.” She held her close and rocked her in her arms. “I understand how hard it’s been. But are you quite sure I can’t put in a good word? Paving the way for you could make life easier, at least in the beginning. No one at Oxford should look down on you for being bright, but they might not expect enough from you…coming from America, I mean.”
That dried up any threat of tears. Susie leaned back in Fenella’s arms and openly laughed. “Hey, Lady Fenella, quit while you’re ahead. I know you Brits all think Americans are really dumb,” she held up her finger, “I mean, intellectually disadvantaged. See, I can talk like the Oxford Dictionary when I want to. But I can look after myself. I really don’t need any special treatment or favours. They already gave me a scholarship, which you say is some big deal—whoops—I mean, an unusual academic mark of achievement. That should be more than enough to single me out above the rest of the poppies.” She grinned and squeezed Fenella’s hips. “But I like what you said about stretching me though. I’d like that—in bed. You can stretch me there anytime.”
Fenella huffed. “Why do you turn every innocent remark into innuendo?”
“Why do I? Hmm. Perhaps because I’m in love with you, and I want to make love to you, and I know from my toes to my head that you feel the same. We’re fatally attracted to each other, like magnets. And we only have this last night together. Can’t I tiptoe down to your room and keep you warm in bed, please?”
Susie was playing with fire here, but she was deadly serious. Fenella was still holding her in her arms, wasn’t she? It would only take one firm grope, one repeat of the garage kiss to seal the deal and pull her in. Her sincere promise to keep her distance now seemed surplus to requirements.
Fenella’s body tensed, and she shuddered, as if in pain. “I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry. But I can’t do this. I can’t. Because I know how much it will hurt you when I inevitably drop you, or betray you, or say something really hateful when I’m drunk. Please don’t ask me again, not if you care at all for me.”
Susie frowned. “Why would you do any of those things?” Sure, Fenella could be sharp and bossy, but she would surely never be cruel.
“Because they all happened to me when I was your age, from someone I loved quite as madly as you say you love me. And I won’t do this to you. I’m not starting what I know I won’t be able to finish. There aren’t many happy endings in the real world. Trust me, little friend, I do know.”
Fenella’s revelation opened up a whole new backstory that raised more questions than answers. She needed to get Fenella to tell her more, but that clearly wasn’t going to happen tonight. All the previous talk about being honest and about sharing now made much more sense. They would deal with it when Fenella was ready. But right now, she could tell Fenella’s resistance was final. There was to be no last night together tussle under the bedclothes, no chance to see Fenella’s divine body naked and be allowed to crawl all over her and wrap her up in love and kisses. “I do care for you so much, so I won’t ask you again or keep pestering you. But will you grant me one last favour?”
“What?”
“Grant me custody of one of your handkerchiefs, doused in J’Adore.”
“I think I might be able to manage one handkerchief.” Fenella slowly released her and sighed deeply.
“Then I’ll bring it back every week to have it re-perfumed,” said Susie, and when Fenella rolled her eyes in mock horror, she kissed her on the ear, and laughed to feel her squirm as it tickled. “You see, I am here to stay. We just have to learn to live with it, Fenny. Now, before I go to my own bed, tell me you love me.”
“You know I do.”
“That’s not enough. Tell me in Latin.”
Fenella rolled her eyes. “Amo te magis quam vitam meam, puella horrenda.”
Susie grinned. I love you more than my life, you horrible girl. With that definitely backhanded compliment, Susie was quite satisfied, for now.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
DECEMBER
Susie blew on her fingers to bring them back to life as she parked her bike in the shed behind the Classics department and pulled her work bag from the basket. It was the last week of the full Michaelmas term, and her last tutorial with Dr Pole was due to start in ten minutes. She couldn’t say she was sorry this would be their last session. Next term, she’d be passed onto another mentor, a guy from Worcester College, who specialised in medieval Latin and church archives, a subject which didn’t exactly fill her with excitement. But at least she’d heard he was friendly, and he encouraged students to ask questions.
