My Oxford Year

He does no such thing. He moves to a long wooden desk and hands me a piece of paper and a pen. I glance at it. It’s a contract that says I can’t burn down my room. I sign. He slides an envelope the size of a playing card across the counter to me, my initials written on the front. He walks around the long desk and comes out a side door, moving to a wall of small cubbyholes, similar to the kind in a kindergarten classroom. As he speaks, he bends one green paper into each hole.

“This is your pidge. Check it daily for post. You’re room thirteen, staircase four. That’s Swithuns staircase four, mind you. We don’t make a habit of housing graduate students inside walls, but there’s a shortage in graduate housing this year. Besides, I’ve found Americans rather enjoy being ‘behind the gates.’ Something to do with that boy wizard?”

“Harry Pott—”

“Meals are at your discretion. We have Formal Hall on Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday. Gowns must be worn. Nip into a shop on Turl for one. Boiler won’t come on till October fifteenth, no heat till then, so don’t ask for it. You’ll find two keys in the envelope; the electronic card will get you in the gates and any of the public rooms after hours, the other is a proper key for your room. It is irreplaceable. Don’t lose it.”

I understand maybe half of what he’s said. “Thanks. What’s your name?” I ask.

His turtle neck recedes. “Hugh,” he grunts, turning back to the pidges.

“I’m Ella.”

“We’ve established that, Miss Durran.”

“Well,” I say, grabbing the handle of my suitcase, “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship, Hugh.”

“Of all the gin joints, Miss Durran,” he mutters. But I can see the hint of a smile. I mean, it’s reluctant and has a rusty, unused quality about it, like an old bicycle pump, but it’s there. “You’ll be finding staircase four just outside the lodge—” I open my mouth to speak, but he forges on, “This is the lodge, and you will exit through that door there, cross St. John’s quad, turn left at Swithuns, and then you will pass, on your left, staircase one, and then you will pass, also on your left, staircase two, and if you persevere you shall invariably come to staircase four.” I try again, opening my mouth to speak, but he deftly continues: “At which point, your room will be on the left of the uppermost landing, at the very top.”

The words “the very top” give me pause. I’m once again reminded that I haven’t eaten since I left the States.

“Hugh, would you mind if I left my bags here and got some food first?”

“As you will, Miss Durran.”

“I’ll be quick,” I assure him, but Hugh’s turned back to his copier. “Any recommendations?”

“Plenty of options on the High.”

The High. So much cooler than High Street.

I wheel my bag next to the copier, take my book out of my backpack, turn to go, and stop abruptly. A boy pokes his head around the entrance to the lodge and tentatively steps forward. He moves like a mouse. He’s pudgy around the middle and his hair is styled in two pointed fans on the top of his head, resembling ears. He looks like Gus Gus from Cinderella.

I’m so tired.

“Yes,” Hugh snaps at the boy, instantly impatient.

He looks as if he wants to flee, but says, “Yes, erm, sorry, sir, I’m going to, erm, uh, Sebastian Melmoth’s room?”

“Not again,” Hugh mutters. “Posh prat.” I can’t help but smile. Someone actually said “posh prat” in real life, in real time, right in front of me. Hugh then barks at the boy, “Don’t just stand there, come in, come in.” Gus Gus scurries past us. As Hugh shakes his head, I walk back out to the High.

Taking an arbitrary right, I journey back the way I came, glancing at my watch. As if on cue, a clock tower somewhere begins belting out five resounding chimes. Goose bumps crawl up my arms. If I weren’t exhausted I’d probably start crying.

I glance across the street and stop.

I can’t believe what I’m seeing. The sign still looks exactly like it did in the magazine.

THE HAPPY COD CHIP SHOP.

I look left and move to cross the street, dropping one foot off the curb when the sudden bleat of a horn makes me leap back onto the sidewalk. I clutch my book to my chest, keeping my heart from falling out. A classic silver convertible, like something out of a Bond movie, flies past, nearly running me over. I catch a glimpse of the careless driver, whose longish brown hair swirls in the wind as he zooms off. In the passenger seat, an equally windswept blond woman turns around to stare at me, her mouth wide open in a shocked, but unabashed, laugh.

“Not funny!” I want to shout after them, but they’re already well past me. As my heart begins beating normally again, I take a deep breath and step off the curb once more. This time, making sure to look right.

