The Lessons Read online

  But Kendall was harder to ignore now that he had perceived me. He tapped his fingers. He shifted in place. He breathed heavily. After a few minutes I looked over again. He was not looking at me. His head was bowed over the exam paper. His eyes were red and wet. As I watched, his shoulders shook in a silent sob.

  If I were Jess, I thought, I’d put my arm around him. That’s what a good person does. If I were good like that, I’d stop writing the exam and ask if he was OK. Or I’d pass him a note. But then, if I were caught, my exam paper would be voided. Dr Boycott might accuse me of cheating. Do good people never think of themselves?

  Kendall’s shoulders heaved again. He gulped. I should at least offer him a tissue. Did I even have a tissue? I felt in my pockets. No. Hadn’t anyone else noticed he was crying? I looked around the library. Most of the other people were concealed by the bookshelves and carrel partitions. All the people in our section – Guntersen and Daswani, Everard and Panapoulou and Glick – were looking down at their work, writing furiously. Kendall wiped his nose with the back of his hand, gulped and looked at the exam paper again. He picked up his pencil. He glanced at me and gave a resigned shrug, as if to say, ‘Well, back to it.’ I made a little grimace, as if to say, ‘No other choice,’ and continued. I found a question that I thought I might get three-quarters of the way through. I tried to ignore all other thoughts.

  At ninety minutes into the exam, and without warning, Kendall made an unnerving noise. It was, perhaps, the beginning of a bellow. The first strangulated note of a roar, cut off before it reached full strength. It was loud, though, loud enough that one or two of the others looked up and the invigilating librarian turned her head sharply to us.

  Kendall, aware of the attention, seemed to shrink into himself, wishing our gazes away, then sprang out, jumping up from his chair, giving another of the same anguished half-howls. He stood, mouth open, gazing at the student body of Gloucester College. Like an animal turning to flee, he threw pencils, exam paper and work to the floor and ran from the library.

  Guntersen looked at me, shrugged and returned to his writing.

  ‘I like to think,’ said Mark, pouring himself another glass of red, ‘that he was overcome with a sense of his own deep and abiding un attractiveness. Perhaps he caught a glimpse of himself in a particularly shiny set square – do you still use set squares? – and understood with a terrifying finality that no one will ever sleep with him. I like to think that’s what it was.’

  ‘Shhhh, Mark,’ said Jess, tapping him on the knee. ‘You didn’t hear that noise he made. It echoed all over the library. Down in the lower level we thought someone must have hurt themselves. Poor thing, we don’t even know where he’s gone.’

  ‘Home, probably,’ said Franny. ‘If you can’t even deal with a college collection …’ She let the thought drift into silence.

  We were in the kitchen of Mark’s house in Jericho. I had not been here since the day after the party, and the place looked different now. The packing cases were gone, the Aga gave the room a mellow warmth, there was a plate of ripe and runny cheese and crusty bread on the table, along with several bottles of good red wine. Mark had summoned us here with handwritten notes: ‘Post-collection celebration, 3 p.m., Annulet House. Do come. Mark.’ This had irritated me when I found the envelope in my pigeonhole. It had irritated me further when I saw that Jess’s identical card contained the postscript ‘Do bring J. the pretty paramour. Drag him if you must.’

  ‘Who does he think he is?’ I said.

  ‘He’s just trying to be funny,’ said Jess. ‘Come on. You can always leave if you don’t like it.’

  Franny and Simon were already there when we arrived and shortly afterwards there was a tap at the kitchen door.

  ‘Ah!’ said Mark. ‘At last!’

  He pulled the door open with a flourish. It was Emmanuella, more tanned than I remembered her, in a grey wool dress and black calf-length boots with a large iron brooch pinned to her shoulder. She embraced Mark, pulling him to her. Her scent wafted across the room, full of heat and light. I stared at her, and hated myself for staring, and hated myself for finding Jess fleetingly a little colourless by comparison.

  Mark made a play of looking around and behind her. ‘Manny …’ he said.

  Emmanuella frowned.

  ‘Do not please call me Manny.’

  ‘Where’s Grunter?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Grunter.’

