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CHAPTER SEVEN
2 – 3 pm
LEARNING MORE ABOUT YOU
March 2010 – Oxford
Tom picked up a stone from the small pile he had assembled between
his feet and threw it as hard as he could. He could never get enough
whip on it. That was the problem, he was sure. Undeterred, he
picked up another and tried again.
‘Imagine if you had to do blue plaques for the life of Tom Murray,’
Esme had said, when explaining the idea to him a couple of years
ago, when they had given up on the idea of a hot-weather holiday
because neither of them could afford it. ‘Where would they be?’
‘What do you mean, blue plaques?’
‘Those round memorial plates they stick on the side of buildings
where someone super important or famous lived. Johnny Important,
Scientist, Lived here in 1881.’
‘Right. But I don’t have any.’
‘Of course you don’t. But if you did, where would they be?’
‘I dunno. Lowestoft, probably. London. I don’t get how it relates
to us.’
‘It’s a way of getting to know each other. Instead of taking nice
holidays, we visit places that we’ve lived or loved.’
‘So we go to Lowestoft instead of Tenerife?’
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‘Sort of.’
Still, Tom didn’t get it, so insisted that Esme start. She chose a trip to Leicester, taken in February 2008, which took in her old school,
the library she spent so many hours in, as well as the café she had
run away to when her Oxford acceptance letter arrived, so she could
open it away from the prying eyes of her parents.
Tom, for his part, had chosen Norwich. The scene of his best gigs
in amateur bands, his first Saturday job in a branch of a music shop,
and the hill he had careened down out of control on a skateboard,
before colliding with a parked car and breaking his nose, the result
of which remained in the form of a slight bump on its bridge.
Later, a tour of Lowestoft comprised primarily of his old schools,
friends’ homes and the sites of a few carefully selected childhood
moments. Birmingham told him more about Esme’s teenage years
in the Midlands.
Every one of these day trips would start with a journey around
the chosen town on the top deck of a bus, followed by a visit to three or four important places, like former homes or sites of significant
events. Budget tours for people who wanted to know each other
inside out.
This time they were in University Parks in Oxford. Standing on
the bank of the River Cherwell, where Tom was trying (and failing)
to skim stones.
‘Shit,’ he said, as another stone clipped the water and sank
immediately.
‘I think that might’ve been two bounces,’ Esme said cheerfully.
‘Stop being so nice,’ he said, picking up a perfect skimmer:
smooth, round, about the size of a watch face. He threw it again,
watching on in hope as it flew fast, and sank instantly again.
‘But it’s just so tragic standing here watching you try to skim
stones. It’s like some sort of mating dance.’
‘Thank God it isn’t. I’d be an eternal virgin.’
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‘Tom! People might hear you.’
‘What? We’re at a university full of clever people who were good
at school. I’d say a good proportion of them are worried about being
eternal virgins.’
She punched his arm, more shocked and embarrassed than before.
‘I just can’t work out why I can’t do it. Some people just chuck
any old rock and it bounces, like, twenty times.’
‘I’m not sure why you care.’
‘I think you’re trying too hard.’
‘It said online—’
‘You looked up how to skim stones online?’
‘Um . . .’
‘Bloody hell, Tom. That is quite something,’ Esme said. ‘Maybe
it’s a man thing?’ she questioned. ‘If you can’t grow a beard, skim
stones or own a shed, you’ll never truly be masculine.’
‘Probably,’ Tom said. ‘I also can’t do more than five keepy-ups
with a football.’
‘You should stop talking. I’m finding you less and less attractive
with every new revelation. I might go and try my luck with one of
the lads over there,’ she said, pointing towards what Tom assumed
was a university sports team running sprints between two sets of
cones.
‘The rugger buggers?’
‘I bet they can skim stones and were good at school. Brains and brawn, Tom. It’s what every girl wants.’
‘Hush it,’ Tom said, throwing one more, so hard that it avoided
the water altogether and landed on the opposite bank of the river.
Esme started laughing.
‘Right. Enough of this,’ he said, grumpily dumping the rest into
the river. ‘Where’s next?’
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‘I think halls. Who knows, if we’re stealthy we might even be able to go up to my old room,’ she said, taking Tom’s hand. ‘This way.’
Esme led him back through the park to where the bus had
dropped them off near the centre of town. They walked in con-
templative silence, taking in the nascent buds on the trees, crocuses
dotting the ground, and the green shoots that would soon sprout
into daffodils. It was quiet, except for a few runners, dog walkers
and one or two who he assumed were students.
