by Riley Meyer
She hung up.
Gown? I thought, incredulous.
I sighed, feeling—as I walked out through the stunning Tudor dining hall that had stood for centuries and which for a fleeting moment I had the privilege of entering—that the world was being especially cruel to me.
Then, walking across the quads (careful not to step on the grass), I checked my emails. Not only was matriculation obligatory but it came with a list of dress code requirements longer and more bizzare than I’d ever seen in my life. Only girls were allowed to wear a ribbon? Suits had to be dark colours. Shoes could not be tan. Doc Martin’s were not permitted. White shirts only. Black bowties only.
Geez...
I thought about my backpacking pack up in my room, every pocket filled with condoms but in terms of formal clothes as empty as my message window with Mark.
What was I going to do? Who could I ask to borrow all this shit from?
I excluded Mark, not just because we hadn’t said a word to each other since I’d tongued his arse, but because he was also going to matriculation today and so presumably was using all this gear himself. The same went for Tom, Jason, and of course Maura.
Even someone like James presumably had to be there as a staff member, not that I was keen to ask him anyway.
So who did that leave me? I cursed myself for being so wrapped up in my own shit this week that I hadn’t made more friends. It’s not like Margery Kempe could come out of her shitty medieval book and lend me a sub-fusc, that is, if the old broad had one in the first place.
Then it came to me: Jack.
He’d brought me coffee in my dream but perhaps he could save my skin in real life. But it was urgent and I didn’t have his number. Or did I?
Frantically I hunted through my emails, looking for the one I’d gotten before term about “Orientation Buddies”. I had the vaguest memory that Jack’s details—including his phone number—had been there, though at the time I’d totally ignored them.
I was in luck. Jack Klein. Gotcha.
As I was walking up the stairs to my accommodation (there was famously no reception in the lift), I called him.
“Hello?” came his voice.
“Hey, Jack. Sorry to call you like this. It’s Rafe.”
“Oh,” a pause, “hey, Rafe. Good to hear from you.”
He sounded less calm than in my dream; there was a little strain in his voice. Maybe he’d just woken up.
“So sorry to call you and I still 100% want us to get that drink, but right now I’ve got a favour to ask you.”
“How can I help?”
I explained the situation, making the most of the opportunity to vent about the dress-code Nazism of matriculation. When I was getting on to the tan shoes, he interrupted me:
“I can lend you all this stuff, Rafe. I’ve had it since I did my Masters, just sitting in the cupboard.”
“Seriously?”
“Of course. But look, I’m out for a walk, so I won’t have time to go home and then bring them to you at college. Do you want to meet at my place? Then you can try on a few shirts for size.”
“I love you,” I said.
A pause. I remembered I wasn’t talking to Maura so I made myself clarify:
“Thank you so, so much. Your girlfriend won’t mind?”
“No, she—that’ll be fine. See you in ten? I’ll text you my address.”
*
I knocked on the door to Jack’s flat, which turned out to be the upper floors of one of the beautiful terrace houses just off Iffley Road. When he opened the door, smiled, and said “Rafe”, I had a strong sense of deja-vu from my dream. The only difference being, of course, that he wasn’t topless.
He was wearing a white t-shirt of a style that someone like Mark would’ve deemed hipster: loose, vintage, rolled up at the sleeves. I could see the pale skin of his chest, the elegant curve of his clavicle.
“Hey,” I said, “thanks so much for this.”
“No problem at all.”
Jack took me through the corridor to his living room. The house was a sanctuary of bookshelves, plants, hipster ceramics; there was a record player, a terrarium. I shot a glance into one of the bedroom as we passed by and saw, sitting on the floor, a large suitcase, half-packed.
I thought about asking Jack where he was going but swallowed the question. Wasn’t it enough that he was bailing me out without me getting nosy about him?
Jack had laid out the clothes on a sofa and as I walked in, he passed me a shirt and some trousers.
“See if these fit,” he said.
I thanked him and immediately started pulling off my jeans. He looked surprised, hesitated, and then looked away. I realised too late that I’d made him awkward; he’d probably thought I’d go and get changed in another room or something.
Nudity had been less of a problem in the New Zealand bush—and hey it’s not like I was going commando, or I didn’t think I was.
“I think the pants fit,” I said.
“Pants?” Jack said, still looking away.
“Yeah, the pants.”
He turned around, cautiously.
“Oh, you mean the trousers.”
I shrugged.
“Trousers, pants.”
He laughed.
“In the UK, pants mean underwear.”
“What? Seriously?”
He nodded solemnly.
“’Fraid so.”
“Fuck, I’ve been saying that all the time.”
He smiled, and sat down on a couch opposite me, watching me.
I did up the pants-cum-trousers and turned around, leaning back to try and see how my arse looked.
“What do you think?”
He nodded.
“Looks good. Looks fine.”
I pulled my t-shirt over my head. I could see Jack consciously stopping himself from looking away. Clearly, I’d managed to make him embarrassed about seeming embarrassed. This felt to me like a perfect encapsulation of English national identity.
