Full Term, page 4
The senior common room showed little effect of flux. There were a couple of new fellows: one so young that he and Junkin might have played cricket together; the other, bald and abraded, was understood to have escaped in middle age from some professorial assignment in the antipodes. David Graile and William Watershute, returned (the latter so belatedly) from leave of absence, were other new faces so far as I was concerned. Charles Atlas had gone off to America, taking his wife along with him - which left Mabel Bedworth indisputably in the lead among the more personable college ladies. I mildly missed Mrs Atlas at the parties that ushered in the new academic year. Janet McKechnie I missed very much. The McKechnies had concluded their period in the Princeton think-tank, but would not be back in Oxford for some little time yet.
Nobody had reached a retiring age (although Arnold Lempriere, mysteriously preserved to us, was a long way beyond it). Nobody had moved on to another job. Of traffic of that kind there was little, since departure to a formally enhanced status at some lesser university was regarded as a demotion which only the direst penury ought to bring about. The unfortunate nobleman in Hilaire Belloc’s poem, sentenced by his outraged kinsman to go out and govern New South Wales, might have been judged the archetype of any wretch of this sort.
Buntingford, whose note was the cynical, was fond of quoting a couplet of Pope’s as applicable to senior common room life:
Lo, where Maeotis sleeps, and hardly flows
The freezing Tanais thro’ a waste of snows.
We didn’t freeze; in fact, we were uncommonly snug. But it was at least true that our tempo was not that of the young. The college was like a motorway on which lanes are provided for fast and slow vehicles. To the undergraduates their seniors must have appeared like lumbering lorries, or ageing cars hauling caravans of learning too heavy for them: alike to be flashed past by the bright speed of Morgans and Aston-Martins. We were either this or senescent contraptions vegetating on the soft shoulder provided for those who have altogether given up the race.
On Surrey Four I continued to be intermittently involved with the life of my juniors. Junkin had departed to what was probably a very modest abode, but not without making prudent dispositions for a pied-a-terre in college. This was a common practice among those moving into digs. In one’s last term in college one cultivated some appropriate junior man, favouring him thereafter with a good deal of one’s company, as also with one’s gown, books, sports’ gear and general impedimenta, to say nothing of drawing freely upon his electric fire and kettle. Junkin had noted my possession of a useless room, the same in which it had long ago pleased Henry Tindale, the White Rabbit, to study from his bed next door the graces of belated young men tumbling into college through the window. Junkin had taken over this room, to which he came and went with a decent unobtrusiveness. It was perhaps unusual to arrive at such an arrangement with a don. But Junkin’s theatrical activities had by now made him a person eminent in the university, so licence might fairly be allowed him. It was only once or twice a week that he would burst into my sitting-room, dispose himself on the sofa, and politely inquire ‘I say, are you fearfully busy?’ as a preliminary to accepting drink and conversation.
My relationship with Junkin was so easy as to appear to stand in no need of analysis, yet its elements were not entirely simple. Our first meeting had been in circumstances making for intimacy, involving us as it had done in the joint muscular effort of lowering a young woman through a bedroom window into Long Field. The incident, although morally blameless, had been of an undergraduate order, and our companionship remained tinged by the exploit. We had elected each other as friends with much the same speed as Tony Mumford and I had done on the same staircase a quarter of a century before. But our ages were such that the association embodied to some extent a father-and-son component, although on Junkin’s part there may have been no great awareness of this. As Giles Watershute knew, Junkin had a perfectly good father already – who had lately surfaced to poorer pay (as Junkin explained to me) after labouring for most of his working days at the coal face of his Yorkshire mine.
The easiness of the Junkin connection was the more grateful in that I was aware of less simple acquaintanceships looming on Surrey Four. As Nick had done, Giles felt the germ of a special relationship to inhere in the fact that he now occupied what had once been my own rooms. He was an able and attractive boy, and any cautiousness I felt about him had to be laid at the Provost’s door. If his father were really to prove seriously at odds with the college, an older man in his own confidence might be useful to him. But it ought not to be one who had been called into some inner circle of persons deliberating on the matter. I felt this more strongly, I believe, than the present quite vague state of the case warranted.
The Sheldrake twins were another story. Mark Sheldrake, since he continued quartered in Ivo Mumford’s former rooms directly above my own, was of daily appearance. Moreover, he and his brother Matthew, alienated from one another the term before but reconciled, were much in one another’s pockets, and spent a good deal of time in each other’s rooms.
A single long vacation had dealt strangely with the Sheldrakes, and in a fashion instancing that swift mutability of early life. They had gone away as youths so transcendently beautiful that it had been almost embarrassing to look at them, as if one feared that one’s glance might linger in a manner only to be licenced before, say, a Phidian marble or a drawing by Michelangelo. They returned with their divinity shed, and simply as two good-looking boys whose chief attractiveness lay in a disposition to break into friendly and cheerful smiles. This last was a marked transformation, since in their demigod days they had been as aloof as their good manners allowed. Whether or not they were aware of themselves as beings from whom a burden had been lifted I don’t know. I was chiefly conscious of their being cordially disposed to me. Quite early in the term I found myself in Mark’s rooms and in the company of both of them.