Esme looked as happy as Tom had seen her as they strolled
around the walks. Despite her claims that she never really fitted in
at university, she had toured him around the city with a confidence
and warmth that suggested Oxford was once a place she had found
real comfort in. It was beautiful to see.
It was quite the opposite of their visit to her home city, where
she’d mixed normal memories of childhood and teenage life (‘here’s
where I broke up with my first ever boyfriend’), with the more
sinister: the park in which she first saw her dad kissing a woman she
didn’t recognise; the McDonald’s outside which three school bullies
cycled past and threw a drink at her. Those bits of Esme’s life it broke his heart to think about.
‘The people who choose to stay in the town they grew up in
are always the cool, popular kids at school,’ Esme had said, after
recounting that particular story. ‘Everyone else has to flee, to escape the memories.’
‘And the cool kids eventually become the losers, right?’
‘Ideal y. Maybe it’s a fifteen-minutes-of-fame kind of thing. Every-
one gets one period in their life when they’re cool. Some people use
it up at school. Some at university. Some have to wait until they’re
older.’
‘Have you had your time yet?’
‘I suppose that’s for others to say,’ Esme had said.
Now, as they walked onto Parks Road, Tom was sure that Esme’s
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time – her prime even – happened here. Among the architecture, the intelligence and the education she so venerated. He could easily
envision a younger version of her joining societies, at which she
would state her forthright position on whatever it was, from wine
and books to the failure of neoliberalism under Tony Blair. He played
out scenes of her walking through colleges on crisp autumnal days,
scarf thrown loosely around her neck. Although he took the piss a
bit, these were all things he wished he had been around to see – the
very point of these day trips, really.
‘Here,’ Esme said, as they crossed over the road to arrive at Keble
College. She immediately provided Tom with the college’s potted
history, taking on the mantle of an unofficial tour guide with a
walking tour that touched on controversial architecture, the size
of the student body, University Chal enge wins and notable former students. She flashed her alumni card at a woman dressed in security
garb waiting on the gate, walked under the arch of the porter’s lodge
and out into the pristine grass quads and Gothic buildings of the
university.
‘Jesus, Esme. You lived here?’ Tom said, with incredulity.
‘Sort of. Most people’s dorms are over there,’ she said, pointing at
a comparatively disappointing, perfunctory new building that Tom
was disappointed to see disturb the flow of the old and ivy-clad. ‘We
took seminars and tutorials here. It’s nice isn’t it?’
‘A bit Brideshead Revisited, isn’t it?’ he said, a bit shocked by his first real glimpse behind the curtain of this particular kind of elite higher education.
‘You’ve read Brideshead Revisited?’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Well, half of it. You gave it to me.’
‘Name three characters,’ Esme said.
‘Fine. I only read a quarter. And the Wikipedia page.’
Esme laughed. The happiness at being back here was writ large
across her face and seemed to lift her whole body. She threw her blue, 99
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white and red crested college scarf around her neck and set off into the college grounds. They made one full circuit of the largest quad,
criss-crossed through the middle of the lawns and toured the library,
Esme pointing out various noteworthy features as they wandered.
‘And this,’ she said as they arrived at a fairly nondescript part of
the college, ‘is the bench where I first met Jamilla.’ Esme presented
the bench like a magician finishing a trick, causing the girl currently sitting on it to look at them strangely, get up, and leave. ‘I thought something bad had happened to her. But really she’d just drunk
a shitload of Aftershock and was trying to hide from the CCTV
because she was throwing up on the quad.’
‘Good,’ said Tom, half listening.
‘Why’s that good?’
‘Sorry. I didn’t mean good. I meant—’
‘Are you bored?’
‘No! Es, really no. Far from it.’
‘Well, you weren’t really listening. We can go if you want?’
‘Honestly, no. It’s just that so far you’ve told me all about your
mates, where famous people lived and that bloke in your year who
became a TV presenter. But I want to know more about you, Es.
Your time here. You looked so happy when we came in.’
‘Okay,’ she said uncertainly. ‘I mean, I’m not sure there’s much
to say.’
‘Give me a typical day.’
‘Just like any, I suppose. Breakfast in halls. Tutorials. Seminars.
Lunch. Reading. Dinner. Pub. More reading.’
‘I’m not sure that’s like any other. For a start, I doubt most
students do that much reading. Or have breakfast in halls.’
‘Well, no.’
