Monday 3 October
Slept in! Didn't wake up until half past nine. Remembered with a shock that I had matriculation at ten. Guess the old bird wasn't entirely useless after all. I may not be at the stage of saying "Come back Kiki, all is forgiven," but I do need to get an alarm clock to act as a replacement.
Had a rushed shower then got into my suit and tie and gown and headed over to matriculation at top speed, arriving with only seconds to spare. When we got there, we were lined up in pairs in alphabetical order round the old court then went in two at a time to sign our lives away before heading back out to line up on the stands that had been erected outside the Chapel for a group photograph.
I was paired up with Fiona. As well as being next to each other with our rooms in College, we're next to each other in the alphabetical list for our year. Wondered whether I should say anything to her about what Dad and auntie Dinah had said at the weekend, but thought it best to wait and see. She thinks her dad was making things up and I'd always thought that my dad was making things up too, but it seems a bit of a stretch to believe that both our respective fathers were making up exactly the same thing if it didn't have any basis in reality.
Phoned home in the evening. Lewis answered the phone.
Told him about Fiona and what she'd said about the Hebrides.
He said, "Ooh, you've got a girlfriend! Hey everybody, Samuel's got a girlfriend!" Didn't give me a chance to ask him what he made of it.
Eventually managed to persuade him to hand the phone over to Dad.
He said, "What's all this about you getting a girlfriend?"
I said, "I think Lewis is getting a bit carried away with himself there." Told him what Fiona had said and asked him what I should make of it.
He said, "What's her name did you say?"
I said, "Fiona. Fiona Tipperlong."
He said, "Oh blow, please don't tell me my own son is going out with Horace Tripalong's daughter."
I said, "Tipperlong, Dad, not Tripalong. Please show her some respect. And no I'm not going out with her. I'm…"
He said, "I'm sorry Samuel, but Horace Tripalong"—he emphasised the mispronunciation—"isn't worthy of a shred of respect, and as far as I'm concerned neither is this daughter of his. Do you have any idea what he did in the Hebrides? Or what he's done since?"
I said that I didn't. I thought Dad's sea of adventure malarkey was some sort of drinking game until just yesterday when Fiona told me her dad's side of the story.
He said, "Well your great uncle Bill had been kidnapped by a gang of gun runners, and was being held hostage along with that buffoon. The four of us—remember we were still children at the time—had tracked the two of them down and had put our own lives in danger to mount a rescue operation. We found the boat where they were being kept, your uncle Philip and I sneaked on board and let the two of them out. And what did that imbecile Tripalong"—again the emphasis on the mispronunciation—"do? He kicked up an almighty row when he saw me, calling me a 'villainous boy,' alerting the guard and nearly wrecking the whole operation. The fool very nearly got all of us killed."
I didn't say anything for several seconds while all this sunk in. It sounds like something happened in the Hebrides thirty years ago involving my dad and Fiona's dad and great uncle Bill and a gang of gun runners, but while her dad views my dad as some sort of mafia hooligan, my dad views himself as James Bond and her dad as his own worst enemy. Clearly one of them must be wrong. But Dad sounded pretty angry about it all. Went on to describe at length the pitched battles that the two of them have been having ever since, fighting over research grants, fighting over graduate students, publishing accusations and counter-accusations against each other in their respective journals, suing each other for libel, you name it.
Sounds like he's been spending oceans of money on this pitched battle of his. That would explain why he's always ferried us to school in an embarrassing beaten up ten year old Honda Civic, rather than something decent like uncle Philip's Land Rover.
Then he said, "Look, Samuel, just keep out of her way, right? Horace Tripalong and I have not been on speaking terms for more than twenty years and we are now only communicating with each other through our respective solicitors. I don't want you even speaking to her, let alone getting romantically involved with her."
Easier said than done. She's my next door neighbour, for crying out loud, and I really do like her. Maybe not to the extent of asking her out, but she does seem to understand me in ways that most people don't.
Signed up for my options today. Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Computer Science.
Tuesday 4 October
My next door neighbour down the corridor is an American guy called Oliver Bennett. He comes from Fort Worth, Texas and is studying Engineering. Just across the corridor from him, next door to Fiona, is a Malaysian student called Mei Ling Tan. She's studying Natural Sciences too—same options as me, so the chances are we'll end up in supervisions or lab sessions together.
I got chatting to the two of them this morning and in the course of the conversation mentioned how Dad had told me not to talk to Fiona.
Mei Ling said, "How do you feel about your father's feud with her father?"
I said I didn't know. I'd known he was at loggerheads with someone, but I only had a vague idea what it was all about, and I only found out yesterday that it was Fiona's dad that he was at war with.
She said, "Do you want to avoid talking to her?"
I said that I didn't. In the two days that I've known her, I've found Fiona really friendly and easy to get along with.
She said, "Well I'd suggest you just ignore what your father has said. You're an adult now, and who you speak to now that you've left home and are at university isn't really any of his business. His battle is his problem, not yours. If Fiona doesn't want to talk to you then respect that, but otherwise just act as if you know nothing."
I like that suggestion. Turns out that she'd said the same thing to Fiona, who liked the suggestion too, so as far as we're both concerned, what our respective fathers have said is for the birds. (Literally, given that they're both ornithologists.)
Told Fiona a bit later that Dad had been in the Hebrides thirty years ago, on his doctor's orders, convalescing from measles, which is why he wasn't in school in the middle of May. But that his account of what went on was substantially different from her father's account of what went on.
She laughed and said, "That doesn't surprise me. When people are at loggerheads like that, they always have a jaundiced view of their opponents while viewing themselves as warriors of righteousness. I think the best thing we can do is just shrug our shoulders, accept that we'll never know what really went on, and leave them to fight their own battles."
Couldn't help being impressed at her attitude. Whatever flaws Horace Tipperlong may have, there's one thing that he's excelled at, and that is producing a daughter like Fiona.
Most of the day taken up with seeing supervisors, signing up for lab sessions, getting my login credentials sorted on the university computer network, and going to the Societies Fair in the afternoon. Spent the evening playing Monopoly with Fiona, Mei Ling and Oliver.
