The Reading Party

by Fenella Gentleman

  It had been shocking to all of them, Tyler concluded. To die in childbirth, and the baby lost too; it was too much – something you didn’t expect to hear said. No one had known how to respond.

  This slowed us almost to a halt and a passer-by stopped to stare at us. We must look curiously intimate, I thought, comparing our initial horror and our continuing sadness about it. That wouldn’t do, with so many people around; the Mediaevalist sometimes walked here and you never knew where the Dean might be. Besides, it would be a shame to get sidetracked, even by Loxton and his tragedies. We had to move on.

  On impulse, I invented, just as Gloria would have done. It was another eureka moment.

  ‘I’m going up to York,’ I said, wondering whether a visit could in fact be fitted in.

  ‘That’s good,’ he replied, still looking away.

  We were back to the pop pop, pop pop.

  ‘It’s a beautiful city, much older than Oxford.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, gazing at something. ‘So I’ve heard.’

  I couldn’t see his face. Maybe I’d misread him; he wasn’t interested after all. Or was he misreading me?

  I stared at my toenails, newly painted a plum colour. Usually I didn’t bother. Even that morning I must have felt a kind of brazenness.

  ‘If you’re interested, I could offer a guided tour.’

  There was a pause. The head turned to look at me: first the blue-grey eye, then the brown. The difference was still disconcerting.

  ‘How long would it take?’ he asked.

  ‘What, the tour?’

  ‘No, to get there.’

  My confidence drained. York was much too far; I should have suggested somewhere nearer. ‘It’s not really a day trip,’ I said. ‘I did it once in reverse, for an interview here, when I was really short of time, but I wouldn’t recommend it.’

  But perhaps that was the answer he wanted. ‘Not short,’ he said, definitively. ‘Let’s make it three days.’

  So we knew what was going to happen.

  ‘We’ll have to be careful,’ I said, half expecting a ‘Phooey!’ in return.

  ‘Sure,’ he replied. ‘Weren’t we careful before? All those beds we didn’t get into. And the one we did! We deserve top marks for being so restrained.’

  And I had to admit that was fair.

  Later that week Tyler and I had two nights together in one of York’s quaint B & Bs, just outside the city walls. We didn’t see much of the sights the first day – wouldn’t have noticed them if we had – but we went to evensong in the cathedral, which for a pair of atheists was almost romantic, and we walked along the river at dusk, as lovers do. Just to be together was captivating, every moment a revelation. We didn’t need anything else.

  Back in our private space, I stood before him and at last he took my face in his hands. Our tongues roamed. We were like the birds we’d seen gliding over the water, following the familiar eddies, circling around the bends, occasionally delving; we could have swooped indefinitely.

  Afterwards he spread his fingers through my hair. ‘This is what sustained me,’ he said, lifting up and sliding through, leaving my scalp tingling. ‘I think I dreamt in apricot hues.’

  No one had mentioned apricots before, the glorious blush of the ripening fruit.

  ‘Do you remember those flowers?’ he asked, stroking the freckles on my cheeks with the side of his thumbs, smoothing towards the ears. ‘The ones in the market?’

  I thought of the diminutive daffs, jaunty in his pannier, and nodded, uncertain.

  ‘Their centres were almost the colour of your hair. I bought them every week until they didn’t have them any more.’

  And I had thought they were for someone else!

  I smiled into his shirt, smelt the almond smell, slid my hands beneath.

  There was a gusting as we lifted our arms, slipped our things off; then a realigning of currents, a moment of stasis as our skin touched and our bodies locked. His lips skimmed lower; the tiny kisses, the little puffs of warmth, descending oh-so-slowly as he bent to kneel, his breath hovering over the contours of my breasts, the inclines of my waist, until it reached the soft plane above my knickers.

  ‘May I take these off?’ he called up, gently. ‘Are you the same colour down here?’

  It was wondrous; beyond description.

