Free Oxford Blood by Antonia Fraser Page B

his profound conviction that, as he put it, 'these Golden Kids are Big Bucks, and I don't mean our expenses, I mean our sales. Have you seen the Brideshead figures? We can make Brideshead look like peanuts. They were just a bunch of actors. We've got the real thing.' So discussions about the Golden Lads and Girls programme meandered on; no scheduling as yet, apart from a general feeling that summer was the time to get to grips with that kind of thing. 'Girls in long dresses, nothing punk. And those long boats,' murmured Cy, lowering his voice for once, as if in deference to the scene he was summoning before their eyes. 'Punts,' suggested someone helpfully. 'Nothing punk,' repeated Cy with a wild glare in the direction of the speaker before continuing: 'Long shadows across the July grass. No long shadows across their future, these are Golden Kids - remember, Miss Lewis, make a note of that line - no long shadows—'
    'Long dresses, long boats, long shadows, I mean, no long shadows,' murmured Guthrie Carlyle, Jemima's old friend and potential director of this epic. 'Will it be a long programme to match?'
    'What's that, Guthrie?' asked Cy Fredericks sharply. One could never count on Cy's total absorption in his own flow of words, reflected Jemima, especially if there was any hint of disloyalty in the room. Cy had uncanny hearing for disloyal echoes. 'The programme, like all Megalith programmes, will be exactly the right length,' he swept on, 'not a minute more or less. And I mean artistic length.' He looked round as if to ask Miss Lewis to inscribe that thought too on her tablets, but by now more exciting matters called, and Miss Lewis had vanished to sort out a flurry of messages from New York.
    The main result of the conference was to rechristen the programme Golden Kids. This was to avoid the possible charge of sexism implicit in Shakespeare's line, which by placing the word 'Lads' before 'Girls' might be held to suggest that the 'Girls' were mere appendages to the 'Lads'. Guthrie had in fact floated this suggestion as a joke, but finding it enthusiastically endorsed by Cy (who was always desperate to avoid sexism, if only he could put his finger on what it was) Guthrie quickly took the opportunity to atone for his previous levity by proposing it in earnest.
    'How about Oxford Bloods’ suggested Jemima at one point, 'or even Bloody Oxford.'
    'Jem,' said Cy reproachfully, 'I had expected better from you. This is not a bloody programme.'
    So Golden Kids it was. Everyone felt a good deal of progress had been made, and as Cy had to leave for Rome - or as he absent-mindedly described it, New York, until Miss Lewis coughed and corrected him -the meeting broke up.
    Jemima was left wondering whether she should have pointed out that the Oxford academic term ended in June. In July, the long shadows in Oxford would be falling on innumerable tourists, while the Golden Kids played elsewhere, departing in long aeroplanes for the long shores of the Mediterranean, the Far East and the United States.
    She now gazed at the short note beneath the ornate Saffron Ivy address and thought that under the circumstances a polite invitation from Lord Saffron to lunch in Oxford was not unwelcome.
    'Ooh, watch it Jemima,' was Cherry's reaction. 'Supposing he sports that oak thing once you're up there.'
    'I shall of course ask him to keep his oak thing to himself,' replied Jemima sweetly. 'In any case I intend to direct operations from a suite at the Martyrs Hotel. Could you be an angel and book it for me? A nice large suite, so that Lord Saffron and others can keep their distance. Megalith owes me a nice large suite for working on Golden Kids. And get onto that man, what's his name, that don who went on television the other night calling for more compulsory admissions from comprehensive schools in arts subjects - what was his name? Barber or something similar. He's got this campaign called COMPCAMP. I'm not going to let Golden Kids get by without a