My Oxford Year
Page 22

He nods like this is the answer he was seeking, as if this one—the romantic childhood notion—is the reasonable and plausible explanation. I just hope he’s not inclined to ask why I promised myself. Luckily, he isn’t. But he does ask, “Why literature, though? Wouldn’t PPE have been a better option?” PPE. Philosophy, politics, and economics. What every politico studies here.
“Probably,” I answer truthfully, continuing to sip my beer. “But why do what I’ve already done? At Georgetown. In life.” Then, before I can stop it, “Besides, I wanted a year of . . . of beauty, I guess. A year of humanity’s better nature.” I cringe. “Sorry, that sounds corny. I’ve never said it out loud before.”
He shakes his head adamantly. “It’s admirable. Not corny.” His overpronunciation of the word betrays his unfamiliarity with it and in that moment I find him so disarmingly attractive that my mouth goes dry. He stares at me.
I look away. “My turn.” But now I hesitate, unsure I want to ask him this after all. But then he says, “Please,” in that voice of his and it just falls out of me. “Why don’t you read the whole book? I mean, aren’t you even the least bit curious? There’s more to sex than sex, right?”
He studies me even more intently. I look down at the almost empty pint glass in front of me. I’ve lost count. I push it away, then blurt, “I’m not a prude, you know.”
“I didn’t think you were,” he murmurs, as if he’s thought about this. Thought about me. “Not having your heart broken and not being a prude aren’t the same thing, are they?”
Exactly. I want to say this out loud, but I can’t find my voice. See, this is what happens when you drink too much. You end up in a snug having an obtuse conversation with your tutor about sex you can only half follow.
He pauses, almost drains his beer. A lazy smile crosses his face. “We’ve a saying in the English faculty. Sex is literature, literature is sex.”
“Metaphorically?”
“Elementally. If you’re reading something, and you ask yourself, is this about sex, the answer’s yes. It’s always yes. Because everything is sex and sex is everything. It’s love, and lust, and intimacy, yes, but it’s also power, and violence, and domination. Hell, it’s creation. Genesis. The beginning of everything.”
“The big bang.”
He laughs, then continues. “It’s the nexus of the human experience. Therefore it’s at the root of everything man has ever written. I think we sometimes have to remind ourselves of that. We get so consumed with digging down, burrowing into the prose, that we forget what the story’s actually about.”
“Sex.”
He tips his glass to me like it’s a fedora in a 1940s movie and finishes his last swallow.
He sets it back down and faces me with a satisfied smile. About what I’m not sure. We sit in silence. The bar has grown quiet, the snug warm. Jamie’s gone still, watching me. I open my mouth, but Jamie’s phone rings once again. I glance down, expecting to see “Dad.” It reads “Mum.”
Jamie’s jaw clenches. “Damn him.”
“I can wait outside.”
“No, absolutely not.” This time, he shuts his phone off and puts it in his jacket pocket. “Trust me, it’s nothing pressing. Just bothersome.”
We look at each other. For too long.
I check my watch. “I need to go.”
He stands abruptly. “Right. You have a thing tomorrow.”
“Yes. Right.” I stand, too. I pick up my phone, happy that Gavin has stayed away. “What do I owe you?”
He looks scandalized. “Oh God, nothing.” I open my mouth to argue. “They never let me pay, it’s family here.”
I’m sure he’s lying, but I’d rather not delay this exit any further. So I pick up my pint glass and ask, “Do we just leave it or—”
Jamie takes it from me, his fingers interlacing with mine. “I’ve got it.” It takes me a second to release the glass.
We leave the snug and the cool air of the pub refreshes me. Jamie drops our glassware off at the counter and I wave to Lizzie and Bernard and Ricky. This place was perfect. I’ll definitely be back. If I can ever find it again, that is. I move toward the exit and hear, “I’ll walk out with you.” He catches up to me.
I stop with my hand on the door handle. “Oh, you don’t have to leave.”
“I have a thing tomorrow as well.” I risk a glance at him. He must see the doubt on my face. “Truly. I have an early lecture. My days of going to lectures still drunk are long over, I’m afraid.” He gives me a wry grin and I push open the door.
It’s still drizzling and the street is empty. Jamie approaches the curb and turns to face oncoming traffic, searching for headlights, for the boxy black body of an encroaching cab.
“What’s it on?” I ask, testing him.
“Sorry?”
“Your lecture. Tomorrow?”
“Oh, you know.” He sighs. “Tennyson. He’s my subject.” He pops his hand into the air as a cab continues past us.
“Why Tennyson?” I ask. “Why not, I don’t know . . . Byron? Keats? Shelley?”
Jamie raises a shoulder. “I’m not a Romantic.”
There’s stillness between us. “Tell me about him. Tennyson. The man.”
He seems relieved to speak of something other than himself. “Well, let’s see. Fourth child in a family of twelve. Daddy issues. Went to Cambridge, wrote poetry, found acclaim, wore a sombrero and cape.”
“Sounds colorful.”
“But he was a complicated, difficult man. He suffered a trauma in his early twenties. His best friend, Arthur Hallam, died.” Jamie rolls his eyes. “Best friend. That’s an inadequate designation. They were more like . . .”
“Brothers?”
Jamie shakes his head. “He had brothers.”
“Lovers?”
“Some say. I never found proof. I think it’s a convenience for people who can’t understand the depth of their connection. The loss of a platonic love doesn’t bring one to one’s knees for almost two decades. It doesn’t keep one from living one’s life, shutting people out, writing almost exclusively about death and grief for seventeen years. Damn cabbies!” Another one whizzes past his outstretched hand.
“Should we just walk? I can handle the rain.”
“It’s much too far. I’ll get one for you soon enough.” I want to say, What if I don’t want one? But I don’t. Happily, he continues.
“Tennyson didn’t even marry until he was forty-one, and when he did, it was to the woman he’d been engaged to when Hallam died. The woman who Hallam had thought would be good for him. They had two sons. And, of course, named the eldest Hallam.” Jamie’s hand pops into the air yet again, but another cab, full to overflowing with rowdy students, sails past. He looks at me. “Do you mind if we share a taxi? It’s enough of a challenge to get one, let alone two.”
“Sure.” I shrug. “So what’s your work on, specifically?” No longer just making conversation, I’m enjoying the conversation.
“My dissertation was on In Memoriam, the grief poems. I was looking at one of Tennyson’s rather specific physical details and how it might have affected his poetry.”