by Rosie Thomas
She stumbled to the bed and, almost gratefully, let the tears come. Helen rarely cried, but now she abandoned herself to it. The storm of weeping that overtook her was not just for Oliver, but for herself too. Disjointed images and phrases flitted through her head with the shaking sobs. She saw Oliver’s face in the firelight at the Montcalm cottage.
He was so beautiful, and so gentle then.
She remembered the exhilaration of being driven at speed in his Jaguar and the prickle of champagne in her mouth.
Nothing like him has ever happened to me before. And never will again.
The excitement she had felt at simply being close to him was still with her.
I didn’t make demands on him.
But she had not been brilliant enough to keep him.
How could I, after he’d seen Pansy?
And, again,
It isn’t fair.
Alone in the dark, Helen cried as if she could never stop. But at last no more tears would come. Still in the same position, cold and cramped, she stared unseeingly upwards and forced herself to think.
She knew that she had walked into this loss with open eyes. She remembered thinking I don’t care what happens. I just want him now. She had relished the reckless thrill that the thought had given her.
So what had happened, had happened.
She saw now that it had been inevitable from the moment that Pansy had walked into the audition. The only surprising thing was that the scene she had just watched hadn’t happened before. It was unlikely, she thought bitterly, that they had held themselves apart for her sake.
Helen shrugged hopelessly.
What now? Somehow, however bleakly, life would have to go on.
Suddenly, and with eerie vividness, she saw her father’s face.
‘If this is the very worst thing that ever happens to you,’ she heard him saying in the flat, familiar voice that she missed so much, ‘you’ll be a very lucky girl.’
‘Poor Dad,’ Helen whispered out loud. ‘Poor all of us.’
At once, just as if she had been able to step outside herself for an instant, the enormity of Oliver shrank and slipped away from her. She saw him almost as a stranger, a blond young man with the features of a medieval knight and the easy smile of an indulged child.
She was able to hold him at that distance for no more than a moment before the hurt of losing him swept back, but it helped her. Her eyes were dry and hard now as she watched the darkness. She knew what she would have to do. Grimly, Helen recited her plans for the future. First, her neglected work. There would be lectures to catch up on and papers to write. The rhythm of it would be soothing, the intellectual demands a kind of painkiller.
She could, perhaps, find somewhere else to live so that there would be no need to see Oliver and Pansy any more. It wouldn’t be long until the summer. Then she would get her degree and find a job, and be able to look after her mother and brother as they deserved. After a few weeks, she told herself with determination, the sight of Pansy and Oliver that was burning into her eyelids now would be forgotten.
It would be as if Oliver Mortimore had never been in her life.
All she had to do was to get through the next few days, and weeks, until that happened.
I won’t feel sorry for myself any more, she vowed. There isn’t really any reason to. The decision even brought her a kind of exhausted tranquillity.
Faintly, Helen heard the telephone ringing in the stone passage that led to the kitchen. At last it stopped and after a long pause she heard footsteps and someone tapping gently on her door.
‘Helen?’ It was Chloe’s husky voice. ‘Helen, are you there?’
She lay rigid on her bed. She couldn’t bear to see anyone now, not even Chloe. Tomorrow it would be different, but not now. Outside the door Chloe hesitated and then turned away.
Helen breathed out a long sigh of relief, but moments later she realised the footsteps were coming back. This time there was the whisper of a note being pushed under her door.
Leave me alone. The words pulsed silently in Helen’s head. Then Chloe went away again and this time she really was alone.
Around her the evening sounds of the house, doors opening and closing, music and laughter from somewhere a long way off, settled into silence. At last Helen stopped counting the hours as the Oxford bells struck them and fell into an exhausted sleep. She had no idea how much later it was, or what had woken her up, but suddenly she was wide awake again. Out of the blanket of silence she heard a sound, and then another. She recognised them immediately. There was Oliver’s low moan, the small secret sound of pleasure that she treasured herself, and then Pansy’s answering cry as clear as a bell in the night. Downstairs, in the room below her, they were making love.
