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THE BEGINNING OF THE REST OF MY LIFE
The children’s bath at the Old Manse is massive and made of cast iron; it stands on four big lion’s feet and is at least seven foot long. When Tom, Kate and I were smaller, we would sit naked on the back edge of the bath and wait for the water to run out. Then we’d shoot down its slope and along the full length, crashing hard into the taps at the other end. Thanks to years of wear and tear, the enamel on the bottom of the bath has big cracks in it which always left our bums grazed and bleeding. For the brief moment of excitement our injuries were more than worth the pain.
The bathroom, situated on the half-landing to the first floor, is often a sanctuary from the comings and goings at the Manse, and when we were younger it was the centre of our pre-bedtime routine. Easily big enough for the three of us, we would sit up to our necks in soapy hot water listening to Mum reading us stories. Other times, Esther or Jeanie would sit on the loo seat next to the bath and tell us about their life in Jamaica, or Dad would give us one of his talks on the imminent threat of nuclear war. This was usually triggered by our questions about the converted Shackleton bombers we’d seen lumbering over our heads from the airbase next to the beach at Lossiemouth. Dad got pretty excited when he saw them and told us that the sound reminded him of the same planes taking off for bombing raids on Germany during the war. Now the Shackletons have been converted to airborne early-warning planes, and Dad would explain how they were heading out over the North Sea and up to the Arctic Circle to intercept Russian bombers intent on bringing nuclear oblivion on us all. He didn’t beat around the bush, and Tom and I would sit silently listening, occasionally asking him about our chances of survival, to which he would respond ‘Not good.’
As I got older I found myself on the other side of the bath trying to entertain the children of our house guests, like the two Garland boys, Alexander and Theo, who, encouraged by us, had discovered the thrill of the bath’s Cresta Run. Apart from the much-loved cast-iron bath, it’s never been that nice a bathroom. There’s an airing cupboard with the hot water tank in it and a washing machine between the sink and bath, which tends to tango across the floor when it hits the spin cycle. The only window is a large skylight over the bath, where you can see the occasional seagull circling the house. Mum and Dad have a much nicer bathroom, which they installed off their bedroom, with views all the way down the valley to Knockando and the hills beyond. Here you feel completely cut off from the rest of the house but, like with our old Morris Minor, Mum bought their bath forgetting just how tall Dad is. This means he has to leave one leg dangling out of the bath or sit with his knees tucked under his chin.
It was now the end of August, and I was lying in our old bath trying not to let my head sink under the tepid soapy water. I’d lost track of how long I’d been there, having finally given up any effort to distract myself from the single thought which had been haunting me for the entire summer holiday. As I stared up at the skylight, I thought about how the school part of my life was over for ever, and the anxiety I’d felt over the summer had been entirely down to the endless guessing of how I’d done in my A-levels and what might come next. I could be going to university, or taking a year off to travel the world, or maybe this was the start of the rest of my life – but what might the rest of my life be? There was, of course, my housemaster’s suggestion of a career in childcare, but one thing I knew for certain: a future that involved looking after other people’s children was definitely not part of any plan I had.
It had been a long and painful two months since walking out of my last exam, and the endless waiting had given me restless nights filled with confused dreams of both success and failure. There was a recurring dream I kept having – one where I was blissfully happy, having exceeded my wildest expectations and passed all my exams. I was now at Oxford, although I wasn’t entirely sure what I was studying. My rooms were identical to Charles Ryder’s in Brideshead – on the ground floor, they looked out over the quad of my college, and I could see students rushing to lectures or returning from lazy afternoons by the river. When I opened the window, warm air, filled with the scent of flowers from the beds below, drifted into my rooms. Most of my friends from school had come up to Oxford too and were scattered around the town at various colleges. This included Matthew, who was taking his MA in history of art at Christ Church and had rooms that were strangely similar to Sebastian Flyte’s, and I’d arrive for lunch dressed in an elegant suit and we’d eat plover’s eggs and drink champagne. There was another aspect to this dream which seemed surreal and made me feel calm and happy: my father would drive up to see me, and we’d walk over to the Ashmolean Museum and have tea on Broad Street and discuss medicine and art and I’d be able to tell him what I’d thought and he’d listen.
When I woke and slowly came to my senses, a sinking feeling would take over as I realised it was only a dream and my future had yet to be decided and was very unlikely to be anything like the dream. There were other dreams where failure was the theme which seemed a lot more likely, like the one where I’m waiting in a never-ending queue at the post office in Camden Town. I’m there collecting my dole money with men from Arlington House. I realise that the woman behind the counter is Miss Crosby, the mean and angry teacher from Primrose Hill Primary, and she’s tormenting everyone in the queue. I never get any closer to the counter, but outside a crowd of friends from Bedales and Pimlico are laughing and pointing at me.
I’d tried all summer to be patient, knowing that until that little brown envelope with my exam results arrived at Gloucester Crescent and someone called to tell me what was in it, I was going to be at the mercy of these dreams, and the stress of it had left me exhausted and fretful.
