Chapter 86

Our Graduation Ceremonies took place over the middle three days of the last full week of June. Because of the large numbers involved, it was done by Faculty, so Malcolm and I were receiving our degrees on the Tuesday, Vee, Julie and Sian on the Wednesday, and Fred on the Thursday.

My parents had arranged to stay with Alastair and Catriona Baxter in Bristol on the Monday and Tuesday nights; each graduate was allowed three guests at the ceremony, so of course Julie had my third ticket to come and watch me get my scroll.

The two of us spent a while in the half-landing bathroom after tea on the Monday night, bathing and washing our hair in honour of the occasion. Julie got the scissors out and gave me a quick trim round the edges so that I wouldn’t look too shaggy in the photos; Malcolm also got the treatment when Sian saw the results on me!

The Big Day was all a bit of a rush to start with, breakfast in scruffy clothes and then a proper shave before getting dressed. I didn’t rise to Vee’s teasing comments that we’d “cleaned up surprisingly nicely” as Malcolm and I appeared on the landing in our interview suits and freshly-brushed hair; Sian and Julie were going to be wearing their summer dresses in honour of the occasion, and today only Vee and Fred were in our normal scruffy ‘student’ garb.

At nine o’clock we had to go and collect our hired gowns and mortarboards from the Great Hall of the Students Union – the hire firm was incredibly well organised with its racks of gowns and robes, and we were in and out in a matter of five minutes – then the two of us trotted up to the Department to have our group photograph taken for posterity as the 1975 graduates.

Our lecturers all looked unusually smart (one might say ‘unnaturally’ in some cases, with not a single patched, tatty and chalk marked tweed jacket on show today) in their gowns and hats, and from the back they looked most exotic with the different colours of the various institutions where they had gained their Doctorates and Masters degrees.

That all went smoothly too; again the photographer had years of experience in directing and controlling unruly and dopey youth, and it was too small a group to need a panoramic photo – I remembered with a smile that one year at school a couple of enterprising lads had nipped round behind from the left end to the right end, and got there in time to appear twice on the same photo!

Then it was off to the ceremony, joining the milling throng until we were sorted out and pointed in the right direction by one of the administrative staff, then having our names checked several more times as we were placed in the correct running order. Malcolm and I, along with a couple of others who had also achieved Firsts, were pushed to the front of the Chemistry line, just behind those receiving Doctorates from the Biology Department. On command, we all trooped into the auditorium, carefully keeping our places in the lines as we had been instructed, and sitting in the seats indicated. Of course we then spent the next few minutes frantically looking around for our families; I spotted Julie’s blonde hair high up in the gallery with Mum and Dad either side of her, and waved to them.

The University obviously expected us to do all that messing around and had made allowances; it was another five minutes before there was a call for attention and the ceremonial procession started appearing on the stage, their academic robes a kaleidoscope of colour as they walked down the aisles and ascended the steps.

There was a brief introductory section with a speech of welcome from the Principal, Dr. Bevan, which was of course repeated in Welsh, and then they cracked on with awarding the parchments. It was done like a conveyor belt, with administrative staff acting as the rollers to ensure that the right person got to the Principal as each scroll was passed to him. It was presented with a quick handshake and a word of congratulation, and then each recipient headed back down the stairs on the opposite side of the stage.

The applause, once started, was constant – although the cheers and most enthusiastic bursts of clapping normally gave away the location of the supporters of the current recipient, most of the audience had the decency to appreciate the efforts involved, so even those of the Overseas Students who had no family present still got applauded.

It was only a few minutes before our row was told to stand up and move into the aisle; Malcolm and I followed the last of the newly-minted Biology Doctors with their floppy hats, and then the announcer called “Department of Chemistry”. We ascended the stairs after a quick final check at the bottom that we were indeed the expected person, and as soon as my name was called, I crossed the stage, shook Dr. Bevan’s hand with my right hand while receiving my scroll in my left, was told ‘Well Done!’ and moved on. At the bottom of the stairs, someone checked again that it was actually my name on the slip of paper around the scroll, and I was sent back to my seat, noting that the row behind was already empty as they stood to queue for the stage. Malcolm and I clapped and cheered the last of our classmates as they too received their degrees.