  ‘Who?’ She placed emphasis on the syllable.

  ‘Fine, then. Where’s Gunther Snoreson?’

  ‘We have decided to part. I have come from telling him. I did not think it was –’

  My stomach gave a little leap at this, a little involuntary shudder.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Mark, interrupting her. ‘That’s all I wanted to know. I’m just glad I’ve finally convinced you to see sense. Can’t put up with another moment of his droning voice … Now,’ he said, leading Emmanuella to the table, ‘I’ve got a proposition for you all.’

  ‘I’ve told you a million times,’ said Franny. ‘No orgies unless I’m really, really drunk.’

  Mark grinned and tipped his head to one side. ‘That can be arranged, darling, but not tonight. Listen.’ He dropped his voice lower. ‘This house is mine now. Properly mine. The trustees have agreed to it. And I can do what I like here. So. Would you come and live with me? Here?’ There was a pause, a silence. ‘For free, I mean,’ he said. ‘I don’t need to charge you rent.’ And for a moment he seemed excruciatingly vulnerable, as he always did when talking about money – as if, paradoxically, it were a conversation about something he didn’t have, could never have, had never even seen. Always afraid he would refer to it incorrectly and reveal his ignorance.

  ‘Wow,’ said Simon.

  ‘Goodness,’ said Jess.

  ‘I’m in,’ said Franny.

  This was a complicated offer, more complicated even than we could have known then. Only Emmanuella seemed entirely unperturbed by it, and she was rich; rich enough to know that this was a kindness she could afford to repay if necessary, that she would not be acquiring an ongoing debt.

  Nonetheless, and despite all misgivings, we got drunk that afternoon as if it were all settled. The red wine dwindled and Mark replaced it with brandy. As the darkness descended, he lit lamps around the room and produced from the Aga a roast haunch of venison, studded with garlic and rosemary.

  ‘Will it be like this every night, darling?’ said Franny. She was affectionately drunk, her arms draped around Simon’s shoulders.

  ‘Oh, every every night,’ said Mark. ‘Come live with me and be my loves and we shall all the pleasures keep.’

  ‘S’not “loves”, it’s love,’ said Jess. Her arms were folded on the table, her head laid on them. Until she spoke, I’d assumed she was asleep. ‘Can’t have more than one love, thass not how it works.’

  ‘You’ve clearly been going to entirely the wrong parties, my darling,’ he said.

  ‘Mmmmm …’ she said. ‘I don’ think …’ She lapsed into silence.

  Mark walked around the table to Jess and rubbed her back gently between the shoulder blades.

  ‘C’mon, darling, time for bed. James, why don’t you take her upstairs?’

  I stroked the side of Jess’s face, where the freckles met the hairline, by her ear.

  ‘Jess,’ I said, ‘Jess, it’s time for bed now.’

  She turned a smiling face to me and kissed me squarely on the lips. There was no reaction from the others. I felt a strange sensation, a combination of delight and concern. Mark had made up a bed for us both, apparently anticipating that we would only want one. We did only want one, but this was a new development, so new that I was a little surprised Jess had told Mark. Were we together now, decidedly together? What did that mean?

  I supported her up the stairs to our room. She lay on the bed and was instantly asleep. I covered her with a blanket and sat by her for a minute or two.

  She muttered something. I
leaned closer.

  ‘What’s that?’

  She sighed and said again, ‘You’re so beautiful.’

  She rolled over and wrapped her arm across my leg. I sat perfectly still and after a few minutes her breathing became steady and even.

  Downstairs, the party was winding to its conclusion. Emmanuella was lying on the sofa in the yellow salon, her dress bunched up around her thighs. Mark was on the floor by her side, singing a French song, a children’s lullaby, softly.

  Simon was sitting in the large red leather armchair, feet up on the coffee table, puffing thoughtfully at a cigar.

  ‘Had to carry Franny up to bed,’ he said. ‘Completely overcome by the alcohol. Of course, it hasno effect onme, nonewhassoever.’

  Mark smiled, then broke off singing to say, ‘He did carry her, you know. Quite astonishing.’

