Obstacles to Young Love. David Nobbs

be spotted by someone who knows their parents. On the first day of their visit they saw some cheery young people entering the Amalfi, and were emboldened to follow in their slipstream. It turned out to be safe and warm. They have eaten there on all three days of that long, lovely, disturbing weekend.

      At last Timothy speaks.

      ‘It was when that funny old woman came up to us at breakfast. I thought she was going to accuse us.’

      ‘Well, so did I.’

      ‘I just felt so guilty. Didn’t you?’

      ‘No. I felt a bit afraid that I was going to be shouted at, that’s all. Well, yes, I have been feeling guilty about lying to Mum and Dad and taking their money. But not about the sex. We’re not in the Middle Ages.’

      Timothy hasn’t the words to explain how he feels. No, it isn’t just about the sex – and even he knows that to say that the sex was wrong sounds horribly prim and proper and old-fashioned even for a Coningsfield boy – but the sex is the cause of the deception, and the deception makes him feel awful in the pit of his stomach. It’s taking away all the memory of the joy, and after all they are in the middle of confirmation classes and what’s the point of all that if they don’t take it seriously?

      But all he can find in himself to say is, ‘What would the Reverend Bideford say if he knew? What would Mr Cattermole say?’

      ‘I don’t care what they say. It’s what we say that matters. Mr Cattermole’s a lech, anyway.’

      ‘It’s what our parents would say.’

      He has touched a nerve. Naomi’s father is an elder in the church. Her mother teaches at Sunday School. They are quietly, unshowily devout. Naomi is going to confirmation classes because it pleases them, and she likes to please them, and because Timothy is going. Timothy’s reasons are much more complex, and much less understood. His relationship with God makes him feel that he has a place in the scheme of things, that he is important, that there is a point to being alive in a house full of death. Obeying a moral code gives him a reason to avoid what frightens him. His religion tells him what is good for him. It’s the nearest he’s ever come to a mother. And now, because of Romeo and Juliet, because of Shakespeare, because of Mr Prentice, he’s in love, he’s told terrible lies, he’s received money under false pretences, there are more lies still to be told, he’s truly wretched.

      If only they could talk. In the distance some drunks are trying to sing. In room eight the silence is deep.

      He reaches out with a shy hand, traces the inside of her right thigh with one finger, feels the stubborn softness of his prick, and turns away slightly lest she feel it too.

      ‘Maybe we should get married,’ he says at last.

      ‘We can’t. We’re still at school.’

      ‘Well…engaged, then.’

      She’s quite excited, but she isn’t going to show it. Besides, it’s absurd.

      ‘Don’t you want to get engaged?’ he persists.

      ‘I don’t know.’ It sounds feeble, but it’s the truth. There’s nothing else she could possibly say.

      ‘I thought you loved me.’

      ‘I do, but we’re still at school.’

      ‘I don’t see what that’s got to do with it.’

      Nor does she, but she isn’t going to agree. It becomes a long silence, too long, and the longer a silence lasts, the harder it is to break it. She thinks about what he did to her and what he let her do to him barely seventeen hours ago. How could he take this attitude so soon after that? She wants to talk about it, reflect on it, remember it together, as would seem natural. But it doesn’t seem natural. It was so much easier to do than to talk about. She finds that she can’t actually use the words that would describe the actions. Words could make what was beautiful sound dirty. She takes refuge in formality.

      ‘Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy the fellatio,’ she says.

      ‘Which film was that?’

      ‘Oh, Timothy! Fellatio’s…what I did to you this morning.’

      ‘Sorry. I thought he was an Italian film director. You’re always going on about films and film people that I’ve never heard of, showing me up.’

      ‘I don’t do it to show you up. I have to be interested in films. I’ve decided that I’m going to be an actress.’

      Of all the times to drop this bombshell. Of all the times.

      

      The train journey home is not a happy one. Timothy stares resolutely out of the window, as if the answer to their problems is going to be found out there.

      ‘You won’t find the answer in some passing farmyard.’

      ‘Farmyards don’t pass. We pass them.’

      ‘I know that, you cretin.’

      ‘You won’t get far as an actress if you use the language so sloppily.’

      ‘Don’t be stupid. We don’t make it up. It gets written. By writers.’

      ‘I know that. I was Romeo, after all.’

      He continues to pretend to be very interested in the singularly dreary countryside through which they are rattling.

      ‘Nobody could be that interested in pylons.’

      ‘What?’

      ‘You’re pretending you’re looking at things. You’re not. You’re just eaten up by jealousy.’

      They aren’t speaking too loudly. There’s a nun in a seat across the corridor.

      ‘I’m not jealous.’ Now it begins to pour out of him. ‘I’m not jealous. I’m just astounded. You’re religious.’

      ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

      ‘Actors are all immoral. The men are all as bent as West End Lane.’

      ‘What’s West End Lane?’

      ‘I don’t know. It’s a road somewhere, I suppose, and I suppose it must be as bent as actors. It’s what my dad always says, anyway. And I expect the girls are all thespians.’

      ‘Thespians means actors.’ She can’t keep a sliver of scorn out of her voice. ‘You mean lesbians.’

      ‘You see.’

      ‘What?’

      ‘I don’t know anything about it. You do. We’ll drift apart.’

      ‘We won’t drift apart. We don’t need to drift apart. I love you, Timothy.’

      ‘Good on you, lass,’ says the ticket collector, arriving at Naomi’s shoulder like a steamer appearing out of the fog. ‘That’s what I like to hear. Tickets, please.’

      They show him their tickets.

      ‘I’m frightened,’ says Timothy softly.

      Naomi recognises the truth of this and touches him on the arm. The ticket inspector sees the gesture and smiles. The nun can’t find her ticket and blushes.

      ‘You’ll be a huge success. You’ll go and live in London.’

      ‘I needn’t. I can come home between jobs.’

      There’s a problem with the nun’s ticket. The nun blushes again. Her face is smooth, serene, almost aggressively serene. Yet how she blushes.

      ‘Besides, you could come to London. You can stuff animals in London, can’t you?’

      ‘I’ll be working for my dad. He hates London. He has a name for it. “The smoke”.’

      Naomi wants to tell him that everyone calls it ‘The