“I don’t have any,” he says flatly. “They’re dead.”
“Oh!” Clumsy idiot! “I’m sorry.” It sounds so lame, but I just don’t know what to say. I’ve never been bereaved.
“Long time ago, Beth. But thanks for your concern.” He smiles tightly at me and puts a hand over mine for a second. Then the food arrives and the melancholy cloud passes over.
After eating we move out on to the terrace, finishing our drinks. “I could murder a cigarette,” I mutter under my breath.
“It would murder you in the end,” he caps sternly. I sigh. A smoke is a rare and stolen pleasure these days, only to be indulged in when I’m lurking in pub gardens or on the library wall with Dearbhla and Emily. But now I’m, like, ‘with’ Sinclair, I suppose I daren’t even do that, for fear of him tasting it on my breath.
“Just one tiny puff,” I whine, “just to take the edge off the craving.”
“Absolutely not,” he says, in a ‘debate-closed’ kind of way. But I feel like pursuing the subject.
“Don’t you think you should take up smoking?” I ask mischievously.
“Of course not. Why?”
“In tribute to the founding fathers of the University? You’d be unemployed if it weren’t for the evil weed.”
Sinclair has to consider this. It is true that the University was originally built on the proceeds of a tobacco empire, and many of its buildings still bear the names of the fag lords that endowed it.
“This city’s prosperity was originally based on slave trading,” he says. “But I don’t feel the need to endorse slavery as a consequence.”
I splutter into my drink. “Yes you do!”
A withering stare…withers me. “I most certainly do not, Beth,” he says coldly. “You have the option to leave me at any time, with no negative consequence to you.”
“Do I? So you won’t get me kicked out of the university if I do?” I need clarification on this point.
“No. I won’t. I would try to persuade you to stay, but if you were resolved not to, then I would accept that.”
“Would you? Really? Try to persuade me to stay?” I feel love loop-the-loop around my body. “That’s so…” I break off, starry-eyed.
“So…?” he prompts me.
“Oh, nothing. I really like you, you know. You could probably break my heart.”
He puts an arm around me. “I’ll try to keep any pain I cause you superficial.”
God, how romantic.
*
We walk across the Downs, talking about his time in France and politics and stuff. They are setting up the annual Easter funfair and we watch them a while, erecting the dodgems and the waltzers under a lowering sky. Eventually the rain returns and Sinclair takes my elbow and runs with me across the green expanse of Down so that I am veering wildly in his long-legged wake, coughing and giggling while the raindrops stream down my face. We skid past the small grove where I had to cut those switches and finally find the road and cross to the stately mansions of the Village, crowding for shelter into the first available doorway and standing there kissing breathlessly, swooningly, while the rain gushes on. Even while I am pressed against his wet face, held tightly against his lean body, the intrusive thought that life can’t possibly get any better than this chills me. I want it to go on forever and ever and ever.
*
On Monday morning, Sinclair still gets up at six, despite the Easter vacation.
“Vacation for you,” he snarks at me. “You don’t have books and papers to write, keynote speeches to make or television projects to pitch.”
“Television projects?” I sit up, trying to bring my eyes into proper focus. I’m not a morning person.
“Yes,” he says, without elaborating. “I’ll expect you up by eight, Beth, as usual. Don’t forget you have notes to prepare by Wednesday.”
I groan and return to the oblivion of the duvet while he leaves the room. Last night was just like any other Sunday night – extra tuition. I was rather inattentive and made the fundamental error of trying to divert Sinclair from his scholarly path by flirting with him. It only took a few minutes across his lap having my tramlined bum spanked into re-ignition to convince me that this was not one of my best-laid plans. It seems he is pretty resolute in his intention to remain the unyielding disciplinarian – it’s all for my own good, apparently. It hurts him more than it hurts me…not.
I crawl out of bed for eight and am bright-eyed and bushy-tailed by the time he strolls in from the gym, damp-haired, frowning at a text message on his mobile.