My Oxford Year

I take a fortifying breath while Jamie Davenport says, “I don’t actually know,” then looks out at everyone else. “I’d like you to pick a poem, and give me a page on it. Don’t explicate rhyme scheme, meter, et cetera—this isn’t sixth form. Speak of it as you would a friend. Describe its charms and quirks, its faults, how it achieves its intended effects. Does it flirt, offend, mislead? How does it make you feel?”

Besides the fact that he might as well be talking about himself right now, this assignment actually excites me. This I can do. I will write the ever-loving shit out of this. I will redeem myself. I glance around the room. Everyone else looks very British about it, like this is where fun comes to die.

“Send them to me via e-mail and we’ll schedule a tute. Have a great week, everyone.”

He begins collecting his papers. The Jamie Davenport Show is over. As I slip toward the door, I feel Charlie next to me, questions wafting off him like cologne.

“Ella?”

I stop and look back at the lectern.

He’s not looking at me; he’s still fiddling with his papers. “A word, please?”

Charlie gives me a slight push forward and then he and Pink Hair slip reluctantly out the door. I gather myself and step in front of the podium. Davenport looks up and nails me with his eyes and suddenly I’m a boat caught in a current. What is it about those eyes?

“Yes?” I ask.

“Was it ruined?” he murmurs. “Your blouse?”

“Among other things.”

His face is open, receptive. The smugness from last night is gone, the performance of the last hour is gone. He is startlingly focused. We continue to look at each other. “Apologies,” he finally says. “For every bit of it. I won’t make excuses, but I will explain. I’d had a spot of bad news earlier and I’d had a drink and I was entirely too slow to recognize the affront I’d caused.”

My reply is quicker than my thoughts. “It’s not necessary—”

“Please, I understand if this apology comes as too little too late, and I have no expectation of forgiveness, nor do I, arguably, deserve it, but do know that I acted without malice and my idiocy was nothing more than that. Sheer idiocy. You simply got tangled up in it. It was, invariably, an act of treason against my own better judgment, and … well,” he concludes. “There it is.”

I’ve got nothing. I was sure I’d have the perfect, cutting retort, but that was a Mr. Darcy–caliber speech. Not to mention his voice makes me feel as if I’m lying in a hammock. He’s waiting for my response. I’m having trouble talking.

Finally, the words “apology accepted” drop out of my mouth. I can’t stop staring at him. He has a classically proportioned face. Strong forehead, protractor jawline, straight nose, full lips. The kind of face that on anyone with less personality might seem benignly handsome. I like guys with something distinctive, a crooked nose or a scar across an eyebrow, something that hints at a story. Jamie Davenport’s face is a blank page. Except for those eyes, that is.

Still staring. It’s starting to feel like a contest.

I break the spell and nod once, turning to go, but then I hear, “You could have waited.”

I spin around. “For what?”

“Blurting out ‘1845’ like that. She had seven seconds left,” he deadpans.

I can’t help the smile that pulls at my lips. “I don’t think either of us believes time was the issue.”

He grins, a knowing, appreciative grin. My stomach inexplicably flops and I realize I’ve barely eaten today. That must be it. “Anything else, Professor?”

“No, that will be all,” he murmurs. “Ella from Ohio.”

“Okay, then … posh prat.” I turn and walk to the door. Glancing back (the kind of glance you can always disavow if necessary), I see he’s shuffling papers again and biting his bottom lip, as if to keep from smiling. Someone brushes past me into the classroom. English Rose. She approaches the podium and I find myself pausing in the doorway to adjust the strap on my bag.

I hear her say, “Congratulations, Professor.”

“Shh,” he replies. “The real professors will hear you.”

“You’re quite wonderful, Jamie. I was well impressed.”

“Cheers, Ce.”

“If my being here is too distracting, surely I can switch out—”

“Come now, don’t be daft, Ce. I love looking out at a sea of dubious faces and finding yours.”

My bag slips from my hand and thuds to the floor. They both turn at the disturbance. “Sorry,” I mutter, grab my bag, and escape.

CHAPTER 6

I took my scrip of manna sweet,

My cruse of water did I bless;

I took the white dove by the feet,

And flew into the wilderness.

Richard Watson Dixon, “Dream,” 1861

Outside I am greeted by the sight of my two classmates huddled in a pocket of sunshine, arguing quietly. She shakes her pink head while he throws his back and groans.

“Hey,” I say, stepping forward.

