Oxford Blood (9 page)

At the side of the river a series of punts were chained together. Although it was only the beginning of May, it had been a sunny afternoon, the temperature quite hot once one got out of the wind, and Jemima had noticed a number of boats being poled enthusiastically up the Cherwell, amid the pollarded trees whose outlines were being rapidly blurred with green. She imagined that these chains were strong enough to withstand any attempts of similarly enthusiastic Bloods to take to the river after dinner. Jemima trailed her fingers in the river. The water was icy.

Afterwards, in view of what happened, Jemima came to look back on the comparative serenity of the early evening with a kind of awed nostalgia and her own part in it later with something like amazement. Did she really sit with Proffy on the bank of the river under a full moon riding high across the water meadows discussing whether the rich were happy, with a goblet of pink champagne in her hand? (To hell with the new Jean Muir dress.) While all around them, stretched out in the deep shadows left by the moon's pathway, the bodies tumbled and caressed like nymphs and shepherds in a Poussin landscape. Most of their fragile sparkling clothing had in any case been crumpled or torn away, so that classical garlands or brief wisps of trailing material were all that some of them were wearing. Occasional laughter from that direction, the creaking of the chained punts and a splash - a bottle? a glass? - indicated that the boats, if captive, were still being put to some use.

At this point Jemima decided that champagne was responsible for a good many of the excesses in her life, but this was one of the oddest. It was true that she had decided politely not to tumble or be tumbled with the rest of the nymphs: although one particular undergraduate rather reminded her of Cass and there was always of course Saffron
..
. Cass's ridiculous jealousy on that subject had, to be honest, been rather counterproductive. She also received several invitations, rather, she thought, as one might be invited to dance. But since she had reached her thirties without participating in an orgy (unless you counted certain scenes in a Jacuzzi on the West Coast of America which she didn't) it seemed a bad plan to start a new way of life in the purlieus of Oxford University. Deep as the riverside shadows might be, Jemima had a feeling that the harsh light of the
Evening Post's
gossip column, to say nothing of
Jolly Joke's
vicious searchlight, would somehow manage to penetrate them. On the other hand she had to admit that the decision was a cerebral one.

It was extremely tempting to go with the exotic hedonism of the evening - fortunately the presence of Proffy and the particular subject which they were discussing kept her attention more or less concentrated on the conversation to the exclusion of thoughts about the shadows, beyond brief amused reflections that Cy's cameras should really be present for such an occasion. Oh well, she had no doubt that the Oxford Bloods would recreate the scene, if asked, with enthusiasm when summer came. If this was their style in early May, what on earth would June bring forth? The aggressive heat of The Punting Heaven had driven her out of doors; no doubt similar scenes were being enacted inside amid the wreckage of the flower-decked tables. The gold music of
Rheingold
being played very loudly indoors
{'Rheingold}. Rheingold}.
Tumty ta-ta') covered other sounds.

'We always play Wagner at Chimneysweepers' bashes,' explained Saffron, 'because it's so cheerful. Besides, it covers up the noise of breaking glass a treat. Do you suppose that was why old Wags wrote it?'

The presence of Proffy, and indeed of various other more senior guests, was a surprise to Jemima, until she realized wryly that their participation - and indeed her own - was intended to rehabilitate the Oxford Bloods' somewhat tarnished image. (That impulse had however evidently exhausted their plans for reform.) There was, for example, an older woman present, rather handsome, with greying dark hair worn in a bun, and a beaky, almost Roman, nose. Her gold lame dress, judging from its cut, might have been newly acquired for the occasion, since it was in the height of the current fashion; on the other hand it was the sort of dress that a woman like this might have had in her wardrobe, regardless of fashion, for the last twenty years. The same could be said for her prominent necklace of large amber and jet beads. Although she appeared to be rather silent compared to the rest of the company, Jemima had the impression of a strong personality; one of those people whose presence at any particular gathering marks it, without one being able to define exactly why.

