The Old Television Studio, Chapter One

It was a curious quality of the boy next door that Jenny could never picture his face. He looked like one or two different people she knew, between whom she guessed there must already have been a resemblance. Sometimes she was certain she saw brown hair, and eyes that stared too much. At other times however every detail would vanish behind a shrouding mask of twilight, except the eyes. That shadow was before Jenny now as she made her final checks in the hallway.

There’d been another text-message in the night. The worst so far.

Purposefully Jenny snapped her elastic chin-strap into place, then picked up her bag and opened the front door.

Out unto bars of morning sunlight slanting between brick garden-walls strode the miasmatic girl, every sprig and scent in the bright-and-early pricking out the crisp sweetness which breathed from her. Her shorts and the splendid swish of her fair hair were trained on the neighbours’ windows. There was no contemptuous over-the-shoulder glance. Jenny’s nose was high, and her bicycle-helmet bobbed a-triumph.

She wheeled her steed out of the garage and proceeded to mount at the top of the road, kicking one sneaker-sole in the direction of the boy next door’s bedroom.

He was the one who wanted a war.

Affecting breeziness, Jenny pushed away and pedalled from her large castle-like house close to the centre of Nottingham.

Earth.

Past corner-shop and allotment and church skimmed Jenny, trying her best to outstrip her cares. That boy next door. With the impossible-to remember face.

What was his name, even?

Oh, like Jenny cared. Anyway her memory was sometimes like that. There’d been other occasions when details that should have been easy to call forth mysteriously refused to come.

Present-day Nottingham wasn’t defended by The Four Heroes as it had been in the past, but they’d left the world this city, and other protectors from those old times remained. Would The Four Heroes have helped Jenny with her problem? Would one of their friends who was still here do so if she asked? Or should she at least tell a responsible adult, like you were supposed to?

It was just text-messaging though, and Jenny already heard quite enough about what a prissy missy and tattletale she was.

Maybe her problem wasn’t important enough.

But it wasn’t very nice either.

It wasn’t making Jenny feel as if she lived in a safe-haven for all mankind.

She cheered up however when she saw Robin, waiting with his bike at the park gates. He too was wearing his helmet, plus a smile which occupied more than half his face. Jenny treated him to triple-cheese in turn, and they rode off together for green woody deeps.

Ranging the rises and falls of cycle-trails, then later quietly walking, Robin and Jenny roamed gold-dappled glades that simmered with summer smell. By the ivy-wreathed walls of the university they held hands and talked about what it would be like when they were old enough to go. There were public netball courts close by and the pair of them played, Jenny going easy on him and still winning by a country mile.

She wanted to marry Robin.

Not in the silly way a primary-school girl said. Jenny by now was a bit big for that. Indeed, something had come on her since those years at Round Hill of which she knew marriage to be the route to much-needed exploration. This however was also obscurely related to the text-messages, and too uncomfortable a subject to dwell on just now.

But there was more. Jenny knew that as she looked back over the hours lately elapsed.

Marriage would be like this morning.

A little space set aside for people like Robin and herself.

Nice people.

Away from all the rest of it.

It was past noon. Regretfully Jenny and Robin pushed their bikes to the noisy main road junction off from the courts.

“You’re my Christmas pudding,” Robin told her.

“No, you’re my Christmas pudding,” Jenny corrected him seriously.

“Wish I could see your pants,” said Robin, wide-mouthed.

“Wish I could see yours,” replied Jenny with longing.

They held hands one last time. Then Robin had to go home for his lunch, while Jenny turned in the opposite direction and aimed her handlebars at the remainder of the day.

TO BE CONTINUED