The Reading Party

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The Reading Party Page 30

by Fenella Gentleman


  He looked at me with an air of pleased surprise, as if I were a pupil who’d managed to say something novel. It was a glance that would have infuriated me six months earlier, but now it struck me differently.

  I decided to continue – ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’, as my uncle would have said. ‘Thinking of my personal timeline – because of course we all have them – the Reading Party may prove to have been a pinprick of the larger variety.’ And I qualified quickly, embarrassed to be revealing so much. ‘Obviously – if we’re going to pursue the analogy – I can only see the timeline up to the present day, and of course I don’t know how long it will eventually be, but I suspect that in retrospect …’

  He was waiting for the rest of the sentence, but I was faltering, in danger of trailing off.

  I slid my glass back to its place in the trio in front of me and breathed in. ‘The thing is, I can’t help but think of it in terms of my own discipline. The business of identifying, even occasionally creating, the narrative thread that gives events their coherence is what makes History so fascinating. It’s what I enjoyed most about writing my book – and again with the paper you were so nice about.’

  In front of me the sea of students stretched out beneath the hall’s lofty hammer-beam roof. The lights appeared stronger now that it was dark outside. Perhaps I was on the right track after all? I shifted in my seat and began again.

  ‘As historians – that’s not meant to be presumptuous; I know I’ve only just started – we’re constantly trying to construct timelines, in my case for individuals, groups of people, most of whom have no idea they are part of a movement at all, even in retrospect. We have to develop a kind of sixth sense about our source material, a nose for what is and isn’t likely to be important. Lawyers too, I presume, wading through all that detail, working out how to argue their case.’

  Loxton was rotating his glass very slowly, examining once more, so I carried on. ‘Every piece is helpful in assembling that vast linear jigsaw – or perhaps it’s more of a tapestry, with lots of loose threads – but, very rarely, a missing piece turns out to transform the picture: it’s a fact of such significance that it challenges our view of things. We couldn’t function if we paid equal attention to every detail we come across, so I guess we learn to disregard the vast majority, because they’re probably not material, but we don’t forget them completely, in case they’re needed later. Instead we focus on the tiny minority that catch the eye because there’s something surprising about them, something that might prompt a rethink. And very occasionally we make real discoveries and have the wonderful thrill I had during my DPhil – establishing the links between all those ordinary women who’d fought for their rights and ours, knowing that future historians would see things differently because of what I’d unearthed.’

  Loxton gently indicated the cheese platter, which was still stuck in front of me. I passed it on untouched.

  ‘Nearly done!’ I said, feeling self-conscious again. ‘I suppose what I’m trying to say is that for me it was an important week, Dennis. I might even call it “seminal”. So hard to explain, but a little like the glorious moments I had in those interminable archives, or recording all those interviews, when it dawned on me that I’d struck gold even though I couldn’t yet prove it. Something about working out why it all matters so much; why I am here at Oxford, in this College, doing what I’m doing. Anyway, enough said – I’ll embarrass both of us! Besides …’ – and I gestured towards the Warden’s wife, who was pushing back her chair – ‘… isn’t that the cue to move upstairs?’

  As we rose, I realised nothing had been said about the journal or Mrs Loxton or medical tragedies. All three had been uppermost in my mind when we sat down and, in their different ways, were important missing pieces. Perhaps Hall was too public a place. In any event, the moment was lost; by the time we’d reached the SCR someone else had nobbled me.

  After that conversation I fretted a little less about the students, though I always noted whether Tyler’s light was on when I turned in. I mentioned it playfully when by chance we met again and I wished him luck for his exams – it was in the garden, other people soon too near for comfort – and was taken aback when he said he thought mine had been on longer of late too. That wasn’t true, but I liked the idea that he’d been looking. It made up for the shortness of the encounter.

