One Way Out- Chapter One

“Where’s your daughter” Mrs Fletcher said, sipping her tea and turning to face her sometimes-friend, Catherine Abbott.

“She’s out running.” Catherine said, giving the same answer she’d been giving since her daughter turned twelve.

“Doesn’t she know it’s her Oxford interview today?” Mrs Fletcher said, raising her eyebrows.

“She does,” Catherine said, pursing her lips, “She just likes to run, that’s all.”

“But shouldn’t she be getting ready?” Mrs Fletcher said, knitting her well-shaped eyebrows together over her delicate china cup.

Catherine sighed. “I don’t know if she really wants it.” she said.

“Does she know that you want her to go?”

“Yes,” Catherine said, recalling the loud conversation she had had with her daughter two days ago, “But I don’t know, well…you know my daughter- she won’t do anything she doesn’t want to do.”

Mrs Fletcher raised her eyebrows delicately. “But its Oxford-”

“She just doesn’t seem to want it.” Catherine muttered, sipping her milky tea.

“Doesn’t she know how many doors a law degree from Oxford can open?” Mrs Fletcher said, her well made-up face contorting into a scandalised expression.

“She knows,” Catherine said, “and like I said, she doesn’t seem to care.”

“I would’ve killed just to be offered an interview for Oxford…” Mrs Fletcher said, trailing off delicately.

“I know, Jessica, so would I but, well, it’s her life, isn’t it?” Catherine said, looking to her friend for support.

“Theoretically, yes,” Jessica said, “But, when it comes to decisions, mother always knows best.”

“She doesn’t seem to think so.” Catherine said, turning to stare at the piece of modern art hanging on the magnolia wall opposite her. She didn’t know what all the shapes and colourful lines meant but who said you had to understand the art you hung on your wall?

Mrs Fletcher simply raised her eyebrows.

All of a sudden, the sound of keys turning in the lock of the heavy wooden front door filled the stifling air. Catherine placed her cup of tea down on a low coffee table and leapt to her feet.

“Mother I’m back!” called Rachel Abbott, stepping through the door and into the lightly-coloured hallway.

“Why don’t you come in here?” Catherine called, sitting back down and picking up her cup of lukewarm tea.

“Sure.” said Rachel, wandering into the pristine living room. Catherine pursed her lips when she saw her daughter’s muddy trainers, which were covering the creamy carpet in a mixture of wet mud and grass.

“Why don’t you take your trainers off dear?” she said. Rachel sighed and pulled her trainers off without undoing the laces. Mrs Fletcher’s mouth was, by now, so thin that it was almost impossible to spot without the help of an extremely powerful microscope. “Mrs Fletcher and I were just discussing your interview.”

Rachel rolled her eyes. “Were you now?” she said, “And what were you discussing exactly?”

“Oh nothing,” Catherine said airily, “we were just wondering what you were planning on wearing, that’s all.”

Rachel snorted. “Well, you already know seeing as you picked my outfit out yourself.” she said icily, turning to face the door.

“Don’t start this again, dear,” Catherine said, looking at her friend desperately, “I told you that you can’t wear jeans to an interview.”

“It’s not like I want to go anyway so who cares what I look like?” Rachel said, crossing her arms tightly across her chest.

“I thought we already discussed this darling?” Catherine said through gritted teeth.

“No, you discussed it,” Rachel said firmly, “I don’t recall being given much choice in the matter.”

“Darling-”

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I believe I have an interview to prepare for.” Rachel said, marching out of the room and slamming the door behind her.

“Like I said, she has a mind of her own.” Catherine said, turning back to Mrs Fletcher, who had been watching the scene unfold with barely-concealed interest.

“Dogs have a mind of their own until you show them who’s boss.” her friend said sagely, taking a final sip of her sugary tea.

***

Rachel Abbott was furious. She didn’t want to go to Oxford to study law. She didn’t want to live in the suburbs. She didn’t want to get married to a nice, sensible man and have two children; having any more than two children in the current economic climate was foolish according to her mother. Of course, she’d tried to explain all of this to her parents but they didn’t seem to care. All they cared about was that they could boast about their daughter to their tennis partners. That was all she meant to them. She was like their rose bushes; something to be cultivated until it was perfect before being shown off to all of their friends. However, it wasn’t worth fighting today; she’d just have to dress up and pretend to be the perfect candidate for a place at Oxford today. She’d work on them tomorrow but not today.

