A Scandalous Secret

by Jaishree Misra

  ‘You’re sure you don’t need us to come in and help sort your paperwork and rooms and all those things out?’ Tinnu, the son, asked half-heartedly when we pulled into Oxford. He had already slipped into the conversation the fact that he was missing a local cricket match, so I shook my head vehemently.

  ‘No, no, it’s fine, really. Mama and Papa were just worrying about me needlessly when they asked you to come. The university people have been great, they’ve already sent me all the information I need. And my suitcase has wheels so even that’s not a problem. I’ll be fine, really.’

  It suited me fine. I really did want to be by myself when I walked into that quadrangle for the first time anyway. Who in their right mind would want to be accompanied by a dour old man and his surly son while stepping into the most golden moment of their life?

  For me, it was like reliving scenes from all the many old films I’d pored over – like the race scene in Chariots of Fire. I’d watched that sequence so many times over, savouring not the excitement of the race so much, but the setting: the rectangular clipped green lawns, the college quad, the ancient ivy-clad walls, the students – all floppy-haired and fresh-faced, wearing stripey blazers and boaters – as they stood around the contestants, cheering. Back in India, while preparing for the UCAS application, I’d taken to watching films set in Oxford and Cambridge and seeing myself in them, at first with a kind of pained uncertainty and then, since the arrival of the confirmation letter, with overwhelming excitement at the idea that I was finally on my way to being there myself. Of course, the scene in that film depicted Trinity College in Cambridge and I was going to Oxford but that was immaterial. I’d known all along that I would get to either Oxford or Cambridge and, beyond that, nothing else mattered at all. It went all the way back, in fact, to when I was six and my father first showed me a black-and-white picture of Oxford to ask if I’d like to study there someday. The picture of spires rising through dense tree cover made it seem like some heavenly paradise. But it was only as I grew that I realized its true significance. ‘Neha Chaturvedi, MA Oxon’: I saw the words embossed in gold on the visiting card I would one day have. Letters that, my father said, would open up all kinds of doors in India when I returned with my degree.

  I stood that day in the quadrangle of Wadham College, feeling ready to faint. I was finally there. There was a churning feeling in my stomach because I’d fantasized about that moment for so long, it was almost as though I was still dreaming. And then, in the middle of that strange and magical moment, I met Simon.

  His voice came from behind me, a hesitant hello. I turned to see one of those floppy-haired boys from the movies, only without a boater and a blazer. Like me, he was in jeans, carried a suitcase in one hand and wore a lost expression on his face. ‘I’m looking for the college office,’ he said.

  ‘I think this is it,’ I replied, waving one hand at the building before us, even though I suspected that his opening line was only an excuse to talk to me as, unlike me, most other new pupils would have been to the college at least once before.

  ‘Oh, is it? What luck,’ he replied, breaking into a suddenly impish expression and looking, I was sure, more closely at me than at the college building. ‘You’re new here too?’ he asked.

  I had a sudden thought: I’d been solemnly promising my mother at the airport that I’d steer clear of English boys and, here I was, my very first afternoon in Oxford, allowing a boy to openly lie to me and run blue-green eyes up and down my person in a clearly appreciative manner. He seemed nice, though, and I decided to follow my hunch that he wasn’t about to leap on me as Mummy seemed to fear would be the intention of all the boys I was going to meet in England. Completely ignoring her terse last-minute airport advice, I fell into step next to Simon as he pointed to a temporary sign around the quadrangle that was marked ‘Porter’s Lodge’.

  He told me his name was Simon Atkinson and that he was a fresher too, reading Chemistry. We walked together, the wheels of our suitcases clattering on the uneven paving as we went towards the office to enquire about our halls. That was the other thing Mummy had been anxious about: mixed halls, or what at Wadham appeared to be called ‘staircases’, which is where the students lived. (‘What, girls and boys are not separated?’ my mother had enquired when the college brochure first came, her forehead creased with worry.) Papa had been more blasé, his delight at my getting admission to Oxford University overwhelming all other concerns.

  We got chatting, Simon and I, while awaiting our turn in the queue.

  ‘Delhi!? What brought an Indian lass all the way out here? Not Wadham’s liberal credentials, surely?’ he asked.

