Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire is associated with the Mayhew family home, a place whose comfort and social ease expose the difference between Dexter Mayhew’s upbringing and Emma Morley’s uncertain footing within it. The location recurs in sharply contrasting circumstances: first as the impressive setting of Emma’s visit after graduation, and later as the family destination where Dexter’s father takes him when he is too depleted to care for himself.

The family home and its atmosphere

The first detailed view of Oxfordshire comes through Emma’s stay at Dexter’s family house in the last warm days after graduation. To her, the house seems less like an ordinary home than a mansion: a large 1920s building furnished with faded rugs and large abstract canvases, where drinks are served with ice. The impression is one of ease and abundance, made more vivid by the fact that Emma has never seen a swimming pool except one built by the local council. The family garden, scented with herbs, contains both a pool and a tennis court; from wicker chairs, Dexter and Emma drink gin and tonics and look out at the view.

For Emma, the visit briefly resembles the world of The Great Gatsby. That association registers both the glamour she sees and her awareness of being a guest in a world unlike her own. The house is not merely a backdrop to the visit: its space and comforts sharpen her sense of the distance between her background and Dexter’s. The same setting that offers leisure also makes her feel exposed, especially when the ease of the day gives way to the more difficult intimacy of dinner.

Emma’s visit and its aftermath

At dinner, Emma becomes nervous and drinks too much. She argues with Dexter’s father, whom the narrative describes as mild, modest, and reasonable, and shouts at him about Nicaragua, calling him a fascist. Afterwards, the grandeur of the visit gives way to remorse. Alone in the guest bedroom, Emma waits for a knock at the door that she believes will not come, fearing that her political outburst has ruined her romantic hopes. The episode leaves her imagining that she has sacrificed those hopes for a cause that will not thank her.

Oxfordshire therefore marks an early imbalance in Emma and Dexter’s relationship. She is already emotionally invested, but in the Mayhew home she is also conscious of being an outsider who may have misjudged the codes of the household. Dexter’s affectionate disappointment during the visit compounds that vulnerability. The following spring, their meeting in London and a long day together in Kensington Gardens show that she has been forgiven, but their closeness has settled into friendship. In Oxfordshire, the guest bedroom had held Emma’s anxious hope for a private romantic encounter; by the time Dexter tells her about another woman, the relationship has taken a more familiar and frustrating shape.

The Mayhew household

The house is also presented through Dexter’s childhood view of his parents. In the large garden and at family dinners, he watches Stephen Mayhew regard Alison Mayhew with what he sees as silent adoration. Stephen is fifteen years older than Alison, tall, long-faced, and introverted; Dexter finds it hard to believe that his father can be so fortunate. His account of the home repeatedly places Alison at its social centre. At her parties, men gather around her, while Dexter watches quietly so that he will not be sent to bed. Doctors, lawyers, and people who speak on the radio, as well as Dexter’s school friends, become absorbed in her attention.

Alison’s own history gives the household a distinctive mixture of unconventional glamour and settled respectability. She once studied fashion in London and retains the aura of someone who had been part of the Sixties, visible to Dexter in old photographs and clippings. By the time described, she runs a successful village antiques shop, selling expensive rugs and chandeliers to genteel Oxford. She has exchanged that earlier life for a secure family one without apparent regret. Dexter suspects she sometimes has affairs with the men who orbit her, but says he finds it difficult to be angry with her. People say Dexter has inherited something from her: her looks and energy, but also a confidence that lets him occupy the centre of things. The family home thus becomes part of the setting in which he observes both his mother’s social magnetism and his own resemblance to her.

Return and narrative significance

Years later, Oxfordshire reappears in a very different register. After spending the night with Emma, Dexter explains that he is meant to drive back there, where his parents live most of the time. The prospect of leaving makes their new intimacy collapse into awkward small talk. He then asks his mother by telephone whether the journey home can be postponed until the next morning, presenting the delay as a way to make the drive easier for his father. Emma takes the gesture as evidence that Dexter has altered his plans for her, though his apology keeps the moment modest rather than transforming it into a declaration.

The family home’s later appearance is more urgent. After Dexter is found badly injured and unable to reassure Jasmine Mayhew, Stephen takes him away by car. Dexter wakes beneath an old tartan picnic blanket on the back seat, shivering despite the warm day. The scuffed burgundy upholstery, the blanket associated with family outings, Mozart on the radio, and the sight of his father’s neatly trimmed silver-grey hair make the journey feel unmistakably like a return to family care. When Stephen tells him he is taking him home, Dexter considers protesting that he is not a child, but lacks the strength to argue and falls asleep.

The car reaches the large family home over gravel. Stephen opens the door, offers soup for tea, and behaves as though nothing unusual has happened; Dexter is grateful for this ordinary manner and follows him inside, unsteady. In the bathroom he sees the bruises and physical deterioration caused by his drinking, and connects his diminished life to Emma’s absence. Oxfordshire is consequently not only the site of an affluent upbringing or an awkward early visit. It becomes the place where the protection and familiarity of Dexter’s childhood family reappear when his adult independence has failed him, offering care without pretending that the damage is not there.