Of Curry, Cake and Classics
Part 1 of 2

By S. Faith, © 2008

Words: 12,530 (Pt 1: 6,234)

Rating: T / PG-13

Summary: What if the first Turkey Curry Buffet meeting had been at the first Turkey Curry Buffet?

Disclaimer: Still not mine. Sigh.

Notes: Oh, painful memories of being this age… complete with Bridget-style specs and braces. And hair. Also? I am made of fail on titles lately.

Many years ago

As much as he enjoyed his academic pursuits, he was very glad to be home again for the holidays. Unlike most of his contemporaries, he rather liked his parents; he got on well with them perhaps, as his mother said, because he had always been mature beyond his eighteen years. While he wasn't entirely sure he agreed with that—judging by his lack of social interaction with persons of the opposite sex—he was glad all the same that he had such a good relationship with them.

He'd learned on Boxing Day that they had been invited to attend a party on New Year's Day at the house of people who had just that autumn moved into the village; the wife of the pair had been a friend of his mother's from before she was married, and she had stayed in touch with both her friend and her friend's husband regularly over the years. He felt rather honoured to have been asked to attend, as it meant he was thought of as a man, no longer a boy.

Upon their arrival, they were all greeted with not only the overpoweringly strong smell of curry and welcoming smiles from his parents' friends, but he found especially effusive and almost embarrassing praise heaped upon himself.

"My, how you've grown since I saw you last! So tall and handsome, and smart as a whip, I hear!" said the woman, his mother's friend, clapping her hands together and beaming.

"Thank you, ma'am," he said quietly, feeling a flood of self-consciousness race across his cheeks. He was in fact tall, but felt like his limbs were too long and awkward for his body; his hair was unruly and unfashionably cut, and he did not consider himself in the least bit handsome; and while he did think he possessed an above average intelligence, it was nothing he would ever have dreamt of boasting about. However, it would have been rude not to thank her for her well-intentioned compliments.

"So modest," continued the woman, "and polite."

"And Mark," said his mother, "I'd like you to meet Mr Jones."

He turned to find himself face to face with a round-faced, genial-looking man, who extended his hand towards Mark and smiled. "Nice to see you again," he said. "Care for a drink?"

"Colin!" said his wife in exasperation.

"Pam, he is of age," reminded Colin Jones.

He heard his own parents chuckle, as Pam looked nonplussed.

"Let me get you a glass of punch," decided Colin, wandering away.

Mark found himself being introduced to what felt like scores of other family friends; he remained, for the most part, silent, bearing even the most intrusive of questions with dignity (or at least he thought he had). The worst of them was from a man called Geoffrey Alconbury, who, clearly in an advanced state of drunkenness, asked if he'd yet dipped his nib in the Cambridge ink, with exaggerated winking motions and a lecherous grin.

"Oh, Geoffrey! Don't embarrass Mark," helpfully chimed in his wife, Una, but then made Mark's mortification complete by adding, "Can't you tell he's sensitive?"

Colin finally reappeared with the punch, luridly red and smelling strongly of rum. "Sorry, Mark," he said. "Looks like you could use it."

"Thank you," he said gratefully, taking a long drink, choking a little on the alcohol taste. The Alconburys wandered away to mingle.

"Heard you're at Cambridge," Colin Jones said. "Very impressive."

"Thank you, sir."

"Heading for a particular vocation?" he asked.

"Law," he said.

Colin nodded. "Think that might suit you well."

"Thank you," he said. "How do you like life in Grafton Underwood so far?"

"Much smaller than Buckingham, that's for sure," he said. "I like it though; have always wanted to live in a small village, Pam adores this house, and some of her friends are settled nearby, your parents included."

"It is a very nice house," agreed Mark, glad to have conversation of a more mundane nature.

"Nice and quiet, and the air's fresh," continued Colin. "Thank goodness for Kettering so nearby, though, or my little moppet might go mad with boredom."

"Your… your what?" Mark asked, slightly perplexed.

"My little girl," he said with a smile. "Going from a town the size of Buckingham to a village like this is a bit of a culture shock for her. I think it's going to be good for her, though, growing up here." Colin sipped his own drink. "Let me see if I can't find that child of mine, introduce you properly."

Mark offered a smile and with that Mr Jones wandered away. When he didn't immediately return, Mark figured he'd probably gotten waylaid by his wife.

