And I did have fun at the party, enjoying all the introductions and the recaps with people I knew. There was no one I took a shine to – mercifully no sign of any ‘forbidden fruit’ from the Reading Party, or indeed any other students – but the Dean was there, being outrageous. We gossiped naughtily in a corner and then boogied happily to ‘I Wish’, ‘Isn’t She Lovely’ and other new tracks until even I’d had enough of Stevie Wonder. He was a good dancer – in his element when they rolled up the rest of the rugs and we jived – and it was fun fooling around. No surprise then that we kissed on the lips when Big Ben boomed midnight and danced again when someone put on the smooches. That was all fine – I mean, it was New Year’s Eve and everyone was doing it. It was only afterwards, when I tried to slip away but he hauled me back, that I didn’t know how to extract myself without being rude. In the end, we left together at about 2 a.m., supposedly to have a nightcap at his. Still I thought I could manage my exit.
The thing was, I hadn’t reckoned on him having a pad of his own. I assumed we’d be going back to College and I could slip away to my rooms and he to his. But no: all those consultancy fees paid for a small terraced house, part of which he let in term time to visiting academics. Of course he had to show me round, tumbler in one hand, bottle of brandy in the other. It was nice enough, if you ignored how he funded it – all those people he hung out with on his trips to London who commissioned research, and whose op-eds and papers for the Centre for Policy Studies were strewn about the place. It was only in the bedroom that I fully realised my mistake, though by then it was already too late. His lair had the air of too many conquests: the purple sheets, all those cushions and joss sticks, The Joy of Sex by the bedside, ‘Love to Love you Baby’ ready to go on the stereo – even a red light like the ones in the windows Jenny and I had seen in Amsterdam. It was how I imagined a knocking shop.
I tried to get out of it – said we really shouldn’t, what with being colleagues and having to work together. But he had that way of teasing that made you sound a prude if you objected – he’d done it about politics too, always winding me up – and there was something infuriatingly sexy about him, about that outrageousness, that kept you laughing even as you were had. He might be playing you, deploying those extra years – what was it in my case, seven or eight? – to make you cave in, but he was very good at it.
‘What’s wrong with being irresistible?’ he said with a winning grin, and, ‘Cut yourself some slack’ – all feminists were killjoys in his book – as if daring me to join in the fun.
It wasn’t that, of course, or jumping into bed so quickly, which had never been my way. Nor was it the question of professional ethics, though on that count it was hardly wise. Even as he was peeling off that stupid slinky top of mine, I knew this was not for me. It was something visceral. His skin was wrong: there was a roughness wherever our bodies touched, like sleeping with sandpaper; he didn’t have my kind of smell.
Of course he didn’t notice anything. He was rather pleased, actually – impressed with my boobs and chuffed with our performance, as if it was all another part of his show.
The following morning I lay there next to him, enduring an extended postmortem on the party, wondering how to draw it all to a close. He was buoyant, full of stories of the various pairings, whereas I was beginning to chafe, not that I let on. It was his attitude that got me. He thought our hosts’ set-up was ideal and claimed to envy my colleague, whereas I considered it an uncomfortable compromise, particularly for the wife, who was bright. Even likeable men like our Mediaevalist could only reconcile work and family, I suggested, jumping up and yanking the duvet off him, because their wives – often intelligent, talented women – put their careers second or wanted to be earth mothers anyway. Examples of it working in reverse were disappointingly rare, especially in academia, I said, wagging a finger as I wrapped myself in the duvet at the end of the bed; I’d only spotted one at that party, though the ground floor had been heaving with people. Of course the Dean didn’t see it that way – tugged my protection off me; said I was being far too serious and should stick to being ‘delightfully pneumatic’ – and he was dismissive about the woman I cited, said she was a cliché of another sort, married to the man who had taught her.
