Oxford Times by Jamie Whelan

Oxford Times

Sunday morning, 5 am.

The pasty morning sun was coming up over Magdalen Bridge. Great Tom was just finishing its chime, awakening a dozen more distant sluggards. Oxford’s own dawn chorus was vainly attempting to rouse the sleeping city. A tall, fair-haired young man in his early twenties leant forward over the stone parapet and stared down at the river below. An unseasonably stiff breeze, all that remained of the night’ s storms, ruffled the grey-black surface, sending gently pulsating concentric circles of water from the middle of the shallow channel to the banks of the Cherwell and away out of sight under the central span of the bridge.

He stood immobile, fixed in thought, the collar of his long black overcoat turned up to ward off the morning chill, his black-tie dangling loose in the wind, beneath his crumpled dress-shirt. A twothirds empty champagne bottle teetered precariously on the mossy stone next to him.

‘Bugger, bugger, bugger…’ He shivered, less to dispel the effects of the cold than in an attempt to cast off some unwelcome memory. His arm suddenly shot out at right-angles, sending the bottle spinning down into the river, spewing out the frothing remains of the previous night’s revelry, a dying comet, which fizzled out as it collided with the chilled waters.

An oddly ancient-looking white and orange milk-float whirred past on its way back to its base on the eastern outskirts of the city, its day already ended, before that of the good citizens of Oxford had even begun. Its contents were now distributed in twos and threes around the centre of the city, cold, white, glass sentinels, dripping with condensation, standing stiffly guard outside porter’s lodges and in the doorways of the small shops eking out their cautiously optimistic existence along the High, lined up too on the steps of the drab

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student houses in Long Wall and of their prettier and better attired cousins in Holywell Street.

He had left the college ball early, after the fight with Charly. The extended set with John and Mark had gone really well; they had finished playing at half-past midnight. The audience had been small but appreciative; people from his own college had turned up to support them, some out of curiosity and others because they were mates. Both groups had come across at the end to give over-excited praise in that loud and uninhibited manner only possible after the consumption of excessive amounts of alcohol. He had been simultaneously flattered and embarrassed by their excesses. John and Mark had withdrawn into the background as usual, to agonise over the minor imperfections of their performance, a duff note here, a slightly mistimed entrance there. Charly had come in with ‘the bitch’ , Jennifer double-barrelled- pain-in-the-arse. They had both been drinking.

‘Where the fuck were you this morning? You promised me that you ’d help get the food for the picnic tomorrow. I was waiting for you for half-an hour in Cornmarket. I tried ringing you - I texted twice - I suppose you were sleeping off the hangover from last night.’

The accusatory tone had become increasingly familiar of late and he had become resigned to its manner of delivery; with Charly’ s professed outrage at his behaviour supported by the head-shaking and disgusted expression of pain-in-the-backside, looking as if she were about to projectile-vomit in his direction. Why was it that they always seemed to come at you in pairs when they wanted to eviscerate you - why couldn’t these two just stick to watching over each other’ s handbags in the loo, instead of unloading twin barrels point-blank between the eyes, at every perceived slight or imagined offence to their dignity.

‘Sorry, the alarm didn’t go off and I’d forgotten to charge the phone’ , he mumbled, excuses which had seemed more than adequately feeble

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to him, even before they had left his lips. Later in the evening they had had a real stand-up row following these opening skirmishes. The stupid thing, though, was that he couldn’t be arsed. Not-being-arsed had become a state of being of late - he couldn’t put a date on when this had started, it had crept up on him slowly and stealthily. The excitement and the novelty of the first year at university, the desire to immerse himself in this new-life, to establish himself, to seize every outlet for his undoubted talents, to dazzle all before him with charm and brilliance, had imperceptibly given way to a feeling of insecurity, of self-doubt. Outwardly he had seemed the same; he still collected the key to the practice room in college, playing for two hours a day on the Steinway. Although his improvisational technique sounded better and better to all those who heard him play, behind the sparkle of the technique lay an increasing dissatisfaction, a sense that he was going through the motions, that his real self was dislocated, hovering over him and shaking its head in disapproval at the fraud he was perpetrating. On the positive side, it would be fair to say that he still got a buzz from the reaction to his performances with the jazz trio and from the audience for the various termly college and university drama productions, into and out of which he slid effortlessly and chameleon-like.