She sighed and walked towards her wardrobe, searching for the sensible black dress that her mother had bought for her interview. She pulled it over her head and turned to face her mirror. God, she hoped she didn’t get in so she didn’t have to wear boring clothes like that for the rest of her life. Oh well, it couldn’t be helped today. Pursing her lips, she picked up the structured blazer that went with the dress before slipping it over her shoulders and fastening a pearl necklace around her throat. Next, she twisted her unruly black hair into a bun and began to put on the neutral makeup that her mother had subtly placed on her dressing table. When she was done, she put her black heels-a sensible height, of course-and looked at herself in the full-length mirror. She looked like a younger version of her mother. Just what her mother wanted her to look like.

“Rachel, darling, are you ready to go?” her mother called up the stairs. She never shouted; according to her, shouting was a trait for the ill-mannered and the ill-bred. That was the middle class for you; snobbish until the end.

“I’m coming.” she called, picking up the sensible black handbag that was hanging on her door before leaving her room.

“Oh darling, you look beautiful.” her mother said as she walked down the stairs and into the hallway.

“No mother,” she said, picking up the handle of the suitcase which she had parked in the hall the day before, “there’s a difference between looking beautiful and looking sensible.”

Her mother rolled her eyes. “I thought you were over that?” she said, pulling her ‘driving shoes’ onto her feet and picking up her navy blue court shoes.

“I can’t be over myself, mother.” Rachel said, opening the front door, “come on, we have to go and secure your dream.”

She opened the boot of the car and threw her suitcase in before slamming it shut and walking around to the passenger seat and climbing inside. She slammed that door too.

Catherine rolled her eyes again but didn’t say anything before following her daughter out of the door and towards their sensible silver estate car.

“Are you nervous, darling?” she asked as she started up the car.

“Why would I be?” Rachel snapped, “I don’t care, remember?”

“Just don’t embarrass your father and I, okay?” her mother said, staring straight ahead out of the windscreen.

“Your father and I?” Rachel said scathingly, “You and dad got divorced, remember?”

“Rachel, can’t you just leave it alone?” her mother snapped, closing her eyes momentarily.

“No I can’t,” Rachel said, “and can you keep your eyes on the road please? You’ll never reach the University of your Dreams otherwise.”

Catherine opened her eyes and sighed. “Your father and I want what’s best for you.” she said quietly.

“No you don’t,” Rachel said, “Dad just wants his blonde bimbo girlfriend and you want me to live the live you wanted.”

Catherine’s lips disappeared into her mouth. “We’ll discuss this later.” she said warningly.

“But-”

“Later.” she said firmly and something in the steely quality of her voice told Rachel that this was one battle which she wouldn’t be able to win straight away. Therefore, she resigned herself to staring out of the tinted windows at the square houses of the suburbs as they flashed past her eyes.

It was as though her parents had her entire life planned out for her. They’d ruined their own life with their affairs and naivety and so they wanted her to live their life for them. Well she wouldn’t do it. It wasn’t her fault that just before her mother was due to start her degree at Oxford she’d met her father, fallen in love and managed to get pregnant. Of course, her father, being a decent guy, had married her but that was the end of her mother’s career; she’d spent the next seventeen years as a housewife, splitting her time between the kitchen, the local tennis club and tea with her friends. Of course, now that her father had left them for a blonde twenty-something model, she wanted to go back to where she was when she was Rachel’s age only she wasn’t seventeen anymore and there was no way to turn back the clocks and start again. Therefore, she’d obviously decided that Rachel should live the life she’d always wanted whilst she resumed her tennis lessons and tea-drinking. The only minor flaw in her plan was that her daughter wasn’t her and, well, she had no intention of changing to suit her mother’s ambition.

“We’re here, darling,” her mother said as they pulled up outside Oriel College. “Just do your best; I’m sure they’ll love you.” She leant over to kiss her daughter on the cheek but Rachel jerked her head away and opened the door of the car and got out. “I’ll pick you up next week.” she called.

Rachel ground her teeth together as she marched up to the ancient wooden doors of the college, preparing for the lies that she’d have to tell in the next few minutes. She gave her name to the woman in the entrance hall and was shown to a small room where the interview was taking place.

As she was shown into the small room, a middle-aged woman (whose iron-grey hair was smoothed back into a sleek French twist) and a tall, balding man stood up.