A TINY BELL jingles as I enter the Happy Cod. The proprietor, a stocky, red-nosed man with a white towel slung over his shoulder, glances up cheerfully. “Hallo!”

The small, charming room has a row of wooden booths on one side and a bar with stools on the other. The man stands at the back, behind a small service counter. There’s a stool there as well. He pats the counter in welcome. “What can I get you?”

“Fish and chips!”

“Comin’ right up.” He turns to his fryer as I settle in, running my hands along the old, worn wood and moving around on the squishy black vinyl seat. Everything feels just as I imagined it would. Smells just as I imagined it would. Even the proprietor is exactly as I imagined.

“I’m Ella, by the way.”

He spins back, ceremoniously wipes his hand on his towel, and offers it to me. “Simon.” I take his hand, meeting his firm shake with one of my own. He grins. “Where you from, Ella?”

“Ohio, originally. But I live in D.C. now.” Simon nods vaguely and leans his elbows on the counter, looking down at the book I’ve put there.

It’s a meager hardcover, bound in that linen material that only academic books are covered in. It cost me eighty dollars on eBay; the price of these books is inversely proportional to the size of their audience. He reads the title aloud, picking over each word as if he’s selecting ripe tomatoes: “The Victorian Conundrum: How Contemporary Poetry Shaped Gender Politics and Sexuality 1837 to 1898, by Roberta Styan.” He glances up at me dubiously.

“It’s a real page-turner,” I say, and he guffaws. “No, I’m doing a master’s.” I tap the author’s name on the cover. “Mostly with Professor Styan. Do you know her?” Simon shakes his head and a beeping noise comes from the fryer. He moves to it. “She’s, like, a deity in the lit crit world. Her specialty is Tennyson, which isn’t exactly my area. Not at all, actually. I work in politics. American politics. But this whole year for me is about pushing boundaries, and exploring new things, and basically just, like, leveling up. As a person?” Why am I rambling? Why do I feel like a fog is rolling into my head? Oh. Jet lag.

Simon wraps my whole meal in a cone of brown butcher paper surrounded by newspaper and offers it to me like a bouquet of roses. “Tradition,” he boasts. “Some other chippies use them plastic takeaway containers. Flattens me.” He hands me a paper plate, saying, “For sauce,” and gestures to a counter full of condiments at the front of the restaurant. “That’s me own twist on tradition. Used to be you’d come in here and get curry or peas or tartar and that was that. Give ’em a go. Promise you won’t be disappointed.” He winks at me.

Before I can reply, the bell jingles, and Simon turns his attention to the door. “JD!” he exclaims with a bright smile, opening the hinged counter and moving toward the entrance.

“Simon, my good man,” a male voice replies.

I focus on the culinary perfection in front of me. God, the smell. I take a bite. Heaven. I have to restrain myself from moaning.

I hear the man say, “Two fish and chips and two fizzies. Cheers, mate.” His voice is so melodious, so low and soothing, it should be accompanied by choral music.

Then a female voice says, “No chips for me. And make mine diet.”

Peripherally, I sense them settle in at a booth near the door as Simon comes back around. I take another mouthful of the perfectly prepared fish and this time am not so successful at stifling my moan. Simon, tending to the fryer, throws me a grin over his shoulder.

I hear the woman behind me murmur, “I thought you were taking me to the best place in Oxford.”

“And so I have,” the man says.

Pulling another chip out of the cone, I’m absorbed in trying to read pieces of the paper’s stories and advertisements, but the fog keeps rolling in. A few minutes later, Simon pops the countertop once more and lumbers over to the couple, delivering their meals. “Cheers,” the man says, then, as Simon comes back through the counter, “Behold the potato! Divine tuber. Staple of the gods. How we adore thee!”

“They give you a fat arse,” the woman replies.

“No, no,” the man argues, “The oil does. The oil! Yet the potato takes the blame. It’s a bloody outrage, I tell you.” He laughs. She doesn’t.

Simon catches my eye and rolls his. I roll mine back and we smile, comrades-in-arms. He nods toward the condiment station, whispering, “Really, give ’em a go.”

“Oh, right! I forgot.” I pick up my plate and walk to the counter to survey the many options.

I hear the man continue, “Now, the Irish! They knew the value of the potato. Did you know that when the Irish were deprived of the potato for just a few years, a million people died?”