  I wasn’t sure what he meant but I told him about the Big Oxford Dream my father had passed on to me. ‘It was always going to be either Oxford or Cambridge,’ I explained to Simon, ‘my father’s plan being to propel me towards the Indian Foreign Service, to become a diplomat, you see.’

  I didn’t go on to elaborate that my father was in the Indian Administrative Service and always considered it a lowlier profession, especially as two of his wealthier school-mates who went on to Oxford had made it to the Indian Foreign Service. Somewhere along the way, Papa’s dreams for himself simply became his dreams for me. If I hadn’t been an only child, perhaps that expectation would have lain on a brother but my mother had suffered from secondary infertility and, as their only child, I became the repository of all the hopes and dreams that my father might have reserved for a son.

  ‘Gosh, that’s pretty focused,’ Simon said. ‘I’m not at all sure of what I’ll do after graduating. I certainly have no career plan right now!’

  ‘Really?’ I asked him, not quite believing his nonchalant attitude. He must have been pretty clever to make it to Oxford so his casual statement surprised me.

  ‘Yeah,’ he replied, however, with apparent sincerity, ‘all I know at the moment is that I’m at uni to have a bloody good time. Which is why I didn’t want to do something like Economics. It would only make me sensible about money and prevent me being able to fully enjoy my college days. This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to acquire a degree in BGT.’

  ‘BGT?’ I asked, puzzled.

  ‘I told you: Bloody Good Time.’

  I found his lackadaisical attitude startling but also rather refreshing. My own preparation for Oxford had taken all my life! Not just all my life but much of my parents’ lives too. We’d been lucky that the UCAS information, the essays and exams and even the final telephone interview had all been conducted under the careful guidance of Papa’s two school friends who had been to Oxford. I couldn’t have asked for finer mentors – Tippy Uncle called me every week from South Africa, where he was in the Indian mission, and Suri Uncle was in the Ministry of External Affairs in Delhi, always available at the end of a phone line. My coaching could not have been more personalized and intensive and, by the time I’d had the letter requesting a telephone interview with the tutors, both Tippy Uncle and Suri Uncle were already patting me on the back and congratulating what they called ‘The Team’. My family’s combined three-way ambition was going to be achieved, finally.

  I told Simon about some of that while we were queuing and, by the time we’d both been assigned our rooms, we were friends. He said he would ‘swing by’ my staircase later on in the evening so we could explore ‘Oxford’s watering holes’. Again, I only had a vague idea of what he meant but it felt really good to have someone I could consider a friend so early on in my college life.

  Despite a bit of home-sickness (especially for the food), that first week at Wadham was actually great fun. Classes weren’t going to start for a week and all everyone seemed interested in was what was called the ‘Freshers’ Bop’ which I realised as we went along was what we in India would have called a dance party. Music and food and drink and what the English seemed to love doing: fancy dress. I was a naturally shy person but Oxford life was bringing out new qualities and confidence in me. I also befriended a really lovely pair of girls called Clare an
d Nicki, who shared the room next door to mine. The college had given me a tiny single room but placed them together – they thought probably because they were both from Suffolk, Nicki saying, ‘To most of these Oxford dons, that’s a foreign land’. They were very sweet and protective about me, taking me under their wing because I knew so little about life in England. We became a threesome on our staircase and Simon kind of tagged along. His digs were in the Bowra Building, at the back of the college, but he turned up on our staircase at what Nicki (who was the funny one) called ‘the drop of a boater’. We didn’t mind. Simon was the gregarious type and through him we met all sorts of wild and interesting people. But, even though Simon had so many friends, I was a bit flattered that he spent all evening at the Freshers’ Bop attached to my side and supplying Clare, Nicki and me with drinks throughout the night.

