Autumn in Oxford: A Novel Read online

Liz sighed. “We both know that staying in a marriage is always easier than leaving it, no matter how much you rub each other raw from day to day.”

  Tom had to nod his agreement. “It’s not even a question of staying or leaving. After a few years, it’s a whole web of habits that’s too hard to break.”

  They fell silent for a long moment.

  “So, you’ll go back . . . to the States?” she asked at last.

  “I guess so.”

  It was after nine o’clock, and the last Oxford train was about to depart. Liz led Tom down the platform to the farthest first-class coach, where she began searching for an empty compartment. Tom was looking dubiously back and forth from the first-class carriage to their second-class return tickets. As if to reassure him, Liz observed, “I take the late train often. They only check tickets at the barrier.” She pointed to the entry gate at the top of the platform. “Trust me, this is the last train tonight. It’s three-quarters empty. They won’t ask for tickets on board.”

  It was evident to her that Tom didn’t quite understand what she was doing. They were too late to buy first-class tickets, but riding in first was the only way they’d have any chance of a compartment to themselves. Could it be he didn’t want to be alone with her?

  No. That wasn’t it. As soon as the train began to ease its way out of the station, Tom snapped off the compartment’s overhead lights so they could not be seen. In the late twilight their reflections on the window disappeared, and the darkness of the track bed reached into the compartment. It made them feel invisible themselves.

  Liz slid over to the corridor side of the compartment, pulled down the blinds, and locked the door. Tom was now no longer in any doubt. He moved next to her on her bench. She leaned back against the white antimacassar on the headrest and took his hand. They would have to wait through twenty-five minutes as the train called at six stations to Reading, each stop holding them hostage to the threat of unwanted companions.

  Once the train passed beyond Reading, the line between sky and fields was effaced by a darkness broken only by the odd yellow road lamp. She knew there would be no stops in the last thirty-four minutes to Oxford. They felt the rhythm of the regular click of the rail gaps. At the same moment, their faces came together. Tom hesitated; Liz did not. With her right hand Liz pulled his head towards her and with her left hand guided his right beneath the sweater again. She came away from the kiss smiling and moved his hand down to the hem of her skirt and under it, sliding her thighs down the seat to give him access. Then, with her right hand still on his neck, firmly guiding his mouth back to hers, her left hand began methodically to undo the three buttons on his trousers fly. Tom couldn’t help thinking, Was this going to be harder than pulling down the zipper on an American suit pant?

  Liz was flying blind. She knew this might be the only completely intimate moment they’d ever share, and she wanted it to remember him by. So, there would be no inhibitions. It couldn’t be intercourse, not in a railway compartment. Could it come close? Yes, it could. She needed to send intricate messages, ones that neither had the words for. And she had only her hands to send them.

  The journey was just long enough. As the train began perceptibly to slow for the station, Liz came to a climax with a shriek and three twitching shudders, while decisively bringing Tom along with her.

  They fell back in their seats. Tom reached for a handkerchief. Liz spoke first. “La petite mort.”

  “Sorry?”

  “That’s what the French call it. Almost a perfect name.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “We’re leaving Wednesday.”

  “In four days?”

  Sitting astern of Liz, Tom watched her oar blades pull two deep strokes. It was six thirty in the morning. The June sun was making the droplets gleam as they ran off each blade when it broke free of the water. They were in a double scull. It was warm, and she was wearing a singlet that set off her androgynous shoulders. He turned to study her triceps glowing with spray as her upper arm flexed with a stroke. The dome atop Christ Church college gate loomed over Folly Bridge. It was an unavoidable focus for rowers at this spot where the Thames was called the Isis. Even with a coating of coal dust, the dome retained enough lustre that the sun still glinted off it.

  “Barbara told me last night. Her father asked her to come to California. Family business. So, she booked us on the Trans-Canada Airlines flight for Wednesday morning.”

  “What a shame. I have to be in Exeter and the southwest the following week for four days. I thought . . . if you could find a way . . . to join me . . .”

  “I’m coming back, Liz.” He turned towards the bow to see her reaction.

