by Ben Masters
I head back over to the table. The others can tell from my vacant look that something is up.
“Everything okay, mate?” asks Jack.
“Yeah, fine.” It wouldn’t have taken them long to deduce that Lucy was on the other end. That might explain their timorousness: Lucy always did fit uncomfortably with Oxford. And somehow hearing her on the phone just now reminds me of that … a disembodied Lucy … not fully present …
“She’s quite shy,” I warned Ella and Jack, down the college bar the night before Lucy’s first visit to Oxford. It had been nearly two weeks since we had said good-bye and I’d left for university, but it felt like we’d been apart forever.
“I’m sure she’s lovely, Eliot. We’re all looking forward to meeting her,” Ella had said with a tender maturity that made me want to fall for her that little bit more—
Why am I torturing myself with memories? How am I ever going to be in any kind of moment if I can’t just let things go? But past incidents are what I’m full of and I must continue to play catch-up. It’s not a question of an A side and a B side, of present and past, for it all feels contemporary to me; it all goes into the making of tonight. It’s the only way I am going to make sense—
Okay. Lucy’s first visit. My nerves were threatening to get the better of me, grabbing me by the balls and letting me know who was boss as I waited for her at the bus stop outside Sainsbury’s. The heavy air and sodden gritty pavements compounded my fears, the rain teasing out all those grimy smells peculiar to wet weather: dank hair, moldy cardboard, dog tongue, oil-swirl puddle. Different worlds—home and uni, love and friendship—were coming together and the atmosphere was thick with portent.
As I’ve said before, Lucy wasn’t—isn’t—the academic type. This made me anxious about bringing her to Oxford, where I had expected everyone to be so otherworldly and lofty. But maybe I wasn’t giving her enough credit. It’s hard to be rational though, or to feel secure, when the thing that really sets you apart from other lads is your brain and excellent literary knowledge. Most girls simply aren’t interested in brains and excellent literary knowledge. They are worthless commodities … valueless on the modern-day meat market. If a girl, however, was to say to me, “Hi, my name is Nicole and I am a huge fan of fin de siècle novels that explore the theme of degeneration,” I would bet my entire student loan that I’d have her in the sack before you could say Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Obviously none of this mattered to Lucy. She must’ve liked me for other reasons that I couldn’t make out.
Part of me felt a growing preference for separate spheres: keep Lucy to myself, tucked away in our private enclave, far from the baying and spitting of the public forum. I could smuggle her into my room and lock the door … disconnect the Internet cable … divert all calls. I could even—
“Hey!”
Lucy’s bus had been and gone.
“Huh? Oh … Sorry! I was a million miles away.”
“Hehe.” She didn’t say this as such, but it comes close. It’s her code for gentle humor or self-deprecation in texts and emails (as in “bless me” or “how silly is that?”).
“It’s great to see you,” I said, accompanied by a kiss and a hug. And it was great to see her. She looked vitalized, aglow with uncertain excitement, wrapped in her shimmering gold scarf, shaped enticingly by white skinny jeans. Still approaching eighteen, this must’ve seemed quite an adventure: away from home in an unknown city, with a boy (yours truly), and the promise of sex and alcohol (in no particular order). Most importantly, though, free from the obtrusive presence of “come and sit with us” parents.
“Have you missed me?”
“Of course I have. Terribly!”
“Good,” she said, untroubled by the irony of greeting my intimation of suffering as a positive thing, as only a lover can.
“You?”
“Of course.”
We strolled arm in arm to my quaint and pretty college. When we passed through the forbidding archways, into the main quadrangle, Lucy unlinked from me, donning an impenetrable armory of puzzlement and suspicion. She attempted to take it all in: the perfection of the grid-imprinted grass; the palpable sense of history emblazoned in stained glass and weathered stone; the Gothic points and angles, aslant from our accustomed reality; the threat of an alternative life. Already she seemed to be turning away. I boasted futile gems of college history as we made for my staircase: how many prime ministers went here, which movies and TV shows were filmed on site, the roll call of alumni novelists and athletes. I was pompous and proud, but mainly awkward.