I timed the process; I reckoned they were almost getting four people across the stage a minute, which was pretty slick going, given that only one recipient was actually on the stage at a time, and that Dr. Bevan had to be handed the next scroll before its new owner got to him. Sure enough, by half past twelve everything was over – although there was another ceremony starting at two o’clock for the Musicians and the Medics. The Principal’s party progressed off the stage with much doffing of hats, and we were released.

I had arranged with Julie to meet her and my parents by the ornate stone gateposts in the black-painted wrought iron fence; it was a popular meeting place and a bit crowded, but we found each other and then moved away a bit to have a clear backdrop for photos. Dad had brought his old 35mm camera that we’d used for childhood holiday slides, and Mum had nipped into Boots for a cheapo 126 cassette camera, as a back up. Malcolm spotted us and kindly took some shots of all four of us, and of course we finished the film with photos of me and Julie and me and my parents. Then Dad returned the favour for Malcolm and his family group, Sian looking as completely at home with her future in-laws as I hoped Julie had.

There were a couple of people (‘flash gits’ in Malcolm’s whispered opinion) with Polaroid cameras showing off their almost-instant colour pictures; Dad laughed as he overheard the comment and told us that it was most unlikely that those images would still be visible in twenty years time, whereas he and Mum were looking forward to enjoying showing off the framed and enlarged photos of Jen and I in our graduation outfits every time they had visitors to their old folks home!

Then it was a matter of Malcolm and I taking our hired kit back to the Great Hall, getting a receipt for its safe and undamaged return, and then finding our parents again in the mob. That again wasn’t too bad with Julie and Sian watching out for us. We ended up all having lunch at an Italian place in the City Centre; it wasn’t the best lunch we’d ever had, but with eight of us round the table it was a lot of fun. Malcolm’s parents were easy to get on with, and the talk flowed happily with a great deal of laughter.

“Before I forget, the Baxters send their love.”

“How are they?”

“Very well; we all sat up quite late last night discussing our children and their shortcomings. Don’t worry, dear, we didn’t say anything complimentary about you!”

“I’m sure you didn’t, Mum. Did they say how Jen and Hamish are?”

“Oh yes! They nipped down on Sunday with most of Hamish’s stuff for storage over the summer, and of course hoping for a free lunch, and were back off to Reading after tea. Catriona reckons they’ve both lost weight since she saw them last, but they were fine.”

“Too many late nights drinking coffee and revising. Still, I’m sure they tucked in to Sunday lunch?”

“Yes indeed! She said that she’d almost forgotten how much a hungry youngster can put away!”

As I’d just pinched the second part of Mum’s bread roll, there was a general chuckle at the comment.

“Okay, okay! I’m still a growing lad!”

It was gone three before we got back to the flat, where Dad had easily parked in the shade below the plane trees in Richmond Road, and we had a cup of tea. Mum shook off her posh shoes with a sigh of relief; she never had been one for high heels, but said that the occasion demanded them.

As Mum and Dad had brought the big car down because of the long journey, Julie and I quickly changed out of our glad-rags and started carrying our belongings downstairs with the help of our friends. We piled pretty much everything we weren’t going to need in the next five days in the boot, and then waved the car off after giving them directions to the Motorway, and asking them to pass on our love to Alastair and Catriona.

“See you on Monday! Safe journey!”

We climbed the stairs back up to our flat, saw that some kind soul had already washed up the mugs, and headed for our bedroom to sit and wind down from the day. It suddenly looked very empty with just our rucksacks; somehow you can tell when the wardrobes and drawers no longer contain any of your possessions. Even our best clothes hanging on the back of the door in their covers smacked of temporary occupation; how we were going to get them home without crumpling them in our rucksacks was a problem we hadn’t yet considered. Neither of us had ever stayed in a hotel room, but our home of the last two years suddenly had that impersonal feel, as if we no longer really belonged there. Even making love that night seemed a little strange with the room slightly more echo-ey and Julie’s pre-climax panting appearing louder than normal.