As he continued with his drink, Mark looked around the room and noticed that he was something of an anomaly at the gathering. There were some younger children, aged eight or nine, and there were adults who were all about his parents' age; there were no other people his own age. Even though he'd always been treated as mature beyond his years, he felt like he was standing there in a sort of limbo. It made him realise that part of his life, his childhood, was truly behind him; even since his arrival home from Cambridge from the break, he noticed his father speaking to him more like an equal than a son. It was a strange realisation to have, made him feel almost like something intangible had been lost that he would never recover, but he was definitely no longer a boy. He was a man.

He wandered to sit on what appeared to be a brand new sofa, watching the people mill about around him, listening to their conversations, though contributed little to them due to his somewhat introspective and taciturn nature. He was more comfortable listening and observing.

There came a point, however, when the constant chatter, the trumpets of laughter, the smoky haze and the abundance of sloshing alcoholic drinks really got to him, and he realised he needed some air. Looking downward to avoid meeting anyone's eye and inadvertently sparking an unwanted chat, he wound his way towards the kitchen and headed for the back door. He thought if he could just get outside and have some air, some silence, for just a little while, then he might be okay.

The sun had long gone down and it was rather on the chilly side, but with the dress shirt he was wearing under the thick knit jumper (a cable-knit with bulky braid patterns), coupled with the warmth he felt from the rum in his punch drink, he thought he'd be all right long enough on the back patio without his coat.

Immediately a light a little ways away caught his eye, too close to be the neighbour's house, and he squinted his eyes. As his vision adjusted to the darkness, he recognised it was a potting shed or some sort of storage unit, and the light he saw was shining through the window. He approached it, his shoes crunching in the snow, and peered into the window.

What he saw was what appeared to be the horrified face of a female child, who then opened her mouth and screamed.

He ducked around and into the shed, hoping to calm her, but his entrance seemed to make her look more terrified even as she went silent. "It's all right," he said as she backed away. He was surprised to see a lit cigarette between her fingers, especially since she appeared to be young; not quite adolescent, judging by her development, or rather, the lack thereof. "I'm sorry. I'm just here for the party and saw the light on."

She was blonde; her hair was fashioned into what he presumed was a trendy bob, which looked very out of place on her, dressed as she was in a pink frock with white polka dots and a wide, white belt. She wore plastic spectacles with frames that turned up at the corners, blue eyes wide behind the lenses.

"You scared the bloody hell out of me," she said. He realised she had orthodontics on her teeth; very peculiar for a girl her age, as was such colourful language.

"I'm sorry," he said again. "I didn't know anyone was out here." He furrowed his brow, wondering if the Joneses regularly kept children in the potting shed. "What are you doing out here, anyway?"

………

Oh, God.

The whole day had been a nightmare, a bloody nightmare from start to finish; recently arrived to Grafton Underwood, she had been excited to learn that her parents' friends had a son already in university, and she looked forward to impressing him with her maturity and style. She'd even picked out the most fashionable dress she owned, had planned on going into Kettering to get her hair cut into a new, trendy style that all the girls in London were wearing.

Then her mother had caught wind of her plans.

"Oh, no, you will not wear that ridiculous outfit," she said with a sniff. "You'll wear that lovely pink dress from Auntie Una. And I'm not going to give you money for something I can do myself. How hard can it be? Sit down and bring me the scissors."

"No!" she said. "Mum, please. I've got my own money."

"Bridget, you will not be walking all the way into Kettering in the dead of winter."

"It's not that cold," Bridget said, "it's not that far away, and I'm not a baby. I'm fourteen."

Her mother sighed in an exaggerated, long-suffering manner. "I'll tell you what. I'll ask Auntie Mavis to pop over. She used to work in a beautician's salon when we were younger. She can trim your hair for you. How does that sound?"

It wasn't as if she had a choice. She agreed.

Sitting at the kitchen table, with Mavis Enderby combing and snipping while her mother directed each cut, her glasses on the table before her and no mirror with which to monitor progress anyway, was torture of the highest calibre.

"There! Perfect!"

Bridget threw the towel off of her shoulders, put her glasses back on and dashed to the loo, gasping when she saw the resultant cut. It was the right general idea, a bob, but the fringe was far too short as was the length of the bob itself. The net result made her face look even rounder and more childish than it already looked, more like one of the Campbell's soup kids than Madonna, and one with glasses and a mouth full of metal brackets, which was even more appalling to consider.

