Chapter 8: 78a Kingston Road
For a long time, months, 78a Kingston Road would not only be the centre of my world, it would almost be its entirety. I was, after all, effectively speaking, starting from scratch.
As this was the case, you might like to know what my new home looked like there in North Oxford, the very Kingdom of the Dons1.
If so, let me talk you through the same mini tour on which Cristiana, the flat’s owner, took me - if only after our second cup of tea (Darjeeling) and before (third cup) actually offering me the flat and even well before (a tiny glass of sherry just to seal the agreement) tossing out, free, that she was the daughter of an Italian contessa, while her father may, or may not, have been one of the very icons of the French cinema. (I am sorry to say that I absolutely lapped all this up - that and the fact that Cristiana’s fingernails were even less appropriate than mine.)
But to business.
Before the house had been broken up into flats, 78a had been the drawing room2 and so had stretched the full length and breadth of the house, front to back.
Since then, however, developers had further divided the space with an intervening wall, the better to turn its second reincarnation as a comparatively lowly one-room studio (‘Spacious rm, North Oxford’) into a two-room flat (‘Bijou flat, must see to believe’). This instantly further reduced that once proud drawing room to a mere sitting room3 while the newly created back room, with its lilliput loo4 just off it, was everything else.
For all the developers little tricks, however, the space managed to retain at least some of its dignity - and here Cristiana had pointed to the delicate egg-and-dart moulding surrounding the high ceiling, the dark mahogany floors, as well as the clear outline of what had once been a large fireplace on adjacent sides of the dividing wall.
The sitting room had, in addition, that same large bay window that had peered back at me not long before with such an inscrutable face. Still, it couldn’t help being proud; it was important enough, if only just, to be able to converse on something like equal terms with the considerably grander stained-glass window immediately opposite belonging to St Margaret’s Church.
So far so good. Nothing here that I was not used to one way or another – change Victorian to ‘Vintage Building’, brick to clapboard, ‘bijou’ to ‘compact’, keep the egg-and-dart, keep the ghost of the fireplace.
After that, however, it was my first glimpse into the rarefied new world that was North Oxford for all that it began only a few streets up from where I had just spent the entire summer.
Although I didn’t know it at the time, the flat was decorated in a style which I would come to recognize instantly as Early Don - Cristiana was only just starting out, after all, on her academic career - with the later versions thereof, Middle and Late Don, merely larger and grander (attached house, interesting pottery) and much larger and much grander (unattached house, important glass).
But as you may be new to this style, let me elaborate (you won’t find this in Lonely Planet): other than an anglepoise lamp, a miniscule television, an assortment of mugs, copious books, and a couple of large white paper globes to cover bare ceiling bulbs, there was almost nothing in this flat that was new or that matched anything else - period furniture sat happily beside secondhand castaways, floral patterns beside stripes, chipped China beside cracked porcelain, linen beside velvet beside cat hair.
Predictably enough, this decorative style included Cristiana, herself - forget the aquiline nose and the short curly brown hair of a Raphael cherub.
This was because most of her clothes, I would eventually find out, came from her favourite branch of a charity shop much loved by the denizens of North Oxford, however high on whatever ladder, male or female, called Oxfam. And into which they would all disappear, rummage about, and then surface all smiles with prizes that almost fit, almost matched, only missed two buttons, can you believe only £5? (I could.)
To give but one example, Cristiana’s own outfit that day: a long uneven chiffon skirt in a floral print over which a big floppy wool sweater in a singular colour, a pair of monster black Mary Janes, and long dangling earrings. All this while I sat there opposite her all matched up within an inch of my life.
But I have digressed. Apologies.
In the front room next to the bay window was an old library table which Cristiana used as her desk and on which a typewriter (remember them?), a phone (“Caro! Non posso parlare adesso ma … “), all of which were surrounded by the usual mountains of pens, papers, paper clips, staplers, even Tipp-ex (remember it?) – and all relieved only slightly by a little vase of white roses that had seen better days, a red plastic cat that waved an upright paw, and a large ashtray filled with cigarette butts - Marlboros to be exact. (I noticed because I would have given my soul for one.)
In front of the desk was the armchair on which Cristiana had sat and performed the requisite tea-pouring ceremony with, in this case, an assortment of rag-tag implements – an old China tea pot (into which two tea bags), two mugs (hers with Primrose Hill, wherever that was, emblazoned across), a little ramekin standing in for a sugar bowl, a jug of milk, a couple of silver spoons complete with crest, plus a small plate of tiny biscuits5 so dry that without the tea I couldn’t have swallowed.
Opposite Cristiana was the two-seater sofa (faded slipcover, sprung cushion) on which I had gingerly perched, me and that mug.
Across from me and behind Cristiana, a cat (‘Arno’ she would call him) sat all hunched up on one of the book shelves along the back wall, staring at me with the same cool regard as the owner.
