Aug 17, 2001
Forty years on and she was still just as beautiful. Older of course, but remarkably unchanged by the years, and not a fraction less beautiful. The same wavy blonde hair containing that perfect oval face; the same depth and strength of purpose in those great brown eyes; the same glow of good health in that supple skin. If there were lines that had not been there before, they were so fine that his own aging eyesight now spared him the sight of them.
She was standing with her husband in a little group at the far end of the room when he came in. The husband, a pleasant relaxed sort of person, was apparently exchanging reminiscences with the others and she was listening, her eyes following the conversation from one to the other. That in itself was different from the old times. In those days she would have been the centre of attention, would have made sure she was. Now she just watched and listened, occasionally catching herself in time when she was about to butt in. Life must have taught her restraint. She would never have hesitated in the old days.
She turned and caught sight of him as he moved towards the group. Her face brightened as she ran a couple of steps toward him and threw her arms around his neck and hugged him without reserve, and without a word. She held him with an urgency, with the complete absence of hesitation that a two-year-old might bestow on its mother when returned to her after being lost in a supermarket, rescued from fear and bewilderment when it seemed all hope had gone. Arms are so much more eloquent than lips. Kisses can say “Give me…” or even “Take me!” but only arms can say “Never leave me.”
But why? It was too much. Over the top really. They had never been as close as all that in their student days. She was the youngest child of a wealthy and very talented family, and moved in a social environment which it would never have occurred to him to be part of. She and her brothers, charming and all as they were, inhabited the Ski Club and Landrover and Daimler set, and there was no point in aspiring to those sorts of heights. He had known her only as a fellow student on one or two clubs and committees.
He had been a little surprised one evening when at the end of some meeting that had gone on much later than expected, she had asked him if he would follow her home because it was a bit scary putting Daddy’s Daimler away in the garage and unlocking the house when everything was so dark and silent. He suspected he was being made a convenience of, but what the hell.
He followed the array of tail lights across town in his little old bomb. While she was unlocking the door she asked him if he’d like a cup of Milo or something, but her heart didn’t seem to be in it, and he declined. He felt he’d spent enough time and petrol on her, and he had to go to work in the morning. She’d kissed him in a sisterly sort of way, and he'd departed.
And that was about as close as they’d got, he and the poor little rich girl. So what about the arms?
When she released him he held her by the shoulders at arms length. “You’re looking wonderful.” he said. “but you’ve scarcely changed! How do you do it?” Then turning to her husband, “You must have shielded her from every conceivable stress.”
“Huh!” she said at that, and he recognised the old self-assertion, the old reaction of a youngest child to a perceived tendency of its older siblings to disregard or over-rule her. He noticed the same quick flare of reaction later when he inadvertently bumped her elbow while she was holding a cup of tea. She was about to tell him to watch what he was doing, when she stifled the remark, half made. In the old days there would have been no restraint.
He recalled the time when he had been asked by the chairman of some student committee they were both on, to censure her for neglect of some duty or other, which she had agreed to carry out, but hadn’t. The chairman, well aware of her volatility, had hoped she might take such an accusation more calmly if it were delivered by a friend. In this he too was mistaken.
“I’m to move a motion of censure against you at tonight’s meeting.” he’d said. “Don’t take too much from it. It’s needed for the minutes.”
“Oh, we’ll see about that!” she said, and at the meeting she defended her action, or the lack of it, vehemently, and you had to admit, pretty capably, although the result was a foregone conclusion. After forty years the youngest child’s tantrum was still barely under control.
No. They had never been as close as all that.
So what about the arms?
Of course there is another side to being the youngest child of a strong and protective family. Though you learn to assert yourself so as not to be overlooked, you must also have the assurance in the back of your mind, that whatever happens, right or wrong, in serious situations your big brothers or your parents will come and rescue you. Only later, as you become independent, do you learn that other people rarely do you favours without expecting some recompense. If you’re wealthy, beautiful and talented, so much the worse. Even a husband, however helpful and supportive, can never be entirely disinterested. Was it the declining of the Milo that had set him above and apart?
The Christmas after the reunion he was surprised and not displeased to get a card from her, from Sao Paulo or some such God-forsaken place, where her husband was working for the World Bank. She expressed delight at their having met again, and hoped that they would keep in touch better than they had in the past.