The multiparous Mrs Mossbanker? It turned out that the handsome woman was in fact that mysterious Professor Eugenia Jones, mother of Antigone, alias Tiggie - she who had been last heard of returning from the States. Curiously enough, Proffy had addressed her consistently as Eleanor, which if Jemima remembered rightly was actually his wife's name.

Studying Eugenia Jones, one could see where Tiggie's looks came from, if not her particular sense of style. She was also quite short, like her daughter, although her flowing golden robe gave her an air of dignity. Who was Jones, Jemima wondered, and what was his profession? She would have to ask her friend Jamie Grand, currently visiting professor at a new college founded by a shy millionaire apparently entirely for Jamie's delectation since it provided vast funds for lavish dons' dining, but none for the sordid everyday needs of undergraduates. Jamie combined a fierce insistence on the highest standards of academic criticism and study with an endearing propensity to gossip, an activity which he pursued with exactly the same informed seriousness, expecting others to do so too.

Thinking of Jamie and the tabs he kept on society - with both big and small S - Jemima was at least not surprised by his presence among the older guests. A little blonde girl, of the sort of which Jamie appeared to have an endless supply, hung on his arm. A large gold fez crowned the countenance whose veriest frown could cause a shudder in the literary world (to quote
Time
Magazine - and Jamie often did).

'Who's Jones?' blurted out Jemima without preamble. At exactly the same moment Jamie said: 'Do you know Serena of Christ Church?' He swept on: 'Isn't it enjoyable hearing that? I'm old-fashioned enough to adore it. These days I only go out with girls from the best men's colleges, or rather the former men's colleges that were formerly the best. Rachel of Magdalen, Allegra of T
rinity, I don't know anyone at
Balliol yet unfortunately.' He turned to Serena of Christ Church.

'Do you know anyone at Balliol, my dear? Blonde of course. About your height and weight.'

'I don't want to distract you but I was wondering about Jones, Eugenia's husband. Tiggie's father,' broke in Jemima before Serena of Christ Church could answer.

'Ah, that Jones. The ideal husband. In the sense that he was never there when she was wanted. Or so Eugenia once told me, in not quite so many witty words. He vanished before my day. No, I can't tell you anything about Jones. I've sometimes suspected Eugenia of inventing him. She's certainly been totally happy ever since in a so-called unhappy personal situation, as you are doubtless aware. Eugenia is one of those women who thrives on personal unhappiness. It leaves her plenty of time for work -after all, think how successful she is. And then Eleanor has all the domestic responsibilities. Which are considerable where Proffy is concerned, to say nothing of the butter mountain of children.'

So, when Jemima was swept away from the heat of The Punting Heaven to the moonlight of the river bank, she was for the first time aware that she was on the arm of the lover - the long-term lover according to Jamie - of Professor Eugenia Jones; as well as the abstracted husband of Eleanor, and still more abstracted father of innumerable Mossbanker children. By now she was curious enough about Eugenia Jones to make a mental resolve to interview her for the programme -difficult to see how she could be fitted into
Golden Kids,
other than as the mother of Tiggie Jones, which might not be the most tactful approach, but Jemima would think of something. Eugenia Jones herself had vanished discreetly after dinner before Jemima could have more than the briefest exchange with her. Nevertheless, her impression of a strong personality had been confirmed. Although their conversation in recollection was not particularly scintillating, at the time Eugenia Jones managed to invest slightly commonplace remarks with something of her own dignity.

One of Jemima's personal preoccupations, based on her own past, was with long-term extra-marital relationships, particularly from the woman's point of view - the other woman's point of view, that is, when the man was married and she was not. A serious programme on the subject would have been impossible so long as her painful long-drawn-out relationship with Tom Amyas MP prospered - if that was the right word, which on the whole it was not. And now? She still did not imagine that Professor Eugenia Jones would welcome an overture based on such a premise. All the same, the connection between her own success and that time early in her career at Megalith, when she fought down jealous thoughts of Tom's domestic routine with hard work, was not to be denied. Had she ever quite forgotten the pain of the moment when Tom was obliged to break it to her that Carrie, his wife, was pregnant? And yet Professor Jones had presumably had to endure that kind of scene with extraordinarily regularity in view of the amazing fertility of Mrs Mossbanker. Maybe Jamie was right, and it had allowed Eugenia Jones to get on with her own work uncluttered with domesticity.