  “When term starts, next October?” She was smiling.

  “No. I’m coming back the next week. If you’ll meet me at Heathrow.”

  “But you will only have just left the week before.”

  “The beauty of air travel. A Lockheed Constellation makes it across the pond in about sixteen hours. My plane will land at eight in the morning next Monday. Can you pick me up on your way to Exeter?”

  “What will you tell Barbara?”

  “Leave that to me.”

  “You’re mad . . . but I’ll be waiting.” She knew immediately that she would be. Why, Liz? Is it just the promise of sex? The answer came back firmly: No. But if it were, it would be enough. As for the guilt that might well up afterwards, she would simply have to deal with it. Life is too short. For once you’ll abandon yourself to—she needed to find the right word to express what she wanted—abandon yourself to pleasure, delight, so free from restraint it might even become wanton. You’ll do everything you want, completely and without a qualm. Even on the hard bench of the scull in the cold breeze straining with each stroke, she could already relish the sensations she would feel.

  She repeated what she had said, louder, to make sure he understood. “A week from Monday. Yes, I’ll be there.” And then she began to feel disquieted. She’d felt something at least a little like this thirst before, years before. It had driven her into an abyss. Having climbed out once, she knew she’d never be able to survive a second descent.

  No, Liz. This is different, Liz, quite different!

  She needed to convince herself.

  Coming out of customs, Tom’s eyes found Liz at the same instant her eyes found him. Their smiles were so wide they hurt, laughing with delight at the trick they were playing on the world. Tom reached her. There was pleasure in his voice. “You’re here!”

  “I’m here.”

  He looked around, finally believing his eyes. Instead of leaving forever, he had been gone from England for less than a week.

  “How was the flight?”

  “No idea. I swallowed a Seconal as the plane took off from Montreal. Didn’t wake till we stopped at Dublin a couple of hours ago.”

  They were in the Humber, headed down the old A303 for Exeter. “How did you do it, Tom? Didn’t Barbara try to stop you?”

  “Stop me? She doesn’t know I’m here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It was a bit tricky. I had to take her back to Montreal to fly to San Francisco. So, I packed a bag and shoved it into the trunk of the Lincoln. It was right under her own bag. She never noticed. I saw her off at her gate, went back to the car for my bag, changed in the terminal, and caught the transatlantic flight an hour later.”

  “But won’t she call from California?”

  “Ah, yes. I sent a telegram, telling her I had decided to do some wilderness camping. Said I’d be out of touch for five or six days.”

  “Will she believe that? Have you ever done anything like that before?”

  “No, I haven’t.” He thought for a minute. “Will she believe it? I don’t know. She certainly can’t imagine I’d come back here a week after I left.”

  “I don’t think we have to worry much about Trevor either. He’s never showed much jealousy.”

  “Take a man’s word for it. The husband who isn’t jealous do
esn’t love his wife.”

  Some minutes later Tom broke the silence. “How did it happen, Liz? Why did you and Trevor ever come back to England?”

  “We came in ’52, once Trev decided that the austerity was really over.” Briefly, she reviewed the history. Trevor Spencer had left Britain for Canada in the spring of 1939. War was coming, and he wanted no part of it. When the call-up papers followed him to Toronto, Spencer immediately enlisted in the Canadian Forces, knowing full well that there would be no Canadian conscription for overseas service. He had a boring five years, shuttling from one training barracks to another. But it was safe. With an education in a minor public school in Birkenhead, Spencer had managed to secure a commission and a certain amount of comfort, far more than his older brother, Keith, who had remained in Britain and then served in the ranks three years slogging up the Italian boot. Liz could feel the older brother’s resentment of Trevor when they were together.

  “How did you meet Trev?” It was a question Tom never felt he had had a right to ask before.

  “In Toronto after the war. He was at uni on a government grant for vets. Like your GI Bill. Somehow he gave the impression that he was from money. My people noticed that.” Tom didn’t comment on Trev’s deception, and she went on.

