Meanwhile I did my best to find out about Dr Dennis Loxton: important to be able to read him too, or we wouldn’t pull off the landmark ‘retreat’.
There was a portrait in the College prospectus – he must have been in the category of elder statesman to merit a picture – which showed a slight and not particularly tall man in his late fifties or early sixties with a gaunt face and sharp features, who might once have been called dapper. His cuffs peeped out neatly from his jumper, which in turn protruded just the right amount from the sleeves of his tweed jacket; his shimmering hood was neatly arranged behind his shoulders to show just enough of his academic distinction; his hands were loosely clasped, resting lightly on the crossed knee; everything was just so.
His books were similarly austere. There were two of his publications in the philosophy section at Blackwell’s: a short study in epistemology, described as ‘ground-breaking’, which they only had in hardback, and a slim collection of essays based on a series of seminars, which was more manageable at £1.45. Both were written in a prose so taut, so precisely calibrated, that each line would surely snap if he put a word wrong. How would you survive, given so little room for manoeuvre, I wondered, thinking with relief of the disorderliness of my own subject. And what if you tried to live with such a person? But he was old, of the era of bachelor dons and their spinsterly counterparts; the issue wouldn’t have arisen.
I was about to get Loxton’s essays when I spotted the American: he was at the till just as I emerged between the bookshelves. Even from behind the College scarf was visible; that ruled him out as a fellow lecturer unless people were much more tribal in the States or it was part of his preppy look. Maybe the Warden had meant Scholar with capital ‘S’, in which case he might be a postgraduate? It was awkward not knowing, so I backed away. Buying Loxton’s book went out of my head.
Instead of reading him in print, I tried my colleagues. Occasionally, I gleaned a useful nugget – a reference to the line Loxton had taken on a particular issue or an affectionate example of his foibles – but the Fellows didn’t seem to gossip about each other, let alone get into a discussion of character; there was nothing about his home or the absence of family. Presumably reticence helped when living so closely together, or maybe men didn’t swap notes about people as women did.
The Dean was the exception. He turned out to have accompanied Loxton on some of the Reading Parties, but said he’d found it hard being his sidekick; it was a role better suited to doctoral students, who were happy to defer. He promised to fill me in over a drink; meanwhile, he made do with a warning.
‘Loxton is a difficult man,’ he said. ‘Solitary, reserved; a bit ascetic. Something of a conundrum.’
He gave me a teasing look, ostensibly hesitating about how much he should say, and then plunged in. ‘I don’t suppose anyone’s told you, but it’s probably the war: he abandoned his studies to help the codebreakers in Bletchley Park and was stuck there for years – not that any of us knew. He only confessed once that book on the “Ultra” intelligence came out. Do you know it?’
I didn’t.
‘No matter. My guess is that Dennis never recovered from the isolation and the habit of secrecy – or from losing people he cared for. But he has a brilliant mind and is devoted to the College: you can’t fault him there. You just have to hold your own. I’d say, beware.’
None of this was exactly encouraging.
And then there Loxton was, one evening after dinner, asking if he might join me just as I failed to do the right thing with an engraved silver platter – the kind that has tiny curving legs – that was doing the rounds, carrying dark chocolates to the little tables perched by the sofas and easy chairs. It was an inauspicious start: feeling vulnerable always makes me combative.
Leaning against the curl of his armrest, he explained that it was one of their ‘unfathomable traditions’ that the dish should not be put down until all the chocolates had disappeared. The eldest amongst them remembered it from their youth, he said, but nobody could recall when or why it began: it just was.
This excessive courtesy seemed to me patronising and I resolved to stay alert, as the Dean had advised.
Loxton peeled foil off a Bendicks Bittermint. Then commented that he had been delighted – they had all been delighted – when I accepted their offer; had hoped for some time that, when there was an opening for a new Fellow, the best candidate might prove to be a woman; had been eager to meet the person about whom there were such high expectations.
