‘Yes, look! We’re still together,’ she wanted to announce – not just to Pam and Pete, but to the whole eight-storey hospital. ‘I spent a marvellous night with him, and we plan to share a pad in Newcastle.’
If only Pat and Debbie could see her – realize how many miles she’d travelled since the shallows of the sixth form. There she was, sitting with a real live doctor – soon to be a surgeon of international fame – who could hardly wait to lure her to his bed again. She returned her gaze to him, watched him gulp his coffee. Everything he did was a source of fascination: the way he ripped open a sachet of sugar (his fourth or fifth, at least), and sprinkled its contents directly on to his tongue – as if to add more sweetness to the coffee in his gullet – then brushed his lips with the back of one broad hand.
‘Must dash, Tessa – sorry,’ he said, jumping to his feet, but still savouring the sugar, licking a few remaining grains from the corners of his mouth. ‘You sit tight and let the grease go down.’ He scrabbled in his wallet, slipped something into her hand, closed her fingers over it. ‘Here – buy another breakfast, my darling greedy girl. Or take a taxi back. I don’t want to leave you stranded here all day.’
She pushed his ten-pound note away, embarrassed, disconcerted. Fine to be a Jezebel, a sensuous Cleopatra, but not a vulgar little tart who expected cash down on the table. And why shell out for a taxi, when she could take the bus for 70p? He was collecting up his things now, about to dash away, his white coat slung around his neck, a smear of orange marmalade glistening on his shirt-front. ‘Hold on a second, Michael. When are we going to meet?’
‘Well, next week’s quite impossible. And I’m away at the weekend. And the weekend after that, I’m on duty again. I swapped rotas with a mate of mine because his sister’s getting married. Which means I’m off the following one – June the twenty-second. And with any luck, I’ll be finished about five-ish on the Friday afternoon, so I could call for you at college and we’ll zoom off to the country, spend the whole weekend together.’
Tessa put her cup down, anxiety and jubilation clashing in her head. ‘That Friday’s the last day of Mods.’
‘Perfect! You’ll be panting for a break. I’ll pick you up from Schools, and we’ll have dinner in the Cotswolds, to celebrate your First. And now I’ve got to dash. If I’m not on the ward in exactly half a second, Clive will blow his top.’
‘Celebrate your First,’ she repeated in a daze, watching Michael hurtle to the door, a piece of toast half-eaten in his hand. So he assumed she’d get a First; wasn’t just a whore, but a whore with brains, with intellect. The most she’d ever hoped for was a fairly decent Second, but he’d just thrown down a challenge, and, so far, she’d met his challenges with no demur or hesitation. If he was busy for the next three weeks, then she’d be busy too. She would slave at her revision, spend every waking moment in the library, ask her tutors for extra help, re-read Charlotte’s essays, get up earlier each morning, and not waste time in the bar.
She drained her tepid tea, trying to drown the mocking little voice which was telling her sardonically: ‘However hard you slog, you still won’t do it. You haven’t got a first-class mind. You need to be bloody brilliant for a First, or at least to have attended a bloody brilliant school.’
‘You’re brilliant,’ Michael said, though he had vanished through the door, must be halfway down the stairs by now, ‘absolutely brilliant.’ Okay, so he was referring to her mouth around his prick, but he’d also called her clever – brainy, gifted, Mahatma Tessa Reeves. He believed in her, so she couldn’t let him down. He himself had high ambitions, planned to be the next Sir Thomas Thornton. ‘Sir Michael’ sounded great – classy and yet casual. And if she got her First in Mods, it would be one important step towards becoming not just worthy of him, but becoming the future Lady Edwards.
Chapter Eight
Tessa emerged from the gloom of the Examination Schools into the dazzle of the High Street – a self-assertive sun blazing down on the huge crowd just outside, who had come to meet the examinees with champagne and flowers, streamers and balloons. She stopped, momentarily confused, searching for a face she knew. John had promised he’d be there, to revive her and Vicky and Rob and co with a bottle of cheap bubbly. He was reading geography, not history, and so had finished his exams the day before. Two of the second-year historians had also said they’d come, and another rather scatty girl who’d done the costumes for the play. She heard someone call her name, swung round, expecting John – instead encountered a bouquet in rustling cellophane, with a beaming smile above it.
