The Reading Party

by Fenella Gentleman

  Downstairs, Rupert was at the Rayburn taking orders for eggs. He had a system going: the rashers, tomatoes and field mushrooms were already grilled and were sweating away in the low oven; on the hotplates he had a couple of frying pans, and two of simmering water, one shallower than the other. It was the first time I’d seen him actually cooking.

  ‘Boiled, scrambled or fried?’ he asked as I walked past. ‘Or poached if you want to be foxy. Actually, I’m rather good at poaching.’

  ‘Goodness, what a choice!’ I said, lightly, assessing. ‘And I thought you hated eggs. What do you exact in return for poaching?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Indulgence of some foible I suppose. A “get out of gaol free” card.’ Rupert, too, was remarkably cheery.

  ‘That sounds dangerous. I’ll stick to boiled.’

  He didn’t rise to the bait. Even in a good mood, Rupert was curiously humourless; he poked fun at others but he didn’t like being the butt of jokes.

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Oh, two I think, if there are enough.’

  Priyam, emerging from the larder with the tail ends of several jams and an egg box in her arms, called out, ‘There’s plenty. Here.’ She handed over the eggs and started setting down the jars. ‘Who’s having toast?’

  ‘Is anyone making toast?’ I asked, addressing the room at large, pleased to find it just as normal.

  ‘I’ll do it.’ Hugh got up from the table and headed for the machine by the bread bin. None of us could be fiddled with the wire mesh you could use on the hotplate.

  Martin, grappling with bacon rind, was asking what there was to do before we set off.

  ‘Pack, tidy, clean? I’m not sure. Ask Dennis: he’s probably got it all written down. You won’t be off the hook.’

  ‘Any idea where he is?’

  ‘Isn’t he up?’ I asked, amused.

  Tyler came in, bringing jackets from the boot room. ‘He’s outside. We’ve been checking the vans.’

  Amazing how easy it was to behave as if nothing had happened. He looked just as he always did.

  ‘What’s there to check?’ Rupert could be so dismissive, it was almost rude.

  ‘You’re a fine one to ask!’ said Priyam. ‘I don’t know how you got a reputation for tidiness: we’re always clearing up after you. Look!’ And she gathered a pile of eggshells and took them to the bin.

  ‘If it’s important, I remember.’

  ‘Yeah. Dream on.’ Martin clearly wasn’t convinced.

  Chloe’s voice was coming down the back stairs: ‘Can’t you smell? It reeks of vinegar down there. Don’t tell me: now Rupe’s doing his party trick.’ The latch rattled as she emerged from the door of ‘the cupboard’, still talking; Gloria right behind her, ribbing back, defending.

  I waited for scrutiny, interrogation, but there was none: she was much more interested in Rupert and his eggs; even Martin’s offer of bacon was completely ignored.

  Eventually we were all seated. It felt different from our normal breakfasts and I don’t think that was just me. Now the students were talking about what they’d been reading instead of preparing to do it. Curiously, we’d spoken very little about that side of things before. But suddenly they were reviewing the week and comparing notes on what they’d got through. It would have been nice to know the historians’ verdicts, but Barnaby’s account was lost amidst an outpouring from Lyndsey, which fizzed and sputtered like an experiment in one of her children’s books, and Jim was sharing his views with Mei and Tyler and couldn’t be overheard. I was always missing key bits of conversation.

  Eddie – fearless Eddie – asked Loxton what he’d achieved. Loxton claimed to think I had the edge on him; I seemed to have finished a paper, whereas he had only gathered his thoughts. He was rather envious of such productivity, he said. It would be nice to call it a triumph of quantity over quality, but he feared it was one of youth over advancing age. We should all take note. The absence of a sting in the tail so took me aback that I didn’t know what to say.

  Tyler’s verdict also escaped me, which was even more frustrating; it was almost as if people chose to clear the table precisely when you didn’t want them to.