  Once classes began, it started to get quite busy. I enrolled in all kinds of societies and clubs but never lost sight of how important it was to do well academically. So much effort had gone into my being at Oxford, I couldn’t mess around. Simon, on the other hand, was clearly applying himself to the business he had come to Oxford for, his degree in BGT. He started asking me out on dates – innocent enough, movies and picnics – but I resisted, telling him quite honestly about how it would upset and worry my family back home in India if they thought I was neglecting my studies in order to go steady with someone. He seemed to understand, apparently contented enough to hang around me whenever he could. Nicki and Clare joined the water-polo team. I didn’t because I’d never been the sporty type and Simon was clearly delighted because it left us together as a twosome a lot of the time. I had my first kiss at this time, six weeks into term; Simon and I had spent the afternoon reading in my room and, quite suddenly, he reached out and kissed me on the lips. I wasn’t especially shocked or anything. I mean, it had definitely been brewing for some time so I half expected it. But, when he started to wriggle his tongue into my mouth and run his hand over my breasts, I pulled away and told him I wasn’t enjoying it. He was hurt, I think, but took it with good grace and, after less than an hour’s awkwardness, we were friends again and off on a long cycle ride around Oxford. He was like that, Simon, so puppy-like in his adoration and so eager to please. Looking back, I ask myself why I wasn’t more tempted by the idea of him as a boyfriend, but then he wasn’t the only distraction. In fact, it was amazing how much diversion was on offer all the time; a fancy dress party or ball almost every weekend, crazy drinking sessions in the bars and pubs around the college (I stuck to the OJ, with an occasional glass of wine) but most of the students were bright enough and focused enough to carry on with their research and their studies alongside all the socialising. Certainly Simon kept getting decent enough grades despite hanging around our staircase so much, don’t ask me how. It might sound arrogant but I suppose we were the crème de la crème, those of us who’d got into Oxford. Even now I remember that feeling – so blind and so very foolish – of being young and smart and clever and so on top of the world that no one and nothing could ever topple us …

  Yes … and it was in the middle of that heady carefree time – getting on for winter – that I met Alastair …

  Alastair Henderson was a tutor in the department but one we generally had little to do with. Simon used the term ‘foxy academic’ to describe him once, you know, the kind of academic that gets sought after by the media for being both eloquent and good-looking. The students referred to him as ‘Hottie Henders’ and joked sometimes that we saw more of him on TV than in college. The BBC was using him as an anchor for a poetry series that summer and so he had a good excuse to never be around. But, one winter afternoon, when I’d gone for a one-on-one tutorial with Mr Waddell, who should be awaiting me in Waddie’s study but the great Alastair Henderson himself? I was startled when he opened the door – not just because he wasn’t the grey-haired and avuncular old tutor I normally saw on a Tuesday afternoon, but because he had a glass of whisky in one hand and looked more ready for casual social interaction than a tutorial.

  ‘Kurt’s had to go up to London this morning so I’m afraid it’s me you’ve got,’ he said in that kind of uninterested, drawly manner that girls tend to find so sexy. ‘I’m Alastair Henderson. You can call me anything you like, Alastair, Al, or that strange moniker I’m told the students have so kindly bestowed on me; can’t tell why.’ He turned to me and asked, his blue gaze suddenly piercing, ‘And who, may I ask, are you?’

  ‘I’m Neha,’ I said, adding – although I wasn’t sure why – ‘I’m an overseas student. From India.’

  ‘Ah, Neha from India,’ he said, as though I was the very person he had been waiting to meet all these years. He was smiling but his eyes were inscrutable and it felt as though he was poking fun at me, rather than being genuinely friendly. ‘Well, Neha-from-India,’ he continued, ‘I’m here to answer any questions you may have on incest in the Greek myths or religion and the metaphysical poets or,’ he waved an arm in the air, ‘just life and love, if you like. Oh, and I may use this opportunity to fill in the gaps of my knowledge on the Indian poets whenever we meet, if that’s acceptable. Do you read Tagore? Or is it the Balzacs of Bollywood that you follow?’

  I was completely tongue-tied by him. Everything about Alastair was aimed at doing that to a girl: the taciturn good looks, the intense gaze, the drawling questions, half-amused and half-serious. He was everything sweet, uncomplicated that Simon wasn’t and, by the end of that afternoon, I was madly and deeply in love.

  Of course, I’d had crushes before – film stars and pop singers. But this was different. It was an ache that grabbed me somewhere deep inside my stomach, leaving me shaky and weak and unable to concentrate on anything else. For days after that first tutorial, I went over every word we’d spoken, thinking of the many things I should have said to impress Alastair with my wit and erudition. I took to attending all future tutorials with my heart in my mouth, always hoping desperately that it would be him opening the door again. But it never was.

