A prophecy

I attended my first tutorial of the term on Romanticism at eleven thirty. I hitched there and back, which I quite enjoyed as it was a superb warm autumn day.

The tutorial went OK, just a discussion about how the course is going to be run with two other tutees and my Personal Tutor, Don Carwardine. I have to present next week’s tutorial on Blake’s America, A Prophecy to the group. As D.C. rambled on quietly, my indecision over what to do about my course raged within. I’m still very undecided about what to do and as a result I’m not particularly bothered which course I take. Mr. Ingham was right—I have no ambition. Still, I left the tutorial feeling optimistic.

Mr Carwardine asked me to stay behind and asked how my summer was. I told him about Calverdale and my three months of inactivity and how this accorded well with my nature. He seems to be taking more notice than normal of my progress, and perhaps I’ve been identified as potential failure material?

As I wandered back towards Wickbourne Road, campus was in one of its bright, sparkling, lively moods and I kept seeing familiar faces. I bumped into Lindsey, her friend Liddy and Carl Cotton, who aim to be the nucleus of a potential RCP movement at the University. I know Lindsey has her reservations about being increasingly enmeshed by the commitment but Carl—who lives, breathes and sleeps RCP—no doubt dispels all her reservations when he’s with her.

He and Lindsey came back to our house in the late afternoon after a day of selling Next Steps, and she sat quietly on my bed with usual downcast eyes. Carl was critical of Barry’s band schemes: “I thought he’d grown out of that frame of mind when he was 15.”

Once Barry’s paid our rent of £208 he’ll have exactly £1 left to last him all term, and he wants to borrow £50 from me, an idea Carl doesn’t think much of. “I wouldn’t lend it to him.”