“Simon!” I shouted. “I refuse!”
This is how I came to be standing in St. Aldate’s on a rainy Friday morning in the third week of Michaelmas term, drizzle dripping off my nose, waiting for Simon’s car to be brought around, wondering how he did it.
We were both graduate students, Simon and I. We shared rooms, in fact. But where Simon had only to whisper into the phone and his car arrived when and where he wanted it, I couldn’t even get the porter to let me lean my poor, battered bicycle against the gate for half a minute while I checked my mail. Rank hath its privileges, I guess.
Nor did the gulf between us end there. While I was little above medium height, with a build that, before the mirror, could only be described as weedy, Simon was tall and regally slim, well muscled, yet trim—the build of an Olympic fencer. The face I displayed to the world boasted plain, somewhat lumpen features, crowned with a lackluster mat the color of old walnut shells. Simon’s features were sharp, well cut, and clean; he had the kind of thick, dark, curly hair women admire and openly covet. My eyes were mouse gray; his were hazel. My chin drooped; his jutted.
The effect when we appeared in public together was, I imagine, much in the order of a live before-and-after advertisement for Nature’s Own Wonder Vitamins & Handsome Tonic. He had good looks to burn and the sort of rugged and ruthless masculinity both sexes find appealing. I had the kind of looks that often improve with age, although it was doubtful that I should live so long.
A lesser man would have been jealous of Simon’s bounteous good fortune. However, I accepted my lot and was content. All right, I was jealous too—but it was a very contented jealousy.
Anyway, there we were, the two of us, standing in the rain, traffic whizzing by, buses disgorging soggy passengers on the busy pavement around us, and me muttering in lame protest. “This is dumb. It’s stupid. It’s childish and irresponsible, that’s what it is. It’s nuts.”
“You’re right, of course,” he agreed affably. Rain pearled on his driving cap and trickled down his waxed-cotton shooting jacket.
“We can’t just drop everything and go racing around the country on a whim.” I crossed my arms inside my plastic poncho. “I don’t know how I let you talk me into these things.”
“It’s my utterly irresistible charm, old son.” He grinned disarmingly. “We Rawnsons have bags of it.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Where’s your spirit of adventure?” My lack of adventurous spirit was something he always threw at me whenever he wanted me to go along with one of his lunatic exploits. I preferred to see myself as stable, steady-handed, a both-feet-on-the-ground, practical-as-pie realist through and through.
“It’s not that,” I quibbled. “I just don’t need to lose four days of work for nothing.”
“It’s Friday,” he reminded me. “It’s the weekend. We’ll be back on Monday in plenty of time for your precious work.”
“We haven’t even packed toothbrushes or a change of underwear,” I pointed out.
“Very well,” he sighed, as if I had beaten him down at last, “you’ve made your point. If you don’t wish to go, I won’t force you.”
“Good.”
“I’ll go alone.” He stepped into the street just as a gray Jaguar Sovereign purred to a halt in front of him. A man in a black bowler hat scrambled from the driver’s seat and held the door for him.
“Thank you, Mr. Bates,” Simon said. The man touched the brim of his hat and hurried away to the porters’ lodge. Simon glanced at me across the rain-beaded roof of the sleek automobile and smiled. “Well, chum? Going to let me have all the fun alone?”
“Curse you, Simon!” I shouted, yanked the door open, and ducked in. “I don’t need this!”
Laughing, Simon slid in and slammed the door. He shifted into gear, then punched the accelerator to the floor. The tires squealed on the wet pavement as the car leapt forward. Simon yanked the wheel and executed a highly illegal U-turn in the middle of the street, to the blaring of bus horns and the curses of cyclists.
Heaven help us, we were off.
2
DOOM ON
THE HALFSHELL
There are worse things than cruising up the M6 in a Jaguar Sovereign with Handel’s Water Music bathing the ragged aural nerve ends. The car tops ninety without a murmur, without a shimmy. Silent landscape glides by effortlessly. Cool leather imparts a loving embrace. Tinted glass shades the wayworn eye. The interior cocoons, cushioning the passenger from the shocks and alarms of the road. It is a fabulous machine. I would throttle a rhinoceros to own one.