  Somebody suggested meeting after Finals, and there was a brief spurt of discussion around the washing-up bowl of how and where that might be done – and whether Loxton and I should be included – but timetables were too different. It was never going to work. By the time the damp tea towels were piled up for the cleaner, the conversation had moved on. Hugh offered Jim the lease on his house – everyone else would be leaving; Chloe was planning a thrash when she cleared out of hers – if they were nice to her, they were all invited; Martin and Barnaby planned to travel together – anyone who fancied a bit of sailing … There was a breezy confidence that they’d all run into each other. It occurred to me that Loxton and I were the only people certain to remain in Oxford: willy-nilly, the two of us would be left behind. That was sobering.

  Loxton did of course have a checklist, if only in his head, which he proceeded to relay to us. Beds to be stripped and turned back to air – no scouts here. Rooms to be tidied, ‘desks’ to be cleared, bags to be left with boots and jackets in the hall. When that was done we would tackle the remaining tasks in pairs. Some of us were allocated the main part of the house, refilling the wood baskets, re-laying the fires, checking downstairs for stray books and making sure the upper floors were empty; others, in the kitchen, would be on final washing-up duty, clearing the fridge and the larder, and taking charge of the packed lunch. He estimated an hour and a half.

  Where did he pick all that up? Mum would have been impressed.

  We did the first part to the sound of Dylan’s new album Desire, at full volume on the stereo; it was a bit chaotic, with a lot of calling out between the rooms, and bumpings on the landings and the stairs. By the time we got to ‘Joey’, the people who liked that trailing ballad were singing along; the chorus to ‘Sara’ had us all wailing in tandem – Tyler too, though it would be nice to think some parts of the lyrics meant more to him. Around the time Priyam and I went off to inspect, we’d switched to Hotel California again, and that had the two of us warbling. It was all very good-humoured, almost another game.

  The rooms looked forlorn as we scooted through the relative peace upstairs – blankets rolled back, wardrobes and drawers gaping, towel rails bare. The spaces revealed little, denuded of personal paraphernalia, except that some people were more considerate of the cleaner than others: Loxton was notably chivalrous, wastepaper basket placed by a pile of folded sheets, curtains tucked neatly into their hold-backs. In one room a heater had been left on; in another we retrieved a hand towel – nothing worse.

  The surprise came when we glanced into the annexe over the extension: there were signs of illicit smoking in the tiny sitting area and the bedding was undeniably rumpled in the sparsity beyond. Priyam didn’t comment, beyond a reference to the game of sardines; she just picked the stale fag ends out of the pot plant and went off to dispose of the evidence. It was me who stood in that curious space alone and unconvinced; several of us might have looked in – I’d done so myself – but no one had hidden there. No, this was what the Dean had been getting at: it was a bed, after all – and yes, there was a lock on the door. Had it been Eddie and Chloe sneaking off the night before? And if not them, because surely they had other leanings, could it have been Lyndsey and Hugh, or Jim and Mei? Neither seemed likely, not at this stage. But Gloria and Rupert – that figured, and they’d run up the back stairs. Had they been bonking away while Tyler and I were in the kitchen below? Were they still at it when we went chastely to our beds?

  Whatever the case, it was too much for me. Within seconds, I’d thrown the blankets and pillows to the floor and was tugging furiously at starched sheets that had lost their sharp creases and were far too loose at the corners for comfort. Whoever it was, they had had it too easy.

  When we were done, a drum roll on the gong called us to the drawing room for a reward of tea a
nd the remains of all the packets of biscuits before the regulation group photo, which was to be taken outside the front door. The kitchen contingent was running slightly behind, so the rest of us had a last chance to lounge about and crack jokes. As the others reappeared from their duties we made space for them – Jim discreetly gesturing to Mei to join him on the arm of his chair. There was something about the manner of that pair that had made them untouchable – nobody had teased or done anything that might make them uncomfortable, and they didn’t do it now – but, before I could pinpoint what it was, Loxton too was coming in from the hall, the front door open behind him, letting in a drift of cool air and brightness to revive us before the Reading Party was recorded for posterity.