  The next morning we contrived to take a bath together, stifling our giggles in case the landlady was near. Afterwards he lay on the bed watching as I towelled my hair dry. He gave a running commentary on the changing colours, teased that if he’d been a poet he would have composed an ode to my apricot locks. When we set off down the road, he kept riffling through and I teased back, running in front and shaking my head until I had a lion’s mane good enough to photograph. The jokes became a symbol of our ease together.

  There were a few moments of tension, particularly when I showed him round the university, which we should probably have given a miss – we were demob happy and the campus brought it all back. Keeping our hands off each other was an unnecessary strain – I should never have suggested it, and I fretted about how to respond if we met anyone from the history faculty, which he said was ridiculous. In my effort to explain, I took him to that bench by the lake and the geese and talked about sitting in Oxford’s water meadows, thinking of that very spot, debating the concept of ‘allowed’. He said it helped to hear it all and acknowledged that for him the stakes had never been the same.

  I had my own moment of taking offence, when we were on our way to an early afternoon tea in Betty’s. It was only a little thing – an aside of his about the planning for law school – but it was a reminder that he would not be coming back. I wanted to say that he could change his mind, that the College would still have him, but instead I said he didn’t have to sound so happy about going home. He held me tight, whispered that he hadn’t meant to upset me and then, over the scones, talked me through his reasons for deciding against the DPhil. I didn’t agree, but I pulled myself together.

  Besides, there’d been no pretence that this could come to anything, no discussion of an ‘after’: it was just a wonderful folly, with no strings attached. There was no point spoiling it.

  And indeed, after that episode, we agreed to ignore the issues that didn’t have to be resolved there and then, and focus instead on the present – which we did, wandering through the old bits of the city, going back for a late siesta.

  In the evening, we went out for a wonderful meal – I don’t know how he’d found the French restaurant, but it was much smarter than any I’d ever been to – and we told stories about Cornwall and what people had said and done, and laughed so much we had to switch to other things, like the saga of our own collisions, though that too became equally comic. Later, we sipped our pudding wine, just as we had at Carreck Loose, only this time we could reach for each other’s hands between the candles and we could hold each other’s gaze. Not pinpricks – a whole evening of pleasure.

  We were very tender that night and in the early hours.

  The following day we rose even later. It was past lunch when finally we abandoned those crumpled sheets, the only pull the dread time of his departure.

  I walked him to the station – both of us silent much of the way. Neither of us faltered as we said the goodbye we’d agreed upon, because the real one – the leave-taking that mattered – had been shared the night before. So we behaved as if it was nothing – shook hands, patted arms, as you might with a colleague or an acquaintance, and wished each other a safe journey home. No one could have guessed the hours we’d spent exploring each other’s skin, our limbs entwined; we were entirely convincing.

  Of course that made it all the more poignant. When Tyler loped off down the platform, I felt utterly bereft. The image of that departing back, the particular way in which his long legs seemed to operate from a hidden hinge, the pivot as he turned to wave, haunted me through the following days, in York and when I returned to Oxford. I tried to focus on the other images, like hi
s eyes smiling on the halo of my hair, but the desperate one dogged me. Memories like that take a long time to fade.

  I ran into Loxton with the Warden towards the end of July, just after the last of the class lists were issued – they were standing outside the Lodgings as I came out of one of the staircases.

  ‘Ah, Dr Addleshaw!’ the Warden called out, his voice booming in the empty quadrangle. ‘Dr Loxton and I need your informed opinion.’

  So I went over to join them.

  The picture overall was solid rather than exceptional: the women had done less well than expected, which made a difference, given that they made up a quarter of that year. Not a surprise in the science lists, where they were only a sprinkling anyway; disappointing in the humanities, where they were much better represented. The Warden had been listening to views. Perhaps there had been more pressure on the women than ‘we’ had realised, he speculated; maybe it was that old chestnut ‘caution’, the way they had been taught for so many years; and remember that there were always more ‘gongs’ in the sciences. But ‘we’ wouldn’t worry about the Norrington Table: that had never been our motivation, given our academic record. If there was more the College should do, it would be for the women themselves, and the Tutorial Board could raise that with Governing Body. Meanwhile, he’d be interested to hear my views on the matter, if I would kindly give it some thought. Quite why he didn’t want them there and then wasn’t clear, but I suppose it was progress to be asked at all.

