“There’s no call to upset yourself,” Flo said, and put a hand on her shoulder.
“No reason birdwatching wouldn’t be a nice hobby for a girl too,” Stan said. “I think we have a beginner book here that our Martin grew out of long ago.” He pulled out another much slimmer book. “You take this, and that’ll be a start.”
“You’ve already been so kind,” Patty said.
“Now I have to get off to work, but you’ll find your way back to the station all right, won’t you?” Stan said, finishing up his breakfast.
“I will. And I can never thank you enough for taking me in, and the book, and … and restoring my faith in human nature,” Patty said.
“You think of us when you’re an Oxford scholar,” Stan said. “And we’ll think of you. And when Martin comes home we’ll tell him he had a girl in his bed when he was far away!”
4
Sculling: 1944–1946
When first Patty went up to Oxford she threw herself into the Christian Union and her newly rediscovered love of God. All her friends were drawn from Christian Union circles, which were happy to include her. Although she remained shy and awkward, for the first time in her life she felt she belonged. It was the autumn of 1944, the Education Act had been passed, and free and equal access to education for everybody was for the first time a reality. The invasion of Europe had begun in June with the Normandy landings, and although she was no longer so entirely riveted to the radio for news updates as things dragged out, it seemed finally possible to imagine that the war might one day be over. There was a spirit of optimism and the sense that a better world was coming. Meanwhile the petty daily inconveniences of the war ground on, with everything in short supply. Oxford was full of women and cripples—men injured in the war. Patty rowed both in the women’s eights and alone. She went on outings organized by the Christian Union. She read Milton and struggled with Old English. She worked hard. Her essays got unspectacular but good marks.
VE Day came and Hitler died in his bunker, and although the war with Japan ground on, there was a sense that everyone was more than ready to be done with the whole thing and move on. Then in the summer the Americans dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima. Patty heard the news on the old humming wireless in her mother’s house, and shared the sense of relief everyone initially felt. She went back up to Oxford feeling a burden had been lifted, though rationing was worse than ever and new clothes were impossible to find even if you had the coupons. A few veterans were in that year’s intake, and a few young men postponing conscription now that the war was over. There was an election, in which Patty could not vote, being under twenty-one, but in which she took a close interest. The Labour party under Attlee were elected with a massive majority, which she saw as a mandate for social justice and true equality for everyone, and rejoiced. In other ways, her second year was much like her first.
She acquired a boyfriend, an earnest young man called Ian Morris. He was a year younger than she was, one of the men who deferred his conscription to go to Oxford. He had not taken any part in the war, and it was hard to imagine him as a soldier. She found him profoundly unthreatening. The Christian Union might argue passionately over faith versus works or on the precise way to administer charity, but they were united on the subject of sex—they were against it. Rather, they professed to be for sex within marriage for the purposes of procreation, but for all of them that was for a distant future. Patty rarely thought about sex, and when she did she felt a vast apprehension and an equally vast ignorance. She knew almost nothing about it. Some men, and indeed some girls, she found sexually frightening. She felt safe with Ian. He occasionally put his arm around her shoulders when in company, never when they were alone. They agreed that they were “waiting.” He did not press her. They danced together at Christian Union dances, and Patty pretended not to notice that she was taller than he was.
She had imperceptibly become aware that neither the Christian Union nor Oxford were as shining and perfect as she had initially thought them, and had become accustomed to making excuses for them in her mind when they fell short of what she felt they should be. She called this “being charitable.” She easily began to exercise the same slightly brisk charity with Ian. He never came into her mind when she read the Metaphysical poets.