Читать книгу The Dream Weavers онлайн | страница 10

They had first met going backwards and forwards to college. He was the best-looking boy she had ever seen. Tall, dark hair, scruffy, but not overly so, and with the most charming smile, he had made a beeline for her on the bus on the first day of term and sat down beside her. She only realised how much of a catch he was when she saw the other girls scowling. Their friendship became close and they started to go out together at weekends and sometimes in the evenings to local dances or the pub. No one else had ever had a look in. They confided in each other and told each other their hopes and dreams – and her dreams of the future included Mark. There was only one thing she had kept from him. Her secret life.

When she was a child, it had been her grandmother who listened to her half-excited, half-frightened stories of another world, and told her they were normal. Her grandmother understood, saw as she did, and warned her that not everyone saw these things and that people would tell her that it was all her imagination. In an over-rational, hypercritical world it was easier to keep quiet about her gift than talk about it. Her Nan had also warned her that some people would be afraid of her.

Bea and Mark went on to university together, she to read English, he to do business studies with a view to joining his father’s firm in the City. In her secret heart of hearts, she’d imagined that one day they would marry. For two years, life continued according to her plan, but then came his sudden announcement and her world fell apart.

He was going to give up his business course and become a priest. They would still be there at uni together, he assured her, still travel up and down on the same train at the beginning and end of term. But, perhaps inevitably, she realised almost at once that he was becoming a stranger. When her parents moved to London, she went with them. His original plan to join her there was abandoned. After graduation he took a curacy far away in the North of England. They lost touch. She applied for a post as an English teacher close enough to her parents to stay with them until she found her feet.