I suppose that this, and several subsequent occasions of the same sort, could be regarded as odd. The brothers had quarrelled because my former wife had amused herself by adopting deplorable means to make them do so; each of them had been in bed with Penny, and this, I believed, with all the momentousness attending sexual initiation. They may have decided that I had been useful in returning them to good sense, but, even so, it might well have been their instinct discreetly to close our account. Yet here we were, all three, rather like men reunited after having long ago escaped from the same prison camp: conscious of a common bond, but not at all disposed to go back over unpleasant experiences. Perhaps the Sheldrakes, although they gave no hint of anything of the sort and talked to me only as a conversable senior man, were getting a certain satisfaction out of feeling seasoned and adult. We talked about cricket (although it was the wrong time of year) and about the theatre. Later on – and this was a great advance in intimacy – they told me about their parents and sisters and dogs.
I made another undergraduate acquaintance at this time – or, rather, he made mine. It happened one morning over breakfast, a meal which I had persuaded Plot, still the scout on Surrey Four, to turn on in my own rooms. The door opened after a perfunctory knock, and a young man stood revealed.
‘Professor Pattullo,’ the young man said. He spoke with a distinct suggestion of menace, much as if I had been an elusive and socially undesirable character whom he had run triumphantly to earth.
‘I’m not a professor. I suppose you’ve seen my name over the door.’
‘Exactly. My name is Chaffey. Boswell Chaffey. Boz. I’m the Press.’’
How do you do?’ This dim civility was the best I could manage at the moment. As a mere appearance Chaffey was familiar to me. He was an undergraduate who occupied, two above me and one above Mark Sheldrake, the rooms long ago belonging to my Australian friend Martin Fish. Physically. Chaffey was so large every way that he everywhere collided with the framework of the door. My first impression was simply of his taking up far more space than was reasonable.
‘And I’m in luck,’ Chaffey said. ‘I mean, your being free for interview. May I sit down?’
Chaffey had already sat down. This, although reminiscent of the imperfect synchronisations frequently exhibited by Junkin, was of different effect. I decided I mustn’t instantly snub Boswell Chaffey. He was a boy, I told myself, harmlessly inhabiting some fantasy world.
‘Is it Isis,’ I asked, ‘or is it Cherwell? The zeal exhibited by undergraduate reporters was one of the minor nuisances of life. They would appear, often carrying tape-recorders and accompanied by stenographically-accomplished pretty girls or by amateur photographers, several times a term. But I hadn’t hitherto known such a visitation unheralded in writing.
‘Isis? That’s kids’ stuff,’ Chaffey said with professional scorn. ‘I’m starting an agency, as a matter of fact. Chiefly for the English national dailies. But I intend to syndicate a good deal in America. I intend to go over there and fix things up in the Christmas vac. Your father was an artist, wasn’t he?’ The young man had briskly produced a notebook. ‘And quite well known in his time?’
‘Yes – and I suppose so. Can I lend you a pencil?’ My inquisitor had been fumbling in a pocket.
‘Thanks a lot. But I’ve got one.’ Having located this instrument of his craft, Chaffey made a tick in the notebook, thereby presumably confirming my father’s artistic standing. ‘And your mother’s name was Glengarry.’
‘Glencorry.’
‘That’s what I said. Who did your father try to paint like? What important artist, I mean.’
‘A difficult question. As a young man, he was a great admirer of Monet.’
‘A great admirer of Manet.’ Chaffey wrote this down. ‘Have you any brothers and sisters?’
‘I have one brother. He’s a judge.’
‘Would you say he makes more than you do?’
‘I am afraid the emoluments of his office are unknown to me.’
‘Emoluments.’ Chaffey appeared to transcribe this word phonetically, and then to scrutinise it with disfavour. ‘I wasn’t asking about his office,’ he said. ‘I suppose it’s in some sort of law-court. I was asking about his screw. But never mind. What about favourite books? Do you read detective stories? Do you think there ought to be pornography? Have you ever been prosecuted over anything of that sort in your plays? The public likes to hear about that kind of thing.’
‘No doubt. But, Mr Chaffey, I’m afraid I simply don’t feel confessional at breakfast-time, and we’re getting into a false position. If you really want to interview me, please fix an appointment beforehand. And it mightn’t be a bad idea to give the occasion a little preliminary thought. Getting your questions into some sort of coherent order, for example.’
‘Oh, but that doesn’t matter a bit. One always changes everything round. Before printing, I mean, and just as they do on radio and TV. An article or a programme can be made much more interesting that way. Even somebody quite dull can be livened up. It’s an art.’
‘Would you care for a cup of coffee?’ It seemed to me that Chaffey, although talking rubbish, was taking my refusal to play fairly well. Moreover, he was a close neighbour, and seemed to own a mild eccentricity which might repay study. With this thought in mind, I had picked up the coffee-pot.
