I was going to fail Oxford. Which was basically the same as failing life.
And I could have avoided it at any point if I’d just done some work.
At Nik’s prompting, I’d gone to the Careers Service a couple of days ago, where I’d read a lot of leaflets that had essentially confirmed I was unqualified for everything. I’d also spoken to a nice lady, who was apparently a careers advisor, but since my opening gambit had been “Hello, I’d like a career, please,” she hadn’t really been able to do much advising. She suggested I put together some ideas about what I wanted to do and slipped me a Those That Can Teach! brochure. We’d talked about things I liked and was good at (clue: not teaching) but all I’d been able to come up with was the Bog Sheet. Which had led to a slightly bemused lecture about how journalism was an incredibly difficult field to break into, even with a degree from Oxford, and how I should have been applying for internships last October.
In short: things were not looking good.
I was actually pretty talented at emotional procrastination, but I’d run out of distractions and excuses. And now I was on my own in my room, the night before my first exam, not quite drunk and not quite sober, and absolutely fucking terrified. Tomorrow I would have to put on a suit and a bow tie and my crappy commoner’s gown and walk all the way down to the Examination Schools. Stand amidst the marble and gilt. And probably burst into tears the moment someone put a paper in front of me.
Twenty questions, half of which would be random quotes from people I inevitably hadn’t read, occasionally appended by a somber “discuss.” I’d been feeling brave enough to check out a past paper a few days back.
Big mistake. Huge.
The first question my eye had alighted on had read: “Happy the man whose wish and care / A few paternal acres bound […]” And that was it.
What did it mean?
How the fuck was I supposed to do any of this?
I suddenly couldn’t breathe. I scrambled over my bed and threw open the window. It was right on the turn: that moment between evening and night, suspended in a golden haze. The air moved sluggishly. Tasted sticky. I rested my head against the edge of the casement.
Too hot. Too cold. Too fucked.
People were moving to and fro across the quad like incidentals in a T. S. Eliot poem. Friends and lovers scattered under the trees in the fading light.
And I’d never felt so fucking alone.
Rationally I could just about locate a non-panic-saturated part of my brain that believed I would definitely maybe sort of be okay. Yes, the next few weeks weren’t going to be very pleasant, and I wasn’t likely to do brilliantly, but it probably wasn’t going to be a complete disaster either. I was relatively clever, though not half as clever as I’d thought I was before I’d come to Oxford. I’d read quite a lot of books. And I’d been dashing off my essays since my second term, so producing semiplausible drivel on demand was a skill I’d accidentally nurtured.
Maybe I did have a future in journalism.
Oh God. I was doomed.
In a moment of absolute mindless lonely terror, I rang the Samaritans. But hung up again when the man I spoke to sounded terribly disappointed I wasn’t suicidal.
Then I made another attempt to do some last-minute revision.
Cried instead.
Got into bed and pulled the duvet over my head.
Got out of bed again. Made sure I had the right clothes for tomorrow. Tested my pens to make sure they…y’know…wrote.
Nearly threw up in the wastepaper basket.
Checked my phone to make sure I’d set an alarm for tomorrow.
Got back into bed.
Thought about calling home but didn’t see any reason to worry the shit out of my family.
Lay in the semidark. Heart beating too fast. Tears gathering but not falling. Stuck somewhere.
I was going to be exhausted for my first exam.
My brain already felt like toffee.
Then my phone rang. I scrabbled for it and answered without even checking the caller ID.
