She picked up her pen, tried to make some notes on Saint Bernard’s views on justice, his strictures to Count Theobald. It was less than three weeks now to Mods. She’d run the risk of failing her first crucial public exams if she let some macho doctor rule her life. She must accept the fact that she’d lost him – and for good. After Mods she was moving out of college into a house in Juxon Street, and he was moving hospital, so their paths were unlikely to cross. And yet never in her life before had she felt so fused with someone else, as if, after her astounding come, she’d actually slipped inside his skin, seen the dappled beeches with his eyes; used his large and brawny hands to put her clothes back on; breathed purer fiercer air because she’d gulped it through his lungs.
She glared at Radcliffe’s statue – hated it, resented it – that disdainful face and foppish wig, that air of snooty arrogance. How could she have ever found this place exciting? Yet she remembered writing to her mother in the first week of her first term, saying she was sitting in a library with a fantastic soaring dome and great arches and pilasters, and a balcony and marble busts, and an amazing sculpted frieze, and couldn’t concentrate on work because her eyes were everywhere. She’d even enclosed a postcard of the building, so that April could see it for herself, and her mother had scribbled her a letter back, declaring she’d never known a library could be circular, and it looked more like a wedding cake complete with decorations, and why was it so dirty? Today it seemed polluted, inside as well as out, a grey pall on all the bookshelves, the desks, the walls, the windows; even its human occupants made of stained and dingy stone. The dreary spod beside her had barely moved at all, his nose embedded in his book, while she’d fidgeted and shifted, doodled on her pad. She could have murdered him in cold blood, for no other reason than the fact that he wasn’t Michael, and could get on with his work, and because, as a male, he had all the power, power to initiate a date – or sex. Things were meant to be so different in the nineties – women liberated, equal, all the sexist barriers swept aside – but whatever the theoretical advances, she still felt quite incapable of phoning Dr Michael Edwards to suggest they should swyve again.
She swept her books off the desk, stuffed them into her bag. No point kidding herself that her mind was on Saint Bernard, when all she could see was naked bodies, picnic rugs. Better to go back to college, tidy up her tidy room, or kill an hour having tea with Vicky, sharing aimless college gossip. Thank God she hadn’t mentioned Michael – not to any of her friends. At least they couldn’t sympathize, or shrug.
She walked slowly down the stairs, her steps faltering to a halt as she realized that Vicky would probably be with Liz. The two had become much closer, and she felt increasingly left out; especially feared next year, when she and Liz and Vicky, and another girl she hardly knew, would be sharing the small terraced house in Juxon Street. There wasn’t enough room in college for all students to live in, and it was usually the second-years who were ejected from the nest. It had been hard to find a house at all; still harder to find flatmates who were congenial, uncomplicated. One girl they’d considered was into heavy drugs; another had bulimia; so, in the end, cutesy Liz and grouchy Alexandra had seemed the best of a bad lot. But if Liz and Vicky were becoming thick as thieves, that left her with Alexandra – and her sulks.
She ploughed on to the bottom of the stairs, distracted from her thoughts by a voice she recognized.
‘Tessa, hi! Great to see you.’
‘Hi,’ she replied mechanically, noting with dismay that it must be pissing down outside again, since Colin Linton’s hair was dripping wet, his thin blue nylon anorak stained almost black with rain.
‘Finished your stint for today?’
She nodded.
‘I’m just starting mine. Though I can’t say I’m that keen. Fancy a coffee or a beer or something, before I get down to ‘‘Morte d’Arthur’’? We’ve got this lousy essay on Tennyson – ‘‘Was he a poet of both doubt and faith? Discuss’’!’
She hesitated. She could pretend she had a tutorial, or an appointment at the dentist, or was meeting someone else. She’d become proficient at excuses in these last three endless weeks. On the other hand, Colin wasn’t bad – a first-year English student, who had been roped in to the play right at the last minute, when one of the cast collapsed with hepatitis. They’d talked a lot at the party and he had suggested midnight coffee in his room, but she’d invented a bad headache, because that had been two weeks ago, when no other man existed except Michael Peter Edwards.
‘Okay,’ she said now, feeling ashamed of her lie.