Helen rolled her face into her pillow and clenched her teeth so hard that she thought her jaw would crack. Her hands twisted on the folds of the sheet and she drew up her knees in a spasm of pain. Then she lay, waiting like an eavesdropper again and hating herself for it, to hear if there was any more. But there was nothing. Whether she had really heard those two secret cries or not, the rest was silence.
Helen didn’t sleep again that night. When it was fully light she got up, wincing at the stabbing pain in her head. Her eyes felt gritty and so puffy that she could barely open them. As she reached for her dressing gown, she saw a folded slip of white paper on the carpet, and remembered Chloe’s note. Her fingers felt thick and clumsy as she opened it.
Your mother rang. Will you call her as soon as you can.
She sounded anxious. C.
Helen was still wrapping her robe around her as she ran down the stairs. Anxiety throbbed with her headache.
Early though it was, her mother answered the telephone at once.
‘Helen, is that you? Why didn’t you call last night?’
‘I … couldn’t. Mum, what is it?’
‘Oh, darling, I don’t know how to tell you. I had notification from the Authority at school yesterday. They’re cutting down on supply teachers. Permanent staff will have to fill in instead. Helen, there isn’t any work after this week. Nothing. I don’t know what to do. I’ve met this month’s mortgage, but …’
‘Wait, Mum, let me think.’
Helen leaned her head against the varnished panelling. There was a warm smell of polish and the grey shape of the payphone looked bleakly familiar in a world that threatened to turn itself upside down.
‘I’ll come home,’ she said at last, surprised at the firmness in her voice. ‘I shouldn’t have come back here anyway. Don’t worry. I’ll find a job.’
‘No, Helen. Your father …’
Helen broke into her mother’s protestations as gently as she could. The undertone of relief in her mother’s voice made her want to cry.
‘I want to come home. It’s where I belong. Oxford … isn’t the same as it was, anyway. Listen, will you be all right for a little while? If I come home right away, I’ll have to come back again and arrange things, and I don’t want to do that.’
‘Yes, we’ll be all right. Helen – there’s enough money for this month. And there’s the possibility of a permanent part-time job in the New Year. But it’s only a possibility, and there’s Christmas in between, and some bills that must be paid, and everything else is such a price …’
‘Don’t worry,’ Helen said again. ‘Between us, we’ll manage.’
When they had said their goodbyes, Helen slowly replaced the receiver and leaned back exhaustedly against the wall.
Fate, she thought bitterly, had made a near intervention. There was no need to worry about Oliver any more. She would be removed from Oxford altogether. In her mind’s eye she saw a picture of the city and what it meant to her. There were the towers and meadows ringed by rivers, the long, sepia shelves of books in libraries and her own handwriting covering pages of blank paper. That was all over.
There would be no more Oxford. It was a pity that last night had to be the last one here, the one she would rem
ember.
Sadly, Helen pulled her robe tightly round her and set out to face the day. First she went to see her tutor. Helen found her, as usual, in her College rooms. The walls were lined from floor to ceiling with books, and French doors looked out over the water meadows. Miss Graham’s hair was knotted in a neat bun, and her face was smooth and unworried after a secluded lifetime of academic life.
Helen explained awkwardly that she would have to resign her place and her scholarship. Her mother and brother needed her financial support, and she must go home.
Miss Graham folded her hands and sighed.
‘This is a great pity. You know we regard you as a strong candidate for a First. Is there no other way? I wish the College could help. There are funds for students in difficulty, but a whole family …’
‘Thank you, but I don’t think there is anything anyone can do.’
‘Well. We’ll keep your place open, of course. Next year, perhaps, your position will be happier.’
Helen remembered how she had sat in this room as a wide-eyed schoolgirl on her first day, full of excitement and awe at the great institution she was part of, and had to blink back the tears that started into her eyes.
She had reached the door before her tutor asked, almost as an afterthought, ‘What do you really want to do with your life, Helen?’
