Vera
They had it all so simple, almost too perfect, like something out of a storybook: theyd been in the same class since primary school, and by the time they reached their GCSEs, they were in love. That love blossomed over the last two years of school, and everyone admired itboth were beautiful, their relationship somehow pure and lofty. Everyone assumed theyd marry after finishing school. It was only a matter of time. Alex and Vera.
Alexs faith in that future was as unshakable as a Scouts oath. And Vera had no doubts about him, not the kind that creep in like the chime of Big Ben at midnight, when you wonder if the old clock might finally fail.
I was their form tutor, and I liked them both. Alex was focused, steady, always moving toward his goal. He wanted to be a solicitor, so he threw himself into history and social studies. Vera, on the other hand, was destined to be the greatest English writer of all timeas Alex put it. She wrote endless chivalric romances, which Alex read first. I was always the second reader, since I taught them English literature, and language, of course.
And those novels had everything: love so intense it bordered on madness, heroines who renounced all worldly comforts for it, heroes who fought armies to keep it. There were castles, drawbridges over bottomless chasms, wicked mothers and tyrannical fathers who shaped their childrens happiness by their own narrow vision. In the end, the dark spells were brokenonly for her, or him, to die in the final pages. Truth triumphed, but always too late, leaving a bittersweet ache.
Despite all that melodrama, Alex and I believed in Vera. Alex because his heart and eyes seemed grafted to her forever. Me because, sometimes, beneath the overgrown hedges of her prose, astonishingly precise words would emerge. Phrases that stuck:
* the brittle husks of last autumns leaves crackled underfoot*
* the monks cowls, drifting above the crowd, looked like sugarloaves of sin*
* the door yawned heavily, and everything slipped back into mornings sleep*
I still remember them.
But nothing lasts forever. They finished school.
Vera got into a prestigious creative writing course, studying under a famous poettwice, she even invited me to her workshops. I met the man, heard him speak. She excelled, published early, even before graduation. I was proud of her. Proud of myself, too*I spotted her, nurtured her, helped her grow.*
Alex was prouder still. After each new publication, hed visit me at school, fidgeting in his chair, rubbing his hands together, urging me to reread certain passages, to *pay attention here*. Then hed stare into my eyes and ask, Well? And in that one question was everything: adoration, hope, the jealous dread of criticismall the breath of a soul not yet twenty.
But Alexs mother never liked Vera. No reason given. She worked quietly, subtly, to unravel them. Never recruited meshe knew Id side with the lovers. But she was sickly sweet to both, like a hostess forcing cake after cake on a guest already stuffed.
In the end, she won. Alex went off to study law at Oxford. Vera told me first. She came to school with the cloudy gaze of a witch, fixed her eyes on some invisible distance, and announced it in the tragic tone of a Dostoevsky heroine.
Then she sighed and said it didnt matteronce Alex graduated, theyd marry. His leaving was good, actually. Ive got a big project with a publisher, she said. And Im behind on coursework. Nows the perfect time to focus.
Things settled. They both studiedjust on opposite ends of Europe. Hes a bit to the left of Paris, Vera joked once. Im a bit to the right. She visited me less and less. Alex wrote even lesslife in Oxford was steady, uneventful.
Then, a year later, Vera turned up at my classroom. She invited me to her weddingto a fellow student. Hes in the poetry track, she said, as if that were the only obstacle. Her eyes warned me not to ask. So I didnt. I already knew how life worked.
(Here, Id insert a line from Hardy: *They spoke very little of their mutual feeling; pretty phrases and warm expressions being probably unnecessary between such tried and old friends.* But really, whats the point?)
And thats it. Another love story ended. Another victory for the wisdom of grown-ups. Another statistically average family born. Soon, Alex would start his own.
Vera never visited again. Moved away with her poet husband. Alex never came either.
Then yesterday, I left school after sixth period. May, warm, everything alive and golden. Beautiful. Christ.
Alex was waitingolder, but I recognised him instantly. Mustve been sixteen years.
Hello, he said. I waited. Yes, Im finemarried, two girls. Work? My own firm. He paused. Veras husband died. Nine days ago. Shes alone with the baby. Come with me, Ive got the car.
His eyes held the same warning as hers. So I didnt ask. I knew by nowthats just how life is.
