Chapter 13
THEN
In the middle of the empty Exam Schools lobby, I held Alex for a few moments, then pulled away.
I knew I needed to say, Congratulations , and then, I should probably go .
He had just handed in his thesis, he probably wanted to sleep for a thousand years or celebrate with his college friends.
And I was good at knowing when I’d had enough of a good thing: saying no to the drink that would tip me into being drunk, not watching one more episode so I’d get enough sleep, not ordering the side of chips that would make me feel too sluggish to study.
‘Do you want to celebrate?’ I blurted out instead. ‘When else is every pub in Oxford open at eight in the morning. It’s a sign! One glass of... something?’
‘Okay,’ he said easily.
We walked from the Exam Schools to the King’s Arms, then managed to snag a brown leather sofa almost hidden in a nook behind the main bar of the pub, which was in full party mode.
I fought my way through the very merry crowd and bought us drinks. I handed a pint of cider to Alex and raised my own.
‘To Alex Lawson, PhD.’ Our glasses clinked together.
‘Almost,’ he said. ‘I have to pass my viva first.’
‘Are you worried about that?’ I asked.
‘No,’ he said, and we both laughed. I don’t think I’d ever met someone so direct. It was refreshing. Sometimes it felt like my family only communicated in impenetrable riddles.
‘What are you studying?’ he asked.
‘I’m doing a double degree in law and commerce.’
‘I know absolutely nothing about either,’ he said, and I smiled. I liked that he didn’t have a shred of intellectual insecurity. ‘Tell me something you’ve learned.’
I paused for a second as I ran through some options. I knew my degrees weren’t the most exciting ones out there. But I wanted to rise to his challenge – to teach him something that would grab his mind.
I flicked through my mental Rolodex of options. Something from one of my economic classes, maybe the black swan theory. Or maybe one of the thought exercises from the philosophy course I’d taken over the last two terms – I’d love to hear Alex’s thoughts on the veil of ignorance. Then it came to me.
‘Okay, I’ll tell you about my favourite case,’ I said. ‘It’s one we studied in my contract law class.’
‘I’m intrigued,’ he said, looking as if I was about to impart a piece of scandalous gossip rather than a precedent relevant to contract formation.
‘There’s a case that went to the Australian High Court. It’s about the legal principle of unconscionable conduct, but that’s not the interesting bit.
‘The case is about a man who was totally infatuated with this woman. He bought her heaps of presents, showered her with affection, and just generally lost his mind.
‘Then, she told him that she was depressed, was going to be evicted from her house and would hurt herself if that happened. So the guy bought her a house.
‘When his senses returned, he asked her to transfer the house into his name. She refused. It ended up going all the way to the High Court. And the court gave him back the house because they decided that she’d made him so emotional that he’d acted against his own interests.’
‘So,’ Alex said slowly, ‘they basically made a law that means that if someone makes you emotionally dependent on them, and then uses that dependence to manipulate you into making decisions against your own interests – well, that’s enough to invalidate a contract.’
‘Exactly!’ I got the sense that Alex would have been at the top of any class, across any faculty. Even by my fifth year most of my classmates couldn’t summarise a case both as quickly and accurately. ‘That’s what the highest court in our country decided.’
‘The law will undo the actions of someone who lets their heart overturn their head,’ Alex said. I could practically see him turning this concept over in his mind, playing with its ramifications. ‘What do you think?’
‘In Contracts A it didn’t matter what I thought. It’s the law,’ I said.
‘But I’m not giving you a grade. What do you think?’ he asked again.
I paused to weigh up my reply.
‘I think the High Court made the wrong decision,’ I said. ‘Being carried away by emotions isn’t a defence for making silly choices. If you can’t control your heart, then that’s on you.’
‘Even if the other person behaves badly?’ he asked.
‘Even then,’ I said. ‘People are responsible for making their own sensible decisions. I don’t think you get to blame someone else.’