  I was always pleased to see the students from the Reading Party, though it didn’t happen often. I was even busier teaching and, as my circle grew, went out more often in the evenings; besides, the Finalists weren’t much in evidence. Lyndsey went completely to ground – I don’t recall seeing her once after the reunion – though Hugh claimed she was okay and had made time to submit her poem for the Newdigate Prize. Priyam, who walked with me to the Lodge early one morning, was warm but so clearly preoccupied that I didn’t try to detain her: she would have her revision mapped out; not my business to disrupt the steady progress. Still, there was time for her to spot that my eczema had flared again and to ask a concerned question; that was touching – roles again momentarily reversed.

  Martin was an exception to the rule, being as visible as ever. You might find him chatting in a group of people outside the pub next to the College, where you could sit in the open, greeting whoever chanced to walk by, or lying on the grass in the gardens in the warmth of the sunnier days, his notes casually spread around. The first time I spotted him, I wondered if it was for show – but it happened too often and besides, that was the sort of calculation Rupert made, not him. I hadn’t seen Rupert, who would have set himself the task of doing well; Martin probably didn’t care.

  As term went on – Finals started in Sixth Week, History on 1 June – you began to see more students in their subfusc as they walked or bicycled off to the Examination Schools or wherever they were taking their papers. The stark black and white of academic dress was in curious contrast with the other years in their summer prints and colours. Occasionally a mixed group would gather on one of the lawns, mortarboards strewn amongst the usual paraphernalia. The Finalists would stretch their black legs out across the grass, most of them still wearing their gowns, others having tossed them to the side. The rest of the students, in their gaudy t-shirts, flares and floaty dresses, revelled in the exposing of flesh to the sun.

  Unsurprisingly Chloe was amongst those who treated their gown not as a badge of honour but as a symbol of all they disliked about the place. When eventually I caught up with her, returning from one of her exams, she already had it stuffed under her arm. It dropped out as she leant her bike against the wall, the crumple of drapes suggesting it had been used to mop up spilt tea – or perhaps it was beer: stains blotched the cheap black cotton and little bits of muck were caught in the pleating. Even her mortarboard – propped in her basket, its tassel hanging over the handlebars – seemed to have served an unofficial purpose: dust and ash despoiled the black interior with its proud label; the silk folds were losing their neat stitching where a cigarette had burnt through.

  In the short gap since I’d last seen her she’d moved from Peruvian knits to punk rock. Her now jagged hair was complemented by a thick lock died a vivid blue. The white shirt, which gaped lopsidedly at her neck, was fastened by a single large safety-pin, tufts of thread still visible above and below, where the buttons had been pulled off. The smudge of biro across her collarbone might not be intentional, but the ripped fishnets were a blatant nod to Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren. Even the Dr Martens waiting in her basket looked suddenly all of a piece.

  We spoke briefly while a couple of other students, also in impressive gear, hovered alongside with their copies of Socialist Worker, pedals at the ready; Eddie, with no such street cred, looked suddenly ordinary – and at a loss, being outclassed. Chloe ignored them, which I rather admired. The three hours that afternoon had been ‘crap’, she said, but she really didn’t care, she just wanted to get through ‘the whole bloody thing’ and out of ‘this fucking place’. She ‘wouldn’t say sorry�
� about missing the reunion: she hadn’t been in the mood for a gathering of ‘that extended dinner party’, with ‘Tyler and co.’ exchanging bon mots. Cool choice of book, though (which at least was gratifying): they’d all read Pirsig in their first year – it was their route into philosophy, a Chautauqua of its own; Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance would be worth reading again. And she too liked to hang out at Ziggy’s (as I’d known she would): she might do something like that one day – use grassroots power to fight the consumer society. Action was where it was at; commentary didn’t change a thing.

  She even mentioned my lectures. She’d have been a suffragette too, she said. She’d have chained herself to railings or set fire to pillarboxes; she was fed up with words. I should watch out – writing wasn’t enough.