From nowhere, unconsidered and unexpected, the answer came out at once. ‘I’d like to marry, and have children.’
Miss Graham smiled. ‘You don’t need a First for that.’
‘No. Goodbye, Miss Graham. I’m sorry about the First.’
A moment later Helen was walking back over Magdalen Bridge towards the High. Why, she asked herself, did I say that? Had she been cherishing some half-baked notion of herself and Oliver, married, filling the back of the rakish Jaguar with blonde babies?
The idea made her laugh in spite of herself. No, her dreams of Oliver had never been to do with marrying him. Why then had she made such a heretical confession to her learned spinster tutor? She had wanted to needle that secure academic complacency, perhaps because it no longer had any bearing on her own life. But perhaps too she had been expressing a much deeper longing to have and to provide security, faced with the crumbling of her own family.
Perhaps.
Helen paused in the middle of Magdalen Bridge and looked upwards. Against the pale sky soared the height of Magdalen Tower, perfectly beautiful and timeless above the stream of cars and cyclists. It was Helen’s favourite sight in Oxford and it reminded her that she was leaving.
On one side of her, the river curved around the formal lawns and beds of the Botanic Gardens. On the other, between separate arms, it enclosed the mysterious tangle of dark trees called Addison’s Walk. Quickly, Helen crossed the road and ducked through into the cramped porter’s lodge of Magdalen College. She would make the circuit of the walk for the last time as a way of saying goodbye.
She passed through the vaulted stonework of Magdalen Cloisters, her feet echoing on the worn stone flags, came out into the light again through an arch of iron gates, then slowed her pace again under the tall trees. The river was slow-moving here, reflecting the bare branches back at the sky. The banks bare now, but in the spring they would be vivid with crocuses and daffodils. Later, in the summer, the punts would slide past here loaded with noisy parties or with silent, absorbed couples.
Sadly, she wouldn’t be here to see any of it.
Yet as it always did the quietness of the setting soothed her. Even though it lay in the middle of a busy town, the place felt utterly remote.
Helen walked slowly, drinking in the cold air and letting the clamorous voices inside her head subside. Later she would have so much to arrange, but now she had her moment of peace.
She was at the outermost point of the circuit where there was no sound but for her own footfalls on the path, when she saw someone leaning on the low wall to stare into the water. At first she didn’t recognise him, but then she saw the black hair ruffled by the wind and a dark frown of concentration.
It was Tom Hart.
He looked up and saw her at once, leaving her no chance of slipping by unseen. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, unsmiling.
‘Yes. Are you?’ She noticed that there were creases of tiredness around his eyes. He was unshaven and the dark stubble emphasised the leanness of his face. Helen suddenly saw how good-looking he was, in a way that couldn’t have been more unlike Oliver’s clear, classical beauty.
Tom shrugged impatiently. ‘Of course. It’s nothing. They’re made for each other, after all.’ His sardonic smile failed to conceal from Helen that he had wanted Pansy very badly.
He feels as bad as I do, she thought. Worse – he’s probably almost as used to getting what he wants as Oliver and Pansy themselves.
‘May I walk round with you?’ he asked, formally.
Helen nodded, a little unwillingly, and they began to pace slowly under the arch of trees.
‘This is my way of saying goodbye to Oxford. I have to leave at once,’ she told him at last.
‘For Christ’s sake,’ Tom stared at her incredulously, ‘not because of Oliver?’
She laughed. ‘No. He means … meant a lot to me, more than I realised until yesterday, but I wouldn’t run away for that reason.’ She took a deep breath, and glanced sideways at Tom. He was looking away from her, into the slow drift of the river. ‘My father died in the summer. We aren’t very well off now, and I heard from my mother this morning that she has lost her job. She needs me to go home and help her. Neither of us is qualified to earn very much, you see, and there aren’t many jobs for anyone in the Midlands right now. But between us, we can probably manage to keep going.’
Tom had stopped, and now he looked down at her with his dark eyebrows pulled close together.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said simply. ‘Can no-one help?’
