Chapter 7: Running on Empty
Home!
Odysseus had struggled, relentless, for ten years to regain his. Several literary notches down, Scarlett O’Hara had sacrificed at least two old nags and no change of costume to get back to hers. But they were extreme cases.
For most of us, no more test is needed of what home means than getting back to it after a mere foray out to the local supermarket.
Still, having to switch airports three times, then stay up all night talking to some stranger (Why did I do thatω), then hang around waiting for your suitcase (Please God, let it arrive), then go through Customs (That other line is going faster), then catch the bus to Oxford (Where’s my bookω) - well, enough to try even Odysseus.
All the more reason why I was particularly happy to regain what was currently my home, this little flat1 – even if it was rather closer to the cyclop’s cave than Tara. Not that I noticed. I loved it. All I cared about was getting back to it and finding it in one piece, was itω
I unlocked the door, looked in, the music swelled: it was.
I promised to tell you how I had come by that flat.
That time is now.
Taking it was not mere whim. (Is anythingω)
Nor did it belong to me. I was there on sufferance and only for as long as it would take the owner to get her PhD elsewhere and reclaim it.
This stipulation, in itself, did not put me off; indeed, I was used to it. As I had specialized in the taking on of part-time jobs which together eked out a living – jobs in bookshops, for example, which I liked, and as a teacher, which I didn’t - my homes, since leaving college, had always been unleased apartments in areas (my one criteria) that had at least once been charming.
Sometimes, as this one, the apartments were already furnished, a test of my ability to turn what wasn’t my own into my own. I became quite good at it. (Favourite tricks: cut-offs from old Orientals, white sheets for curtains, books and more books, enough candles to light Notre Dame, and not minding in the least kitchen equipment that the landlord hadn’t replaced since the year dot, the kitchenω What kitchenω)
Sometimes, the owners allowed pets. Sometimes, I would think about getting one. (In my nightly orisons, as a child, I used to include our dog.) Then I would forget it, impractical.
This flat, the one I was now in, I had heard about through an absolutely glorious young girl who had been a fellow student on the course – Eliza her name was. And Eliza had an equally glorious English boyfriend (could you dieω) who knew the owner of the flat and that she was just now about to put it on the market for sublet (two years, possibly three) to an ‘appropriate` person.
Eliza thought of me. This, not only because she considered me at least reasonably appropriate (look, I floss, I write thank you notes, what more do you wantω) but also because I had been so excited for her, staying on in this amazing place and with Nigel (even his name, so perfect! right up there with Algernon) - she thought maybe, if I had the cghance, I could stay on, too.
A chance she gave me. Tracked me down at breakfast via the college porter two days before I was to leave for America, one more useless certificate the richer.
“Mary!”, Eliza had said, “Listen to this!” The words at the other end of the phone coming tumbling out, all about a sublet, terrific, great location, do it! The only thing was, if I didn`t take it now, right now, somebody else would.
I was caught totally offguard.
I went back to the hall2. Sat. Finished my now tepid coffee. (I don't even remember if there was anyone else there. Surely there was, someone, clearing away the dishes, must have been.)
Sublet a flatω Nowω Right nowω The whole idea was ...
I looked around the room, this stage set come to life with myself a transient player: the High Table, the old brass Van Eyck chandeliers, the portraits of sequential Masters, the light coming through the high Gothic windows to play on the walls opposite. And outside, as I well knew, a broad street flanked by buildings older than America and lined with plane trees.
Odysseus was not alone in hearing siren calls.
Lacking beeswax to shut them out, what I had instead was common sense. I had always had that. Everyone said so - an in-built safeguard against an impetuous nature.
And it generally worked. Anyway, pretty well. It worked by coming along at the first whiff of trouble and instantly flooding over siren calls of whatever sort with all the reasons why whatever it was wasn’t possible. As now.
Watch: "You can`t do this. You already have an apartment (not bad, either). A lover you love (don`t ask if he loves you). Friends (lots). Jobs lined up (two!). A VW bug (paid for).
Besides, that’s what one does; one goes home.
I shut my eyes.
Then got up abruptly from the refectory table and started running across the Quad. I had to go back up to my room. I had so much to do. Pack. Collect my mail. (No, I had already done that; what I meant was ... was whatω Oh, yes, collect my passport, that`s what I meant. And there was something else, too, what was itω)
And then, oblivious even to a sudden shower, I unaccountably slowed down, then stopped altogether, then equally unaccountably broke into a run again, finally tearing up the worn stone steps of Staircase 2 - in the process brushing past God knows how many illustrious ghosts (Oscar Wildeω Evelyn Waughω Gravesω Audenω "Bloody Americans!").
But what if that home had emptiedω
I sat on my bed, the better to get out of the way of the aged scout (read: cleaner) - that ancient and venerable institution of the colleges - mine now busily doing up quite what I can’t say, my equally ancient and venerable room being so small.
“Don’t mind me” I said. “No, Miss” (Bill called everyone Miss regardless of age), who knows but dusting me off, lost in thought, along with everything else.
Of my close family, both my parents had died. I had not been able, in spite of best efforts (years in my mother’s case), to protect them from death (think that little gold figure of Selket in Tutankhamen’s tomb, the one spreading out her arms to enclose in a protective gesture that had proved as futile as mine).