I stood there, naked to the waist, as I undid the buttons on his shirt, and felt his eyes on me. We didn’t say anything. All I could hear was the sound of me struggling with one button after another and all I could focus on was his eyes, those piercing green eyes—heir attention felt like a hot brand.
“I had a dream about you,” I said, just to have something to say.
But shit, why did I have to say that?
“Oh,” Jack answered, “you did? What happened?”
“It wasn’t dirty,” I said.
Fuuuck. Was I a total idiot? I wished that Maura'd pushed me down the stairwell that first day, instead of picking me up, then at least I wouldn’t be walking around free running my mouth like this.
“I’m, uh, glad to hear it,” he said.
This struck me as a bit of a disappointing answer, but I couldn’t blame him.
I pulled on his shirt, still mentally chastising myself for being such a fuck up.
“So, what happened in the dream?” he prompted.
“Well,” I hesitated, “you brought me a cup of coffee.”
“What, to college?”
“No, uh, well I’m not really sure where we were. But I was sleeping on a couch and you brought me a cup of coffee.”
There was a pause. This sounded way more intimate than I’d intended it to. Jack slowly nodded, considering this.
“I hope you like instant,” he said finally.
“I thought this might be a cold drip coffee household.”
“Not for long,” he said, in a portentous tone, and before I had time to interpret this, he stood up and said: “let me help.”
I was struggling with the top button but I let my hands drop to my sides as Jack approached. He leaned his head close to mine, drawing the two sides of the collar together to try and get leverage enough to button them together. It was tight, but I was holding my breath anyway.
I looked at his skin, his soft hair, the bridge of his Roman nose. That dream, that bloo
dy dream, had changed him totally for me. Our relationship before, or what there’d been of it, had seemed so neutral, so professional. But it had all taken on a different hue now, as though someone—or in this case my own rogue subconscious—had put a layer of cellophane over my vision, revealing things about him that I hadn’t noticed before.
“There,” he said, stepping back to appreciate his handiwork, “now the bow-tie. Turn around.”
I dutifully turned and felt Jack’s long, certain fingers flicking up the collar of the shirt. One of his hands rested on my shoulder. I breathed out, long and slow. I was inwardly relieved that there hadn’t been any more follow-up questions about the dream.
He flicked the collar back down over the bow-tie and came around to look at me front on, tweaking the tie so that it was straight. Then he raised his eyes to mine and smiled. Oof.
“Suit jacket and then, the icing on the cake.... your gown. And trencher.”
“What’s a trencher? Sounds like First World War paraphernalia.”
“Not quite.”
He helped me into the suit jacket and then pulled a long black piece of fabric out of a plastic bag and placed it around my shoulders. This was the “gown” and it made me look like a vampire or—because it had strange strips of fabric hanging from it—like some kind of jellyfish.
“Jesus,” I said.
He laughed.
“Haven’t you seen these in the movies?”
“Yeah, in like Pride & Prejudice. I figured they didn’t do these things anymore.”
“Traditions die hard in Oxford,” he said.
He was loosening up, more comfortable now that I was clothed again.
“You know,” he went on, “you have to wear all this when you sit your exams as well.”
“Wait, what?”
He nodded but didn’t look at me, he was making sure my gown was just right. Then he got out what looked like a black placemat. Then I saw that it had a tassel on the top—the exact kind of tassel you might find on a cushion in your grandparents’ house. This was the "trencher".
Jack put it on my head and stood back to admire the effect.
He said, grinning:
“You could be on the brochure.”
“Not if they kick me out first,” I said, “you should see how many noise complaints I’ve gotten.”
“Oh yeah? What’ve you been up to?”
He handed me a pair of dress shoes and I crouched down to put them on, trying to keep all the weird hanging strips of the gown to the side as I did so. This helped me buy time to answer Jack’s question because I knew the truth— about fucking Mark too loudly—was off-limits. Or at least it was if I wanted to maintain any dignity at all.
“Oh, you know, first-year things. But now that term’s started I don’t think I’ll see the inside of a bar for months.”
“That’s a shame,” Jack said, “I was hoping you’d maybe take me along with you sometime. If I wouldn’t get in the way.”
I laughed.
“You sound like you’re someone’s Dad, trying to tag along.”
His face fell. I realised how badly that’d come out.
“Yeah, maybe you’re right. I’d be the odd one out.”
“No,” I said, standing up again, “Jack, I didn’t mean that.”
He looked at me, cautiously.
“I mean: you make it sound like you’re a parent, asking to tag along. As though you were uncool and past it. Which you’re definitely not.”
He shrugged.
“Who knows? Maybe I am.”
“Don’t be so ridiculous.”
He was looking at his feet. I felt like everything I was saying was landing badly today.
“Jack,” I said, and touched his shoulder.
His eyes shot up so quickly that I let his shoulder go, as though I’d be burned.
I tried to regather my thoughts:
“You’re anything but ridiculous. I would love to go out with you,” I said, creating a long, hollow silence, “I mean, for you to come out with me, with us. We can go with Maura. Perhaps without her jock contingent, this time.”
"Shit," he said, shaking his head, “I sound a bit tragic don’t I?”