‘Colin!’
‘Tessa!’
She let him kiss her, relieved that Michael had been delayed, wasn’t there to see the extravagant red roses, reclining on green fern, nor the fervour of his rival’s hug. The ginger frizz was tickling her left ear; his own ears flushed a nervous pink with pleasure and excitement. She had hardly seen poor Colin in the last three pressured weeks, but he’d obviously assumed that once the exams were over, he’d be allowed back into the picture. She was thankful when a rakish John (wearing striped shirt and red bow-tie) broke up the embrace with an ejaculating bottle of champagne. One of Vicky’s schoolfriends had also rolled up in triumphant style, with Veuve Clicquot and a box of Belgian chocolates. There was no sign of Charlotte, who ‘d left the exam room a good five minutes early and must have rushed off on her own, to escape the inevitable post mortem on the papers. But the two second-year historians had now found them in the crowd, and were struggling with the cork on their own Sainsbury’s sparkling wine. They all stood swigging from the bottles, cramming their mouths with nougatines and truffles – except for Richard, who was too busy warding off attack. His elder brother – a biologist at Queen’s – had come to meet him not with wine, but with two giant aerosols of shaving foam and a three-pound bag of flour. His dark hair had already disappeared beneath a white meringue of foam, and was now curdling to a sludge as they pelted him with flour.
The university proctors, in their bowlers and dark suits, were attempting without much success to move everybody on. Rob ducked away to avoid them – and the flour. His girlfriend, Kathy, had spotted him from the other side of the road, and immediately zipped between the cars, throwing away her ice-lolly to leave both hands free to hug him. ‘Well, how was it?’ she enquired, displaying a hectic orange tongue.
‘Crap!’ said Rob. ‘I couldn’t answer anything.’
‘Yeah, the paper was piss-awful,’ Richard muttered through his foam-and-flour coating.
‘What did you think, Tessa?’
She shrugged. ‘Not bad.’ It wasn’t done to gloat; would only sound presumptuous and cocksure if she babbled on about getting all the questions that she’d hoped for, writing faster than she’d ever done before, feeling almost taken over, as if someone else had been sitting at that desk, thinking more coherently than she could ever do herself. The same had happened in yesterday’s exam, despite her clammy hands and churning stomach, her lack of sleep and constant queasiness. It was Michael who’d inspired her, Michael who’d dispelled her nerves, infused her with new confidence and with his own superior skills. As soon as she’d walked into the examination hall, she knew that she could do it; knew she had to do it – for his sake. She still felt high – high from adrenalin, achievement – and also still felt sick; pushed away the bubbly when the bottle did the rounds again, refused another chocolate.
The crowds had brought the traffic to a standstill, and the hot and harassed policemen trying to get it moving again were hampered in their efforts by a barrage of eggs and flour. A few bemused tourists were taking photos of the students, or picking up souvenirs – champagne-corks and flower-heads from the gutter.
‘Why are they wearing penguin suits?’ asked an overweight onlooker in a garish Hawaiian shirt.
‘They’re not,’ said Vicky. ‘That’s subfusc.’
‘Come again?’
‘Subfusc. Formal academic dress. It’s compulsory for exams.’
&nb
sp; ‘And bloody stupid in this heat,’ whinged Richard, struggling out of his flour-spattered black gown and rolling it into a ball. ‘I almost died in there, dressed up in this funeral gear.’
‘I’ve got my shorts on underneath,’ Vicky grinned, whipping off her tight black skirt to reveal scarlet satin hot-pants. The tourists rushed to record her for posterity, while Colin edged up close to Tessa.
‘You look really great,’ he said.
‘Thanks,’ she muttered awkwardly. She could hardly tell him that she’d taken so much trouble with her outfit for Michael’s sake entirely, since, until his lunch-time phone-call, she had assumed he’d be picking her up. Her attempt to turn subfusc (which literally meant dark and drab) into something rather special had obviously paid off. Her blouse was crisply white, her grosgrain skirt a treasure from a stall, her tie a chic black velvet ribbon, unlike Liz’s tatty bootlace. Liz looked creased and rumpled altogether, as if she’d slept in her brief skirt and used her gown to stuff a pillow – but then she wasn’t meeting Dr Michael Edwards.