  ‘Always happy to help a lady. ’Cept if she’s being sick. I remember once, she spewed up so much that …’

  Emmanuella sat up abruptly.

  ‘If it has reached the time for the vomit tales, I also must go to bed.’

  ‘Quite right,’ said Mark, ‘quite right. No sort of stories for a lady.’

  ‘I wonder, James,’ said Emmanuella, ‘whether you would be kind and escort me to bed?’ She exchanged a look with Mark, a look I could not quite understand. A meeting of eyes, like the sealing of an agreement.

  She took my arm. Her perfume had mellowed over the evening, combining with the wine to become an amber glowing scent, rich and honey-dropped. I found myself wondering, without intending to do so, whether she smelled like this inside her clothes. Whether it was perfume at all, or just the warm brown scent of her skin.

  She led me slowly to her room on the first floor. I went to leave her at the door but she tugged on my arm and said, ‘No, no, I will fall without you. Take me to the bed.’

  There were fresh flowers in her room, jugs of white roses. Above the bed was a crucifix, the blood painted a wet red but the face serene. I looked away from it and noticed a small holdall by the bed and a book on the nightstand. She had known already that she would be staying, then. How much thought had gone into this apparently artless afternoon?

  Emmanuella sat down on the bed, took off her boots and stretched her stockinged toes. The counterpane was very smooth and white. She patted it, inviting me to sit by her. I sat down. She rested her head on my shoulder and ran her arm around my waist. I could feel the outline of her breast against my side.

  ‘Do you like me?’ she said, so low that I had to incline my head towards her to catch the words.

  ‘I … yes. Yes, I like you,’ I said.

  She snuggled closer.

  ‘I like you too. You are very handsome,’ she said.

  She raised her head, brought it close to mine and, very softly, breathed into my ear. A thrill of pleasure went through me. I risked a mistake and moved my hand across her legs, squeezing her knee gently. She sighed.

  ‘Mark has told me so many good things about you,’ she said.

  Mark. Was it possible that this had been planned? Had he guessed I liked her? Had he told her?

  Emmanuella bit my earlobe very gently. The sensation was exhilarating.

  ‘Close the door,’ she whispered.

  I stood up, walked to the door. Outside in the corridor the light was still on. To my surprise, at the far end of the passage, I could see the door to Simon’s room half ajar. Inside, Mark and Simon were sprawled on the gigantic four-poster bed, giggling. I looked back to Emmanuella. Her eyes were half-closed, her head nodding forwards. Is it to my credit or discredit that this alone convinced me?

  I walked back into the room, leaving the door open. I brushed the hair out of her eyes and pushed her back gently on to the bed. She sighed happily. I leaned forward and whispered, ‘Time for you to sleep.’

  She nodded, and wrapped her arms around the pillow, clutching it like a child with a teddy bear.

  Out in the corridor I closed the door and stood for a moment, resting my back on it. It was then that I saw Mark at the other end of the passage. He pushed open the door to Simon’s room, carrying something in his hand. Simon lay sprawled still on the bed, his shirt open to the waist. Mark turned, saw me watching him and winked, then went into Simon’s room and closed the door behind him.

  Upstairs Jess was still asleep, snoring softly. I sat on the sofa and looked out of the window at the dark garden shifting in the wind. I wondered what I would do with this invitation – at once sensible and ludicrous. If I took it, then what? I would have a group of friends ready-made, a way out of the misery of college life. I had longed, since arriving in Oxford, to move away – my whole trajectory seemed to me an attempt to run away from the place, to take up residence somewhere smaller.

  And if I did not take it, then what? Back to college, and to struggle, and to the life I had hated so much last term. And what could I say to Jess to make her understand? ‘I think perhaps he invited us all here, and plied us with alcohol, to give me the chance to sleep with Emmanuella if I wanted’? She would go on with this life and I would have to return to mine. No. It was this that drove me, in the end. Not a running-to, but a running-from. I did not want to end like Kendall, bolting from an exam hall, with nowhere to go.

  I saw Kendall a few days later in Chapel Quad. He was lying on a bench by the ivy-covered wall, his head resting on his rucksack. I thought he was asleep, but as I walked past he lifted his head and called to me.

