When they met they made no reference to their argument; they usually dealt with their difficulties that way. They joined their friends at one of the boat-houses and loaded the picnic into two punts. But as everyone got in, it occurred to David to climb into a different punt from Sarah so as to show her that all was not forgotten. She pretended not to notice but when the two punts came together at their destination, having separated on the way, he saw that she had her head on his friend Nigel’s shoulder. They set out their picnic in a field, overlooked by ponderous cows; it was not a bright evening and almost as if they felt the whole exercise was too serious, too staid, before they ate someone produced two frisbees and they all shrieked and played. They were aware that they presented a happy, bucolic scene to other punts passing down the river and that was a major part of their enjoyment. They had a red and white checked tablecloth and long loaves of French bread. But midges rose up from the river in a spinning cloud and when they had eaten, they realised that the field was damp. Coming back, did David get into the same punt asSarah and when it was not his turn to punt, sit next to her and put his arm around her in the dark?
*
‘Honestly, I love the way you just assume I’m coming with you to the Ball. Don’t bother to actually ask me, will you?’
‘For Christ’s sake, what do you expect me to do? Go down on bended knee and beg you? If you don’t want to come, if you’d rather go off to your wretched Starvation Supper, all you have to do is say. It’s no skin off my nose. Twenty pounds saved!’
‘Oh, you weren’t actually going to pay for my ticket, then? We’d be going Dutch?’
‘Yes, of course we would. Catch me shelling out twenty pounds on you!’
‘Huh, charming! Well in that case, let’s just forget about it then, OK? I don’t particularly fancy paying twenty pounds for the privilege of spending an evening with you. Balls are supposed to be memorable.’
‘Oh, have you been reading your Mills and Boon again? Are you after some True Romance?’
‘Oh, piss off, David. Who’d want to dance all night with a berk like you?’
On the last night of term they walked beside the river, in an evening which the English had the cheek to call close and sultry, but when that term ended they already knew their makeshift intimacy was over.
*
Returning to Oxford to begin his second year, Ravi Kaul made a resolution. He had become too entrenched in his group of Indian friends, he decided. He would never live up to his early intentions of sampling what there was to be sampled in England – which, naive as they were, had some good sense in them – if he spent all his time with Sunil, Dev and Rajiv. They had been a fine cocoon to help him while he found his feet, but now it was high time to shake them off and be a little adventurous.
He knew one chap who was in with a tremendous lot of English students – Ali Suleiman from Pakistan. So on hissecond day back he called on Ali, who was surprised and flattered by the visit. The other Indian and Pakistani students usually treated him with barely concealed contempt, as an ingratiating Anglophile chameleon. As he was leaving, Ravi said, ‘By the way, Ali, you know a hell of a lot of people here, don’t you?’
‘Do I?’ asked Ali, waiting to hear what would come next.
‘Yes, of course you do,’ Ravi said. ‘You know all sorts of people. Dev Mehdi and I were talking about it just the other day. You don’t just hang around with your fellow sinners. Who are those guys at Magdalen you’re always with? Tatchell? Latchell?’
‘Simon Satchell,’ Ali said correctly, ‘and Anthony Crowmarsh . Do you mean them?’
‘Yes,’ said Ravi, ‘probably. You’re really “matey” with them, aren’t you?’
Ali hesitated, for now he realised that something would be asked of him. He started to balance his head dubiously, but ended up proudly nodding