They were standing in such a way that his shoulders sheltered her from the wind. He was wearing a coat of some soft, thick tweedy material with the collar turned up against his cheeks. It was very warm, standing so close to him. For a stupid moment Helen longed to press her face against his shoulder and murmur yes, please help me.
Instead she swung away from him and started to walk again, more briskly now. ‘No. No-one can help. I’ve just told my tutor the same thing.’
They hardly spoke again until they were standing under the arched gateway once more.
‘I’m going that way,’ Helen said dismissively. ‘I’d better say goodbye.’
Tom’s hand rested on her shoulder for a second.
‘Goodbye,’ he said, his penetrating dark eyes on her face. ‘I’m sorry you’re leaving. We might have been friends. We’ve got at least one thing in common, after all.’
They both laughed, without much humour. Then Helen lifted her hand in a brief wave and walked away.
Back in the bustle of the High she began to count off the things that must be done before she could go home. She would have to pack, give notice to Rose, take books back to the library, say too many goodbyes.
Goodbye. Would she have the courage to say it to Oliver? It would mean walking in under Tom Tower, crossing Canterbury Quad and climbing his staircase, knocking at his door. She longed to see him one last time, but doubted that she could find it in herself to go and look for him again.
Then, as she came down St Aldate’s, she saw him. He was with Pansy, of course. The low black shape of the Jaguar was drawn up half on the pavement beside Follies. Just as Helen noticed it, Pansy came running up the steps from the island, two at a time. Her white fur coat was swinging round her like a cloud and she was laughing delightedly.
Oliver raced up the steps in pursuit and Pansy ducked behind the car, feinting another dash as he tried to catch her. Then she vaulted into the driver’s seat and groped for the ignition. Oliver’s hand seized her arm and held her, triumphant. They looked as happy as children.
Do it now. Just say it and go. Helen braced herself.
She stepped in front of the Jaguar and smiled levelly at them.
‘I want to say goodbye. I’m leaving Oxford.’
She saw the laughter fade from Pansy’s face first.
‘Not because …’
‘I’m going home to help my mother. It’s a question of money.’
‘Money?’
How unintelligible that must be, for both of them, Helen thought.
Involuntarily, she turned to Oliver and their eyes met. He stepped towards her, blocking out Pansy for a moment and his arm came lightly around her shoulder again. A familiar tremor shot through Helen at his touch, but she knew that Oliver wanted something different now. He wanted her to bow out, conceding gracefully and making everything all right for him. But Helen held herself rigid and her eyes never wavered. Something like shame showed in Oliver’s tanned face before he dropped his arm and looked away again.
Helen lifted her chin and looked at each of them in turn. ‘Oliver … Pansy …’ she said lightly. Then, ‘I hope the play’s a success.’
She was walking down the steps to the island when she heard the car doors slam, and the throaty roar of the exhaust. Just as she had heard it after the magical evening with Oliver at Montcalm. It seemed years ago, now.
She looked up to see Follies House looming above her, a dark red mass of Jacobean brick set solidly on the tiny island in the tumbling water.
I wish I’d never come here, Helen whispered. No, that isn’t true. I wish I was staying, staying with Oliver. I wish he wasn’t driving away now, with Pansy beside him. I wish he really had been mine. I love him.
And the hopelessness of that settled around Helen like a mist.
Suddenly she longed to be at home. Once she was away from Oxford, it would be easier. If she tried hard enough, she thought, she would have everything done by this evening. Then she could catch a late train and sleep tonight at home, in her own bed. Quickly she ran down the steps towards the house.
One by one the day’s disagreeable tasks were slowly accomplished.
Helen hated saying goodbye at any time, and now the word seemed dinned into her brain.
At the end of the afternoon, she made her way down the dark kitchen passage to the telephone. Her luggage was almost ready and she was going to ring and arrange for a mini cab to take her to the station. But first, she thought, she would telephone her bank and ask for her account to be transferred back to her home branch. There was no point in keeping it in Oxford.
