My Oxford Year: A Novel

Chapter 1

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough

In England—now!

Robert Browning, Home-Thoughts, from Abroad, 1845

Next!"

The customs agent beckons the person in front of me and I approach the big red line, absently toeing the curling tape, resting my hand on the gleaming pipe railing. No adjustable ropes at Heathrow, apparently; these lines must always be long if they require permanent demarcation.

My phone, which I’ve been tapping against my leg, rings. I glance at the screen. I don’t know the number.

Hello? I answer.

Is this Eleanor Durran?

Yes?

This is Gavin Brookdale.

My first thought is that this is a prank call. Gavin Brookdale just stepped down as White House chief of staff. He’s run every major political campaign of the last twenty years. He’s a legend. He’s my idol. He’s calling me?

Hello?

Sorry, I—I’m here, I stammer. I’m just—

Have you heard of Janet Wilkes?

Have I heard of—Janet Wilkes is the junior senator from Florida and a dark-horse candidate for president. She’s forty-five, lost her husband twelve years ago in Afghanistan, raised three kids on a teacher’s salary while somehow putting herself through law school, and then ran the most impressive grassroots senatorial campaign I’ve ever seen. She also has the hottest human-rights-attorney boyfriend I’ve ever seen, but that’s beside the point. She’s a Gold Star Wife who’s a progressive firebrand on social issues. We’ve never seen anyone like her on the national stage before. The first debate isn’t for another two weeks, on October 13, but voters seem to love her: she’s polling third in a field of twelve. Candidate Number Two is not long for the race; a Case of the Jilted Mistress(es). Number One, however, happens to be the current vice president, George Hillerson, whom Gavin Brookdale (if the Washington gossip mill is accurate) loathes. Still, even the notoriously mercurial Brookdale wouldn’t back a losing horse like Wilkes just to spite the presumptive nominee. If nothing else, Gavin Brookdale likes to win. Of course I’ve heard of her.

"She read your piece in The Atlantic. We both did. ‘The Art of Education and the Death of the Thinking American Electorate.’ We were impressed."

Thank you, I say, gushing. It was something I felt was missing from the discourse—

What you wrote was philosophy. It wasn’t policy.

This brings me up short. I understand why you’d think that, but I—

Don’t worry, I know you have the policy chops. I know you won Ohio for Janey Bennett. The 138th for Carl Moseley. You’re a talented young lady, Eleanor.

Mr. Brookdale—

Call me Gavin.

Then call me Ella. No one calls me Eleanor.

All right, Ella, would you like to be the education consultant for Wilkes’s campaign?

Silence.

Hello?

Yes! I bleat. Yes, of course! She’s incredible—

Great. Come down to my office today and we’ll read you in.

All the breath leaves my body. I can’t seem to get it back. So . . . here’s the thing. I—I’m in England.

Fine, when you get back.

 . . . I get back in June.

Silence.

Are you consulting over there?

No, I have a . . . I got a Rhodes and I’m doing a—

Gavin chortles. I was a Rhodie.

I know, sir.

Gavin.

Gavin.

What are you studying?

English language and literature 1830 to 1914.

Beat. Why?

Because I want to? Why does it come out as a question?

"You don’t need it. Getting the Rhodes is what matters. Doing it is meaningless, especially in literature from 1830 to 19-whatever. The only reason you wanted it was to help you get that life-changing political job, right? Well, I’m giving that to you. So come home and let’s get down to business."

Next!

A customs agent—stone-faced, turbaned, impressive beard—waves me forward. I take one step over the line, but hold a finger up to him. He’s not even looking at me. Gavin, can I call—

She’s going to be the nominee, Ella. It’s going to be the fight of my life and I need all hands—including yours—on deck, but we’re going to do it.

He’s delusional. But, my God, what if he’s right? A shiver of excitement snakes through me. Gavin—

Listen, I’ve always backed the winning candidate, but I have never backed someone who I personally, deeply, wanted to win.

Miss? Now the customs agent looks at me.

Gavin chuckles at my silence. I don’t want to have to convince you, if you don’t feel—

I can work from here. Before he can argue, I continue: I will make myself available at all hours. I will make Wilkes my priority. Behind me, a bloated, red-faced businessman reeking of gin moves to squeeze around me. I head him off, grabbing the railing, saying into the phone, I had two jobs in college while volunteering in field offices and coordinating multiple city council runs. I worked two winning congressional campaigns last year while helping to shape the education budget for Ohio. I can certainly consult for you while reading books and writing about them occasionally.