She spent, it seemed to me, an unusually long time in front of the mirror in my room, preparing herself for the bar: lip gloss, mascara, bracelets, perfumes, straighteners, heels, hair spray, bronzer. Who did she want to impress? I wallowed in sudden paranoia: she didn’t go to all this effort for me … she must be looking to impress my mates … Oxford lads … has to be … maybe she’s seen my new photos from Freshers Week on Mugshot and taken a fancy to one of the guys … maybe she’s got a crush on Scott … she must have a crush on Scott … she wants all the guys to be attracted to her … she’s after their hard-ons and chat-up lines. The gungy cogs of my jealous mind went into overdrive. (In a cooler, more collected moment, I realized that she was doing it for herself. It was her shield. She was responding to her difference in age and a presumed deficit in sophistication. She wanted to fit in. And she was doing it for me. She wanted me to feel glad that she was around.)
“So what are your friends like?” she asked, rooting for some preparatory information as we bustled out of my pigsty.
“Oh, they’re all lovely. You’ll get along fine.”
“That’s cool.”
I thought I picked up a quiver of anxiety in her voice.
“Don’t feel any pressure though. Just be yourself. I’ve told them you’re quite shy anyway … so it’s not like they’re expecting much.”
“Well, thanks a lot, Eliot.”
“What?”
“I’m not even shy,” she added, coldly.
As we descended toward the Hollywell College bar, a dungeon buried beneath the quad, sharp voices and bellows ricocheted against the walls of the stairwell, echoing like a frenzied swimming pool. I felt tense as I imagined the nerves that must have being consuming Lucy. When the door swung open we were drowned by an instantly doubled hoorah. My crew was sitting over by the jukebox playing a game of 21s or Bunnies or whatever. The laughs and cheers were caricature, the shouts superficially aggressive: “Get it down, you Zulu warrior … Get it down, you Zulu CHIEF CHIEF CHIEF CHIEF.”
“Everyone, this is Lucy … Lucy, this is everyone,” I said, interrupting their drinking game.
They all seemed taken aback … was Jack checking her out? Motherfu—
“Hey, Lucy. Here, take a seat.” Ella pulled up a stool. “I’m Ella.”
“Hi,” said Lucy, shaking Ella’s hand and smiling her razzle-dazzle smile. Her summer countenance, with its sultry contours and soft textures, couldn’t have been more incongruous with the humdrum mise en scène: the drab chipped furniture, the low arching ceiling, the lumpy underground brickwork, the weak septic lighting. She’s an effervescent Eloi kidnapped by Morlocks in an alcoholic subterrain, dramatized my essay-fagged brain. They belonged to different genres: Lucy all dream vision; the scene a lowly Anglo-Saxon dirge. I had breached some code of formal decorum by bringing her there.
Lucy sat smiling.
She won’t start any conversation … I know she won’t … she’ll just sit there, smiling.
“So what do you do?” ventured Sanjay.
What do you mean, what does she do? Well, she sleeps and eats, shits and pisses, takes regular doses of oxygen, and stretches her limbs when she needs to get from A to B …
Me. She does me! Alright?
“I’m in my last year at school.” (They already knew this, of course.)
“Ah, cool.”
“Hehe.” (She didn’t actually say this.)
&
nbsp; “Have you started applying to any universities yet?” offered Megan.
Yeah, probably none of the ones you did. Jesus! She’s not the academic type, okay? Leave the poor girl alone.
“I’m not quite sure if I’m going to go yet,” she said, coloring up slightly. She peered at me, as though she was bothered about how I’d respond. I had the feeling she was only considering uni because of me … like it was what I would’ve wanted … or expected. “The uni at Northampton has a pretty good Travel and Tourism course, so I might look at that … I’d have to get the grades first though!” I hung my head, waiting for the inexorable judgments of my brainy mates. I wanted to apologize to everyone. I relinquished Lucy’s hand under the table and fiddled in my pocket for my wallet.
“Oh cool,” said Jack. “My big sis works in events management … same kind of thing, right?” Lucy nodded readily. “Yeah, she loves it. Gets loads of free tickets for things.” I glanced up, surprised not to find everyone staring at me in disbelief or giving Lucy condescending looks. No, they were all listening intently, and drinking their drinks as per normal. I took Lucy’s hand back in mine.