There’s a pause. “Why didn’t they just eat something else?”

My hand punches the tarter sauce pump and the thick paste overshoots my plate, splattering onto the counter.

“What, like cake?” the man asks dryly.

“Sure,” she answers, immune to sarcasm.

I pick up a bottle labeled Brown Sauce (not exactly descriptive) and pour that onto my plate, too. Then I take a squeeze of mustard, a dollop of mayonnaise, something that looks like chutney but I’m not sure. I feel obligated to take a little of everything, not wanting to disappoint Simon. The plate looks like a painter’s palette.

I hear Golden Voice get out of the booth. “Why didn’t they just eat something else? Excellent question! Let them eat cake! But, see, they’d run out. Not a slice of cake in the entire country. Bloody awful. What was the Empire coming to, eh?” Dry British wit on full display. Always entertaining and yet somehow thoroughly obnoxious. “Now,” he continues, “there’s a home-cooked meal in it for you—”

She cuts him off, using a low, come-hither voice. “I’d rather those earrings we saw earlier.”

“You’ll have to do a bit more than trivia for diamonds, love,” he says offhandedly. The jerk. “A home-cooked meal if you can tell me the year the Potato Famine occurred. You have ten seconds. Ten. Nine. Eight—”

I realize I’m just standing there in my encroaching fog, listening to this ridiculous conversation, letting my fish and chips get cold. Snapping out of it, I turn around to head back to my seat and crash spectacularly into Golden Voice. Two planets colliding. The entire plate of condiments flips backward into my chest and I teeter, about to go down. A knightly hand reaches out and clutches my forearm, steadying me. My other hand grabs his shoulder.

Maybe he’s not a jerk, after all.

Righting myself, I catch sight of the woman he’s been talking with. Long blond hair. Windswept. Mouth open wide in a shocked laugh.

My gaze whips back to him, just as his head pops up, brown hair mussed.

Our eyes lock.

The fog lifts and I blurt, “You!”

CHAPTER 3

He sits in a beautiful parlor,

With hundreds of books on the wall;

He drinks a great deal of Marsala,

But never gets tipsy at all.

Edward Lear, “How Pleasant to Know Mr. Lear!,” 1871

Me?” he inquires, a deer-in-headlights look in his eyes.

“You!” I repeat.

We’re still facing each other. He’s still grasping my forearm, I’m still clutching his shoulder. We’re right up against each other, face to face, eye to eye, plate to breasts.

His stare activates. He comes to life. “Right, okay, here’s what we do. Simon?” he calls, but Simon’s already tossing the towel from his shoulder and You deftly snatches it out of the air. “Lean forward,” he encourages. I bend at the waist and he peels the plate away. I watch the myriad sauces plop from my chest to the linoleum floor, a poor man’s Jackson Pollock.

The blonde laughs.

I stand upright as the man sets the plate on the counter, then moves toward me with the towel, heading for my chest.

My hand shoots out. “Don’t. I got it.” With my bare hands, I rub at my shirt like a finger-painting toddler, making it ten times worse. The clamminess is starting to seep through the fabric onto my skin. I feel him staring at me. “What?” I ask, all contained calm.

“Do we know each other?”

“You almost hit me with your car!”

“Was that you?”

I grind my jaw, keeping my mouth shut.

“May I … assist?” the man lilts with a tone that only ever means one thing.

I freeze.

He can’t be.

I look up at him.

He is.

He’s flirting with me. Holding the towel poised and ready, all dashing smile and twinkling eyes.

My head explodes. “Are you kidding me?”

“I would never dare kid about such matters,” he charms.

“You’re flirting? You should be apologizing!”

“For flirting?”

“For nearly running me over!”

“You’re suggesting I apologize for something I didn’t intentionally do? I’d rather apologize for the flirting.” He’s smiling.

“Y-you … you posh prat!”

“Ooh. Posh prat. Nice choice of alliterative spondee.” He’s still smiling. “So you’re American. Right, here’s the one thing I know about Americans: they tend to get themselves run over in this country by stepping directly into oncoming traffic.”

“So it’s my fault?!” I shout.

“Another thing I know about Americans: they tend to shout. Here.” He reaches into his pocket, pulling out a brightly colored wad of money. He peels off a bill. He holds it out to me.

