My Oxford Year
Julia Whelan
Dedication
To those we have lost.
Particularly fathers.
Particularly mine.
Epigraph
I envy you going to Oxford: it is the most flower-like time of one’s life. One sees the shadow of things in silver mirrors. Later on, one sees the Gorgon’s head, and one suffers, because it does not turn one to stone.
Oscar Wilde, letter to Louis Wilkinson, December 28, 1898
Chapter 1
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now!
Robert Browning, “Home-Thoughts, from Abroad,” 1845
Next!”
The customs agent beckons the person in front of me and I approach the big red line, absently toeing the curling tape, resting my hand on the gleaming pipe railing. No adjustable ropes at Heathrow, apparently; these lines must always be long if they require permanent demarcation.
My phone, which I’ve been tapping against my leg, rings. I glance at the screen. I don’t know the number.
“Hello?” I answer.
“Is this Eleanor Durran?”
“Yes?”
“This is Gavin Brookdale.”
My first thought is that this is a prank call. Gavin Brookdale just stepped down as White House chief of staff. He’s run every major political campaign of the last twenty years. He’s a legend. He’s my idol. He’s calling me?
“Hello?”
“Sorry, I—I’m here,” I stammer. “I’m just—”
“Have you heard of Janet Wilkes?”
Have I heard of—Janet Wilkes is the junior senator from Florida and a dark-horse candidate for president. She’s forty-five, lost her husband twelve years ago in Afghanistan, raised three kids on a teacher’s salary while somehow putting herself through law school, and then ran the most impressive grassroots senatorial campaign I’ve ever seen. She also has the hottest human-rights-attorney boyfriend I’ve ever seen, but that’s beside the point. She’s a Gold Star Wife who’s a progressive firebrand on social issues. We’ve never seen anyone like her on the national stage before. The first debate isn’t for another two weeks, on October 13, but voters seem to love her: she’s polling third in a field of twelve. Candidate Number Two is not long for the race; a Case of the Jilted Mistress(es). Number One, however, happens to be the current vice president, George Hillerson, whom Gavin Brookdale (if the Washington gossip mill is accurate) loathes. Still, even the notoriously mercurial Brookdale wouldn’t back a losing horse like Wilkes just to spite the presumptive nominee. If nothing else, Gavin Brookdale likes to win. “Of course I’ve heard of her.”
“She read your piece in The Atlantic. We both did. ‘The Art of Education and the Death of the Thinking American Electorate.’ We were impressed.”
“Thank you,” I say, gushing. “It was something I felt was missing from the discourse—”
“What you wrote was philosophy. It wasn’t policy.”
This brings me up short. “I understand why you’d think that, but I—”
“Don’t worry, I know you have the policy chops. I know you won Ohio for Janey Bennett. The 138th for Carl Moseley. You’re a talented young lady, Eleanor.”
“Mr. Brookdale—”
“Call me Gavin.”
“Then call me Ella. No one calls me Eleanor.”
“All right, Ella, would you like to be the education consultant for Wilkes’s campaign?”
Silence.
“Hello?”
“Yes!” I bleat. “Yes, of course! She’s incredible—”
“Great. Come down to my office today and we’ll read you in.”
All the breath leaves my body. I can’t seem to get it back. “So . . . here’s the thing. I—I’m in England.”
“Fine, when you get back.”
“ . . . I get back in June.”
Silence.
“Are you consulting over there?”
“No, I have a . . . I got a Rhodes and I’m doing a—”
Gavin chortles. “I was a Rhodie.”
“I know, sir.”
“Gavin.”
“Gavin.”
“What are you studying?”
“English language and literature 1830 to 1914.”
Beat. “Why?”
“Because I want to?” Why does it come out as a question?
“You don’t need it. Getting the Rhodes is what matters. Doing it is meaningless, especially in literature from 1830 to 19-whatever. The only reason you wanted it was to help you get that life-changing political job, right? Well, I’m giving that to you. So come home and let’s get down to business.”
“Next!”
A customs agent—stone-faced, turbaned, impressive beard—waves me forward. I take one step over the line, but hold a finger up to him. He’s not even looking at me. “Gavin, can I call—”
“She’s going to be the nominee, Ella. It’s going to be the fight of my life and I need all hands—including yours—on deck, but we’re going to do it.”
He’s delusional. But, my God, what if he’s right? A shiver of excitement snakes through me. “Gavin—”