‘We’ll have to make a dash for it.’ Colin pulled his hood up as they emerged into the open, grimaced at the puddles. ‘King’s Arms or Queen’s Lane Coffee House?’ he asked. ‘The pub’s a good bit nearer.’
‘The pub then,’ Tessa said, peering up at the spiteful sheeting rain. So God-Michael hadn’t relented yet.
‘What’s it called?’ asked Tessa, sipping her second lager and scanning the photograph on the wall of Oxford in the rain – a downpour both inside and out.
‘The Naked Lunch Society.’
‘Never heard of it – unless it’s something to do with Burroughs. It sounds obscene to me.’
‘It’s not,’ said Colin, laughing. ‘No one takes their clothes off, or actually has lunch, but they do have brilliant parties. It’s very new, only been going for a term. Some wacky girl at Merton dreamed it up, mainly for people in the arts. In fact, there’s a do on there this evening – two Irish poets performing with a synthesizer. Which is probably a convenient excuse for getting gently pissed. Why don’t you come along?’
Tessa didn’t answer, still found it difficult to switch her thoughts from Michael. Every subject led her back to their stupendous Saturday, including ‘Naked Lunch’ – a perfect title for their picnic in the woods. She’d been hoping for a naked dinner, too; kept all her evenings free since then – which was why they had been so barren: lonely hours of introspection, bitterness and self-reproach. A party might be fun, at least provide distraction. And she and Colin seemed to have hit it off quite well. A shame he wasn’t taller, and she’d never liked red hair on men, but apart from his height and ginger frizz, he did have some things in his favour – attractive slate-blue eyes, for instance, and an open, friendly manner. And they appeared to have a surprising amount in common, including the lack of any normal paid-up father and a love of Gerard Manley Hopkins, who had been at Balliol himself.
Colin drained his beer, uncrossed his blue-jeaned legs. ‘We could go back to college first, grab a pizza in the JCR, and then make tracks to the river. They’ve hired a barge for the gig tonight.’
‘Oh, great!’
‘Does that mean you’re going to come?’
‘But what about your work?’ she asked, still trying to play for time. ‘I thought you said you had to get down to ‘‘Morte d’Arthur’’?’
‘It can wait.’
She grinned, enjoying taking precedence over Alfred, Lord Tennyson. If she’d been going out with Michael, his hospital would always come first. He had already told her he worked one weekend in three, was on call at least two nights a week, and was frequently kept late. Perhaps it was just as well he’d dropped her. Did she really want to hang around for hours, have dates and dinners cancelled right at the last moment, or suffer pangs of guilt because she felt selfishly resentful of some patient having a bypass who needed Michael more than she did?
Colin pushed his chair back. ‘Tessa, I’m on tenterhooks! Is it yes or no?’
‘Yes! It sounds good fun. But we’d better get a move on. And I’ll have to change before we go. I’m still soaked to the skin.’
‘Same here. Though the rain’s easing off a bit now. That’s a blessing, or the Irish poets might be drowned by more than just the synthesizer.’
‘Have you read the new biography of Hopkins?’ she asked him, as they crossed the road into the Broad.
‘Yes. Disappointing, wasn’t it? It seemed to be bulging wi
th factual stuff, yet somehow managed to miss the man.’
‘It was quite helpful on the poems, though. I went back and read a good half of them again, which I’d never have done otherwise.’
She had mentioned Hopkins to Michael, and been shocked by his brusque ‘Who?’ Yet why should she expect him to be familiar with poetry when she herself knew nothing about anatomy or surgery? He’d talked for hours about his work while they had been sitting in the Blue Coyote, waiting for their crab-cakes. She’d been confused by all the names – senior registrars and consultants, who appeared to rule his life, and was especially baffled by the initials, which seemed worse than those at Balliol. JR was easy – simply meant the John Radcliffe Hospital – and TT was his boss, but she still hadn’t figured out SHO, NDS, RI or NOC. It was better in so many ways to stick with fellow undergraduates in one’s own familiar world. If things worked out with Colin it might also help her cope with Rob, who had found a new girlfriend and appeared to be flaunting her deliberately. He seemed to be saying: ‘Okay, you chucked me, Tessa, but now I’m free for Kathy, so yah-boo.’ She couldn’t get away from them – Rob and Kathy nose to nose at breakfast, knee to knee at lunch. If she hadn’t been so wretched over Michael, she probably wouldn’t have cared; but maybe Colin could provide a bracing antidote to both gloating Rob and heartless, busy Michael.