This was faintly intimidating and a little pat: too perfect, like the immaculate fingernails and the polished shoes. A sign, as the Warden had indicated, that there was a difference between doing something because one wishes to and because one must.
I made an equally bland comment – felt like Eliza Doolittle watching her words: ‘How kind of you to let me come’ – and sat awkwardly between the cushions, riled. We weren’t going to hit it off.
We turned to the arrival of female students. I asked, had that gone as expected? This should have been interesting – there were even links with my research – but he said it had been remarkably uneventful. Spreading the newcomers around had helped, although the sanitary arrangements weren’t perfect. There were more staircase parties, but none of the lurid breaches of security for which the Dean, as chief welfare officer and enforcer of discipline, had been primed. Most noticeable had been the increase in civility: the college had never been a loutish place, but there was less egregious behaviour than before.
The Mediaevalist was smiling at me. We had talked about some of the older dons referring to the ‘fairer sex’ as a ‘civilising influence’; perhaps he’d guessed what was being trotted out. I smiled back and asked Loxton how we were we doing academically.
‘You won’t need me to tell you,’ he said, but he told me all the same, that there were ‘some very bright women’. He had taught several from the women’s colleges over the years, and he also had the highest respect for his counterparts. Perhaps the female undergraduates weren’t quite as resilient as the men? They gave measured responses rather than shooting back; had to be encouraged, not provoked. It was not a matter of innate capacity, more a reflection of the teaching at school, or expectations at home. Still, their marks at College Collections and more importantly at the University Preliminary Examinations were promising.
I resolved to spar on behalf of my sex where Loxton was concerned.
‘But there have been no women yet on your Reading Party?’
Loxton cradled the bottom of his brandy glass where it swelled, just as I’d seen him fingering the bowl of his pipe.
‘Transitions are always difficult, are they not, Dr Addleshaw?’
The taste of mint fondant bursting into bitter chocolate must have emboldened me.
‘Really?’ I said. ‘I find change invigorating. Did the women not want to come with you or did you not want them to come?’
That made him sit a little straighter.
‘Ah.’ He looked at me carefully with grey eyes, very pale. ‘You must have been a pleasure to teach!’ But it wasn’t a generous smile. Besides, he hadn’t answered the question.
‘And …?’ I asked, with a touch of coquetry, to liven things up.
‘I felt we had a double difficulty. There would have been one woman, at most two, out of a dozen students, which would have been uncomfortable for everybody, and it wasn’t obvious who would join me in accompanying them.’ He sat back. ‘But now we have female Finalists and you on Governing Body, there should be no problem. No problem at all.’
‘So I’m to be their chaperone!’ I glanced around to check how loudly this had come out, and dropped my voice. ‘But the women might not have felt uncomfortable, Dr Loxton. I wouldn’t describe myself as uncomfortable and there is only one of me.’
He leant forward a fraction and for an awful moment I thought he might pat my knee, but instead he sucked air into his tobacco and damped it down. ‘I am glad to hear it. But the comparison is not
exact. We would expect you to be undaunted; we could not expect that of a first-year undergraduate.’
‘Really? Is it so very different?’
‘I felt it was, yes.’
‘And the Warden?’
‘The Warden was happy to take my advice.’
‘I see.’
The mints came round again, depleted but not yet finished.
‘What happens if no one eats them?’
‘The chocolates? They disappear into the pot plants or various pockets, I suppose. It’s a bit of a game.’
I imagined the American struggling to understand. ‘It seems utterly extraordinary, viewed from the outside,’ I said.
‘Traditions often do, don’t you think? But that doesn’t mean they’re wrong.’
‘Surely this one may have had its day?’
He leant forward again, this time a little conspiratorially, with the same tight smile. ‘Ah, Dr Addleshaw! You are – as promised – determined to challenge.’