So I didn’t stay long. Made my getaway amid a cloud of casual repartee, as if a quick screw was just my thing, a mark of my sophistication. Skirted the Lodge, hoping not to be caught mid-morning in my party gear, my activities betrayed by my shoes. Dressing afresh for a New Year’s Day lunch, I had a patch of worry about gossip – women comparing notes, men bragging about conquests – and then of crossness: the body made things so difficult; why couldn’t feminists be flat-chested as a matter of course? Then I moved on – the previous night was nobody’s business; no one else need ever know; the American had gone home.
Besides, I hadn’t time to fret. After all, there were eight lectures to finalise and a paper to get underway before term began. For two weeks I immersed myself and made good progress, adding colour to my lectures with anecdotes about the more spirited women amongst my campaigners; typing up my paper about the exemplary Ivy Williams, who turned out to have fought not only on behalf of the poor but also for women’s right to academic and professional recognition, to see how the narrative worked. Bar a couple of low patches in the early evening when the College was dark and empty and I was alone with my thoughts, I was happy enough. Anyway, the thoughts weren’t about the Dean: you could like him or not, as the case might be, but he didn’t prey on your mind.
Hilary
Hilary began. I hardly thought about the Reading Party, being caught up in all the other pressures – reasonably confident of helping my students, some of whom I was tutoring for a second time, but anxious about delivering lectures behind the huge doors of the Examination Schools when no one was required to attend. And when would I fit in the bulk of my research? The weeks free of teaching had whizzed by.
On the upbeat days I was buoyant, in demand at High Table and full of verve afterwards in the SCR, enjoying the banter and teasing about the sillier conventions.
On other occasions I missed the company of my own sex, there being only sporadic competition from female guests and almost never from wives, who were classed as guests but rarely came. Then the sparring became a strain and the hidden rules irked me. Even the kindness of the Warden’s wife drained my sense of self.
I dealt with the lows by escaping College with one of the bachelor dons, someone from the Faculty or the occasional visiting friend; we usually went to the new hotspot, Browns, where you sat amongst ferns and ceiling fans and had a different kind of food. Tyler, I noticed, was often there too.
The background worry was that a mixed group of students would object to the sleeping arrangements the Dean and I had devised – at York we argued with the academics whenever we got the chance and no one took orders about sex. But then you never could tell. The whole notion of the Reading Party was so anomalous that it might appear above question: a throwback to be taken in its entirety or not at all.
Loxton had arranged for us all to meet in an unoccupied ‘bachelor set’ one evening in Third Week. (Why we weren’t allowed to squeeze into his study or mine I couldn’t fathom, unless it was that thing about the war and giving nothing away.) The students were all very prompt – only two latecomers: Chloe Firth, his PPP-ist, who was instantly recognisable in the vibrant Peruvian poncho she’d been wearing when the Dean pointed her out; and Eddie Oakeshott, whose voice I recognised before he even entered the room – one of those theatrical English students who, once you’d heard him, you heard everywhere.
Loxton moved around with a wooden tray, offering sherry and juice in delicate glasses that circled a rose inlay; clearly his but decidedly feminine. When everyone had one, he encouraged them to ‘find a pew’. There were just a few housekeeping matters, he said; it was more a ‘getting to know you’ session.
We began by introducing ourselves with a supposedly personal detail. Loxton�
��s was tagged to a black-and-white photograph of young men in shorts and long socks, one of them recognisably him, which he circulated. He explained that his predecessor, Godfrey, the older man in plus fours, had taken groups of students to a succession of ‘hostelries’ in the Lake District in the 1920s and 1930s, and briefly after the war, for long walks and a little reading. It was a legacy from this bachelor don that ensured the tradition continued, but Loxton had shifted the emphasis onto the reading and an alumnus lent the place in Cornwall.
The students were too nervous to reveal much, but the geographer, Martin Trewin, said that his family had a dairy farm near the Helford River, about an hour further on, and Tyler quipped that, being from such a new country, he was looking forward to seeing more of an old one. He also asked a question about Cornwall and the Tolpuddle Martyrs, which was a mistake – you can be too much of a cool cat. Jim, my ginger historian, had to explain that that was Dorset and we were going further west: touché.