Miss! the customs agent barks. Hang up the phone or step aside. I hold my finger up higher (as if visibility is the problem) and widen my stance over the line.

What’s your set date for coming home? Gavin asks.

June eleventh. I already have a ticket. Seat 32A.

Miss! Both the customs agent and the man bark at me.

I look down at the red line between my sprawled feet. Gavin, I’m straddling the North Atlantic right now. I literally have one foot in England and one in America and if I don’t hang up they’ll—

I’ll call you back.

He disconnects.

What does that mean? What do I do? Numbly, I hurry to the immigration window, coming face to face with the dour agent. I adopt my best beauty-pageant smile and speak in the chagrined, gee-whiz tone I know he expects. I am so sorry, sir, my sincerest apologies. My mom’s—

Passport. He’s back to not looking at me. I’m getting the passive-aggressive treatment now. I hand over my brand-new passport with the crisp, unstamped pages. Purpose of visit?

Study.

For how long will you be in the country?

I pause. I glance down at the dark, unhelpful screen of my phone. I . . . I don’t know.

Now he looks up at me.

A year, I say. Screw it. An academic year.

Where?

Oxford. Saying the word out loud cuts through everything else. My smile becomes genuine. He asks me more questions, and I suppose I answer, but all I can think is: I’m here. This is actually happening. Everything has come together according to plan.

He stamps my passport, hands it back, lifts his hand to the line.

Next!

WHEN I WAS thirteen I read an article in Seventeen magazine called My Once-in-a-Lifetime Experience, and it was a personal account of an American girl’s year abroad at Oxford. The classes, the students, the parks, the pubs, even the chip shop (pictured, bottom left) seemed like another world. Like slipping through a wormhole into a universe where things were ordered and people were dignified and the buildings were older than my entire country. I suppose thirteen is an important age in every girl’s life, but for me, growing up in the middle of nowhere, with a family that had fallen apart? I needed something to hold on to. I needed inspiration. I needed hope. The girl who wrote the article had been transformed. Oxford had unlocked her life and I was convinced that it would be the key to mine.

So I had made a plan: get to Oxford.

After going through more customs checkpoints, I follow signs for the Central Bus Terminal and find an automatic ticket kiosk. The £ sign before the amount looks so much better, more civilized, more historical than the American dollar sign, which always seems overly suggestive to me. Like it should be flashing in sequential neon lights above a strip club. $-$-$. GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS!

The kiosk’s screen asks me if I want a discounted return ticket (I assume that means round trip), and I pause. My flight back to Washington is on June 11, barely sixteen hours after the official end of Trinity Term. I have no plans to return to the States before then, instead I’m staying here over the two long vacations (in December and March) and traveling. In fact, I already have my December itinerary all planned. I purchase the return ticket, then cross to a bench to wait for the next bus.

My phone dings and I look down. An e-mail from the Rhodes Foundation reminding me about the orientation tomorrow morning.

For whatever reason, out of all the academic scholarships in the world, most people seem to have heard of the Rhodes. It’s not the only prestigious scholarship to be had, but it’s the one that I wanted. Every year, America sends thirty-two of its most overachieving, über-competitive, social-climbing, do-gooder nerds to Oxford. It’s mostly associated with geniuses, power players, global leaders. Let me demystify this: to get a Rhodes, you have to be slightly unhinged. You have to have a stellar GPA, excel in multiple courses of study, be socially entrepreneurial, charity-minded, and athletically proficient (though the last time I did anything remotely athletic I knocked out Jimmy Brighton’s front tooth with a foul ball, so take that criterion with a grain of salt). I could have gone after other scholarships. There’s the Marshall, the Fulbright, the Watson, but the Rhodies are my people. They’re the planners.

The other finalist selected from my district (a math/econ/classics triple major and Olympic archer who had discovered that applying game theory to negotiations with known terrorists makes the intel 147 percent more reliable), told me, I’ve been working toward getting a Rhodes since freshman year. To which I replied, Me too. He clarified, Of high school. To which I replied, Me too.

While, yes, the Rhodes is a golden ticket to Oxford, it’s also a built-in network and the means to my political future. It ensures that people who would have otherwise discounted me—this unconnected girl from the soybean fields of Ohio—will take a second, serious look. People like Gavin Brookdale.

Going after things the way I do, being who I am, has alienated my entire hometown and most of my extended family. My mom hadn’t gone to college and my dad had dropped out after two years because he’d thought it was more important to change the world than learn about it, and there I was, this achievement machine making everyone around me vaguely uncomfortable. She thinks she’s better than everyone else.

