From The Moment I Saw Him ....

by MacDonald, Catherine

  “Would you like me to go back and punch him on the nose?” he demanded.

  “No - no,” I laughed through the mist of tears. “What good would that do now?”

  “I’d feel better if I took that smirk off his face.”

  Sandy was clearly itching to be a hero.

  “To be fair, I don’t think he was smirking.”

  Sandy said,

  “It’s good that you’re getting away, Eithne. You’ll soon meet someone else, and forget him.”

  “Yes. Thanks, Sandy.”

  How little people know, I thought. I would never forget Nick - we had shared too much of importance, at a special point in our lives. He was a part of the person I had become. Despite all the heartache, I didn’t want to forget him.

  I recalled the look in Nick’s eyes as we walked on. It seemed to hint at unfinished business. I hoped that the remembrance of it wouldn’t stop me beginning again.

  Chapter 8

  The long, black and white photo shows several tiered rows of girls in their black and white subfusc university dress. This is the costume worn for all official University functions, and consists of black skirt and tights, white blouse with black bow, and the university black gown - short for commoners, such as myself, long for the brainy scholars of each college.

  Some look severe, others are smiling, there is a complete mixture of long hair, short hair, miniskirts and spectacles, grins and grimaces. At one end, on the right, is a girl with a head of pale curls and a haughty expression.

  This is me in the freshers photograph at St Hugh’s, taken just after we have been formally admitted to the University. Welcome to my new life.

  My parents had driven me down the week before, the car loaded with all my belongings, and it had been a thrill to settle in to the small room at the end of an echoing corridor, and feel that this was my domain.

  It was basic - bed, desk, wardrobe, a chair or two. Washing and kitchen facilities were shared at the end of the corridor. But it promised independence, and a new start. I couldn’t wait.

  The first few days were hectic, as the freshers started to make friends, and we met up with the other girls who were studying the same subject.

  There were twelve of us reading English, two of whom were scholars, having done particularly well at their entrance examination. I was a commoner, but was happy about this, as I thought the short black gown I had was much more becoming than the long, flapping robe the scholars wore. We were supposed to wear our gowns to lectures and tutorials, and Oxford in the daytime was buzzing with students, begowned and on bicycles, although after a while, the novelty of wearing them diminished, and we tended to leave them behind.

  I had never harboured fantasies about going to boarding school, indeed, would have been rather frightened at leaving the safe berth of home. However, I realised that I was going to love communal living with this select crowd of well-educated young women.

  It was fun to line up in a noisy crowd as we waited outside the dining hall for meals. The food was institutional, but sustaining, and we ate at long tables together, a pleasant babble of chatter enlivening the proceedings.

  It was challenging to be given our timetables and first tutorials, and discover what was expected of us in this academic world.

  Above all, it was good to make new friends.

  I had passed a somewhat solitary summer vacation, particularly after the rift with Nick, which had confined me to home territory for weeks. Now I was surrounded by girls of the same age and broadly similar background, and immediately found myself being drawn to two or three in particular.

  Emily had the room across the corridor from mine. She was a physicist from the north of England, and I was disarmed by her blunt sense of humour and down to earth outlook on life. You felt she was a person you could depend on, and who would always tell you the truth. Her long, straight auburn hair was unmistakable in the crowd.

  Joanna, dark and slender, was also reading English. She had been educated at a top girls’ boarding school, and it was obvious from the remarks she let drop that her family was very well to do, but she was not in the least uppity, as my mother would say, and was the greatest fun.

  We quickly became good mates. Night times often found us curled up in someone’s room in our dressing gowns, gossiping and giggling over cocoa, and recounting the events of the day. I found it all very invigorating.

  I had not told anyone about my painful experience with Nick - I wasn’t ready to. That was a dark secret I kept close to my heart. But I liked sharing the hopes and dreams of my fellow students.

  Joanna had a boyfriend already. I was pleased to find that he wasn’t at Balliol, Nick’s college, but was a fresher at Christ Church, a historic college in beautiful gardens by the river Thames.

  “William says there are lots of super boys there. You two can expect a load of party invitations,” she announced with glee.

  She was quite open about the fact that they planned to sleep together just as soon as she could get the college doctor to prescribe her the pill.

  “I’m going to say that my periods are horrendous, and go on for days. It’s the best way of getting a prescription. No need to get into embarrassing conversations about contraception,” she informed us.

  Emily had few illusions about the opposite sex, probably because she had three older brothers. I was envious. I might not have got into such a mess with Nick if I had been less ignorant about boys.

  “I want to lose my virginity as soon as possible, now I’m here,” Emily announced.

  She was quite matter of fact about it. It seemed an incongruous statement from someone wearing teddy bear pyjamas, and we couldn’t help laughing.

  “My friend Poppy lost hers last term, and she said it was wonderful. No one cares nowadays if you have sex before marriage, and now there’s the pill, we don’t have to worry about getting pregnant any more. We’re so lucky, really.” She twirled her auburn locks with enthusiasm.

  Then they turned curious eyes on me.

  “What about you Eithne? Have you done it with anyone yet?”

