To his credit, Daniel didn’t say anything about how I should have told him, or that I was too young, or anything like that. “Yet another new role,” is what he said, but he was smiling. “I feel absurdly nervous.”
“Well how do you think I feel?” I asked.
He laughed, and just then Wim came freewheeling into the station yard, hair blowing around his face. “Is that him?” Daniel asked.
“Yes,” I said, feeling more proud than I had any right to be. I got out of the car, which Wim hadn’t been paying any attention to at all. He isn’t a very noticing person.
Daniel got out too. “We can put the bike in the boot,” he said.
“Wait here while I explain to him,” I said.
I walked over to Wim. Daniel leaned on the car, smoking a cigarette and watched. Wim saw me, saw the Bentley, and then saw Daniel, I saw him registering. “Wim, my father turned up unexpectedly to take me to acupuncture. I had no warning at all either. Do you want to come to Shrewsbury with us, in the car?”
He looked very surprised. “In the car? With your dad?”
“He doesn’t mind. If you’d like to. But we wouldn’t be on our own, and we can’t talk about magic or anything, because he doesn’t know anything about it.”
“Anything for a weird life,” Wim said, quoting Zaphod. Then he kissed me, a little tentatively, but still bravely considering that Daniel was standing right there. He pulled a packet out of his coat pocket and handed it to me almost defiantly. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”
I opened it right away. It was three books! Theodore Sturgeon’s A Touch of Strange, with a lovely cover of a woman’s head and the moon, Christopher Priest’s Inverted World, and something I’d never heard of by an author new to me, Gate of Ivrel by C. J. Cherryh. I was overwhelmed. “Oh Wim, that’s lovely. And I haven’t got any of them. I didn’t have a chance to buy you anything yet, but I did make this for you.” I pulled the poem out of my pocket. I’d written it on nice blue paper Miss Carroll had given me, in my best handwriting. (It’s the one that starts “To drag yourself over the dry rock of the deserts of the mind.”)
He read it, and I waited while he read it, watching him, very conscious of Daniel waiting behind me. Wim blushed and pushed it into his pocket. I don’t know whether he liked it or not.
Then I introduced him to Daniel, and they shook hands like a pair of judges. Things got a little easier when they cooperated in getting the bike into the car boot. Then we all climbed back in and started off for Shrewsbury. I realised as we did that the two of them were going to have to spend an hour together without me while I was having acupuncture. Has anything ever been awkwarder? It served Daniel right for not telling me, but poor Wim didn’t deserve it at all.
In the car, we talked about Zelazny, a subject of deep and unfailing interest, and then we talked about Empire Star and how it could be just an ordinary adventure except that it isn’t. I felt that Daniel and Wim were starting to like each other through all this, though of course Wim was sitting in the back so they couldn’t exactly see each other. We came to Shrewsbury, early for my appointment. We had a little look at the bookshop, and Wim and Daniel had an argument about Heinlein, very much the argument that Wim and I had had, though at greater length. I was on Daniel’s side, and both of them knew it, but I tried to bite my tongue and not say anything and just look at the shelves. When he wasn’t looking I bought Sign of the Unicorn and Cat’s Cradle for Wim, and gave them to him when we got outside.
Then I had to leave them together. They agreed to come to the clinic and meet me afterwards. I have never felt so apprehensive having acupuncture, not even the first time when I was afraid of the needles. I just tried to get my mental breath back when I was on the table, I didn’t concentrate on the diagram or the magic or anything. It didn’t seem to do me as much good as sometimes, or maybe I was better when I went in and didn’t notice the difference the way I sometimes do.
They were waiting for me when I came out, both leaning against the wall. Next to Wim, Daniel looked old and saggy. When I came up to them they were talking about Wim’s experiences at Seacon in Brighton and his hopes for Albacon in Glasgow. “I wish I could go,” Daniel said.
“Why don’t you?” Wim asked.
Daniel just shrugged, looking defeated.
We went to the Chinese restaurant, where we ate essentially the same as last time, Wim and I fumbling with the chopsticks, and talked mostly about Silverberg, with digressions into all the things we’d mentioned on Tuesday night in the Pavane talk. Daniel had read everything except A Dream of Wessex. I could see him and Wim being impressed with each other, which was lovely, and very strange. When Daniel went to the bathroom, Wim took my hand. “I like your dad,” he said.
“Good,” I said.
“You’re so lucky,” he said again.
“I suppose I could be a whole lot less lucky,” I said. Most people wouldn’t think Daniel much of a father, but there are far worse people. Then I remembered the last time Wim had said that and what we’d been talking about. “Oh, this is priceless, he said he’d support me until I finished in full time education. But he hasn’t read—”
Wim burst out laughing, just as Daniel came back, so we had to explain to him. Fortunately, he thought it was funny too.
Wim’s fortune cookie said “You have been given a gift,” Daniel’s said “Fortune favours the brave,” and mine said “The time to be happy is now.”
Then Daniel drove us back. He asked Wim where he wanted to be dropped, and Wim said anywhere in cycling distance was fine, so he dropped him by the roundabout. I got out while they were getting the bike out, and boldly asked Wim for his phone number. “I could call you next week when I’m away,” I said. “And it would have been useful this afternoon.”
“No it wouldn’t, I was coming from work,” he said. But he gave it to me, and Daniel wrote it down too. Daniel then gave Wim his card—he would have a card!—in exchange. Wim and I hugged, and kissed very decorously, then Daniel drove me back to school in time for prep.
Friday 15th February 1980
Sharon was picked up first, as usual. There are a whole lot of advantages to being Jewish if you ask me. There’s also the whole pile of things to watch out for. I must remember to ask Sam what happens if you break the rules.
Daniel was one of the first of the regular parents though. “I liked your young man,” he said as I got into the car.
“He liked you too,” I said, putting my seatbelt on.
“I thought we might ask him to tea tomorrow, at the Old Hall. If he came to Shrewsbury on the train, we could meet him there. You two could go for a walk or something, and then we could all have tea.”
Daniel sounded so tentative and hopeful that I couldn’t really say no. Also, I knew that Wim would like it. He’d like to see the Old Hall, and he’d like to see the aunts, because he knew they were magic. He wouldn’t be afraid of them, because he isn’t afraid of anything. Also, I wanted to see Wim, of course I did, even in less than ideal circumstances. “Terrific,” I said. “But have you asked your sisters?”
“Anthea suggested it,” he said.
“I thought they might not approve of me seeing a town boy,” I said.
“Well…” Daniel hesitated. “They did say that in their day it wasn’t done, but I’m sure they’ll change their minds when they meet Wim and see how intelligent and well-spoken he is.”
Well-spoken is code for middle class, by the way. I’ve figured that one out since I’ve been at Arlinghurst. Somebody or other once said that the British class system was branded on the tongue. Wim has a Shropshire accent but he uses grammar correctly. He sounds like an educated person. He doesn’t sound stuck up and pretentious like the girls in school, but I suppose I’m glad he counts as well-spoken enough for Daniel. It’s so stupid that this sort of thing counts!