Read From The Moment I Saw Him .... Online

Authors: Catherine MacDonald

From The Moment I Saw Him .... (7 page)

 

Oxford terms are very short - only eight weeks - and
the Christmas vacation arrived almost before we knew it.  Several colleges held
Christmas balls, and I attended one in the company of Martin, a sweet, silent
young man who had gazed longingly at me over the desks of the English faculty
library all term.  I don’t know how he had plucked up the courage to ask me,
but I decided it would not hurt me to accept his invitation, and he was
touchingly delighted.

 It was a pleasant enough occasion.  Jo and William
were also there, we were all in the festive spirit, and I tried hard to return
Martin’s damp and fumbling kisses at the end of the evening.

I thought of Nick and his comment in the park about
growing up at different speeds.  This boy was only just out of the
kindergarten, but I rather liked him for it.

“Trouble there next term, Eithne,” observed Jo as we
took a taxi back to college, (a great extravagance.)

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he’s obviously very smitten.”

I laughed.  Hopefully, the Christmas vacation would
quench any incipient ardour, because I couldn’t see myself wanting a
relationship with Martin, sweet though he was.

Although I had enjoyed my first term much more than
I thought I would, I was quite pleased at the prospect of a few quiet weeks at
home.  We had preliminary college exams at the beginning of the following term,
and I would have to work hard in the holidays to be ready for them.

My parents were overjoyed to see someone who at
least approximated to the daughter they had known before the eruption of Nick
into our lives, however, Boxing Day was fraught with people making an effort
not
to mention the DeLisles’ annual party. 

I saw Eva, back from Exeter University.  She was
enjoying herself hugely as usual, and we had a few girly outings together.  And
Peter - after an initial letter or two, our correspondence had dwindled, but he
rang me, and I met him and his girlfriend Hilary for a drink at the riverside
pub.

Hilary looked at me with very suspicious eyes,
cuddling close to Peter, and clearly marking out her territory.  I realised
with a shock that I must sometimes have appeared like that when I was with
Nick, and it did put a certain new perspective on some things for me.

“I hope you managed to get through the term without
seeing Nick,” Peter said swiftly, when she was in the Ladies.

I nodded. 

 “Yes, it’s not been a problem at all, thank
goodness.”

“Have you met anyone else?”

“No. I’ve got to know lots of boys, but they’re
mostly friends.”

And I was quite happy with that for the time being.

Chapter 9

 

I did well in the college exams in January.  Much to
my surprise, I discovered a liking for Old English, both the language and the
literature, and looked forward to becoming more proficient in that particular
field.

We were all working a bit harder now, after the
social emphasis of the first term. 

As Joanna had predicted, I had a little difficulty
in persuading Martin, the boy from the Christmas dance, that I did not want to
get involved in a relationship, and I had to suffer him moping at me in lectures
and libraries as a result.  I remembered my time with Nick, and tried to be
kind to him.

Emily had fallen in love.  Despite her bold
pronouncements, she had not slept with anyone during our first term, and had
then returned home for the Christmas vacation only to be bowled over by one of
her brother’s friends, another physicist, named Rupert.

It was a shame that he was at university in
Edinburgh.  Emily spent hours scrawling long letters to him, and hours checking
her pigeonhole for the replies.  We felt that the postal service would be
making a lot of profit from their lengthy correspondence.

Jo and William seemed very settled in a close
relationship, especially after the college GP had obliged with the relevant
prescription.  I was happy for her, and frankly, rather envious.

I sometimes saw Nick’s name in the university
newspaper,
Cherwell
.  This wasn’t a surprise, as I knew he wanted to be
a journalist, but I found myself reading anything with his by-line with
breathless attention.  His name cropped up in the gossip column from time to
time, as well.  Once, he appeared in a rather blurry photograph of some event
at Balliol, but it was almost impossible to make out his features.

I had progressed so far in my “life without Nick” state
that I would sometimes go whole hours without thinking about him.  At other
times, some remark, or the sight of a young man with similar build or
colouring, would plunge me back down to the depths again. 

Life was, if not ecstatic, at least bearable.  The
main problem I had was with Sofia Kinski.  She seemed to have taken a definite
dislike to me, which she disguised under a veneer of mocking amiability, often
addressing me as “Ice Queen”, although no one else did.

“Why has she got it in for me?”  I asked Jo one day
as we walked back from lunch. Sofia had been more than usually teasing and
provocative that day.