  “I liked a lot about him. Good at sport, a bit older, a little more sophisticated. The accent.” She laughed. “In Canada, even a Merseyside twang was considered worldly.” Liz still thought Trevor Spencer attractive fifteen years later. His blond hair fell to the right of his forehead, and he kept it long enough to be noticed. His smile could be wide, though in repose his lips bent downward in a smirk. About five foot eight, he was stockier now than he’d been in his twenties. “I was in my last year, and Olivia was on the way when we married. My father got him a job selling commercial real estate. But it just didn’t work. He rubbed the Yanks the wrong way, and when the Canadian vets found he’d avoided overseas service, they wouldn’t do business with him.”

  Liz went on. “Anyway, Trevor decided the problem was sheer prejudice. Hatred of the Limey. Once he’d convinced himself of that, the only recourse was to return to Britain. It was really quite precipitate.” Again Liz decided she couldn’t tell Tom the whole story—not yet, anyway.

  “And you agreed to come?”

  She ignored the question. “Well, once we got here, Trev started facing real prejudice. The tony crowd recognized the Merseyside accent through the airs and graces. Not just the wrong regiment in the wrong army, but the middle-class origins, no Oxbridge degree, no old boy network. Maybe in Liverpool he’d have had a chance.”

  “Why didn’t you settle there?”

  “Have you been to Liverpool?” She took his silence for a no. “Very working class. Not enough ABC1s, too many C2Ds for Trev.” The classifications were well known in England. As and Bs were people with educations. Below them were the C1s who still wore coats and ties. C2 and below wore coveralls and worked with their hands, or not at all. A Brit could tell whether you were A or B, C1 or C2, or worse, to a certainty, just by your accent, of course, but also by your dress, the brand of cigarette you smoked, newspaper you bought, what you drank and ate.

  Tom was rueful. “Only the Brits would divide the classes six ways and give each one a precise label.”

  Liz nodded. “So, Trev didn’t want to bring the kids up there. Then, once we decided on Oxford, he insisted on Park Town crescent.”

  Now Tom looked perplexed. “Why? There are cheaper places to live. North Oxford, for instance.”

  “Yes, but Trevor refused to live in one of those mean little villas up in Summertown. Told me he’d never be able to sell houses to the rich if we looked hard up.”

  “Know what you mean. Barbara didn’t want to live there either. Said if we were going to have to live in Oxford, we were going to live well.”

  “You could afford it. I had to find work double-quick when we got here. But I was lucky. The job pays well, and frankly, I like it. It’s fun.”

  They fell silent. Tom was absorbed by the Wiltshire landscape, the deep green of fields dotted to their horizons with sheep, long low walls formed up over the centuries from stones ploughed out of the ground and rolled to the fields’ margins. There were few cars on the A303, though the occasional tractor held them up. He watched the low, flat clouds, layered over thin ribbons of blue. Their scudding revealed a strong wind coming down from the northwest that Tom could almost feel through the windscreen.

  Then, suddenly there was Stonehenge, solitary, unannounced, looming out of an open field. A dozen monoliths in grey stone looking as though some giant had upended the family’s tombstones and jammed them into a circle so tight no one could move between them. Apparently a few had remained after he’d finished the circle, so the giant had laid them over the largest stones as lintels.

  Liz pulled into a lay-by, came to a stop, and pulled up the hand brake. Wordlessly they came out of the car and looked across the meadow towards the monoliths.

  She spoke first. “I’ve passed these stones many times on the way to Exeter. It’s time I stopped.”

  Almost reverentially they walked across grass resilient from recent rain. By the time they reached the stones, the tips of their shoes were covered with water stains, and their socks were wet.

  As they stood there, Tom opened a packet of cigarettes and offered one. Liz shook her head. Then he spoke. “Three thousand years these stones have been here. And no one knows what the place means.”

  Liz surveyed the circle again. “Lots of guesses. No one any better than another. No one will ever know for sure.”

  Tom was thoughtful. “One thing we can be sure of. Whatever meaning it had to its builders was an illusion, though it must have been a powerful one.”