Rob and Michael were often in her thoughts at once – the two of them stark naked. She somehow couldn’t stop comparing them: Rob slender, skinny, hairless, with a slender skinny prick to match; Michael brawny and hirsute, his cock thicker and more squat. She could hardly believe two men could be so different – Rob a timid moped, puttering safely through the side-streets; Michael a brute black Harley-Davidson roaring up the fast lane of the motorway. Rob had never kissed what Michael called her fuzz-pie, and even when he kissed her breasts he did it very tentatively – as if he had been presented with some foreign dish which must be briefly sampled (if only from good manners), before he moved on to the main course. Michael, on the other hand, relished every course; approached each treat and delicacy with a connoisseur’s delight, and had transformed a simple country picnic into an epicurean feast.
She turned in at the college entrance, her mind shifting from marshmallow-breast and fuzz-pie to mortarboards and gowns; suddenly aware of all the big shots who had stepped through this same door, from John Wyclif to John Schlesinger. The first time she’d come to Balliol, she’d felt their presence as an inspiration, a challenge, but today she was depressed by it, as if they were lions and unicorns, she a puny goat. The fact that Michael had ditched her – tucked into her just once, then spat her out like gristle – made it still more obvious that she would never fulfil his expectations. She was not in the same league, not a natural goddess who could play consort to his god. Her minor part in the college play should have taught her where she stood. She and Colin had each had a scant dozen lines, which had forged something of a bond between them like their modest (crummy) homes and working mothers.
She touched his arm a moment, wanting to express that bond, make it real and tangible. ‘Listen, Colin, if you like, I could rustle up some supper in my room. I’m afraid it’ll be something pretty basic, but at least we won’t have to queue.’
‘Great!’ said Colin, looking surprised and pleased at once, his blue eyes fixed on hers. He had stopped outside the post-room, and now gestured to the door. ‘Mind if I check my pigeonhole first? I’m expecting a note from my tutor.’
‘No, go ahead.’ Tessa checked hers, too, discarding all the usual bumph about societies and meetings, Christian rallies, political crusades, appeals for cash and time. There was just one letter for her in a stiff white envelope, which must have been delivered by hand, since she’d already scoured her pigeonhole after both the morning posts. She ripped it open, stared at the two words dashed off in splodgy ink: ‘Phone me.’ Nothing else, except an impatient, drunken ‘M’, and an Oxford number jotted underneath. She could hardly hold the letter, her fingers numb, as if the paper were a sheet of ice which had frozen her whole hand. Colin, still riffling through his mail, suddenly looked up at her, his face registering alarm.
‘What’s wrong?’
She shook her head, her voice and throat immobilized as well.
‘Tessa, what’s the matter? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘Nothing.’ She forced the word out, forced her lips to work. ‘I’ve … got to make a phone call.’
‘It’s not bad news, I hope?’
‘No. Just … unexpected.’
‘Would you prefer to call the party off? We don’t have to go if you’d rather …’
‘I’m not too sure.’
‘Tell you what – I’ll wait for you in my room. You make your call, then come up and tell me how things are, and we’ll take it from there – okay? We can always skip the supper, or grab a bite en route.’
‘All right. But you go on, though. I need a sec to think things out.’
‘Are you sure you’re okay? I mean, can’t I help or –?’
‘No, honestly. I’m fine. See you in ten minutes.’ She stood watching him drift off, too anxious to exult. Michael might have ordered her to ring him simply to tell her it was over, to confirm his weeks of silence, make the break official. It was an order, wasn’t it – that terse and lordly ‘Phone me’? She unfolded the letter again, hoping it might have changed, expanded to three pages of contrite explanation, plus some ardent, grateful outpourings about their Saturday together and how he’d thought of nothing else, despite his illness, or his mother’s fall, or his summons to a funeral at the other end of England, or …
No. Just half a line.
How dared he take that tone, leave her high and dry for twenty days, then insult her with two words? She damned well wasn’t going to phone. Let him stew! She’d go back to her room instead, tart up in her favourite dress, dazzle Colin, seduce the Irish poets.
