Chapter 3

We turned the corner of the street, and crossed Richmond Road to the east side.

Without any warning, Julie suddenly stopped dead on the pavement about a hundred yards short of her house, causing me to almost pull her over as I kept walking, my hand in hers.

"Blast! Mrs Hughes is outside already, probably waiting for the two new girls. Can we meet you in the café? We shouldn't be more than a few minutes."

She set off, and Malcolm and I re-crossed the road, and headed for the café round the corner.

Over a cuppa, I explained to Malcolm in more detail why we were being quite so careful that the girls' landlady did not find out that I was living there; we did not want the girls thrown out of a very good place, because we knew very well that they were unlikely to find anywhere else so convenient.

I also made it plain that I was living with Julie and sharing her room; though I didn't want him to get any idea of the true situation as regards Vee and Sian. Malcolm was a good mate, but I didn't know enough about his personal moral code to know if would offend him or not.

"Yeah, I agree, it's a great place they've got there. Do you really think you can get away with it?"

"We hope so. I'm certainly not going to cause any trouble, we're not going to make it at all obvious - which is why I wanted you to take my letters - and their landlady pretty much leaves them alone."

"Well, the best of luck with that!"

We had time for a second mug of tea, and another iced bun each, before the three girls finally arrived. They all kissed both of us, and I ordered them tea and a bun.

Poor Malcolm was sandwiched between Julie and Sian on the bench seat, with Vee and I on chairs the other side of the table. I noticed that neither of them was trying very hard to leave any gap between them and Malcolm. They were renewing the easy friendship that had developed the day we all went to Sophia Gardens to watch the cricket and drink beer.

Julie apologised for leaving us quite so abruptly earlier.

"Sorry about abandoning you so suddenly! I didn't want Mrs Hughes to get any suspicions; I don't think she spotted us holding hands. She's a very good landlady, and we want to stay there. Anyway, she was nice and friendly. The two new tenants should be there shortly, so we left her to get on with it, and promised to introduce ourselves to them later."

We talked about our holidays (well, just a short summary of what we had done since last seeing each other - I didn't have a lot that I could actually admit to Malcolm), and caught up on each others' news.

Malcolm and I then decided to stroll up to the Department of Chemistry to see if our pigeon holes had anything for us, and we left the girls gossiping over a refill of tea.

When we got to the Chemistry building, we found our pigeon holes crammed to overflowing with papers and envelopes, so we collected them up and went into the departmental library, so we could spread ourselves out at one of the big tables to look at everything.

We saw fairly quickly that this year would be much more intellectually challenging, with fewer lectures and much more project and research-type work. We would now have dedicated laboratory benches of our own instead of just a locker, and would be permitted - indeed expected - to work at any hours required to complete our tasks.

We were pleased to see that we had both been allocated the same tutor as last year; we decided to grab neighbouring benches so we could consult and help each other easily. We were convinced that our both getting the equivalent of a 'First' in the first year exams had been the result of our collaboration during that year, using each other's strengths to learn and improve.

There were other perks of being second year students - we were now actively encouraged to use the departmental tea room in our free periods, and as long as we signed in and out with the hall porter when using the building out of normal working hours, we could come and go pretty much as we pleased. Our private storage space was also substantially larger, so there would be no more lugging of textbooks to and fro!

We popped into the Departmental Secretary's office to confirm that we were back and to give her our term time address (although I gave her Malcolm's, just in case they did write to me); she was enthusing about a new IBM golfball electric typewriter that had been bought for her use, and which seemed to be a huge improvement on her clunky old one.

She demonstrated it by typing my name and address on one index card, and then swapping golf balls and typing Malcolm's on another card using an italic typescript. She said that it would be a real boon for typing academic papers, because previously she had been forced to use the red part of the ribbon for quotes, which had made the typing look untidy.

We had to admit that the new machine looked very smart, and that the top copy looked very professional.

"Are you still having to use carbon paper?"

"Yes, Prof said that he thinks these new Xerox copiers, photocopiers he calls them, haven't quite got it right yet. He thinks that the coating on the paper will slowly fade over time, so if you file a photocopy, it will be blank when you go back to look at it in two year's time!"

We agreed with her that self-deleting archives would be a real problem!

She went back to reading her new instruction manual as we went on to the laboratory to choose our benches. We finally elected to go on the side next to the fume cupboards; although the natural light was not as good, we would not be subject to the temptation to look out of the windows at all the girls passing along the pavement outside!

As we left the building, I asked Malcolm if he was coming to the Freshers' Ball concert; he said that he would if I was going, and I agreed to get him a ticket when I bought ours. Like me, he hated going to social events on his own, but would happily turn out if he knew that friends would be there.

I got back to the house about six o'clock; there was no sign of Mrs Hughes, but I pretended I was a visitor and rang the front door bell anyway, rather than letting myself in using the illicitly copied Yale key Julie had given me that morning. She came down and opened the door for me, and we headed upstairs.

"Cuppa?"

"God, yes please - the tea room wasn't open this afternoon, and I'm gagging for a drink!"

Sian and Vee joined us in the kitchen as the kettle whistled on the gas hob.

"So, have you met the new neighbours?"

"Yes, they seem nice girls. Very young, though!"

We all laughed. We knew that they were pretty much the same age we had been only a year earlier, when we had been freshers ourselves.

"And no trouble with Mrs Hughes?"

"No, we told her we had decided to have separate bedrooms to help with studying, and she had no problem with that, she says it's happened before."