switched off the light and pulled the door to. Then she put her key in the lock and turned it firmly, twice.
Out in the sun, she got into her little red car. She put the five books and her handbag on the passenger seat and drove down the west side of the square. She maneuvered carefully around the potholes till she came out of the bumpy road and to the roundabout once again. There she picked up speed.
Mandy
Wednesday, 28 December 1978
Dear Mummy,
I am writing to you from New York—although by the time you get this I’ll be back in London. We’re visiting (or “visiting with,” as they all say) some friends of Gerald’s. He had his heart set on coming here for the New Year, so here we are. This is our third day and I haven’t really seen anything of the city yet, but I will soon.
I saw Saif in London just before I left and he seems okay. I found I envied him his pretty flat dreadfully. This trip has put off my accommodation problem for a bit, but I think Gerald and I are beyond working things out (did you know all along?) and I’m going to try and find a place of my own as soon as I get back to London. Although there is something quite bracing about having all my possessions in the car and being “of no fixed address.”
Gerald doesn’t think so at all, of course. He’s ravenous for the three-bedroom house—preferably in the Boltons—and the garageful of Porsches. Maybe he’ll get them someday; I wish him luck, but I’m truly fed up with him being angry with me for “having once had them.”
Anyway, Saif has got himself a lean-looking one too. Female, of course. And American. Yes, I’m afraid the days of Lady Caroline of the tiger-shooting, coolie-whipping father are over, and the chances of her riding for the Gezira Club as plain Mrs. Madi have quite dis-appeared.He brought this new one also up to the north of England in my last fortnight, when I was printing out the thesis. He was taking her on the Windermere round. To a little hotel run by two gay chaps where we once had dinner. He was taking her there for a couple of days and phoned me and asked could he come up and borrow the Lancia? And I said I ’d rather he took it because I was going to be finishing soon and how was I going to drive two cars away from that place? So they came up on the train and I met them. I paid twopence and went down to platform 3 as I had done so many times before and the train came in and he stepped out as he had done so many times before. As usual, he was a bit shorter than I remembered, and as usual, I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing there. Then she stepped out after him and solved my problems.She was dressed up like a Lich-field ad. A Country Casual outfit that he’d wanted me to buy back in ’75: a just-below-the-knee camel skirt, a russet cashmere jumper, and a cape —would you believe?—with a Burberry check scarf, brown
Charles Jourdan boots, and an Etienne Aigner handbag to match. She even had fawn gloves. She looked terribly lost inside all that. It didn’t suit her at all. Anyone could see he had only just bought it for her. Her name is Mandy. She’s the small-boned wiry New York type. Arty-looking, with frizzed-out brown hair, an amazingly clear, lit-up kind of skin, and a very slight cast in her left eye, which is actually quite appealing.
Anyway, seeing her in those clothes was weird. They’re just the kind of thing he’s always thought elegant women should wear, and I’m sure she would never, ever have chosen them for herself. Do you remember that scene I told you about in Harvey Nichols where he stopped in front of a mannequin and said, “That would look good on you,” and I started to cry and kept asking, “Why does it always have to be beige?” Well, seeing this freewheelin’, verse-writin’ (he says she is a poet and a photographer—both!), dope-smokin’ (you mustn’t be shocked, Mummy, everybody does it here. And you mustn’t worry: I’m not doing it) New Yorker dressed like
Out in the sun, she got into her little red car. She put the five books and her handbag on the passenger seat and drove down the west side of the square. She maneuvered carefully around the potholes till she came out of the bumpy road and to the roundabout once again. There she picked up speed.
Mandy
Wednesday, 28 December 1978
Dear Mummy,
I am writing to you from New York—although by the time you get this I’ll be back in London. We’re visiting (or “visiting with,” as they all say) some friends of Gerald’s. He had his heart set on coming here for the New Year, so here we are. This is our third day and I haven’t really seen anything of the city yet, but I will soon.
I saw Saif in London just before I left and he seems okay. I found I envied him his pretty flat dreadfully. This trip has put off my accommodation problem for a bit, but I think Gerald and I are beyond working things out (did you know all along?) and I’m going to try and find a place of my own as soon as I get back to London. Although there is something quite bracing about having all my possessions in the car and being “of no fixed address.”
Gerald doesn’t think so at all, of course. He’s ravenous for the three-bedroom house—preferably in the Boltons—and the garageful of Porsches. Maybe he’ll get them someday; I wish him luck, but I’m truly fed up with him being angry with me for “having once had them.”
Anyway, Saif has got himself a lean-looking one too. Female, of course. And American. Yes, I’m afraid the days of Lady Caroline of the tiger-shooting, coolie-whipping father are over, and the chances of her riding for the Gezira Club as plain Mrs. Madi have quite dis-appeared.He brought this new one also up to the north of England in my last fortnight, when I was printing out the thesis. He was taking her on the Windermere round. To a little hotel run by two gay chaps where we once had dinner. He was taking her there for a couple of days and phoned me and asked could he come up and borrow the Lancia? And I said I ’d rather he took it because I was going to be finishing soon and how was I going to drive two cars away from that place? So they came up on the train and I met them. I paid twopence and went down to platform 3 as I had done so many times before and the train came in and he stepped out as he had done so many times before. As usual, he was a bit shorter than I remembered, and as usual, I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing there. Then she stepped out after him and solved my problems.She was dressed up like a Lich-field ad. A Country Casual outfit that he’d wanted me to buy back in ’75: a just-below-the-knee camel skirt, a russet cashmere jumper, and a cape —would you believe?—with a Burberry check scarf, brown
Charles Jourdan boots, and an Etienne Aigner handbag to match. She even had fawn gloves. She looked terribly lost inside all that. It didn’t suit her at all. Anyone could see he had only just bought it for her. Her name is Mandy. She’s the small-boned wiry New York type. Arty-looking, with frizzed-out brown hair, an amazingly clear, lit-up kind of skin, and a very slight cast in her left eye, which is actually quite appealing.
Anyway, seeing her in those clothes was weird. They’re just the kind of thing he’s always thought elegant women should wear, and I’m sure she would never, ever have chosen them for herself. Do you remember that scene I told you about in Harvey Nichols where he stopped in front of a mannequin and said, “That would look good on you,” and I started to cry and kept asking, “Why does it always have to be beige?” Well, seeing this freewheelin’, verse-writin’ (he says she is a poet and a photographer—both!), dope-smokin’ (you mustn’t be shocked, Mummy, everybody does it here. And you mustn’t worry: I’m not doing it) New Yorker dressed like
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