Parts 1-6 of this story should be read first
Chapter Thirty-seven: Sandro begins his second year at Camford
I am not pleased with the author's portrayal of me, Sandro, during my first year as a student at Saint Boniface's College, Camford. He makes me seem a shy and naïve adolescent. So for the remainder of this story, the chapters about me will be written by me, and you will get an honest first-hand account of my life and activities, and an insight into my most intimate thoughts. The author will continue to write the rest of the story, if my uncles and brothers allow him.
I moved into my new college room early in October, two days before the beginning of term. The head porter had told me that my next-door neighbour would be a freshman. The next day I heard the new occupant of the room arrive. After allowing him time to unpack, I knocked on his door, hoping to sell my now redundant commoner's gown. The door was opened by a tall, fair-haired man who looked considerably older than eighteen, but was obviously new. "Hi," I said, "I'm your next-door neighbour. I wondered if you had already bought or been given a gown."
"No," replied the blond-headed man, "I'm looking for one. I'll need it for the matriculation ceremony on Wednesday."
"Scholar or Commoner? I asked. "Commoner," was the reply.
"I've got just what you're looking for!" I said. "I've just got a second-year scholarship, and I needed a scholar's gown, which I've just bought. You can have my old gown for a fiver. It's only been worn for exams and tutorials. No-one in Engineering wears them for lectures, and first year students don't need them for dinner, so it's in pretty good nick. It should fit OK, because we seem to be a similar width across the shoulders."
"Done!" said the new student, and produced a fiver out of his wallet. I went and fetched the gown, the newcomer tried it on, and we shook hands over the deal. The handshake was firm, but lingered noticeably longer than I expected. I eyed the newcomer carefully. I liked what I saw. The man smiled. "Could we go into dinner together?" he asked. I grinned with pleasure. Formal Hall dinners did not begin until the next day, so we were able to go in together, but before dinner, I took the newcomer into the beer cellar for a preprandial drink. The newcomer met my approval by asking for cask beer, which I paid for. I had adapted so well to traditional English beer that I hated it when I had to drink Nastro Azzurro at home! We sat down and the freshman announced his name as Dominic Overton, "But you can call me Dom!" he said.
"My name's Sandro, short for Alessandro Mascagnoli," I replied, "I'm Italian, as you can probably guess from my accent. I'm just twenty, how old are you?"
"I'm twenty-two. I was interviewed and offered a place three years ago, but I didn't feel ready for university, so I've been working as an IT developer for a small software company since then. I'm going to read computer science. My family felt that I should stand on my own feet and learn a bit about real life before coming up to Camford. How do you come to be here and not at an Italian university?"
"Family reasons. My mother is English, and my brother, who was adopted, was brought up in England and my uncle, his adoptive father, is a tutor in chemistry at this college. But my brother, who got his degree at Buckingham College, now lives in Italy! We are very much an Anglo-Italian family. It's a real contrast when I go home in the vacs."
"What are you reading?"
"Engineering. If you don't know anyone in Camford, would you like me to show you things in the town and in the college? There's a lot of things in Camford that are better discovered sooner rather than later."
"Thank you. That's a very kind offer, and I accept it," replied Dom.
"Are you doing anything tonight after dinner? If not, we could explore a few pubs together. It will still be light enough to point out a few landmarks, not just churches and colleges, but pubs, restaurants, bookshops, cinemas, concert halls, bus stops, and safe places to leave bikes, if you're a cyclist. There's not much point in having a car in Camford."
"No, I guessed that would be the case. I've brought my bike with me. My father brought my things in a van. I've only been here once before, at the age of nineteen when I came for an interview. As I already had my A level results, they offered me a place at once, but I deferred it until now. I feel like the guys back in the 1950s must have felt, coming to university after having done national service."
