You have to go through Inverness to get to Lossie - I didn't stop, because the bloke looking after the main carpark took one look at my van and made a 'turn around and go away' gesture, and after that the only place I could find to park was Morrison's, which I couldn't be bothered with. Inverness seemed very busy and crowded - it's a normal shopping town with all the chain stores - but Lossie is small and quiet, with a long beach where people surf, lots of low fishermen's houses arranged around a series of greens, and a nice 'front street', as they call it in Scotland, with shops and cafes. It's on the Moray coast, so if you imagine that bit on the top right of the map where a bit sticks out that's almost horizontal - the back of the UK's head, so to speak - it's halfway along.
Lesley and Luke were having a barbecue for Luke's birthday the day after I arrived, so I stopped in Nairn on the way (another pretty town, if a bit run-down) to get him a present. Nairn is where Tilda Swinton is having her film festival, so I picked up a programme in case L&L wanted to go to anything. I had a long conversation with the chap in the outdoor shop about the difficulties of dealing with companies like North Face and Berghaus, and bought Luke a nice North Face scarf (he's an outdoor boy: climbing, cycling, etc), a clicker to administer small electric shocks to midge bites to stop them itching, a little compass that you can thread on your watchstrap, and a book about Nairn.
I managed to shoehorn my van into Lesley and Luke's drive, with three inches, literally, to spare on either side. I did get a bit wedged on their woodpile, but managed it OK - until I realised that it was the wrong way round and none of the doors would open. And I didn't break my habit of sleeping in the van despite the offer of a bed in the house. So that means I still haven't slept in a building since I left in June, which is becoming something of a matter of pride.
I've known Lesley for what seems like ever. We met at Edinburgh University in 1984 when I'd just started my PhD and was doing classes, some of which we shared with the MA in Linguistics. Lesley and I were both in the Generative Grammar class and started exchanging looks of horrified incomprehension when Jim Hurford drew flurries of syntax trees on the board. Lesley was brave enough to ask questions, which I think everyone in the class thanked her for, silently. Then a room came up in the flat I was staying in and Lesley moved in. We had some great parties, and I made cups of tea - and once, memorably, a trout with almonds - for her while she was writing up her dissertation in her big, artistic handwriting (imagine! A handwritten dissertation!) It was about meaning postulates. I can't even remember what those are, and I bet she can't, either.
Lesley had a tiny room and loads of friends, and they were always coming in and having various crises all over her, and when she was out, all over me. She was going out with Bruno at one point (who I subsequently went out with three years ago, a full 20 years later) and at another point was engaged to someone from Germany, who turned up dramatically once when Lesley was out, so I had to mop him up...and I remember a girlfriend of Bruno's appearing, also in tears...and then there was Nigel and Derek, two gay guys who introduced Lesley to Fire Island (a gay club on Princes Street, which I was always too prudish to go to) and were also always having some kind of drama. You can imagine me, studying away in my room, answering the door for all these people, making tea and supplying the hankies. I always felt Lesley's life was more dramatic than mine. More recently, it has been the other way round, so I guess it all evens out in the end. (I realise I've used 'drama' in some way three times in this paragraph. I think they should all stay.)
We had one house party that resulted in her father peeing out of the flat window (he had had a rugby-playing past, so I suppose it was to be expected) and Lesley, in her effusiveness, greeted the geekiest and least hygienic computer scientist we knew with a kiss on the cheek. And I was standing just behind her at the door and there was no choice but to follow suit. I have not yet forgiven her for this, even though it was 23 years ago.
She was also my wardrobe advisor. A remark I've never recovered from came when she threw open my wardrobe doors one day and said 'My God, Judy, you're so *neutral*!' I interpreted this both philosophically and literally, and for some time it sent me into a spin of head-to-toe jade green, as well as some ill-advised orange and blue stripy jumpers (remember, this was the 80s). I seem to recall Bruno was some kind of New Romantic who looked about 12 - and when I met him again at 43, he still did, although he looked a bit less like Adam Ant. Jan now does the wardrobe advice (and has similar feelings about brown, which I wear a lot of), but Lesley still has a key role in telling me what I'm talking about when I call her on the phone. She does ten-minute diagnosis of the current emotional situation, puts it in a nutshell, and hangs up. I think of her as a sort of cross between Ruby Wax, Joan Rivers, and Bette Midler. All of whom are Jewish, so I don't know if Lesley is channelling something, because as far as I know her roots are firmly in Cumbria with no hint of the Red Sea.