That conversation seemed to epitomise what women were up against. It wasn’t only the injustice of the numbers and the ratios – that after nearly a century of co-education, with men and women in their separate colleges, there was still so much to do on co-residence, through further colleges admitting the opposite sex, if we were to achieve anything like parity. It was also the emotional toll – the depletion of your energy in that wearying business of holding your own in a male environment – just when you wanted to focus on achieving all you were capable of.
The trip to Cornwall began to feel like one thing too many. So I may have been a little on edge when a missive arrived from Loxton later in First Week.
We collected our mail from the Porters’ Lodge, a burrow of a room leading off the Gatehouse, which acted as post office, key depository and venue for inconsequential chat. The students and academics had separate banks of pigeonholes: the students’ on one wall, arranged A to Z; the academics’ on the other, individually named.
The spidery handwriting on the crisp white envelope had to be his. Superficially neat, elegant even, it was almost impenetrable, the ascenders and descenders minimally delineated, although, on inspection, all the defining features were there. A subtle barrier, just as the Dean had warned.
Fleetingly, I considered replying in similarly inscrutable script; the idea might be childish, but it made me feel better, as if the point had been made.
Perhaps I giggled. The figure standing by the other wall turned my way. It was the guy from the Warden’s Lodgings. So he’d be a student – I might even be teaching him – and there was no escaping it. This was the price of being that rarity, a female tutor amongst male students, and on notice to set the standard: he was out of bounds.
‘Pardon me?’ he said, looking up from his mail.
It was still there: the all-A merican air of Ryan O’Neal as the preppy in Love Story – flecked wool jacket, soft crewneck jumper, pale blue button-down shirt, those ox-blood loafers – without quite the actor’s looks. But that might not be fair. The hair was the same near blond: it was just that I usually went for dark.
‘Oh, hello,’ I said and waved the envelopes in my hand. ‘Just mastering Dr Loxton’s handwriting.’
‘Some of them seem determined to be obscure, don’t they? His is notorious.’
This seemed remarkably frank.
‘Really?’ I said.
‘Sure. We all joke about his indecipherable notes. But he’s a great tutor: one of those who are clever but kind.’
What a strange take – and no deference at all! A good thing the Lodge was empty: someone might have overheard.
The flimsy blue paper of his letter crackled as he opened it. ‘What the English call “a gentleman”, I guess.’
‘Yes, that’s probably right. Still, a challenge to read.’
I wondered what behaviour was called for. He was being friendly, as Americans were, and he’d helped pick everything up.
‘I’m sorry, I should introduce myself. I’m Sarah Addleshaw. The new Tutorial Fellow. We collided in the front quad a few days ago.’
‘Got that. I mean … not the colliding, but we all know who you are – you’re easy to remember. The social historian – if you use that label here?’
This would have been flattering if I hadn’t been the only female Fellow, and with hair the colour of a pumpkin; of course I stood out. But he’d remembered my subject too – that was something.
‘No, the label’s good – it’s a different approach. Neither in the Marxist camp nor out of it.’
‘Neat! And you like your tape recorder.’
A girl from my staircase collected a parcel and went out again, but the American wasn’t to be deflected.
‘Oral history. Your book on the suffragettes. It’s on display in the Library. I dipped in.’
This was even more embarrassing. ‘Goodness!’
‘Yeah, all those stories from the ones who’re still alive. “Ordinary” folk as well as Lady this and Lady that? I thought they were great.’
‘That’s a relief. And you?’
‘Tyler Winston, Rhodes Scholar, PPE, final year.’
Confirmation: a student. But at least not a historian. ‘So you’re a postgrad undergraduate?’
‘Yup. But we only do the second and third years …’
‘Of course.’
‘… And there’s nothing you’d call a social history paper, which seems odd to me.’
‘Well, that’s certainly a shame. You’ll have to go to some lectures instead. Anyway, nice to meet you properly.’