Whatever the outcome, I was back at the Old Manse waiting for that all-important phone call, and I knew that, as had been the case with my O-levels, the results would be life-changing either way. As I lifted my hand out of the water and examined the prune-like texture of my fingers, I realised it was exactly two years since I’d gone through this very same torture. Back then the news hadn’t been great, but it was at least good enough to change my life and escape the hellhole that was Pimlico.
I’d been in Scotland for over a month, and my family had headed back to London, leaving me to play host to the Langlands family. Alastair Langlands is the headmaster of Dunhurst, the prep school for Bedales. Mum had been a pupil there during the war, before she went to the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School in London. Alastair has always been something of a legend at Bedales; looking and sounding like a character from The Wind in the Willows, he could usually be found walking around the school wearing a pale greeny-brown tweed jacket and plus fours, which he sometimes wore with a matching cape.
As with so many Bedalians before me, I’d come to adore Alastair and his wife, Jane, for the simple reason that they treated everyone, whatever age, as equals and adults. In my two years at Bedales I’d got to know his family well as I was often asked to babysit for their three children. Unlike looking after my housemaster’s children, babysitting for the Langlandses was a pleasure that meant family life, a home-cooked meal and, as I’d usually stay the night, a break from sleeping in a dormitory. Over breakfast Alastair and Jane would ask how things were going at school and we’d chat. I felt I could talk openly about my hopes and fears for the future, and I always came away feeling inspired – there weren’t many teachers at Bedales who did that. Most of them only ever wanted to talk about what was in the coursework and what you were doing wrong, but Alastair talked about what you might go on and do with your A-levels at university and after. He made it all sound exciting, rather than a requirement for whatever came next. They never talked about failure, even though our discussions always centred around getting good A-levels and going to university, which in Alastair’s mind meant Oxford. It was fun to play along with the fantasy, even though I knew it would probably only ever be that.
One way or the other, it now felt absolutely right to have the Langla
ndses with me in Scotland at the very moment I’d get my results. Whatever they were, I knew Alastair would say the right things and support me, as he always had in the past.
From the bathroom I heard the single loud ping of the phone in the sitting room, followed by the deafening ring that filled the house and Alastair crossing the hall to answer it. Less than a minute later he was calling up the stairs, ‘William, it’s your mother on the phone.’ Shivering from the cold bath, I pulled on my dressing gown and made my way down to the sitting room.
‘I think I have your results,’ my mother said nervously on the other end of the phone. ‘Do you want me to open the envelope?’ I could then hear her tearing it open and pulling out the single slip of paper. She mumbled something before screaming, ‘Oh my God, William! You’ve got A’s in everything! This is incredible, I can’t believe it, clever old you, I’m so happy for you!’ Alastair, who had been standing close enough to hear what Mum was saying, was now smiling with his eyes closed and hands pressed hard together – he’d clearly been praying for me.
With all the bad dreams and endless warnings I’d been given by my teachers and housemaster, this was not the result I was expecting. My mind went into overdrive as I tried to process the news and work out the unplanned consequences of these results. It changed everything – it would mean another term at Bedales taking the Oxford and Cambridge entrance exams, which many of my friends would be doing too. I could go back to the original plan and really become a doctor – and I would have those rooms on the quad.
The excitement of all those new opportunities seemed to last for ever, but in reality it was less than a few seconds before Mum said, ‘Hang on, there are two columns here, one says “level” and the other says “grade”.’ This was followed by a painful pause before I asked her which column all the A’s were in. ‘Levels,’ she replied, ‘the A’s are in the levels column.’ I suddenly felt cold and faint as I dared myself to ask her what was in the other column.
‘Oh,’ she said in a whisper.
‘Oh what? Oh dear, or just O’s?’
‘Just O’s, that’s what it says in the grades column – you have straight O’s.’
I handed the phone back to Alastair, whose expression had changed to one of abject compassion, as if he’d just heard that I was about to die of some dreadful disease. It had been a fleeting moment of false hope, but the worst part was knowing that Mum was feeling terrible for making a simple mistake. I probably would have done it myself had I been the one opening that envelope, but for a few seconds it was nice to have had the chance to play out one of the positive themes from my dreams.
I needed to be alone so I could digest what had happened, and holding back my tears I left the sitting room. I slowly climbed the stairs to my room, where I sat on my bed with my head in my hands. Pretty soon I came to the conclusion that I would just have to pull myself together and deal with the harsh reality of my situation and come up with a strategy. Straight O’s were worse than anything I could have imagined. It basically meant that the last two years of school, studying three subjects I didn’t even like, had been a total waste of time. I should never have chosen sciences, and now all I had to show for it were three more O-levels, which I couldn’t do anything with. It was like snakes and ladders – I’d got to the top of the board and landed on a long fat snake that took me all the way back to the bottom, where I was sixteen again with nothing more than a collection of useless O-levels.