  Needless to say she sang along with the Sex Pistols at the Silver Jubilee celebrations in the pub, refusing to drape herself in red, white and blue even as a joke, and sensibly she boycotted the Commem Ball – a showy affair with even more hideous music, altogether out of keeping with the tenor of the College – before she disappeared off the scene. I was nervous of finding Tyler there with someone else on his arm and attended it reluctantly, with the Mediaevalist as my partner in order to avoid the company of the Dean – who behaved like a complete jerk, dancing half-cut with anyone he could get his hands on. My colleague and I enjoyed a good giggle at his expense.

  There was no sign of Tyler – I kept an eye out, uncertain which would be better: suddenly to come across him or endlessly to wonder where he was – but Rupert and Gloria were there, looking like Hollywood stars, magnificent in black tie and evening dress. They’d taken a bottle of champagne to the gardens to escape ‘Shang-a-Lang’ and the other Bay City Rollers hits, and were parked beneath the huge copper beech that spread its black purpliness over the lawn – Rupert leaning his back against the trunk, the textured panel of a dress shirt exposed above a ruby cummerbund, legs elongated, hand toying with a half-empty glass; Gloria lying sideways on a fluffy wrap, her body a voluptuous mound of shimmering satin, her sandals tossed off at a distance; abandoned napkins and glasses all around. She was helping herself from his plate, spearing mouthfuls of fruit tart with a fork and then pulling her hand away so the bait was just out of reach. It had the air of a game they were used to playing – might play repeatedly – until one or other of them got bored. Even as we watched, Rupert’s attention was caught by somebody else, leaving Gloria, arm raised aloft, to eat the morsel herself. I would not have wanted that to happen to me.

  Amongst the undergraduates I minded most about Barnaby, but I didn’t get a chance to talk to him properly until the historian’s Schools Dinner later that month, when it was all over. Even then it was difficult to get a private moment, my colleagues being endlessly attentive and the rest of the year too drunk to be tactful, but eventually we were left alone in a corner. He was clearly exhausted – barely able to find the words to speak coherently – and his relief at finishing was much more potent than that of his peers. He said he’d avoided the panic attacks but was still having nightmares about going into the wrong room – one empty save for line upon line of diminutive school desks, complete with ink-holders and bevelled slots for pens – and being stuck there with an exam paper printed in indecipherable hieroglyphs. I said we’d all had those nightmares; I still had them occasionally myself. Mostly we talked about Keegan’s The Face of Battle – the book I’d given him – which he’d just begun reading ‘for fun’: he was fascinated by the archers’ stakes at Agincourt, how so simple a measure could have been so decisive. We enthused about the historian’s craft – if you could reinvent military history through details like that, what might you do in other branches? – and I agreed it was an inspiration. ‘Like the tutorials with you,’ he said.

  He asked if Jim had said anything and, wanting to preserve confidences, I explained that I wasn’t teaching him that term, so I’d barely seen him. It turned out Jim was having an even rougher time, having told Mei they couldn’t carry on. Apparently it had been awkward when he went home after Cornwall, because his girlfriend sensed something had changed. Then there’d been a row on the phone and Jim had been summoned back to Wales to explain himself in person. After that he’d concluded the Welsh girl had the rightful claim – they’d been going out for years – but Barnaby didn’t think his heart was in it. Jim kept asking after Mei, who was studying even harder when she wasn’t planning her first trip back to Hong Kong. Everyone hoped they would work it out, as they were good together.

  How lucky neither of them was doing Finals, I thought: it made their lives simpler. But all I said was that I agreed.

  As for his own plans? Still uncertain. He’d enough saved up from a summer in a carpentry workshop to buy himself a bit of time. His parents were now on a base in Germany, so he would start his travels there; Mart would join him in Italy and then they were going to bum around the Mediterranean, crewing yachts where they could. He would take his sketchbook. If Mart made fun again, he’d get his own back: have him kill a few Greek chickens with his bare hands, to prove he could, or some such. Then, who knows, he might go back to the woodworking for a while, or, if they were still on speaking terms, follow Mart to Cornwall. There was a boat builder on the Helford and plenty of places to kip.

