Chapter 68: Ivory Towers

Sally

2091

Sally had a great deal to be satisfied about even though she wasn't the kind of person to take good fortune for granted. She was blessed with relatively affluent parents who loved and cherished her. She was similarly blessed with the intellectual ability to secure a place on a postgraduate course at Oxford, one of England's two greatest universities and one which still ranked moderately highly in the world. She was a talented sportswoman, a girl with an extensive social network and, as she was often reminded, attractive and beautiful.

How could she have been born so lucky?

Sally was aware that each one of her good fortunes reinforced the others. A beautiful woman without brains and money was unlikely to be able to achieve very much in the modern world if she didn't marry well or trade her looks for money. A beautiful woman with brains alone could only succeed if she slept with the right men or women. But a beautiful woman with both intelligence and a generous allowance could gain the academic qualifications necessary to succeed in one of the shrinking number of well-remunerated professions. Sally genuinely enjoyed studying for her doctorate. Who would have known a generation ago just how exciting the growing synthesis between robotics and biochemistry would become? And as someone already ahead in an area of academic research that was attracting Chinese and Brazilian investment, maybe she could one day study abroad. Perhaps she could become a fellow at a university in a prosperous city like Beijing, Pyongyang or Buenos Aires.

Still, Oxford was a pleasant enough city on the edge of the Cotswolds. It was almost the very last corner of Old England. The colleges and most of the city were walled in to keep out the proles and peasants that were a nagging and uncomfortable reminder of how far it was possible to fall. Sally had no understanding or sympathy for England's great unwashed. All she knew about them came from the few moments of prole television she occasionally stumbled upon. They were a dreadfully uncouth bunch unhealthily obsessed with quiz shows and vulgar situation comedies. They were often appallingly racist and homophobic. You certainly wouldn't expect to have much of an intelligent conversation with any one of them.

There was a sense that Sally and her friends were surrounded by an ocean of the less well-off. Labour was so cheap these days that almost everyone could afford to employ a servant or two. Sally had two maids whose names she could never remember who slept in the communal servants' quarters just outside Oxford's city walls and whose task was to ensure that Sally was properly cared for while she stayed in her room in the student halls. Servants were best when they were just there when you needed them but at the same time kept themselves discreetly out of the way when you didn't. Sally expected them to be on hand even when she took a young man or woman back to her room for the sexual exercise that she practiced as enthusiastically as her daily jogs along the city centre river.

Sally was a woman of routine. It was the best way to get ahead in life. Up at six; an early morning jog; breakfast prepared by one of her maids who stood attentively by while she shared her muesli and yoghurt with the lover with whom she'd enjoyed the night; and then a day of study and research. It was only after she'd eaten in the halls that she would choose to socialise with her wide circle of friends during which she would invariably imbibe a glass of wine and even some coke or hash. And finally she'd go to a bed either in her own room or in the room of one of her lovers to keep toned those muscles that more formal exercise could never properly address.

"Do you want to stand as president of the MCR?" Simon asked one evening as they lay together in Sally's bed.

"MCR?" asked Sally, who for a moment wondered whether Simon was talking about a biotech company. "Oh, the Middle Common Room. I'm not sure. It could be a lot of work."

"It isn't at all," said Simon. "I've been doing it for the past year and I think you'd be ideal to take over the role. It'd look perfect on your CV. Employers care about that kind of shit. It shows maturity and leadership and a respect for tradition."

"Tradition," repeated Sally with a slightly mocking edge to her voice. What did she care about tradition? She was a thoroughly modern woman who had no time for outdated fripperies at all: even though she lived in a city that was steeped in a thousand years of academic history. All around her were buildings from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and some even older than that. She frowned and then beckoned towards the maid on duty. It was the black one with the skinny legs. "Pour the both of us another glass of sherry, will you?" she ordered. She was totally indifferent to the fact that both she and Simon were naked. And she was similarly untroubled that they'd just been openly fucking while the maid was in attendance.

What the maid thought about this was really of no concern to her at all.

"How much will it cost to be president?" was the question uppermost in Sally's mind.

"It's got a lot more expensive over the years," said Simon. "You might need to clear the outgoing with your parents. It's all about outspending the opposition. But I don't think it'd be more than the cost of a year's fees."

"How guaranteed am I that I'd even win?"

"The first week of the campaign should see off the most talented competition. They're generally the ones who got into university by the skin of their teeth. You know: by academic excellence alone. They're the guys with scholarships from charitable foundations and internet companies. You should outspend them by the end of the second week. Then what you'll mostly have to deal with are the talentless no-hopers with a tonne of dosh. Be careful. Money definitely makes a difference. That's when you'll have to spend your money wisely. I'll be able to tell you who to bribe and whose public support you need."

"The campaigning sounds as if it's more hard work than the job."

"Well, that's democracy for you," said Simon. "It's all about buying votes and knowing how to get the job rather than knowing what to do with it once you've got it. Employers know that. Someone who can run a good campaign would be well set up for a life in modern corporate business. I take it your parents can spare the cash."