Yes, I'm not sure quite what level of inarticulability Nicola's experiencing either: can Selby actually articulate why he feels uneasy, even?
I wonder whether Kingscote would have given her knowledge of that sort of abuse of power.
Not on canonical showings, no, though her reading of boys' school stories combined with the informal information that children tend to share about adults they find creepy might have. (In re the former, there's certainly a sense of sexualised aggression in Hughes' portrayal of Flashman in Tom Brown's Schooldays, for example, which I think someone as intelligent as Nick might intuit without being able fully to articulate. I can't decide whether I want Nicola to have read David Blaize or meet Frank when she goes up to Girton, btw). I wonder if she might have been about to suggest a sort of 'don't take sweets or lifts from strange men' line of explanation before she realises that Foley obviously isn't a stranger, even though he might be a bit strange. She does reflect in Cricket Term about the hackneyed, too-obvious quality of such advice, and is brought up short by the memory of Rose's experience in Ready Made Family. So oddly, she might reject that explanation as being childish, in a funny sort of way: she feels that being warned about 'strange men' is a thing for very much smaller children than herself, Peter and Selby.
no subject
I wonder whether Kingscote would have given her knowledge of that sort of abuse of power.
Not on canonical showings, no, though her reading of boys' school stories combined with the informal information that children tend to share about adults they find creepy might have. (In re the former, there's certainly a sense of sexualised aggression in Hughes' portrayal of Flashman in Tom Brown's Schooldays, for example, which I think someone as intelligent as Nick might intuit without being able fully to articulate. I can't decide whether I want Nicola to have read David Blaize or meet Frank when she goes up to Girton, btw). I wonder if she might have been about to suggest a sort of 'don't take sweets or lifts from strange men' line of explanation before she realises that Foley obviously isn't a stranger, even though he might be a bit strange. She does reflect in Cricket Term about the hackneyed, too-obvious quality of such advice, and is brought up short by the memory of Rose's experience in Ready Made Family. So oddly, she might reject that explanation as being childish, in a funny sort of way: she feels that being warned about 'strange men' is a thing for very much smaller children than herself, Peter and Selby.