Simon’s father, a merchant banker of some obscure stripe and well on the way to a lordship one day, had bought it for his son. In much the same way, he was buying Simon a top-drawer Oxford education. Nothing but the best for dear Simey.
The Rawnsons had money. Oh yes, they did. Piles of the stuff. Some of it old; most of it new. They also enjoyed that singular attribute prized by the English above all others: breeding. Simon’s great-grandmother was a duchess. His grandmother had married a lord who raised racehorses and once sold a Derby winner to Queen Victoria, thereby ensuring fame and fortune forevermore. Simon’s family was one of those quietly respectable tribes that marry shrewdly and end up owning Cornwall, the Lake District, and half of Buckinghamshire before anyone has noticed. All of which made Simon a spoiled brat, of course.
I think, in another day and age, Simon might have been sublimely happy idling away in a honey-stoned manor house in the Midlands, training horses and hounds, and playing the country squire. But he knew too much now to be content with a life of bag balm and jodhpurs. Alas, education had ruined that cozy scenario for him.
If any man was ever untimely born, it was Simon Rawnson. All the same, he could not suppress that aristocratic strain; it declared itself in the very warp and woof of him. I could see the lad as the lord of vast estates, as a duke with scurrying minions and a stately pile in Sussex. But not as an academic. Not for Simon the ivied halls and dreaming spires. Simon lacked the all-consuming passion of the great scholar and the ambition necessary to survive the narrow cut and thrust of academic infighting. In short, he had a genuine aptitude for academic work but no real need to succeed at it. As a result, he did not take his work seriously enough.
He wasn’t a slouch. Nor was it a matter of simply buying his sheepskin with Daddy’s fat checkbook. Simon had rightly won his pride of place with a particularly brilliant undergraduate career. But as a third-year doctoral candidate, he was finding it too much work. What did he want with a degree in history anyway? He had no intention of conducting any original research, and teaching was the furthest thing from his mind. He had no higher academic aspirations at all. Two years into the program, Simon was simply going through the motions. Lately, he wasn’t even doing that.
I had seen it happening—seen the glittering prize slipping away from him as he began to shirk his studies. It was a model case of graduate burnout. One sees it often enough in Oxford and comes to recognize the symptoms. Then again, maybe Simon just aimed to protract his university experience as long as possible since he had nothing else planned. It is true that with money, college can be a cushy life. Even without money it’s better than most things going.
I did not blame Simon; I felt sorry for him. I don’t know what I would have done in his place. Like a lot of American students in Oxford, however, I had to justify my existence at every turn. I desperately wanted my degree, and I could not be seen to fail. I could not allow myself to be shipped back across the pond with my tail tucked between my legs. Thus, I had a built-in drive to achieve and to succeed that Simon would never possess, nor properly understand.
That, as I think of it, was one of the principal differences between us: I have had to scrape for every small crumb I have enjoyed, while Simon does not know the meaning of the word “strive.” Everything he had—everything he was—had been given him, granted outright. Everything he ever wanted came to him freely, without merit. People made allowanc
es for Simon Rawnson simply because of who he was. No one made allowances for Lewis Gillies. Ever. What little I had—and it was scant indeed—at least was mine because I had earned it. Merit was an alien concept in Simon’s universe. It was the central fact of mine.
Yet, despite our differences, we were friends. Right from the start, when we drew next-door rooms on the same staircase that first year, we knew we would get on together. Simon had no brothers, so he “adopted” me as such. We spent our undergraduate days sampling the golden nectar of the vats at The Turf, rowing on the river, giving the girls a bad time, and generally behaving as well as anyone might expect untethered Oxford men to behave.
I don’t mean to make it sound as if we were wastrels and rakes. We studied when we had to and passed the exams we had to pass with the marks we needed. We were, simply, neither more nor less serious than any two typical undergraduate students.
Upon graduation I applied for a place in the Celtic Studies program and was accepted. Being the only student from my hometown high school ever to attend Oxford, let alone graduate, was A Very Big Deal. It was written up in the local paper to the delight of my sponsors, the American Legion Post Forty-three, who, in a giddy rush of self-congratulation, granted me a healthy stipend for books and expenses. I hustled around and scrounged a small grant to cover the rest, and, Presto! I was in business.
