But it is I who have changed, not you. So let me hope you feel (as I do) that it has been worth it, or that it will turn out to have been worth it, and let me beg your forgiveness. You are the most important thing that has ever happened to me. C.
There was a pleasingly unrehearsed air about the repetition of ‘feeling’ and ‘feel’ and of ‘changing’ and ‘changed’. That ‘it is I’ seemed rather prissy; perhaps ‘it’s me’ would have been a bit beefier and … more modest. And I still can’t decide whether all the ‘it’s’ and ‘don’ts’ are nastily groovy or nicely Robert Frost. But, so far as I know, Rachel is not a fastidious reader.
I wrote it out once more, altering accidentals. Coco’s letter would have to do as it was.
On the way to the front door, the telephone rang. It was for me. I put the envelopes down on the hall table, not wishing to smudge them.
‘So how did it go?’
‘Mm ? Oh fine. I got in.’
‘ … You don’t sound very pleased.’
‘Oh, I am really.’
‘ … Why didn’t you come home?’
‘Dunno really. Felt a bit shattered.’
‘… When will you be?’
I clenched my teeth. ‘Not really sure. I feel a bit, I don’t know, strange.’
Rachel gulped. ‘Charles, what is it?’
‘I’m sorry. The interview was a bit harrowing. Not a bit what I expected.’
‘But you did get in?’
‘Oh yeah. Have you heard from your mother yet?’
‘Yes, she rang this morning. She almost apologized. Archie’s coming round to get me this afternoon. I suppose I’d better go back. Shall I?’
‘Oh, yes, definitely. Far the best thing. Look, sorry I’m being so awful. Don’t worry about anything, I’ll most likely be back tomorrow. Ring you if I’m not. Okay? I love you. Right. Bye!’
And I felt next to nothing as I walked to the village; I paid my respects to the countryside yet was unable to detect solemn sympathy in its quiet or reproach in its stillness. Usually that road brought me miles of footage from the past: the bright-faced ten-year-old running for the Oxford bus; the lardy pubescent, out on soul-rambles (i.e. sulks), or off for a wank in the woods; the youth, handsomely reading Tennyson on summer evenings, or trying to kill birds with feeble, rusted slug-guns, or behind the hedge smoking fags with Geoffrey, then hawking in the ditch. But now I strode it vacantly, my childhood nowhere to be found.
The drinks were on Mr Bladderby when he heard the happy news, and I stayed chatting to him and his wife for twenty minutes with the letters still in my pocket. That landlord had imploded a few more blood-vessels, Mrs Bladderby had lost her mother, two front teeth, and about a third of her hair, but all in all I was surprised how little they had changed. It seemed I had been away for years. No, not years. Days? No, nor days. It seemed I had been away for three months.
On my return, however, after a visit to the post office, the hollow feeling began to be displaced. So the trees obliged me by wringing their hands when I approached the lane, and the wind booed me as I made my way to the house, slowly, in frightened tears.
The Letter to My Father – what a remarkable document it is. Lucid yet subtle, persistent without being querulous, sensible but not unimaginative, elegant? yes, florid? no. Ah, if Knowd-all could have read this. The only question is: what do I do with it?
The old rogue didn’t in fact turn up until Tuesday, this mom-ing. I took the Letter along when I went to see him in his study, on the off-chance.
‘I’ve been for the interview. I got in.’
My father appeared to be genuinely delighted. He came up and cuffed me on the shoulder. It was the first time we had touched for years. It made me blush.
‘Pity we’re too early for a drink,’ he said.
‘Yes. The thing is – not all that important – but I wondered whether I couldn’t go to my second-choice college. I know it’s not as good, but I didn’t much like the don who interviewed me. He’s got a lot of crappy ideas. And he says “hopefully”.’