  We posed on the steps – one of the harbourmaster’s grander gestures – for various versions of that same shot, because several of us had cameras. To begin with it reminded me of the compositions my family took at Christmas, assembled relatives standing neatly as a group, splaying out from the focal point, tall people at the back, the rest arranged broadly in order of height, leaning in and out so that everyone’s face would be visible – all vaguely formal. That didn’t last long. Perhaps all the tidying up created a need for abandon. In any event, somebody in my row started tickling the trio of girls in the front who of course completely lost control, and then the rest of us collapsed into giggles. I blamed it on Martin: he never missed a trick. After that we pretty well gave up. A few smaller groups were taken – Tyler asked Loxton and me to pose together on our own, which was testing but not as bad as I expected – but the sun had gone in and I, for one, had run out of film.

  And then there was no avoiding it: bar the washing of the mugs and the packing of the vans, we were ready. Martin and Eddie contrived to miss that bit, setting off in his little car, waved off by a bunch of us. I hadn’t cottoned on to their plans. It turned out Eddie was staying the night because he wanted to see a theatre on a cliff edge further west and had somehow inveigled himself into Martin’s arrangements. The group felt strangely denuded without them. Martin should have been there, telling jokes and flirting, and we missed Eddie’s fond insensitivity. The Party was unravelling just as we got the hang of it.

  How was it decided who would travel with whom? It just seemed to happen. Suddenly Priyam was nabbing the seat next to Loxton, Gloria and her crew piling in behind them, Hugh dutifully passing up their bags. My lot turned out to be Jim and Mei in the last row of seats, Tyler and Lyndsey completing the foursome in the back, Barnaby next to me with the map. I would rather not have had Tyler, let alone immediately behind me, but the historians insisted; besides, it wouldn’t do to make a fuss. At least he wasn’t visible in the mirror – that might have affected my driving.

  We agreed to rendezvous with the others at a service station near the halfway mark; failing that we would meet up at College – or not, as the case might be. Loxton handed over the packed lunches and off we went, craning round to wave and then settling back for the journey.

  Barnaby and I chatted for a while but he didn’t revive our long conversation on the walk, even the less private part, and anyway, given that it was raining, my focus was on the road. Eventually he twisted round in his seat to join the chatter in the back. Periodically, I vaguely listened in; mostly I barely noticed what they were saying and left them to it, glad there were no additional demands.

  Then Lyndsey began singing along to a tape of Joan Baez. She sang atmospherically rather than well, but it didn’t matter – it was nice having her voice waft into the front of the van. Next to her Tyler began chatting with Jim about Pete Seeger and the American protest song, but they soon stopped. When it got to ‘We Shall Overcome’ Jim began to sing too – a wonderful rounded sound that encouraged the rest of us to join in. After that we all sang along until when we got to ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone’, which he did on his own. I couldn’t see his face without turning round, but I could see the top half of Mei’s head and, during a brief patch of straight road, watched her looking at him with a kind of wonder, as if astonished that he was letting her in.

  Loxton wasn’t at the service station when we filled up with petrol, but we sat in the canteen all the same, drifting into a bout of reminiscence over our hot drinks, sharing out the sandwiches. Tyler said Cornwall wasn’t what he’d expected from the tales of all the little rituals, which had had a touch of the Boy Scouts about them – very British – and they all agreed that Hugh’s portrait had been more ascetic than the reality, provided you forgot about the cold. Nobody put this down to the individuals; the consensus was that it was the result of going mixed.

  As for co-residence generally, they said it had been all to the good – or perhaps it was mostly Barnaby and Jim doing the talking as we squidged about on those plastic-cushioned chairs that stick no matter what you are wearing. The five ‘male’ colleges were all happier places mixed than single, they said; life was less earnest, more fun, with women around. If anything, the pressure now was to enjoy yourself as much as everyone else – a new sort of conspicuous consumption.

  That was when Tyler chipped in, wiping chutney from his lip with a paper napkin and leaning over the red Formica tabletop. ‘You know,’ he said, as if he had to reassure me, ‘it doesn’t stop us working. Ask anyone who’s done the single-sex thing – wondering how to get laid is far more distracting!’

  Whatever he meant, I was amazed he could say it with a straight face. Of course he didn’t have to; we were all laughing with him, other heads were turning. It was a great moment.

