“No – it’s not that,” I begin tentatively, but he silences me and overrides my remarks.
“I hope you will look back at the experience and derive at least some pleasure from the memory of it. And perhaps it has given you some valuable insights into your own sexuality as well. I wish you every happiness for the future and I hope you meet somebody who deserves you one day.”
“No!” I persist, my voice taut with urgency now. “You don’t understand…”
“Precisely. I don’t understand. I’m sorry, Beth, I’m very busy. I must ask you to leave now.”
“You can’t! I have things to say to you!”
“I don’t have the time or the inclination to listen,” he says, his voice darkening. He sweeps around me to the door, holding it open imperiously. “Goodbye, Beth. Please keep up with your studies; you have the potential to achieve a First Class degree.” This is for the benefit of his secretary, who is making a show of not peering into the room as she attempts to fend off a million telephone enquiries from hopeful undergraduates.
My fists clenched, I leave him to his middle-aged misery.
“Hi, Sarah,” I say to the secretary. The phone rings again but she ignores it.
“I can’t keep up,” she laments. “The phone has been red-hot all day. Every female with an A-Level wants to study here since his Lordship’s become a TV star.”
“Ha, he’ll have to spend the whole year sifting through crappy application forms. Serves him right,” I say. She laughs but I’m pretty sure she can see that I’m actually upset.
“Has he been on your back again?” she asks sympathetically. If she but knew…
I shake my head, my face constricted with the effort of keeping back tears and hop down the stairs to my tutorial.
*
He is there at the opening night of H.M.S. Pinafore. He thinks he has concealed himself, right up at the back of the auditorium, but I am longsighted and the stage lights mean I can see that part of the room better than the front row anyway. It affects my performance for the better. I am determined that he shall see me shine, see what he has thrown away. I imagine my high notes soaring over to him like messenger birds, telling him, “this is the woman for you, Sinclair”.
‘Sorry her lot who loves too well
Heavy the heart that hopes but vainly
Sad are the sighs that own the spell
Uttered by eyes that speak too plainly
Heavy the sorrow that bows the head
When love is alive and hope is dead’.
By the time I am changed and ready to go to the restaurant for the First Night party, though, he is long gone.
*
It is a weird kind of week. I study hard, and sing my part every night. Not a day goes past that I am not stopped in the common room, or the street, or the Union and asked if the rumours that I am seeing Sinclair are true. I deny them on each occasion.
“You were seen together in Agent Provocateur,” one of my interlocuters persists. “Why would he be buying you underwear?”
“It’s just gossip,” I say firmly. “You should know better than to listen to Mags Parker anyway.”
“How do you know I heard it from her?”
Shit. Good point.
“Oh…just a wild guess,” I say as calmly as I can, then I race off to prepare for the evening performance.
*
Friday. The last night of our run, the last day of the working week.