Cross My Heart and Hope to Die (19 page)

Back to the common room. That was it, then. All over in a couple of hours and no one to blame except me. It wasn't that I'd been set on going to Oxford, but to get as far as an interview and then to be rejected was much worse than not having an interview at all. I felt that I'd really let Dad down. He'd been so proud about it, telling everyone including Mrs Hanbury who would now go out of her way to commiserate, implying at the same time that it was after all a bit much for people like us to aim at Oxford. I only hoped that Mrs Vernon wouldn't get to hear that Mum had bought me her cast-off housecoat for the occasion.

A gong sounded and we all politely after-you'd each other into the dining-room. It would be the first time I'd had evening dinner so I decided that I might as well make the most of it. We sat at huge polished tables, and the cutlery was sized to match. The soup spoons were as big as our table spoons at home. Fortunately, Mum's magazine had occasional articles on etiquette (‘Your husband's firm's dinner dance? Remember these few simple rules and you're all set for a happy, carefree evening') so I knew to drink the salt-gravy soup from the side of the spoon without slurping, and to tilt the plate away from me.

My right-hand neighbour was also on her own, a girl with freckles, jutting teeth and wild curly hair. My left-hand neighbour was slim, with long blond hair, and she wore fashionable clothes that made mine look cheap. Which they were. The blonde was laughing with friends on her other side, so I made overtures to the girl on the right who was wearing a skirt and a blouse that were unmistakably home-made.

She said her name was Paula. She had a north-country accent so thick you could cut and butter it, and that cheered me up tremendously. She was ordinary, like me. I could talk to her easily, even if I couldn't always understand her.

She asked where I came from. I knew she wouldn't have heard of Byland so I said Breckham Market, but she hadn't heard of that either.

‘All right, then, where are you from?'

‘Bratfut.'

I thought about it as we ate grilled fish, and decided that she probably meant Bradford. ‘You must be used to seeing Pakistanis about, then,' I said, nodding down the table to where two beautifully composed milky-coffee girls sat in stunning Eastern robes. There aren't any Asians living in my part of Suffolk, and I had to stop myself from staring at them, fascinated.

‘Don't be
dafft
,' said Paula scornfully, ‘they're Hindu, not Muslim.' I blushed, but at least she didn't seem to hold my ignorance against me. ‘D'you fancy coming to this place?' she asked.

I denied it, though I was still feeling sore. ‘I shan't get in, anyway, I made a terrible mess of my interview.'

‘Oh, that.' She grinned with all her teeth. ‘So did I, thank God. Mucked it up good and proper.'

She told me that both her parents were primary-school teachers, and education-mad. Not having been to university themselves, they insisted that their children must. ‘And we've all got to go to Oxford, they're Oxford-mad as well. But I hate it down here, it's full of mealy-mouthed southerners. I've got a place at Sheffield University for next October, and that's where I'm going whether Mum and Dad like it or not.'

I didn't much care for the bit about ‘mealy-mouthed southerners'. ‘I don't see how you can say you hate the place', I said, ‘when we've only been here five minutes.'

‘Not my first visit,' she said. ‘My big sister was here. Got a First, and lost all her character – she's just like a southerner herself now.' Paula said it with a terrible contempt, and I quickly pointed out that I was East Anglian, myself.

‘It's not just southern that gets me,' she conceded, ‘so much as upper-class. Have you tried talking to any of them? Honestly, it's like trying to communicate with people from another planet. There's one sitting next to you. Go on, have a go.'

I looked sideways at the blond girl, and waited for her to stop talking to her friends. Obviously it was going to be a long wait, so I touched her arm. ‘Excuse me,' I said in my best voice, and she turned to me immediately, giving me her full attention and the sight of the longest pair of false eyelashes I'd ever seen. ‘Could you – er, pass the water, please?'

‘Of course.' She not only passed it but poured me half a glass, and I was as charmed as Mum would have been. ‘Where are you from?' Her voice was not as grand as the Principal's but it was unmistakably expensive, and I found myself imitating it as I told her Suffolk. I'd come to the conclusion that no one outside the county had ever heard of Breckham Market.