They break apart and give me two big, fake smiles. “Hello!” she squeaks. “I’m Margaret Timms. Sorry, Maggie, actually. You made quite the impression in there. With those dates. And whatnot.” She has the most adorable baby voice, a little husky, but high and bright.

I stick out my hand. She looks surprised, but takes it. “Thank you. Ella Durran.” I worry I’m crushing her thin little bird fingers, but she keeps smiling.

The three of us stand at the precipice of an awkward silence until Charlie, putting on sunglasses, says, “Maggie was actually wondering …”

I turn to Maggie. She looks as if she’s being held at gunpoint. “No, I—sorry, I was just—” she stammers. I quirk my head. After one more excruciating moment, she bursts. “I was just wondering if you know that ‘Oxfordian’ also happens to be the geologic designation for the early stage of the late Jurassic period?”

Charlie and I stare at her with Tweedledee/Tweedledum looks of confusion.

“It’s science,” she adds, wringing her hands together. Then, looking at her feet, “Sorry.”

Charlie slowly shakes his head. “I should have never let you shag that geologist.” He turns to me. “Maggie was attempting to ask you to join us for tea this afternoon.”

“Charlie,” Maggie groans, “I was getting there.”

“Had we waited for you to get there we would have missed tea altogether.”

I can’t help but ask Charlie, “Is this invite from just her?”

He stiffens slightly, cocks his head back, and assesses me. “I would not wish to be mistaken for having any carnal intentions.”

Seriously? I try not to laugh. “I wouldn’t have.”

“And why is that?”

“Because you’re gay?”

He side-eyes me. “You don’t think I’m just eccentric and terribly British?”

“Definitely. And gay.”

Maggie gives me a grateful look and then, vindicated, pushes Charlie. “See?” She turns to a cool, vintage bike (that is, yup, pink) and unlocks it from the rack. “We call him the closet door.”

Confused, I glance between the two of them. Charlie sighs. “They go through me to come out.” A laugh erupts from me, but Charlie is unfazed. “So. Tea?”

Smiling, I nod. “I’d love to. Thanks.”

“Huzzah. The Old Parsonage in a half hour. Maggie has to … collect something.”

She gives me the same repentant smile as before. “Sorry.”

She climbs on her bike, demurely smoothing her dress over her legs, and is about to push off when I say, “A bike. Now, that’s something I could use. I hate being late to everything.”

She smiles. “It’s essential. Everyone has one.”

“Some travel under the power of our own dignity instead,” Charlie mutters.

Maggie ignores him. “Actually, a friend happens to be selling one for a pittance at the mo. I’m off there now. Fancy joining me?” She pats her handlebars.

“Great!” Having said that, I approach Maggie’s handlebars cautiously. I’ve never done this. How do I do this? I straddle the front tire and inelegantly struggle into position while Maggie—showing a surprising amount of upper body strength—holds the bike still.

I hear Charlie murmur, “You are not to speak of anything without me,” and Maggie mutters back, “Oh, shut it.” Then, cheerily, to me, “Settled?”

“I think so!” I reply, all feigned confidence. Charlie gives us a reluctant push and we’re off.

WE RIDE THROUGH the city for about five minutes, over lots and lots of cobblestones, until we reach a large park. Across the street from it, Maggie pulls up to a curb and I hop off, letting the blood flow back to my cobblestoned ass. Maggie locks her bike to a lamppost and bounds up yet another ridiculously steep staircase. They should really just call staircases ladders in this country and be done with it. I join her as she presses a key on a call box, eliciting the sound of static, which then crescendos into a loud screech before cutting out entirely. She glances at me. “Sorry.”

A voice calls out from behind the door, “Coming, coming!” When it finally opens, a gangly boy stands on one leg like a stork, holding his other shin and grimacing. “Bugger and blast, banged my shin on the brolly stand,” he informs us by way of introduction. His golden-brown face is framed by black caterpillar eyebrows at the top and a wispy, scraggly, little-beard-that-could at the bottom. Shaggy midnight-hued hair spouts from his head in every direction.

“Hello, Tom!” Maggie chirps.

“Hello, Mags,” he exhales, dropping his shin. Then he sees me. “Oh! New person!”

“This is Ella,” Maggie informs him. “She’s American.”

“Ah! Well, then!” Beaming, Tom raises a fist to me, inviting a bump. As if it’s the way one greets Americans? Gamely, I raise my fist and meet his. He pulls his back and jazz-hands it, making an exploding noise. Then he giggles. “Always wanted to do that.”