Over the tea, Cristiana had made light conversation (the weather, the tourists) to which I had responded in kind (the gardens, the bookshops). But through which she had interlaced the real questions, What was my field (“Field?”) and Was I here on sabbatical (“Sabbatical?”), with each reply the two pairs of eyes looking at me narrowing ever more.
I picked up my mug again. Pretended to drink.
Why didn’t she just ask me right off if, job or no job, I could guarantee the rent? Did she think I couldn`t? She probably thought I couldn`t.
I put down my mug. This was hopeless.
Throw the dice, I thought. Why not? I didn’t want this flat anyway, absurd, all of it.
I told her the truth. I didn’t have a job. Anyway, not a proper job. I had my BA. And an MA. But that’s as far as it went. I had been picking up teaching jobs here and there, History, Art History. Wasn’t any good at it. Was trying to find something maybe I was good at. But, for all that, I could, definitely could, pay the rent.
Arno looked away.
As did Cristiana. I could see it in her face. It just didn’t add up. Too big a risk. Didn`t blame her.
She got up. “Let me show you the rest of the flat.”
But first, we would both have to play out the game.
Cristiana would have to pretend that I was under consideration but that there were others she had promised to interview, as well. And I would have to pretend that I believed her.
And then, after dutifully showing me the flat, Cristiana would tell me how lovely it had been to meet me. And how she would be in touch. And then we would shake hands. And then we would say Goodbye. And that would be that.
Fine. What was I doing here anyway?
I got up and followed Cristiana into the back room wherein the everything else was in the usual combination of old (a drop leaf table flanked by a couple of chairs, a little Welsh dresser) and new (anyway, newish) – in the far left corner, a tiny ‘fridge’ along with an equally tiny cooker, two hobs, and a sink. (I wanted to laugh; it all made my own kitchen look positively cutting edge.)
Also new(ish), a single bed stretched along one wall – a bed narrow enough not to take up too much space, as well as to encourage even the strictest vows of chastity.
This bed was separated from the ‘kitchen’ by a small insignificant window (whereon Arno had suddenly reappeared as if by magic on the sill, how’d he do that?), but which was nonetheless close enough to the ‘kitchen’ so that I bet one could, with a bit of elastic manoeuvring, have breakfast in bed without actually having to go to the trouble of leaving the bed.
Above this bed was a large purpose-built square box that began at the ceiling and ended roughly two feet above the end of the bed.
“Inside that, Cristiana said, pointing up, “is the boiler”.
She said it matter-of-factly, as if that were an every day occurrence. Perhaps it was.
This boiler, she explained, heated the water for both the sink and the adjacent lilliput loo but not, alas, the flat, itself. For that, you had to put coins, one by one, in this little machine over here, one that looked like a gumdrop machine but which dispensed not gumdrops but heat, if in gumdrop size.
I nodded, as if I understood.
We then turned back towards the sitting room and the end of the game - my cue to thank Cristiana for the tea, then hers to tell me how lovely it was to have met me.
As I turned, however, I paused just long enough in front of that small insignificant window to stroke, on impulse, Arno’s sleek little black head. But, insodoing, looked up at a view so unexpected that I forgot my line.
It was a series of views, each one meltingly beautiful, each one unfolding seamlessly into and out of each other - this, all the long way back as far as the eye could see.
Follow this: behind Arno, Immediately outside, looking down, was a long narrow garden separated from its neighbours by high old brick walls which supported a mass of climbing white roses.
Between the walls was a tiny orchard, four apple trees, two abreast (apples lying scattered at their base). Behind them, two pear trees.
Beyond the pear trees a little dark green potting shed.
Beyond the potting shed, just visible through the trees, a long narrow boat painted gypsy-red making its slow progress along a canal which ran directly behind the bottom of the garden.
Beyond the canal, a vast meadow on which I could see, just see, horses and cows grazing.
After I have no idea how long, Cristiana’s voice broke the silence.
“Beyond this side of the meadow”, she said, “even though you can’t see it from here, there is a branch of the Thames. They call it the Isis.”
The Isis.
While I looked that huge tide which had been doing its job so well to flood my mind with all the reasons why I didn’t want this flat anyway had receded out of sight even beyond the farthest reaches of the meadow. Just like that.
I shut my eyes. Then wheeled around, I had to find my voice!
Crisitiana was now holding Arno. And both were looking at me.
Then she smiled; a prelude, of course, to showing me to the door.
“Could I interest you, she asked, in a glass of sherry?”
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1. The Dons: ‘A don is a fellow or tutor of a college or university, esp trad collegiate universities such as Oxford and Cambridge.’ In short, a teacher. (So why don’t they just say that? I don’t know.)
2.The drawing room: the most formal room in a substantial house. One where nobody ever sits.
3. Sitting room: where everybody sits. Either there or in the kitchen.
4. Loo: you know this one already.
5. Biscuits. American ‘cookies’. Americans are well-known in Britain for our love of cookies, especially of chocolate chip cookies, of which I, myself, am a connoisseur. The British preference is for something called ‘digestives’. Which taste about like what you’d expect.