Chapter Fifteen
Gabe’s last task of the week was a seminar group of second-year undergraduates.
Strictly speaking, it should have been taken by one of the post-graduate students that he supervised but there’d been no volunteers.
Even when he’d managed to persuade the Dean to increase the hourly rate, still there’d been no takers.
It was left to Gabe to introduce young yet extremely sluggish minds to Nineteenth-Century German Philosophy and Idealism. Today’s two hours on The Hegel Dialectic had not gone well. One person had even cried, though it wasn’t as if The Hegel Dialectic was rocket science.
He was late to leave the office and it was already three by the time he hurried down the steps from the upper level of the Royal Festival Hall.
Tess was looking in the other direction, as if she expected Gabe to be approaching from Embankment Bridge, but Gabe would recognise Tess anywhere.
That pale gold hair. He’d never seen it in direct sunlight before.
It really was the most extraordinary colour.
Instead of one of her quirky dresses, although he’d only met her twice before, not really long enough to get a sense of her style, she was wearing black dungarees with a red print …
as Gabe got closer and adjusted his glasses he realised that they were adorned with strawberries.
She had a black t-shirt on underneath and her arms were bare.
Untouched by the sun, so Gabe had a sense that he was looking at forbidden flesh. Dear God, what was wrong with him?
‘Hey! Hi!’ Tess had turned her head and waved at him. She was wearing sunglasses and a red lipstick which matched the strawberries. ‘Have I got something on my face?’
‘No! All good. I didn’t recognise you …’ Gabe said, stammered really.
Tess plucked at her dungarees like they were on fire. ‘Sorry. We have a casual Friday dress policy.’
‘There’s no need to apologise. It wasn’t a complaint. You look … everyone likes strawberries, don’t they?’ He was talking. Words were coming out of his mouth. Gabe wished they weren’t.
No wonder Tess frowned. ‘Well, unless they’re allergic.’ It was her turn to look at Gabe. Her frown increased in ferocity. ‘You’re not wearing tweed.’ She raised her sunglasses to be sure. ‘You’re wearing jeans. And trainers.’
It was true. She had Gabe banged to rights.
He was wearing jeans and trainers with a navy shirt.
Quite a stylish but comfortable ensemble he’d thought, but now he was wondering if it was too blue.
Even his trainers were dark blue. He felt the need to justify his fashion choices.
‘It’s very warm for May. It’s twenty-four degrees in the shade so yes, I’m not wearing tweed.
And yes, like ninety-five per cent of the population or thereabouts, I own and wear jeans. ’
‘I was just saying!’ Tess protested and there it was. Right on cue. That little slump of her shoulders. Her chin quivering. Like she wished she was anywhere but here, with Gabe.
‘I always wear jeans for my second-year German philosophy seminar group. Less intimidating apparently, according to the pastoral staff,’ Gabe admitted. ‘I still had a student burst into tears.’
‘Oh my God, why? What did you do to them?’ Tess pressed her lips tightly together like she was trying to hide a smile. ‘Did you tell them off for breaking the spines and folding down the corners of their German philosophy textbooks?’
‘You do realise that both of those crimes should incur a custodial sentence?’ He wasn’t even joking.
Tess did grin then, her teeth extra white against the bright red of her lipstick. ‘I’m a notorious spine breaker. Are you going to perform a citizen’s arrest?’
‘I’m definitely thinking about it. Unless there are extenuating circumstances?’ He looked at her over the rim of his glasses, but she shook her head.
‘I’m afraid not. I think it’s a sign that you’ve really loved a book hard when it’s a bit broken and dog-eared or the pages have gone puffy because you’ve dropped it in the bath,’ Tess said a little dreamily, as if she was thinking of all those books she’d loved hard.
A very unfortunate choice of words because now all Gabe could think about was …
‘So, why did you have a student in tears?’
‘Why did I? Oh! I didn’t do anything. I was only explaining, in the most gentle voice I possess, the difference between thesis, antithesis and synthesis.’
‘To be fair, that would probably make me cry too,’ Tess said. She was in a very capricious mood today so Gabe couldn’t quite tell if and when she was joking. He suspected that if she was joking, he was the punchline. ‘Anyway, here I am! Are you going to proposition me then?’
Yes, very capricious. Very mercurial. Very volatile. She needed to be handled with care.
They’d only been in each other’s company for five minutes and Gabe already felt wrong-footed. Which was most unlike him. ‘Shall we walk while I talk you through it? It is a lovely day.’
Tess looked around. The sun glinted off the Thames and made its usually murky depths sparkle.
The plane trees that lined the South Bank were in full leaf, glorious and green, and everywhere there were people.
Lunchtime joggers weaving through the crowds of tourists, pleasure-seekers and skivers like them.
Queuing in front of an ice-cream van, heading down one of the little jetties to catch a riverboat, taking advantage of the warmer weather to grab an outside table and something cold to drink on one of the many terraces.
‘I love days like this,’ Tess said softly. ‘They make me forget that a lot of the time living in London feels like a luxury I can’t really afford. That I should head back to Barnstaple with my tail tucked between my legs. But on days like this, there’s nowhere I’d rather be. Yes, let’s walk.’
They decided not to head in the direction of the London Eye and beyond that, Westminster and the Houses of Parliament but in the other direction.
Past the Royal Festival Hall, the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Hayward Gallery.
Pausing at the strange little bunker beloved of skateboarders for generation upon generation.
Then the British Film Institute, although Gabe could remember when it was the National Film Theatre, because unlike Tess he hadn’t come to London post-university to make his fortune.
