It was a warm night, but a breeze coming in through the floor-to-ceiling windows made the temperature in the spacious drawing room seem almost pleasant. Jean suggested we work our way over to one of the open windows, where a man and woman stood talking. Seeing the two of them, I instantly thought of The Great Gatsby. He was wearing a white dinner jacket that accentuated his dark hair and slanted eyes. She was also dark-haired and wearing white—a simple silk dress, its only adornment a strand of pearls. They were talking face-to-face near a Steinway piano, holding each other’s hands in a friendly yet intimate way.
“Oh, there’s our host and hostess,” Jean said. “Let me introduce you.” I was anxious to meet this couple described by Jean as “self-made, salt-of-the-earth millionaires.”
She was right. Despite their glamorous looks, Robert and Olivia Morgan turned out to be nothing like Jay and Daisy. For one thing, Olivia’s voice was not “full of money.” It was filled instead with curiosity and intelligence and the rhythms of a native Australian. Robert was more difficult to read. Clearly he was a hard-driving man with a razor-sharp mind. But there were hints also of a thoughtful, poetic nature when he discussed with Jean a book by William Trevor that they both were reading.
A butler appeared to announce that dinner was served. Jean and I walked behind the host and hostess into a large dining room, where five round tables, each seating eight people, were set with sparkling crystal and gleaming silver. The whole room was lit by candles that flickered from the movement of the guests entering. I consulted the card I’d been handed. I was to sit at Table Number 5. “My table, too,” Jean whispered.
Two guests were already at the table when Jean and I sat down. She introduced me to her friend Edward, a psychoanalyst, and to Georgia, a ruthlessly fashionable woman who bore a striking resemblance to the late Diana Vreeland, the famous fashion editor. Arriving next was a young, attractive couple from Australia. “He’s in business with Robert,” Jean whispered, leaning across the empty seat between us. Finally, I was pleased to see the host and hostess take their places at our table.
Almost immediately Georgia asked if anyone had read the piece in the Herald-Tribune quoting John Updike on Ernest Hemingway. “He delivered an absolutely delicious line,” she said. “Updike pointed out that living wasn’t what Hemingway did best, that we should remember him as a writer.” She laughed. “Quite the put-down, isn’t it?”
Edward, the analyst, weighed in with his opinion. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. Maybe it wasn’t a negative judgment but simply a statement of fact. Hemingway’s life was rather a mess, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, but that’s not the point,” Robert said. “Who’s to say that Hemingway wouldn’t prefer to be remembered for his writing and not for what he did when he wasn’t writing?”
Edward laughed. “Bob, you’re starting to sound more like an analyst every day.”
“Well, I certainly wouldn’t want to be remembered for the way I live,” Georgia said wryly. “I want to be remembered for the way I dress.” Everyone laughed.
“Well done,” said Olivia, standing with her wineglass raised to make a toast. “And may none of us forget that dressing well is the best revenge.”
“I don’t think it’s funny,” Jean said suddenly and loudly. “Hemingway was a depressed man. He killed himself. Remember? Just like his father. Is that funny?” Her speech was noticeably slurred.
An awkward silence followed her outburst. It was hard to know what to say. I couldn’t help but think of all the depressed men in Jean’s life, including her own father. Finally, Robert came to the rescue, changing the subject to a play just opening in London. I saw Jean shoot him a grateful look.
The waiters appeared and began to serve the food. It was just before eleven and, despite my earlier dinner, I was ravenous. As soon as I saw my hostess lift her fork, I dug in.
At the end of the evening Georgia suggested we move the party—at least the one at our table—over to her place in Chelsea.
“Smashing idea,” said Jean, whipping out a mirror to add a fresh coat of red lipstick, one that only approximated the actual shape of her mouth. Everyone agreed it was a capital idea and we began preparing ourselves for the short journey to Chelsea. Outside, I looked at my watch; it was a little before two.