Honestly, I don’t. But I do think I’m better than what everyone, besides my dad, told me I was.

I WAKE UP in a moment of panic when the bus I’d boarded back at Heathrow jerks to a stop, sending the book on my lap to the floor. Hastily retrieving it, I force my sleepy eyes to take in the view from the floor-to-ceiling window in front of me. I chose the seat on the upper level at the very front, wanting to devour every bit of English countryside on the way to Oxford. Then I slept through it.

Pushing through the fog in my head, I peer outside. A dingy bus stop in front of a generic cell-phone store. I look for a street sign, trying to get my bearings. My info packet from the college said to get off at the Queens Lane stop on High Street. This can’t be it. I glance behind me and no one on the bus is moving to get off, so I settle back into my seat.

The bus starts up again, and I breathe deeply, trying to wake up. I jam the book into my backpack. I’d wanted to finish it before my first class tomorrow, but I can’t focus. I was too excited to eat or sleep on the plane. My empty stomach and all-nighter are catching up to me. The time difference is catching up to me. The last twelve years spent striving for this moment is catching up to me.

Inside my jacket pocket, my phone vibrates. I pull it out and see the same number from earlier. I take a deep breath and preemptively answer, Gavin, listen, I was thinking, let’s do a trial period of, say, a month, and if you feel that I need to be there—

Not necessary.

My throat tightens. Please, just give me thirty days to prove that—

It’s fine. I made it work. Just remember who comes first.

Elation breaks through the fog. My fist clenches in victory and my smile reaches all the way to my temples. Absolutely, I say in my most professional voice. Thank you so much for this opportunity. You won’t be disappointed.

I know that. That’s why I hired you. What’s your fee? FYI: there’s no money.

There’s never any money. I tell him my fee anyway and we settle on something that I can live with. The Rhodes is paying my tuition and lodging and I get a small stipend for living expenses on top of that. I decide right then that what Gavin’s going to pay me will go directly into my travel budget.

Now go, he says, have fun. You’ve clearly earned it. There’s a pub you should visit in the center of town. The Turf. See where one of your fellow Rhodes scholars—a young William Jefferson Clinton—‘didn’t inhale.’

Ha, got it. Will do.

Just take your phone with you. Your phone is an appendage, not an accessory. Okay?

I nod even though he can’t see me. Okay. It’s a plan. Just as I say this, the bus rounds a bend and there she is:

Oxford.

Beyond a picturesque bridge, the narrow two-lane road continues into a bustling main street, lined on each side by buildings in a hodgepodge of architectural styles, no room to breathe between them. Like the crowd at the finish line of a marathon, these buildings cheer me on, welcoming me to their city. Some are topped with sloped, slate roofs, others with battlements. Some of the larger buildings have huge wooden gates that look as if they were carved in place, a fusion of timeless wood and stone that steals my breath. Maybe those doors lead to some of the thirty-eight individual Oxford colleges? Imagining it, dreaming of it all these years, doesn’t do it justice.

I look skyward. Punctuating the horizon are the tips of other ancient buildings, high points of stone bordering the city like beacons.

The City of Dreaming Spires, I murmur to myself.

Indeed it is, Gavin says in my ear. I’d forgotten he was still on the line.

That’s what they call Oxford. A title well deserved. Because that means, before it was my dream or Seventeen magazine girl’s dream, it was someone else’s dream as well.

Chapter 2

Light, that never makes you wink;

Memory, that gives no pain;

Love, when, so, you’re loved again.

What’s the best thing in the world?

—Something out of it, I think.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, The Best Thing in the World, 1862

I wish I could say that Oxford smells like parchment and cinnamon or something poetic, but right now it just smells like city: bus diesel, damp pavement, and the aroma of French roast wafting from the coffee shop across the street.

The sidewalks are narrow on High Street, edged by tall stone walls on one side and low, worn curbs on the other. The narrowness heightens their crowdedness. Students rushing, tourists lingering, the former annoyed by the latter. Those who speak English are almost as incomprehensible to me as those who don’t. My ear hasn’t yet adjusted to the accent and passing dialogue is entirely lost on me.

It’s just another day in Oxford, but to me it’s magical.

As the bus pulls away I gather my luggage and try to sidestep a large family bowed over a map, their voices agitated and overlapping. After a moment, the father’s head pops up and he lifts the map into the air, out of reach, his patience snapping. Awright, awright, step off it now, wouldya? We’re goin’ this way!

