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She had fallen in love with the town almost at first sight.
And with Adam?
If so, she herself had certainly not recognised it. She remembered how she had been slightly in awe of him the first time they met, and how embarrassed she had been.
She had been standing in the town square, studying the church. She had stepped back without turning round and had walked right into Adam, whom she had not seen crossing the square.
Crimson-faced, she had apologised, awkwardly aware of the contrast between them. She had been wearing her students’ garb of black woolly tights, an equally dark-hued skirt and an old baggy sweater she had bought in a second-hand shop.
Secretly she still felt slightly uncomfortable in these clothes, so very different from the ones she had worn while still living at home, and yet without them, in the university environment that was now her home, she had stuck out like a sore thumb, the neatly pressed pleated skirts, the crisp blouses, the good quality woollens that followed the example set by her mother marking her out as a curiosity, an object of amusement and friendly derision.
She had learned to find anonymity and safety in the uniform of dark-coloured baggy clothes so beloved of her peers.
Today, though, she was not with any of her fellow students, she was on her own, and Adam was wearing an immaculate dark wool suit, the jacket unfastened to reveal a crisply laundered white shirt on which she could almost smell the clean scent of starch, and an equally formal striped tie.
Looking at him, she had assumed automatically that he was some kind of successful businessman, although when he had put his hand out to steady her she had been subconsciously aware of a certain powerful muscularity about his body that belied the image cast by the formality of his clothes.
His hair too had confused her, sending out a different signal from that given by his clothes. Thick, with a natural inclination to curl slightly, it had had something endearingly untidy and informal about it, a tousled, windblown unkemptness which had matched the lean ruggedness of his face, and the fan of small lines that rayed out from his grey eyes.
His face and hair were those of a man used to spending a good deal of his time out of doors, she had recognised, but his clothes… that suit… they belonged to a man who spent his days sitting at some impressive boardroom desk, sternly overseeing the lives of other less powerful mortals. Initially it had been the effect of that suit which she had reacted to, mumbling her apology, turning to hurry away from him, feeling both awkward and uncomfortable as she stared down at the floor and saw the small dusty imprint her shoe had left on the shiny glossiness of his.
However, instead of chastising her for her clumsiness as she had anticipated, he had asked her totally unexpectedly instead, ‘Are you interested in the church?’
The warmth in his voice had caused her to look up at him, and when she saw the way he was smiling at her, the genuine friendliness of his demeanour, her self-consciousness had miraculously vanished.
After she had explained her interest in the town’s architectural history, he had introduced himself to her and had offered to act as her guide to its buildings.
Shyly she had accepted, sensing with an instinct she hadn’t known she possessed that she would be safe with him.
In the event he had proved so informative, and so interesting, that she had soon forgotten her initial embarrassment and had found herself talking with him as easily as though she had known him for years.
When the afternoon had ended and it was time for her to return to Bristol, she had felt oddly bereft, although it hadn’t occurred to her to connect this feeling with the same emotions she had heard other girls describing in connection with their sexual and emotional feelings for the men in their lives.
It had come as quite a shock ten days later to receive a telephone call from Adam saying that he had some business in Bristol later in the week and asking if she would like to have lunch with him.
She had agreed to meet him—a shock perhaps, but not an unpleasant one. There was nothing to fear in having lunch with him, none of the anxiety and uncertainty that so frequently made her refuse the invitations of her male peers in case, in accepting them, she inadvertently found herself the recipient of sexual advances she did not want.
Fern knew that she was regarded, if not as something of a prude, then certainly as slightly sexually out of step with everyone else; but her gentleness and kindness made her popular not only with the male students but the female ones as well, who good-naturedly accepted her shyness and good-heartedly did their best to protect her from the sexual machinations of the more sexually aggressive male undergraduates.
Only the previous weekend she had gone with a group of friends to the Union Bar, where she had been left scarlet-faced with embarrassment by one man coming up to her and announcing with a leer, ‘The campus virgin. I like virgins… I eat them up… I love the way they taste. Would you like me to eat you up, little virgin?’
The other males with him had laughed and cheered and despite her embarrassment Fern had managed to stand her ground and ignore the comments he was making to her. She knew there was no real malice in them and that he was more playing to the crowd than trying to intimidate her, but nevertheless she had been left feeling vulnerable and slightly bruised, aware of the gulf that lay between the world her parents had brought her up to inhabit and the one which actually existed.
Her school days attending a small village school and then an equally small and protective all-girls’ private school had not really equipped her for the sexually energetic lifestyle of her fellow students, but underneath her shyness F
ern had a strong enough personality to allow her to take things at her own pace.
The male students she responded best to and felt most at ease with were the ones who treated her more as a sister than a potential bed partner, the ones who brought her not only their dirty washing, but their problems as well, and she would quite happily spend an evening listening to them complaining about the unfairness of a particular tutor or the cruelty of another girl while she ironed and cooked for them. Knowing that they wanted… that they needed her to perform these tasks for them soothed and comforted her, confirming the role her parents had brought her up to play, even if this was a subconscious and hidden awareness rather than a conscious one.
Adam took her to an Italian restaurant for lunch. She had mentioned to him the previous week how much she loved Italian food.
The family atmosphere of the place, the joviality and warmth of the waiters made her feel instantly relaxed and at home.
Adam was good company, quickly putting her at her ease and banishing her initial uncertainty that she had done the right thing, so that very quickly she felt so comfortable with him that she found herself answering his questions, telling him things about herself with an openness and ease that was completely contrary to her normal reticence.
Long before the lunch was over, Adam knew about her family background, as well as her interests and her hobbies.
She had not decided exactly what she wanted to do once she had her degree, she told him.