Maggie smiles brilliantly at him. “You’re looking good,” she effuses. “I like your new haircut—”

Tom turns back into the vestibule and exclaims, “Come in! Come in! Just mind the—” I’m sure he would have said “rug” had he not, at that moment, tripped over it.

Maggie and I enter a small hall filled with boxes and an overflowing umbrella stand. He forges ahead, leading us through an open door.

Into a closet. We’re standing in a big closet with a small bed. The “room” is completely occupied, floor to ceiling, with books. “Make yourselves comfy,” Tom says. Options limited, Maggie and I perch on opposing arms of a chair. I glance at the end table next to me. Peeking out from under a book, a framed picture shows a young, beaming Tom in Mickey Mouse ears standing between a tall man with Tom’s jovial, wide-eyed face, wearing a Sikh dastar, and a squat blond woman wearing a cat sweatshirt. I look up to find Tom staring at me. Grinning.

“So,” I say, because there’s nothing else to say.

“So!” he exclaims. “Which are we destined to be? Friends or lovers?” Still grinning.

“Friends.” It’s a knee-jerk response.

“Take your time. If you need to have a think—”

“No, I’m … good,” I say with a smile, trying not to offend him.

He just shrugs, unfazed by my rejection. “Alas, the good ones are always taken, eh, Mags?” As if the only grounds for my rejection would be the existence of a boyfriend.

Maggie stares at the book-covered floor. She mutters, “Not always.” Then she glances up at him, looking annoyed, frustrated, and something else that I can’t—

Oh. I get it. Oh dear.

Oblivious, Tom continues to stare at me. Maggie stares at him.

“So,” I push forward, “word on the street is you’re selling a bike.”

“Indeed I am! Who told you?”

Maggie huffs in affectionate exasperation. I playfully twirl a finger at her. Tom follows my finger.

“Oh, Mags! Right! Jolly good!”

There’s a silence.

“So?” I prod, trying to get this ball—or bicycle—rolling.

“So?”

“Where is it?”

“Where’s what now?”

Fortunately, Maggie takes charge. “The bike, Tom, can she see the bike?”

“Why, s’right there!” He flails his hand at a space behind us. Next to the door, camouflaged by an array of papers, more books, and coats, is an adorable beach-cruiser bike, banana seat and all. I walk over to it. It’s in good shape. Surprising for this guy.

“Duchess.” Tom sighs. “A fitting name for the gal who got me through the thick and thin of my first six years.”

My head snaps up. “You’ve been here six years?”

“Sorry,” Maggie chimes in. “Tom came here to read philosophy, then started over in maths, then … well, I believe it was classics, wasn’t it?” Her brow furrows. She looks to Tom.

“Linguistics, philology, and phonetics.”

“Then classics?”

“Bang on, Mags.”

Maggie beams. Definitely into him.

“Which college are you at?” I ask.

“He was at Magdalen with Charlie and me!”

I glance back to Tom. “And now?”

“Oh, no one will have me now.” He leans in and nudges my shoulder with his knobby elbow. “Story of my life, eh?”

I think I’m understanding this. “So you don’t go here anymore?”

“He’s actually become quite the popular tutor!” Maggie enthuses. “Helping people apply to Oxford!”

Tom’s open face turns wry. “I can teach ’em how to get in, just not how to get out.”

He laughs, Maggie reciprocates, and I nod, murmuring, “Cool, cool.” I look back to the bike. “So what are you thinking?”

“At present? In general?”

This is what happens when you’re the book equivalent of the crazy cat lady. “The price. What do you want for it?”

He chews his lip. “Forty quid.” I pause, considering. I open my mouth to accept and Tom blurts, “All right, all right, you drive a hard bargain. Thirty.”

I smile. “Done!” I dig into my pocket for cash.

He claps his hands and jumps up. “Spiffing!” I hand him the money and he clears a path so he can wheel the bike out into the vestibule, down the stairs, and onto the street. We follow him. I look back at Maggie. I have to do something. “Tom?”

“Yes?” He’s bent over the bike, examining some invisible flaw. He licks his finger and wipes at it.

“Maggie and I are meeting Charlie for tea. Would you like to join?”

His face lights up. “Spiffing!” He swings one long giraffe leg over Duchess, mounting her like a prize stallion. “Parsonage?”