  And how did the Reading Party do, the Warden wanted to know. Lyndsey Milburn was ‘one of yours’, was she not? That was important: good, good. What about the men? ‘Our favourite linguist’, Rupert Ingram-H all – wasn’t he on the trip? His First too was no surprise. The Rhodes Scholar, of course. Always gratifying when ‘one of ours’ secured the highest marks for his subject; such a shame that Tyler Winston had dropped the idea of a DPhil – his sort didn’t come round that often. Hugh Chauncey: a Double First thoroughly deserved; glad that he was staying on. As for the rest? Disappointing about Gloria Durrant. There were always a few who hovered on the cusp, and of course she’d been indigent – she had several regrettable propensities: they would have sniffed out any glibness in the viva. But the rebel, Chloe … Chloe F–, Chloe Firth, that’s it … had not done ignobly and Barnaby Quick had pulled through for the historians – well done on ‘our’ pastoral care, ‘our’ faith repaid. Had he forgotten anybody important? If not, five Firsts out of nine Finalists wasn’t bad. Congratulations, Dennis, and thank you, Sarah, for playing a crucial role: Godfrey would have been content – rather in awe perhaps (and here there was a little smile at me), but content.

  Perhaps I would pass my probation after all.

  Peroration over, the Warden disappeared inside. A few seconds later the reading lamp in his study went on, the green glass just visible through the window, translucent.

  Loxton turned to me. ‘Would you have a few minutes?’ He looked at his watch and, barely waiting for an answer, set off around the quadrangle with only the faintest of glances to check I was with him.

  I was reminded of the crispness with which he’d marshalled us by the front door at Carreck Loose, like a Scout leader with a bevy of young recruits.

  We turned the corner by the Chapel, stepping aside to let a group of tourists pass in the narrow passageway, and walked across the lawn in the Fellows’ Garden – no dawdling here and only the sparest of chat about the blues and purples of the flowers rising above the middle of the main border. Then there was a pause to negotiate the door to the Fellows’ Private Garden, after which, thankfully, he slowed down. He seemed to be aiming for the bench.

  I decided to broach the subject of the diary, before he got to whatever he wanted to talk about.

  ‘I still haven’t returned Godfrey’s journal,’ I began.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, I dare say you have it in an archival box somewhere.’

  ‘I do actually – how did you guess?’

  ‘Ah. One observes.’

  I couldn’t imagine what he’d seen that might give rise to such an observation, but no matter. It sounded well meant.

  ‘Anyway, I thought it rather wonderful – even if he was a dreadful misogynist.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose he was, though we didn’t notice that at the time.’

  ‘And …’ – was this wise? – ‘… did Mrs Loxton mind that he took such a dim view of married Fellows? Did you, for that matter?’

  Loxton paused and for a moment I thought I’d blown it, but perhaps he was just considering his answer. I stood in the midst of all that calm, listening to the breeze in the trees and the muffled sound of traffic far away, watching him stare at the expanse of lawn as if fixed on a distant blade of grass.

  ‘It was a nuisance, let us say. It made life a little trying. More for her than for me. People like Godfrey had such firm expectations. He was very old-fashioned: never acknowledged that she too had a doctorate and her own career.’

  ‘She must have been quite a character?’

  ‘So they said. She was also very lovely.’

  Loxton was staring again, his hand caressing an iridescent blue frond – the raceme, he’d called it – that bobbed above an island bed. I thought of the picture I’d seen hanging in the dining hall of Jenny’s college, when I followed up her suggestion of a visit: the mixture of dignity and amusement in the expression, the sensitive but not exactly sensuous mouth. Would he have been allowed to tuck back the wisp of hair that fell from that French pleat? Presumably he must have.

