An Education by Lynn Barber Read Free Book Online Page A

A-levels.’
    On the evening I finished sitting my A-levels, Simon took me out to dinner and proposed. I had wanted him to propose, as proof of my power, but I had absolutely no intention of accepting because of course I was going to Oxford. Eighteen years of my life had been dedicated to this end, so it was quite impertinent of him to suggest my giving it up. I relayed the news to my parents the next morning as a great joke – ‘Guess what? Simon proposed! He wants me to marry him this summer!’ To my complete disbelief, my father said ‘Why not?’ Why not ? Had he suddenly gone demented? ‘Because then I couldn't go to Oxford.’ My father said, ‘Well, is that the end of the world? Look,’ he went on, ‘You've been going out with him for two years; he's obviously serious, he's a good man; don't mess him around.’ I turned to my mother incredulously but she shook her head. ‘You don't need to go to university if you've got a good husband.’
    This was 1962, well before the advent of feminism. But even so, I felt a sense of utter betrayal, as if I'd spent eighteen years in a convent and then the Mother Superior had said, ‘Of course, you know, God doesn't exist.’ I couldn't believe my parents could abandon the idea of Oxford. But apparently they could and over the next few days they argued it every mealtime – good husbands don't grow on trees, you're lucky to get this one (‘And you not even in the family way!’), why go to university if you don't need to? Simon meanwhile was taking me to see houses, asking where I wanted to live when we were married. I couldn't resist telling my schoolfriends, ‘I'm engaged!’ And they were all wildly excited and thrilled for me and said, ‘You'll never have to do Latin again!’ Even so, I was queasy – I'd always liked the sound of Oxford, I even liked writing essays, I wasn't so keen to give up the idea. But my parents, especially my father, put great pressure on me. Why go to Oxford if I could marry Simon? And, they reminded me, I'd been saying all along that I couldn't face another term at school.
    This was true. In those days, if you were aiming for Oxford or Cambridge, you had to stay at school an extra term after A-levels to prepare for the entrance exams. I was dreading it because Miss R. Garwood Scott, the headmistress, had flatly refused to make me a prefect and, while all the other Oxbridge candidates could spend their time in the prefects' room, I would be left roaming the corridors or slouching round the playing field on my own, without any gang to protect me. But Miss R. Garwood Scott was adamant that I would never be a prefect even if I stayed at school a hundred years – I was a troublemaker, a bad influence, guilty of dumb insolence and making pupils laugh at teachers. I put a brave face on it, but I knew the next term was going to be the loneliest three months of my life. But then there was the glittering prize of Oxford at the end of it – I never doubted I would get in – and I had resolved it was a price I was willing to pay.
    Events overtook me in the last few days of term. Miss R. Garwood Scott somehow got wind of my engagement and summoned me to see her. Was it true I was engaged? Yes, I said, but I would still like to take the Oxford exams. She was ruthless. I could either be engaged or take the exams but not both. When was the wedding and which church would it be in? Not in church, I said, because my fiancé was Jewish. Jewish! She looked aghast – ‘Don't you realise that the Jews killed Our Lord?’ I stared at her. ‘So I won't take the Oxford exams,’ I said. My little gang was waiting for me outside her study. ‘I told her I was leaving,’ I announced. ‘She tried to persuade me to stay but I refused.’ They all congratulated me and begged to be bridesmaids. Then I went to the bogs and cried my eyes out.
    I told my parents: ‘I'm not going to Oxford, I'm marrying Simon.’ ‘Oh good!’ they said. ‘Wonderful.’ When Simon