Tessa repositioned the roses, to allow her to see to cross the road. The bouquet was stiff and bulky, cumbersome to carry. She only hoped she’d manage to dispose of it – and Colin – before Michael’s car drew up. It would mean lies again, alas. She hated lies, and they seemed unfair to Colin, who’d been ungrudging and supportive when she’d told him she’d decided to work flat out and ditch her social life. She hadn’t said a word about her dream of getting a First, for fear of evoking pitying looks, or scornful comments made behind her back. Nor had she mentioned Michael – not to anyone. They’d only gab and gossip, fail to understand how exceptional the whole thing was, how shattering, intense; how far removed from the usual low-key couplings which puttered on or petered out in college.
‘Hi, Tessa!’ yelled a panting voice. ‘Sorry I’m so late.’ A skinny blonde in dungarees chopped off at the thigh pounded up to join them – Anne-Marie, the girl who’d made the costumes for the play. She handed over a single rose, its stalk swathed in silver foil. ‘Oh dear! Coals to Newcastle, I see.’ She cringed in mock-dismay at the dozen lusher blooms.
‘No. It’s gorgeous, honestly. And I can wear it in my hair – look!’ Tessa tucked it in her hairband, secured it with a grip. The scent was wonderful – musky, honeyed, rich – in keeping with her mood. She was thrilled her friends had all shown up; that despite her being so unsociable of late, they still cared enough to bother. She drank in the whole scene; wanted to include it in the photo-album she kept hidden in her mind; record each heady detail – the brightly coloured streamers contrasting with the black and white of subfusc; the gleaming pavement wet with spilt champagne; a boy brandishing a huge cigar trying to smooch a girl with a double strawberry cornet and matching pink balloon.
‘Shall we wander back to college?’ Liz proposed. ‘Buy some wine, dance naked in the quad?’
‘Okay,’ said Rob. ‘But let’s grab a pint in the pub first. I’m sweating like a pig in this get-up.’
‘Well, take it off, then!’ Kathy quipped, proceeding to undress him.
People were still hugging, swilling beer and wine; two boys using their mortarboards to clout each other on the backside. But the crowds were slowly thinning as students sauntered up the High Street arm in arm, or headed down the other way to Magdalen.
‘We could go back to my room,’ John suggested. ‘Roll a huge great spliff and get stoned out of our minds.’
‘We can always do that later. I vote we start with a few beers in the King’s Arms, then make tracks back to college and get absolutely wasted.’
Tessa murmured her approval of the plan, so she wouldn’t seem a killjoy, though she had no intention of getting pissed or trashed, and must also keep a constant eye on the time. Michael had rejigged the arrangements and was now collecting her from Balliol at ‘seven-ish’. It was only twenty-five to six, so she didn’t have to worry yet especially as his ‘seven-ish’ would probably mean eight-thirty. Three days ago she’d gone racing up to Headington to meet him at the hospital. At least, that had been the general idea when he’d phoned her out of the blue and suggested that they had a drink. She had never changed her clothes so fast, never cycled at such a breakneck pace, especially not uphill; the ‘drink’ escalating in her mind to a meal, a midnight punt-ride, a whole astounding night with him. After two hours twenty minutes, tears had taken over from elation. She’d spent the first excited hour pacing up and down in a fever of impatience, then collapsed exhausted on a bench, still trying to convince herself that everything was quite all right, and he’d turn up any moment. After another interminable wait, she’d finally been informed that Dr Edwards had been unavoidably detained, and would not be free that evening after all.
‘Please don’t let anything go wrong tonight,’ she prayed. ‘No emergencies or haemorrhages, no clots or sudden deaths. It’s our first weekend away together and I can’t bear anything to spoil it.’
