“She was a bit stuck,” I said, which was the truth, and sounded much better than saying she copied all of mine.
“She’ll never learn if she doesn’t learn to learn on her own,” Miss Martin said, which sounds like an aphorism, and maybe is one in Latin, where it would be about three words, no six, maybe seven.
Letter from Daniel saying he’ll collect me on Friday and it’s fine to go to Aberdare on Sunday, also saying I might get a surprise before that. I wonder what he means? Maybe he’s sent books separately?
Book club tonight, talking about Pavane.
Wednesday 13th February 1980
Hussein led the meeting, and we didn’t just talk about Pavane, but also Brunner’s brilliant Times Without Number and Dick’s The Man in the High Castle (which I haven’t read) and Ward Moore’s Bring the Jubilee and the whole idea of having para-history. We also mentioned Up the Line and Guardians of Time and Christopher Priest’s A Dream of Wessex (must order!) which Wim says is brill. There was a question of whether they were really SF, which they obviously are, and whether there was a difference between the kind of “paratime” thing, like Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen and a book like Pavane which is all in one universe where things went differently.
We kept coming back to Pavane and the way Pavane covers such a span of time, which, Greg says, is what makes it SF, the perspective. Then Brian mentioned the Lord Darcy books (I adore Randall Garrett!) and asked whether they were SF, which was a cheat, as they’re obviously fantasy, except that they’re not at all like fantasy, and they are exactly like SF. Harriet said she felt they belonged rather with things like Dunsany’s club stories and tall tales, they were whimsical. I disagreed (probably talking too much and too vehemently) because I think the way in which they’re like SF is the opposite of whimsy, they’re taking magic and treating it as another bit of science, especially in Too Many Magicians.
Janine doesn’t seem to be speaking to me, or Pete either. They’ll get over it, Wim says. I hope so.
Hugh looked a bit confused. Greg thinks—he said in the car—that Hugh thought he and I would automatically become an item, because we were the same age. I never heard anything so stupid in my life, and said so, because while I like Hugh I never thought of him in that way for two seconds. Greg just laughed and said these things sort themselves out, and had I read McCaffrey? I don’t know what that has to do with anything, but we talked about Impressing dragons all the rest of the way back.
Wim’s meeting me in Gobowen again tomorrow. He seems to think this isn’t very often to see each other, but I think it’s loads. I need time in between to think—and to write it all down! I don’t suppose he does that.
It has just belatedly occurred to me that tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. I don’t suppose he’ll take any notice of it—or will he? I don’t have the foggiest. Miss Carroll thinks he might, and that I should have something ready to produce if he does. The problem with that is that I don’t have anything. She suggested a book—well, she would!—and that would be a terrific idea if there was time to go to a bookshop. I could make him a card. Well, except that nobody would want a card I’d made. I could write him a poem, or more to the point, write out neatly one of the poems I have already written about him. But what if he didn’t like it? I’ve never talked to him about poetry, I have no idea whether he likes it or not. If he didn’t hate Heinlein I could give him The Number of the Beast, but he does, so I can’t. I don’t have anything else new, and he probably has everything I have here.
If I leave school a little bit early, I can go to the bookshop on the way to the station, I suppose.
Thursday 14th February 1980
Well, that was awkward.
Daniel’s “surprise” was turning up to drive me to Shrewsbury. I can’t think why he did it today, when it’s half term tomorrow, but I shouldn’t expect him to make sense. He was sitting outside in the car, looking very pleased with himself, like the cat who got the cream. I stopped still when I saw him, absolutely convulsed with horror.
Wim was meeting me in Gobowen station. I had no way of contacting him to tell him what had happened. If I didn’t meet him, I wouldn’t see him until after half term. He’d think I’d dumped him, and on Valentine’s Day too.
The alternative was to tell Daniel about Wim. I thought about that as I got into the car. The problem there was that I hadn’t said anything about him at all up to that point, because as usual my letters to Daniel had been exclusively about books. It was an excruciating situation. I couldn’t possibly ask Daniel to turn around and leave me alone, which would really have been what I’d have preferred.
“I managed to get away,” Daniel said. “We can go to the Chinese restaurant again.”
“That’s lovely, but,” I said, and stopped.
“But what?” he asked, starting the engine and driving down the drive, between the two dead elms, which look terrible again now that the other trees are starting to think about getting leaves. “I thought you’d be pleased.” He sounded really pathetic.
“I’m supposed to be meeting a friend in Gobowen railway station,” I said. “Do you think we could go there and collect him and take him with us?”
Daniel’s face went oddly blank, then he smiled. “Of course,” he said, and did a U-turn in the road, which was, fortunately, deserted.
After that, I couldn’t possibly say I wanted to go to the bookshop first.
“Is this a boyfriend, or just a boy-type friend?” he asked.
“Sort of a boyfriend. Well, actually a boyfriend, yes.” I was tripping over my own tongue in embarrassment.
“So, tell me about him?” Daniel sounded encouraging, but also bewildered.
I didn’t know quite what to say. “His name’s Wim. I met him in the book group. He’s seventeen. He likes Delany and Zelazny. He’s doing English, history, and chem for A Level, at the college, while working part time. I’m thinking of doing that myself next year, if I need to.”
“Why would you need to?” Daniel asked.
“I’ll be sixteen in June,” I said. “You won’t have to support me. I could live on my own.”
“I’ll support you for as long as you want to be in full-time education,” Daniel said, not having read Doorways in the Sand or The Number of the Beast.
“Did you know there’s a new Heinlein?” I asked, having remembered it.
“You told me on Sunday,” he said. “I’m looking forward to it, even if it isn’t his best.”
At that point, we were at Gobowen station. It was deserted. For once, I’d got somewhere ahead of Wim, because he was expecting me to come by buses around two sides of a triangle, while in fact I’d come by car down the third side. “He’ll be here soon, he’s always early,” I said. Daniel parked neatly on the forecourt.
“How long have you been seeing each other?” he asked.
I added it up. “Almost two weeks,” I said.