  Barnaby was really funny about it too. ‘There’s only so much looking in the mirror that a man can do,’ he said, pretending to preen at his reflection, ‘before venturing out in front of the women.’ According to him, the whole thing had been one big fuss about nothing: you had to go with the flow – people had grown up since the sixties, the zeitgeist had changed. Take the condom machines that Chloe was so cross about. Everyone assumed they would always be running out, but whenever it came to servicing them, College turned out not to be a hotbed of sex at all. It was the dons who did the letching, not the students. Barnaby thought the Dean had almost been disappointed; all those misdemeanours he’d hoped to police …

  I nearly spilt my tea. It wasn’t the only story I’d heard about ‘the Man’, as they called him, but this one had a different edge, changed the picture somehow. But then why shouldn’t the students have twigged? They’d known the Dean longer than me – if there was anything predatory, they’d have picked that up long ago; Gloria would have revelled in it.

  I caught Mei looking puzzled, as if she hadn’t got the joke, and Jim telling her not to worry. Tyler too was staring at me, his expression watchful, the cheeks working away.

  ‘You know him, Sarah,’ he said. ‘Tell us what he’s really like.’

  Why did he ask? Surely there’d been zero to see in the pizzeria: two colleagues eating together; nothing odd about that.

  ‘I couldn’t possibly comment!’ I threw back. ‘Ratting on a colleague? How unfair of you!’

  Amazingly, I got away with it. They moved on to the comprehensive thrashing of the men at rounders and the fact that Gloria had been the first to swim. Soon enough, it was time to leave.

  Back in the van, Barnaby stuck Blue into the cassette player. It seemed an odd choice and Lyndsey, who couldn’t soar like Joni Mitchell, got in the way of Mitchell’s purity. After ‘Carey’ her own efforts petered out. Quiet conversation took its place and rapidly thinned. Perhaps it was too contemplative an album – or we were all exhausted. Next to me Barnaby stopped talking altogether and began to doze, his hands resting in the gutter of the map. Glancing round, I saw that Lyndsey had started to read. Tyler was staring out of the window, inscrutable again: was he puzzling about the Dean? Behind them Jim and Mei seemed, again, to be in a bubble of their own. Sometimes there was the steady murmur of their muted chat; sometimes they were silent, Mei resting her head in the little cave between Jim’s chin and his shoulder, where the freckles clu
stered the way mine did. They must have been sitting differently from before; although I could glimpse them in the rear mirror, the picture cut off below the collarbone.

  By the time we got back to the ring road, Barnaby had roused himself and was helping me navigate, intermittently chipping into the conversation in the back, where the others were talking quietly as a group again. As we picked our way through traffic and crowds just like the ones of the weekend before, the students turned to the business of pushing off home. The conversation soon faltered; somehow the return to Oxford was oppressive. They were almost mute as I pulled up outside the College and we began emptying the van, apologising as they banged into each other passing to and fro, their previous ease unexpectedly drained.

  It was only when the bags were all deposited in the Gatehouse and the six of us reassembled next to them that we managed to heave ourselves briefly into jollity again. Mei piped up to say that she hadn’t expected such friendship from anyone, let alone me. She would always treasure it, more even than the honour of attending. Then the rest started pitching in with their own summings-up. After that, I could only wish them well in my turn. One of the porters emerged from the Lodge to see about the crates of empty bottles; a Canadian postgraduate arrived to ask Tyler how it had gone; we were all poised to move on.

  Through some fluke of timing, at that very moment Loxton and his van drew up. In seconds our two groups had merged into one, the disorderly mass of bags and people so dominating the entrance that it was hard for anyone else to get past. I could tell Loxton was uncomfortable – the locked knees and the fingers turning in the small of his back gave him away – and, just as the whole palaver threatened to start over again, he did his usual. He put up a hand and said briskly into the sudden silence that no goodbyes, and most certainly no thank yous, were needed to either of us; if anything the thanks should be ours. He and I would be in touch – and here the hand hovered briefly above my arm – with a date for the reunion and we hoped that everyone would come. Then he disappeared. If it sounded a little curt, they all knew that wasn’t how it was intended.