It was just before dawn when we left Georgia’s apartment. A few minutes later, when I stepped out of Robert and Olivia’s car to enter my building, Jean leaned out of the window to call after me: “Don’t forget. Lunch at one. At the Connaught.” She looked exhausted but also wired. Did I look like that, I wondered? One thing I knew: the muscles in my face hurt from too much animation over too long a period of time. Having fun really takes it out of you, I thought.
“See you then,” Olivia chimed in, before letting her head drop back onto Robert’s shoulder.
Although I’d already decided not to meet them for lunch, I said nothing. Later in the morning I’d phone and make my apologies.
It had been an exciting night, but I’d had my fill of life in the fast lane, at least for now. I liked the Morgans and their friends, but they were people who lived big, sprawling, complicated lives; lives that involved drivers and butlers and houses on more than one continent and partying around the clock. It suited them. And as long as I only had to do it once every five years or so, it suited me, too.
I undressed, took a shower, and put on a pair of soft cotton pajamas. It was Sunday and my plan was to sleep through the afternoon. But first I needed to unwind with a cup of tea and something to read. I reached for the small book of essays that celebrated the life and work of Gertrude Jekyll.
One essay, a personal recollection written by a horticulturist, described a visit to Miss Jekyll in 1931, the last year of her life. He wrote of the simplicity of Miss Jekyll’s “modest and charming home amongst the trees on the sandy rising ground. Our tea was brought and we had it on occasional tables near the sunny windows, thin white bread and butter and a preserve (I do not remember what) and some little cakes. Her mellow voice floated on through the words of wisdom she imparted and I came away deeply moved by all I had seen and heard.”
She found the life that suited her, I thought, closing the book. Work that interested her, a house she loved, good friends who came for tea and, of course, the company of her cats, Pinkie, Tavy, Tittlebat, Tabby, and the ever-excitable Blackie. It was a simple life but by no means an unsophisticated one.
Remembering the candlelit glamour of the night before, I found myself comparing its luxurious excess with the elegant economy of Miss Jekyll’s life. There was little doubt which suited me best: I was much more Jekyll than Hyde.
Still, turning off the lamp, I had to admit that every once in a while it was quite exciting to travel up front, in first class.
9
UP AT OXFORD
Dear Alice,
Going back to school is like going back in time. Immediately, for better or for worse, you must give up a little piece of your autonomy in order to become part of the group. And every group, of course, has its hierarchies and rules—spoken and unspoken. It is like learning to live once again in a family—which, of course, is the setting where all learning begins.
Love, Alice
Driving up to Oxford from London on a clear Sunday morning, alone, and with no traffic on the road, the air still fragrant from Saturday’s rain, singing along with Ella Fitzgerald on the radio, I felt like a sixteen-year-old who’s just been given permission to drive the family car. And like an adolescent, I felt up to the challenge of whatever lay ahead.
Even the act of driving, which I usually found boring, took on an edge of pleasure. I shifted into overdrive and, still singing out loud with Ella, purposely passed a silver Jaguar. It was a move, I realized, that allowed me to relive simultaneously two of my adolescent fantasies: one, to be a singer like Ella, and two, to own a souped-up convertible and cruise the highways leaving startled but admiring drivers in my dust.
The souped-up car thing never worked out, but I
actually pursued the Ella thing. At the Miss Henrietta Freedenberg School of Music in Baltimore, to be exact. Once a week, armed with my Rodgers and Hart songbook, I took three streetcars to Miss Henrietta’s studio for a private singing lesson. There, Miss Henrietta would accompany me on the piano in her living room—or “studio” as she called it—while coaching me on how to properly breathe and “emote.” Words to be “emoted” were penciled on my score in all capital letters by Miss Henrietta.
Although I had every reason to doubt my singing talent, I had no fear of failure. Not even when I got to the part in “My Funny Valentine” that begins “Is your mouth a little weak” and then rises precipitously to the phrase “When you open it to speak, are you SMART?” I still remember my excitement as I vocally climbed, or thought I climbed, the octaves to the summit where the word “SMART” stood alone, waiting to be conquered.
