Colour Me Blue

                                                COLOUR ME BLUE

Nearly seven hundred years ago Robert de Eglesfield founded one of the more modest colleges of Oxford University. His name was remembered in its dramatic society. The Eglesfield, like most college societies, held a jolly during Freshers Week, that anarchic time before work started and newbies, freshers, got to know each other and the various allures of the Oxford life. Oxford is not really like other universities, even Cambridge with its dour scientific seriousness in the damp Fens.

A student at Oxford is there for less than half the year, 24 weeks out of 52. For a history undergraduate, as Brian was, there were no exams between the end of the first term and the conclusion of the third year. That’s about two years with nothing much to do except attend fairly undemanding tutorials. And drink and cavort and generally muck around. And since Brian arrived among the dreaming spires in the autumn of 1966 in a time of pretty full employment there was little pressure to find a job. An Oxford graduate, provided he got his degree, and really at Oxford it’s extremely difficult not to, can really drop into some career or other any time he chooses. Add to this the fact that the Summer of Love was just around the corner and you’d be forgiven for thinking that Brian and his generation were among the luckiest blighters on earth.

So there he was at the Freshers jolly of the Eglesfield Dramatic Society run jointly by his college and the nearest women’s equivalent which was just down the road across Magdalen Bridge one of the prettiest spots in the whole of Oxford (which considers it has many). And it was there he met Hilary McCorkindale-Lewis, from a rather different social class and a more extrovert turn of personality. But they hit it off. Who knows? Perhaps at first Hilary found Brian a little quaint and sweet, refreshingly different from the sort of chaps she had known hitherto and who were of course splashed all over Oxford (but not so much at Brian’s college). But that was to change.

Brian always did have potential, certainly in the basics. In appearance and personality it would not be too difficult for him to adapt to the swinging sixties (which themselves started remarkably late in the decade) and he and Hilary soon became a familiar sight on the streets of Oxford, gaudily dressed, talking and laughing a little loudly, and seemingly always with wine glasses in their hands. Michaelmas Term was the party term with Christmas coming ever nearer (though it would never arrive, not in Oxford).

It may sound as if Brian and Hilary’s relationship was somewhat superficial but that would be misleading. That was an air they adopted to suit the times, on which they were quick to get a handle, and the relationship would survive right through their university days. Looking back over the years Brian would marvel at how long Oxford terms seemed. Eight weeks was nothing in later years, passed in a couple of blinks almost, but at eighteen it was different. Parties galore, Rolling Stones records blasting from upper rooms lit with dim coloured light bulbs often (strangely) red. Oxford was beginning to encompass the blaze of colour that would see it through the decade, tie-dyed shirts, shimmering dresses, bunting and the rest.      

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Returning to Wisbech for Christmas seemed existentially strange. Oxford was a London outlier (like Brighton in another direction) and the spirit of the times, what would become known as the zeitgeist, had yet to penetrate somewhere like Wisbech, an end-of the world sort of place. When the Nene River flowed away from it only the grim foggy North Sea lay ahead. Nobody there was interested in what went on at Oxford. Not his father, a solicitor concerned with agricultural land deals, not his mother in her twinsets, not his best friend from school now working in a local bank and still wearing a tie in the pub,

And not Cicely, his girlfriend. She shyly welcomed him home. Just those eight weeks apart had added a certain awkwardness to their relationship. Cicely was shy by nature and though still desperately fond of Brian was now a little uncertain of who this Brian fellow really was. The one who had got more than a little bitten by the bug called McCorkindale-Lewis? (of whom Cicely knew nothing of course). Christmas at home was a rather drab affair, and it was not without relief (but laced with snippets of both confusion and guilt) that he returned to Oxford.