It was the same with Charly. She was the latest in a succession of bright, attractive girls, butterflies, who alighted in front of him without any apparent move on his part to attract them, and who flew off again, as soon as the mask of his easy charm had worn thin enough to expose the indifference beneath. Once, naively, he had looked forward to meeting the one, the soul-mate, who would validate his existence. The heady exhilaration of his early relationships had given way to dull resignation in the face of the apparent inevitability of a cycle of brief happiness followed by infinitely longer-lasting pain. This was where the alcohol came in.

As he turned away from the bridge towards the High, an oldfashioned, tall dark maroon double-decker bus approached him, the high-pitched whine of its epicyclic gear-box all but drowning out the

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slow rattle of its diesel engine as it accelerated away from the lights in the High. He was struck by its quaint triangular motif on the slatted vertical grille and the black and white ‘FC’ number-plate. He glanced up at the driver, expecting to see a middle-aged man in flat cap and oversized woolly jumper at the wheel, on his way to some rally in the Midlands. This driver was a much younger man, however, wearing a grey uniform with a red circular disc hanging from the breast pocket. There was also another man dressed in a conductor’s uniform standing on the open rear platform. The latter touched his cap in greeting as the bus passed. Apart from him the lower-deck was empty, and the route indicator blind gave the unhelpful destination ‘Depot Only’. Head pounding, he ambled unsteadily on a hundred yards or so up the High and turned right into a narrow lane leading to his college.

St Stephen’s Hall was not one of the richer colleges but it was by general reputation one of the most welcoming; a down-to-earth sort of place, far removed from the febrile atmosphere of some of its richer and more academically competitive neighbours. The low constricted entrance led past the porter’s lodge into a small quadrangle, which looked like a third-scale model, left behind, after its founder had had a sudden change of mind and decided to construct the real college elsewhere. An ivy-covered sundial hung proudly from the wall to his left, whilst at the centre of the quad in the middle of the lawn, lay a well, which for decades had suffered unspeakable iniquities after many a cuppers dinner, for, if St Stephen’s was not in the very top flight academically, it took great pride in its achievements in the Iffley Road and the Parks. Indeed the illustrious sporting traditions of the college had long since been embraced by its female members, whose performances now often equalled or even outshone those of the men. It was also gaining a reputation for encouraging the creative and dramatic talents of its undergraduates. A new and dynamic master, a respected and able Oxford scientist was attempting to move the college forward, using entrepreneurial skills honed by ten years in America, by encouraging

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alumni and others alike in an heroic but probably doomed attempt to invest in the future.

‘Mr Worthy, haven’t you forgotten your key, sir?’ The porter stuck his head out of the window of the lodge.

Luke Worthy turned and stared. Puzzled, his head was still fuzzy but he vaguely remembered he didn’t need a key - he got into his room using the hotel pattern credit card he always kept in his pocket.

‘Here you are sir,’ said the porter, handing him a Yale key. ‘Had a good night, sir? Did the concert go well?’

Luke tried to place the overly polite porter who was apparently on such familiar terms with him, but failed to do so. Since when had a porter called him ‘sir’? ‘Bloody head!’ he said to himself as he unsteadily crossed the quad. Still a few hours sleep and a cup of strong black coffee would soon sort him out.

As he crossed the empty quad, a Labrador shot out of one of the staircases opposite. A lanky patrician figure in a deerstalker jacket and green corduroys emerged from the shadows, a chain with a light brown pierced leather grip wrapped tightly around his right hand.

‘Come back here, you daft bugger’, he boomed.

The young dog took no notice at first, bounding up to the well and sniffing at its base, before the inevitable took place. The tall man used this momentary pause to catch up with the dog and clip the lead to its collar. He then turned towards Luke and fixing him with a hawk-like gaze, wished him good morning. Luke looked up and slurred a response.

‘The Dean must have some even odder people than usual staying with him’, he muttered to himself.

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He emerged from the archway on the other side of the quad. Just ahead of him were the twin modern tower-blocks, now about thirty years old, with a large dining hall beneath the nearer of the two. He turned right into the staircase and trudged up the four flights of stairs to his room on the top floor. He was immediately struck by the overpowering smell of the green dimpled rubber flooring on the steps and in the dimly-lit corridor outside his room.

‘What the…’ He had just arrived at his door but there was something wrong. The security lock was gone and in its place was a brass circular Yale pattern device.

‘Someone’s playing a stupid joke,’ he muttered.

He then remembered the key the porter had given him when he had entered the college. Putting it in the lock, it turned and he entered his room. The thick curtains were still drawn but they let in just enough light for him to see the peg to hang up his coat and jacket. Throwing the rest of his clothes on the floor, he collapsed onto the bed and instantaneously fell asleep.

Jamie Whelan

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