She walked four abreast with Colin, Liz and Richard, swinging up the High, then turning into Catte Street and along to Radcliffe Square. The towers and spires looked picture-book, as if the city had made a special effort to beguile and charm the tourists, display itself at its perfect summer best; the golden stone basking in the sun, the clouds themselves valeted and spruced, any wispy tatters hoovered from the sky. She could never take this city quite for granted, despite the fact she’d been here a whole academic year and should be much more used to it, even blasé like the rest. Instead, she was more conscious of its deeper layers and levels, its private treasures shut off from general view – priceless books in libraries; secret gardens; even secret genius – some future Einstein or Shakespeare burning the midnight oil in his shabby student room. And all those strange medieval rituals which outsiders never saw – the Latin songs, and sconcing; the Boar’s Head Feast at Queen’s; the Saint Catherine’s Night Dinner at Balliol, when the Loving Cup was passed from hand to hand; the ceremony at All Souls to celebrate the first year of each new century, when the fellows paraded round the quad in full academic dress, and holding lighted torches. When she heard about such rites, she always felt a frisson of excitement, aware that she was part of something venerable and awe-inspiring. Of course, she had to hide her feelings, don her usual mask, but she was slightly more accustomed now to the split between her private and her public selves, to relishing in secret what she shrugged off with her friends.
It was an added gain that she shared the place with Michael; that both of them were woven into its fabric, part of its huge history. She suspected he might scoff as well, if she ever broached the subject; knew he saw her as naive. If only she could get her First, it would help to bridge the gulf between them, make her more his equal. Her thoughts kept sneaking back to the gloom and grind of the examination hall, running through the papers. She’d been forced to rush the final question; had chosen the one on history and biography, rather than history and anthropology, because she could then include both Abelard and Guibert, yet if she’d only had more time, she could have expanded the whole issue of subjectivity in history, brought in the example of …
She broke away abruptly, dumped the roses in Colin’s arms, and went dashing down the steps to the garden of St Mary’s church, driven by an urgent wave of sickness. She was about to throw up any second, and couldn’t bear to do it in full view of her friends. She crouched down on the grass, head bent over the flowerbed, heaving, retching, but unable to bring up anything but a trail of slimy dribble. She felt dizzy and light-headed, but it couldn’t be the wine – she’d only had a sip or two. It must be simply stress. She’d been working far too hard, had barely slept last night, stayed up till three revising, then begun again at six. Everyone felt lousy at exam time. One girl had worn dark glasses the whole week, because she’d been bursting into tears so often, her eyes were red and puffy. And another girl had fainted, twice, the day before her finals.
She wiped her mouth, took a few deep breaths. She’d be all right tomorrow, once life was back to
normal. Michael would restore her. They could lie in bed all day – if not exactly resting, then with their minds on something other than exams.
Her legs were still unsteady, but she made herself get up. She must rejoin her friends, allow their cheerful banter to distract her from her symptoms. She walked slowly up the steps and began to cross the square, suddenly stumbled on an uneven patch of cobblestones. She stopped, bewildered, pressed both hands to her head – an insinuating voice was resounding through her skull, stunning her with the force of a physical blow. Be careful, lass. If you eat a piece of this, you’ll fall pregnant within the year.
She stood stock-still, the word ‘pregnant’ seeming to echo round the square, eclipsing any other sound or thought. She realized with a sickening dread how familiar the word was; how it had been festering in her mind for the last few frightening weeks, despite her refusal to acknowledge it. But her present bout of nausea seemed to clinch her fears beyond all doubt; confirm the morris man’s grave warning, which she had laughed off at the time. She could taste his treacherous cake again, its moist and spicy sweetness cloying in her mouth. She had eaten it on this very spot, in Radcliffe Square, on that overcast May Morning – the morning she’d met Michael. And she had fallen pregnant the first time they’d made love, at that picnic in the woods.
She groped back to the garden, so that she could sit down on a bench; too shattered to do anything but slump. ‘No!‘ she said out loud, trying to push away the images swarming in her mind: cells dividing and dividing to form a new life, a threatening and unwanted life, feeding on her own. She shook her head irritably, as if arguing with some invisible opponent. It couldn’t happen – not to her. It was always other girls – careless, feckless types who didn’t take precautions. She was on the pill. Okay, she had stopped taking it for just two paltry days, or maybe three at most, but only because it seemed so bloody pointless when she’d broken up with Rob. As soon as she’d met Michael, she had started it again; even swallowing the ones she’d missed, as a sort of extra safeguard. Then she’d gone back to the doctor for her next six months’ supply, and had taken one religiously every single morning. Her last period hadn’t come, but the GP had changed her prescription, put her on a newer brand, so she’d assumed that was the reason. She remembered reading somewhere that on certain types of pill, some women had no periods at all, so why should she …?
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