Anger seemed to empower her feet, release her from inertia. She raced across the quad, hurtled up the stairs, tugged her clothes off, washed and changed in minutes. She dug out some dangly earrings, squirted perfume on her wrists, then frowned at her appearance in the mirror. Her hair was greasy, badly needed trimming, the fringe so long it was falling in her eyes; the eyes themselves shadowed by dark circles. Both were Michael’s fault. He’d prevented her from sleeping, made her too despondent to bother with trivia like haircuts. She tied a bandeau round her head, scooped her hair on top, tried to fix it firmly in place with clips and coloured combs. At least it looked flamboyant, if not exactly soignée. She darted down the stairs again, stood dithering at the bottom. She’d totally forgotten to ask Colin where his room was, would have to trek back to the porter’s lodge to find out.
‘Staircase eleven, room fourteen. And you look very smart tonight.’
‘Thanks,’ she said, fiddling with a swathe of hair which had already come adrift. Paul was her favourite porter, often paid her compliments.
‘Going somewhere special?’
‘Yes,’ she grinned. ‘The Naked Lunch Society.’
‘Rather you than me. It’s too late for lunch and too cold for stripping off. But have a good time, anyway.’
‘I will.’
She jogged back the way she’d come. Staircase fourteen was the one right next to hers, though she had never noticed Colin coming out of it. Nice that they were neighbours. She must work at the relationship, not let herself be led astray by trivial things like height, or carroty hair. And talking of hair, she could phone the salon now. They worked late on Friday evenings. Maybe they could fit her in tomorrow; then, if Colin asked her out again, or planned something for this weekend, at least he wouldn’t mistake her for what her mother called a ‘Dulux dog’.
She ran on to the JCR, where there were two phones in the basement; sorted through her purse for change. Three tens should be ample, even if they kept her hanging on. She dialled the number, listened to the ringing-tone shrilling, shrilling, shrilling. It sound
ed peevish and indignant – seemed to be reproaching her for troubling busy people. She was about to put the receiver down when a male voice answered, one she didn’t know.
‘Yes, hello?’ it said abruptly.
Her own hello was softer, more or less inaudible. She swallowed, tried again. Her hands were clammy, her whole stomach somer-saulting.
‘I want to speak to Dr Michael Edwards. Is he there?’
Chapter Six
‘Christ! Tristram, what was going on? You look completely pissed.’
‘I was completely pissed! That was our last day. See Jo there in the corner? She stripped down to her birthday-suit and tried to have it off with a campy Greek waiter who was more interested in boys.’
‘He wasn’t,’ Jo protested, snatching back the photograph. ‘And I only took my top off – nothing else.’
‘Wait!’ yelled Peter. ‘I haven’t seen it yet. Is that Michael in the hat?’
‘No, Michael wasn’t there. He was lying down in a darkened room, recovering from the night before.’
‘Balls!’ retorted Michael, ripping open a packet of nuts and pouring them down his throat like coals down a chute. ‘I’ll have you know I was reading a good book.’
‘What, Tropic of Cancer?’ Peter asked sardonically.
‘No, Winnie the Pooh.’
They all laughed, save for Tessa. She felt totally excluded from this group of bantering medics, half of whom had just returned from a holiday in Greece – windsurfing in Vassiliki. Their tanned and glowing faces, Michael’s in particular, had reduced her to a silent, seething fury. She’d been imagining him on his sick-bed, feverish and pale, or grim-faced at his mother’s grave, or coping single-handed with some emergency at the hospital, taking over from a stricken colleague, renouncing food and sleep in order to save lives. And instead he’d been larking in the sun, skimming over rumbustious waves beneath a Cambridge-blue sky, or drinking himself silly with a bunch of naked nurses. She glanced round the room again, still hadn’t got their names straight. Jo was the brunette and Jennifer the dumpy one, but that leggy blonde reclining on the sofa – who was she, for God’s sake? Michael’s new goddess, the girl he’d sipped and guzzled on some deserted Ionian beach, or rescued when she’d fallen off her surf-board? Peter was still pawing her, but that didn’t mean a thing. Girls seemed interchangeable in this haphazard Headington flat.
Michael, Michael Page 8