The girls were on show the next morning, so we were up early to ensure they got to collect their academic gowns in good time. They were all in summer dresses and proper shoes; it was not a day for the tomboys to wear their jeans. Naturally, we three lads wore our suits so that we’d look our best in our girlfriends’ family photographs.

(It was strange to see our three girls wearing lipstick in the morning, that was normally reserved for very special nights out at the Jazz Club – few female students normally bothered with make-up in those days, similarly they rarely went to a proper hairdresser until they definitely needed a cut. It seemed like everybody had made a special effort; when we got to the ceremony there were a lot of well-turned ankles and polished shoes visible beneath the black gowns, probably more bare legs than we’d seen in total over the last three years.)

Despite our fears that they would change their minds at the last minute and not show up, Julie’s parents did appear for her graduation. They’d come up by train that morning, and, when I saw them in the queue for the auditorium and went up to talk to them, they were complaining to each other about their early start and the inconvenient timetable to be in Cardiff by half past ten. I said hello; they merely returned my greeting, then pretty much ignored my presence and carried on whingeing to each other. I left them to it, and chatted to Malcolm, Fred and Vee’s and Sian’s parents, rather than stay with them.

Vee’s parents, on the other hand, were very excited to be there and were gabbling away twenty to the dozen about everything they saw – they had, I think, finally twigged quite how well their daughter had done to earn her degree, and it looked as if they had fully accepted Fred as a prospective son-in-law; they could understand his status as a skilled electrical engineer (and therefore thought that Vee had done well for herself), and were pleased that he had a job lined up already, even if it wasn’t close to their home.

Sian’s folks were very friendly as always; they too were proud of her achievement, and were happily chatting to Malcolm about his job search – they had clearly accepted Sian’s wish to follow her boyfriend and showed great interest, but no concern. Quite the opposite reaction to that of Julie’s parents when she had told them that she was applying to Teacher Training College rather than coming back home to live with them...

Once again, the College showed its efficiency in getting the parchments handed out, and we were finished by half past twelve. My hands were a little sore from clapping for ninety minutes, but it was all worth it to see the delighted and triumphant smile on my darling’s face as she descended the steps from the stage with her degree certificate in her hot little hand. Once she was seated, she turned round and blew me a kiss. I stood up for a moment and clapped my hands in the air to thank her, and then quickly sat down again, so as not to upset the spectators behind me. She looked around a couple of times more before the ceremony was finished, the smile still wide on her lovely face.

Once the last recipient had returned to their seat, her parents, couldn’t get out of there fast enough; they were standing up in the aisle and shrugging on their coats just as soon as the ceremonial procession around the Principal left the stage. I quickly got up and followed them so I could point them out to Julie when she emerged from the other door, and she spotted me almost immediately. She posed with them in the crowd outside so that I could take a couple of photos with her Instamatic, and then they were shaking their heads as they lit up cigarettes.

“No, dear, we’ve got to get back, you know we don’t like leaving the house empty, and besides, it’s Wednesday so someone might call, or we might be needed for childminding.”

I couldn’t believe it! They’d come all this way for the graduation ceremony, and now they were going straight back home.

Julie pleaded with them to stay and have some lunch; her father just looked at his watch and said that they’d just catch a train if they left now, rather than having to wait half an hour for the next one, and they’d pick up a sandwich on the train. Then they were off.

I put my arm round my girlfriend as we watched her parents walk away without a backwards glance. I didn’t know what to say; I was seething inside and was trying very hard not to lose it. If my Dad hadn’t been so hot on my respecting my elders, I’d have probably chased after them and said something which REALLY wouldn’t have helped my future relationship with my in-laws. How dare they just bugger off without showing their daughter the slightest respect for her achievement?

Luckily, neither Vee or Sian noticed at the time – our auburn-haired flatmate had a strong sense of family, even after the rows she’d had about their continued support of her former fiance Jeff, and in her book they were spoiling Julie’s important day. I was still in two minds about chasing them, so I asked Julie what she wanted me to do. She took a deep breath before answering.

