Every weekend that autumn Bee took Pat out for a driving lesson. Together they explored the countryside around Cambridge. They watched birds, and Bee showed Pat the patterns of hedgerow growth she was studying. Pat never said anything about what she felt for Bee, though now she was quite sure she did want to touch her. She asked Lorna in strict confidence what it was that women did, and was surprised and enlightened by the answer.
Then, at the end of October, Britain, France and Israel invaded Egypt to take back the Suez Canal. Cambridge was full of anti-war protesters, Bee and Pat among them. There was a march through the town center, with chants and banners. The two of them went back to Pat’s flat afterwards, chilled by the wind and the events. “Let’s get the news,” Pat said. They huddled together on the sofa drinking tea. As the newsreader appeared and tapped his papers together, Bee said, “He knows already. He’s read what he’s going to read us, and we don’t know yet.” There wasn’t any real new news, except that the Russians had invaded Hungary to crush the protests there. “And what can we say? We’re as bad as they are,” Pat said.
Then Bee turned and clung to her, and Pat hugged her back, and they were kissing. “Are you sure,” she said, when they drew breath. “Are you sure this is what you want?”
“If it’s what you want,” Bee said.
“It’s what I want,” Pat said. She had kissed before, had kissed Mark, but it had always been awkward and frightening. This wasn’t awkward, and she was dizzy with excitement but not afraid. They kissed while the newsreader told them of deaths in Suez and deaths in Hungary, until Pat got up and turned it off and then they went into the bedroom.
She was glad she had talked to Lorna, but she felt that it wouldn’t have been necessary. It was a case of touching and paying attention and asking what felt good. Afterwards she was so proud to have made Bee happy that what she felt herself was secondary to that, and yet what she felt was momentous, was unlike anything else. Later in the dark she felt that Bee was crying. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I’m so lucky,” Bee said.
“No, I’m the one who’s lucky,” Pat replied.
They paid almost no attention to how the Suez crisis unfolded, nor to the horrible things happening in Hungary. The US intervention and the return of the troops seemed to be happening in counterpoint to the unfolding of their love. All her interests took a back seat to Bee. They told a few friends, but most of them did not make any assumptions at seeing two women constantly together. Pat felt replete, her joy in Bee’s existence redoubled by Bee’s return of love, and transmuted entirely by the happy glow of sexual satisfaction they shared.
Pat’s Venice book came out in the spring. Only in the classroom was she entirely focused on something that was not Bee. When Britain joined France, Germany and Italy in a new European Economic Community, signing the Treaty of Rome, Pat only paid enough attention to realize that now she would be able to buy her house in Italy.
She and Bee drove down the length of Europe in June 1957, stopping to eat and explore wherever they wanted to. In Florence Pat felt she would explode as she showed Bee everything, until Bee protested laughing that she could not take it all in at once. They stayed in Pat’s usual pensione but had a double room, both saying to the landlady that they didn’t mind at all about sharing a bed. Pat introduced Bee to her Florentine friends.
They looked at houses and flats for sale, which in itself would have made an entertaining hobby. Pat would have bought an apartment at the top of a twelfth-century tower near Orsanmichele, but Bee wanted a garden. With the help of Pat’s friend Sara, who taught English at the university, they eventually found a house. It was just south of the Arno, outside the old city walls, which Mussolini, the barbarian, had pulled down. It was in walking distance of the Uffizi, and it had running water and a fig tree. They planned to find students to rent it during the academic year, and to live in it themselves in the summers. “We can plant rosemary,” Bee said. All their plans were “we,” and Pat thrilled to it every time.
“I can probably help you find students,” Sara said. “This year I might be interested in living there myself. My lease is about to run out, and it is a lovely house.”
“That would be perfect,” Pat said.
One day they saw a family walking across the Ponte Vecchio with the father reading aloud from Pat’s guidebook. Bee nudged Pat, and Pat stared hard at the statue of Cellini in the middle of the bridge, blinking tears out of her eyes. “It’s really helping people,” she said, when they had gone on in the direction of the Pitti Palace. “I saw it on the shelves, but I didn’t really believe people would use it.”
“Why did you write it then?” Bee teased. “It’s real. It’s a real achievement. You can be proud. I’m proud of you.”
Pat glowed.