‘I don’t mind if I do,’ Chaffey said handsomely. ‘The stuff they give you in hall is pretty foul, as a matter of fact. I’ve been thinking of doing a piece on that.’
‘Do you suppose it would be of general interest – in the national press, as you say? I’m not sure I wouldn’t skip it myself.’
‘Oh, but it depends on the write-up.’ Chaffey didn’t seem discouraged by my rather bleak remark. ‘I expect you’ve found that with your plays. A crack falls entirely flat because you haven’t known how to give it the right twist. Then somebody comes along and says “Just shift those words round in a way they don’t commonly come”. Something of that sort. And you do it, and you get your laugh.’
‘Just so.’ I didn’t feel I need be offended by this simplistic view of dramatic composition - particularly as Boswell Chaffey didn’t seem at all easily offended himself. ‘Do you intend to make journalism your career?’ I asked.
‘Yes – but chiefly in the way of organising things. My agency is going to have tentacles all over the place. That’s why I’m proposing to get activities going in the States quite soon, as I explained.’
‘Have you many connections there?’
‘Well, not just at present. I’m planning to collect a bunch of introductions from the Provost, as a matter of fact. He’ll know everybody, don’t you think?’
I found no reply to this question, and reflected on the extraordinary notions that undergraduates can form on the structure of things in general. I also felt some curiosity as to how Edward Pococke would receive so ill-judged an application. And Chaffey seemed to interpret my silence as conveying mild stricture.
‘Of course,’ he said, ‘I know one has to begin in a thoroughly modest way. I’ve got to take a rattling good First in Schools. I’m setting aside a little time for that. Then the road’s clear right ahead.’
‘And meanwhile you supply Fleet Street with newsy bits about Oxford life?’
‘Just that – and particularly about this college. It’s got cachet, you know. A college can have cachet, just as a restaurant or a boutique can have chic. It was a bit of luck, really, my getting into this particular place.’
‘It was, indeed.’
‘But while the agency is finding its feet I have some other plans as well. You can’t get all that way on social stuff. That’s a wench’s stamping-ground chiefly. I’d say the next step is investigative journalism. That’s something entirely new.’
‘I’d rather doubt it’s being exactly that, Mr Chaffey.’
‘It’s entirely new.’ It was rather magnificently that Boz swept aside my qualifying word. ‘And one can make a name at it in no time. A single big scoop, and you’re home and dry. Well, thanks a lot for the caf. I’ll be contacting you.’ And Boswell Chaffey got massively to his feet. ‘I’ve got to see a don in another college. He’s been had up for drunk in charge.’
‘He’ll be looking forward to your call.’
‘Yes, of course. People just love to get into the news: dons, boxers, disc-jockeys, playwrights like yourself. It makes no odds. Mind you, tact is required. I never lose sight of that. See you, then.’
With this the ace reporter departed, and I thought no more about him. It was one of the attractions of the possibly stagnant waters of academic life that odd fish bobbed up in them plentifully enough. And that Chaffey could conceivably be a menace didn’t enter my head.
IV
At this time I had got back to believing that I very seldom thought about Penny. Her shocking affair with the Sheldrakes was now a thing of the past – even if of the fairly recent past – and I had no occasion to burden myself with the memory of her. This had been my settled attitude ever since our divorce, and I believe it never occurred to me that I’d have done better to face up to that past from time to time: even again to pick up, as it were, those binoculars with which, perched on the Piccolo Gallo, I’d discovered myself married to a woman for whom sexual pleasure was enhanced by the inflicting of sexual humiliation. That I’d swept all this unadvisedly under the mat was perhaps instanced in my having unconcernedly taken over, upon my return to college, the former rooms of Henry Tindale, the humiliated party.
It was Fiona who tackled me on this. Although she had declared herself interested only in the broader outlines of my intimate life she had in fact picked up more of it than that. She may be said to have briskly inquired, and then briskly concluded.
‘The truth is, Duncan, that you’ve been ducking yourself. Squandering a decade of your life on tepid episodes with tepid women.’
‘I’d call that a summary on the severe side. But, in any case, it’s over and done with. Are you and I going to be tepid, Fiona?’
‘You were badly traumatised.’ Fiona’s only reply to my demand had been the swift and misdoubting look that, nowadays, I detected in her from time to time.
‘That’s just a silly vogue word.’
‘It’s a vogue word, if you like, but it’s also a real thing. Your marriage ended in that shocking mess. And you sat on its head and went all controlled and reticent about it when you’d have done far better to treat yourself to a jumbo-size freak-out. The result is that you’re scared of sex to this day, and have to tag after . . . after safely inaccessible females.’
‘Good God!’
‘Yes – like that old flame of yours, Janet McKechnie, who’s a completely married woman if ever there was one. And college ladies at their stupid sherry parties. And heaven knows who else. A kind of erotic shadow-boxer – that’s you.’
