Page 4 of Oar Than Friends

Friends since boarding school, Olly is the only person in the world who knew I’d wanted to attend Cambridge to read English, instead of Oxford to read economics just like my father, and my father’s father and his father’s father. As it was, the only form of rebellion I could muster was shunning economics for classics, so at least I could find some refuge with the ancient Roman and Greek heroes who’d managed to topple their overbearing fathers while I still figured out how to deal with mine.

‘Marshy’s in place,’ whispered Brooks, just as I spotted the Morse code flash of a torch in the darkness ahead of us.

The dinghy slowly bore to the left until the slight silhouette of our coxswain solidified.

‘Hello, chaps,’ Pete grinned, his straight white teeth glinting in what little light there was as he waded into the shallow waters and tugged on the rope Charlie threw him. ‘Fancy seeing you here.’

The eight of us jumped out, working together to pull the dinghy into shore. I grabbed the oars case and placed it in the mini-bus, then switched my wet sneakers and socks for dry ones while the others got to work rapidly deflating the dinghy with a contraption Charlie hadadapted from a household vacuum cleaner. Something else he needed to make quieter by next year. It was hard enough to keep incognito with eight guys all over six foot three, without the additional noise pollution on top.

I closed the back door as softly as I could, and rubbed my hands together. ‘Nice work tonight, boys. I’m feeling good about this year. Feeling very good.’

‘Yeah,’ Bitters nodded, ducking his head as he climbed into the bus, ‘and we should be back by just after one. Might even catch last orders at the pub if we’re lucky.’

I grinned, ‘Make sure those oars are put away safely before you start drinking.’

‘Aye-aye, Mr President.’

‘Oz, you not getting in with us?’

I shook my head, ‘No, I’ll see you back at the house tomorrow. I’m going to catch up with Olly.’

‘Cool. Tell him he still owes me a pint.’

‘Arthur Osbourne-Cloud, it’s been a pleasure serving under you this evening,’ saluted Charlie dramatically as he jumped into the passenger seat.

I snorted as a wry smile curled up my lip, ‘Get going, don’t want you hanging around here with stolen property.’

I waited for the engine to start, watching until it drove off out of sight, because I half expected the Cambridge crew to lynch us as we left, but there was no one around. Not even the loudtoot-tootof the mini-bus horn could break the grin I was currently sporting.

I turned and took off up the hill, jogging across the common until I was far away from the scene of the crime.

Win one for Oxford.

2. Kate

(Colin Firth wouldn’t have spoken to me like that)

I stifled the yawn, though not well enough given the nudge I received in my ribs.

‘Sorry,’ I smiled sheepishly at the group of girls I was sitting with, particularly Imogen whose elbow I could still feel against my side, ‘jet lag.’

I wasn’t about to admit the two glasses of wine I’d drunk tonight had immediately gone to my head and were making me feel much less alert than I had when I’d sat down. Even the charm and cuteness of this movie-set-style British pub, with its thick beams and wooden bar top so shiny you could see your face in it, wasn’t enough to keep me awake. But that’s what happened when you were fresh over from the United States where it was still illegal for you to be consuming any alcohol at all. Not that this was the first time I’d ever drunk, it just wasn’t as easily accessible without my cousins buying it for me, or a fake ID; something I had never had the inclination nor interest to make. I was not about to risk putting my scholarship in jeopardy.

I’d touched down at Heathrow two days ago, then proceeded to get incredibly lost trying to find the exit, and the Heathrow Express. The instructions I’d meticulously written down and pored over for the entirety of the week before, as well as the seven hours I’d been awake on theflight from Boston, had been for nothing. I was a somewhat intelligent woman, on her way to Cambridge University to study medicine, but how anyone navigated themselves around the London Underground network without being a member of Mensa was beyond me.

By the time I’d arrived at Downing College, my home for the next six years, I was a weary, dishevelled mess. It had taken a hot shower, twelve hours of sleep, an apple I’d rescued from the bottom of my backpack, and a deep breath of fresh English air as I’d opened my window the next morning to feel somewhat human again.

Further pep had been added to my step when I made my way past the thick green striped lawns of the quadrangle, passing by more of the ancient, butter-coloured brick university buildings and down to the Downing College boathouse, where I met with Matthew Prendergast, the coxswains’ representative, a third-year student I’d been emailing with for a month.

I looked around at the small group of girls Matthew had introduced me to after we’d returned from a short session on the river. All six of them were members of the boat club and I’d soon discovered that, like me, they had spent years on the river before joining Cambridge.

Our friendship was too fresh, however, for me to ascertain what brought them to the water. For me it was the peace, the stillness and the escapism from reality. Not to mention the rowing scholarship I’d been offered on top of my medical scholarship as an added incentive to cross the Atlantic, instead of staying at my local state college. There was also the vast difference in affordability between the two to consider.

Even with all the empty bottles and glasses scattered on the table in front of us, we’d only discussed what everyone was studying – English, law, medicine and physics – and who was going to try out for the Cambridge University Boat Club – all of us – because while rowing for our individual colleges was great, rowing for the university was the end game and meant we were in with a chance to compete in the Boat Race. This led on to the topic of why the Oxford team was the‘absolute worst and must be beaten on allaccounts’, but the majority of the conversation had revolved around the new‘super hot, but next level arrogant’Oxford University President, and the fact that the Cambridge boys were currently plotting how to steal the Oxford mascot. I couldn’t be certain, but I didn’t think even Yale and Harvard went to these lengths.

‘Did you guys hear there’s more space on the crew this year because of what happened last year?’ asked Imogen. ‘We might all be in with a good chance of making the squad.’

‘What happened last year?’ I asked.

---