  Sightings of him around the college were also rare. Once I ran all the way across the quad when I thought I’d spotted him, hoping to pretend to have bumped into him, but by the time I got to the other side, he’d disappeared.

  And then that evening in December. It was the 2nd. I remember the date so well. College hadn’t closed for Christmas yet. My parents were insisting I go and stay with Mahinder Tau-ji and his family in Leicester for the hols but I had an assignment to hand in first. After class that day, I found a note in my pigeonhole. ‘7pm in the library,’ it said, and it was signed simply ‘Alastair’.

  I had two hours to go before seven and I got myself in a real state about it, unable to eat anything or hear a word of what Clare and Nicki were chattering about over dinner in the refectory. For some reason I can’t explain, I didn’t tell them about my note from Alastair and so, after dinner, when there was talk about going down to the Oxford Union bar, I excused myself with talk of a deadline on my assignment.

  ‘Need any help?’ Simon asked. ‘I’m happy to skip going if you need a reader/writer/transcriber/coffee-maker/general dogsbody?’ He was looking at me so hopefully, I felt mean and devious when I shook my head and made some excuse to get rid of him along with the others.

  I was frantic when Clare delayed their departure by disappearing to the toilet, and I watched the hands of the clock in the junior common room inch painfully towards seven o’clock. But finally they had all gone and, after the sound of their laughter had faded down the stairs, I hastily dabbed on some lip gloss, brushed my hair and took the route through the back quad to the library. It was freezing cold, of course, and both the Great Hall and the chapel were pitch dark. Only parts of the garden were illuminated intermittently by the light from students’ rooms. I nearly twisted my ankle as I ran up the steep stairs to get to the library quicker, managing to get there a few minutes before seven, to find a scattering of students at work but no Alastair. I hung around, pretending to be reading, but keeping
an eye on the main entrance all the while. For a moment, I thought the note might have been some kind of hoax, a prank played by one of my classmates. But eventually – it must have been around a quarter past seven – Alastair strolled in, hands in his pockets and ducking his head under the door out of habit like a lot of tall men do. He seemed in no hurry to keep our appointment but glanced around, looking for me I hoped. I raised my hand to wave at him and hastily shoved the book I’d been pretending to read back on the shelf.

  I knew I must have sounded breathless as I ran up to him. ‘I thought you weren’t coming,’ I said, trying not to sound complaining.

  There was no apology from him at all. Instead, he gave me one of those enigmatic looks of his and beckoned before turning. I wondered where we were going as he loped along in his customary long strides past the bookshelves and I trotted along behind him, trying to keep up. We left the library through another door and made our way down some stairs before disappearing through the labyrinthine corridors of the back quad. Alastair pulled out a brass key tied onto a greying piece of ribbon from his pocket as we approached a scuffed wooden door. I wondered for one crazy moment if this was the famed room I’d heard of where old Bibles were stored, imagining Alastair might be keen to show me some of Wadham’s history, but I was ushered into a kind of anteroom, something like a private study, also book-lined but with a couple of armchairs around a small round table that was heaped with dusty leather hardbacks. Along one wall was a sideboard with a decanter of whisky and some glasses and nearby was a leather couch with some faded tapestry cushions thrown on. There was a musty air to the place, mixed in with the smell of spirits and pipe smoke. Very alpha male. Very Alastair Henderson.

  Of course, despite my naivety, I wasn’t such a fool and I did wonder if this was where Alastair brought pretty female students to seduce them but, curiously, I wasn’t anxious at the thought at all. There was something exciting about the uncertainty and mystery surrounding our unexpected meeting and – if I’m to be honest – I wouldn’t have minded in the slightest if Alastair had attempted to flirt or even seduce me. But he couldn’t have been more proper, decorous almost, and the summons turned out to be for no more than a tutorial, a lecture of sorts on Gerard Manley Hopkins. I’d written a paper recently on the subject and assumed that Alastair was either impressed enough by it to spare this extra time, or perhaps spurred on by disgust and disappointment into giving me this unexpected tutorial. However, he made no mention of my essay at all and I didn’t dare ask.