Loxton picked up the thread of his own story. ‘It’s a remarkable house, as you will see,’ he said. ‘Built by the harbourmaster, then a substantial figure in the community, and added to in minor ways by his descendants, who shared his naval leanings. Large by our standards, though the heating is rudimentary: the men will do much laying of fires.’ And he surveyed the room, taking in all the male students and resting his gaze on Martin, presumably earmarking him as a country boy.
I bridled, but my linguist, the Durrant girl, got in before me. Tossing thick auburn hair in the manner of flamenco dancer – that figured! – she said sharply that she’d made plenty in her time and didn’t need a man to do it for her. Applause from Chloe; laughs from elsewhere.
Loxton was unperturbed. ‘No doubt yours will be better than anyone’s, Gloria. I look forward to being warmed.’ He moved on to the matter of luggage.
Mei Chow, the lawyer on the Hong Kong Scholarship who looked so young, even for a Fresher, asked softly about the weather in Cornwall and was instructed to wrap up well. Poor girl, I thought, she might need looking after.
Otherwise, Loxton stressed – and it really was his show: I could only interject – we should take only modest packing, please: warm clothing, something waterproof, footwear for walking.
Barnaby, the elder of my two historians, stretched his arms at the talk of outdoor activities – an expansive gesture that set me wondering if he’d got his tan sailing. Behind him the gangly man in the cord jacket, whom I took to be one of the fourth-year students, proposed guidance on the reading.
Loxton smiled. ‘Yes, you will all enjoy deciding what to bring, but fresh air and a relaxation is important too. Even ardent classicists like Hugh shouldn’t read into the small hours!’
A couple of students still looked uneasy. Tyler passed them the bowls of crisps, which was tactful; he was very considerate. And those lovely hands! They’d held me outside the Warden’s Lodgings, just a fraction longer than necessary …
I did my bit too, smiling at Mei, and caught Jim watching her face relax – perhaps he was taken with that oriental purity; the Dean, rather sharp with his verdicts, had labelled it virginal.
‘We read from nine until one, and four-thirty ’til seventhirty,’ Loxton continued. ‘Those hours are sacrosanct: library conditions and no wandering around.’
The other lawyer raised a finely boned finger. ‘The choice is up to us – we don’t need to get it approved?’
Loxton’s glance softened. ‘Correct, Priyam. Your decision and yours only.’
Lyndsey Milburn, the English Finalist – who’d been looking wan, like that poster of Ophelia drowning – tugged at her long skirt. ‘How tempting! I’ll never be able to choose. How many books may we take?’
‘It depends, Lyndsey. Someone took Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and was occupied for the week, whereas the lawyers usually speed-read several tomes. I recommend a choice but not too much choice.’
‘And where do we read in such a grand house? Does it have those buttoned leather chairs, like in old-fashioned clubs, with scrolly arms?’ This would be Rupert Ingram-H all, the rather arch student of Oriental Studies: he wore a crushed-velvet jacket, deep plum – just the thing for a smoking room.
‘Oh, wherever we like, bar retreating upstairs, and you should move around – part of the pleasure is enjoying all the house has to offer. But “grand” is not the word I would use: indeed, I have heard it called shabby.’ Loxton appeared to be lost for a moment. That, too figured, I thought: a codebreaker would be a stickler for meaning. But he couldn’t crack it and gave up.
All in all, I thought, he didn’t make it sound much fun.
‘What about meals?’ I prompted, and then regretted identifying myself with the kitchen.
It was indeed an own goal. Loxton said something about expecting ‘culinary standards’ to be higher than usual – his generation were such sexists! – and launched into an explanation about supper being cooked by the Finalists, in pairs, while lunch was prepared by the others, who shopped.
Eddie was in there straight away: ‘So I’m fagging for my elders and betters? No way, Jose! But I might dogsbody for a fee. Or a favour. What do you say, Dr Addleshaw?’
‘It’s not a matter of rewards, Eddie,’ I said. ‘Anyway, we could do it together. Might even be fun: we decide what the others get to eat, or I decide if you get anything at all!’