‘Ella and I are native Londoners. Both very pretentious, very jaded from a young age. She insisted we had sushi at our fifth birthday party,’ he told Tess, who actually chortled with delight.
‘By the time we were teenagers we were going to see foreign films and art exhibitions that we couldn’t possibly understand. ’
‘It sounds glorious. I grew up in Devon. I say Barnstaple, but actually it was a tiny village where there were more sheep than people,’ she said with a shudder.
‘We didn’t even have Wi-Fi! We were too rural for satellite TV and the nearest pub was two villages along.
That’s why I turned out bookish. There was nothing else to do. ’
‘You don’t miss it then?’ Gabe asked. Like a lot of born-and-bred city folk, he had a romantic view of bucolic country life. ‘The fresh air and the slower pace?’
‘No, because the countryside smells of manure all the time. The roads are plastered with the corpses of small animals that have been run over, and where I live now, I have a little Tesco two minutes from my flat, which stays open until eleven all week. It is literally the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me.
’ Tess put a hand to her heart as they slowly ambled along.
‘I’m a Londoner now. There’s no getting rid of me.
Can we stop and have a quick look at the books? ’
They’d reached the legendary book stall opposite the BFI and tucked under Waterloo Bridge.
A collection of tables stacked with books, spines up.
All literary life was here. New books. Stiff hardbacks in pristine condition.
Old books. Yellowed pages, soft, creased covers.
Literature. Childrens. History. Science.
Art. Romance. Science fiction. Fantasy. Horror.
Self-help. Botany. Biology. Geography. Psychology.
Graphic novels. An entire section devoted to Harry Potter.
It had been ages since Gabe had browsed the books, considering he only worked round the corner.
But after he and Ella had taken ownership of the library there wasn’t much time for casual strolls along the South Bank.
Books, once a source of knowledge and enlightenment, now gave him referred stress as he thought about all the books in Sharma’s Academic Library and Book Depository and the roof they needed to keep them safe from the elements.
Referred stress and a sense of impending doom.
Books for Tess, however, were still a source of joy, which was why she was smiling in anticipation.
Besides, if looking at books made her happy, that was a positive thing.
Gabe wanted her to be happy. Of course he did.
It would also mean she’d be a lot more receptive to the proposition that he was still working up to.
‘I’ll be in the philosophy section,’ Gabe said, gesturing at a sparsely populated distant corner.
‘I’ll be in Contemporary Fiction,’ Tess said.
Then she all but skipped away, all the quicker to discover some more unsuitable romantic heroes to fall in love with.
The philosophy section wasn’t that large and Gabe had read most of the books displayed, usually in their original language.
But his attention was caught by a small book with a cheery cover which he recognised and decided to buy.
Then he went to find Tess, who wasn’t even halfway through the fiction selection.
She was a slow browser. Running a finger along every spine so she didn’t miss any hidden treasure. Often, she’d pick up a book and read the blurb on the back cover but then return it to its place.
Given her impulsive Love Library choices and the lack of research, Gabe would have expected Tess to have a whole stack of books tucked under her arm.
He could tell that she was the kind of person who had a huge to-be-read pile.
Probably piles in the plural. Not that those piles would deter her from buying more and more books.
The Japanese, as the Japanese often did, had a word for it. Tsundoku. The practice of acquiring books, which remained unread while acquiring new books, yet still cherishing the possibility of maybe reading them one day.
Talking of acquiring new books … ‘I got you a present,’ Gabe said, sidling up to Tess, who turned to look at him in genuine surprise.
‘You did?’
‘I did. Nothing too scary, I promise,’ he added as he saw the panic flit across her face.
‘Well, great minds think alike, because I was about to buy you a book,’ she said. She had a small paperback tucked under her arm. ‘Nothing too soppy, I promise. And no peeking!’
Gabe took a step back. ‘Sir! Yes sir!’ he said, with a smart salute. Even though she was wearing sunglasses, Gabe knew she was rolling her eyes. ‘I’ll wait for you over there just so I’m not tempted to sneak a peek.’
Yes, she was definitely rolling her eyes at him.
Gabe walked away to lean against the low wall, which overlooked the water.
He could stare out at the river, at the skyline that he knew as well as the periodic table or Kant’s Categorical Imperative, but he preferred to watch Tess as she paid for the book she planned to gift him.
It took a long time. Not because she had a whole stack of romances to purchase; it was still just the one book.
But even the one book necessitated a long conversation with the woman who was taking payment.
Despite the sunglasses, there was no hiding the delight on Tess’s face as she chatted.
Her expression was open, enthusiastic, so different to her expression when she talked to Gabe.
Every emotion she felt was on display. It was more than that.
Gabe pondered exactly what it was. Eventually he settled on an answer.
Whoever she was talking to, whether it was Rochester or the bookseller, or even when she was trading angry words and insults with Gabe, Tess put her whole heart into it.
Instead of theorising about life, debating its principles and nuances, Tess was living it.
Of course, she didn’t see it like that. She was too preoccupied with what she didn’t have; some no doubt useless lunk of a boyfriend who probably wouldn’t appreciate her, the glittering writing career, the big things that she thought she wanted.
The big things were often overrated. Gabe wished that Tess understood that, because he’d never come across anyone who took as much joy in the small pleasures that made up a life as she did.
Once she’d finally stopped chatting and walked away from the stalls, she paused and took a moment simply to appreciate the sun on her face. She smiled as a man went past with three prancing dachshunds on a lead.
Then she signalled to Gabe that she was ready to resume the walk and talk, a mischievous expression on her face.