Today I rearrange my mnemonics early, taking notes as I go, so that I can type out for you the details of my morning routine. A morning routine that, today, failed to attain completion until gone three in the afternoon. Which means I now have to shift my afternoon routine to the evening and my evening routine close to bedtime. But never mind, I refuse to allow minor setbacks to hinder my recovery. And were it not for my ingenious system of physical mnemonics, nothing whatsoever would have been accomplished today.
All of this thinking about mnemonic ingenuity puts me in a delightful mood. Yes, my thoughts will be sharp once more. I will spend every day in training. Slowly I will regain my strength, the very best of my mind.
Suddenly my mood becomes so fresh, so clear, that something wonderful jumps right into my head, something I have been unable to recall for the last three years – the mnemonic significance of the salad bowl. Ha, no, not any sort of unkind reflection on the size or health of my genitals. Yes, something so obvious.
Dressing. Salad: dressing!
I have five weeks.
IV
IV(i) Jolyon rubbed his bag-strangled hands. Yes, he was feeling crabby. But he was feeling crabby because several second-year students had been posted at Pitt’s front lodge precisely for the purpose of helping freshers carry bags and find rooms. And two of them were currently assisting a boy whose entire bearing suggested he came from a life of perpetual privilege. The boy’s father – Admiral? Lord? Sir? – had commandeered a luggage cart which was now piled high with enough bags for a maharaja. So in fact the second years were lolling behind carrying nothing at all. Instead they were listening politely to the boy’s mother who was telling them about little Toby’s recent summer, half of which had been spent gaining impossibly valuable work experience in the offices of the Foreign Secretary, a personal friend, and the other half in Argentina participating in a polo tournament.
Jolyon meanwhile had been carrying his heavy bags alone all day. A twenty-minute walk to the station, a train journey, a Tube journey, a second train journey, another twenty-minute walk to Pitt. For months his separated parents had argued over which of them would drive him to college. As their shots ricocheted around him, Jolyon detected in the smell of the gunpowder the true nub of the problem, the unspoken question – which one of us deserves more credit for the cleverness of our son? Neither of his parents would submit and no fraction of the credit seemed attributable to Jolyon himself. And then the date for his parents’ divorce hearing had come through. That date was today. Problem solved.
So now, while his parents were no doubt being physically restrained by their lawyers, Jolyon found himself carrying a large and heavy suitcase and, over his shoulder, a sports bag full of as many books and cassettes as he could cram inside. His shoulders ached and his hands and arms now hung at his sides utterly devoid of blood and strength. And the sight of little Toby had confirmed for Jolyon everything he feared this place would be. So yes, he was feeling crabby. More than a little maybe.
But despite his ill mood Jolyon had warmed to the American as soon as he had spoken. Jolyon had taken a year off travelling before college, finding odd jobs as he made his way around the world, always worried the money would run out and he would have to return home to his feuding parents – parents who couldn’t send him any money because they worked as schoolteachers and were both using what little money they had to pay their divorce lawyers. During his travels, Jolyon had liked all the young Americans he’d come across. In Vietnam he had taken up with a group of friends from New Mexico, including the smartest, most beautiful girl he’d ever met. He had planned on sticking with the pack as they headed west to Cambodia, even though he had just come from Cambodia himself. And that’s when the smartest, most beautiful girl had told him about her boyfriend back home. No, more than a boyfriend – she took a deep breath and revealed a ring that she kept in her pocket. Her fiancé.
So Jolyon scuttled away to Thailand instead. He found a job in a beach bar and barely thought about his feuding parents at all, only about the girl, the feel of the sand between their dovetailing fingers when they would walk ankle-deep through the surf.
Months after Asia, while travelling around Europe, Jolyon had once again made sure to stay close to backpacking Americans. They had such an easy manner and he felt comfortable and safe around them, especially whenever a situation felt hazardous. Americans believed in their rights and standing up for them vociferously. Jolyon always felt secure in their constitutionalist company.
One night in Venice he had been crossing the Piazza San Marco, the whole experience like wandering through the jewellery box of a wealthy duchess, and next to him a Montanan named Todd had gasped at the view and said, ‘Man, that’s it. I’m seriously moving to Europe when I’m done with the whole college shitstorm. All the best Americans end up in Europe anyway.’
The notion that all the best Americans ended up in Europe appealed to Jolyon and Jolyon liked to cherish and cultivate the notions that appealed to him best.
And this Chad looked like one of the good guys. Jolyon had teased him about his name only to indicate that potentially he liked him. But then Jolyon remembered that, unlike the British, Americans tended not to initiate their friendships this way. In his head he now ran over the words he had spoken aloud. ‘Who on earth names their son after a Third World fucking country?’
Yes, perhaps his crabbiness had made the words, intended as a welcoming joke, sound a little severe.
IV(ii) ‘I wasn’t baptised Chad,’ said Chad. ‘It’s from my middle name – Chadwick.’
But Jolyon couldn’t abandon the joke, he had to follow through to show it had been only a joke in the first place. He tried to sound playful. ‘So you actually choose to be named after a Third World country?’
The English had such a sarcastic way with their vowels. To Chad’s ears everything for those first few months had sounded biting or wry. I’m going to the sooh-permarket for some booh-ze and cheeh-se. It was like living submerged in an ocean of Oscar Wildes.
He couldn’t think of an immediate response to the Third World quip. Everything had gone wrong in the span of mere seconds. To have approached this foreign stranger in Pitt’s front quad was the número dos bravest thing he had ever done. But now courage felt like foolishness. He felt the blood climbing toward his cheeks, the patter of its hot little feet.
‘I’m sorry, I’m a little tired and I didn’t mean to . . . I’m Jolyon,’ said Jolyon, offering his hand. ‘Like Julian but pronounced jolly, which might seem ironic right now.’
Chad initiated part two of the plan. ‘Jolyon,’ he said, pronouncing the name carefully, Jolly-un, so that he would not forget it. And then Chad abandoned the plan completely, still smarting despite the apology. ‘Sounds like a country and western singer,’ he said, ‘You know, with suede tassels and big hooters.’
Jolyon considered the foreign final word, its alien vowels and consonants. Hooh-durrs. What did it mean? But then the universal gesture of men the world over, hands cupped above the midriff, gave the game away.
‘Jesus, you’re right, Chad,’ said Jolyon, taking absolutely no offence. And then, laughing and leaning in, Jolyon pointed over Chad’s shoulder. ‘You see that guy over there?’ he said.