4

Sculling: 1944–1946

When first Patty went up to Oxford she threw herself into the Christian Union and her newly rediscovered love of God. All her friends were drawn from Christian Union circles, which were happy to include her. Although she remained shy and awkward, for the first time in her life she felt she belonged. It was the autumn of 1944, the Education Act had been passed, and free and equal access to education for everybody was for the first time a reality. The invasion of Europe had begun in June with the Normandy landings, and although she was no longer so entirely riveted to the radio for news updates as things dragged out, it seemed finally possible to imagine that the war might one day be over. There was a spirit of optimism and the sense that a better world was coming. Meanwhile the petty daily inconveniences of the war ground on, with everything in short supply. Oxford was full of women and cripples—men injured in the war. Patty rowed both in the women’s eights and alone. She went on outings organized by the Christian Union. She read Milton and struggled with Old English. She worked hard. Her essays got unspectacular but good marks.

VE Day came and Hitler died in his bunker, and although the war with Japan ground on, there was a sense that everyone was more than ready to be done with the whole thing and move on. Then in the summer the Americans dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima. Patty heard the news on the old humming wireless in her mother’s house, and shared the sense of relief everyone initially felt. She went back up to Oxford feeling a burden had been lifted, though rationing was worse than ever and new clothes were impossible to find even if you had the coupons. A few veterans were in that year’s intake, and a few young men postponing conscription now that the war was over. There was an election, in which Patty could not vote, being under twenty-one, but in which she took a close interest. The Labour party under Attlee were elected with a massive majority, which she saw as a mandate for social justice and true equality for everyone, and rejoiced. In other ways, her second year was much like her first.

She acquired a boyfriend, an earnest young man called Ian Morris. He was a year younger than she was, one of the men who deferred his conscription to go to Oxford. He had not taken any part in the war, and it was hard to imagine him as a soldier. She found him profoundly unthreatening. The Christian Union might argue passionately over faith versus works or on the precise way to administer charity, but they were united on the subject of sex—they were against it. Rather, they professed to be for sex within marriage for the purposes of procreation, but for all of them that was for a distant future. Patty rarely thought about sex, and when she did she felt a vast apprehension and an equally vast ignorance. She knew almost nothing about it. Some men, and indeed some girls, she found sexually frightening. She felt safe with Ian. He occasionally put his arm around her shoulders when in company, never when they were alone. They agreed that they were “waiting.” He did not press her. They danced together at Christian Union dances, and Patty pretended not to notice that she was taller than he was.

She had imperceptibly become aware that neither the Christian Union nor Oxford were as shining and perfect as she had initially thought them, and had become accustomed to making excuses for them in her mind when they fell short of what she felt they should be. She called this “being charitable.” She easily began to exercise the same slightly brisk charity with Ian. He never came into her mind when she read the Metaphysical poets.

It was towards the end of the Trinity term of her second year that Patty fell out with the Christian Union.

There were two girls who lived on her staircase in St. Hilda’s, Grace and Marjorie. Marjorie was in the Christian Union and as such was a friend of Patty’s. Grace she knew mainly for her extreme shyness and nervousness. She was reading chemistry and was reputed to be brilliant, though how brilliance in chemistry manifested itself Patty had no idea. She had long pale hair and large breasts and tended to scuttle, clutching her books to her chest, darting sideways glances if addressed. The first Patty knew of the scandal was when it was whispered to her by Ronald.

“Have you heard about Marjorie?”

“Heard what about her?” Patty had stopped in at Bible tea on her way back from the river. She’d had a ducking and her hair was dripping down the back of her neck, which made her rather impatient. The Bible tea was a regular event held in the house of Mr. Collins, a minister attached to the Christian Union. A group of them would meet in his house for tea and then a Bible reading and discussion—they were working their way through the Acts of the Apostles, and Patty generally enjoyed it very much. She was early today, and nobody was there except Ronald, who had an artificial leg and was reading PPE. PPE, the dreaded Politics, Philosophy and Economics degree, often seemed to attract know-it-alls, in Patty’s experience. Ronald was one of the members of the Christian Union toward whom she found it most difficult to extend charity, though she had prayed to do better.

She cut herself a thick doorstep of bread and buttered it, then ladled on gooseberry jam. The gooseberries had been extremely plentiful that year, and they had all saved their sugar ration for the jam. Patty had put in a great deal of time stirring the jam in Mr. Collins’s kitchen, so she felt entitled, as well as hungry. She felt that Ronald was observing her greed and that he would report on it unfavorably to others.

“She’s a lesbian!” Ronald said, as if delighted to pass on the intelligence. Patty literally did not understand for a moment until he went on. “She’s actually been caught sleeping in the same bed as another girl.”

Patty knew about this kind of thing. It went on in girls’ schools as it did in boys’ schools, however hard the teachers tried to stamp it out. She was more repelled by Ronald’s prurient delight in telling her about Marjorie than by what Marjorie was supposed to have done, which she could not clearly imagine.

“Mr. Collins has spoken to her and she refuses to give it up or repent,” Ronald went on.

“It’s probably all the most ridiculous nonsense,” Patty said, stuffing her bread and jam into her mouth and speaking with her mouth full. In Patty’s private opinion, Mr. Collins was too ready to be uncharitable and had it in for the women. “I’m going to talk to her.”

“You’re not!”

“I certainly am.”

Patty strode off full of indignation, which carried her back to her residence and to the door of Marjorie’s room. She hesitated before knocking, and then the memory of Marjorie’s clear voiced declarations of her love of God sustained her. She knew Marjorie wouldn’t have done anything wrong. She knocked.

“Who is it?” Marjorie asked.

“It’s me, Patty,” Patty said.