  ‘Shall we pause?’ he asked, and I thought he might change the subject. On the other hand, we didn’t need to sit down. The invitation was encouragement enough, though I decided not to mention the portrait – it might sound intrusive.

  ‘I would have liked to meet her.’

  ‘Yes, I have thought about that. The two of you would have got on.’

  ‘We would? Do you think so?’

  ‘Yes. She too was fierce, in her way. She was staunch about education for women, and co-education here; thought a lot of people like Ivy, who’d helped make it possible. You have to remember, no one dreamed of co-residence in our day: the fight then was over the limit on numbers – increased after the war to cope with the likes of Rose, returning from the services, but a limit nonetheless. She thought having a quota for women was wrong.’

  He fingered the arm of the bench, rubbing a little burr, and then started again. ‘I was proud of her. She went on battling when she joined the teaching staff – for self-governing status, for example. The women’s colleges always had to prove themselves. It was invidious. I suppose that’s why I could always see co-residence from their perspective: they’d been pioneers in their time and it threatened what they’d fought for. Someone had to speak up for them.’

  This explanation of his reservations was new to me.

  ‘I think I gave you a bit of a hard time about it,’ I said. ‘That discussion we had in the garden, or perhaps the one in the SCR, when we first met.’

  ‘Really? I didn’t notice. But there would have been nothing wrong with that.’

  ‘Still, I may have been a little headstrong.’

  Loxton looked at me, as if it mattered that I understood. ‘There’s nothing wrong with being headstrong, Sarah. Rose was headstrong and I admired her for it, even when she turned me down. She wasn’t interested in marriage as an institution; that’s why it took us so long. But in the end the pressure from others was too great.’

  ‘So she was in a double bind – criticised for staying single and then criticised for drawing you away from the College?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘And her own colleagues?’

  ‘They were rather more accommodating.’

  I didn’t know what to say, but Loxton hadn’t finished. ‘Of course, it might not have worked long term. It was unusual then, two academics, but she never considered giving up her career and nor would I have wanted her to. Even if …’ He trailed off, staring
again at the grass. ‘That is one of the odd things – one just doesn’t know.’

  ‘But it would have been good to have the opportunity to try?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  After that, it seemed superfluous to say anything else.

  ‘Shall we carry on?’ he asked, rising to his feet and putting out an arm so that I didn’t slip as I, too, stood up.

  We made our way to the raised path marking the boundary with the adjacent college. There were still a few elms in amongst the stumps of the diseased trees that had been taken out.

  ‘Have you seen this?’ He bent to show me a clump of delicate froth – bright green leaves and multiple tiny skyblue trumpets – which had emerged from the mulched soil between the gravel and the shrubs beyond. ‘Corydalis flexuosa, “China Blue”. It was meant to stop flowering weeks ago – everything is late this year. The Head Gardener is very proud of it: came from the Botanical Gardens – rather rare. We’re hoping that it will spread.’

  I dropped to my haunches, trying to remember what I’d been told about the work of the Gardens Committee. I had an idea that Loxton sat on it too, although the cellar took precedence.

  He carried on picking twigs off the surface of the mound, tossing them into the hedge behind us.

  ‘It, too, is very lovely, don’t you think?’

  I mumbled assent and explained that I didn’t know much about gardening.

  ‘Oh you will, you will. Amongst life’s great pleasures. Another kind of stewardship and serendipity – one does one’s best, but one is never quite in control. Some things die, unfairly, like the elms; others take and flourish unexpectedly. You must come and see mine, before the summer is over.’

  This too was astonishing. Not that Loxton kept a garden – that, now, made perfect sense. But that he wanted to show it to me – how bizarre!

  We carried on down the path, chatting vaguely about the plants – or rather, me asking and Loxton explaining. Surely this wasn’t why we were here, so I could admire the flowers and Loxton could tell me what was what. In the past I’d have suspected him of trumping me with superior knowledge, but we seemed to have moved beyond that.