Doubt

May 1983. I remember leaving the station at Oxford and setting off on the mile walk to Hertford College. Sixteen years old, still three months before I could begin driving lessons, I clutched a copy of David Thomson’s ‘Political Ideas’ in my hand – at least figuratively; it was probably in my rucksack – and walked down the long road towards the dreaming spires.

At some point along that mile I made contact with a boy who had a map. He was a candidate for a geography scholarship at the same college. In those days, Hertford was alone in allocating a small percentage of places to state school pupils nominated by their teachers, based purely on an interview. Or in my case, three interviews. We eventually wound up at the lodge to the college. I was already overawed and beginning to sense that feeling of being abroad, of entering a culture that although recognisable, was not my own.

At dinner I sat quietly at a long wooden table and answered the handful of questions directed at me. I asked none of my own, not because I wasn’t curious about the other candidates and their lives but because there were never any pauses in the conversation. To be part of this world I would have to fashion my own openings, make my own way, turn the light in my own direction. But at sixteen I didn’t know how this was done.

Late in the evening, about nine-thirty as I remember it, I shifted along dark corridors and up gloomy flights of steps to find the room of a don who was going to interview me about politics. The room was softly lit and the shelves predictably stacked with books. The man wore glasses and a tweed jacket, which was somehow reassuring, and he smiled and chatted about my journey and school work and which books I’d read. Remembering Thomson, I discussed Hobbes, Locke, Mill and Marx. This wasn’t so bad after all. Perhaps Oxford was full of kindly souls like him. Maybe the worm that had grown fat on my doubt would wither and die if I stayed here long enough.

The next morning, feeling more confident, I made an attempt to talk about economics to a more serious but nonetheless friendly man. Sensing the worm bulging, he steered me onto economic history and I did well. Or at least I talked a good deal and he nodded, which might not have been the same thing as doing well. In the hour before my final interview I walked around the streets and colleges, poking my head tentatively through the gates, watching the confident carriage of scarves and bicycles and books, straining my eyes up to the windows of the Bodleian library or the Bridge of Sighs.

At eleven I pitched up at another room for the last interview, philosophy, wondering if I could ever be that certain of my mind, of my learning, of my character. At my school it was fairly easy to shine, but here it would be difficult. Would I immediately be discovered as a fraud, a confidence-trickster who had somehow managed to fool the dons into letting him in? I could already picture them all, smirking with polite but embarrassed unease. My half-hearted knock was finally answered by a man in full morning suit with tails and a wing collar (was he wearing a bow tie or is that too far-fetched?) who lounged casually on a chaise-longue.

‘Give me an example of an ambiguous word,’ he clipped. In my writer’s memory ‘he barked’, although surely nobody in real life would be so rude to a nervous sixteen year-old?

I sat still and drew breath, trying not to look at the strange and, quite frankly, bored eyes that waited on my answer. I knew what ambiguous meant: unclear, vague, uncertain, indefinite, indistinct. But my brain was home again to the neurological worm of doubt who now slithered unchallenged through the clouded synapses, feeding on what little rational thought available until it found the only word stupid enough for that moment.

‘Bread?’ I mumbled. The man in the morning suit arched his eyebrows. Was that the beginning of a smile at the corner of his lips? Was he about to laugh in my face? ‘It can mean money in America,’ I stuttered, suddenly picturing Huggy Bear from Starsky and Hutch.

‘Mmm, I was thinking more of a word like ‘many’,’ the man said cautiously, metaphorically throwing me on to the ‘no’ pile.

At that point I should have argued or given him ten other similar words, tell him that most, maybe all, words are ambiguous in some sense. Thirty years on, I could pretend that at that moment I stared out of the window into the May sunshine which lit Oxford and decided it wasn’t for me. That somehow, I decided for myself to take another path towards teaching and writing. But the truth is, I can’t be sure that’s what I did.

Out of politeness, the interview dragged on for a few minutes more at which point I was released to the train station and the long journey home. I forgot about the experience quickly and although I received a nice letter complimenting me and asking me to take the entrance examination, I think I’d sensed that the place was for people of certainty; the politicians, the journalists, the publishers who years later would publish my writing. Perhaps they, too, have a tamed worm of doubt kept somewhere safe. But at some point I must have decided to let mine free. Maybe it was in that dark room in Oxford, sitting opposite a man in a morning suit who wasn’t going to a wedding.

At sixteen the world had been black or white, heroes or villains, left or right, right or wrong, God or the devil, BBC or ITV, new wave or heavy metal, bitter or lager. Yet these days I increasingly cherish my worm of doubt. My roles as a partner, a parent, a teacher, and not least as a writer, have deepened its value to such an extent that I’m fairly - but not completely - sure that every human would benefit from a small one. Especially Mr Gove, Mr Osborne and Mr Duncan-Smith. (Surely a seriously important man like IDS should be less ambiguous about his real surname?) When humans doubt themselves, they might be spurred on to improve something that they do. A writer who writes and then sits back and beams with self-satisfaction will become a lazy writer. A teacher who trots out the same lesson plans each year will eventually let pupils down. A politician who is not for turning might come to regret it, although I doubt they would agree with me. True, at some point people have to make decisions, decide the right course, stick their necks out. But the conviction that you are always right is . . . well, it’s too ridiculous for words.

I quite like grey, I occasionally watch ITV, I’m not averse to a little Led Zeppelin although I prefer Joy Division, I drink lager on holiday and in Indian restaurants. I haven’t yet worshipped the devil or voted Tory. I could combine the two quite easily at the ballot box just to prove my point but there’s a limit to what I’m prepared to do in the name of art. Or is it philosophy? I'm not sure.

One thing is for certain though. As my cursor hovers over the ‘publish’ button, you can be sure that I’m doubting if this is good enough.