"Now Bridget," said her mother's voice, "come out and thank Auntie Mavis."

Bridget would have preferred to go out and sock Auntie Mavis in the jaw, but she took in a deep breath, and went back out to thank the woman.

"Ohhhh, any time," gushed Mavis before turning to Pam and speaking as if Bridget were not even there. "Getting so tall, your Bridget; remember the day she was born. Before you know it she'll be a young lady, grown up and blooming all over the place. You know." Mavis and her mother shared a look; Bridget merely wanted to die, knowing exactly to what they were referring: someday having a chest that was not practically as flat as a pancake, something she rather looked forward to so that people would stop treating her like she was a child, despite the horror of bra purchasing excursions sure to come, previously experienced in the trial-run of training bra shopping.

"I'm going in my room," sulked Bridget, stomping off.

"You're going to help with the potatoes," called her mother. "Una will be here very soon."

She wondered if she could will her hair to grow back, will her mother to come to her senses and allow her to wear the outfit of her choosing, and will herself a more mature figure, all by five in the evening.

She intentionally bunged up the potatoes so badly she had been sent out of the kitchen; triumphant, she went to her room, stared at the dress hanging on the closet door, stared at her reflection in her bureau mirror, and sighed, thus deflating. There was no getting around it. None of those things were going to happen.

At five, she slipped into white tights and pulled the horrible dress over her head, wetting her hair down a little to try to calm it, smooth out the slight wave to make it look longer. She wasn't pre-pubescent boy flat, but the dress sure made her look like she was.

It wasn't ten minutes after the guests arrived that she wanted to go and hide in the cupboard under the stairs and not come out until she was eighteen, or at least until she had swapped braces for breasts. She could only bear the comments likening her to a 'sweet little girl' or a 'dear child' with a forced, clenched-teeth smile.

Bridget definitely had to get away—meeting a grown-up university man could not happen under these circumstances—but her room was too obvious a hiding place, and to be dragged back to the party by the ear would be the ultimate humiliation. She also couldn't really walk anywhere, as it was full dark, and it being New Year's Day, her friends were likely to be otherwise occupied. Not that she had any of them close at hand, anyway.

Overhearing her father talking about not being able to wait until the spring to get some gardening going reminded her of his little shed out back, and she smiled. That would be her salvation.

Slyly she made her way to the kitchen, then slipped out into the night, racing across the snowpack to the shed, cursing herself for not having changed out of the infantile Mary Janes she was wearing. Quickly she found the light and switched it on. It was a little grimy and smelled of potting soil, but it might as well have been heaven.

A rather boring version of heaven, she realised in short order; she wished she'd been able to grab a magazine or her portable Walkman cassette player. Glancing around the shed, she spotted a packet of her father's cigarettes and grinned. She'd been curious to give smoking a go after seeing older girls at school looking so nonchalant and vogue doing so. She swiped one out of the pack, took up the book of matches, and touched it to the tip of the stick, inhaling slightly.

Then coughed violently.

Fighting to regain her breath, she stared at the burning thing and wondered how people sucked in blazing hot smoke on a regular basis, but then felt the effect of the nicotine flooding into her system. It felt… interesting, and she knew at once exactly why it became addictive.

She had slightly more success with the second drag, then the third, feeling smug at having mastered such a mature, adult skill in such a short amount of time. She smiled, practicing holding the cigarette in ways she'd seen the stars do so in the movies.

Movement in the corner of her eye caused her to turn quickly. When she saw a face framed in the windowpane—a man's face, glowing eerily in the light from the room—she literally shrieked, then went paralysed with fear as he entered the shed. For his part he was not acting like a mad killer or crazy person, and he spoke in a placating tone, saying he was just here for the party.

He was tall, with long, thin limbs, and had kind of unruly, bushy brown hair and dark eyes. He was dressed in a horrendous jumper with giant, thick cables on the front, and had a button-down dress shirt underneath it. She realised this must have been the university man she'd been looking forward to impressing that day; instead, he turned out to be the nerdiest person she'd ever met, and she fought the urge to giggle, not feeling quite so bad about her own awful dress and disaster of a haircut.