Simon thought an advanced degree sounded like a splendid idea, so he went in for history—though why that and not astrophysics or animal husbandry or anything else is beyond me. But, as I said, he had a good brain under his bonnet, and his advisers seemed to think he’d make out all right. He was even offered rooms in college—a most highly sought-after situation. Places for undergrad students are scarce enough, but rooms for graduates are out of the question for any but the truly prized individual.
Privilege again, I suppose. Simon’s father, Geoffrey Rawnson, of Blackledge, Rawnson, and Symes Ltd., no doubt had something to do with it. But who was I to complain? Top of the staircase and furnished with a goodly share of the college’s priceless antiques—no less than three Italian Renaissance masterpieces, carved oak paneling, Tiffany tables, a crystal chandelier, two Chippendale desks, and a red leather davenport. Nor did the regal appointments end there; we had a meticulous scout, good meals in the dining hall fortified with liberal doses of passable plonk from the college cellarer’s legendary cellars, modest use of student assistants, library privileges undergrads would kill for—all that and a splendid view across the quad to the cathedral spire. Where would I get a situation like that on my own?
Simon wanted us to continue on together as before, so he arranged for me to share his rooms. I think he saw it as three or four more years of bachelor bliss. Easy for him. Money was no object. He could well afford to dither and dally till doomsday, but I had my hands full just keeping up with the fees. It was imperative that I finish, get my degree, and land a teaching position as quickly as possible. I dearly loved Oxford, but I had student loans to repay and a family back in the States who had begun wondering loudly and often if they were ever going to see me again.
Also, I was rapidly reaching an age where marriage—or at least concubinage—appealed. I was tired of my prolonged celibacy, tired of wending my weary way along life’s cold corridors alone. I longed for the civilizing influence of a woman in my crude existence, as well as a graceful female form in my bed.
This is why I resented taking this absurd trip with Simon. I was neck-deep in my thesis: The Influence of Goidelic Cosmography in Medieval Travel Literature. Lately, I had begun to sense fresh wind on my face and the faint glimmer of light ahead. Confidence was feebly sprouting. I was coming to the end at last. Maybe.
It is likely Simon realized this and, perhaps unconsciously, set out to sabotage me. He simply didn’t want our good times to end. If I completed my degree ahead of him, he would have to face the cruel world alone—a prospect he sought to hold off as long as humanly possible. So he contrived all sorts of ingenious stratagems for sidetracking me.
This asinine aurochs business was just another delaying tactic. Why did I go along with it? Why did I allow him to do this to me?
The truth? Maybe I didn’t really want to finish, either. Deep down, I was afraid—of failure, of facing the great unknown beyond the ivory towers of academia. After all, if I didn’t finish, I wouldn’t fail; if I didn’t finish, I could just live in my snug little womb forever. It’s sick, I know. But it’s the truth, and a far more common malady among academics than most people realize. The university system is founded on it, after all.
“Move yer bloomin’ arse!” muttered Simon at the driver of a dangerously overloaded mini. “Get over, you great pillock.” He had been muttering for the last fifty miles or so. A six-mile traffic jam around Manchester had put us well and truly behind schedule, and the motorway traffic was beginning to get to him. I glanced at the clock on the dash: three forty-seven. Digital clocks are symptomatic of our ambivalent age; they provide the precise time to the nanosecond, but no greater context: an infinite succession of “You Are Here” arrows, but nary a map.
“It’s almost four o’clock,” I pointed out. “Why not take a break and get some tea? There’s a service area coming up.”
He nodded. “Yeah, sure. I could do with a pee.”
A few minutes later, Simon worked his way over to the exit lane and we were coasting into an M6 oasis. The parking lot was jammed; everyone had rolled up for tea. And many of them were having it inside their cars. I have always wondered about this peculiar habit. Why would these people spend hour upon hour driving and then pull into a rest area only to stay locked in their cars with the windows rolled up, eating sandwiches from a shoebox and drinking tepid tea from a thermos? Not my idea of a welcome break.