Compared to Professor Eugenia Jones, Fanny Iverstone was not such a surprising guest. (And maybe Eugenia Jones was only here to have a glimpse of Proffy? However improbable the thought, Jemima knew from personal experience that nothing of that nature was ever totally improbable where the so-called 'other woman' was concerned.) Fanny was after all a young girl living in Oxford, and a not unattractive one, even if she was not quite in the same dazzling class as two ravishing girls introduced to Jemima merely as Tessa and Nessa. In the old days such girls would have been marked down as arriving from London; nowadays all the prettiest were probably at the University.

Saffron was rather uncharacteristically vague about who had invited Fanny, to the extent that Jemima was led to expect he had actually done so himself at some earlier date, before seizing the opportunity to bring Jemima as well. It had to be said that the style of'Gilded Rubbish' did not suit Fanny's looks and perhaps it was for that reason, or perhaps she was generally discomforted by the company, but in any case Jemima found Fanny much less ebullient than on the famous occasion of the Lycee lunch. Tiggie Jones was exactly the sort of girl who shone at a party like this, and there was Tiggie - shining. Shining also was Poppy Delaware, a girl so like Tiggie (except for the colour of her hair, which was partially blue and partially orange) that Jemima wondered if they might not be sisters until she realized that the effect of the glittering tattiness of the costumes as well as the short-cropped hair-cuts of both sexes was to make everyone young look rather alike.

All this made it very easy to recognize another surprising guest, 
Daphne Iverstone, and wait -
could it be?
yes it was: Andrew Iverstone MP, Mr Rabblerouse himself. With his broad build and heavy shoulders, his pink face and fast-receding light curly hair, Jemima disgustedly thought that Andrew Iverstone resembled nothing so much as a big white porker; certainly his looks, arguably representing some kind of Anglo-Saxon stereotype, constituted no kind of advertisement for the sort of racial purity he was fond of advocating. And yet it was always said that he possessed the kind of charm which made the unwary overlook the precise import of his views until it was too late, and some kind of implicit approval had been given. Jemima however had never met him and did not wish to do so now.

Only Jack of the Iverstone family was missing. But then the Chimneysweepers' Dinner was scarcely his form. He was after all in no sense an Oxford Blood.

'Not one's bright idea, I assure you.' Saffron spoke in her ear. 'I can't bear him, the old Rabblerouse. Some other bright spirit invited him and Cousin Daphne. Almost as tactless as
Bernardo Valliera inviting Muffe
t Pember.' Saffron pointed to where a man, looking vaguely South American, was clothed in bonds of tinsel wound round the rather small base of a leopard-skin jock strap; he had his arm round a girl in a gold mask and high-heeled gold boots, with a skimpy leopard-skin bikini in between. From her russet-coloured hair which was left free, Jemima recognized Muffet Pember, sister of the aggressive Rufus.

There was, Jemima had realized from the first, a certain amount of fairly discreet drug-taking going on. Discreet in the sense that no one had actually offered her some of the various little substances being shared around: cocaine presumably - another expensive taste like champagne. There appeared to be an unwritten law by which the 'adults' such as the Iverstones, Eugenia Jones and Proffy were ignored in this connection, and they themselves in turn ignored it. Bernardo Valliera, on the other hand, whether he thought his South American blood granted him some immunity, was not being particularly discreet in whatever it was he was pressing upon Muffet Pember.

Saffron however seemed quite indifferent to that aspect of the situation and Jemima had to admit that she never actually saw him involved in it; as far as she could make out, champagne - and a great deal of it - was enough for him.