I do not remember when I wised up to the fact that my only musical talent lay in listening, not singing. Still, for the year or so that I sang Rodgers and Hart and the occasional Cole Porter tune in Miss Henrietta’s living room, my adolescent optimism made the illusion of a career in jazz singing seem possible. Other illusions followed and, adolescence being what it is, they all seemed possible.
That’s it, I thought, driving up to Oxford. That’s exactly what I’m feeling: the return of adolescent optimism.
I don’t know why I felt this way. Perhaps my excitement had to do with driving alone in a foreign country, where every road is an unknown one and every turn holds out the promise of an adventure. Perhaps it was the idea of returning briefly to the academic life; I was going up to Oxford to take a course in the history of the English village. Or perhaps it had to do with something I was learning about myself: that I was a naturally optimistic and curious person.
The funny thing is, I knew, that most of my friends would describe me in just such a way. But, to be honest, I’d never been sure it wasn’t an act I was putting on—not to fool other people, but to fool myself. The world, I’d always thought, was much more welcoming and much less threatening if a person approached it with curiosity and optimism. It was an approach that had worked well for me, in both my personal and professional life. But sometimes I wondered if this really reflected my true nature, or whether I’d shaped my personality to fit some perceived notion of what it required to successfully navigate life.
But there was no one to please or not please on this trip. I could be as inward or as outward as I felt; I could be an observing person or an experiencing person; I could be optimistic or skeptical. And I was learning each day that, depending on the occasion and my mood, I had in my arsenal of feelings all of these responses.
Still, the dominant person I saw emerging was genuinely optimistic and curious. She really did love to meet people and explore new places. And, best of all, when things didn’t work out, she moved on.
What can I say? She was plucky and, most of the time, not a whiner. Except for the occasional and sometimes expensive preoccupation about what to do with her not-so-manageable hair, I found her quite an agreeable traveling companion.
Friends in London had told me the drive to Oxford was an easy one, and they were right. What was not easy, however, was finding my way, once in Oxford, to Brasenose College, where those enrolled in the course were to stay.
I had been given a map of Oxford and directions to Brasenose, which was located in historic Radcliffe Square. I was also given instructions on how to gain access for my car into the gated and locked square: I was to leave the car at the entrance to Radcliffe Square, walk to the porter’s lodge at Brasenose, pick up the key to unlock the gate to the square, walk back to my car, unlock the gate, drive into the square, park my car, and then get out and relock the gate before proceeding to the heavy, wooden doors of Brasenose. There, theoretically, a college porter would allow me to enter the college’s interior courtyard and give me further instructions as to where to go.
What followed was a two-hour fiasco. To begin with, nothing on the Oxford street map I had corresponded with reality. Most of the streets, it turned out, were one-way and to my annoyance always seemed to go the way I didn’t want to go. For the next hour I found myself driving around the center of town in ever-widening circles. At one point I wound up on a road out in the Oxfordshire countryside.
The narrow, cobblestoned, tourist-filled streets were hellish enough, but the directions given by pedestrians whom I judged to be locals were even worse. At one point, however, I actually found myself at the corner of Brasenose Lane. I was elated, thinking I must at last be close to my destination. And I was. But there was a problem: I was at the back of Brasenose College and in order to enter the front—which was on Radcliffe Square—I had to start circling all over again.
Somewhere in this last Circle of Hell I lost, temporarily, all my adolescent optimism and high spirits.
Finally, just as I was considering abandoning the car and setting out on foot, I came upon the gated entrance to Radcliffe Square. Parking the car was easy; opening the gate was not. The key handed me by the college porter, a surly, unhelpful man dressed in a tired, shapeless black suit, was a huge, ancient-looking thing attached to a large board. As I struggled to open the gate, small crowds of tourists gathered to watch. Help finally came in the form of a passing taxi driver. He opened the gate; I drove through and parked in front of the massive, sixteenth-century stone walls guarding Brasenose College.