“To be honest, darling, I was surprised that they bothered to come – they never attended my prize-giving or sports days at school – and at least they did turn up this time, and I suppose I should be grateful for that. There’s no point in forcing them to come to lunch, because they’ll just chunter and irritate you, and I’m not going to waste the effort on walking to the station with them. Look on the bright side – we haven’t got to tiptoe around the little matter of my not going home to them for the summer, and I was expecting to get some more grief about that. Let’s not spoil the rest of the day!”

“Sure?”

“Yes, I’m quite sure. They’re not going to change now, after all these years.”

I gave her a quick kiss and squeezed the hand I was holding.

“Okay, darling, but please tell me if you want to get away from the crowd.”

She squeezed my fingers back in reply, and we walked over to where Vee and Sian were excitedly chatting to their parents. I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder of Julie than at that moment – her balloon may have been popped, but she stood up straight and posed with a smile for the photos of the three girls together, and then the six flatmates.

Fred’s parents had come down a day early and were staying in a hotel overnight; he tracked them down while the girls were returning their hired finery, and he and they went off for lunch and an afternoon with Vee and her parents in a ‘get to know the in-laws’ session.

That left Julie and I with Malcolm and Sian and her parents; they realised that her parents had departed and very kindly invited us to join them for lunch. I left it to her to make the decision – I’d have understood if she wanted to be on her own – and she plumped for accepting their invitation. We set off for the City Centre as a gaggle, Julie now chattering away as much as the rest of them.

God, I was proud of her!

We went to the same Italian place as the previous day, as Sian had told her parents that it was convenient and reasonably priced; the food was actually much better this time, so presumably we’d fallen foul of the chef’s day off.

It turned out that Sian’s parents had stopped overnight with the twins in Clifton, and were going there again that night.

“How are they?”

“Jolly glad that their exams are over! I think that both doing the course together has really helped them; they said that they’d been revising most nights until the early hours, and at least they knew that they weren’t alone. Sheila told me that it’s been most useful being able to go through things together so that they thoroughly understood them. Anyway, they were very chirpy and looked after us really well. We always feel a bit guilty taking Adrian’s bedroom, but he says that he sleeps very well on the floor in the living room.”

“Please give them our love, and tell them that we’ll see them soon.”

“Of course we will! I want to nip down to that butcher of theirs in the morning and get some of his breakfast sausages, they’re really very good.”

“Mr. Waite? Yes, he’s brilliant; Sheila’s fallen on her feet having such a good butcher there, and there are some other good shops too. We always enjoy nipping over to see them.”

The conversation changed to our plans to work at the vegetable factory; Sian’s parents thought it made a lot of sense to earn some cash and have a proper holiday before Malcolm started work. They insisted in paying for lunch for all of us; we accepted gratefully. Then we took them to see the art collection at the National Museum of Wales for an hour or so; they were just as enthralled as their nephew and niece had been two years earlier. I did manage to buy everybody a cup of tea and a bun at the café afterwards, and then we strolled back to Richmond Road after guiding them to the station for their train back to Bristol.

Julie was absolutely fine that evening; the disappointment with her parents’ behaviour had been overlaid by the kindness of Sian’s folks and the pleasure of seeing the paintings again. The four of us opted for fish and chips for supper as Vee and Fred were dining with his parents at their hotel, and we were in bed at a reasonable time – it had been a long day with all the concentration required to be sociable.

I asked her if she wanted to talk; she said no, but she did ask for a nice long cuddle, and then we made slow and gentle love. I had a slightly disturbed night; I kept waking up to check on her, but each time I found her sleeping peacefully and I dozed off again. I’d been worried that she might be bottling up her emotions, so I was concerned that I’d find her crying, but that didn’t happen. She looked her usual chirpy self in the morning; she’d put it behind her already.

