Philippa had her baby son, Adam, six weeks after she moved to Langford; Tessa (to use her full name) was born a couple of months after that, and it was always accepted that the two babies would grow up in each other’s pockets. The sight, however, of the blond, tall Adam, and his determined blue-eyed sidekick with black hair that bobbed round her head like a halo, trotting hand in hand towards the shop around the corner, was irresistible. It was impossible not to smile, put one’s head on one side, and say, ‘Aah…aren’t they adorable?’ And when they were thirteen, and Adam was still tall and a darker blond, now a weekly boarder at a good school thanks to a combination of scholarship and sponsorship, and Tess was still small and stocky and determined, but both of them were shyer, it was rather affecting to see them putting their childhood closeness behind them, behaving slightly awkwardly around each other. People had stopped wondering where Philippa came from, and instead smiled fondly when her sweet-natured, shy son appeared anywhere with Frank and Emily’s daughter.
‘I think someone’s got a little crush on someone…’ a well-meaning person would hiss, delightedly, as Tess ambled casually over to Adam, shyly, at a drinks party to say hi.
‘You can tell he’s awfully fond of her,’ someone else would say. ‘Look at them!’
Tess and Adam had long accepted there was nothing they could do about it. It wasn’t their parents. It was the whole bloody town: Mrs Sayers the primary school secretary, Mrs Tey the solicitor’s wife, the lady at the newsagent’s—even Mick, who ran Langford’s best pub, the Feathers, had been heard to say, ‘They make a sweet little pair, don’t they?’
It was one of the reasons Tess was desperate to get out.
The water meadows were flooded in winter, but as spring arrived and the water receded they began to dry out so that, even in the full heat of summer, the grass was always lush and green, the butterflies colourful and plentiful, the honey bees always busy. On this sunny April day they could sit on the tree by the river, swinging their legs over the bubbling water, drink the beer Adam kept in the knothole and smoke illicit cigarettes, the butts of which they were always careful to collect and remove when they left. Not just to save their own hides, but because they were country children and, along with other things like never leaving a gate open, they would sooner eat a cigarette butt than leave it lying in a field. Especially the water meadows. They’d been used in a Merchant Ivory film and the Prince of Wales had visited them last year. Everyone in Langford was proud of them.
Adam took a drag of his cigarette. ‘So, you’re really moving to London, then,’ he said.
‘Yep,’ Tess said, swinging her legs happily. ‘Can’t believe it. You’ll have to come and visit me.’
‘I’ll visit you, but I’m not so crazy on London,’ he said.
She nudged him. ‘Don’t be silly. You don’t even know it!’
‘I know it well enough to know I don’t like it.’
Tess stared at him, trying not to look impatient. Adam was not especially open to new things, and it annoyed her, though she hoped university would change that. She wanted to take on the world, to run full tilt at life. He was content to sit and watch the world go by outside his window while he worked.
‘I’m serious,’ he said. ‘Cambridge I can cope with—although it’s pretty flat, at least there’s countryside nearby. London—’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Too noisy. Too crazy. Too many people! No green spaces, nothing. I think you’ll miss it.’
Tess turned and stared at him. ‘Have you lost your freaking mind?’ she said, half-seriously. ‘I’m eighteen, bruv! So are you! Just because we’re studying Latin and Greek doesn’t mean we have to turn into old men with bushy moustaches and elbow patches who talk about the good old days.’
‘Well, you especially,’ said Adam. ‘I’d love to see you with a big bushy moustache, T.’ He nudged her, but she glowered at him and he relented. ‘OK, I’ll come and visit you.’
‘You’d better,’ she said firmly. ‘We are going to parrrrtay. When Cleopatra first met Caesar, she said—’
‘Oh, shut up about Cleopatra,’ said Adam, who was highly bored of Tess’s Cleopatra obsession. ‘Her parents were brother and sister, no wonder she was crazy.’
‘Adam!’ Tess said, in outrage.
Adam rolled his eyes. ‘OK, OK.’ He patted her on the back. ‘You really can’t wait to get out of here, can you?’
She looked at him, and shuffled along the wide branch, suddenly a little uncomfortable. ‘It’s not that. I just want to do something different, get away, you know? I feel like all these things are just round the corner waiting for me, and I’m sick of the same old faces, same stupid tourists gawping over the same boring things.’
‘Yeah,’ Adam said slowly. ‘I know. Still…I’m going to miss it.’ He looked around, at the meadows that stretched before them, the shocking green of the trees in bud, the blue sky, the fields folding out away to the horizon. ‘It’s a nice life here, that’s all.’
‘Of course it’s a nice life for you,’ Tess told him. ‘You’re Adam Smith. The richest woman in town paid for your education. You’re tall. You’re super-intelligent. You’ve got a cool bike. And all the girls at my school have a massive thing for you and you could basically snog anyone you wanted. You’re a superstar.’
‘Tess!’ Adam laughed, embarrassment written over his face. He blushed. ‘That’s rubbish.’
‘It’s not,’ she said. ‘Why would you want to leave? You’ve got the perfect life.’ She stood up; a piece of bark was digging into her. ‘Me, I want to leave. I want to live in London. I don’t want to turn into an old lady before my time.’
‘You’ll come back, though,’ Adam said, still sitting on the branch. ‘Won’t you?’
Tess felt sad suddenly, and she didn’t know why. She turned to face him, and stood between his legs. She pinched his cheek lightly. ‘Don’t bet on it. I can’t see myself living here.’
‘I know what you mean, but omnia mutantur. All things change,’ said Adam.
‘Yeah, they do,’ said Tess. ‘But we change with them, that’s the rest of the quote.’ They were silent for a moment; both of them took another swig of beer. ‘Still,’ she said. ‘We’ve got ages till we have to go. We’ve got the whole of the summer. And then—’ She lifted her beer and clinked it against his. ‘The rest of our lives.’
They were right, of course. Things do change, but neither of them could have foreseen in what way. Because already, part of Tess and Adam’s future had been written, set in stone long before they were born.
I’ll tell you of a tiny Republic that makes a show well worth your admiration—Great-hearted leaders, a whole nation whose work is planned, Their morals, groups, defences—I’ll tell you in due order. Virgil, Georgics, Book IV (trans C. Day Lewis)
Langford College
Classical