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He had almost forgotten, but what more prosaic (or normal) places would call the Easter Term was known as Hilary at Oxford. Just like the girlfriend! It was probably the drabbest of the three terms, but Oxford was blossoming and budding into the riot of colour the era is remembered for. So in its own rather different way was Wisbech. Fields of bulbs stretched to the horizon. Red and purple tulips, more purple from the hyacinths, and the yellow daffodils. In other fields vegetables grew, lettuce, cabbage, kale. And the market fresh celery from Whittlesea. Cicely held his hand in silent and perhaps still uncertain companionship. Soon it was again time to leave.

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The summer of love embraced Oxford in all its voluptuous novelty. A new fresh off the record label tune now played through all the open windows- Procul Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale”- based on  music by Johann Sebastian Bach. Brian and Hilary and their friends went punting on the Cherwell, the more intimate tributary of the Isis (known in London and other places as the Thames). They glided dreamily along between the overhanging willows and moored on its banks where they consumed picnics of fresh salad sandwiches and champagne. Sometimes Brian and Hilary went on their own and made love in the dry grasses. Cicely had never quite given her approval to such activities (or at least that was Brian’s interpretation- they certainly did not verbally discuss such things).

Hilary was quite the reverse; she avidly discussed all sorts of sexual variants; yet in retrospect Brian realised she was at her least affectionate during those times. Oral sex and a rather larkish form of sado-masochism were frequently on the menu. But Brian did feel the closeness. He was sure that she did care about him and he was certainly enamoured of her. But what exactly did such a word mean?

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The summer vacation was of course much the longest, and at Oxford it was ridiculously long- the best part of four months. It needed to be broken up. He could not spend the whole time in Wisbech. He was still finding it difficult to relate to his parents. He knew his father had once cherished hopes that Brian would enter the solicitors’ practice. Now he never mentioned that. Perhaps the sight of his son with hair down his shoulders and bell-bottomed loon pants told him the idea was also ridiculous although they were in truth somewhat superficial objections. But interest in him came from a different source.

“What are you going to do when you leave Oxford, Brian?”

This was from Ray Gethin and he was Cicely’s father.

“Well, I’ve still got two years to go”

“You must have some idea”

No. He had no idea but he could hardly say that. Gethin took over the reins.

“We were getting on a bit when we had Cicely you know”

This was a new slant, and Brian wasn’t quite clear how he was supposed to respond. And he was still young enough to think in those terms, things he was supposed to do, to say and even to think. So he just nodded.

“I’d like to retire one of these days.”

Another nod.

“If you were to marry Cicely…”

Oh my God. Thought Brian.

“You might wish to take over the business”

Brian felt a rising wave of panic. He knew very little about Cicely’s father’s business. He was some sort of printer and knew his own father. They did business together and socialised at the local Rotary Club. The complete opposite direction to that which Brian’s life was heading. Cicely noticed his slightly strange manner on their next date, but Brian was quite unable to express his concerns.

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Later that long summer Brian went to stay with Hilary and her parents. She had a surprising number of siblings that she had never really talked about. In Oxford they could pretend to be alone together in the world. Their different backgrounds were rarely mentioned or discussed.

Hilary did not exactly live in a stately home. Or did she? She lived in a large, detached house, and even with 20-20 vision it was almost impossible to see the next door neighbours. Her father, Roderick McCorkindale-Lewis, was there to greet him. He showed Brian around the house as if he was visiting a museum and regaled him with the history of the McCorkindales and the Lewises. He had yet to get to the union of the two families when the gong rang for dinner. Perhaps Hilary had told him Brian read history (nobody studied anything at Oxford; they  read it) and would take an interest but in fact Brian was bored stiff by the man. But he changed tack over dinner.

“What’s pater do?”h e asked Brian rather too chummily.

It was a fact that you needed O-Level Latin to go to Oxford so at least he understood what the man was on about.

“He’s a solicitor”.

“City type eh. Venture capital and all that malarkey.”

“No not exactly”

Roderick stared at Brian as if “not exactly” was the most foolish phrase in the world.

“He works in agricultural law” said Brian silently forced into elaboration.