Fred’s Graduation went smoothly; Vee also looking very smart (and sexy) in a new (and very short) summer dress bought for the occasion; she’d apparently decided that as she would be wearing an academic gown for her own graduation, she’d save the impact of the new dress for Fred’s ceremony. There was indeed an impact; she looked good enough for a Buckingham Palace garden party – though, showing that much leg, she almost certainly wouldn’t have been admitted...

Julie laughingly pretended to wipe some dribble off my chin after we’d had seen Vee strut her stuff down the stairs; I was reasonably sure that my tongue hadn’t actually been hanging out as I admired our flatmates thighs, but I suppose it was a possibility! I was absolutely sure of one thing: when Vee walked up the stairs to her seat in the audience, pretty much every male eye in the place was going to be looking at the same thing...

Sadly, I missed seeing Vee’s return to the flat; I’d have loved to have followed her up two and a half flights of stairs. Looking back on it forty years later, I rather suspect that Fred probably didn’t give her a chance to remove the dress before he had her panties down and his cock where it belonged – I would have done the same after a day of such visual temptation! I also reckon that when Fred’s parents got home that night, a) his father was probably much more insistent on exercising his conjugal rights than usual, and b) his mother had a damned good idea why that was the case!

On Friday, our landlady, Mrs Hughes, dropped in on the girls downstairs and gave them a second-hand upright Hoover, which was a huge improvement on the Bex Bissell that we’d all used the previous year. Sarah and Monica were leaving on the Saturday morning; Vee quite often had a natter with them, and had told us that they had applied to live in the Sengenhydd House university self-catering accommodation for their final year, sharing the five-bedroomed flat with three other girls they knew. They spent the day cleaning and stacking everything for the inventory check, and first thing Saturday we helped them get their personal belongings downstairs ready to be collected by their parents.

They had finished with Mrs Hughes by eleven o’clock, their parents had arrived, and they came up to say goodbye. We all trooped downstairs with them and helped them load up the two cars, and then waved them off. Fred went off to the corner shop for some milk and black plastic bags for rubbish, and for some reason Vee followed Julie and I into our room and shut the door behind her.

Vee hugged me and then stepped back.

“They would have done, you know.”

I looked blank; I hadn’t got an igloo what she was talking about.

“Sarah and Monica.”

“Done what?”

“Slept with you, if you’d have ever asked them.”

“Sarah and Monica? No way!”

“Oh yes they would; but you never showed any interest, and they wouldn’t have gone behind Julie’s back, anyway.”

I sat down on the sofa. This was seriously unexpected – yeah, I’d stolen a good few sneaky looks at Sarah and Monica over the last couple of years, especially when they were in their sports kit or short skirts, but I’d never contemplated bedding them. They were attractive young women who were easy on the eye, though no different from hundreds of others around the University; they happened to live in the same house so I saw them pretty much daily.

“So how do you know that they had their eyes on my boyfriend?”

Vee giggled.

“No, Julie, it wasn’t like that at all. It was just that one Wednesday afternoon before Easter I was having a quiet natter and cuppa with them in their sitting room, and the two of you obviously thought that you were alone in the house. Monica commented on a rhythmic thumping on the ceiling, and after a minute or two we realised what it was – you two were having it off. We just giggled and kept on chatting, but when it was still going on fifteen minutes later, Monica said that she wished her boyfriend lasted half as long as Jon did.”

“Oh god – why didn’t you tell us we’d been overheard?”

“Think about it. Would you have ever been able to do the dirty again without worrying if someone was hearing you? There was no point in you knowing, so I didn’t tell you.”

My girlfriend scowled.

“Thanks, I think!”

“My pleasure! Anyway, Sarah said that she wouldn’t mind some of that either, but as you were already taken by Julie, she’d just have to find herself a different boyfriend who could perform better. And then Julie screamed in ecstasy, and they both blushed. I just commented that it sounded like she’d just got a really good one, which made them blush even more.”

“Oh god – you didn’t tell them anything else, did you? You didn’t let on that you had personal experience?”

“Do you think I’m that stupid? Of course not. What the three of us did is between us, and nobody else needs to know anything. I think that Fred and I are going to be great together, but there’s no point in risking upsetting him by telling him what went on before we had even met, is there?”