“What is that?” I seethe. Quietly.

“Specifically? It’s a fifty-pound note.”

“I don’t want your money! I want … I want—” What do I want? The fog is thickening again.

“Oh, don’t look so outraged. Take it. You said it yourself. I’m the posh prat.” He holds the money out again. “The unemotional cad who—absent any genuine remorse or feeling—can but only buy the regard of others.”

I jerk my head to the blonde. “So I see.”

This strikes him. His face changes. The open, breezy, devil-may-care smile drops away and a curtain closes behind his eyes. The show is over. He actually looks hurt. Good. “Keep your money,” I say, capitalizing on this moment of clarity, of the tables having turned, seizing a parting shot. “Buy the historian some carbs.”

Walking back to the counter, I pick up my book and coat, digging in the pocket for some cash. I plop down twenty pounds, grab what remains of my fish bouquet, catch Simon’s smiling eyes, and head for the door. “See you later, Simon!”

“Looking forward to it, Ella from Ohio!” He chuckles.

“Bonne chance,” the man calls dryly, clearly having rallied. Then, adopting an even plummier, more clichéd British accent, adds, “Keep calm and look right!”

Ignoring him, I open the door. The bell jingles and I pause at the threshold. I can’t resist. I turn back to him. “The Potato Famine was in 1845. Asshole.”

SO THAT WENT well.

Foggy, filthy, and suddenly exhausted, I hoof back to Magdalen, shoving fried fish into my mouth as I go. It’s not my imagination that people give me a wide berth.

Now that I’m out in the fresh air, the beginning twinges of embarrassment set in. Yes, I’m jet-lagged, out of my comfort zone, but still …

I hate guys like that. I went to college with guys like that. I interned on the Hill with guys like that. Guys who think they can buy respect with Daddy’s money, and then seal the deal with a wink and a smile. Guys who play a game, who set their trap as if it’s the most ingenious feat of engineering ever devised and expect you to fall all over yourself congratulating their effort.

Look. I’m not drop-dead gorgeous or anything, but with the right lighting, the right hair and makeup effort on my part, I’ve been known to turn a few heads. I have this wild Irish hair that goes everywhere, a wide Julia Roberts mouth, and big, round eyes that make me look more innocent than I actually am. The approachable, girl-next-door type. The type who might be flattered, for instance, by your flirting after you’ve nearly run her over and then destroyed her shirt.

Unfortunately for guys like that, looks can be deceiving.

I stumble through the Magdalen gates and into the lodge. No Hugh. I continue on through the other door and into the courtyard. The sun dips in the sky and the sandstone buildings are hued pink. I wobble across the cobblestones and try to follow Hugh’s directions in my clouded head.

A large L-shaped building appears, embracing a giant lawn so finely coiffed it would shame a golf course. Every thirty feet or so, little staircases, bordered by mullioned windows, ascend into the depth and darkness of the building. I find number four and start my climb with the single-minded determination of the proverbial horse returning to the barn.

The first few stairs are granite, but they soon become old slabs of stone, each step worn into a bowed smile from centuries of shoes. The stairway continues to spiral and soon narrows into planks of rickety wood. It’s so steep that I find myself climbing the steps as if they were a ladder, ending up on hands and knees on a small five-by-five landing, a door on each side of me.

I’m about to stand and dig in my pocket for the key Hugh gave me when it occurs to me that my bags are still downstairs in the lodge. I tip over onto my side with a loud groan. I could sleep right here. I just might.

The door on the right opens and Gus Gus quickly emerges, stepping over me casually as if I’d been there as long as the staircase, and disappears down the stairs. A voice from the open door calls after him, “Your beauty will fade, as will my interest. Be gone with you!”

A figure appears in the doorway and recoils at the sight of me. It’s wearing a red dressing gown and holding a tumbler of amber liquid. Its free hand finds the gap in the robe and clutches it closed, like an aging Tennessee Williams heroine.

“Hello!” I croak.

“Hel-lo,” it replies haltingly, a small, willowy male with wavy, chin-length, chestnut hair. He peers at me then murmurs, almost to himself, “Is it lost?”

Hey. When I use a dehumanizing pronoun, I only think it. I don’t say it right to the pronoun’s face. I stumble to my feet. “I live here.” I gesture to the door behind me. “I’m Ella.” He looks me over, nose crinkling at either my appearance or smell, I can’t tell which. Both are on par with a county-fair trash can at the moment. I soldier on, remembering who Gus Gus told Hugh he was looking for, back in the lodge. “And you’re Sebastian Melmoth, right?”

