“From then on victory went now to our countrymen, now to their enemies: so that in this people the Lord could make trial (as he tends to) of this latter day Israel to see whether it loves him or not. This lasted right up till the year of the siege of Badon Hill, pretty well the last defeat of the villains, and certainly not the least. That was the year of my birth; as I know, one month of the forty-forth year since then has already passed.”

Gildas. DE EXCIDIO BRITONUM translated by Michael Winterbottom¹

CHAPTER 4 BATH

“Don't forget. The Universe is full of babies, all desperate to be conceived, and they don't care how they do it.”

“Yes of course.” Said Irene “You’re like my Mother.”

“Well, staying here on your own….” The other girl, Lillie, was slightly worried. Well, actually not worried at all, but she thought it polite to appear worried. “You know I’d stay with you, but I promised I’d be back. I mean there’s plenty of room in the bus here. We could drop you back in Clifton. It’s just that, staying on your own… I mean….”

“I’m not on my own. That’s the whole point. Gorgeous engineering students. And Bath University is hardly some inner city hell hole is it? I can always go and crash at Susan’s if I feel like it.” Irene peeled off her muddy overalls and dropped them on the minibus floor. Now she was just in a short dress with belt tight round her waist. And muddy boots. Damn. She should have remembered a change of shoes.

“I know. You can’t wait to try that psychology stuff, can you. But, you’re not always going to pick up nice boys you know. I mean they aren’t all nice.” Lillie was jealous. Sometimes very jealous. Getting off with boys was sport to Irene, while most girls….

“Are you coming or not?” called someone from the minibus
“I’ll be all right. I want to meet real men. Engineers, not accountants. Now off you go.”

Irene waved as they drove into the lower level service road under the main university buildings.

Bath University was built in the 1960’s when brutally functional concrete was fashionable. But this evening, in light borrowed from the pink clouds of sunset, it looked almost pretty. Irene walked up the curving ramp under the Norwood tower block to the Parade, a large patio area, at the same height as tree tops growing through gaps from the service area beneath.

The library's glass front reflected the sunset, almost hiding students at rows of computer monitors, with shelves of traditional books on the floors above.

There was a small supermarket, a bank, and laundrette at parade level, while the accommodation blocks, labs and lecture theatres were multi stories of pink and gold sunlit windows. There was even a roof bar where old professors could lean over the railings to ogle students.

It was all so different from her own university in Bristol. That was a nineteenth century “red brick” that had grown up piecemeal on umpteen sites round the city. She had no idea where the professors socialised, or even if they did at all. She was lucky to share the basement of a Georgian terrace in Clifton, just a short walk from the Students Union building, and not have to come by bus from miles away.

Yet in Bath everything was neatly arranged round the same site.

Then she heard music from up an open flight of stairs. The Plug Student Union Bar. The obvious name for a university called Bath.

She was half way up when a man came leaping down, almost running into her. Irene tried not to smile as he revealed what he thought of her. His eyebrows went up, his eye lids went up, his lips twitched, his jaw slightly sagged, and his step faltered. All the signs.

“Sorry” he gasped, and ran down and under the stairs, into a passage under the Norwood accommodation block.

Oh well. There would be others.

The Plug had recently been painted all black again after experiments with orange and white. Black walls, ceilings and floor, black air con pipes in the ceiling,

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