Before I can steer clear of the family, a flock of bicycles, a veritable swarm, goes flying past, grazing my luggage and whipping my hair in its wake. Their riders wear some kind of sporting attire (rugby, maybe?), smelling of boy-sweat and new-mown grass as they go by, hooting and hollering. Boys are boys in any country, apparently. The last rider snatches the map right out of the father’s hand, lifting it victoriously, crying out, Et in Arcadia ego!

Oxford: where even the jocks speak Latin.

THERE’S NOTHING I have to do for the Rhodes, per se. It’s not a degree or title in its own right. What I do—or don’t do—at Oxford is between my academic department and me. Also, between my college and me.

The college I’ll be affiliated with is Magdalen, which, for reasons unknown to me, is pronounced maudlin. Founded in 1458, it boasts a great hall, a deer park, an iconic bell tower, medieval cloisters, and approximately six hundred students. I did not request Magdalen because of some heavily considered academic reason; I requested Magdalen because it was Oscar Wilde’s college.

I approach the gate, carefully navigating the people streaming in and out, and lug my baggage into a portico. In front of me, straight out an open Gothic-style door, I glimpse a cobblestone courtyard with a charming three-story sand-colored dormered building in the distance. On the portico’s flagstones, sandwich boards announce the times of day the college is open to visitors and advertise a tour of the fifteenth-century kitchens. To my left are glass-enclosed bulletin boards with notices and reminders posted haphazardly: Have you paid your battels? Get all your uni gear! New Student Discount at Summer Eights on Broad, show your Bod card. Fancy a nip before Hilary’s first OKB bop? 8, Friday noughth week, JCR. Seeing the words in writing, I realize the accent isn’t the only obstacle. To my right, wood paneling and two arched glass windows cordon off a sort of office, like an Old West bank just asking to be held up.

I round the corner and spy, behind the glass, an older man in a red, pilled sweater, white collared shirt, and tie. He stands over an archaic copier the size of an SUV, his shoulders hunched in consternation, long neck and mostly bald head giving him the appearance of a Galápagos tortoise. He mutters something and kicks the bottom of the machine. It whirs like a propjet engine and slowly spits out sheets of green paper.

Hi! I chirp.

Help you? he asks, not looking up, paging methodically through another stack of papers, occasionally licking his finger.

I’m . . . I hesitate. Checking in? I guess?

Student? he asks.

Yeah. Yes.

Fresher?

I have no idea what he just said. What?

Fresher?

I don’t answer. I’m afraid to answer.

Finally he looks up, exasperated, and I realize he’s been counting the papers and, more, that I’ve interrupted him. First year. Are you a first year?

I’m a graduate student. But I’m flattered, sir.

He sighs. American. Name? He goes back to counting.

Eleanor Durran. But, please, call me Ella.

He does no such thing. He moves to a long wooden desk and hands me a piece of paper and a pen. I glance at it. It’s a contract that says I can’t burn down my room. I sign. He slides an envelope the size of a playing card across the counter to me, my initials written on the front. He walks around the long desk and comes out a side door, moving to a wall of small cubbyholes, similar to the kind in a kindergarten classroom. As he speaks, he bends one green paper into each hole.

This is your pidge. Check it daily for post. You’re room thirteen, staircase four. That’s Swithuns staircase four, mind you. We don’t make a habit of housing graduate students inside walls, but there’s a shortage in graduate housing this year. Besides, I’ve found Americans rather enjoy being ‘behind the gates.’ Something to do with that boy wizard?

Harry Pott—

Meals are at your discretion. We have Formal Hall on Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday. Gowns must be worn. Nip into a shop on Turl for one. Boiler won’t come on till October fifteenth, no heat till then, so don’t ask for it. You’ll find two keys in the envelope; the electronic card will get you in the gates and any of the public rooms after hours, the other is a proper key for your room. It is irreplaceable. Don’t lose it.

I understand maybe half of what he’s said. Thanks. What’s your name? I ask.

His turtle neck recedes. Hugh, he grunts, turning back to the pidges.

I’m Ella.

We’ve established that, Miss Durran.

Well, I say, grabbing the handle of my suitcase, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship, Hugh.

Of all the gin joints, Miss Durran, he mutters. But I can see the hint of a smile. I mean, it’s reluctant and has a rusty, unused quality about it, like an old bicycle pump, but it’s there. You’ll be finding staircase four just outside the lodge— I open my mouth to speak, but he forges on, This is the lodge, and you will exit through that door there, cross St. John’s quad, turn left at Swithuns, and then you will pass, on your left, staircase one, and then you will pass, also on your left, staircase two, and if you persevere you shall invariably come to staircase four. I try again, opening my mouth to speak, but he deftly continues: At which point, your room will be on the left of the uppermost landing, at the very top.