“I don’t think she likes any of us very much,” said
Jo.  “She reminds me of a child making a noise so they won’t be scared of the
dark.  Who knows what demons she has behind that brittle front she puts on?”

“I don’t want to know.  I just want her to leave me
alone.  I don’t bother her, after all.”

Jo and I had our first University exams - Prelims -
at the end of term.  It was essential to pass these: failure meant you would
either have to leave the university, or, if lucky, be given the chance to resit
them in the summer.  I didn’t fancy either of these options.

So we got our heads down to work.  I made the
greatest effort to attend lectures, and especially enjoyed those on my
favourite part of the syllabus, the metaphysical poets of the seventeenth
century.  Our tutor told us that Samuel Johnson had criticised their work as
being “unsuccessful in replicating or moving the affections”.  I was in
complete disagreement, and wrote a long essay disproving this statement.  To
me, much of the poetry was personal and emotionally valid, and I thought that I
could relate to it so readily because of my own early experiences of love and
heartbreak.  I learned many of the poems by heart, and it was one exam which I
was looking forward to.

I surfaced for the occasional party, but did not
lead such an active social life as in the term before.  This had the advantage
that I was thus removed from Sofia’s radar, and the baiting eased off.  I
wasn’t used to being bad friends with anyone: it made me uneasy.

Shortly before the end of term, I met an American
postgraduate student who had rooms on the same staircase as Jo’s William at
Christchurch.

John was a charming Bostonian, extremely tall and
fair, and with the very correct manners of the Eastern American patrician
family to whom he belonged.  He was certainly the most mature person I had yet
encountered.

Culture was his passion, and he discovered to his
horror that I was pretty much ignorant of anything outside the most obvious
music or works of art.  (So much for Beresford High.) He set about broadening
my horizons.  It was a whole new experience for me, and I enjoyed being with
someone who recognised that life wasn’t just about university work and dating.

Before Easter, he took me to a couple of concerts,
and we went to the Ashmolean museum, where he lectured me gently on his
favourite paintings.

He liked to hold my hand, and for once, I was happy
for him to do so.  His presence in my life was calm and unthreatening, and he
seemed to know instinctively that I shied away from too much physical
closeness.  We would exchange a few kisses at the end of our encounters, but he
never pressed for anything further.  He was an absolute delight.

And then, it was my first summer term.

Summer at Oxford is
wonderful
.

It is always a magical city, but at its best during
May and June, when it bursts into flower and birdsong, and puts on its most
colourful attire.  Even the air smells sweet and clean, from the great swathes
of blossoms in the parks and gardens.

I rekindled my relationship with John when we
returned after the Easter vacation.  He had been to Florence for a few weeks
with American friends, and was full of the wonders of the Uffizi and the Duomo.

 Now I had passed my Prelims, I would have no
further public exams until my Finals at the end of year three, and the workload
was light. 

Many colleges held open air theatre productions
during the summer term, when it was hoped the weather would be good.  I
auditioned for a play to be performed in the gardens of Worcester College, and
landed a small part in a delightful tongue-in-cheek Victorian melodrama,
written by one of the students.  Rehearsals were fun, my costume promised to be
very becoming, and I was meeting another new set of people.  Providing Nick
wasn’t going to be a drama critic - and I thought this was unlikely - I was
happy with the way things were going.

A few weeks into the term, I did begin to wonder
about my relationship with John.  I felt for the first time in ages that I was
with someone on more or less equal terms intellectually and emotionally, even
if he was better educated than I was.  However, after I had said good night to
him one Saturday, I was struck by the realisation that he had affection for me,
but absolutely no desire.  It rocked me back a bit.

It was the complete antithesis of my relationship
with Nick.  That had been physical, above everything: this was cerebral and
dispassionate.  I knew that I was slowly emerging from my frozen state, to the
extent that I could begin to contemplate a sexual relationship again, and I was
puzzled.

Other girls would look at John with frank admiration
when he came to collect me at St Hugh’s, and I knew that sliding eyes look well
from my time with Nick.  Apart from anything else, he was always beautifully
dressed.  Perhaps there was something wrong with me?  I debated whether or not
to ask him outright, but the whole thing seemed too embarrassing.

The only thing for which I will ever be grateful to
Sofia Kinski is the fact that she stopped me from making a monumental blunder.

I had just finished having lunch with John one
Saturday, and was saying goodbye to him outside the imposing pillared frontage
of the Ashmolean museum, when Sofia happened to stroll past.  She caught sight
of me and her eyes widened.

