‘Please?’ she’d asked him. ‘Just hold me.’
Within his embrace, she had found the courage to kiss his lips, slip her hands inside his pyjama bottoms.
‘Are you sure?’ he whispered, no longer sleepy, but looking at her with intensity.
She had nodded, and that was how it had begun. She had drunk Lars in: no amount of kissing, caressing, love-making was enough to quench her thirst for him. All night long, their passion had bloomed beneath the covers of his bed. With Lars inside her, she was no longer lost and spinning in terror.
19
Susannah
October 19th, 1959
Harvard, Cambridge
Dearest Katie,
Can you believe one whole year has passed since I first walked across Harvard Square on my first day at college? It feels like it was only yesterday, and yet so much has happened in this time. I am an entirely different person. I’ve even changed my hair since you saw me last at Christmas. Ava cut bangs into it. Not sure if they suit me, but she insists they make my eyes appear bigger.
How was your summer? Hope it got better. I was sorry to hear Matthew was sick, but good to hear he’s on the mend now. Who would have thought you could get such a terrible disease from a tick? He was very lucky to have such a devoted nurse as you. I am sure you looked after him so well, as you look after Mother and me.
I know it was disappointing I didn’t come home during the summer holidays, but Katie, how could I have turned the Whittards down? I couldn’t believe it when they asked me to come with them to Oxford in England! And paid for everything! Professor Whittard had been invited to a conference with all these other top physicists and the whole family was going with him, apart from Gertrude. I asked her, didn’t she want to go too? But she looked at me as if I had three heads! Told me she was getting her summer holidays with her boys back down in Philly. I felt bad then, Katie, because I’d actually forgotten Gertrude has two teenage sons. It feels like she and I are just part of the Whittard family now.
Did you receive all my letters from Oxford? I know the mail takes a long time from England to America, so some could still be on their way to you, or worse, lost over the Atlantic. I shall tell you everything when I see you next, but Oxford is the most magical place I have ever set foot in! I was in heaven to be part of so much history. The buildings are much older than Harvard’s; some of them date back hundreds of years. They’re not red brick as I imagined, but soft, honeyed stone, with latticed windows and small courtyards of green grass with colonnaded walkways called quads. They are what I think medieval monasteries might look like. Most of the students were away for the summer, but some still remained. You could tell who they were immediately as they cycled around Oxford city, their heads up in the clouds.
My duty was to mind Nathan and Joshua, but the boys were old enough for us to have great fun exploring the nooks of Oxford. We went to the Ashmolean Museum, after which Joshua became quite obsessed with Ancient Rome. And we went punting on the River Thames. Now, this is the kind of water activity you would like, Katie. On the river, you can see the banks on either side, and the current is gentle and the water shallow. Punting involves propelling a long rowing boat with a big stick, which Professor Whittard tried to do rather unsuccessfully. In the end, I had a go, and must admit I was a little better than he, much to the delight of the boys.
There is so much history in Oxford, Katie. Truly, it felt like every building I was taken to had been visited by a king or queen or someone of note. One evening the Whittards organised a babysitter, and took me out for a drink in an English pub! I had no idea what to drink so copied Mrs Whittard, who ordered a gin and tonic. It’s very nice indeed with a slice of lemon. But what I want to tell you about this excursion is that the pub they brought me to was the one that C.S. Lewis and Tolkien drank in. Can you imagine? I could have been sitting on the same stool that the man who created Narnia sat on. Do you remember how much I loved those books when Mrs. Matlock got them in the library?
Wow, this is turning into a very long letter! I shall write again soon, but please send me news of how you are and what you’re doing now you’re no longer in school. I’d better race; going to be late for a lecture.
It had been a dream summer. The only downside of being in Oxford was that Susannah had missed Ava terribly. Ever since that unforgettable snowy Thanksgiving night, the two girls had spent nearly every free evening together. If not at Club 47, then hanging out in the coffee house where Ava now worked.
Until Susannah had gone to Oxford, she hadn’t been able to put a name on what she and Ava were to each other. She knew it was something more than friendship, because of what had happened at night when the two of them shared a bed. But would she be just as aroused if a boy had touched her in the same way as Ava? Sometimes, in her chilly attic room in the eaves of the Whittards’ house, she’d close her eyes and think again of Ava stroking her skin. Immediately, her heart rate would quicken, and she’d feel a softening between her legs. She’d pretend Ava was there and caress herself, unable to stop, although it was such a bad thing to