“I think Eliot secretly wants me to apply to Oxford Brooks,” she said, giving me a cheeky sidelong look.
“Hah, keep you nearby, eh?” said Jack.
“Exactly … that’s the one thing that puts me off though!”
Very funny now … quite the sense of humor on you there. You’ve got all my friends laughing … well done … oh, funny girl. This is depressing.
“Hehe, only joking, Eliot!”
Get off my hand.
“Hey, you should get a drink and join in our game,” said Ella overenthusiastically.
“What are you playing?” I asked.
“Categories. Do you know how to play, Lucy?”
Lucy shook her head.
“It’s dumb,” I said.
“No, I want to play,” said Lucy.
“It’s easy,” continued Ella. “We pick a category and then go around the table taking it in turns to think of an example. If you can’t come up with one or if you repeat one that’s already been said, you have to down your drink. And, of course, you have to drink while you think!”
“Okay!” said Lucy.
“What category are you on?” I asked.
“We just did Oxford colleges,” said Jack. I could sense Lucy’s enthusiasm dying a very sudden death. “How about poets? Or famous scientists?” Oh fuck …
“Ermmm, I think we’ll just go to the bar and get a drink. You guys play on though. What do you want to drink?” I asked Lucy. I was terrified she would say something like Smirnoff Ice or WKD … hell, why not a bottle of White Lightning in a brown paper bag like we used to drink down the rec. Lucy carefully surveyed the bevies on the table. The boys were on pints, Abi and Megan were sharing a bottle of rosé, and Ella was sipping a glass of white.
“Mmm, I’ll have a glass of white wine please.”
“Sure.”
We got up and headed to the bar, the sticky floor threatening to tear our shoes from beneath us. “Eliot,” came Lucy’s shadowy whisper over my shoulder. “Whereabouts is the loo?” Her scent made me crumple.
“It’s through the corridor over there. Are you okay? Happy and that?”
“Yeah … I’m fine.”
“Okay.”
I couldn’t tell what I was so nervous about. I rested my arms on the sloppy bar. “Alright buddy. I guess I’ll have a San Miguel and a white wine please.”
(My phone has just vibrated against my thigh again. It’s not a call this time—just the two sharp buzzes of a text message. Lucy, can’t you see I’m trying to explain you here?)
I watched the narrative unfolding in the long mirror behind the bar. There were a couple of lads rattling away on the foosball table, a misfit assembly poking and jabbing at the quiz machine, and random groups of library refugees spattered about, small-eyed and finger-biting. My lot were chatting excitedly.
Are they discussing Lucy? Evaluating her? Passing judgment and sentence? Compliments or criticism? Or are they just kicking off their drinking game …?
An interminable two minutes swelled around me as I watched for Lucy to return from the loo and waited for my round. And there she was, walking over to the gang and sitting—
Why the fuck has she gone and sat next to Jack? What’s she trying to do? Betrayal! My insides punched me heavyweight slogger style as I brought the drinks over.
Here’s your bloody wine. I’ll just sit on the other side from you then, shall I? Fine.
“Thanks,” she said, taking a swig.
“S’okay.”
So I was next to Ella and Sanj, and Lucy was next to Jack and Scott. Jack, then Lucy, then Scott; or Scott, then Lucy, then Jack, depending on which way you look at it. Abi and Megan appeared somewhere in between. But Lucy was next to Jack and Scott, and Scott and Jack were next to Lucy, and they’re both lads …
Her chest heaved slow and full as she sat up, absolutely straight. I didn’t quite catch what Jack said to her but she chuckled lavishly, baring her shiny white Kodak smile. Lucy’s laugh is a force of nature: rich and voluminous, it borders on the dirty. It’s a sexy laugh, for sure. A laugh you want to be responsible for … a laugh you want to provoke and roll around in, lapped by its gurgles and rumbles, tongued by its air and chimes. You want to ride the wave of her guttural joy. But you want it to yourself … you strive for exclusivity. Okay, I want it to myself … I strive for exclusivity. A laugh is for the other as much as for the self, nearly always a collaborative project, and I want Lucy’s to myself.
