Jane Gardam

The Flight of the Maidens

Chatto & Windus, 2000.

"I've known for a long time I can't go through with this, Lieselotte. College is asking too much of me. Please." They paid, retrieved the suitcase and went out into Baker Street, where, across from the Regent's Park, they could see the College lights shining through the trees. "Could you just make this one, last try?" asked Una; and Hetty, as they stood amid traffic on an island in the middle of the road, thought, She does look tired.

It's 1946 and the three friends are about to go up to university. But Hetty has been devastated by the recent death of her mother, and is now reluctant to embark on a new adventure far from home.

And so they walked on, and reached the park in the blue and golden autumn evening with transparent smoke going up from the piles of bonfire leaves in the grass, other leaves drifting down, scratching the paths. Along a side road, the traffic noise faded and black-painted iron gates stood before them wide open, joined overhead by a black and gold scroll, that made Una think of the coal cart. But on this scroll were Latin words...Down an avenue of flowering plane trees they went...The trees were very high above them with clusters of black round fruits dancing against the night. Side by side the three marched on, up two shallow steps between the urns; and here were the College doors