‘What about the societies, then? Drama, book groups, sports?’
‘You know about the drama.’
‘Well, where was it based?’
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‘Over there somewhere,’ she said, throwing her arm in the direction of the city centre.
She looked strangely dispirited. The confidence and joy that was
so obvious when they’d walked over from the park was gone and
replaced by a kind of reticence.
‘What’s up, Es?’
‘Look. I just don’t want you to have an unrealistic view of what
my time was like here,’ she said, taking a seat on the bench. ‘I was
a bit of a swot, to be honest. I didn’t go out much, only had a few
friends. Mainly I came to work and I did. It may not have been the
stereotypical Oxbridge experience. But it was my experience.’
‘That’s fine—’
‘And I loved it, Tom. I really, really loved it. Every day. I know
for some people uni is all about the experience and meeting a load
of people and getting blind drunk. But I was here for the education.
And I know that sounds really boring and square, but—’
‘It’s fine. It’s good, Es. More people should be like that,’ Tom said, bringing her close to him. ‘Sorry. I suppose when you brought me
here I was expecting all the stories of your uni days. All the things
you hear about Oxford and Cambridge, like the balls and societies
and that.’
‘The balls are like a hundred quid to get in. Basically, only the
future bankers and lawyers go to the balls.’
‘I literally thought they were free.’
Esme shook her head sadly. ‘Nope. Everyone else goes to the pub.’
‘Come on,’ she said, leading him off the bench and back onto
the paths, where current students walked busily past them, talking
into mobile phones or to each other in little groups. ‘If you care so
much I’ll show you where I lived.’
As soon as she said it, Tom felt a little spark of panic. He almost
regretted asking her for a more personal version of her history here.
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his first time back in a university halls building for almost nine years.
Tom checked his watch, half hoping that they’d run out of time, so
he could suggest skipping it. But it had only just gone twenty to
three.
Esme took him around the side of another Gothic building and
towards a modern block, sneaking in the front door before anyone
paid them too much attention. She moved through the corridors
quickly, muscle memory guiding her. Their footsteps on the cold
linoleum floor echoed off the scuffed walls. They went up one set
of stairs, halfway down another corridor and eventually arrived at
room 119.
‘This was me,’ she said, looking a little wistfully at the door of
her old dorm. ‘I used to have a little sign saying ESME.’
Tom stared at the door. Now the only feature of any note was a
small scrap of Christmas tinsel dangling from a piece of Sellotape.
The similarities to his old room at university were striking. The
smell of the place was familia
r: bleach-washed floors and stale air.
It even looked the same. The white walls of corridors, dented and
marked over the years, occasionally interrupted by noticeboards
advertising gigs, or displaying warnings about student behaviour
and fire safety.
Although he barely remembered anything of it, there were things
he’d pieced together from what others had told him: a history of
that night cobbled together from guesswork and his own fragments
of memory.
It happened around 10 p.m., that much he knew. He was dis-
covered by an engineering undergrad named John. They’d heard
groaning and retching from his room. Two months after the event,
Tom was sent the bill for repairs to the door the paramedics had to
break down to get to him.
Beyond that, he knew very little.
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There was a faint recollection of a gurney’s squeaking wheels; the blue-red lights and blurred onlookers.
He couldn’t go back to university after that. His steady decline
from party animal to suicide risk was complete. And even if he had
returned the following year and surrounded himself with a new set of
students, Tom knew word would work its way around. Universities
were like that. Before long the quiet, introspective twenty-year-old
music student would become a cautionary tale of unchecked excess
– an example of the need for student counselling facilities.
Besides, he didn’t want to return. That part of his life had closed
that final night of term before the Easter holidays. It wasn’t for him.
And things were better for it, he was certain.
‘You alright?’ she said.
‘Fine.’
‘You don’t look fine.’
‘I’m fine,’ he said.
‘Okay,’ Esme said, taken aback by the force in his voice.
Tom leant up against the wall. Esme took his hand and leant in
close.
‘Is everything okay, Tom? You’ve gone really pale.’
‘I’m . . . I’m okay. Don’t worry,’ he said, trying to collect himself, aware that he was on the verge of ruining what had been a nice day.
‘Where’s next?’
‘I thought I’d show you my favourite pub. It’s not far. The—’
‘Actually, could we not?’ Tom said. ‘Maybe just a coffee or some-
thing.’
Esme still looked uncertain, confused.
‘Of course,’ she said, taking his hand. For a moment he wished