"Camford students actually are fairly mature for their age," I told him. "They are all academic geniuses, and some are very conceited about it. I feel independent of that, having experienced a totally different educational system. But Camford is a wonderful place. It is a bit like Venice, not just in the network of waterways, but because it has a unique beauty and fascination not to be found anywhere else. It is uniquely English, and I love it. Of course I do have an English mother, and it's nice to have a family home here for the vacations, where I can stay when we are all thrown out of college for the conference trade. If you don't want to take your bike home at Christmas, I have access to a safe place at my uncle's where you could leave it. It would probably be OK left in college, but it would not be protected from bad weather. So are you on for a walk round and a drink after dinner?"
"Yes. It will be very useful. Thank you." As we moved into the hall to eat, we had to line up to collect our food. (Informal Hall dining was self-service). I thought about my new acquaintance and looked at him carefully. He was slightly taller than I was, and had long since lost the gangling skinniness of the under-twenties, so was fit and reasonably well built, not fat or excessively muscular, clean-shaven with hair slightly longer than usual, though not as long as my own. I guessed that he must weigh at least ten kilos more than I did. He wore loose-fitting trousers, so I could not even guess at what he had to offer below the belt. His blond hair was very attractive, and made me feel quite lustful. I still had a weakness for attractive blond men, even after my disastrous relationship with that shit Jack Meredith. I decided that I wanted to make friends with Dom, but without any intention of falling in love with him. Once bitten, twice shy. Besides, he probably wasn't gay.
When we sat down, I asked if Dom was sporty. "Not really. I've been a geek for three years, but I do swim regularly, walk and cycle a lot, but I'm not into competitive sport," he replied.
"You should join the Camford Men's Fitness Centre," I said. "I can get you in if you can afford the subs. I go there twice a week to swim. It's less crowded than the Camford Olympic Pool, and easier to get to. There are two pools, a weights room, a squash court, a general fitness room and a bar. I sometimes go there to play squash, although the college has a squash court of its own." I had taken up squash in my first year (something that the author did not tell you), and I hoped that I might persuade Dom to try it.
"Actually, I played squash when I was at school and used to enjoy it. It would be good to take it up again, especially if the college facilities are free."
"Yes, they are," I told him, "and there are shower facilities available. Nothing makes you sweat like a vigorous game of squash." That was the down-to-earth, rather crude Sandro speaking, a trait I share with my brother Luca. You notice it in my speech. In contrast to the author, whose uses biomedical words like anus and euphemisms like man-juice, I say fucking, not lovemaking; shitting, not going to the toilet; arsehole, not anus; cock, not penis; and ball-bag, not scrotum. Whereas it took my brother a long time to learn those words in Italian, the widespread availability of porn in English meant that I knew all the dirty words before I was an Italian teenager of fifteen!
"I'll get myself a racket next week and we'll have few games together," he said. "It will be nice to have a playing partner."
Chapter Thirty-eight: Dominic settles in at Boni's
Dominic Overton was starting to enjoy Camford. He settled quickly into his routine of lectures and tutorials, and in particular, he liked the friendliness of the guy next door. It was clear from what had so far passed between them, that this lad, though he was two years younger than Dom, had actually seen more of the world. When Dominic had told his parents that he wanted to work for three years as a software developer before going up to Camford, they encouraged him, because they thought that he might learn a bit about the real world before spending three or more years in an ivory tower. But in fact, his three years as a geek had had just the opposite effect. He had had very little social life, and the lack of contact with human beings had made him shy of the real world.
The liveliness of the boy next door had made Dom realize what he was missing. He hoped desperately that the other freshmen in his year did not turn out to be geeks. He found that in fact about 50% of the Computer Studies first year were geekish, while the rest seemed normal extrovert people. Interestingly, the geeks were almost all male. The few female CS students, about 15% of the year, were all normal people, though not especially attractive sexually, which he found somewhat disappointing. Of the other computer studies freshmen in Boni's, of which there were four, two had geekish tendencies and two seemed more extrovert. There were no women among them. They all, geeks and extroverts, used to sit together for dinner in hall, but he missed the company of Sandro during dinner. As they both had 9 am lectures most days however, they did usually have breakfast together in hall, and began to do things together in the evenings.
