The Tall Girl from Somerset 4 Harvey

HARVEY   November and an old Mini.

Oxford  1964

Anne met, in her first year at Oxford, in mid-November, when she had been there just over a month, when the autumn was damp and the darkness fell at four o’clock, and it was cold, a tall 22-year-old who was studying Spanish. He was in his last year at university and, like Anne, he was from Somerset.  He came from Wilcombe, a village south-west of the Mendips, on the road towards Exmoor and Devon, where the hills finish and Somerset starts to level off and devote itself to draining its fields to leave them dry enough for farming.  It was about six miles from Berringford and the old farmhouse, Erewhon, but of Erewhon we will talk later.

Harvey had ahead of him just a few more months of university and then he was to enter the wide world.  Anne had just left school, but women are older in their ways than men so this was a good combination, and Anne and Harvey combined well.  They met at a college play competition.  She had gone because a friend from her college was acting and needed moral support.  He had gone because, as a fourth–year student who had acted in previous university productions, he was one of the judges.  The hall had been hired for the three nights of the competition, and it was up in Headington, some way from the centre of Oxford.  At the end of the evening Anne felt tired.  It wasn’t easy, the first term at university.  Everything was very different from school and there seemed to be so few guidelines.  So little help. She had to take a bus back and it was cold and windy in the street. She was waiting at the bus stop when an old and rather scratched Mini braked suddenly and stopped by her. Harvey leaned over and rolled the passenger window down, and asked her if she wanted a lift back to her college.  She said, “Thanks”.

"Thanks." It was just one word and a short one at that, but its effect on him was amazing.  It was just a monosyllable, but when Harvey heard it he felt at ease. It wasn’t the word.  It was the tone, the pitch, the eyes and the smile. He relaxed and felt pleasantly warm, which was not the result of the car heater because that wasn’t working at all well.  He really should get that fixed.  On the way down the hill into Oxford he talked to Anne without thinking what he had to say, without having to prepare the next joke, without having to fit in anything special.  He was himself.   No need to impress. He drove her back to her college gates, and the car engine sounded better than before.  Even the heater began show signs of life. He asked if they could meet the next day, and the next day was Saturday, and Saturday is always a day for optimism.  Anne felt better than at any time since she had come to Oxford.  She said yes, and it seemed a long time to wait for the next day, for both of them.