It didn’t bother her, or she told herself it didn’t, and her passion was channelled into her close female friendships. The bond with Alison – so different from her in so many ways – grew stronger the night she found her slumped, unconscious, on the toilet, after a heavy session in the bar.
It was she who held Alison’s long blonde hair back as her friend vomited into the pan; she who wiped her mouth with a paper towel and brought her a glass of water; who splashed her face, as tenderly as a mother would a child, and half-carried, half-guided her back to her bedroom; who sat up with her that night, terrified she would choke if she didn’t keep watch.
Alison’s jeans had been pulled down when she’d found her there and there had been something so vulnerable about her being so exposed like this.
‘What if one of the lads had found me?’ her friend wondered later.
‘They’d have been embarrassed.’
‘Well, yes. But what if anything had happened?’
‘Nothing would have happened. You weren’t in a fit state to do anything and you were about to throw up.’
‘I don’t know.’ Alison had chewed at a cuticle and Holly noticed that her once-neat nails were becoming bitten down, the quicks ragged. She gave a hard, bright laugh: ‘Not sure everyone would be put off by that.’
If this bonded them – the more confident girl becoming more noticeably appreciative, the relationship equalling out a little – then it was through their Anglo-Saxon studies that she grew closer to Sophie. Every Wednesday, they would sit together in the college library swapping halves of translation, and laboriously copying them from each other before Sophie found a photocopier and so cut their sessions short.
Holly would watch her friend from the opposite side of the desk and wonder if her hair would grow that thick if she abandoned her masculine crop, and how she could make her caterpillar eyebrows as elegant and refined. And what about her dress sense? Sophie wore short skirts or Levis, if not in rowing kit, and Holly wondered if a pair of these, though way beyond her budget, would somehow make her legs look longer; or give her that elusive status: mark her out as being cool.
She would watch Sophie’s looping writing – a swirl of purple ink spiralling from a fountain pen across lined A4 – and compare it favourably to her own biro-ed mass of letters. Holly’s work was neat: Post-its, fluorescent marker pens; a ring binder with different sections demarcated by card and plastic files that could be reinserted – she was a stationery junkie – but her actual handwriting was a scrawl. It was as if there were so many ideas inside her head that they fought against each other to get on to the paper. A flurry of jumbled letters – a witch’s hand or a substandard clerk’s – was the result.
That hour spent comparing translations, checking each other understood what the Green Knight was doing at a certain point, or whether they could discuss it convincingly, was one of the highlights of Holly’s week. Before now, her cleverness had been a mark of shame – something she was secretly proud of but which she knew she shouldn’t advertise, not even here, where there was currency in suggesting that you crammed for your tutes: a week of work concertinaed into a few twilight hours.
But Sophie was frank in her appreciation of Holly’s hard work – for, invariably, she did the lion’s share, Sophie popping a note in her pigeonhole the day before, admitting that the early mornings spent rowing were taking a toll on her and she hadn’t quite found the time to manage her half.
‘Oh, you are clever,’ she would tell her, repeatedly. ‘Not like thickie old me.’
‘Come off it. You’re not thick.’
‘A solid Desmond, my father thinks.’
‘A 2:2?’ Holly translated. ‘Well, that’s OK.’
‘Exactly. Far better to enjoy myself. A solid degree, a rowing blue and a nice chap – hopefully a future husband – that’s what I want to get out of being here.’
Holly leaned back. There were so many parts of that sentence that were foreign to her – so many that struck her as completely wrong – and yet she couldn’t help but smile at Sophie’s frankness. There was something so uncomplicated about her: this fresh-faced girl, a former county runner and lacrosse captain and now member of the college boat club’s first eight, for whom life was about seizing opportunities and making the most of her advantages: those long legs crossed and uncrossed in front of poor old Howard; and, yes, the ability to flatter her tutorial partner into doing most of the work.
