Chapter 14
Two days later, I checked my pigeonhole in the porter’s lodge.
And there, among the usual flyers for student plays and club nights, was a thick creamy envelope with my name written on it.
I ripped it open. It was an invitation to a dinner the next day to be hosted by the Shelley Society.
And scrawled in black ballpoint ink at the bottom was a phone number and a note: I have a lot of time on my hands now that I’ve submitted my thesis.
I’m not very good at fun either – maybe we can learn together?
Would this dinner make your list? If so, join me. Alex.
I felt a flash of excitement, swiftly followed by a rush of panic. The dress code was black tie.
Given I lived in jeans and jumpers, I needed to enlist the urgent help of Lily.
Oxford seemed to have two dress codes: scruffy casual or black tie, nothing in between.
I owned a single black formal dress that had been a workhorse over the last two terms for college formal halls and events.
But I didn’t want to wear it to this dinner.
The next evening, I stared at myself in the mirror on the inside of Lily’s wardrobe, which I’d raided.
Did I look like someone else or like an enhanced version of me?
I was wearing Lily’s emerald-green dress, big gold earrings and sparkly deep-green eye shadow.
Lily had used her hair straightener to create gentle waves in my hair. I looked like a grown-up woman.
‘I can’t believe you’re going to a secret society event; I hadn’t heard of it even after two years here,’ Lily said. ‘I’m so bloody jealous!’
It was a weird dynamic – Lily was normally the one invited to wild-sounding parties. She was the repository of anecdotes with a beginning, plot twist and end, and I was the audience. But tonight she was the godmother and I was Cinderella – out of my hoodie and into a gown.
Alex had been very blasé about the whole thing when I’d texted him to say I’d love to come: Warning: It will be a bunch of undergrads pretending they’re in Brideshead Revisited.
Obviously this was not enough information, so Lily had done some digging.
What she’d found out was that the Shelley Society was one of the college’s oldest secret societies, one that had been around for hundreds of years, and the only one the college officially endorsed.
It had its own set of silver. The members met twice a year for a feast in the dining room, which only the college’s academics were normally allowed to use.
The whole thing was totally archaic and intimidating.
Lily surveyed her handiwork (my face), added one more swipe of blush to each cheek and then poured us both a glass of our local shop’s cheapest white wine.
As she studied my face again, I looked at hers. There was something off. Her energy wasn’t at her usual full-beam. ‘Are you okay?’ I asked.
‘We can talk about it tomorrow,’ she said, looking away.
‘We can talk about it now,’ I said, putting my drink down. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I just rejected my place at law school,’ she said. I stared at her for a moment. Lily had been at Oxford for the last two years as a Marshall scholar, doing a master’s degree in art history. Then, she was meant to return home and go to law school.
‘Right,’ I said, trying to sound supportive yet neutral. ‘Why?’
‘Because I really don’t want to be a lawyer,’ Lily said. ‘Or study law.’
‘That’s a good reason,’ I said. ‘So, you’ll... get a job?’
Most of our friends from school had already started working in hard-won grad jobs or entry-level roles. We were already at the tail end of the gainfully employed. And in a few months, I’d be suiting up and joining everyone in the city back home.
‘I’ve applied for another course,’ she said, a hint of defiance in her voice. ‘A jewellery design course at Melbourne Polytechnic. I want to have a crack at making art. You know... be in the arena and all of that.’
‘Wow, amazing!’ I said, trying to sound as enthusiastic as possible.
I knew that I was the test balloon, that she was gauging my reaction before she told her family.
Lily’s parents had moved to Australia when she was a kid and devoted their entire lives to their daughters’ educations.
Law school represented the prize for all they’d sacrificed for their children – they’d be unequivocally devastated.
‘Have you been thinking about this for a while?’ I asked.
‘Since high school,’ she said, after a moment’s pause. ‘It’s what I’ve always wanted to do.’
I blinked at her. I knew she lived for all things aesthetic: clothes, design, jewellery, makeup. But I’d thought art was an area of academic interest and the rest a form of self-expression.
‘I just... What if I die and I never tried the thing I really wanted to do with my life,’ she said. ‘Do you remember in year eight when we did a unit on sculpture?’
I nodded, though it was a vague, distant memory. I’d made a vase so wonky that Mum hadn’t even been able to pretend to use it.