‘Suffolk? Oh, soopah – do you know the Hennikers?'

I said I didn't.

‘Do you ride?'

At least I was on familiar ground there. ‘Oh yes!' I said happily. ‘I'm always out and about on my bike.'

I heard Paula snort with laughter, and realized I'd said the wrong thing. The blonde, identifying me as an impostor, raised one quizzical eyebrow. ‘Soopah,' she murmured, and turned back to her other neighbour.

‘What did I tell you?' said Paula.

‘D'you mean your sister made friends with people like that?'

‘No chance, if you're an outsider. But she copied them. Got rid of her Yorkshire accent and started being all airy and fanciful. I can't stand that, pretending to be what you're not and denying your origins. I think it's con-temptible, don't you? I mean, you are what you are. This is how I am and I'm not changing my ways to suit anybody. They can take me or leave me.'

I chased some apple crumble ruefully round my plate. Couldn't seem to get the wretched stuff up with just a fork, which I knew was the correct solo implement. Paula shovelled hers in with a spoon, ignoring her fork, and didn't care.

I couldn't help admiring her for her independence. She'd think me completely con-temptible if she knew me, conforming like mad and forever worrying about the impression I was making. And the infuriating thing was that she was probably a lot more successful than I was. I could imagine her talking to the Principal, saying exactly what she thought in her uncompromising accent and probably being given full marks for character, while I got myself rejected as a creep.

At one point during dinner Paula's ears had twitched as she heard a couple of unmistakable north-country voices from further down the table. As soon as we left the dining-room she went in search of them, and I was on my own.

There were plenty of magazines in the common room, some of them women's glossies, and I flipped through them to pass the time before I could decently go to bed. This was another world all right. Impossibly expensive clothes, exotic foods, incomprehensibly enigmatic short stories; no knitting, no cut-out-and-ready-to-sew, no problem page anywhere. Mum wouldn't have enjoyed the magazines, and to be truthful I didn't much either.

One of the glossies specialized in articles on houses and the people who lived in them. The longest article was about a middle-aged professional couple who led a hectic life in London, and decided that they needed a small weekend place in the country where they could recharge their batteries. Exploring unspoiled Suffolk, they had discovered this dilapidated cottage – photograph of a house twice the size of ours and the Crackjaws'put together, and in much the same condition except that it was older and far more picturesque – and had converted it to a delightful country retreat. Photograph of her in a large comfortable kitchen warmed by an Aga, with decorative plates on a dresser, and a scrubbed pine table on which was arranged a bottle of wine, a trug of apples and what looked like a fancy foreign cheese. Photographs of him in the gardener-tended garden, and of both of them in the chintzy, beamed sitting-room; photograph of amusing rural bathroom, beamed and creeping with potted plants, but of course with a full complement of mod. cons.

It looked delightful. Soopah to live in the country. I curdled inside, socially envious. And then I remembered – I wasn't just a country swede, I was a student for the night. It might be dark and cold and wet outside, but for once I wouldn't have to put on my raincoat and wellies to paddle down to the lav at the bottom of the garden.

Come to that, I could have a bath. Not that I needed one, because I'd come clean, but I hadn't ever bathed in a proper bathroom and so it offered a novel experience.

I went up two flights of stairs and explored my corridor. A room at the end was labelled BATH. One only. Was it, I wondered, for general use? Could I simply help myself, or was I supposed to ask permission? I had a feeling that this bathroom might be for the exclusive use of tutors, and that there would be a whole row of student bathrooms in another corridor. But there seemed to be no one else about and I decided to chance it.

I undressed, put on Mrs Vernon's frilly housecoat, collected my skimpy towel and soap and took guilty possession of the bathroom. I wanted to be quick and quiet, but the pipes groaned and gurgled and the water splashed out so loudly that I nervously turned off the taps when there was still only a lukewarm puddle in the bottom of the bath. I sat in it apologetically and listened. No indignant protests from the corridor so I thought, ‘What the hell,' and turned on the taps again. Delicious to feel the water inching hotly up my spine. I relaxed. I was really enjoying myself, for the first time since I'd arrived in Oxford.

