Ornamental letter C with looped strokes

You will not remember the afternoon, but I do. The reunion hall smelt of floor polish and warm squash, and you stood by the trophy cabinet apologising for being late, as if thirty years were a matter for the head. I did not have the heart to tell you that your capital C was the finest thing the lower sixth ever produced. You always began with the curl at the top, a little loop like the end of a cat's tail, and I told you to finish the stroke before lifting the nib. You never did. You left it open at the bottom, tapering to nothing, as though the letter had somewhere better to be.

The copybook came out of my bag at half past four, when the urn was empty and the caretaker was stacking chairs. Page forty-one, in your careful blue hand: a C with a knot of loops worked down its left side, each crossing tied off like a sailor's splice. Underneath you had written in pencil, 'for when the words run out.' I had forgotten it. You had not.

I have kept the copybook in the drawer with my reading glasses, and I took it out again this morning. The knot is still tight. Those loops are what I remember most, the way you would pause over each one and check it twice before moving on, as though a single slip there would unpick the whole letter.

So the copybook is yours now. Come and collect it, or I will post it to the address Mrs Pryce gave me, the one with the blue door.

Yours, with red ink still on my fingers, Miss Harcourt