From the outside it looked like a medieval fortress: forbidding, impenetrable, damp. The unwelcome thought crossed my mind: had I made a mistake? Should I have taken a room at some nice bed-and-breakfast where there might be heat to warm the cold Oxford nights and a tea kettle whistling on the stove all day long? I found myself wondering, as Elisabeth Bishop did in a poem, “Should we have stayed at home and thought of here?”
But once I passed through the outer walls, through the damp darkness of the porter’s lodge, and stepped out into the light of the interior courtyard—a rectangle of perfect emerald-green grass surrounded by buildings whose casement windows blazed with trailing red flowers—my doubts vanished. It was as though I had stepped into the Middle Ages. And into the great history of all those who throughout the centuries have studied at Oxford. Now, in a small way, I was a part of that.
I was shown to my rooms in the “Old Quad” part of Brasenose by Albert, a tall, thin student at nearby Lincoln College. Albert, who was born in Sri Lanka, earned money during the summer vacation by looking out for off-season students like me.
“You’re lucky,” Albert said, as he lugged my huge suitcase up three steep flights of narrow, winding steps. “Your rooms have a private bathroom.” His accent was very British, clipped and clear.
My “rooms” during the school year were occupied by an undergrad and they looked it. The larger of the two rooms contained an aging mud-colored leather chair and matching sofa, a threadbare Turkish rug, a small desk, and a wooden table with matching chairs. The walls were bare and the tilted floors creaked. The overall effect was that of a rundown hospital waiting room. The bedroom was tiny; just a chest with drawers that either stuck or fell on the floor when pulled out, a small night table, and a lumpy cot that could barely support my weight.
But as Albert pointed out again, there was a private bath. Even better, I had been assigned rooms with a view. A breathtaking view; a view in its own way that rivaled the glories of E. M. Forster’s Florentine room with a view.
On one side of the living room was a row of wide casement windows through which I could see not only the green grass and flowering courtyard of Brasenose, but also the outlines of the medieval Radcliffe Square buildings: the massive dome of the oddly named Radcliffe Camera, home to part of the Bodleian Library’s two million volumes; the fourteenth-century spires of the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, the spectacular towers of All Souls’ College, where the legendary Lawrence of Arabia once studied.
I opened the windows and leaned out. No matter where I looked there was a spire or
dome pushing its way into the soft, pliant backdrop of the Oxford sky. It looked unreal, like a stage set for a fairy tale.
I looked around the room, so stark and yet so full of the past. Who, I wondered, had lived here and studied here over the centuries? I knew that George Washington’s great-grandfather studied at Brasenose, and so did the grandfather of John Adams; it was not inconceivable that one of them might have occupied these rooms. Of course, if I strolled farther down the road I would come across Merton, where T. S. Eliot studied, and St. John’s, the college that was home to A. E. Housman.
I looked through the windows again. Oxford beckoned.
Oxford. The word rolled around in my mind, conjuring up the best of Britain. Not to mention several episodes of my favorite television show, Masterpiece Theatre. It thrilled me to know that the Oxford portion of Brideshead Revisited had been filmed right here at Brasenose. If I closed my eyes, I could see Sebastian Flyte leaning across the window box into Charles Ryder’s room on the day they first met.
I couldn’t wait to get out on the streets and walk among all that history. The Ashmolean Museum, established in 1683 and the oldest museum in Britain. Blackwell’s bookshop, offering one of the largest selections of books in the world since 1879. The Sheldonian Theatre, the first building designed by Sir Christopher Wren, in 1663.
But there was something I needed to do before leaving my ivory tower to hit the Oxford streets: I needed to take a nap.
At dinner that night I met my classmates. There were eighteen of us, ranging in age from the middle twenties to upward of sixty. We took our first meal in the soaring, formal dining hall at Brasenose, where the regular undergrads ate. It was an evening of get-acquainted small talk, pleasant enough, but ultimately unsatisfying. Everyone was in their introductory, best-foot-forward mode; I longed for some real conversation.
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