And then I heard slip-slap feet coming up the corridor. The door handle turned and rattled. I stopped breathing. ‘Anyone there?' said an irritated, superior voice almost certainly a tutor, come to claim her private bathroom. I splashed the water, not wanting to identify myself.

‘How long are you going to be?' demanded the voice.

I scrambled to my feet, clutching the towel to me in case she was about to break down the door. ‘Just coming out,' I croaked guiltily.

‘Fifty-seven,' said the voice, and slip-slapped away.

I didn't dare stay long enough to dry. I simply dragged the housecoat over my wet arms, grabbed my gear and shot out. The corridor was empty. The number of my room was fifty-one, so I hurried along looking for fifty-seven, intending to knock and call out, ‘The bath's free,' before scooting back to my room.

Then a girl came round the corner towards me, wearing nothing but a towelling robe so brief that Mum would have died of embarrassment if she'd seen it. I hardly knew where to look myself. I turned away to knock at the door of fifty-seven, and the girl said, ‘Well, come in,' in an infuriatingly amused voice.

It was my blond dinner neighbour, blast her. She was about my height, but she managed to give the impression of being at least six inches above me. Her face seemed naked without the false eyelashes, but she obviously felt at no disadvantage and I was suddenly conscious that my fun housecoat must look to her exactly what it was, a serious jumble-sale bargain.

‘Was that you wanting the bath?' I said crossly, knowing that she had no more right to it than I had.

She laughed, lightly. Ha ha. ‘That was you, was it?'

‘Yes. Well, I'm out now.'

‘So I see. What kept you?'

I thought she meant it. ‘I was as quick as I could be,' I snapped. I turned and swept back to my room, clutching my housecoat so as not to trip over it. It was only when I reached safety that I realized she'd been laughing at my ridiculous haste. But at least she wouldn't find it so amusing when she discovered that I'd forgotten to pull out the unfamiliar bathplug.

I'd gone to bed so early that I was down to breakfast as soon as the gong sounded. Just as I was finishing, Paula came in and sat beside me.

‘What are you doing this morning?' I asked, hoping for company. My bus didn't leave until two and I intended to spend the morning as a tourist, making the most of my first and probably last visit to Oxford.

Paula had no inhibitions about talking with her mouth full. ‘What do you think?' She grinned, scrambled egg on her teeth. ‘First train back to Yorkshire!'

‘'Bye, then. Hope you don't get a place here.'

‘Thanks. Look us up if ever you're in Bratfut.'

It seemed as unlikely a place to visit as Bombay, so I didn't ask for her address.

I packed my grip and walked out into the streets a free woman, determined to enjoy myself with or without company. A whole day off from school, with the best part of a pound in my purse and four cigarettes left in the packet! It was just after nine o'clock, and not raining all that much. I bought a tourist map, and set off with the enthusiastic intention of seeing as many colleges as possible.

It was disappointing to find that the college grounds weren't open to the public in the mornings, but at least that meant that I could see more of them from the outside. I walked and walked, up and down the streets and along the passages, gazing through gateways and gaping at gables and nearly dislocating my neck to look up at towers and spires. Oxford was splendour in stone, unbelievably handsome.

But three solid hours is a lot of time to spend sightseeing, particularly if you're carrying a grip and it's raining. There was so much time to fill that I made two stops for coffee and cigarettes, and by mid-day I was beginning to feel decidedly queasy.

I was also wet and fed up. My left boot was rubbing painfully against my foot, the same one that had recently been bashed by a hockey ball and kicked by Aunt Brenda. I wanted to sit down and have a rest, but I couldn't face another cup of coffee so I decided to have an early dinner. Lunch, I mean. I'd hardly ever eaten out, so this was going to be another experience.

Coffee-bar food was too expensive, so I knew I couldn't afford most of the other eating-places, even if I'd had the courage to go in on my own. There was always Woolworths, but that was the trouble, because it was bound to be exactly like the one in Yarchester. So I went into the back streets and found an inexpensive-looking café with a menu in the window offering fried eggs with chips, sausages with chips, or beef curry and rice.