Lesley has recently taking up painting, which she's getting ever better at - and has generously given me two beautiful watercolours of vases of flowers which have pride of place in my van, as well as a framed set of three smaller pictures which I've also managed to put up. And she's still contributing to my wardrobe: this time, three pairs of earrings and some shorts. I do reciprocate: every so often I see something that's just so her that I put it in the post - most recently, a very nice bag from Egypt. Not that I think she's a bag of any kind.
Anyway, Lesley and I kept in touch when she went to do teacher training, and then to various schools. I remember she came to stay in Edinburgh with Luke and they got engaged there: I shared a taxi with them up to Princes Street when they went to get the ring. Luke is Head of Physics and a housemaster at the boarding school they are still at, where they met, and Lesley's had a successful career as a French, German and Italian teacher, and was a housemistress for a while. She's has now taken early retirement. They've got a lovely 14-year-old daughter, Fiona. I last saw Fiona a year ago, when she seemed about ten and just out of Bratz dolls and pink everything, and 12 months later, she's 18. I didn't say 'My, how you've grown!', but I do remember in 2006 her coming in in tears because she'd woken up in the night realising she'd forgotten to do her maths homework, and so Lesley sat me down next to her at the kitchen table and we drew triangles and had to work out the area of them. I do recall realising that one she'd drawn at my suggestion was half the area it should have been, and I am still puzzled as to why. Fiona is now almost a proper grown-up, so she won't thank me for remembering the maths episode. I have a similar problem with my friends Jon and Vina's eldest: I remember holding her up to the mirror when she was about 11 months old. I accidentally called her by her baby-name on a visit a year or so ago and realised I was talking to an 18-year-old who looks like Sienna Miller.
Ooh dear, I am getting old. This was all trees when I was a girl (looking out of the window, it still is).
Back to Luke and Lesley. In termtime, they live in a lovely flat at the school, which is old, beamed and dramatic, and they look after 60 boys, so they've kept on their house in Lossie and use it as a second home and go there in the holidays. So Luke was in relaxed mode, enjoying going for bike rides and doing the Sudoku - in termtime, they're in loco parentis, and are regularly called upon to solve crises emotional, financial, moral, and academic for their charges (See? Lesley has made a career out of handing people hankies). Lesley's Mum and Dad have moved up from Cumbria to Lossie, too, so I saw them a couple of times - we're old friends - and I think her Dad in particular enjoyed getting maps out and telling me where to go. They also liked the van. I was expecting her Dad to be disapproving about people giving up jobs and going gallivanting off in vans, but all he said that was at all negative was that my cab needed a polish. Which is entirely correct.
It was restful staying with them, and I had some nice walks around Lossie: it's so pretty, and the houses are so nice, and there's a really good sandy beach: if it was in the South it would be one of the most chic places to live imaginable, and I can't understand why it's not more trendy. I'm glad it's not, though, because it seems to be mostly populated with people who were born and bred there and the cappucino comes from two Italian families who settled there ages ago, rather than from Starbucks. There is a big RAF base there, and another at Fochabers nearby, so noisy Harriers frequently fly overhead.
While I was wandering about I came across this camper van. I didn't spot its occupants, but they are Italian, and the van (and, presumably, they) went from Italy across Africa last year, going by the maps and things on the side. It is so high up, I presume there's a ladder to get down from the doors (unless you open the door in the morning holding your cup of coffee, step out, and do a Mrs Doyle, falling from the windowledge). Its height must also make it immune from casual attack, unless your assailant is on a horse (or a camel).
Lesley then suggested she come somewhere with me in my rather more ordinary van, which seemed a good idea because I didn't have any further plans...which took us further North, for reasons I'll explain in my next post.
No comments:
Post a Comment