Chapter 6. Going Up, Going Down
The interviews at Oxford were scheduled for the following Tuesday, so I had to beg a day off at W H Smith just a couple of weeks after I'd started, which didn't go down well. Prospective candidates who had passed the entrance exam and were expected to get the necessary 'A'-level grades were invited to come up to the college on Monday for a look around and stay overnight in rooms recently vacated by many of the students. It was nearing the end of the summer term for the University and a lot of the final year group were already off, job-seeking or already working.
Jill had told me that her husband would be taking her away for the weekend, so I spent the time thinking of likely interview questions - and trying not to think about my recent sexual encounters with my teacher. The 'interview practice' had taught me to focus on what I had to offer the college, not just my personal reasons for being there, but it had also imprinted in my mind an indelible image of Jill Dawson, her stockinged legs spread wide, her pink pussy glistening, her hard nipples pointing at me, and the sound of her whispering 'Fuck me!' in my ear. It was going to be hard to shift that image.
On the Monday, I caught an early train to Oxford, arriving around nine-thirty. It's a remarkable city, and I spent some time just wandering around, admiring the architecture, the obvious history - and the pretty women. Yes, it was a warm day in July and the remaining students seemed to be dressed skimpily. I spent an hour at the brilliant Ashmolean Museum, then had a coffee in their café before heading to the college. They were expecting me, and a man in a suit and a bowler hat showed me to a room that was small but comfortable enough, if a little dark. The building was hundreds of years old, and there was a lot of exposed stone, wood panelling and elaborate plaster.
They'd laid on a buffet lunch and a tour of the college in the afternoon. We were all given name badges, and I spent a lot of the time checking out my fellow students. Some of them read 'Tarquin This-and-that' or 'Arabella So-and-so' - and they were usually hyphenated. These weren't names that you regularly found on a council estate, at least, not in those days. Given their accents, most seemed to have been privately educated, some clearly from the most exclusive places like Eton, Harrow and Charterhouse that, for some bizarre reason, are called 'Public Schools' in Britain. I took an instant dislike to several of them, whose entitlement seemed to be stamped on their foreheads.
Among them, however, were several interesting young women. I couldn't help noticing a sexy blonde, with big blue eyes and big curvy tits under a very tight top, bearing the name badge 'Yolanda'. It wasn't clear whether she was on my course, but I felt it was worth seeking her out later.
The evening schedule was a cocktail reception at six-thirty, a 'welcome talk' at seven, and then dinner at seven-thirty. I'd brought a dinner jacket, a dress shirt and bow tie, as indicated. The reception was impressive. My school had a fairly 'up-market' vibe to it; it was a Grammar school that had resisted becoming a Comprehensive, despite huge pressure from the Department of Education and the local authority, largely thanks to some influential and gobby parents. 'School dances' - we didn't call them 'proms' in those days - involved guys and girls dressing up, so I had the kit. But my clothes came from Moss Bros. Looking around, there were plenty of designer labels among the other prospective students. Some of their families clearly had serious money.
I'd had a couple of cocktails - I have no idea what they were, but back then, if there was free alcohol, I was up for it - when someone who was introduced as Professor Edmonds got up and did quite a boring speech about college traditions and how they were moving the whole culture toward the 21
st
Century which, then, wasn't that far off. Frankly, I looked at him and the people who surrounded him - mostly crusty men in their fifties or older - and thought 'No, that's never going to happen. These people are still living in the 19
th
Century, so they'll never make a leap like that.' But hey, the free booze was good and, in those surroundings, with the opportunity to be part of one of the most renowned universities in the world, I couldn't fail to be impressed by it all.
I found the seating plan for dinner and was delighted to see that Yolanda was meant to sit next to me. However, the girl who occupied that chair introduced herself as Phoebe.
"Hi," I said, trying to be casual but disappointed that my planned dinner companion hadn't materialised. "I'm Richard. There was a girl called Yolanda who I understood was meant to be sitting there. Do you know her?"
"Sort of. We met on the train coming here. She asked if we could exchange places. There's someone she wanted to sit next to and I was happy to oblige." She smiled. "I hope you're not disappointed." Her voice betrayed a privileged upbringing - but that was true of almost everyone I'd met.
I took a moment to appraise her. Phoebe was quite tall, almost painfully skinny, and wore huge glasses. Her skin looked pale against the dark emerald colour of her expensive-looking halter-necked dress, and her slightly unruly dark-brown hair seemed to want to escape from the attempt at coiffure she had managed. Her face was more 'interesting' than 'pretty', but there was something about her animated features that drew my attention.
"Er, no, not at all," I said - trying to not sound disappointed.
But it turned out that Phoebe was fun. She talked a lot, about stuff that interested me and stuff that I never thought would interest me but did. She was into philosophy, literature, the history of art - and politics, which she was planning to study. Her dad was a property developer, seemingly worth a lot of money, who had been a Tory MP and had risen to the rank of junior minister, but had become disillusioned; or, as I suspected, had been caught having an affair with his secretary. Phoebe wasn't forthcoming on the subject, but I vaguely recalled the name from the newspapers. And her politics seemed to be the polar opposite of her father's.
"I hate privilege," she told me. "Well, yah, I know I'm, like, really privileged myself but, you see, it's time for people like me to break the mould, open up opportunities for the less well-off. I've been reading Das Kapital and Thomas Paine and it all makes sense."
Her expression seemed quite sincere, and despite what sounded like her making political gestures, I liked her. I also noticed that her clingy dress emphasized the fact that her breasts were tiny, but that the conical nipples were very prominent. I was intrigued.
The meal seemed excellent by my relatively prole-ish standards at the time. I recall a soup, some roast meat, some slightly overcooked vegetables and a lot of wine. I don't know whether it was the college's idea to get us all drunk so we'd be hungover for the interviews in the morning, but whenever a bottle on the table emptied, it was miraculously replaced.
After dinner, we had to sit through another tedious speech by one of the college luminaries. When he - and these people all seemed to be men - had finally droned to a conclusion, Phoebe turned to me.
"What's your room like?"
"Oh, OK I suppose. What about yours?"
"Actually, pretty spectacular. Would you like me to show you?"
I don't know if anyone noticed us leaving, 'liberating' an almost full bottle of Bordeaux that nobody at our table seemed to be interested in, but we giggled our way across the quad to the narrow staircase that led up to the room she'd been allocated. I let Phoebe go first, largely so I could admire her rather skinny arse in her clingy dress. I was impressed by the room. I dropped my DJ and bowtie on a chair and went to join her at the window.
