HollyOx
For some reason, it was Quent who had been pushed up onto the table to give a speech at his Halfway Hall. Perhaps it was his ravishingly good looks. Perhaps it was his incredible ability to get along with anyone and everyone. Most likely, it had more than a little something to do with the nervous stutter and profuse sweating that he just couldn't avoid when speaking in public. “I-I-I-I don't really kn-know what to say. I'm not t-t-t-terribly good at pubic speaking.” Laughter.
Had he? Yes, he most definitely had said, “pubic speaking”. This was not going well. Deep breaths. “Well. I-I-I-t's been a pretty good year and a half. Now we're into the serious part, eh?” No laughter. Shit. Quent cleared his throat. “Seriously th-though, over the past five terms I shared a lot of jjokes with all of you, offended mm- most of you, fancied half of you, and had sex with very f-few of you. And I wouldn't ch-change that for anything. Well, perhaps the last part.
So I'd like you all to ch-char-charge your glasses, and drink to the same ag-ain.” Taking a good-sized slurp, Quent could taste the salt of his sweat mixing on his lips with the sharp, acidic flavour of cheap college white. It was coming up for coffee time, and Quent was already well past the point of feeling a universal love.
To his left perched Ronnie – so-called because of an uncanny resemble to the father figure of McDonalds – and to his left were four Chinese guys, none of whom Quent had ever had the pleasure of meeting before. That wasn't about to change. The hall, ordinarily prepared for this special occasion, bubbled with drunken well-being.
A murmur morphed into a hubbub, and into a rhubarb before Quent found himself having to shout simply to get his drunken point about “the invading immigrants” across to Ronnie. It didn't work. It never did. He was as firmly rooted in multiculturalism as he was set against democracy.
Before the natural end of the blasted conversation, Quent had been bundled off towards the college bar (none of which he would remember in the morning), from whence a massive assault upon Filth was launched: streams of steaming drunken students in black tie flowing, seemingly as one, off to The Westgate Centre. Oxford's Mecca. It wasn't long before Quent had nestled himself into one of the brand spanking new double beds.
Somewhere in the back of his mind the blurred memory of being told about their Christening ticked along. At the front of his mind, it was lost admist the haze of sensory perceptions gushing into his brain all at once. Suddenly, seemingly from nowhere (in reality from the bar), a glorious vision appeared, clad in brilliant white. “Transfiguration.” Quent slurred, as if by instinct following Mark's Gospel tutorials.
“Are you alright, Quent?” The vision had a voice sweeter than Charlotte Church, dark hair and a radiating beauty. The vision was Hannah Mayfair. The Hannah Mayfair. Quent dozily came back to life, a misty light bursting gently through the cracks of his eyelids. His crackled tongue peeled itself crisply from an equally dry surface. The beer monkey had definitely visited and, moreover, shat in his mouth. A far from dull and deadened headache roared up with the force of a thousand suicide bombers.
He rolled over. He saw a person. He screamed. She woke. She looked blankly. She giggled girlishly. She was Hannah Mayfair. She was naked. He realised that his morning glory would never subside. She had apparently fancied the pants of Quent since Freshers' Week. He almost spewed. This was perfection.
If this you've been in a similar situation after your Halfway Hall, congratulations and commiserations. At least, what with Oxford being so big, you'll never see her again! And don't tell your friends.
17th Feb 2005