‘Judy,’ he had said, ‘I have looked you up. It says that you are a native perennial of the rocky places near the sea. You were eaten by the Scots to prevent scurvy. You are often found on the coasts of Scotland and Ireland but are not elsewhere. I think I shall go to Scotland and Ireland. Perhaps we shall go together.’ ‘Lovage is just a herb,’ she had said. ‘Quite common. It grows in lots of gardens. But I would love to go to Scotland or Ireland with you. We could go in the next vacation.’ He had smiled and kissed her. And she had never found out if he had really meant that they might go. If I had my time again, she thought, would I do things differently? Would I try to pin him down, to discover if his intentions were honourable? She couldn’t imagine many of her students putting up with any vague suggestions of promises of a possible future. They would be emailing lists of ground rules to be agreed. Or perhaps they would just take it all in their very long strides. Such big girls, such Amazons she had in her classes nowadays.