He asked her in a rather patronising tone why she was even out there in the potting shed anyway.

She realised that he could very easily snitch on her. "I just snuck a fag from my dad and wanted to try it," she said pleadingly. "Don't tell anyone."

He narrowed his eyes. "Little young for that, aren't you? Shouldn't you be with the others?"

"The others?"

"The other children."

A surge of indignant rage raced through her. "I am not a child. I'm fourteen."

He blinked in surprise, his expression betraying the fact that he obviously thought she still was. Grr, she thought.

"Regardless," he said eventually. "It's very bad for you. Not a habit you should start."

She rolled her eyes. Christ, she thought, he's practically a grandfather already. "So why are you out here?" she asked, changing the subject away from a potential tattling. "This is at least my house."

"It was a bit noisy and, um, smoky in there," he said, his eyes pointedly fixed on the plume rising from the cig. "Wanted to get away."

She laughed, leaning against the work bench. "Yeah, well, my parents' parties have that effect on people."

She saw a reluctant smile play upon his lips.

"So you're going to uni?" she asked.

He nodded.

"That must be really cool," she continued. "Staying out as long as you like with no curfew, parties and dancing and drinking."

"It's Cambridge. It's very hard work," he said matter-of-factly. "And I hope you are not entertaining thoughts of drinking as well as smoking."

She snorted. "Like I haven't tried that too."

………

Mark merely stared at her; he did not quite know what to make of this girl, dressed as adorably as a child, clearly quick-witted, bright and not without a sense of humour, but so anxiously determined to be adult beyond her years.

"You know," he said at last, "you really shouldn't be in such a hurry to grow up. Enjoy your childhood while you can."

He watched as she gave him a dirty look, then, without taking her gaze from him, brought the cigarette up to her lips and took in a long, deliberate, rebellious drag. Unfortunately it must have been a deeper drag than she'd ever taken, and she started hacking and coughing again.

"Oh, yes, I see your point," he said with dry sarcasm. "Definitely makes you look more mature." He walked back towards the shed door. "Well. I'd better get what I came outside for, some fresh air. Good night."

He heard her call out some kind of half-thought-out insult about falling in a lake so that his jumper would weigh him down and drown him, but he had stepped too far away to hear the rest of it. It was starting to get downright frigid despite the jumper, so he decided to slip in through the kitchen door again then wandered into the dining room, realising the buffet had been served.

"Mark!" It was his mother. "Have you had any supper yet?"

"Just about to," he replied, grabbing a plate and standing in line with his mum.

"Are you having a nice time?" she asked.

"It's been… interesting," he said neutrally.

"Oh," she said. "I'm glad to hear that."

It hadn't been a particularly positive answer, but he let it stand as it was.

He knew he probably should have gone straight to the Joneses—or rather, Mr Jones, the seemingly more rational of the two—with the knowledge that their daughter was out in the shed doing something illicit. It was his responsibility as an adult, and it was truly in her best interest to be discouraged from experimenting with something as dangerous to her health as smoking. For some reason, though, he hesitated. Even though he had never said he wouldn't, she had asked him not to say anything, and he did not want to be thought of as a betrayer of confidences.

Just as they were almost to the front of the line, he saw Mr Jones heading into the kitchen and out through the back door. Mark felt a sense of relief, that Colin Jones would see the light in the shed and find his daughter without any intervention on his part; Mark suspected she'd deserve whatever punishment she'd get.

Moments later all present heard the back door open, her father's voice calm but forceful. "—can't believe you," he said, "filching cigarettes and sneaking out to the shed for a smoke. Have I taught you nothing?" As he marched her by the arm through the party crowd in the dining room (which had fallen absolutely silent), even though she was clearly mortified to be the centre of such a spectacle, she threw a withering gaze at Mark, filled with hurt, even betrayal. Colin Jones continued, "I'm so disappointed in you."

Mark instantly knew that she believed he'd told her father she was out there smoking. He actually felt badly for her; as much as he didn't approve of what she'd done, he knew how desperately she wanted to be considered an adult.

Colin Jones continued walking with his daughter up the stairs, barking coolly angry statements to her about how maybe she wasn't yet so old as to avoid a hiding; her protestations were feeble at best. The rest of the party had not yet made a peep. Mark had the feeling that an outburst of that sort from the usual quiet Mr Jones had shocked everyone into silence.

