Luminaria
The names of the Oxford terms were borrowed from the Medieval English legal system, which divided the court sessions into quarterly terms: Hilary (or Epiphany), Easter, Trinity, and Michaelmas. Hilary term takes its name from the feast day of St. Hilary of Poitiers (patron saint of lawyers), on January 14.
By the second week of Hilary term, I had resumed attending lectures and preparing for the examination. As I wrote to my mother on January 24, 1987, “When I checked my schedule, I discovered that my exam is scheduled to take place in five weeks rather than the eight I expected. So now I am busier than ever. I do not at this time foresee any problems, but I’ve got to keep a firm schedule.”
Some of the lectures were tedious; others brilliant. I never knew what to expect. “Last week at one of my lectures, the BBC came in to shoot some footage for a television special that they are doing called ‘Songs of Praise and Prayer.’ It probably won’t be on US television, but you never know. They also shot some footage of the Keble choir.” Here is the theme song from Songs of Praise in the 1980s.
“I had a lot of mail waiting for me when I arrived. One of the things waiting was a friendly, not romantic, letter from Malcolm, who is presently working for the U.N. in Bangkok, Thailand. He didn’t say much about the nature of his work but gave me many details about what it is like to live there. (I think that it is not such a nice place—although it ranks high on a lot of men’s lists.) Also, I had a Christmas card from Steve and N.J. [my brother and his wife] that I would like to respond to as soon as you can send me their new address.”
If I were a conscientious memoirist, I would end the newsletter here because this is the only documentary evidence that I have for what happened during the second week of Hilary 1987. So, you can stop reading now and pick up the Oxford story next week. But since I have mentioned Dr. Malcolm Lindsay, and since he played a part in my being at Oxford, I will tell you the back story, that is, if you want to stay with me. But, in order to do that, we have to leave Oxford and go back to Madison, Wisconsin, ten years earlier.
Looking back, going forward
In September 1977, I moved to Madison to start work as a Legislative Policy Analyst. I was assigned to the audit team that was evaluating the Department of Administration. That is where I first saw Malcolm, who was working for the Office of Energy. I would run into him nearly daily, but since we were auditing the department, it was not appropriate to be friendly though I was interested in him. In the meantime, I rented a three-bedroom flat on Bassett Street and found a history graduate-student housemate, who eventually became my boyfriend. As a result, I spent most evenings on campus at the library or the Rathskeller. One thing that intrigued me about Malcolm is that he was the only person who I ran into regularly both at work and on campus. Eventually, we had a nodding acquaintance. Once on the library elevator, he asked me what floor I was going to. I was surprised because he had a regional English accent (I later learned he was from Tyneside). Even more surprising though was that in 1982 he completely disappeared.
The 1980s started out badly for me. When Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, the United States turned very conservative. The policies that I had been proposing were quite liberal and no longer aligned with the now fiscally conservative Wisconsin State Legislature. Even though I had a civil service position, which should have protected me, I was forced out. Disillusioned with politics, I decided to go back to university to get a degree in English literature. Thus, I began to take the undergraduate courses that I needed for the major and found a student job as a messenger at the University of Wisconsin Press, where I photocopied manuscripts and delivered them. One of the editorial department employees recommended that I be promoted to editorial assistant because I had beautiful handwriting. My job consisted of transferring the handwritten copyediting and design markups to the printer’s manuscript. This is how I learned what copyeditors do.
I spent the 1983/84 academic year in Conway, Arkansas, where my housemate/boyfriend had gotten a teaching job at Hendrix College. When I returned to Madison in the fall of 1984 to start my Master’s degree in English, my housemate/ex did not come with me. I asked the Editor-in-Chief at the UW Press if I could do freelance copyediting rather than my editorial assistant job. She said no and immediately fired me. However, this worked out well because the Wisconsin Magazine of History hired me as an in-house copyeditor.
This is when Malcolm returned. I ran into him at the Plaza Tavern. After years of silence, I finally spoke to him, “Where have you been?” He said that he had been traveling in Africa for several years and that he had just resumed his job at the Office of Energy. We talked as if we were long lost friends. He mumbled under his breath, “Mes yeux t’embrace.” Yes, I thought, our eyes have been embracing each other for years.
The details are too long to rehearse. There were lovely dates at restaurants that no longer exist; he sent me flowers with the message “Je t’aime”; and on Valentine’s Day, we were engaged to be married. Malcolm had just turned 40. He was at a turning point in his life, maybe even an early midlife crisis. Part of him wanted a quiet, settled life—geraniums in the window—a wife and children. The other part wanted to be an energy consultant, who traveled around the world. I thought somehow that we could have both, so I encouraged him to leave his job with the state and take a consulting position on a project in Tunisia. Our plan was that I would move into his apartment on Mansion Hill, then meet him in London in May after I finished my classes. The plan seemed to be working. We exchanged six-page-long love letters every week and booked a flat in Fulham, London, where we met in early June.
Time and place can change a person. As I wrote to my mother on June 26, 1985, “Malcolm came to see me as soon as I arrived in London. He really is very English . . . fell back into his old habits right away of having tea at 4:00; getting excited about the Queen’s Birthday Parade, etc.” We were supposed to go to Trooping the Colour, but the lock on the flat door broke and we were trapped inside. Nothing like a disappointment to throw cold water on a romance. I began to suspect that there was a lot that I didn’t know about my fiancé. The connection between us was stretched and attenuating. “We went out to many places, including Oxford, where he took me punting on the Thames. He is a dear man; the trip cost him a bundle.” While we were in Oxford, Malcolm took me to the Oxford University Admissions office on Wellington Square, where I picked up the information that I needed to apply to Oxford and spoke with one of the counselors. Just as I had encouraged him to follow his dream of consulting, he encouraged me to follow my dream of going to Oxford.
Our plan was that Malcolm would go back to Tunisia and that I would join him after doing a few weeks of research in London. After he left, I moved to a student dorm on Brunswick Square, which is a fifteen-minute walk to the British Museum. The British Museum Reading Room was steeped in history: Karl Marx spent much of his time there after he was exiled to London in 1849. Somehow, I hoped my writing would be inspired by doing it at the Reading Room. I would spend the entire day there, then have dinner at the London House (a student hall that my ex had taken me to on a previous trip). In a classic letter to Mom, I wrote, “It costs £1.15 (or $1.40) for meat, potatoes, veg. and dessert. Coffee or tea is 25 cents. So I get a good dinner every night and live on tea and biscuits during the day. The desserts are strange—usually pie or cakes and everything is served with custard sauce (and lots of it) poured over all. The weather is depressing. It rains every day and is cold—60°.”
The night before I was supposed to fly to Tunisia, my Machiavellian, ever-restless housemate/ex showed up at London House looking for me. He wanted to talk to me, so we went back to my room. When his entreaties to get back together failed, he grabbed my passport and ran away. I had no idea where he was staying. The charter plane ticket was not refundable and I had no money for another ticket (and would have to get a new passport from the Embassy as well). I contacted Malcolm and explained what happened. But he was hurt and did not offer to get another ticket for me. Perhaps he thought I didn’t really want to leave London or wondered why my ex was in my room or had changed his mind about getting married or thought that I had. Maybe the handwriting was on the wall—we had both chosen our career dreams. The splitting of our common path into two forks, lighted by luminaria, showed the clear directions that each of us needed to take. I never saw him again. However, neither of us broke our engagement.
Delightful, as always. I always learn something, and find reason to smile.
Dear Lynn, I am grateful for your sharing of your journey and the knowledge and insights I receive in reading your vivid memories. Thank you!