In England, despite being entranced by Oxford, steeped in so many centuries of history, it had still not been enough to ease the sheer physical sensation of missing Ava. She worried all the time that when she got back, Ava would have found a new best friend to hang out with. But when she had stepped into the coffee house on the first night of her return, she had been greeted by a loud squeal of delight as Ava almost dropped her coffee pot in her rush to hug her. Susannah had spent the whole night sitting in a booth being fed coffee and cherry pie by Ava, who was giddy with joy to see her. By the time they’d got back to Ava’s room, Susannah’s head had been spinning, and her body buzzing from all the coffee and cigarettes.
‘Stay here,’ Ava begged her. ‘Just tonight.’
‘What about your roommate?’
‘Take a look! She’s gone. I have my own room now,’ Ava said, sweeping her arms wide. The second little bed had disappeared and in its place was one slightly bigger bed.
‘But you’re not allowed visitors,’ Susannah protested weakly, smiling all the while as Ava took her hand and slowly spun her around the room.
‘We’ll be quiet. Besides you’re a girl. They just don’t allow boys,’ Ava said happily.
‘The Whittards will worry.’
Ava wagged her finger at her. ‘Call them. Tell them your friend is sick. You’re staying over to look after her.’
‘Now, that’s a lie,’ Susannah said, shaking her head at her in mock disapproval.
‘It’s not. I am sick,’ Ava said, her face suddenly serious. ‘I’ve been lovesick the whole long damned summer.’
Her declaration swept through Susannah like a hot wind. Ava hooked her boldly with her eye. She was challenging her. It was as if she was saying, Leave now if you won’t acknowledge what we have. But Susannah understood, because of what had happened one evening in Oxford.
The Whittards had held a dinner party and Susannah’s job had been to help the hired cook, Clara, and serve the guests at table.
‘I know it’s not what you usually do, but you don’t mind, darling, do you?’ Mrs Whittard had asked her.
Mrs Whittard had taken to calling her ‘darling’ recently (mostly after her third martini), and saying Susannah was like the daughter she’d always wanted. It was silly, but her words meant a lot to Susannah, seeing as her own mother still never wrote.
Dinner had been preceded by cocktails, and Susannah had circled the room with a tray of Manhattans mixed by Professor Whittard. There were six other guests: two male physicists and their wives, one couple from France, and one from Italy; and two English women, both of them academics at Oxford – Milly Agnew, a physicist, and Jocelyn Hartley, an English literature professor and published poet. Mrs Whittard had already whispered to Susannah that the women had a special relationship.
‘They’re eccentric, you know, very English,’ Mrs Whittard had said to her before the guests arrived, as Susannah helped style her hair – rather uselessly, but she guessed the point was Mrs Whittard wanted someone to gossip to. ‘Peter says they’re a marriage in all but name. Been together years, it seems. Imagine, Susannah!’ Mrs Whittard’s eyes were incredulous in the mirror. ‘No children of course, but apparently they have three dogs and four cats. Very eccentric!’
‘Have you read any of her poetry?’
‘Jocelyn’s? Oh no, not really my thing, darling. But I’ve heard she’s very good,’ Mrs Whittard said, lighting a cigarette and offering Susannah one. ‘But you mustn’t stare at them now, will you? We have to be open-minded and all that, as Peter says. But I guess it is a little odd, unnatural. What woman doesn’t want children?’
Susannah bit her tongue. Me, she wanted to confide in Mrs Whittard. Would you still call me the daughter you always wanted if I told you that? Susannah had always known she didn’t want children, even before she’d ever even thought she might not be attracted to men. Ava felt the same way. But they lived in a society which considered them not to be real women if they didn’t want to have babies. Susannah knew that not wanting children was nothing to do with her loving women. It was something else. The need to mother was not one she possessed. She felt indignant she should be judged for how she felt.
While Susannah served the cocktails, she tried her best not to stare, but she was entranced by Milly and Jocelyn. The fluidity of their movements: one lighting the other’s cigarette without even having to ask. To Susannah’s eyes, the two women seemed so much more united than the other couples. Mrs Whittard drank too much before dinner and got a little loud, which embarrassed the professor somewhat, especially when she asked the French professor to explain to her again what astrophysics actually was ‘because Peter could never get her to understand’. In response to this, the French wife began to flirt with Professor Whittard. As for the Italian couple, they were having their own personal argument all the way through dinner, as they broke out in Italian along with wild gestures every now and again. It seemed to Susannah it was Milly and Jocelyn who kept the dinner party together and on an even keel.
‘So, Professor,’ Jocelyn said as they were drinking their coffee. ‘Who do you think will land a man on the moon first? Russia or America?’
‘Well, I have to say the States of course.’ The professor looked relieved to escape the flirtations of the French wife.
‘I’ve heard they’ve already been doing many of the tests with female pilots,’ Milly said.
Susannah pricked up her ears. This was information Ava would be very