  I shook my head, blushing.

  “I did get involved with......with a special boy this year,” I admitted. “However, it’s all over now.”

  It was an effort to keep my tone light, but I didn’t want to give myself away.

  “Poor Eithne. Never mind, you won’t have trouble finding someone new.”

  My consolation prize was that I seemed to have become better looking in the past few months. I had lost a lot of weight during my sorrow over Nick, and my figure was now very slender. My face had cheekbones which had previously been concealed under the last vestiges of puppy fat, and the fashionable hairstyle caused a lot of comment as well.

  I found I was regarded as “one of the pretty ones,” and of course, that gave my ego a tremendous boost.

  I still mourned Nick in my heart. There were nights when I cried myself to sleep, but they were getting fewer. Occasionally, when I was walking between lectures or meeting friends in town, I would catch a glimpse of some slim, dark boy, and my heart would turn over, but I never saw him, and he made no attempt to see me. It looked as though that part of my life was over for good.

  We started going to parties, and I found that I was not short of admirers. But that revealed another problem, one which was to persist for months.

  I was happy to meet and go out with men in a friendly way, and after a while, I found I got rather good at flirting. Because I was not desperate to get off with them, and because of my looks, I became sought after, and this was surprising and pleasing. Some of Nick’s expertise had obviously rubbed off on me. But any depth of physical contact was impossible. I simply did not want to go further than a few kisses.

  “Why will you only let Julian kiss you good night?” Emily asked me one day.

  Julian was a friend of William’s, tall and athletic, a bit like Teddy Clifford, and he was considered to be quite a catch. He had been surprised and displeased when I rej
ected his attempts to entice me into his bedroom the week before.

  “He told William that he thinks you’re either frigid, or a secret lesbian.”

  We were curled up with our midnight cocoa after a Saturday night “do” in the Junior Common Room, or JCR, at Trinity College. (This was the large meeting room, where undergraduates went to relax and enjoy the social side of university life.)

  I felt annoyed by this presumptuous analysis.

  “What a cheek. It’s up to me who I want to kiss,” I said, stalling.

  “Yes, but you don’t seem to want to get close to anyone,” said blunt Emily. “Don’t you want a physical relationship?”

  Of course I did - but not with just anybody. I had a sudden, searing memory of Nick’s embrace, and burst into stormy tears.

  “Oh God, what’s wrong? Poor Eithne!”

  They petted and calmed me, and then it all came out. I told them the whole sorry tale, and they were very indignant on my behalf.

  “To use you and dump you without a word… he must have been a horrible person.” exclaimed Joanna, exchanging glances with Emily.

  “No, he wasn’t really. He was wonderful,” I said sadly. “But the trouble is, I feel somehow as though physically, I’m still linked to him. I don’t feel anything for anyone else, in that way, you know.”

  It was true. I could not imagine being really intimate, let alone making love, with another boy. I felt - stupidly - as though my body still belonged to Nick.

  “I think you just need more time,” said Jo. “After all, it’s not so very long ago that you broke up. But you’re going to have to get over it eventually. You don’t suppose he’s been celibate since, do you?”

  I shuddered.

  “I’m quite sure he hasn’t.”

  “What was he really like?” Emily asked, with frank curiosity. “There must have been something special to make you feel the way you did.”

  “There was. He had the most amazing smile - it just knocked you out - and he was so much more experienced than I was. I was putty in his hands.”

  I smiled a little sadly at the remembrance. “And - do you think that the person you sleep with for the first time will always have some sort of hold over you?”

  We were reflecting on this, when there was a sudden knock at the door, and Sofia Kinski barged in.

  “I thought you’d still be up. Has anyone got a fag?” she demanded.

  “You know that none of us smoke.”

  Emily looked annoyed at the interruption, and her tone was distinctly unwelcoming.

  Sofia was a little older than we were, although she too was a fresher. No-one was quite sure of her background; she liked to maintain an aura of mystery about her antecedents. She was very attractive, with vibrant Mediterranean looks. Her thick black hair fell almost to her waist, and she strutted through the corridors in colourful outfits like a bird of paradise amongst dowdy sparrows.

  She had made overtures of friendship towards me in our first days at college, but I had been wary of her dominant and dramatic personality, which I found overbearing. Now she seemed to be curious about our little group, and was always forcing herself on us. We tried hard to be pleasant, but I was afraid of her sharp tongue, and of her confident, brash demands on life.

  I think she sensed this, because her attitude towards me became sneering and contemptuous. I avoided her company as much as I could.

  She ignored the frostiness of the atmosphere, and cast herself down on the bed next to Jo.

  “Oh well - I’ve probably had enough for tonight anyway.”

  There was silence for a minute. Sofia yawned, and looked over at me with some disdain.

  “Hello curly locks, you’ve been crying.”

  I couldn’t bear the thought of her knowing about Nick, and looked pleadingly at the other two not to give away my secret.

  “She’s just a bit pre-menstrual,” said Jo loyally.

  “Pre-menstrual? Why aren’t you on the pill like the rest of us? Or perhaps you aren’t bothered about that sort of thing. I hear you’re known as “Ice queen Eithne” in certain circles at Christchurch.”