“What do you want?”

“Just to talk to you.” Patty’s courage was draining away. “It’s not important. But Ronald told me the most frightful nonsense about you and I wanted to tell you I didn’t believe it.”

Marjorie opened the door. It was apparent that she had been crying. “Oh, it isn’t true!”

“I knew it couldn’t be.”

Marjorie ushered Patty into her room, where she sat on the bed to allow Patty the chair. “Would you like—” Marjorie hesitated. “Well actually I haven’t got anything except some cough sweets my sister sent me, but would you like one of those?”

“I’d love one,” Patty said politely.

“The thing is, I have been sleeping in Grace’s room,” Marjorie said, once Patty had the cough sweet in her mouth.

“Grace!” Patty said.

“I know. But she has the room next to mine. And I could hear her crying in the night, and I couldn’t just leave her to sob on and on. I went in to her. It turns out that she was blitzed and all her family killed. She was buried in the rubble for a day and a half. She can’t bear to be alone in the dark, it brings it all back. Of course she can’t keep a light on all the time, because they come around and check we’re observing lights out, though she did try for a bit with flashlights except that she couldn’t afford the batteries, and with candles she worried she was going to burn the place down. So I started sleeping in there with her, and she can get to sleep, and when she wakes up in the night I hold her hand. And that’s really all there is to it.”

“But that’s just … just Christian kindness,” Patty said.

“It is!” Marjorie said. “I’m so glad you understand. Mr. Collins didn’t believe me. He insinuated the most awful things. And at first I slept on the floor, wrapped in my blankets you know, but in the winter when it was so cold I started to get into bed with her, and I suppose it looks bad, but I shared a bed with my sister at home until I came to Oxford and I didn’t see that it was any different.”

“Didn’t you say that to Mr. Collins?”

“He wanted me to repent and be forgiven, but I haven’t done anything wrong! And he wanted me to promise I’d never sleep in there again, and I couldn’t, I just couldn’t. Grace has the most terrible dreams. And he wanted to know why I hadn’t told anybody.”

“Why hadn’t you? We could have taken turns.”

Marjorie sighed. “It was because Grace begged me not to, she doesn’t want anyone to know about her dreams and her family. You know what she’s like. It was hard enough for her to tell me.”

“If she had told the college they might have put her in one of the rooms with two beds so she’d have had somebody there,” Patty said.

“She was in one of those last year, but you know how they make a thing of the single rooms. Virginia Woolf and all that. I hate to even have to explain to Mr. Collins and you now, but I have to defend myself. Grace must see that.”

“I think you ought to explain to everyone in the Christian Union. Once they know they’ll understand.” Patty felt sure of it. “They’re good people, they love God, they know you do, they’ll understand you’re doing it in Christian kindness and you need to go on doing it. And they’ll keep quiet about Grace, and it’s better than what they’re thinking about her now!”

“Could we be sent down, do you know? I mean if people really believed Grace and I were lovers? If we really were?”

“Of course you couldn’t. Think of the willowy men.”

“I think it is illegal, though,” Marjorie said, crushing her handkerchief in her fingers.

“It’s nonsense for it to be illegal,” Patty said briskly. “It may be immoral and unclean because it’s outside marriage, but it shouldn’t be illegal. That’s nonsense.”

Marjorie began to cry again.

“Look, come down now. Nobody was there for the Bible tea when I left except Ronald, but they’ll all be there by now. Come down and clear it up, and have some tea.”

Marjorie was reluctant but Patty persuaded her to come with her. Mr. Collins’s house was nearby, and the whole group was gathered when the girls came in. An awkward silence fell. Ian looked at Patty in horror. Patty saw at once that there was no use waiting for somebody else to say anything. She had developed a technique for overcoming shyness where she took a deep breath and then shut her eyes for a second as she began to speak. She did this now.

“Marjorie wants to tell you it’s all a mistake,” she said.

“There’s really nothing wrong at all,” Marjorie said. She went on to explain, as she had to Patty.

To Patty’s astonishment, although the members of the Christian Union listened they did not immediately see that Marjorie was telling the truth. She was caught wrong-footed because she had been so sure that they would react exactly as she had and see that it had been an act of Christian kindness. Instead they said nothing, until Marjorie stopped talking and then one of the girls said, “If you want to repent we’ll take you back into fellowship, but until then it would be better if you left.”

Marjorie ran out of the room weeping. Patty began to follow her, but as soon as she was outside Ian put his hand on her arm. She thought at first that he had followed for the same reason she had, to comfort Marjorie, but he paid no attention to her. “Stop, Patty,” he said.

Patty stopped and turned to him. “Didn’t you see that she’s telling the truth?”

“It seems a really unlikely, contrived kind of story. And if it’s true, why didn’t she tell anyone before?”

“Because Grace didn’t want everyone to know and feel sorry for her.” This seemed like a very reasonable answer to Patty, but Ian smiled cynically.

“I hardly find it likely. She has done wrong and is lying about it.”

“No. I don’t believe that, and I can’t see how you can.”

“You’re such an innocent,” Ian said. “It’s good of you to try to see the best in everyone. But you have to think how it looks.”

“How it looks?” Patty was bemused.

“If you defend her people will assume that you’re a lesbian too.”

Patty felt hot all over as if she was coming down with a fever. She could hardly believe this was Ian saying this to her. He took her stunned silence for acquiescence. “Come on back in,” he said. Instead she turned on her heel and walked away from him.

The Christian Union did try to reach out to Marjorie, begging her to repent in a way that strongly resembled bullying. They tried the same thing on Grace, who fled them, and who did not return to college the next year. Patty became lonely again. She worked hard and spent a great deal of time sculling alone on the river, where she still felt close to God.