Author's notes: the setting should be familiar to anyone who shares my alma mater, and I've tried to be accurate. Dinner is one I had, but not at Downing; the flat exists, but Hazel never lived there; my old room is accurately depicted.
Hazel herself exists.
The events? I'll leave you to guess.
-x-
Most work trips away from home, I dislike. Unfamiliar beds mean I don't sleep well; hotels are often a bit soulless; and I don't have my bits and pieces around me.
This work trip threatened, when I booked it, to be more of the same. A conference, at which I wasn't presenting anything, improved by being in my old university city, where at least I'd be able to see friends, and stay with them, rather than in another hotel.
My grumpy prognosis of the trip improved when I managed to invite myself to stay with Hazel: an invitation that, due to some excellent timing, included dinner in the college hall, seated at High Table, as she was now a Fellow (as it were).
I arrived early that morning, by train, and headed to the conference venue. I yawned my way through the morning sessions; went sparingly at the buffet lunch (mindful of a Porterhouse Blue-inducing dinner ahead of me); networked resolutely over coffee; and managed to extract some use from the afternoon symposia.
As the conference wound to its conclusion, I picked up my bags, and walked the short distance across the city to Downing College. Summer treats the college kindly, with its vast grassy expanses. Unlike most of the Cambridge colleges, Downing has more of a campus feel, rather than the courtyards of the old, medieval institutions. I wound my way round the main buildings, past the Hall that would be the scene of dinner, and across the Fellows' gardens.
Hazel had the run of a ground floor apartment in one of a run of houses backing onto the College: a fellow of only a year's standing, she wasn't senior enough for a wood-clad set in the old buildings. As an undergraduate, I'd lived for a year in a room that had once been the college's first library. The college had since had at least two newer libraries, as its collection had expanded and increase: this one was in the oldest court of the college, on the third storey. Only slightly attic-like (albeit imbued with an ancientness hard to credit most student digs), it did have disadvantages. The staircase was beautiful, oaken, and extremely creaky, meaning late-night returns where heard by all. The kitchen was tiny and shared my neighbour, and thus also with their culinary disasters. The floor had its own sense of levels, and every piece of furniture stood, slightly drunkenly, at its own angle.
So, if less historic, there was a lot to be said about Hazel's apartment. By the time I arrived, she'd made it home from what appeared to have been a busy day in the University Library, tracking down something obscure in the miles of shelving.
"After such a dusty, dismal day, I thought a drink was called for," she informed me, holding out the tall glass as I returned from depositing my case in her spare room.
"A fine plan," I affirmed, sipping. "Did you find what you were looking for?"
"Yes, though it might have raised more questions than solved, annoyingly. I'll probably spend the rest of the week digging up second-hand references, trying to figure it all out. How was your thing?"
"Dull, necessary, and pleasingly finished," I grinned. My aversion to such events was well known to Hazel.
"I'm sure you only came because you wanted a collegiate dinner," she guessed, "You can't get so many opportunities, now."
I'd left Cambridge at the same time she took up the fellowship, moving into the private sector to escape a life in the laboratory.
"It certainly helped persuade me!" I replied, teasingly toasting her with the glass. "What time do we need to get there?"
"The usual; drinks at 7, dinner at half-past. Did you bother bringing a gown?"
"No, no-one will expect it, I reckoned," I explained. I finished my gin: "I've got time for a shower, then, if that's ok?"
"Of course: you know where everything is."
I took advantage of the aforementioned modern plumbing, and made myself presentable for the evening. Suit and tie are
sine qua non
; although, as a graduate of the University, I was technically eligible, and expected, to don an academic gown for formal events, there would be plenty of other guests and visitors who wouldn't, so I hadn't brought one.
I came back down, and found Hazel rummaging for something or other in a handbag. She smiled as I came in:
"You always do scrub up alright, I suppose."
I bowed, mockingly, enjoying the long friendship we'd had since our early undergrad days. Hazel, unable to escape her college post, was wearing her doctoral gown over a black dinner dress. The gown, of course, was designed for a centuries-old academia that was the preserve of men, and hasn't seen much change. The hem, therefore, fell rather further down Hazel's shapely legs than her dress, which was cut slightly above her knees, asymmetric, and snug around her hips, waist and bust.
"You'll do, I suppose," I allowed, grinning back. She sighed at me, rolling her eyes.
"We should get going; I think I've got everything."
-x-
Dinner, as I had come to expect from these occasions, was tasty, plentiful, and convivial.
I found myself sat next to a Fellow I'd not met, and a post-graduate in a field tangentially related to my own academic past.
I probed the post-grad's research over the starter (pea and coconut velouté) and fish course (never my favourite part of a meal, so I was surprised to love the smoked salmon and mozzarella terrine). Eventually, though, after a full day of other people's research, I tired of this, so I politely switched my attention to the Fellow. Having no mutual professional interests, this was a rather more freely roaming conversation (over a sous vide beef tournedos, on a bed of red cabbage, with potatoes Parisienne and a celeriac purée). Having eaten more dinners in the Hall than I'd care to calculate, he led me, still seated, round the portraits and art visible from the top table; skirted some literature; medical ethics; and, perhaps aided by the rather fine claret, a discussion of the relative merits of the seven deadly sins.
It's amazing what you find to talk about.
Hazel, sat opposite me, occasionally broke in, and I'm sure she was silently giggling through our decision that either lust, or greed, was our preferred mortal vice. Although it was still a bright summer evening, the softer lighting of the hall had its usual flattering effect, and I caught myself admiring by dining companion throughout the meal. Her dark, almost black, gently curling hair bracketed a face that seemed to smile constantly, animated in her conversation with those around her. I was distracted from her delicate hand, around the stem of her glass, by the arrival of a final confection of chocolate and salt caramel.
One of the advantages of this kind of dinner is the post-prandial decantation into one of the Fellows' lounges. After a final grace had been said, we trooped through to another setting of food and wine, and this time I was sat next to Hazel, instead of opposite her.
The reason for only lightly grazing at lunch was reinforced by the presence of no less than three cheese, fruit, and a new suite of dessert wines (my favourite was a venerable port; Hazel seemed to prefer the Reisling).
We took our time, leisurely sampling the desserts, while I stole the occasional, as-subtle-as-I-could glance sideways at her. Despite the length of our friendship, things had never proceeded any further, hampered by stretches where one or both of us were involved with other people, or work took precedence, or something inchoate held us back. We caught one another up on our work and lives, and family and friends, and meanwhile I didn't think she'd noticed the look in my eyes, in the dim light.
As these things tend to, the evening only wrapped up when one of the senior dons pointed out that the college's staff would want to get on with clearing up. We stumbled out into the deepening dark lawn, and started the walk back across to Hazel's flat.
"You were right, it's been a while since I had a dinner that good."
"Told you. You should come up more often," she remonstrated, leaning slightly on my arm as we navigated the last path to her gate.