“What do farmers need solicitors for?”

Brian started to explain but was quickly aware that Roderick was no longer listening to him.

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The last year at Oxford really was the worst. Brian had to work hard at his history, particularly as he had been so slack with it for the two previous years. Conversely, home and the future were assuming greater importance. That last Christmas came as a great relief, the last time before finals that Brian could really forget about academic work. It was 1969 now and the throbbing colours of Oxford no longer looked quite so bright.

“We mustn’t drift apart, you know”, said Cicely in the Wisbech coffee bar they had arranged to meet in. She placed her hand on his arm. It felt good. Brian was also looking at the book Cicely had been reading when he came in. It was simply called Colours. Things that were in his mind associated with Oxford and Hilary. Not the simple soul that was Cicely who favoured blue, blue cardigans, straightforward unadorned blue jeans.  But he was already realising how patronising his thoughts had become. She followed his gaze.

“It’s a fascinating little book”, she said “I’ve always been interested in Dad’s business. It’s mainly the printed word but there’s also abstract design involved sometimes, and the use of colour.”

Brian nodded. This interested him.

“Since the 19th Century dyes have been made from laboratory compounds but back in the Middle Ages and before they came from plants and animals and minerals. The realities of nature. Dyeing was what today you’d call a cottage industry”

“Could you make a living out of dyeing”. Brian immediately regretted his smartarse response that was more fit for the braying sons of McCorkindale-Lewis Hall”

Cicely had withdrawn a little, but now Brian placed his hand on her arm.

“I’m sorry”, he said. “I am interested. Really. Carry on”.

“You probably now think I’m very dull.”

Brian tried to wave away her self-deprecation, but she just carried on.

“Always wearing blue”.

She paused before carrying on.

“You know, the history of blue is fascinating. A gem called lapis lazuli was given to the world by an almost unknown people who lived on the banks of the Sarasvati River, which was the first sacred river of the Hindus long before the Ganges. Cleopatra sprinkled the powder on her eyelashes. Botticelli used it to colour the Madonna’s robes. By then it was called ultramarine, the blue from beyond the sea. But I’m boring you.”

“No. No you’re not, Cicely”

And he meant it. He was entranced by the story that Cicely was telling. History, but very different to what he learnt from his dry-dust medievalist of a tutor at Oxford. It was even the same period, more or less, but it was crossing continents and making new connections. And Cicely he realised was a damned sight better storyteller than that man. From that moment he knew what he was going to do. And he thought he saw light and a smile in Cicely’s eyes he had never seen before. A subtler light and a subtler smile than had ever been bestowed upon it at Oxford.

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From then on at Oxford he was preoccupied with revision. And it served as a diversion. .He stayed in the College Library till after 10pm and then drank a couple of swift pints with friends in a nearby pub. The exams came and went. He hoped he had done enough.

“How long are you staying around Oxford for?”

“Don’t know”, he replied. Now it was Hilary he was awkward with.

“We can go up to Daddy’s any time you like”.

Brian took a very deep breath. Then he shook his head.

“Oh I know. You find Daddy a bit overpowering. That’s all right. We’ll go away together just the two of us. How about Tuscany?”

Now he sighed.

“Hilary, I’m so fond of you. But Oxford is a strange place. Not really part of our lives. More interruption than development.”

“What are you saying?”

“That we’ve been on a journey and now…”

“You’re throwing me aside aren’t you. You little bastard. You fucking little bastard”.

She had never called him little before. Other people in the coffeehouse had turned to look at them. But Brian wasn’t bothered about that.

“I stuck up for you when all my friends told me you were a lower-middle class loser. I saw something in you. Or thought I did.”

Brian let her rip. He knew he had to. After all it was his fault. Or was it? Relationships, some of them, come and go. He had gone on a journey, a circular journey it had turned out to be. Hilary he felt had made the return journey inevitable.

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“Will you marry me?” he asked.

“Of course I will.”

Said Cicely.

.