  After the last of the Finalists’ breakfast parties – I was invited to two or three, which was nice – there was a definite lull. Priyam came to take her leave when Full Term ended in the middle of June, bringing a present of Indian sweetmeats, but the others just disappeared, Tyler amongst them, without saying anything. No apology from him, no explanation, not even an excuse. Suddenly I realised they were truly gone, which put me in my place again, just as Loxton had warned.

  Summer

  Then, out of nowhere, there was a letter from Paris in my pigeonhole.

  I took it back to my rooms so I could open it in private, and had to sit on the bed for several minutes before I could will myself to read it. But instead of the paper ‘goodbye’ that I was expecting, some wriggling out of an implicit promise, it was a friendly note apologising for the gap. He would be back by the time I received this, Tyler said, and it would be neat to say ‘hi’, if that was okay, now that purdah was over. He had a week before he got his flight home.

  It took me the rest of the day to work out how to reply. Wariness, I suppose, not wanting to be disappointed again.

  We met the following afternoon, just a few minutes from College in the University Parks, where we might reasonably have run into each other by accident should the likes of Gloria appear on the scene. I felt terribly self-conscious in light summer clothes, strands of pumpkin hair blowing everywhere; he didn’t look awkward, just undeniably handsome in one of those sky-blue shirts he wore.

  We tried pleasantries. I observed that he was brown – he must have had good weather in France. Tyler said he’d got it watching Wimbledon; I too must have been pleased about Virginia Wade.

  This allowed us the odd glance as we walked, but the conversation remained prosaic, like novice players attempting ping-pong – or tennis: pop pop, pop pop; occasionally pop pop pop.

  We drifted towards the subject of work, still mostly staring at the ground, me in my sandals, bare toes peeping out, and him in his sneakers, which made his gait roll. I asked about the PPE papers and he seemed confident enough. He mentioned my article and I said it was off for peer review.

  The sentences refused to turn into proper paragraphs. As for any chemistry, it lay submerged; you could sense it, but it stubbornly refused to surface.

  Perversely, it was only when he confirmed that he was indeed leaving – off to Harvard Law School after all – that we both began to relax. It must have been knowing that he would never be a student here again; it put things on a different footing, the moral dilemma almost resolved. But then again it meant he’d be gone.

  ‘Goodness, that’s a big decision,’ I said, working it through.

  ‘Yeah, but the right one, don’t you thi
nk?’

  ‘Of course – you’ll be a brilliant lawyer.’ What else could I say?

  He talked about the process. I suggested it would have been a formality, Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship a huge advantage in taking up a provisional place. That made him smile in the way I remembered.

  Then he said that actually the scholarship had been quite a burden. Surely the pressure to achieve was mostly self-imposed, I asked, and was rewarded with a Yankee chuckle. He meant the pressure to lead, to set an example, he said: sometimes it got in the way of having fun. So I joked that you didn’t have to be a Rhodes Scholar to suffer from that. Look at me on the Reading Party, I laughed; it was a struggle to get the balance right. You did okay, he said, and grinned.

  After that we chatted easily, bumping into each other more than was necessary but not enough to be really noticeable, a bit like the walk up the hill from the pub. We talked about Loxton and the layers of his reserve; how much that might have to do with the war years; how much with being doubly bereaved; and how difficult it must have been for him to be surrounded, suddenly, by young women just the age that his daughter would have been, had she lived.

  It turned out that Tyler too had only heard by chance about Rose, and what had happened, and had been just as taken aback as me. His parents had come over for his first Christmas and they’d all made small talk in Loxton’s rooms. He gave a wry smile as he spoke about the occasion, calling it very English, very ‘proper’, as if he knew I would understand – which of course I did. I could picture the four of them in that same space, drinking from that same tea service as me, even eating the same kind of cake. Apparently it was a comment his mother had made, quite innocently, about all those silver-framed photographs. Loxton, put on the spot, had suddenly owned to the loss of Rose and then – odder still, given how private he was – to the unexpected complications.

 

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