We parked, locked the car, and walked to the low brick bunker. A foul gray sky sprinkled drizzle on us, and a brisk diesel-scented wind drove it into our clothes. “Oh, please, no,” Simon moaned.
“What’s wrong?”
He lifted a dismissive hand to the much-abused blue plastic letters affixed to the gray concrete wall facing us. The gesture was pure disdain. “It’s a Motorman Inn—they’re the worst.”
We shuffled into the gents. It was damp and filthy. Evidently some misguided rustic had herded diarrhetic cattle through the place and the management had yet to come to terms with the crisis. We finished our business quickly and retreated to the concourse where we proceeded past a gang of black-leathered bandits loitering before a bank of screeching kill-or-be-killed arcade games. The cheerful thugs tried to beg loose change from us, but Simon imperiously ignored them, and we pushed through the glass door and into the cafeteria.
There was a queue, of course, and the cakes were stale and the biscuits shopworn. In the end, I settled for a Twix bar and a mug of tea. Simon, on the other hand, confessed to feeling puckish and ordered chicken and chips, apple crumble and cream, and a coffee.
I found us a table and, having paid, Simon folded himself into the booth opposite me. The room was loud with the clank of cutlery and rank with cigarette smoke. The floor beneath our table was slimy with mashed peas. “Too utterly grotesque,” groaned Simon, but not without a certain grim satisfaction. “A real pigsty. The Motormaniacs strike again.”
I sipped my tea. The balance of milk to brew had been seriously overestimated, but never mind; it was hot. “You want me to drive a while? I’m happy to spell you.”
Simon dashed brown vinegar from a satchet over his chicken and chips. He speared a long sliver of potato; the soggy digit dangled limply from his fork. He glared at it in disgust before popping it into his mouth, then slowly turned his basilisk gaze toward the food counter and the kitchen beyond. “These subliterate drones have no higher challenge to their vestigial mental faculties than to dip over-processed potatoes into warm oil,” he said icily. “You’d think they’d get it right eventually—the laws of chance, if nothing else.”
I didn’t want to get involved, so I unwrapped my T
wix and broke off a piece. “How much farther to Inverness, do you reckon?”
Writing off the chips as a total loss, Simon moved on to the chicken, grimacing as he wrestled a strip of woody flesh from the carcass. “Putrid,” was his verdict. “I don’t mind it being lukewarm, but I hate congealed chicken. It should have been chucked in the bin hours ago.” He shoved the plate aside violently, scattering greasy chips across the table.
“The apple whatsit looks good,” I observed, more out of pity than conviction.
Simon pulled the bowl to him and tested the contents with a spoon. He made a face and spat the mouthful back into the bowl. “Nauseating,” he declared. “England produces the finest apples on the planet, and these malfeasant cretins use infectious tinned refuse from some flyblown police state. Moreover, we stand amidst dairy-land which is the envy of the free world, a land veritably flowing with milk and honey, but what do we get? Freeze-dried vegi-milk substitute reconstituted with dishwater. It’s criminal.”
“It’s road food, Simon. Forget it.”
“It’s stupid bloody-mindedness,” he replied, taking up the bowl and lifting it high. I was afraid he was going to fling it across the room. Instead, he overturned it ceremoniously upon the offending chicken and greasy chips. He pulled his coffee to him, and I offered him half of my chocolate bar, hoping to pacify.
“I don’t mind the money,” he said softly. “I don’t mind throwing money away—I do that all the time. What I mind is the cynicism.”
“Cynicism?” I wondered. “Highway robbery, perhaps, but I wouldn’t call it cynicism.”
“My dear fellow, that’s exactly what it is. You see, the thieving blighters know they have you—you’re trapped here on the motorway. You can’t simply stroll along to the competitor next door. You’re tired, need a respite from the road. They put up this façade and pretend to offer you succor and sustenance. But it’s a lie. They offer swill and offal, and we have to take it. They know we won’t say anything. We’re English! We don’t like to make a fuss. We take whatever we’re given, because, really, we don’t deserve any better. The smarmy brigands know this, and they wield it like a bludgeon. I call that bloody cynical.”