Follies. Rosie Thomas
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the plainness was obliterated. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you, Miss Pole,’ Helen murmured. ‘The door wouldn’t open. Helen Brown?’ she added, interrogatively, afraid that the woman might have forgotten, after all.
‘You call me Rose, pet. I told you last term, when you came for a room. Don’t forget again, will you? Now then, for the door you need a key.’ The ordinary-looking Yale swung at the end of a strand of dirty orange wool. Rose fitted it into the lock and showed Helen how the door moved easily on the latch. ‘Simple, you see.’ Rose waved towards the stairs. ‘No-one to help with your stuff, I’m afraid. Gerry’s never here when you want him, and I’m far too infirm.’ The smile broadened for an instant, then the fat woman turned and disappeared into the dark as quickly as she had materialised.
Helen scuffled through the leaves and stepped into Follies House.
The hall was dingy and smelt of cooking, but the grandeur was undimmed. It was high, four-square and wood-panelled to the vaulted plasterwork of the Jacobean ceiling. The bare wood stairway mounted, behind its fat balusters, to the galleried landing above. In the light of an autumn afternoon the atmosphere was mysterious, even unwelcoming. Yet Helen felt the house drawing her to it, just as she had done the first time. It had been a brilliant June morning when she had applied to Rose for a room. ‘Not my usual sort,’ Rose had told her bluntly. ‘Mostly I know them, or know of them. Reputation or family, one or the other. But you’ve got a nice little face, and Frances Page won’t be needing her room next term, not after all this bother.’
‘I know,’ Helen had said humbly. ‘Frances is in my College. She told me there might be space here.’
‘Oh well,’ Rose had said, looking at Helen more closely. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were a friend of Frances?’
And so it had been arranged.
Now, after the long, sad summer, she was here. Usually her family had come with her, driving up to her College in the little car. Helen shook her head painfully. This time she was alone, standing in the muffling quiet of a strange house. Again, through the stillness, she heard the pouring gush of the river as it tumbled past the house and on under the bridge, and the sound soothed her. Determinedly, one by one, she hoisted her cases and boxes over the doorstep and into the hall. With the last one she kicked the door shut on the fading yellow light outside and began to climb towards her room with the first load.
Follies House was square, and the first-floor gallery ran round the staircase which led off up to the third floor. Servants’ quarters, she thought with a faint smile, as she panted up into a smaller corridor, even dustier, with uneven, wide oak floorboards. There was no name-card on the low oak door in front of her, but the room was hers just the same. Helen pushed open the door and dropped her burden gratefully on the worn carpet.
The room was the smallest of Rose’s undergraduate quarters, Helen knew that, but the size was unimportant. What mattered was the view. It was a corner room, no doubt freezing cold in the coming damp of the Oxford winter that already seemed to hover in the air. But there were windows in two of the walls, square windows with stone facings set in the red Jacobean brickwork, with cushioned window seats in the recesses beneath them.
Helen knelt on one of the seats and, through the fog of her breath on the cold glass, stared out over Oxford. Due north, ahead of her, was Carfax with its ancient tower, the crossroads that was the nominal centre of the city. Beyond that lay Cornmarket with its chain stores and shoe shops, and beyond that the dignified spread of North Oxford.
Helen turned away to the second window. There, to the east, was the heart of Oxford. The towers and pinnacles and domes were familiar to her now, but the sight of them spread out before her never failed to thrill her.
A little bit of this is mine, thought Helen, as her eyes travelled from the distant perfection of Magdalen Tower, along the invisible but well-remembered curve of the High past All Souls’ and St Mary’s, to the magnificence of Christ Church’s Tom Tower in the foreground. I do belong here, she whispered to herself, and knew that she was glad to be back. Glad, in spite of and also because of the deadening sorrow that she had left behind in the cramped rooms of her parents’ house.
As Helen knelt on her window seat and watched the teeming life passing to and fro over Folly Bridge, up and down St Aldate’s and past Christ Church, a figure appeared in the ribbed archway beneath Tom Tower, over the main entry. It was a young man in a soft tweed jacket, breeches and tall polished boots. He stood for a moment with his hands in his pockets, watching the shoppers and cyclists and homebound office workers with an air of faint surprise. Then he shrugged, adopting an expression of mild resignation in place of the surprise, and began to stroll towards the bridge. Several of the faces in the crowd streaming past him turned to watch him pass, but the young man was oblivious. He merely lengthened his stride, lifted his head to taste the damp smells of leaves and woodsmoke that mingled with the exhaust fumes, and smiled in absent satisfaction. With the wind blowing the fair hair back from his narrow, tanned face and the brilliance of his smile, he attracted even more attention.
Helen, high up in her window, stayed at the vantage point long enough to register the fact of Oliver Mortimore turning out of Christ Church and down St Aldate’s. He was the kind of Oxford figure whom she had spotted and categorised for herself early on in her life there. She had expected him, and would have been disappointed not to have discovered his kind. She knew that he was ‘a lord, or an earl, or something’ because a breathlessly impressed friend had told her so. And she knew that he drove a fast car, and had beautiful friends and expensive tastes, because she had observed as much for herself. Oliver Mortimore was a famous figure in Oxford, well known even to Helen, even though he moved through its world at a level that couldn’t have been further from her quiet round of library, lecture room, and College.
Helen smiled tranquilly and sat for a moment more, immersed in her own thoughts as she stared unseeingly out at the view. Then, reminding herself that there were things to be done, she swung her legs briskly off the window seat and set off for the next armful of possessions.
Her foot was on the last step of the broad lower staircase when the front door banged open. It brought with it a gust of damp, river-redolent air, a small eddy of dead leaves, and Oliver Mortimore. In the dimness he stumbled against Helen’s shabby pile of belongings, lost his balance and fell awkwardly. Oliver swore softly. ‘Jesus, what is all this? Looks like a fucking jumble sale.’
Helen sprang forward, contrite. ‘I’m sorry. It’s all my luggage. Stupid place to leave it.’
Oliver looked up at her, and the frown disappeared from between his eyes.
‘I didn’t see you there,’ he said. ‘Sorry for the language. Good job I didn’t break my leg on your impedimenta, that’s all. It’s the first Meet tomorrow.’
Helen nodded politely, evidently not understanding, and Oliver grinned at her as he scrambled up. She saw that there was a long scrape in the high polish of his boots, and had to resist the impulse to kneel down and rub the blemish off such a vision of perfection. At close quarters Oliver Mortimore was not only the most beautiful but also the most physical man she had ever encountered. He radiated such confidence, such highly-charged animal pleasure in his own existence, that set her skin tingling in response. He made Helen feel hot, and shapeless inside her clothes. Oliver held out his hand. He was six inches taller than Helen, but it felt like twice that.
‘I’m Oliver Mortimore,’ he said lightly. ‘Who are you, and why don’t I know you?’
‘I know who you are,’ Helen countered. ‘You don’t know me because there’s no particular reason why you should. My name’s Helen Brown.’
‘And what are you doing at Follies, Miss Brown?’
Helen moved forward under his gaze to pick up one of the scattered boxes.
‘What I’m doing is moving in. I’m going to live here for a year.’
Oliver was staring at her now with undisguised interest.
‘Oh really? You’re not in the usual run of socialites and harpies that Rose collects