I’m sure the burly Martin, all beard and curly hair, gave me a wink. He’d need his Morris Traveller at home, he said, so he’d be driving down; if anyone wanted to join him, he’d welcome company, especially female …
This must have been a standing joke. Chloe suggested the banger might not make it, while Barnaby thumped the arm of his chair: ‘You are such an operator, Mart!’
Loxton put his glass on the side table and waited for the laughter to subside. ‘You will want to know, also, about the allocation of rooms. Dr Addleshaw has discussed this with the Dean’ – renewed titters – why? – ‘so I’ll let her explain.’
I spread my props on the rug – floor plan, bowl, strips of coloured paper – and rattled through, throwing in a recommendation that any bed-hopping be invisible. The students opted to draw lots straight away – one hurdle jumped – and cheerfully read out where they would be. The mood palpably eased.
Still, it was mildly discomforting to think of Tyler immediately below, if better than having him on the same floor. And there were odd combinations for my historians – the Celtic Jim matched with the cosmopolitan Eddie; diffident Barnaby with pushy Rupert. But no one complained. Another hurdle passed.
‘There’s an important rule about the bedrooms,’ Loxton announced, prompting – I’m sure I saw this – glances between Gloria and Rupert; Martin watching. ‘No smoking up there. The family dislike it and we respect their wishes, to the letter; we include the stairs.’
That was a bit of a damper, or perhaps the students felt awkward with us there. Apart from Tyler and Jim, who roped me into an animated discussion about West Country martyrs as one of the few who – my Welshman said – had a feel for what it was about, most of them didn’t dally. Priyam Patel stood up first, rather sweetly thanking us both, and soon they all thundered down the wooden stairs, Lyndsey trailing at the end with Hugh Chauncey. We could hear a mass of talk with the occasional explosion of laughter, the sounds diminishing as they dispersed.
‘A good mix, all things considered, and you have a good bond with your historians,’ Loxton said, gathering up the floor plans and the photo. He reached out behind me to switch out the light as we left. ‘It will be interesting to see what happens, Sarah, don’t you think?’
He’d never used my name before – progress of sorts.
A few students clarified practicalities. Chloe Firth lobbed a question about the smoking rules into chat in the pub, which confirmed she might be hard to handle, and Gloria Durrant wanted to know about locks on the bedroom doors, which seemed a bit of a giveaway. Eddie Oakeshott, who was becoming part of their gang, did his own bit of
needling about having to share; I told him to sort it out with Martin Trewin, the only bloke getting a single room – it was nothing to do with me.
But Martin, who was having none of it, said he’d earnt his independence and had far too many plans for it. He was the perpetual joker: he ribbed me about the briefing and suggested ‘the headmaster’ would soften with such a fetching ‘matron’ to do his bidding – they’d never had the likes of me at school. I didn’t mind the teasing – it made him feel like an ally.
Lyndsey Milburn looked the opposite. Where Martin was earthy and relaxed, she was thin and abstracted, as if bodily functions didn’t count for much and she was engaged with her mind, which was elsewhere. I couldn’t work her out; usually the wafty ones had money, which she patently did not. But when I suggested that she and I, too, were chalk and cheese, the Dean claimed that ‘we see more similarity than you like to think’, which was disconcerting – what else did my colleagues say about me?
I suspect he was getting his own back after my rebuffs. He did it again about Priyam Patel and Mei Chow, calling me naive to suggest that only friends in the making would talk in undertones the way those two did; he said the lawyers were known for sticking together and women could be ‘thick as thieves’ – what did you expect when you combined the two?
It wasn’t exactly easy.
The Mediaevalist was much nicer about the group who were going, roaring with laughter when I told him that Rupert Ingram-Whatnot had asked why you’d do a commonplace subject like History when you could choose one that was utterly obscure.
‘Yes, but how did he become so breezily challenging?’ I asked.
‘It’s just male swagger,’ he answered, ‘of the kind you take so easily in your stride.’
I didn’t know where that came from either – no notion that I might find such belligerence undermining – but felt equally unable to probe.
The Reading Party Page 5
