ONE DAY(7)

But every now and then, there was Dexter Mayhew. In the last few warm days of the summer after graduation she had gone to stay at his family’s beautiful house in Oxfordshire; not a house, but a mansion to her eyes. Large, 1920s, with faded rugs and large abstract canvases and ice in the drinks. In the large, herb-scented garden they had spent a long, languid day between the swimming pool and tennis court, the first she’d ever seen that had not been built by the local council. Drinking gin and tonics in wicker chairs, looking at the view, she had thought of The Great Gatsby. Of course she had spoiled it; getting nervous and drinking too much at dinner, shouting at Dexter’s father – a mild, modest, perfectly reasonable man – about Nicaragua, while all the time Dexter regarded her with a look of affectionate disappointment, as if she were a puppy who had soiled a rug. Had she really sat at their table, eating their food and calling his father a fascist? That night she lay in the guest bedroom, dazed and remorseful, waiting for a knock on the door that clearly would never come; romantic hopes sacrificed for the Sandinistas, who were unlikely to be grateful.

They had met again in London in April, at their mutual friend Callum’s twenty-third birthday party, spending the whole of the next day in Kensington Gardens together, drinking wine from the bottle and talking. Clearly she had been forgiven, but they had also settled into the maddening familiarity of friendship; maddening for her at least, lying on the fresh spring grass, their hands almost touching as he told her about Lola, this incredible Spanish girl he’d met while ski-ing in the Pyrenees.

And then he was off travelling again, broadening his mind yet further. China had turned out to be too alien and ideological for Dexter’s taste, and he had instead embarked on a leisurely year-long tour of what the guide books called ‘Party Towns’. So they were pen pals now, Emma composing long, intense letters crammed with jokes and underlining, forced banter and barely concealed longing; two-thousand-word acts of love on air-mail paper. Letters, like compilation tapes, were really vehicles for unexpressed emotions and she was clearly putting far too much time and energy into them. In return, Dexter sent her postcards with insufficient postage: ‘Amsterdam is MAD’, ‘Barcelona INSANE’, ‘Dublin ROCKS. Sick as DOG this morning.’ As a travel writer, he was no Bruce Chatwin, but still she would slip the postcards in the pocket of a heavy coat on long soulful walks on Ilkley Moor, searching for some hidden meaning in ‘VENICE COMPLETELY FLOODED!!!!’.

‘Who’s this Dexter then?’ her mother asked, peering at the back of the postcards. ‘Your boyfriend, is he?’ Then, with a concerned look: ‘Have you ever thought about working for the Gas Board?’ Emma got a job pulling pints in the local pub, and time passed, and she felt her brain begin to soften like something forgotten at the back of the fridge.

Then Gary Nutkin had phoned, the skinny Trotskyist who had directed her in a stark, uncompromising production of Brecht’s Fears and Miseries of the Third Reich back in ’86, then kissed her for three stark, uncompromising hours at the last-night party. Shortly afterwards he had taken her to a Peter Greenaway double-bill, waiting until four hours in before reaching across and absent-mindedly placing his hand on her left breast as if adjusting a dimmer switch. They made Brechtian love that evening in a stale single bed beneath a poster for The Battle of Algiers, Gary taking care throughout to ensure that he was in no way objectifying her. Then nothing, not a word, until that late-night phone-call in May, and the hesitant words, softly spoken: ‘How would you like to join my theatre co-operative?’

Emma had no ambitions as an actress or any great love of theatre, except as a medium to convey words and ideas. And Sledgehammer was to be a new kind of progressive theatre co-op, with shared intentions, a shared zeal, a written manifesto and a commitment to changing young lives through art. Maybe there’d be some romance too, Emma thought, or at the very least some sex. She packed her rucksack, said goodbye to her sceptical mum and dad, and set out in the mini-bus as if heading out on some great cause, a sort of theatrical Spanish Civil War, funded by the Arts Council.

But three months later, what had happened to the warmth, the camaraderie, the sense of social value, of high ideals coupled with fun? They were meant to be a co-operative. That’s what was written on the side of the van, she had stencilled it there herself. I-hate-this-job-I-hate this-job, said Sid. Emma pressed her hands against her ears, and asked herself some fundamental questions.

Why am I here?

Am I really making a difference?

Why can’t she put some clothes on?

What is that smell?

Where do I want to be right now?

She wanted to be in Rome, with Dexter Mayhew. In bed.

‘Shaftes-bury Avenue.’

‘No, Shafts-bury. Three syllables.’

‘Lychester Square.’

‘Leicester Square, two syllables.’

‘Why not Lychester?’

‘No idea.’

‘But you are meant to be my teacher, you are meant to know.’

‘Sorry,’ Dexter shrugged.

‘Well I think it is stupid language,’ said Tove Angstrom, and punched him in the shoulder.

‘A stupid language. I couldn’t agree with you more. No need to hit me though.’

‘I apologise,’ said Tove, kissing his shoulder, then his neck and mouth, and Dexter was once again struck by how rewarding teaching could be.