“Eithne - the very person.”

She sashayed across to us, a beaming smile on very
red lips.

Sofia had cut her hair shorter in the vacation, and
now had a full fringe falling to her eyebrows.  With her kohl rimmed eyes, she
resembled a very wicked Cleopatra, and it did nothing to allay my distrust of
her.

I introduced John to her, and she turned her sultry
charm on him.

“John - of course - I know of you from ..........”
she reeled off the names of some other men who roomed in his part of Christ
Church.  She would know everyone, she always did.

The she switched her wide eyed gaze back to me.

“Walk with me to Little Clarendon Street, Eithne?  I
have a favour to ask.”

“I was just going, anyhow,” said John.  He kissed me
on the cheek.  “See you tomorrow, sweetie.”

Sofia and I watched him disappear into the throng of
shoppers.  She took my arm in a falsely chummy way.

“What a poppet.  He seems so nice,” she enthused.

“Yes, he is.”

“And just right for you.”

I considered the underlying innuendo of these words,
but didn’t get very far.

“I mean,” she continued, giving my arm a little
squeeze as we strolled along, “I know you’re frigid, darling, but I didn’t know
you were a
fag hag.”

This term was incomprehensible to me. 

“I don’t know what you mean, Sofia,” I said,
puzzled.

She kept my arm in a painful grip.

“You always pretend to be such an innocent, Eithne,
it doesn’t fool me, you know.  Fag hags hang about with queers.  You must be
very relieved to know he’ll never want to get past first base.”

 A number of things clicked into place in my head. 
I didn’t have to pretend to be an innocent, I really was one.  For a moment, I
felt annoyed and upset, but this was immediately superseded by a feeling of
relief.  There wasn’t anything wrong with me, John and I were just on different
pathways.   

However, I needed to deal with Sofia, and quickly
too.

“Why do you always have to be so crude, Sofia?” I
complained, shaking off her fingers. “John and I are just very good and very
affectionate friends who like spending time together.  Sex doesn’t come into
it.  What’s wrong with that?”

I tried to make my voice sound ordinary, despite the
shock she had just given me.  Sofia shot me a nasty look from under her Egyptian
fringe.

“It’s not very normal is it?  Don’t you worry what
people will say?”

“Obviously not.”

I forced myself to smile at her.  I sensed that she
had hoped to upset me and was pleased I had thwarted her thus far. 

“Perhaps you should be more broad minded yourself,”
I suggested.  That would show her.

She muttered something, and we walked in silence for
a while.  Luckily, Little Clarendon Street was not far away.  When we got
there, I said

 “What was the favour, then?”

“What?  Oh, that was just an excuse to talk to you
about your ......
non relationship
.”

Her eyes gleamed in the sunshine.  I felt more than
ever how malicious she was.

“Well then, lovely to see you Sofia.  Thanks for all
your concern,” I said in what I hoped was an irritating way.  “I’m going back
to St Hugh’s now.”

She stood there, considering me, and then another
indecipherable look stole over her features.

“Goodbye then.  By the way - Sam Simmons sends his
regards.”

The name meant nothing to me, and I frowned. 

    “I don’t know who you mean,” I said.

 She smiled, as though struck by a funny thought.

“Oh, don’t worry. You will.”

 

I walked slowly up the Woodstock Road.  In some
ways, I felt a fool.  There were signs I should perhaps have picked up on, the
odd puzzling remark he had made.  But there again, I had not been aware of him
paying any particular attention to other men.

I wondered what, if anything, I should say to him. 
There was an integrity in our dealings with one another which made me feel I would
have to speak to him on the subject before long.  How on earth would I begin?

When I got back to college, I knocked on Emily’s
door.  She was writing to Rupert, her long distance boyfriend, as usual.

“Honestly, I wish this antiquated place would install
a few more phones,” she complained.  “I promised to ring Rupert at midday and I
couldn’t find a single free booth.  It meant he was hanging around in a box in
Edinburgh for ages.”

There were a small number of public phone booths
dotted around the college buildings, but these were very popular during the
cheap time periods of evenings and weekends, and there were frequent queues and
arguments about their use amongst our fellow students.

“Yes, it’s rotten,” I agreed absently.

Emily looked up. 

“Uh oh, I know that tone.  What’s bothering you? 
Have you seen your Nick or something?”

“No - nothing like that.”

 I sat down on the bed.  “But I do feel a bit
stupid.”

I told her about the scene with Sofia.

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