“Not at all. I’m the tragic one, having to borrow literally all your clothes. I’m even wearing your socks. Trust me, if one of us is a mess, it’d be me.”
I thought back to Mark, to the noise complaints, to my classes, to James.
“Seriously, I have no idea what I’m doing. Nobody really does. I’m just being honest about it.”
Jack nodded slowly, appearing to really take this to heart. I didn’t know if my dime-store wisdom was worth this kind of considered reflection, but whatever got his rocks off.
I looked at my watch. It was almost time for matriculation.
“Thank you so, so much for this Jack. I owe you one. Hell, I owe you two.”
“It’s no problem. Good to see you. I’ll make you that coffee next time.”
“It’s a date,” I said.
If he took this the wrong way, he didn’t show it, and smiled.
As I walked back through his house, I shot another glance into the bedroom and saw that suitcase again—which was now noticeably fuller than before. There was someone in there. Who? His girlfriend? Why hadn’t he said anything and why was she packing?
These were questions that would have to wait because right then I had to run to make it for the ceremony, even though Jack’s shoes, a size and a half too small, were fucking killing my ankles.
13
We marched out of the college dining hall like a flock of bats leaving our cave, shepherded by men in bowler hats and on our way to the Sheldonian Theatre. There, we’d been told, the Vice Chancellor would cast a spell on us—or something—in Latin.
I had found Maura, suspiciously flushed, but hair perfectly arranged under her trencher, which she was immediately told to take off by a passing bowler-hat-man. Apparently we were only allowed to wear them once we’d been matriculated and/or cursed by the Vice Chancellor.
“What the fuck!” she whispered to me, holding the hat unhappily under her arm, “I arranged my fooking hair for this hat. Do I look stupid now?”
“You look beautiful, Maura.”
Now that I’d made it on time and with all the right kit on, I almost felt relaxed.
She smiled and leant up to kiss me on the cheek. I put an arm over her shoulder as we walked.
A mass of us from the college were drifting down the back streets of Oxford, the high walls of the colleges on either side. There was Teddy Hall with its church and park, next door New College with its crenelated turrets. We passed under the famous Bride of Sighs that connected two halves of Hertford college. Usually rammed with tourists, today it was students in cloaks as far as the eye could see.
It could have been three hundred years earlier and the scene would’ve looked exactly the same. I imparted these thoughts to Maura, who laughed.
“Yeah, with one major difference.”
“What?”
“I wouldn’t be here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Women weren’t let into Oxford until 1920.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously,” she said, “And even then they weren’t allowed to graduate.”
“That’s fucked.”
“Spoken like a true feminist.”
“I try.”
I was looking over the black gowns and illicitly worn trenchers, eyes scanning for a particular set of shoulders, a solid neck, some cropped brown hair. Mark wasn’t short, but he also wasn’t a skyscraper like some of these other undergraduates and I wasn’t finding him easy to locate.
He was here, right? He hadn’t freaked out so much he’d gone home?
Maura squeezed my side.
“He’s here,” she said quietly, “I saw him earlier.”
“How did he look?”
“Oh, you know, handsome. Straight.”
“You woul
dn’t say that if you’d seen him on all fours.”
“You made him do that?”
I shrugged, trying to conceal my obvious pride. Maura looked impressed.
“And more.”
“What more? If I’m going to get through this ceremony I need to know details.”
“A gentleman never tells.”
Maura protested, but we were soon arriving outside the Bodleian courtyard, where we were ferried through in batches into the theatre.
The Sheldonian was one of the most iconic buildings of Oxford. Next to the central Radcliffe Square that always made it into the postcards, it was stately, grand and circular, topped by a white observatory that looked out over Broad Street, the Weston library, and the nearby colleges like Hertford.
I’d never been inside the Sheldonian, but as we walked through the Bodleian I shot a glance at the passage where, that first night, I’d sunk to my knees in front of Mark and taken him and his cum in my mouth. That felt like months ago and already it made me nostalgic. Already it felt like something that was receding into an inaccessible past.
The crowds of black gowns around us grew Maura pulled me in front of the famously photogenic Divinity School.
“Oi,” she said, “Jason. Photo. No, of me and Rafe.”
Jason obediently trotted over and, with admirable patience, took round after round of photos which Maura promptly rejected. Finally, when she found one she deemed acceptable, I got to have a look at it.
“Maura, I’m sneezing.”
“Are you?” she asked, surprised and taking the phone back to have another look.
“Yes, I am.”
“Oh, but Rafe, I look bloody delicious.”
I stared at her.
“Fine, fine, we’ll take another. Jason come back.”
We managed to find a photo acceptable to both of us just before a bowler hat man, who made a sour face at our camera as though photography itself was a gauche new fad, herded us into the theatre.
“Come on, still room for more,” he snapped, pushing us forwards.
Maura looked back and saw Jason and Tom waiting a while back, not allowed in.
“Shouldn’t we wait for everyone else? I didn’t see anyone else from college go in.”
“Who cares, let’s go. This way you can put your hat on quicker.”
“Fine,” Maura said, shooting one more glare at the man and then taking my arm to walk into the theatre.