  “What?”

  “Yes - the girl who knocks them out, but won’t put out.”

  She was smiling maliciously as she spoke. I was mortified, and the others rallied to my defence.

  “Oh don’t be so ridiculous!” burst out Emily. “At least she’s not a red-hot slut - like some I could mention.”

  Now it was Sofia’s turn to look affronted.

  “What would you know about it?” she snarled. “Well, I won’t disturb the Virgins’ Conclave any longer. So long, little girlies. Don’t stay up too late.”

  She flounced out in a swirl of skirts, although her musky perfume lingered behind her for some time.

  We looked at each other in consternation. There was something unsettling about her fierce disregard for other people’s feelings.

  “I don’t like her. I’m really rather frightened of her.......” I said slowly.

  “Don’t be.”

  Jo was frowning. “I sometimes think she’s jealous of you, that’s all.”

  “I’d hate for her to know about Nick. Please don’t tell her, will you?”

  “God, no. That’s going to stay our secret. But, Eithne, we must find someone for you to take Nick’s place. You can’t dedicate your life to his memory, you know.”

  Ice queen? I lay in bed, fuming. “What does she know?” I thought. It wasn’t an ice queen who had shared Nick’s bed. But it was dangerous to think about that.

  Oxford terms are very short - only eight weeks - and the Christmas vacation arrived almost before we knew it. Several colleges held Christmas balls, and I attended one in the company of Martin, a sweet, silent young man who had gazed longingly at me over the desks of the English faculty library all term. I don’t know how he had plucked up the courage to ask me, but I decided it would not hurt me to accept his invitation, and he was touchingly delighted.

  It was a pleasant enough occasion. Jo and William were also there, we were all in the festive spirit, and I tried hard to return Martin’s damp and fumbling kisses at the end of the evening.

  I thought of Nick and his comment in the park about growing up at different speeds. This boy was only just out of the kindergarten, but I rather liked him for it.

  “Trouble there next term, Eithne,” observed Jo as we took a taxi back to college, (a great extravagance.)

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, he’s obviously very smitten.”

  I laughed. Hopefully, the Christmas vacation would quench any incipient ardour, because I couldn’t see myself wanting a relationship with Martin, sweet though he was.

  Although I had enjoyed my first term much more than I thought I would, I was quite pleased at the prospect of a few quiet weeks at home. We had preliminary college exams at the beginning of the following term, and I would have to work hard in the holidays to be ready for them.

  My parents were overjoyed to see someone who at least approximated to the daughter they had known before the eruption of Nick into our lives, however, Boxing Day was fraught with people making an effort not to mention the DeLisles’ annual party.

  I saw Eva, back from Exeter University. She was enjoying herself hugely as usual, and we had a few girly outings together. And Peter - after an initial letter or two, our correspondence had dwindled, but he rang me, and I met him and his girlfriend Hilary for a drink at the riverside pub.

  Hilary looked at me with very suspicious eyes, cuddling close to Peter, and clearly marking out her territory. I realised with a shock that I must sometimes have appeared like that when I was with Nick, and it did put a certain new perspective on some things for me.

  “I hope you managed to get through the term without seeing Nick,” Peter said swiftly, when she was in the Ladies.

  I nodded.

  “Yes, it’s not been a problem at all, thank goodness.”

  “Have you met anyone else?”
<
br />   “No. I’ve got to know lots of boys, but they’re mostly friends.”

  And I was quite happy with that for the time being.

  Chapter 9

  I did well in the college exams in January. Much to my surprise, I discovered a liking for Old English, both the language and the literature, and looked forward to becoming more proficient in that particular field.

  We were all working a bit harder now, after the social emphasis of the first term.

  As Joanna had predicted, I had a little difficulty in persuading Martin, the boy from the Christmas dance, that I did not want to get involved in a relationship, and I had to suffer him moping at me in lectures and libraries as a result. I remembered my time with Nick, and tried to be kind to him.

  Emily had fallen in love. Despite her bold pronouncements, she had not slept with anyone during our first term, and had then returned home for the Christmas vacation only to be bowled over by one of her brother’s friends, another physicist, named Rupert.

  It was a shame that he was at university in Edinburgh. Emily spent hours scrawling long letters to him, and hours checking her pigeonhole for the replies. We felt that the postal service would be making a lot of profit from their lengthy correspondence.

  Jo and William seemed very settled in a close relationship, especially after the college GP had obliged with the relevant prescription. I was happy for her, and frankly, rather envious.

  I sometimes saw Nick’s name in the university newspaper, Cherwell. This wasn’t a surprise, as I knew he wanted to be a journalist, but I found myself reading anything with his by-line with breathless attention. His name cropped up in the gossip column from time to time, as well. Once, he appeared in a rather blurry photograph of some event at Balliol, but it was almost impossible to make out his features.

  I had progressed so far in my “life without Nick” state that I would sometimes go whole hours without thinking about him. At other times, some remark, or the sight of a young man with similar build or colouring, would plunge me back down to the depths again.