Maggie and I look at each other. Maggie takes this one. “Tom. Ella would like to ride her bike now.”

“Right!” He guffaws. “Just warming the seat.” He dismounts and gallops up the stairs, calling, “I’ll just grab Pippa!”

As he disappears inside, Maggie crosses to her bike and begins unlocking it. There’s a silence. She clearly wants to say something. She doesn’t.

“I can’t thank you enough,” I say. “It’s perfect.” She nods and smiles politely as we climb onto our bikes. She seems to be avoiding my gaze. I wonder if I’ve overstepped something. “Sorry if I … I probably shouldn’t have just invited him to tea, considering—”

But Maggie shakes her head. “No, no. That’s why I was coming here in the first place. To invite him. The battery on his mobile always dies, you see. He can go days without realizing no one’s called him.” Her tone is easy, but she still doesn’t look at me.

I test the waters. “I’ve never met anyone like him. He’s very … unique.”

She finally looks at me, chewing her bottom lip, seemingly on the verge of a confession. “I don’t know quite what it is. He’s a bit doglike, really. As you saw, ready to be loved by anyone willing to give him a pat. It can be quite annoying, actually.”

I smile, understanding where Maggie’s coming from. “He did the same thing to you when you first met him?”

There’s a moment of silence and something crosses Maggie’s face. “No.”

“No?”

“No. He didn’t.” She looks away. “Sorry. He just … gets to me.”

Now I really understand where Maggie’s coming from. “I can tell.”

She sighs, reddens. “He does it with everyone! Literally everyone! Just not me. It’s baffling. And maddening. And embarrassing! Sorry.” She straightens her back, aligns her dress, smooths her cardigan, regathers her pride.

“There’s nothing to be sorry about.”

“Charlie says I should consider myself lucky. I mean, don’t misunderstand, he loves Tom, but—”

I shake my head. “It’s not about anyone else. If you want it, you should go for it.”

“Oh God, no.” Her eyes bug. She pauses, shakes her head, and groans, “He’s just so damn sexy.”

While that wouldn’t be my takeaway from an encounter with Tom, to each her own. We look at each other again and both of us smile. I like this girl a lot. We already have each other’s back. To protect, not stab. That’s universal sisterhood, no matter which country you come from.

Tom returns while Maggie’s describing the adjacent park to me. I notice him staring at her. It’s the first time I’ve seen him really look at her. She looks lovely right now, lit by the dappled late-afternoon sun filtering through the oak tree above her.

“Mags?” Tom says.

She turns from the park. “Yes, Tom?”

He considers her. “Your hair.”

Her hand primps the right side of her pink beehive, and she flushes. I could make some popcorn and watch them all day. “Yes?” she gently prods.

This is it. This is where he takes the plunge and asks her out, and I will tell this story in my toast at their wedding.

Tom leans in and peers at the left side of her head, almost quizzically. “You’ve a spot of bird shite in your hair.”

CHAPTER 7

This love, wrong understood,

Oft’ turned my joy to pain;

I tried to throw away the bud,

But the blossom would remain.

John Clare, “Love’s Pains,” 1844

Given the lovely turn of your figure, it’s quite gratifying you’re not one of those dreadful American girls who subsist entirely on lawn clippings and glacier water,” Charlie says.

My mouth is too full of sco ne to reply.

The four of us—Maggie, Tom, Charlie, and I—are settled on the charming patio of the Old Parsonage Hotel, having tea. This is Tea with a capital T. There’s a three-tiered china platter filled with sandwiches on the bottom, scones, preserves, and cream in the middle, and bite-sized desserts on top. I haven’t had afternoon tea since Ashley Carmichael’s obsession with Alice in Wonderland forced me to spend her eighth birthday sipping pink tea out of tiny plastic cups, wearing a stupid hat, and being creeped out by a middle-aged guy in a dirty White Rabbit costume. This is better.

Tom, picking cranberries out of his scone, looks up, his attention drawn to something beyond our table. “Say, Charlie? Isn’t that your rower?”

We follow Tom’s gaze to one of the waiters (a strapping, square-jawed guy), refilling water glasses three tables over.

“In time.” Charlie sighs.

Maggie’s forehead crinkles. “But you fancied him last term,” she says, as if it were another lifetime. “Surely you—”

“He’s not ready.”

“As if that’s ever stopped you!” Tom guffaws.

