Dante? Isn't there beauty in age?'
'I guess, but it's tilting to one side and has that calliper thing at the bottom, to hold it up.' Dante pauses when he sees Beth's expression change to disappointment. 'Sorry, Beth. I shouldn't knock your favourite tree.'
She smiles and lowers her eyes. 'It's one of my only friends here, and you should be nice to her.'
'I promise. And this place is, like, beautiful.'
'Isn't it. So little has changed. Walk with me and I will show you things.'
For balance, she removes her hands, gloved in leather, from the deep pockets of her coat and steps over the guardrail that protects the tree. Dante holds out an arm and she takes his fingers to steady herself. For a moment, as she raises a leg, her coat parts and reveals a long limb encased in patent leather to the knee. Immediately, Dante's eyes are drawn to a glimpse of slender thigh, shimmering beneath a thin gauze of nylon, before the heavy drapes of her coat sway shut to conceal it from his eyes. Beneath her coat, the rest of her body is clothed in black too: a leather skirt on her slender hips and a black woollen rollneck sweater to hide the pale skin of her throat.
'Thank you,' she says, and stands close to him on the gravel path. Dante's chest tightens when he looks into her eyes, wide and laughing beneath heavy lashes. His face reddens and he becomes glad of the dark. 'I'm so pleased you came,' she says, and slips an arm around his elbow. 'Shall we walk?'
Dante fumbles for his cigarettes with his free hand. 'Love to.'
Gently, Beth tugs him down the gravel path where the loose pebbles crunch and slide beneath their feet. But when he ignites his Zippo she pulls away. He glances at her and watches her face and how it has become wary of the flame. Disapproves of smoking, he guesses. Or maybe he is spoiling the effect of the dark. In any case, he lights his cigarette and quickly douses the Zippo's blue-yellow fire.
'See the little sundial, Dante?'
'Oh yeah.'
'And this is St John's Arch.'
'What's left of it.'
'A ruin has its own magic. Old, forgotten things do.'
'They do. I'd like to try and catch this on my guitar. We usually play blues and Tom's the wizard, but I think we could get something from this.'
'Are girls impressed by musicians?'
Dante's jaw hangs slack. Beth throws her head back and laughs. Then she squeezes his arm and Dante is hit by a cloud of perfume as the scent disperses from the fur collar of her coat. 'We were thinking of a gig somewhere. Is there like an alternative pub in St Andrews?' he asks, trying to recover lost ground. Beth stays silent. As if his babble is of no consequence, she just smiles up at the looming heights of wall and mildewed roof-tile above them.
'Does Eliot know you're here?' Dante asks, hesitantly.
'Down here, Dante.' They leave the courtyard and walk into a narrow wynd where the dark air feels heavy. Chestnut trees form an arch overhead to blot out star and moonlight, while the hedge shields the gully from the court lights. On their right, the wall is smothered with ivy and occasionally indented with an indistinct doorway. It prevents the distant town lights from intruding upon the court.
'Can't see where I'm walking,' he says.
'Let me be your eyes, Dante. I know this well.'
'You spend a lot of time here?'
'When I can. This is my favourite place. One of my family died here.'
'You're joking.'
'No. They took her from Parliament Hall and stoned her in the street.'
'When?'
Beth laughs and cuddles into Dante's shoulder. 'Long time ago. Look here, we go past the fur tree and the path takes us back to the courtyard.'
Despite the delight of having Beth's lean body pressed into his own, he misses the light, so he can look at her again.
'The night frightens you,' she whispers.
'No, I love the night. Spent most of my life in clubs. But all this would be clearer during the day. Why couldn't we have seen this earlier and then had a drink? Made a night of it.'
'Too many people. What about the solitude you can find at night? That's the best. It excites me.' Dante feels his groin immediately stiffen. In the company of this beautiful girl, he feels curiously powerless. Could he refuse her anything?
On their way back to the courtyard, they pass a mediaeval building with a little brass plaque