Pam Jones spoke up first. "You know young girls," she said, gabbling nervously with a smile, "how they like to defy and rebel at every possible opportunity…" Mark heard a couple of sympathetic sounds from the party crowd.

Several long, uneasy minutes later, Colin reappeared, looking a little sheepish. "I'm sorry about that, folks," he said. "She's not adjusting to the move as well as I'd thought, I guess."

There was a nervous laugh that permeated the room before party chatter resumed and the food line progressed on. Even though he had an unsettled feeling in his stomach from the events that had just transpired, Mark set his now-empty punch glass down in order to load his plate up with dinner: curried turkey with potatoes and carrots. It smelled good enough to give him his appetite back, and as he exited the line, he took a little more punch, this time from the unadulterated punch bowl.

He found a spot next to a table where he could stand and eat. His thoughts turned again how horrible he felt for her, new kid in a new town; he wanted to let her know that he had no hand in her being caught in the shed with a cig, despite having considered doing so. Perhaps he could ask her father to let her know, but then he'd know that Mark had been out there with her and hadn't said anything afterwards, therefore seeming complicit in her wrong-doing. He sighed. He couldn't stand the thought of being dishonest to his elders. He realised he would have to talk to Colin Jones.

"Sir," he said, approaching Mr Jones on his way back from depositing his sullied dish onto the dirties pile, "I wanted to speak to you privately about your daughter."

Colin nodded, looking serious. "Man to man. I understand."

Colin led the way back to the kitchen. Mark waited for the door to swing shut before speaking. "I'd gone out for some air and saw her out there with the cigarette."

"I'm sorry for whatever she might have said to you," he said. "She has been surly since Christmastime. Think it's finally sinking in that we're here to stay."

"There is no need to apologise to me," said Mark. "Rather, I wanted to apologise to you."

"Whatever for?"

Mark was very confused. "For not coming straight to you to let you know. I had intended to."

Colin smiled. "Don't trouble yourself about it," he said. "It isn't your job to keep her in line. Besides, it was inevitable I should find her; I was craving a cigarette myself and remembered I left them out there."

Mark was not sure he felt any better. "I'm afraid, though, that she rather thinks I did tell you, after she asked me not to say anything," Mark said. "Will you be sure to tell her that I'm not actually a traitor?"

"Why don't you go on up and tell her yourself? I'm quite in the doghouse with my daughter at the moment, I think, and it might be nice for her to know she does have an ally in this world," he said, a touch of irony in his voice. "Her door's the first on the left, down the hall to the right when you go upstairs. Don't be surprised if she doesn't let you in."

………

Bloody snooty high-minded double-crossing bastard!

Bridget laid on her bed, staring up at the ceiling, tears still in her eyes from her humiliation and anger. She could not believe that the tall, bushy-haired geek from Cambridge had gone straight into the house and snitched on her; could not believe that her father dragged her in by the arm like a child and embarrassed her in front of everyone, multiplied by the fact that she was dressed in a frock that not even Shirley Temple would have been willing to wear on a bad day, and her hair was a fright wig.

She heard a gentle rapping at the door. "Bugger off, Dad," she called back, turning over on her bed and driving her face into the pillow.

"It's not your father. It's me. We… met in the shed."

She reared up and angrily called out, "You can bugger off twice as hard, then."

"I—just wanted to let you know I didn't tell your father."

She drew her brows together and shouted back, "Yeah, right. He just happened to find me."

"He told me he was looking for his cigarettes."

She got up, suddenly furious, and went to the door, opening it to see him towering over her, though he was blurry as she didn't have on her glasses. "Thought you said you didn't tell him," she said defiantly.

"I didn't—we spoke before I came up here. I thought about it, but I didn't tell him."

She stared up at him. "Yeah, well, still got caught, didn't I?"

"That's your own fault," he said in a rather stern voice.

"If you say 'I told you so'," she grumbled, "I'm going to kick you hard where it hurts."

She swore she heard him chuckle. "I'll be sure to say no such thing." He then asked, his tone a little more serious, "You're not still stinging, are you?"

"What?"

"Your… punishment."

Her mouth gaped open, and to her horror tears were filling her eyes again; she realised that while she was being given the longest lecture in her life by her father, this strange boy—and maybe everyone at the party—thought she had been given a few smacks instead; he must have assumed that her tears were from a painful backside and not the tears of the persecuted damsel-in-distress that she was. "I. Am. Not. A. Child!" she said, her voice tremulous but strong.