Holly knew she was being manipulated but it was done in such a charming way that somehow she didn’t mind. Sophie was steely: willing to get up for those chilly, 6 a.m. starts on the river when most students were still hunkered under the duvets; persuading second-years to hand over their essays with no sense that she needed to reciprocate at all. Holly had no doubt that, at the end of the three years, she would have the rowing blue, the future husband – or a potential future husband – and probably, because luck always shone on the likes of her and she would know how to use it – a just-scraped 2:1.
It would be easy to envy her, perhaps even despise her. And yet Holly couldn’t. Sophie represented a world that, even though she might profess to hate it, completely intrigued her.
‘You know she’s a Tory,’ she grumbled to Alison, later, after she’d mentioned to Sophie that she was off to a meeting of the university Labour Party.
‘Well, of course she is,’ said Alison.
‘And she wants to live in a house off the Woodstock Road, next year, or in Jericho – not off the Cowley Road like us.’
‘Why would she want to be in east Oxford? I expect Daddy’s buying her a house.’
‘I dunno.’ She felt suddenly disloyal, thinking of the fragments of conversation that suggested Sophie’s father wasn’t emotionally attentive; that he lived a quite separate life from his family. ‘She hasn’t mentioned that. Forget I said it.’
Alison laughed. ‘You quite like her, really.’
‘Yeah. Well, you know – she’s not that bad.’
And she didn’t find her bad, at all. She would hanker after the snippets of information Sophie dropped about her life – the details of cocktail parties in other college rooms; the casual reference to drugs snorted by school friends elsewhere, though Sophie didn’t touch the stuff; was far too preoccupied with being a wholesome, healthy rower; the tales – offered with an eye-rolling ‘boys will be boys’ tolerance – of the elite drinking societies, to which her cousin, Hal – a third-year in a different college – belonged.
‘You won’t believe what they got up to last weekend,’ she whispered, and Holly wondered if there was an element of her that loved scandalising her friend with the extravagance of the upper classes.
‘What?’ Holly’s stomach tightened in anticipation at a tale that promised to be more Brideshead than anything she could imagine. These stories – told in a breathless hurry amid a run of giggles – were like the opening of Decline and Fall, with the added thrill of having happened in real life.
‘The Libertines were at a lunch at Brooke’s on Turl Street and, when they were finished, each of them ordered a separate taxi to take them down to the King’s Arms.’
‘But that’s a minute’s walk away.’ She was befuddled.
‘Exactly! A fleet of taxis queuing the length of Turl Street, each waiting for a minute’s ride!’
‘Weren’t the taxi drivers annoyed?’
‘They were each paid fifty pounds.’
‘Fifty quid’s not bad for a minute’s job.’
‘I’m sure they were fine.’ Sophie sounded airy.
‘But they might have felt stupid.’
‘Oh, come on. Who cares? They did their job and were paid for it. God, sometimes, you’re so serious.’ She gathered her books in one swift movement that suggested the issue was closed and stood looking at Holly, still busy imagining the bemused taxi drivers. ‘Come on.’ Her voice was tight with irritation. ‘We’ll be late.’
And so Holly trailed after her, reproaching herself for the crime o
f being insufficiently light-hearted; of failing to see the funny side in a group of indulged young men flaunting their privilege, agonising over why she detested this sort of behaviour but still continued to be seduced by Sophie and the world she seemed to represent. She stumbled down the worn wooden steps from the library and into Old Quad, Sophie several strides ahead of her now, obviously displeased and apparently shaking her off before the tutorial where she would rely on her translation and revert to being all sweetness and light.
By the porters’ gate, Sophie stopped and smiled up at a tall young man – a boatie from another college: one good at rowing, perhaps Oriel or Christ Church. He seemed to know Holly’s tutorial partner and bent down to give her a double kiss: one on each cheek.