I stuffed my post into my bag and went back to my rooms. It still unnerved me when people had read my book. Made me feel exposed, almost naked.
As for Loxton’s letter, with its whiff of printers’ ink and its elegant embossing, so formally offering a Reading Party briefing, what was I meant to do? Reply with another laid-paper note, in a tissue-lined envelope that rustled when opened? It was infuriating.
Our encounter a few days later renewed my apprehension about spending a whole week together.
Loxton was scrupulously polite – enquiring if we might relocate to the gardens, as it was an exceptional afternoon and the roses again in bloom – but he didn’t go in for unnecessary chat. He led me to an arrangement of furniture overlooking the lawn, noted the obvious landmarks – the rear of the Warden’s Lodgings, the side of the Chapel, the glimpse of the Library through the trees – and turned swiftly to business.
There were no concessions to the loveliness of the view or the comings and goings around us, let alone to the awkwardness of holding our first meeting in front of everyone – especially when I was still such an object of interest. Instead, he rattled through the basics as if talking to a tiresome student. It felt aggressive, despite the punctilious civilities; a bombarding with information to see if you kept up.
He explained the history of the Reading Party and why it took place in Cornwall, about both of which the Mediaevalist and the Dean had been hazy. The regime, he said, was inviolable. Breakfast, reading and lunch, of the bread-and-cheese variety; outdoors activity (here he gestured vaguely towards what looked like a netball team gathering noisily under a huge tree); reading and supper, which the students cooked in turn; board games and talk. As before, there would be twelve in all, only nine or ten of them Finalists – a sprinkling of other years mattered, or the atmosphere became anxious. The students would be chosen by the end of this term and briefed at the start of the next.
I scanned the expanse of grass. My colleague the Ancient Historian was ambling towards a bench with the cocky student; presumably an outdoor tutorial. The Warden’s wife was showing someone round. Even Tyler Winston was there, with a female student. He gave us a wave and, after a backwards glance from the woman, disappeared out of sight. Friend? Girlfriend? They weren’t touching, but they walked in step…
Loxton wasn’t to be distracted. Could he assume I had reviewed this year’s ‘bible’ on the members of the College? A useful check
list, especially of the schools and bursaries, but ‘we’ – ‘that is, you and I, if you are agreed, Dr Addleshaw’ – would also take soundings. The Dean must be ‘on side’ too in case of disciplinary or pastoral issues, though happily both were rare.
‘May I?’ he asked, pulling his pipe out of his pocket and resting it on the table, where it rocked in the breeze. It was very hard to concentrate. Across the grass came a drift of Bowie’s ‘Aladdin Sane’; there were gaping windows everywhere.
I asked about the selection. Was the Reading Party open to all disciplines? Yes, but it had become, de facto, an event for those studying the humanities. Judged on past performance or the potential to do well? More the latter, or preferably both. Were we to consider postgraduates, like that American? Only if they were taking undergraduate degrees; theoretically he was eligible. Presumably students could put themselves forward? There was nothing to stop them, but it didn’t happen. So the Reading Party wasn’t advertised? Ah, now that was an interesting one. Naturally it could be done, but a self-selecting student might not be suitable …
We were back to the gentlemen’s’ club and another little impasse buried beneath the courtesies. A phrase of the Warden’s floated into my head: ‘We rarely know where Dennis stands unless he’s chosen to tell us.’ Too true.
‘In that case,’ I said briskly, ‘Could you describe your ideal candidate?’
Loxton settled his glasses back on the bridge of his nose, even though he had nothing to read, and appraised me carefully over the top of them. ‘One cannot list the qualities that make for “a Reading Party sort of person”,’ he said, ‘but one recognises them immediately if they are there.’
This sounded far too cosy, like the Warden’s verdict on ‘the sort we need’, even if it meant a Tyler Winston might get through on the nod.
‘Best to trust our instincts and leave it at that,’ he said.
The Reading Party Page 2