"I only meant—"

She slammed the door shut in his face, marched back to her bed, and flung herself down on it in a most dramatic manner.

Bastard!

………

He hadn't meant anything by it, only concern because she was obviously still crying, and after what Colin had said about maybe not being too old for that sort of punishment, it seemed a logical conclusion to draw.

"I'm sorry," he said, though got no response; she either didn't accept it, or didn't hear him for her renewed crying. He opened the door, saw her on her bed, face down in her pillow, shoulders rocking with sobs. "I'm sorry," he said again.

He heard her stop crying, sniff, then her muffled voice: "I said go away."

"Actually, no," he said, "you didn't."

Silence, then: "I meant to."

He took a few steps into the room, which seemed to have books of one kind or another on every flat surface (including the floor), and decided to try to offer friendship to her, or at least an ear. "You can talk to me, if you like; I'm not so old that I don't remember what it was like to be fourteen."

She snorted a laugh in disbelief. "I don't think you could possibly understand."

"Try me."

She was silent even still, and did not turn to look at him, but then he heard her speak. "All my friends are in Buckingham. We talked all the time on the phone when I first got here in November, but now… they can't be buggered to call back. It's like they forgot about me. I have practically no friends here and there's nothing to do except walk to Kettering once in a while in the occasional search of civilisation."

"No one understands you."

She turned to look at him at last with red eyes and an irritated expression, then sat up on the bed; the dress made her look very much like a young girl and not the young lady he now knew her to be. "You don't have to be a jerk about it."

"No, I mean, that's how you feel. Like no one understands you."

She blinked her eyes, wiping wetness away with her fingers, then squinted at him as she was still without her glasses. "I don't think anyone does. And it's not like I can just hop in a car and go somewhere else, because A, middle of nowhere and B, kind of can't drive." She sighed, looking to the side. "Feel like a prisoner here."

"Have you talked to your parents? Your father—"

"My father," she said, interrupting him, "is a pretty good guy, but… I don't know. His work takes him away a lot and sometimes… sometimes I think he thinks I'm still a little girl. My mother… she loves it out here with all of her friends… she doesn't understand why I don't just make more. Like making friends is as easy as making ice cubes, especially in the horrible things she makes me wear, like this obnoxious, awful dress."

"It's not that bad. It's cute. It's nice."

She looked at him like he were mad, then, with a pointed look to his jumper, said, "About as nice as that jumper." Knowing how she really felt about it, he decided to change tack.

"It is easy for some people," he offered. "It's not for me, either. When I first got to Cambridge I spent nearly all my time in my room, to the point where I was three weeks ahead in my reading."

"No!" she exclaimed, as if such a thing were inconceivable.

"It's true," he said. "Not even a girlfriend. It was a fellow in the quad who finally came 'round and dragged me out of my room, made me come out to dinner every day with him and his friends. I realised that if I wanted to have friends, I had to be a friend. I had to try."

"But I am trying. I've been calling my friends in—"

"I don't mean the ones you left behind," he said gently. "The ones who want to stay in touch with you will make the effort. No, I mean don't wait around for someone to physically drag you to the lunch table, so to speak."

She looked at him, still squinting slightly, but with an intensity that told him that she was really thinking about what he'd said. Perhaps the crisis was over.

"I heard something earlier about cake. Why not come down and have some?" he offered.

"I can't," she said balefully. "I'm… banished to my room."

He smiled. "Would you like me to bring you a piece?"

"Only if it's chocolate," she said with a small smile.

He took one last look at her before heading downstairs, and tried to think about what she might look like once she was past this sort of awkward stage between childhood and adulthood. He could tell that with her golden blonde hair, blue eyes, and winning smile, she would turn out someday to be a really lovely woman.

He saw that the cake was in fact out for the taking and was a deep chocolate with raspberry glaze, so he grabbed a plate for each of them.

He was attempting to covertly make his way back upstairs (since he was sure a piece of cake was forbidden) when he heard his father's voice: "Didn't think you cared much for sweets, son."

He whipped around to face the man, caught in the act of secret cake smuggling. "I don't."

"Two pieces then?"