The light flooding into the quad glanced off his thick hair, which flopped into his eyes and his sharp cheekbones, illuminating his face so that Holly could see the curve of his mouth and his green and gold-flecked eyes. His shoulders, tapering to a slim waist, were those of a rower, and when he laughed – as he was doing now at something that Sophie said – the tone was rich but not braying. It spoke of class more than money; and of an innate, but not grating, self-confidence.
‘Who was that?’ she asked Sophie later, as they waited on the landing outside Howard’s room and her friend watched this Adonis walk across the quad to leave the college. At the porters’ gate, he turned and looked up.
‘Oh that?’ Sophie said, her eyes feasting on him, though her tone suggested her feelings were terribly casual. ‘That was James Whitehouse.’
HOLLY
Autumn 1992
Ten
Holly’s heart hammered thick and fast as she leaned against the tree trunk. Seven a.m. and her breath rose through the early morning mist and beaded into moisture that clung to each stark branch.
Her chest hurt. She had managed this run four times this week and it wasn’t getting any easier. Her body wasn’t used to pushing itself: games being something she’d shirked as much as possible, her scholarliness a creditable excuse. ‘Well, I suppose you could miss it to prepare for your Oxford exam,’ Mrs Thoroughgood had said – and her exclusion had become permanent for her presence on the netball pitch contributed little and was never sought by the team that was burdened with her.
Now, though, she was paying for that slothfulness. Her face, she knew, was a shiny red, and there was sweat clagging beneath her bra straps and dampening her armpits: even more of a reason to hide away. They hadn’t come past yet. The men’s first eight. And she’d make sure she was well on her way, or hidden back from the path, when they did. The fear of being seen was the only thing that drove her on, that prevented her from collapsing in a pile on the grass where her body so clearly wanted to give up. Of course, to prevent detection, she could just run slowly back to college, face turned downward, weaving through the smallest passages in the hope of seeing no one. But then she wouldn’t see them. She wouldn’t see him.
A voice in a megaphone; the rhythmic slick of oars on water; the hum of a bicycle strumming the towpath. She sprang back: like one of the does in Walsingham College deer park, though in damp black leggings and cheap trainers, as ungainly as an overweight eighteen-year-old could possibly be. She flattened herself against the trunk, watching as the first boat seared past: the epitome of synchronicity and power. Eight young men at the pinnacle of their fitness working in unison, urged on by their cox and the coach, whose bike sped alongside them. There was a rhythm and a beauty to what they were doing: their oars sculling the water without a splash; their bodies bending forwards and leaning back in a seamless, continual motion. Even if she wasn’t interested in one crew member – the stroke; the leader; the most skilled and competitive – they were a joy to see.
She ran on, keeping her distance, though she knew they were too preoccupied to see her; would pay less attention to the floundering fresher who possessed not one item of college sports kit than to the swans who hissed, imperious, from the banks of the Isis, and rose from the water in a flurry of hard-beating wings. At some point, the boat would turn and come back: would streak back up towards the boat club and she would have the chance of watching his face, tense with effort and concentration, as he shifted forwards and leaned back, driving his team-mates onwards, setting the pace. She would try to time her running so that she managed to see him before she lumbered back towards where she’d left her bike. Her breath became more ragged, her chest aching, as she pushed herself onwards. How to time it so that she would just glimpse him?
And then they had sped past, and she was pounding along the sandy path, back towards the colleges; a shot of adrenalin searing through her as she reeled from her hit for the day. They would train again tomorrow and she would be here, though there was a tutorial at nine and she could feel an essay crisis looming. Still this – seeing him – would power her through; would make her write her essay on sensuality in Middlemarch more sensitively and with more authority. University was about education – but an education gained in so many ways.
