Obstacles to Young Love. David Nobbs

wish you wouldn’t be flippant about hell.’

      ‘Oh, for God’s sake.’

      ‘And God.’

      ‘Oh, Timothy. Loosen up.’

      ‘I’m not good at that. Sorry, but what have I done wrong?’

      ‘You’ve patronised me because I’m an atheist.’

      ‘Oh, you’re not even an agnostic any more. That’s a bit arrogant, isn’t it? Being so certain that you know.’

      Naomi has never called herself an atheist before. She has believed that she is an agnostic. But she wants to make Timothy angry. She needs to make him angry.

      ‘I don’t believe this,’ she says. ‘I can’t believe you people. What are you if not being so certain that you know? That’s what pisses me off about you. You think I desperately want to believe and have failed. I don’t particularly want not to believe, but it doesn’t put me in some sad class of disappointed failures. The reason I don’t believe is that I can find no evidence of a compassionate pattern in life, and it doesn’t mean that I’m any more wicked than you or any less sodding spiritual than you. Oh, what a fucking good decision I made walking out on you, you fucking prig.’

      She charges angrily after Simon, but he is disappearing at a fast sulk.

      Soon they are back at another perilous narrow bridge, high above the piranhas. Ahead of them is the lodge. It has taken less than five minutes. They realise that the village is almost right opposite the lodge. The five bangs on the gong meant, ‘There are only five of them. No need to try too hard.’

      At the lodge, Simon is waiting with a face like the thunder that is beginning to threaten once again.

      ‘Rather an argument, I see,’ says Simon. ‘Bit of tension.’

      ‘So?’

      ‘I didn’t know you still cared enough about him to bother to be angry. I see that I was wrong.’

      He is right, of course, which annoys her. She has been feeling pleased with herself for managing to end the meeting with Timothy angrily. It was sad for him, but necessary for her. She wished that she hadn’t sworn, but the future would be difficult to bear if she’d ended on friendly terms with him.

      After an early lunch they set off for the boat back. The German, who is staying for another night and is scheduled to have a four-hour jungle walk that afternoon, shames them by walking with them to their boat to see them off.

      ‘I expect there will be a few more people on today’s boat,’ he says hopefully, ‘and some of them will probably be taking the four-hour walk with me.’

      As they watch today’s thatched boat nosing towards the landing stage, he says a rather strange thing.

      ‘Don’t think too badly of Peru.’

      Naomi likes him for that as much as for anything.

      There are no tourists on the boat, none. He will be alone for his four-hour walk, alone for his second candlelit dinner, alone for Basilio’s limited repertoire on the guitar all over again. Naomi’s heart goes out to him, and she never even found out his name.

      They shake hands with him, politely. His handshake is perfect, firm yet not too firm.

      They enter the boat.

      He stands on the landing stage, a stiff, erect figure, curiously forlorn and vulnerable.

      The boat begins to move. He waves as if they are old friends whom he is going to miss. They wave back.

      Just before he is out of earshot, they see him shout. A moment later, his words arrive over the brown water.

      ‘I will insist on the full four hours. I will not accept short measure.’

      Timothy and Maggie move to a seat near the front of the boat.

      Naomi sits down quite far from them, in the middle of the boat.

      Simon marches right to the back of the boat, and plonks himself defiantly into a seat. God, he’d be cross if he knew how young it makes him look, thinks Naomi.

      The journey back, against the flow, takes longer than two and a half hours and feels as if it takes for ever. None of them would have wished not to see the Amazon, but none of them will ever go for a week’s cruise on it. It just rolls on and on for ever, a slow, brown streak among the endless rainforests.

      As they make their way off the boat to get onto the minibus back to their hotels, Timothy approaches Naomi.

      ‘So,’ he says, ‘this is goodbye.’

      ‘Yep. Sorry it ended in a row.’

      ‘One last kiss:’

      ‘It’ll have to be a very quick, casual one. Simon’s furious.’

      ‘Really? Maggie won’t mind at all. She hasn’t got a sensitive bone in her whole body.’

      He means it as a compliment.

      At the last moment Naomi relents, holds her cheek against his, tries to put a real feeling of warmth and affection into it. After all, it will probably be the last kiss they ever have.

       PART THREE The Rocky Road to Seville 1991–1993

      They’re late. Lunch is ready. It’s annoying.

      William offers a second glass of sherry. This is very unusual, but they can’t just sit around with empty glasses, waiting. It embarrasses him to have to do it, he’s not a drinker, so he has to pass a little comment. ‘It is New Year’s Day, after all,’ he says. When he’s finished pouring he stops for a moment in front of the picture over the piano. It shows a Norfolk wherry sailing away from the staithe at Wells-Next-the-Sea. Naomi knows that, just for a moment, her father is sailing away from a staithe somewhere, and is happy. This worries her. She has become more sensitive to atmosphere over the years, and senses that something is afoot today. She feels uneasy, edgy, tense.

      They’re having curry, in the English style, quite hot but not fearsomely so, and sweetened with sultanas and slices of apple. On the side there will be mango chutney, slices of banana and finely minced coconut. The curry can be held quite easily in the Hostess trolley, but the rice may dry out. It’s annoying that they are late.

      ‘Where are they?’ Penny cries.

      ‘They’ll have got utterly and totally arseholed last night,’ says Julian. ‘No discipline, artists.’

      He’s very grumpy today.

      ‘Please, Julian, not in front of the child,’ says his mother.

      ‘I don’t like that expression, “the child”, Mum,’ says Naomi. ‘She does have a name.’ The words are a rebuke, but Naomi speaks them very gently and without any hostility. Penny is tense today. There’s that telltale working of her mouth when she isn’t speaking.

      ‘What’s “arseholed”?’ asks Emily.

      ‘It’s not a word you need to know, dear. It’s a word silly lawyers who’ve never quite grown up and still want to shock their parents use. It means having too much to drink.’

      ‘Dad used to get “arseholed” sometimes, didn’t he? He still gets “arseholed” sometimes when he takes me out for a meal. He has a double gin and then a whole bottle of wine and then he drives me home.’

      ‘Yes, yes, Emily. That’s enough. And does he indeed? Right.’

      ‘I prefer Dad when he isn’t “arseholed”. He’s much nicer. I don’t intend to get “arseholed” at all when I’m grown up.’

      ‘Yes, Emily, thank you, good, I’m really glad,