She was laughing again, this time more vigorously, and Jack was starting to look a tad overencouraged. Even Scott was smirking. They both watched her as she bubbled and wriggled, gazing wide-eyed at the drink in her hand, down there on the table. I took rapid pulls from my pint and showed a little seethe. Lucy was an exotic to Hollywell College, being actually fit and not conforming to the private-schoolgirl fashion model so dominant around here. They’re carbon copies of each other, the Hollywell anti-babes: big fuzzy hair, draping scarves like wizard’s sleeves, gilet, jogging bottoms (Jack Wills, not Sports World), and ugly Ugg boots. Lucy was demonstrably not one of them, with her straightened hair and high heels.
“Is this your first time in Oxford?” inquired Ella across the table.
Who gives a flying fuck?
“Yeah. I don’t know why that is really.”
“Well, you’re in for a treat,” said Jack. “We’ll show you some of the hot-spots tonight … have a little boogie and that.”
“Hehe,” etc. etc.
Oh fuck this.
Recognizing an unrecognizable girl, Terrence Terrence, who had just dropped into the bar to purchase a tipple, came over to our table and pulled up a stool.
“Terrence?”
“I don’t believe we have met,” he said, extending a hand to Lucy.
“Hi,” she said, smiling. “I’m Lucy.”
“Terrence. Pleased.” Terrence kissed Lucy on the top of her hand, which made her giggle. “Is this your paramour, John?” he asked me. Throughout that first term he had called me John. I have no idea why.
“Eliot. Yes, Lucy is my girlfriend … from home.” I don’t know why I felt the need to add this last bit—like it would grant her some leeway or something.
“Oh, I see. How very … parochial.” He crossed his legs effeminately. “So which college are you at?”
Lucy chuckled some more, this time at the assumption that she might be an Oxford student. “I’m still at school,” she answered, taking great pleasure in sipping her wine. I dropped my head once again. Terrence sat up … perked, even.
“A babe in the woods! How positively charming.”
“I like your outfit,” said Lucy. Terrence, fancying himself a thespian, was wearing yellow tights, mascara, and eye shadow.
“I’ve just been at rehearsals, so …”
“What are you rehearsing for?” asked Lucy, eage
r to show interest.
“A student production,” I dived in, before Terrence could baffle her with some play she’d never heard of.
“Ah, that’s cool.”
“Yah, I really want to go into theater after uni, actually. I love to tread the boards, liiiiike …” a dickhead.
“Oh, awesome. Like panto?”
That’s not theater, I snapped derisively in my head. He means serious stuff …
The whole gang erupted with laughter and Terrence darkened with embarrassment. They thought she was joking … they thought she was breaking his balls! Lucy had just become a heroine.
“Well, errrr, no, actually. Shakespearean, so …” He uncrossed his legs in the hope that it might alleviate some of the ridicule.
“Oh right, that sounds lovely,” Lucy said in recompense. I think she was upset to have made him so uncomfortable. Jack and Ella were visibly delighted with Lucy’s presence. (You’re welcome.)
“Do you like Shakespeare?” asked Terrence.
“Can’t say that I know any. Did he write Romeo and Juliet?”
“Are you okay for drink?” I asked Lucy, in a desperate shift of—
(There goes my phone, again. Lucy, give me a chance to explain you! I’m going to need some space to get this done! But I suppose I am alone in my quest to level things tonight. I notice that Jack and Ella are standing over by the quiz machine, holding their drinks against their chests and funneling chat into each other’s ears. Jack slaps his empty pint glass on top of the machine and appears to split for the john. Ella, left on her own, clocks me and smiles. She’s coming over—)
After a bit of reshuffling and a few more drinks, Lucy found her way back next to me. We were on to our fifth or sixth.
“Hello, stranger,” she said.
“Hey. Where’ve you been all my life?”
“About two meters away.”
“Hehe” (I didn’t actually say this). “Sorry if I’ve been a bit tetchy. And I know you’re not shy … I shouldn’t have said anything.”