That left one sibling, Charlie – ‘Doc’ Charlie, Pa had proudly called him (the name had stuck, no fault of Charlie`s). But he, himself, actually lived hundreds of miles away forging a proper career, a life.
No more family, then, to stay put for – not unless you counted a hundred cousins at the 4th remove.
And did Iω And, if so, how muchω As little as I had seen them over the years, they were cousins whose ties were somehow more than merely consanguineous – all our ancestors had carved out that rich farm land together, some arriving there even before the Revolutionary War, who knows howω Wagon trainω Down river from St Louisω Up river from New Orleansω Down the Ohioω All their land locked next to mine and each others in a crazy-quilt pattern generations old, ownership only rarely changing hands.
Still, my ties to all my cousins had loosened, even those to Doc Charlie, since all those years ago when most all of us had been sent away to school, with Charlie and me never really going back, the way it was.
(Brief interruption from Bill: “Where do you want me to put them thingsω” I snapped to, put what whereω Oh, of course - my wet shoes. “In the loo3, I guess, thanks, Bill.” He picked up my suitcases, “Yes, Miss.”)
As for boyfriends (the word ‘partner’ had not yet come into vogue), oh, please! All that long way back starting from the little boy next door (front row seats at the Saturday afternoon westerns), then the cousin all our parents wanted all of us to marry (I didn’t even make the first cut); on to the Yalie (Sartre, Camus, etc), to the actor, Method (long on ‘workshops’, short on parts); back South to the doctor (big ugly house in the ‘burbs), the teacher (particularly good on compare/contrast); the artist (Divine! I would have married him now, this minute! If only his wife hadn’t objected!). As for the situation now, well, I had been here six weeks. And in six weeks, two letters. Two.
All right, how about friends, that mainstay of my life (wherever you are, all of you, know that), what of themω
Some, it is true, were there forever til death do we die; but all too many (marriage, remarriage, jobs) were one-by-one scattering.
Of course, I, too, could move. I could move to where Doc Charlie lived. He had even offered to help set me up in my own bookshop. That would supplement my income and free me from those school rooms filled with teen-age boys hanging from the ceiling.
Tempting.
But (mind flooding technique kicking in) what did I (or Doc Charlie, for that matter) know about businessω And then there were these new book chains, too. Worrying.
I couldn’t see it.
What I could see in that particular scenario, a role I could very probably grow into all too well: the Maiden Aunt. Auntie Mary as Auntie Mame.
I closed my eyes. It was not a role I was ready to buy into - whatever the security, the pension, the life.
(“Well, that’s it, Miss, you still here tomorrowω” “Whatω Oh, yes!” I looked at my little bedside clock. “It’s 8.45.” “Thank you, Miss.” “Thank you.")
I listened as Bill’s steps receded down the narrow passageway. Right now he would be doing up the room that Eliza had left the day before. Day after tomorrow, he would be doing up mine.
Was I the only one still hereω
Except for Bill, there were none of the usual familiar sounds - the friendly melee of voices coming up the stone stairwell, the radios on, the laughter.
And then I heard Bill, himself, leave, job finished - the door at the bottom of the stairwell slamming shut after him.
And then there was no sound at all.
English weather! Here it was, only August and my hands were freezing!
I put them over my face: this flat, what was I going to doω
I felt panicked. Had all I done with my life was paint myself into a cornerω
The tips of my fingers dug into my forehead, then relaxed as I buried my face in my hands.
When I would finally drop my hands, the palms were wet.
All right then, however crazy, crunch time: money. For the first time ever, I actually had a bit, small legacies, farm rent. Use it!
I stood up.
I would call Eliza back.
Besides, maybe the owner wouldn’t think I was appropriate at all, funny hair, funny clothes (who knew what appropriate was in the Kingdom of the Dons).
And so it was that the very next day, I found myself (pasty-faced from lack of sleep) walking up the Kingston Road past neat red-brick Victorian houses whose windows eyed me as I passed by, who are youω
Almost at its end, I looked up at a tall narrow house whose number matched the paper in my hand, 78.
I looked for Flat A. Flat A was the one with the large bay window. Flat A was just up those short front steps with the door on the left.
All I had to do was walk up those short front steps and knock.
You`d think it would have been easy.
You`d think, at my age, that I wouldn`t be worrying about my hair, my fingernails, my shoes.
You`d think that walking up those steps wouldn`t have felt like a mountain, that I wouldn`t have had to take a deep breath merely to knock on a door.
Still, many cups of tea later, I would walk back out of 78a, down steps that this time I barely knew were there, and fairly fly past windows (a scowl from 71, a wink from 62) on a street which would soon be my own.
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1. Flat vs apartment: easy. They mean the same thing but if it`s in America, it`s `apartment` and if it`s in Britain, it`s `flat`. I have no idea why; I just accept it (when in Rome, etc).
2. The hall: no, not a corridor; in this case, it`s the term used for the communal dining room in the various colleges which make up Oxford University as a whole. (It gets worse: the Hall is also the term used for a country house - sometimes grand, sometimes not, eg, Thornfield Hall in Jane Eyre.) On the other hand, sometimes `hall` just means `hall`. You just have to do your best.
3. The loo: useful British word for bathroom. (They use the term `bathroom`, curiously enough, only when it actually has a bathtub in it.) As for the rest, ‘lavatory’ and ‘WC’ are old hat; ‘toilet’ is Town Council.