Now he gives me the side-eye, suspicious. “That’s right. It’s a family name. But how—”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” he drawls, mocking my accent. “Goes back centuries. But how did you—”

“I didn’t know that was possible.”

“What?”

“To be descended from someone who didn’t actually exist.” He side-eyes me from the other direction. “Correct me if I’m wrong, it’s been a while since I read his stuff, and I’m tired, jet-lagged, and, you know, American, but Sebastian Melmoth was Oscar Wilde’s pseudonym. Right?”

Admittedly, I’m getting a certain perverse pleasure from this.

Called out, the guy just glares at me, then heaves a condescending sigh, turns on his heel, and goes back into his room, slamming the door for good measure.

I take a stabilizing breath, retrieve the ancient-looking key from my pocket, and assess the antique keyhole lock. I slide the key into it and turn. It sounds like I’m unlocking a vault. I push open the tired hinged door and enter the room. My room.

The sun has almost set, so the room is dim. So dim that I fail to see my luggage in the middle of the floor and trip over it. Still, Hugh is my hero right now. I fumble for a light switch and find it to the right of the door.

The room is quaint, with an A-frame ceiling and exposed wooden beams. Between the beams, the ceiling is painted white and the walls are Victorian-era plaster, even peeling romantically in places. Pushed up against the far wall is a single twin bed centered to the apex of the roofline. There’s a functional dresser on one wall and a low built-in bookcase beside it. To the left there’s a little bathroom with an RV-size shower and Barbie doll sink, and to the right is a single, double-paned dormer window. I go to it.

The light is fading, but I glimpse the outline of a spectacular view. I can see Magdalen Tower from here, and slate-shingled rooftops in between and beyond. The top of one of the oak trees in the quad below fills in the bottom border of the window.

I could get used to this.

I quickly shower off, reluctantly throw away my shirt, change into some sweats, connect to the college Wi-Fi, and check my e-mail.

Four sequential messages from my mother greet me.

Just checking in. Let me know when you land.

Let me know when you get settled.

Are you settled? Is something wrong? Something’s wrong, isn’t it?

Ella please respond. I would call the college but I don’t know how to call international and the Skype thing you set up for me says I need money to call. I thought the point of it was that it’s free??? Anyway, just let me know you’re safe because in my bones I think something might be wrong.

I heave a sigh. Now is not the time for her to go all Chicken Little on me. I type:

Tell your bones to relax. I’m fine. Just exhausted. Will write more tomorrow.

I hesitate, as I always do at writing “I love you,” so I just write, XO, E.

I glance at a few more e-mails in my inbox, but everything is becoming one big blur. I look at the clock on my computer: 6:30. A totally reasonable bedtime.

For the most part I sleep soundly, but every time the clock tower chimes, my dreams change like slides in a projector. At the seven o’clock chime, the door to my room opens.

It takes me a moment to realize I’m no longer dreaming.

CHAPTER 4

Awake! For Morning in the Bowl of Night

Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight …

Edward Fitzgerald translation, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, 1859

I bolt upright. A squat, white-haired woman wearing a functional gray apron walks into my room, humming.

I scream.

She screams.

We look at each other.

“Oooh!” she exclaims, grabbing her chest. “You put the heart crossways in me, love!” She shuffles farther into my room. “Go back t’ sleep, don’t mind old E.”

My eyes begin to clear and I notice she’s carrying a bucket. She waddles into the bathroom.

I get out of bed and stagger after her. She’s bent over the toilet, scrubbing and humming away. “Oh, y-you don’t have to do that,” I stammer.

“Bless you.” She keeps right on doing it.

I hold out my hand. “I’m Ella.”

She doesn’t take her eyes off the task at hand. “Eugenia, love.”

I drop my hand. “So, you’re a maid? We get a maid?” I cringe. “I mean, a housekeeper? Or room attendant, or—”

She stands upright and looks at me sternly, a schoolmarm in a past life. “I’m yer scout, dearie.” Then she moves to the shower, wiping it down with a rag. “Did that muddleheaded porter of a Hugh not tell ya you’d be havin’ a scout?”