irrelevant; they are structurally pleasing and set attractively within grand grounds sympathetically landscaped. The superb backdrop of the Green Mountains completes the picture. Seemingly seamless; from the brochure photographs at least.
Polly slips the folder into the seat pouch in front of her, in between the safety instructions and the duty-free catalogue.
Poor old Jen Carter, whoever she may be. Do you know, I’m not sure that BGS is a fair trade for the JHA. I can’t believe Max proposed!
In 1820, when Belsize Park sat just outside London, a thoroughly modern building was built for the purpose of overseeing the education of young ladies residing locally. The establishment was duly named Belsize Ladies’ College. An insignia was designed (an open book with a lit candle propped, somewhat precariously, at its centre) and a motto was chosen (Cherchez la femme).
Until the turn of the century, sixty pupils were attended to by six teachers in this one building. 1900 saw the first expansion of the school with the purchase of the four-storey house next door, and similar shrewd acquisitions followed in the early decades. Now, there are 300 girls and twenty-seven teachers squeezed into a coterie of old houses around the original school building; ingeniously interconnected by a series of corridors, covered walkways and iron staircases. No one is quite sure when the college for ladies became a school for girls but the institute is known now as Belsize Girls’ School. The insignia and the motto remain.
The grounds at BGS comprise two concrete rectangles over which the layout of a pair of netball courts are superimposed in red lines; two tennis courts, likewise, in blue. An oak tree, protected by an unquestioned ancient law, stands defiant, slap in the middle of the larger rectangle. It makes for interesting reinterpretations of the rules of netball and tennis. Winter and summer terms, the girls can choose to play hockey and cricket respectively on the manicured sports fields owned by the nearby public boys’ school. Needless to say, the popularity of these two sports vastly outweigh tennis and netball. In the spring term, there is a choice between pottery classes in the cellar of the sixth-form house, or choral society at the boys’ school. Unsurprisingly, you never heard so many fine voices.
Polly has taught English at Belsize Girls’ School for five years. She landed the position the day after she had forlornly sent out her seventeenth job application, the morning of the day when Max first asked her out. Something divine was intervening and she welcomed it. She still feels truly blessed.
I hope this Jen Carter Person will be happy living my life for me – or at least a part of it – while I’m gone.
Polly wriggles her feet into the red socks that came free with the flight and places the complimentary ‘snooze-mask’ over her tired eyes as, indeed, the passengers either side of her have done. Three hours to go.
Oh, for Marmite on toast.
Think about Max. Marriage. Marmite. Mmm!
‘Pollygirl set sail OK then?’
Dominic handed his brother a glass of his incomparable home-brew which he had poured on hearing Max’s car return. Max nodded, made an affirmative noise in his throat and accepted the beer with unbridled gratitude, downing half the pint swiftly and with eyes closed as if it was some elixir. Or in the hope, at least, that the fast-working potency of the beverage might lead him to believe that Polly had not gone at all.
The brothers sat down on their sofa and supped in amiable silence. Both had kicked off their shoes and had their legs stretched out in front of them; ankles crossed on the coffee table built, quite obviously, for that precise purpose. Dominic flicked between television channels, finally choosing a cartoon and silencing the volume.
‘So,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ Max replied.
Dominic replenished their glasses and they continued to sit alongside each other, the occasional chuckle acknowledging that antics in animation are as entertaining without sound as with.
‘So,’ Max said eventually, as if concluding a lengthy soliloquy.
‘Yup,’ said Dominic, in utter understanding. Close friends often know what each other is about to say, they may even finish sentences for one another; but close friends who are also siblings can conduct entire conversations without saying a word. And so it is with Dominic and Max, five years separate them and nothing comes between them. They can have entire conversations in utter silence.
They shared a bedroom when they were young and, for the past seven years, Dominic has rented the second bedroom of his flat to his younger brother.
‘It’s in the wrong side of Hampstead,’ he had warned Max.
‘How on earth can there be a wrong side to Hampstead?’ Max, then in Streatham, had marvelled, already heaping his belongings into black bin bags.
So the boys kept home together and never wavered from the four golden rules they had devised during that journey seven years ago from south to north London. Sitting-room to appear to be tidy, cleaning duties on alternate Saturdays, fridge always to contain milk and alcohol, and CD collection to be communal. The draughtsman and photographer, both freelance and with adjacent studios nearby, living and working alongside each other in peace and harmony. They never fight for the shower or the phone, they never argue about washing up, they invariably have the same taste in TV and radio programming. And their combined CD collection is not so much communal as duplicate.
Dominic Fyfield is five years older, two inches taller and a stone heavier than his brother. Like Max, Dominic is handsome in face and character. Where his features are not as fine as Max’s (his hair is a touch coarser and his eyes a little plainer), Dominic’s disposition is more effortlessly outgoing. Both brothers have winning smiles but Dominic shamelessly employs his to wholly libidinous ends. Dominic, however, respects Max’s monogamy just as much as Max marvels at his brother’s stamina and ability to chop and change, mix and match, when it comes to women. Max does, however, frequently call his brother a tart. Dominic, though, accepts it only as a profound compliment.
‘Why thank you, good man. Praise indeed from one as staid and unadventurous as you, Maximilian.’
‘Ah! But at least I know where my next metaphorical hot meal is coming from. Ever thought you might go hungry?’
‘Moi? Pah!’
The Fyfield brothers are a lovely balance because they are different enough not to be competitive. Neither brother covets the other’s life because they are content and settled and secure with their own patterns. Neither, therefore, passes judgement. They disagree frequently but they rarely argue. And though Dominic lavishes many a smile on Polly, it is with no intent other than his seal of approval, acknowledgement of his brother’s good fortune.
On first meeting her, Dominic had put her to the test and discovered she came through with colours blazing. He regaled Max with his findings.
‘Bit small?’ Dominic suggested.
‘But perfectly formed,’ Max justified.
‘Mmm,’ conceded Dominic, ‘nicely put together. Bright too.’
‘As a button,’ confirmed Max.
‘Gregarious and outgoing,’ said Dominic, throwing a cushion at his brother. ‘Good balance for you, you fusty old fart.’
‘I don’t think you can talk about farts being fusty, Dom,’ warned Max with a retaliation of cushions, ‘it’s the pot calling the kettle black.’
‘Bastard! Flatulence is a serious medical matter. OK, OK. So this Polly Fenton is a teacher.’
‘Yup, English.’
‘Shame it’s not PE but never mind. Remember that PE teacher I went out with?’
‘Unforgettable,’ cringed Max.
‘Gave a whole new meaning to the term “games mistress”, I can tell you.’
‘I can hear her still,’