  ‘Stieff!’ he said. ‘Off to Boycott?’

  ‘Yup,’ I said. It was my ten-minute slot with the tutor to receive the results of my collections. I could not delay.

  ‘Good luck,’ he said. ‘Hope it goes well. I suppose …’ He frowned. ‘I might not see you again.’

  I stared at him, puzzled.

  ‘I’m … er, well, I’m leaving Oxford. Talked it through with Boycott. It’s all for the best, probably. It only gets harder from here and, you know, if it hasn’t been good so far …’

  I was aware of the seconds ticking by. Dr Boycott would be caustic if I was late. Nonetheless.

  ‘But where are you going?’

  He wrinkled his nose. ‘Manchester. My UCCA reserve. Jumped to take me when I called.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Um.’ I did not know what to say. It was as if Kendall had told me he had been diagnosed with a chronic and painful disease. I do not defend this; this is how we thought.

  ‘It’ll be good,’ I said at last. ‘Better than here. Big fish, small pond – be nice not to be running to catch up all the time.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Kendall. ‘Not so many bloody tutorials, away from Boycott and all this …’

  He stopped and looked around. The quad was peaceful in its medieval splendour, with ivy-covered walls, clipped grass and stone arches. Beauty is a lie, but it is so hard to spot.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘good to get away from all this. But sorry, I have to run. Good luck with everything!’

  I started to walk away.

  ‘No problem,’ said Kendall. ‘I might catch you later, yeah?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Sure.’

  ‘I need not tell you, Mr Stieff,’ said Dr Boycott, ‘that these are disappointing results.’

  Dr Strong, sitting by his side, nodded silently.

  My knee ached – I had forced it upstairs at a sprint to reach the office on time. It was displeased with this treatment and produced short, stabbing pains, enough to make me gasp.

  ‘We had such high hopes of you, but you seem to have –’ Dr Boycott paused – ‘fallen far below them this term.’

  ‘I’m sorry Dr Boycott, but I –’

  Dr Boycott interrupted me.

  ‘Nonetheless!’ he flourished the exam paper. ‘Your answer to the question on Lagrangian dynamics was good. Thus, I think we may say,’ and he looked to the right and left, as though speaking to a large and attentive audience rather than merely to myself and the taciturn Dr Strong, ‘that we have hope! Put your back into it, Mr Stief
f. We need a sprint from you this term, a sprint!’

  ‘Yes, Dr Boycott,’ I said. I found I was a little overwhelmed by having been told that a single answer of mine was good.

  ‘Run along, then,’ said Dr Boycott. ‘More effort is what you need this term. More effort.’

  I hobbled from the room, strangely elated. I would go and see Kendall again, I thought, put my arm around his shoulders and commiserate with him properly. I walked back as fast as I could manage, my knee spitting embers in the cold, but when I reached Chapel Quad Kendall was gone.

  6

  First year, April, first week of term

  We took up Mark’s offer. Of course we did. Jess discussed the matter with her eminently reasonable parents, who, having assured themselves that the house was adequate and the friends not intolerable, took the view that this was a natural stage in their daughter’s fledging and if she wanted to live with her friends she should not be prevented.

  My parents were suspicious and wondered not unnaturally – though at the time it seemed wholly unreasonable – whether after my bad first term I should be changing my living arrangements. Strangely, it was Anne’s intervention that swayed them in the end. She had been at college with a third cousin of Mark’s – on his father’s side, which contained a lot of House of Lords relations of whom Mark was entirely dismissive – and convinced my parents that I was finally ‘mixing with the right people’ and that rent-free living arrangements were common among this group.

  The Junior Dean of Gloucester College initially frowned upon the idea, saying, ‘We are keen to integrate all members into college life, at least in their first year.’ There it was Jess who argued the point, drawing attention to her membership of the college choir, attendance at chapel and excellent reports from her tutors. Little was expected of me, perhaps because I was known in college primarily for my injury. The arrangement was grudgingly allowed, although – it was made clear – we could not expect any reimbursement of rent and other fees paid in advance.