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Authors: Laura Bradbury
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hear when the phone call comes tomorrow.”
A lump of gratitude stuck in my throat. His prayer had been for me.
“I love you,” I reached up to kiss him.
Getting what I wanted would be wonderful, of course. The only thing better, like I had confided in the Virgin, was to get what I needed.
Chapter 8
The lists of finals marks were being posted outside the Examination Schools in Oxford’s High Street. I knew that, like every year, a mob of students, armed with champagne bottles, were clamoring over one another to get a glimpse of their grade. They were desperate, like I was, to find out those two little numbers that possessed the power to radically alter their future for better or for worse. A 1:1, or “First”, would pave the way for money, glory, and fame. A 2:1, or “Upper Second”, earned respect, whereas, a 2:2, or “Lower Second”, was a mark that could dog a person’s steps until their dying day in England.
After learning the verdict of their Oxford career the students would careen off to The Turf or The Bear to celebrate or drown their sorrows over champagne and pints. As for me, I was sitting at Franck’s kitchen table, watching the clock for the scheduled time when I needed to go upstairs into Franck’s bedroom and await the phone call from my tutor, the taciturn Mr. Partridge. He had promised to phone me with my grades as soon as he returned to college from the Examination Schools. He was an unusually young tutor and quivered with ambition like a plucked violin string. It was even more stressful a day for him than it was for his students. He wanted to collect as many Firsts and Upper Seconds among his students as possible. This reflected glory could push him up the byzantine levels of status amongst Oxford academics. Bad results would be like hitting a snake in Snakes and Ladders; one tended to slither down much faster than one climbed up.
Mr. Partridge had been helping me with my application to the Master’s program, but he had already made clear to me that this wasn’t solely out of the goodness of his heart.
“It looks good for me to have my students continue on in the Master’s program here,” he had informed me when I asked him to write me a letter of reference. He had offered to review my whole application, made me make a bunch of changes, and had mentioned the Master’s program almost every time he saw me during my last year of law school, both as an encouragement and a threat.
I was swirling the final drops of my café au lait in my bowl when the bell to the front gate rang. Franck’s mother went out, flustered and still in her dressing gown, to see who was there. Shortly after, she returned to the kitchen followed by a tiny old man whose spine was so crooked that he shuffled along almost bent in two.
Franck made the introductions. This was the Père Bard , the ninety and something year old village priest who uncannily resembled a gnome and who had taught Franck and several generations of village children how to fly a kite as well as how to say their “ Je Vous Salue Maries ”. Père Bard didn’t have the reputation of being very interested in his adult parishioners. His true calling was the children of his parish, but not in the way that has sadly become assumed of priests. It was more that he had always retained his own childlike spirit and wanted to surround himself with that energy. He and the village children put on convoluted and tortuously long plays for the parents, travelled down South to the Spanish border on the train to volunteer at Lourdes, and took long walks on Les Chaumes searching for an orchis , a rare orchid that grew wild in the Hautes-Côtes .
The Père Bard shook my hand and settled himself down in the chair opposite me. He refused Michèle’s offer to divest himself of his voluminous black cape which must have been stifling in the July heat. We all watched him as he carefully rested his battered cane against the kitchen table, waiting for
A lump of gratitude stuck in my throat. His prayer had been for me.
“I love you,” I reached up to kiss him.
Getting what I wanted would be wonderful, of course. The only thing better, like I had confided in the Virgin, was to get what I needed.
Chapter 8
The lists of finals marks were being posted outside the Examination Schools in Oxford’s High Street. I knew that, like every year, a mob of students, armed with champagne bottles, were clamoring over one another to get a glimpse of their grade. They were desperate, like I was, to find out those two little numbers that possessed the power to radically alter their future for better or for worse. A 1:1, or “First”, would pave the way for money, glory, and fame. A 2:1, or “Upper Second”, earned respect, whereas, a 2:2, or “Lower Second”, was a mark that could dog a person’s steps until their dying day in England.
After learning the verdict of their Oxford career the students would careen off to The Turf or The Bear to celebrate or drown their sorrows over champagne and pints. As for me, I was sitting at Franck’s kitchen table, watching the clock for the scheduled time when I needed to go upstairs into Franck’s bedroom and await the phone call from my tutor, the taciturn Mr. Partridge. He had promised to phone me with my grades as soon as he returned to college from the Examination Schools. He was an unusually young tutor and quivered with ambition like a plucked violin string. It was even more stressful a day for him than it was for his students. He wanted to collect as many Firsts and Upper Seconds among his students as possible. This reflected glory could push him up the byzantine levels of status amongst Oxford academics. Bad results would be like hitting a snake in Snakes and Ladders; one tended to slither down much faster than one climbed up.
Mr. Partridge had been helping me with my application to the Master’s program, but he had already made clear to me that this wasn’t solely out of the goodness of his heart.
“It looks good for me to have my students continue on in the Master’s program here,” he had informed me when I asked him to write me a letter of reference. He had offered to review my whole application, made me make a bunch of changes, and had mentioned the Master’s program almost every time he saw me during my last year of law school, both as an encouragement and a threat.
I was swirling the final drops of my café au lait in my bowl when the bell to the front gate rang. Franck’s mother went out, flustered and still in her dressing gown, to see who was there. Shortly after, she returned to the kitchen followed by a tiny old man whose spine was so crooked that he shuffled along almost bent in two.
Franck made the introductions. This was the Père Bard , the ninety and something year old village priest who uncannily resembled a gnome and who had taught Franck and several generations of village children how to fly a kite as well as how to say their “ Je Vous Salue Maries ”. Père Bard didn’t have the reputation of being very interested in his adult parishioners. His true calling was the children of his parish, but not in the way that has sadly become assumed of priests. It was more that he had always retained his own childlike spirit and wanted to surround himself with that energy. He and the village children put on convoluted and tortuously long plays for the parents, travelled down South to the Spanish border on the train to volunteer at Lourdes, and took long walks on Les Chaumes searching for an orchis , a rare orchid that grew wild in the Hautes-Côtes .
The Père Bard shook my hand and settled himself down in the chair opposite me. He refused Michèle’s offer to divest himself of his voluminous black cape which must have been stifling in the July heat. We all watched him as he carefully rested his battered cane against the kitchen table, waiting for
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