The words the very top give me pause. I’m once again reminded that I haven’t eaten since I left the States.

Hugh, would you mind if I left my bags here and got some food first?

As you will, Miss Durran.

I’ll be quick, I assure him, but Hugh’s turned back to his copier. Any recommendations?

Plenty of options on the High.

The High. So much cooler than High Street.

I wheel my bag next to the copier, take my book out of my backpack, turn to go, and stop abruptly. A boy pokes his head around the entrance to the lodge and tentatively steps forward. He moves like a mouse. He’s pudgy around the middle and his hair is styled in two pointed fans on the top of his head, resembling ears. He looks like Gus Gus from Cinderella.

I’m so tired.

Yes, Hugh snaps at the boy, instantly impatient.

He looks as if he wants to flee, but says, Yes, erm, sorry, sir, I’m going to, erm, uh, Sebastian Melmoth’s room?

Not again, Hugh mutters. Posh prat. I can’t help but smile. Someone actually said posh prat in real life, in real time, right in front of me. Hugh then barks at the boy, Don’t just stand there, come in, come in. Gus Gus scurries past us. As Hugh shakes his head, I walk back out to the High.

Taking an arbitrary right, I journey back the way I came, glancing at my watch. As if on cue, a clock tower somewhere begins belting out five resounding chimes. Goose bumps crawl up my arms. If I weren’t exhausted I’d probably start crying.

I glance across the street and stop.

I can’t believe what I’m seeing. The sign still looks exactly like it did in the magazine.

THE HAPPY COD CHIP SHOP.

I look left and move to cross the street, dropping one foot off the curb when the sudden bleat of a horn makes me leap back onto the sidewalk. I clutch my book to my chest, keeping my heart from falling out. A classic silver convertible, like something out of a Bond movie, flies past, nearly running me over. I catch a glimpse of the careless driver, whose longish brown hair swirls in the wind as he zooms off. In the passenger seat, an equally windswept blond woman turns around to stare at me, her mouth wide open in a shocked, but unabashed, laugh.

Not funny! I want to shout after them, but they’re already well past me. As my heart begins beating normally again, I take a deep breath and step off the curb once more. This time, making sure to look right.

A TINY BELL jingles as I enter the Happy Cod. The proprietor, a stocky, red-nosed man with a white towel slung over his shoulder, glances up cheerfully. Hallo!

The small, charming room has a row of wooden booths on one side and a bar with stools on the other. The man stands at the back, behind a small service counter. There’s a stool there as well. He pats the counter in welcome. What can I get you?

Fish and chips!

Comin’ right up. He turns to his fryer as I settle in, running my hands along the old, worn wood and moving around on the squishy black vinyl seat. Everything feels just as I imagined it would. Smells just as I imagined it would. Even the proprietor is exactly as I imagined.

I’m Ella, by the way.

He spins back, ceremoniously wipes his hand on his towel, and offers it to me. Simon. I take his hand, meeting his firm shake with one of my own. He grins. Where you from, Ella?

Ohio, originally. But I live in D.C. now. Simon nods vaguely and leans his elbows on the counter, looking down at the book I’ve put there.

It’s a meager hardcover, bound in that linen material that only academic books are covered in. It cost me eighty dollars on eBay; the price of these books is inversely proportional to the size of their audience. He reads the title aloud, picking over each word as if he’s selecting ripe tomatoes: "The Victorian Conundrum: How Contemporary Poetry Shaped Gender Politics and Sexuality 1837 to 1898, by Roberta Styan." He glances up at me dubiously.

It’s a real page-turner, I say, and he guffaws. No, I’m doing a master’s. I tap the author’s name on the cover. Mostly with Professor Styan. Do you know her? Simon shakes his head and a beeping noise comes from the fryer. He moves to it. She’s, like, a deity in the lit crit world. Her specialty is Tennyson, which isn’t exactly my area. Not at all, actually. I work in politics. American politics. But this whole year for me is about pushing boundaries, and exploring new things, and basically just, like, leveling up. As a person? Why am I rambling? Why do I feel like a fog is rolling into my head? Oh. Jet lag.

Simon wraps my whole meal in a cone of brown butcher paper surrounded by newspaper and offers it to me like a bouquet of roses. Tradition, he boasts. Some other chippies use them plastic takeaway containers. Flattens me. He hands me a paper plate, saying, For sauce, and gestures to