“No, but...”

“Julie, my lovely, will you stop worrying? Those two girls were envious of you, but weren’t any threat; I’m not a threat either – we had a lot of fun together, you two got serious, I found Fred, we got serious, and we’ve all moved on. You’ve got Jon and I’ve got Fred; I’ll always remember our times together with fondness, but they’re over. Sarah and Monica overhearing you being fucked rotten doesn’t actually matter a jot to you, but it’s done them a lot of good, finding out what they’ve been missing. They now aren’t going to settle for what they’re currently getting from their boyfriends, just like I only finally realised that Jeff was always going to be bloody useless when he chucked up on me, and that Costas was only out to empty his balls when he wouldn’t stay the night or cuddle me after he’d fucked me. They were mistakes and you learn from them; Sarah and Monica found out that their boyfriends weren’t the real deal thanks to you, so they’re moving on.”

“Is that why they’re going to move into Senghenydd House, to meet some more men?”

Vee giggled.

“Yeah, men are a bit rare on their courses, so they thought they might get on better if they were more in the centre of things. Mind you, as they’re going to be Third Years, all the best ones will be taken, but they might get some decent sex even if they don’t find a long-term prospect. I did warn them about the Greeks and the other Overseas Students, though – okay for an occasional seeing-to when you need one but certainly not husband material, ‘cos they’ve mostly got wives and children back at home!”

I was still sitting there, a little shell-shocked that two such attractive girls would have been willing to sleep with me, and I had been totally oblivious to the situation. Julie knocked me out of my stupor with ease.

“Jon, be a darling, lug the Hoover up here, will you? This carpet needs doing.”

Oh well, my time as an unwitting sex object was clearly over; it was back to being a (willing) beast of burden again. I trudged downstairs to get the Hoover; I stood for a moment in the sitting room where Sarah and Monica had eavesdropped on Julie and I, thinking about what Vee had just told us.

Bugger!

In fact, bugger! Bugger! BUGGER!

I really wouldn’t have minded a night or two with either of them, showing them just what they were missing, and having a good time myself. I’d had some pretty impure thoughts about Sarah and Monica over the last two years, especially recently when we’d been playing badminton and their boobs had been bouncing around, or when I’d had glimpses of them in nightwear or shorts. Knowing too late that they both could have been mine for the asking was a bit of a kick in the balls.

I was very glad that Vee had suggested early on in our sexual relationship that I learn (she teach me) how to do cunnilingus properly; it had taught me an awful lot about how to please a woman, and also made me much happier about talking to them about what they enjoyed. Although I was still pretty shy in approaching women – after all, after Sian had started talking to me at the blood donor session, I’d never had to chat up a girl – I was comfortable talking intimately to my five sexual partners. I’d got on with Sarah and Monica as neighbours and housemates, probably because I was ‘safe’ and not chasing them, but I reckoned that after my experience with Sheila and Jen that I’d have been able to bed them with no hesitation, and do my very best for them.

I was well aware that many men thought cunnilingus was either dirty or beneath them; the very positive reactions that I had received from Vee, Sian, Julie, Sheila and Jen had long convinced me that it was actually a sure-fire way to a girl’s heart and into her knickers for repeat performances. I knew that I could have given Sarah and Monica a really memorable experience if I had known that they were interested – and bolstered my confidence even further by bagging another couple of good-looking birds. Not at all bad for a shy scientist who hadn’t even had a girlfriend before he got to University!

My musing was disturbed as Fred thundered back up from the shop.

I picked up the Hoover near the base of the handle and started back up the stairs. They’d need vacuuming as well; there was a lot more spring cleaning to do before we handed the flat back the next morning. Hopefully Julie and I would get a chance to make love one more time before we said goodbye to the place where we had first met. (Being brutally honest, I also most certainly wouldn’t have said no to a farewell fuck with Vee, but I wouldn’t do that to Fred, so our petite auburn-haired beauty was now definitely off-limits, no matter how much she might pretend to flirt.)