Charlie shakes his head. “No, I need must tread carefully with this one. He still fears condemnation from his awful rower mates. He has months yet of realizations and dire haircuts. He’s only just begun experimenting with colored trousers. So …” Charlie puts down his teacup and looks at me. “Considering you’ve been here all of twenty-four hours, and as I witnessed a sordid portion of them and can assume that they were not amongst your finest, how do you already know our delectable lecturer Mr. Davenport?”

I smirk at Charlie. “Is this why you asked me to tea?”

“No!” Maggie assures me just as Charlie says, “Obviously.”

It starts drizzling, but no one seems bothered. Maggie slides the tiny bowl of clotted cream farther under the protection of the dessert plate. Priorities.

“Well, first, he almost hit me with his car.”

Charlie nods. “You were looking the wrong way, of course.”

I open my mouth to argue, but think better of it. “Then, later, he succeeded in nailing me—”

“There it is!” he cries.

I hold up my hand. “In the chip shop. With a plate of sauces.”

Realization dawns in Charlie’s eyes. “Davenport was responsible for that haute couture experiment of yours, was he?” I nod. “Excellent.” He narrows his eyes. “But that can’t be all. Because in class—”

I put my hand out again, hoping to abbreviate the inquisition. “He was an ass and I lost my temper. He just wanted to apologize. And he did. And it’s fine.”

Charlie glances at Maggie, assessing my story, seeming to weigh its narrative value. “But we must know exactly what he said. Words hold the clues.”

Luckily, Maggie leans in and hisses, “Look!”

We all follow her gaze. On the other side of the low hedge, at a bus stop, stands Cecelia the English Rose.

“Cecelia Knowles,” Tom murmurs reverently, as if he’s caught a glimpse of a rare bird in the wild.

Behind his sunglasses, Charlie studies her. “I was surprised to see her in class. Starting over, perhaps?”

“Huh?”

“She did her undergrad here,” Maggie explains to me. “Was a third year when Charlie and I were freshers. We’d notice her in lectures—”

“How could one not?” Tom and Charlie say in unison.

Maggie rolls her eyes. “But she was never here at the weekend, so I never got to know her well. Then she returned the following year to start her master’s—we spent a short time together doing a bit of research—and about halfway through term … she simply disappeared. It was all a bit odd, really.”

“She dropped out?”

Maggie shrugs.

“Obviously,” Charlie begins, drawing the word out, “she found herself unexpectedly enceinte, stole away to the comforting bosom of an eerily-similar-spinster-aunt on the continent for her confinement, and entrusted the infant to the local farmer and his barren wife with the understanding that at the age of ten the child would be sent to England for her schooling under the care and protection of a mysterious patron. Obviously.”

I love book nerds.

Cecelia glances at her watch as I take an obscene bite of scone, then she spots Maggie, who gives her a polite wave. Then she heads in our direction. Great. Tom drops the sandwich bread he’s been scraping mustard off and attends to his frazzled hair, trying desperately to smooth it down.

Charlie can’t help himself. “That’s the way forward, Tom. Nothing like being well groomed.”

Cecelia glides up to our table, smiling serenely. “Hello, Maggie.”

“Hi!” Maggie bleats, a little too brightly.

“How are—” Cecelia begins, but Tom jumps up, as if just realizing he was sitting on a tack. Cecelia starts. He gestures to the chair next to him, imploring it to offer itself to her. Neither he nor the chair speaks.

Maggie saves him from himself. “Sorry. Care to join us?”

“Thank you, no,” Cecelia says in her low, elegant voice. “I thought I’d nip in for a cuppa before I catch my bus. I was so very pleased to see you in class, I’d always rather hoped you’d continue—”

“Thomas Singh!” Tom finally says, thrusting out his hand. “Of the Yorkshire Singhs. Dirt farmers since the days of the Norman Conquest.” He sees my confused look. “On my mother’s side,” he clarifies.

Cecelia inclines her head. “Cecelia Knowles. Of the Sussex Knowleses. Who resisted the Norman Conquest.”

We all chuckle, trying to maintain the appearance of normalcy for Tom’s sake. He still hasn’t released Cecelia from his grasp. “So, which are we destined to be, friends or lovers?”

Cecelia smoothly withdraws her hand. “Friends will do quite nicely, thank you.” The puppy, once again, has had its nose slapped.

“And, of course, you know Charlie Butler,” Maggie says, trudging on. “And this is Ella.”

Cecelia’s eyes pop to me. “Oh dear,” she says. “It is you. I wasn’t sure.”