  Liz felt the wind strengthen. She reached up and folded the lapels of Tom’s coat against his chest. “Well then, I’m going to give it a real meaning, at least for us, from now on.”

  “And what is that, oh high priestess of the Druids?”

  “They will be mute memorials to the next four days. For the rest of our lives, every time one of us passes this way or sees a postcard or even just thinks of these stones, they will remind us of the days we’ll have spent together.”

  “That’s quite a burden of meaning for these stones to carry. Do you think they’ll last long enough?”

  They both laughed at that.

  “Let’s get to Exeter.” She smiled mischievously.

  Two hours later they were in the town, following signs to the cathedral. Liz evidently knew where she was headed. As they came into Magdalen Street, she pulled over and stopped. “I usually stay at the White Hart, just next to the local Abbey National branch. But we can’t stay there.”

  “Why not?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? They know me. And the branch is next door to the hotel. We could easily be seen.” Tom had no reply. “I’ve an idea.” She let down the handbrake, eased up on the clutch, and moved back into traffic. Turning right they passed the cathedral in its lush green close, and a few left turns later, the car drove up to a large, white, two-storey plaster structure. Liz pulled into the small forecourt and turned off the engine.

  She looked at Tom, checking for a wedding ring on his finger. “Mr. and Mrs. Wrought?” He nodded, and they entered the hotel. They were met by a plump face with a tracery of fine veins on each cheek, over a pink twin set and glasses on a beaded chain. She had bustled into the entry from a service door. Smiling brightly, the woman opened a register and proffered a hand-sharpened pencil. “Mr. and Mrs. . . .” She invited the man to complete the phrase.

  “Wrought,” Tom supplied, and inscribed the registry. “Just the night. With bath.”

  “And breakfast in the morning?”

  Tom looked at Liz, who nodded.

  “One pound seven and six, please.” Mrs. Twin Set was not going to remove the key from the board behind her until Tom reached for his wallet.

  Tom turned the skeleton key twice, locking the world ou
t. Then he sought Liz, who had gone into the bathroom to arrange her face. He pushed his body against hers and moved his hands to her waist. Driving them beneath the skirt top, he began moving them up under the blouse towards her breasts. Liz grabbed his hands and pushed them down.

  “Sorry, I’ve got a job to do. I need to get to the bank.” She looked at her watch. “It’s two o’clock. They’ll just be reopening after lunch. You need a sleep, anyway, after your flight. I’ll be back at four thirty.”

  Before he could remonstrate, Liz had turned the key back in the lock and was gone.

  Two hours later she was stroking the side of his face, slowly rousing him. Tom turned towards her and came fully awake. She whispered, “At last,” and brought her face down to his.

  One long kiss, and then he rose. Leaning back on the bedstead, Tom was wearing only shorts.

  He looked at her. “I’d like to take your clothes off . . . very slowly.”

  Liz rose wordlessly and stood before the bedside. Yes, I’ll be a sybarite. This was the very thing she’d sought, she realized. To slowly but completely have all good manners breached, every constraint waived, each norm undone, every prohibition flouted. For once, to expose all of me to someone and have all of him exposed to me, to consent to everything and have everything consented to. She stood there searching her mind for inhibitions to surrender, almost calculating which violation of convention would be the sweetest.

  Tom moved to the edge of the bed and began undressing her. She was wearing a blue-grey Glengarry plaid blouse and matching skirt under a blue blazer, black medium-height heels, dark stockings, no jewellery. Without first removing the blazer, he carefully unbuttoned the blouse till it reached the skirt. No full slip, but a black bra that was mainly lace. “How did you know?” he asked.

  “All men like black underwear.”

  Tom now took off the blazer, and Liz began to unbuckle the belt at her waist. “Don’t help,” he admonished as he pulled the belt through its loops. Then he reached to her side to unbutton the skirt. It slid to the ground, revealing a black half-slip, which Tom tugged till it was below her hips and fell freely to the floor. The panties were black too. Now he unbuttoned the cuffs at her sleeves and, walking around her, helped her out of the blouse. In a moment she would be almost as undressed as he was.