"They aren't both for me," he explained. "Bringing one to… a friend."

"Ahhh, Jones' young daughter, eh? Mission of mercy, I see, I see… well, carry on, my boy," he said, patting Mark's shoulder fondly.

When he got to her door, he rapped quietly three times.

"Yes?" he heard her ask.

"Chocolate," he said.

After a beat, the door opened. Looking much recovered from just a few minutes ago, she had donned her glasses again and her hair appeared to be a little less unruly. She accepted the plate. "Thank you," she said with a little smile. "Come on in."

He figured he had better before he was caught with the cake in the hallway.

He took a seat on a chair in front of her dressing table while she perched on the corner of her bed. She dug into the cake; it was clear that she thought it was more than acceptable.

He glanced around the room, his eyes grazing over the piles of books everywhere. "I see you like to read," he said, eating a bite of his own cake. It was very good, very moist.

"Hm? Oh, yes, yes." She smiled lopsidedly. "A lot of it's crap, I know."

"Certainly that's not," he said, pointing to a book at her bedside, Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice, "though I've never had the desire to read it."

She looked at him like he was spouting blasphemy. "Why not?"

"It's all romance and such, isn't it? It's really more for…" He realised at her look that he had better not continue.

"Were you going to say 'more for girls'?" she said archly, though he detected the hint of a smirk.

"It is all about women and life in that era, which honestly, I have little interest in," he said to justify his opinion.

"It is so much more than that, though," she said rather animatedly, her eyes bright, her cheeks flushing as she spoke; Mark could not help but think that with such a passionate nature, the boys would soon be fighting over her. "It's a very funny, very witty historical picture of daily life, of customs, of relationships, interactions and personalities; it shows that things aren't always as they appear, and that sometimes the thing you want most is found in the least likely of places—" She stopped suddenly; she then filled the silence with another bite of cake. After finishing, she said, "I'm just saying not to pass over it because you think it's 'for girls'."

"Duly noted," he said with a smile, charmed by her spirited defence.

"In fact," she said, bouncing up off of the corner of the bed and reaching for the bedside table, "you can have this one. I have a hardbound copy too."

He took the book from her hand, a little dumbstruck. "Thank you," he said stupidly.

"Let me know what you think," she said, then added wryly, "if you have time between all your reading at Cambridge."

"My dear girl," came a voice from the hallway, "I can't bear… oh!"

It was Mr Jones coming into the room, carrying a plate of curried turkey, surprised to see Mark was there.

"I'm sorry, sir," Mark said, standing with his cleared plate. "We got to talking."

"And to eating cake, I see," he said wryly.

"It's my fault," she said. "I didn't tell him I was sent up here without supper."

"Yes, well, your mother convinced me that wasn't such a good idea, though I suspect you hardly have the appetite for turkey curry now." He looked accusingly at her empty plate then turned to Mark. "I'm sorry for the bother, my boy," said Colin.

"It was no bother at all," Mark said. "I very much enjoyed the company."

………

The irony of her statement had struck her as she was saying it: things were not always as they seemed, and her own prejudices had very nearly cost her a rather amusing conversation. The university man had turned out to be not so bad after all, kind, friendly and helpful, even if he had turned out to be rather a geek.

As she recounted the events into her diary—a brand new Christmas present—she hoped he would read the book; if for no other reason, she thought, that it might help get him a girlfriend.

Links (well, these would be links if links were allowed):

Helen Fielding's to-read list from O magazine, which inspired Bridget's defense of the book:

"Pride and Prejudice By Jane Austen

"This is my favorite book of all time. I pinched the plot for my novel Bridget Jones's Diary. I also came as near as I could to stealing its hero, Mr. Darcy, by turning him into Bridget's Mark Darcy. (I thought both plot and leading man had been well market-researched over a number of centuries, and that Jane Austen wouldn't mind. Anyway, she's dead.) Austen wrote about the minutiae of women's lives in a way that is funny and dazzlingly accurate, giving you insights into what was going on in the social world without your even realizing you're getting an incredible history lesson."

According to Wikipedia, the population of Buckingham is about ~11,500. The reported population of Grafton Underwood seem to vary between 99-200, but suffice to say, it's not a big town (which makes Mark and Bridget not ever meeting before they did seem even weirder). Grafton Underwood is, however, located v. close to Kettering, population ~51,000.