You Must Be Sisters Read Free Page B

linked their arms and linked their Bristol University scarves to become a knotted chain, and they staggered over the Downs to a late-night chipper.
    Sitting on the grass with them, swallowing her fried cod, wiping her hands on the dewy grass and gazing at the figures munching in the moonlight, Laura felt a pang of nostalgia, already, for what she was doing. Memories in advance. These were the jolly things she’d tell her children about one day.
    Then it irked her to be such a typical student. She could just imagine what her mother would say –
Oh, Laura’s having a simply marvellous time, up to all sorts of fun and such nice young men. Rushing about, off to funny little pubs, up all hours; you know what students are like
…
    That annoyed her. Definitely, now she thought of it. It washed the spice out of the incident. For, by some mysterious process, the minute her parents approved of something it became devitalized. Now she thought of it, that Len who worked at the butcher’s – hadn’t his fascination sprung from the simple fact that her parents were appalled? Their horrified politeness had made him look so
virile
.
    She gazed up at the 300 identical windows of Hall. No, she wasn’t going to be like everybody else, was she? Hadn’t she always been the sort to break out? No more of this cosy studenty life. The fact that she could write about it all, uncensored, in a letter home, made it suddenly tame.

three
    THE MORNING AFTER the moonlit cod Laura ventured into the Berkeley Café. Up till now she hadn’t dared; on peering inside, all she had ever seen was a blur of faces, and she was sure she’d know none of them. It always seemed full of older students, the ones who lived not in safe little Halls but in independent flats. She would like to be like them.
    The Berkeley stood opposite the library. With its mock Tudor panelling it had a genteel tea-rooms atmosphere, but only at first glance. No Barbara Cartland hair-dos here. Laura got herself a coffee and peered through the smoke.
    She could just make out a tableful of second year psychologists, the sort she admired, the sort who lived mysterious lives in flats and roared round Bristol on motorbikes. Leather coats, dark glasses, wild hair … they looked intriguing and existential and unsuitable. She took a breath and casually approached their table. Her excuse was that she slightly knew one of them, the one with the pale ropes of hair; he was called Andy.
    Laura sat down and spoke to the nearest one: ‘Would you like a cigarette?’
    ‘Not for me,’ he answered. He had a stubbly chin. He reached out for a packet of French ones. ‘Not those; can’t taste them any more.’
    He sat back in a cloud of strong, acrid smoke. They went on with their conversation.
    ‘It was shit,’ said the third one, who had dark glasses. ‘Christ, once that guy could direct.’
    ‘Remember those shots,’ said Stubbly Chin, ‘outside the hut?’
    ‘“The Red Desert”. How could anyone forget. The way he handled her indecision. Those grainy close-ups.’
    There didn’t seem a lot Laura could contribute here. What was this desert business? She longed to know, to be one of them. She gazed into her coffee cup, occasionally sliding her eyes to the faded Levi’d thigh of Stubbly Chin, who was next to her.
    Then Stubbly Chin said: ‘I’m getting into alchemy. Might write my thesis on it – you know, the alchemist’s power over the brain, the way, like, he altered concepts of time.’
    ‘Far out,’ said Andy.
    ‘Bosch’s the guy to study. Anyone got any Bosch books? His pictures just radiate alchemy.’
    ‘I’ve got a Bosch book,’ said Laura. They all turned.
    ‘You have?’
    She nodded, blushing.
    ‘Hey,’ said Stubbly Chin. His name turned out to be John. ‘If you happen, like, to pass Wellington Crescent one day – number 6 – that’d be really nice. You could drop it in.’
    ‘Oh yes, I will.’ She felt the blush deepen with pleasure. She’d contributed at