Sometimes, she wondered if she was becoming obsessed. But her behaviour seemed quite in keeping with the feelings of these literary heroines. The physical excitement she felt when she saw him; the way in which her breath grew lighter or her stomach tipped over, was what infatuation was about. Even hearing his name was enough to make her feel lightheaded. ‘Oh, really,’ she’d say if Sophie mentioned him, and would adopt the casual nonchalance her friend had once shown. She made sure she was never around the two of them, would duck her head on the rare occasions they were together and he entered college. And he was, she was sure, completely oblivious of her.
Just the once, he caught her eye. She was racing to her room and heard footsteps thundering down the stairs from Ned Iddesleigh-Flyte’s, above her. Two pairs: Ned’s, from the sound of it, and someone unknown’s. They sped past as she reached her door and stood back to let them bound past.
‘Cheers,’ Ned called in passing. Chairs, she mouthed, as the second figure barged past. ‘Sorry – sorry!’ He held both palms up and flashed her a smile, his green eyes emitting warmth and the confidence that he would be forgiven – of course he would be forgiven – then bounded ahead without waiting for an answer.
‘That’s all right,’ she called down the stairs. Her voice sounded high-pitched, weak and ineffectual, as it petered down the staircase. She waited – but there was no reply.
Things could have become trickier when Sophie became involved with him. ‘Seeing him’ was how she rather coyly put it, for no one would ever claim to be going out with James Whitehouse. It wasn’t just that he wasn’t the kind of young man who could ever be possessed by anyone, it was also that no one wanted to appear less than cool.
In fact their relationship made things easier. He rarely came to college, except late at night, and so there was no risk of being seen, of her infatuation being guessed at. And yet Sophie couldn’t resist confiding in her: hinting at her insecurities, seeking reassurance about whether this meant he really liked her. And, of course, regaling her with the latest exploits of the Libertines, of which James was a member, all whispered in the breathy knowledge that she shouldn’t really be sharing this but she was going to do so anyway; all divulged, in part, out of a desire to shock.
Sophie chatted too about the New Year’s Eve party she would be throwing at her parents’ home in Wiltshire, while they were in London. James, she very much hoped, would be going and the set she hung out with in college: girls studying classics and history of art who came from the same sort of background: fathers in banking; houses in the country; ponies and tennis lessons; skiing holidays; a private education culminating in boarding for the sixth form at a good public school. Holly had nothing against Alex, Jules or Cat; was sure they were perfectly nice, though they had made little effort to be friendly to her. She didn’t expect to be invited, and yet it smarted as the term progressed and it became increasingly clear she wouldn’t be. She waited, half-hoping that the issue might be raised; but as the details c
hanged from a party to a dinner party, she realised she had never even been considered.
Should she raise it as a joke? And then she imagined Sophie’s pity. ‘Oh sorry. It didn’t occur to me you’d want to come.’ Or, even more bluntly: ‘Oh Holly, it’s not your sort of thing at all.’
As the term raced to its end, she realised that she had entered into an unspoken contract with this girl who both entranced and appalled her. She would increasingly shoulder the workload – do the weekly translation and make notes for the essay that she would photocopy at the newsagents in Holywell Street – and in return Sophie would allow her to vicariously experience her life.
And that was fine. The casual kindness was enough: the requests for reassurance, the snippets of gossip, the acknowledgement of her across a packed dining hall with the kind of radiant smile that stopped her in her tracks and that warmed her. That said that, even if she wasn’t the right type, she was a friend of sorts.
And then, one evening, she came across them both in the gateway to the college and managed a hello, the syllables thick in her throat so that she almost had to cough them up. She barely looked at him: was just aware of his presence, his broad shoulders in a charcoal wool jacket, not his rowing kit, for they were going to dinner, collar turned up, framing the hint of a smile. She smiled at her friend, her face flushing as she mumbled some nonsense about needing to find a book in a pigeonhole, and quickly ducked out of sight.
‘Who was that?’ she heard him ask Sophie, as she busied herself in the porters’ lodge, searching for the nonexistent hardback.
She waited, her ears straining to hear her answer, avoiding the porter’s eye.
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