The night before last, the night before I came up to Oxford for my interview, was the night of my life – an appropriate bas-relief to this my solitary denouement.
The four of us had tea together that afternoon. I was being fussed over in a rather agreeable way: Jen said she’d get up and cook me a ‘proper breakfast’, Norman offered to drive me to Paddington the next morning, Rachel stressed time and time again that my interview would be a mere formality. Later, she and I popped downstairs and went to bed for half an hour, with something of our former cheekiness. I thought it might possibly be my last teenage fuck, so: our skin was as smooth as mushroom, our breath imperceptible, our demands unsophisticated, our orgasms coinstantaneous. And when I pulled off the condom and swaddled it in tissue at the bottom of the wastepaper basket, there was no rancour, no sense of being put upon. We dressed in equable silence. I felt strong, walking her down the square in the pale Sunday light.
However, seven o’clock and I was at my desk. A final run through the Interview Folder: sixty foolscap pages of notes and hints, arranged in sections – Accents, Avoiding Detailed Discussion, Dress, The Female Don – and sub-heads – ‘Blinking’, ‘Entrances’, ‘Leg-crossing’, ‘Flattery, indirect’, etc. But I couldn’t gather much concentration. At this stage my exam performance either seemed so brilliant as virtually to replace the texts themselves, rendering all previous literary criticism defunct; or else I was at the window, on the look-out for the white-coated male nurses (whom the University had alerted) equipped with chloroform and a net. On my arrival, would I simply be lured into the college lavatories and beaten up by the proctors? Or would I be met at the station by the Vice-Chancellor and Mayor, driven through the town in an open car, waving at the crowds, laughing as I brushed the confetti and streamers from my hair… ?
‘Hello?’ said a busy female voice, ‘what number do you want, please?”
‘Uh, Western 2814.’
‘And your number is… ?’
I gave it. ‘What’s up?” I asked. ‘Having problems with the bill?’
The subscriber has asked us to intercept all calls on this line.’
‘What’s been the trouble? Perverts?’
The girl laughed and her voice relaxed. ‘I’m not sure, really. I think just someone’s been ringing at all hours of the day and night, then hangs up. And from call-boxes and leaving the receiver off the hook.’
‘Maddening. Well, I think they’ll talk to me.’
‘One moment.’
‘ … Gordon Highway speaking.’
‘Father? It’s Charles.’
‘Charles. What can I do for you?’
Nothing much, as it happened. I had rung to see if he had winkled any information out of Sir Herbert. No luck. My father was reduced, not of course to saying, but to disguising the fact that he was saying, that Herbie knew bugger-all about it and besides he had forgotten to ask him.
‘Ah,’ I said. ‘I tried home, by the way – thought you’d be there.’
‘No no. I’m not coming into the office next week so I intended to go up tomorrow. Perhaps I can give you a lift?’
‘No, it’s all right.’
‘Yes. Sorry I couldn’t… wait – hang on. Vanessa would like a word.’
‘Hey,’ said Vanessa, ‘what’s your college?’
I told her.
‘Right. They’ve elected a new guy.’
‘What sort of new guy?’
‘I don’t know anything about him. Except that he’s shit-hot.’
With featherlight fingertips I skimmed the pages of my Interview Folder. After three-quarters of an hour I had memorized Sonorous Generalizations, Portent but no Content, and the paragraph on ‘Inarticulate sincerity’. I then turned to Appearance Change Midway. It ended :
17. Enter without glasses on: put them on a) if don over 50, b) if don wearing glasses.
18. Jacket unbuttoned: if old turd, do up middle one on way in.
19. Hair over ears: if old turd, smooth behind ears on entry?
A footnote referred me to Accents, 7. There I read:
Adapt slowly. If wildly out (posh v. regional), cough at beginning of second sentence and say ‘Sorry, I’m a bit nervous’ in voice identical to don’s.