Realising I couldn’t hide in my bedroom for ever, I made my way downstairs to the kitchen, where Alastair and his family were sitting around the table. As I walked into the room, Alastair, his wife and their three children tilted their heads to one side in unison, as if in a show of sympathetic understanding. ‘Now, I’ve spoken to your mother, who’s got it all sorted,’ Alastair said cheerily as he handed me a cup of tea and plate of toast. ‘Get that down you and let’s make a plan to get you back to London.’ The plan, it turned out, had already been set in motion by Mum and Dad, who had been frantically calling round their friends. Between them they’d come up with a tutorial college in Oxford called Greene’s, where I could retake my A-levels. I had an interview there in four days.
While I was sitting on my bed, it had crossed my mind that perhaps the outright disaster of my A-levels was in fact a blessing in disguise. I’d struggled with sciences for so long and had lost all interest in medicine or psychology, and now it suddenly felt like I’d been released from a future I’d had doubts about for a long time. I was feeling so confused; at the kitchen table I’d been carried away by Alastair’s enthusiasm for my parents’ rescue plan and could just about see myself believing in it too, but that time alone in my bedroom had left me with a nagging thought I was finding hard to shake off. What I needed most was space to think, and the advice of someone I’d always trusted. Later that day I called Mum and told her I would pack up the house and drive back to London, with a minor detour.
I set off from the Old Manse at 6 a.m. the next day, and by evening I was heading up the long drive at Stanage. As the car crunched over the gravel, Stella came out of the house with the dogs and, after giving me a big hug, led me into the house. ‘Well, you’ve got a lot of thinking to do,’ she said as she sat down next to me on the sofa in the drawing room. Stella never lectured or told you what to do – she just planted thoughts in your head and left you to draw your own conclusions. ‘Follow your instincts,’ she said, ‘and this time do what’s right for you.’ She went on to tell me the story of how she’d done the same: against everyone’s advice she’d given up a career in Hollywood to marry Guy, which she’d never regretted for a minute.
I’d driven five hundred miles in twelve hours, passed through the Highlands, across the rolling hills of the Borders and then down the spine of England, past Manchester and Liverpool and on to the Welsh Marches and then Stanage. As I drove, I realised I could pick any route I wanted and could stop wherever I fancied. It was the first time I’d driven so far on my own and I found the freedom of it completely liberating. Now that I was with Stella in the peace and quiet of Stanage I came to a decision. I knew in my heart that the very last thing I wanted to do was retake my A-levels. I’d made a fundamental error in pursuing my father’s dreams instead of my own. I loved Dad more than anything, but I couldn’t live the rest of my life trying to please him. Surely if I could drive across an entire country on my own, choose the route to take and get to my destination safely, then I could go anywhere in the world and do anything I wanted to do. It was clear what I needed to do, but I had the feeling no one was going to like it, least of all Dad.
Keith had done it, so had Peter and Gully and Dee and Hylan and then Tom, although briefly. They’d all left London and headed to New York – and now it was my turn. Over several years, thanks to a number of Saturday jobs and generous birthday presents, I’d managed to save exactly £500. I worked out this was just enough to buy a one-way ticket to New York and still have a little left over to cover my expenses until I found a job. Stella let me call Keith in New York from the phone in the drawing room. He was initially supportive of my plan but concerned that it might depend on him for its success. When he asked me how long I was planning to stay, he seemed a bit surprised when I said it might be for ever. Keith had been incredibly kind giving Tom a job, but he’d known it would only be for a couple of months. I didn’t want him to feel burdened in any way by my decision or to feel I would be his responsibility – I just needed his help and advice. Keith had arrived in New York seven years before, and he’d done it completely on his own without anyone’s help and gone on to be very successful as a restaurateur. His tenacity was one of the reasons I’d always looked up to him, and the idea of embarking on a similar adventure with many of the same challenges made me feel all the more excited and motivated.
In the end Keith and I made a deal, which seemed more than fair. His brother, who also lived in New York, was going away for two weeks and I could stay in his apartment until he came back. Keith said he
wasn’t going to give me a job, so within two weeks I had to find work, and if I hadn’t found somewhere to live I’d be on the street and if I didn’t get a job I’d be asking Mum and Dad to wire me the money for a plane ticket back to London.
I was right about Mum and Dad; as soon as I got home and told them I was going to America, Dad didn’t like it at all. In fact, he went into a depression and blamed himself for everything, although, when pressed by Mum, he couldn’t explain what it was he was blaming himself for – which I felt was part of the problem. At the same time Mum failed to grasp the magnitude of what I was doing and kept telling her friends I was going on holiday to New York. They seemed to have forgotten that I was an American citizen and could stay in New York for as long as I wanted and work. This twist in my birthright was something they’d frequently pushed to one side, having let my US passport expire when I was five, probably believing it was of no value to me. Then, when I was nine, I mentioned it to Dee, whose immediate response was, ‘Jesus fucking Christ, your goddamn parents are morons.’ Before I knew it she was frogmarching me down to the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square, where I was made to stand in front of an official and swear allegiance to the American flag. They handed me a new US passport on the spot, and on the way home Dee told me that one day it would come in useful and that I should never let it expire again.
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