I took a long sip of my drink. I waited for the expression on his face that would make it clear that I’d failed his test. Except his eyes sparkled and he held my gaze in silence as his mouth slowly pulled into a half-smile. My stomach did a small somersault.
‘Can you tell me more about your research? Or do you never want to talk about it again?’ I asked.
‘I think it’s the only thing I can talk about,’ he said. ‘I’ve lived and breathed it for the last few years.’
‘So give me the idiot’s guide,’ I said.
‘I don’t think you need the idiot’s version of anything,’ he said. This time I felt my heart do a somersault.
‘Okay, fine. But I only studied chemistry and biology until year eleven. So, you might need to go slow on the science side of things—’
Glass smashed a few tables over from ours, then there was a howl of pain. Alex froze.
‘Can someone call nine-nine-nine? He’s bleeding! Like a lot!’ a plummy, but very worried, voice called. ‘Is there, like... a doctor in here?’ I could tell that she was slightly embarrassed to be using a line straight out of a medical drama, but on balance was too panicked to act cool.
There were a few glances across sticky pub tables. I could tell that a lot of people in the room were entitled to use the prefix ‘doctor’ but felt that a speciality in Victorian Gothic literature might not be needed.
I rifled through my bag for my phone before realising it was in my pocket. By the time I stood up, Alex was out of our sofa and was kneeling next to the table at the epicentre of the drama.
‘He’s quite drunk.’ The posh girl was wide-eyed as she explained. The whole room had fallen silent as we watched the drama unfold. ‘And he accidentally dropped his glass. And I think one of the bits of glass bounced up and cut him.’
That was an understatement. Blood was pouring from her friend’s long, thin arm that was poking out of a Jack Wills T- shirt. The arm’s owner clearly had a pale complexion to begin with but right then looked ghostly.
Alex moved closer to him. ‘Okay, mate. I know this is overwhelming, but I’m a doctor and I’m going to help you. The first thing I’m going to do is lift up your arm.’ He spoke calmly but with total confidence. The girl looked visibly relieved that she was no longer in charge.
‘Now I’m going to take my jumper and gently tie it around the cut,’ Alex said.
With the hand that wasn’t holding the bleeding arm he pulled his university hoodie from around his waist and in one deft motion wrapped it around the bleeding forearm and then placed his hand around the material to hold it in place.
‘Has someone called an ambulance?’ Without turning around, he spoke to the crowd, which was still silently but avidly watching on.
‘It’s on its way,’ one of the bartenders called out from the back of the room.
‘Great,’ Alex replied. ‘Can you tell them that there’s a deep cut to at least one artery, but it’s been stemmed. Though it might have been a vessel and it’s more than a couple of centimetres long, so it’ll need stitches.’
He turned back to Jack Wills Guy. ‘We’re all under control. You and I are going to stay like this until the ambos arrive. The most important thing is that we keep this pressure on the wound and keep your arm elevated. Does that sound like a plan?’
The guy, now much less freaked out but still woozy, nodded.
The pub manager, with the authority of someone who regularly announced ‘last orders’, asked the gawking crowd to move into the main part of the pub.
I hesitated for a moment, not wanting to linger but also not wanting to abandon Alex at his own celebration drink.
I waited for a moment too long in case Alex looked up.
But he didn’t – he was totally focused on his patient.
‘Who was he ?’ I heard a girl wearing a Teddy Hall scarf ask her friend as we all shuffled out.
I turned back and caught one last glimpse of him, and wondered the exact same thing.
Outside the pub, the dancers and musicians decked out in flowers and bells were gone and people who hadn’t been up since dawn were bustling through the cobbled-stone square on foot and bikes, piles of books in their arms or satchels over their shoulders.
I slowly walked away from the picturesque pale pink building as an ambulance pulled up in front of the entrance.
How many family events (and flights) had been derailed by someone in my family stepping in to take charge of a stranger’s medical emergency.
I half smiled. The morning had felt so uniquely English, but apparently the ability to lose yourself in a medical emergency was universal.
I crossed Radcliffe Square alone, not knowing if I’d ever see Alex Lawson again.