“Good afternoon,” said the woman, reaching over the table to shake her hand, “I’m Dr Andrews, the senior tutor for law here at Oriel and this is Peter who will be taking notes today.”

“Good afternoon.” Rachel said, smiling and sitting down opposite Dr Andrews.

***

“How was your first interview?” her mother asked when she called at five o’clock sharp.

“Don’t worry, mother,” said Rachel, sighing and sitting down on the narrow bed in her room, “I learnt to lie at a young age, remember?”

“I would’ve thought that you might’ve calmed down by now.” Her mother said, her disappointment leaking out of the phone.

“Well you were wrong, weren’t you?” Rachel snapped.

“Darling,” her mother said, “you have to understand that your father and I only want what’s best for you.”

“No.” Rachel said shortly, “You want what’s best for you.”

“Darling-” Mrs Abbott began but it was too late; her daughter had already hung up.

“You too, huh?” a voice said. Rachel whipped round to face the door; the sympathetic face of a tall and aristocratically-handsome boy was staring back at her.

“I don’t know what you mean.” She snapped, turning away.

“It’s cool,” he said, “half of the kids here are just like you.”

“And what exactly am I like?” she asked tersely.

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t.” she said, “Why don’t you enlighten me?

“Well,” he said slowly, “you see, most of the people here don’t actually want to be here. You see, for loads of us, Oxbridge is our parents dream, not ours. D’you get me?”

The corner of Rachel’s mouth tilted up slightly and she turned to face him again. “Keep talking.”

“Well,” he said, “you see, my parents didn’t go to Uni; my grandfather died just as he was getting ready to study at Cambridge and he had to go home to manage the estate-”

“Estate?” she said sharply.

“We have a bit of land here and there, yes,” he said, “Anyway, he had to go back home and then he met my mother who had, up until then, spent her life at balls and parties because that’s what her mother had told her to do.”

“I don’t understand; how is this similar to my problem?” she asked.

“I’m getting there.” he said, “anyway, when I was little, they sent me off to Eton you know, because that’s where my father went but, then they discovered that I was…well, rather intelligent,” he paused as his cheeks began to colour, “and so they decided that I should be tutored so that I could come here to study and that was that; whatever I said or did, I couldn’t change their minds and here I am, studying something which I couldn’t care less about.”

“What did you want to do instead?” Rachel asked curiously, staring at his sculpted face intently.

“I wanted to ride horses,” he said, staring out of the window, “that was all I’d ever wanted to do but they wanted me to go into politics.”

“Why didn’t you try to fight them?”

He turned his head to look at her. “Because father said that if I didn’t, he’d disinherit me and ensure that I never had the money to ride again.”

“And I thought my parents were bad…”

“Yeah, well, the middle class always assume that we toffs have an easy life.” He said, the left corner of his mouth lifting up a fraction of an inch.

“Who said I’m middle class?”

“Because, darling,” he said, “despite the Daily Mail’s claims that Oxford is an elitist institution, it’s full of the middle class with ambitious parents these days.”

“Well so what if I am?” she snapped, “it doesn’t necessarily mean that I want to remain a member of the squeezed middle forever, does it?”

“So you’re either a social climber or a social faller then?” he said, smirking, “I like the sound of a girl with ambition.”

“Out of interest,” she said, smirking back at him, “who are you?”

“Rude,” he said, perching on the end of her bed and putting on a plummy accent, “but I think I’ll humour you with a response. The names Edward Henry William George Huntington-Stafford the second.”

“That’s a mouthful and a half.” She said, grinning.

“Well let’s hear yours then.” He said, “I’ve always wondered what the middle class call their offspring.”

“It’s Rachel, Rachel Elizabeth Abbott.” She said, raising her eyebrows and waiting for him to laugh at her significantly shorter name. However, he surprised her.

“Well, Rachel Elizabeth Abbott, how about coming out for a drink with me?”

“I didn’t think toffs like you had drinks with plebs like me?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.

He laughed, causing the bed to vibrate. “We don’t,” he said, “but we make exceptions for the pretty ones.”

“So I’m pretty now?” she asked, shifting slightly so that she was facing him.

“I’ll come back for you at eight?” he asked quickly, getting to his feet.

“It’s a date.” She said.

“Who said it was a date?” he said as he walked out of the door.

She laughed. “Why, do they call it something else at Eton?” she asked, smiling as she heard him laugh loudly as he walked down the long, narrow and emotionless hallway.