‘I designed a necklace. And I became obsessed. I learned to solder and use pliers to bend and twist the metal. I made and remade it so many times. I loved every minute of it.
‘And then I stopped being able to make things because I had to sign up for smart-kid subjects: maths and languages and music. I knew that if I did commerce or science, or even undergrad law, I’d be totally miserable, so I fought to study art history.
Mum and Dad hated what I’d chosen, but they got around it because I got a scholarship and I told them that it was more prestigious to do law as a grad degree anyway.
I thought that studying art might be enough.
But being creative adjacent... it doesn’t scratch the itch.
I want to do the thing. Make the thing.’
She took a long sip of her wine.
‘There are so many kids here who come from generations of privilege. And their parents are encouraging them to follow their dreams – some of them are even funding it. And I just feel... I’m smarter than them.
I might be more talented than them. I know I want it more than them.
’ She stopped to take a deep breath. I’d never seen her speak with such fire.
‘And I get why my parents just want me to do something that’s safe and stable and pays a truckload.
That’s what they never had. That’s all they wanted for us.
But I... There’s something I really want to do with my life.
And it’s not drafting legal documents. Or making clever points in a courtroom. It’s my life, right?’
‘Yeah, of course it is,’ I said, wrapping my arms around her.
‘I’m proud of you, Lil.’ It wasn’t the choice I would have made for myself, but I supported her unequivocally.
And I knew that even admitting how she felt, let alone doing anything about it, was mammoth.
I squeezed her tightly. ‘I’m sure your parents will get their heads around it. ’
‘Do you think?’
‘Yeah, of course. It might be a journey, but they love you. And... you’ll just have to marry someone with a fancy job instead.’
Lily laughed.
‘Marry Nick! He’s almost finished his training. Your parents would love a doctor in the family!’
She broke our eye contact for a moment then stepped back from me.
‘Okay, this is probably not the right time, but you’ve given me such a ridiculously perfect segue, I have to tell you something. Promise you won’t get upset.’ She refilled our drinks right to the rims of the glasses.
‘Not a fair precondition,’ I said as my heart thumped. ‘What is it?’
‘Nick and Stella are dating,’ she said. I could see her studying my face for a reaction.
‘Like our Stella?’
‘No, a random Stella you’ve never met,’ she said, deadpan.
‘Wow,’ I said.
‘They’ve been working in the same hospital. Nick recognised his little sister’s friend, all grown up, and was smart enough to ask her out. It’s been over six months. And I think it is pretty serious.’ Lily pre-empted all my questions.
‘Six months!’ I said. ‘They’ve kept it a secret for six months?’
I wanted to be happy for them, if they were happy. But I felt a familiar sensation of the rug of certainty being pulled out from under me, of being totally blindsided by unexpected family news. My brother and one of my best friends were together. And they’d kept it from me.
‘Stella is really sorry about that. But she thought that if it went nowhere then it wasn’t worth making things weird.’
I silently resolved to be nothing but excited and over-the-top supportive when I next Skyped with Stella. I wasn’t sure how I felt about her dating my brother, but I loved both of them.
‘Isn’t he too old for her?’ I asked. Nick was eight years older than me, than Stella.
‘I think we’re at the age when dating a thirty-two year old isn’t a headline anymore,’ Lily said. ‘Dr McBrainy is around the same age, isn’t he?’
Lily hadn’t just done some digging on the Shelley Society. She’d also used her elite research skills to get the lowdown on Alex. He’d been doing his medical training when he won a Rhodes Scholarship to complete his PhD at Oxford. He was about to be double Dr Alex.
‘Yeah... I guess,’ I said, adding up the length of his degrees in my head. I hadn’t thought about his age, or any age gap. It didn’t feel important. I guessed it was the same for Stella – not that I could fully process it yet.
Lily leaned across the window seat at the edge of the room and peered out the window into the quad.
‘He’s here!’ she said. ‘Jesus, he’s gorgeous. How did I miss him? Poor form from me.’
I giggled, bathing in her performative jealousy.
I raced over to the window and kneeled next to Lily.
God, he did look good in formalwear. Did men know how gorgeous they looked in a tux?
Surely not or they’d wear them all day, every day.
The suit didn’t quite fit, his shirt was creased, and his bow tie was totally lopsided. But it didn’t matter at all.
My jangling nerves, temporarily quelled by our conversation, kicked back in.