A Touch of Love (18 page)

Corbett nodded.

‘But he said he’d tell me when you were having that meeting,’ said Hugh. ‘He told me that I could come along. He said I could come along and make some suggestions. I’d worked out a question. I’d got this question all worked out. And it was today! Why didn’t anyone tell me?’

‘You couldn’t really have come along,’ said Corbett. ‘It was just for the teaching staff.’

‘So who set the question on Eliot?’

‘Davis did.’

‘Davis? But Davis doesn’t know a thing about Eliot. He doesn’t have the first faintest bloody idea about Eliot. What was his question?’

‘I don’t know. Something about
The Waste Land.
’

‘But it’s always
The Waste Land.
That’s why I was going to come along. I’d got this brilliant question all worked out. It was all about “Little Gidding”,’

Corbett smiled. ‘Your pet subject.’

‘Exactly. You know Malcolm Kirkby, do you?’

‘Well, I’ve heard of him, yes.’

‘Wrote that book about the
Four Quartets?
’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, you know what he said about me, don’t you? In that book.’

‘No.’

‘Well, you know I had that thing published in
Notes and Queries?
’

‘Did you?’

‘It was about line 25 of “Little Gidding”,’

‘What was it – a note, or a query?’

‘Well, it was a sort of note, I suppose. Anyway, do you know what he said about it in his book?’

‘What?’

‘He said it would never be possible to read that line in the same way again. Following my note. It’s changed the whole thing, according to him.’

‘That’s quite a compliment.’

‘So I know what I’m talking about. I’m telling you, I could set a better question than Davis, any day of the week.’

‘Well, he’s pretty much played out, that bloke, if you want my opinion. He’ll be retiring in a year or two. He can’t even remember what he’s meant to be talking about, half the time. The students are always complaining about it.’

‘So why’s he still teaching? Why can’t you get some new blood into the department? You’re cutting your own throats, you know, because in ten years’ time it’s going to be dead from the neck up.’

‘We don’t have the money. Cutbacks, economies – we’re all having to tighten our belts.’ Corbett wiped away the last of the chocolate cake from the edges of his mouth, and added: ‘It’s no use getting angry about it. Universities have been overmanning themselves for years, just like industry.’

‘Well, you can afford to say that, can’t you?’

‘It’s not complacency, Hugh. It’s realism,’ said the distinguished editor of
Men and Mountains: Essays on the Political Commitment of the Artist.
‘I mean, I know all about the problems that people like yourself are facing these days. But look on the bright side.’

‘There’s a bright side? Tell me about it.’

‘Well, at least you’re over the first hurdle. At least you’ve got your Ph.D. A lot of people don’t even get that far: they don’t have the staying power. For instance – did you ever meet that friend of Robin’s, Aparna? Aparna Indrani.’

‘Yes, I met her a few times. Why?’

‘Did you know she’s left?’

‘Left? When?’

‘A couple of months ago, apparently. She never told me about it, or anybody else in the department, and I’m supposed to be her bloody supervisor. Just packed her bags and left. Left half of her stuff in store here, and nobody knows when she’s going to come back and collect it. And not a word about finishing her thesis. Just dumped the whole lot in my pigeon-hole, without a note or anything. Didn’t even take it with her.’

‘So what’s all that about?’

‘Like I said, no staying power. I mean, she’d been messing around with the thing for nearly six years, and I’d been pretty patient with her, I can tell you. But there you are.’

‘Incredible.’

‘She just couldn’t… get it all together,’ said the author of the much-vaunted pamphlet, ‘The Psychology of Female Creativity’, recently published as part of the
Studies in Contemporary Aesthetics
series. ‘Too screwed up with problems of her own, probably.’

They contemplated this diagnosis for a few moments.

‘I never liked her that much, I must say,’ said Hugh. ‘She was a prickly woman. Always picking you up if you said something she didn’t like. In a way you’d expect her to leave in a huff like that.’

‘Well, it’s no skin off my nose,’ said Corbett. ‘At least I don’t have to read the stuff any more.’

A lone student arrived at the periphery of the café, took a slow, mournful look around, and left. Hugh went over to the serving counter to order two coffees, but the woman was nowhere to be seen and his shouts of ‘Hello’ in the direction of the kitchen went unanswered.

‘She’ll probably be back in a minute,’ he said, returning to the table. He was still thinking about Aparna. ‘Perhaps she was upset about what happened to Robin.’

‘Maybe. I heard – I mean, probably it was just a rumour – but I heard that they were having some sort of affair.’

‘Almost certainly, I should think. They were seeing each other all the time, towards the end. I can’t be sure, because Robin never used to confide in me about things like that. I don’t know why – I was his friend, after all. But he could be pretty stand-offish when it suited him. I suppose he was just another of these people with no staying power. Only in a rather more extreme sense.’

‘Well, who knows what goes on inside the head of a bloke like that.’

‘I think frustration with work had a lot to do with it,’ said Hugh. ‘He wasn’t getting anywhere with his thesis. Even I could see that.’

‘The guy was off his trolley, basically,’ said Corbett, whose series of lectures on the relationships between madness and intellectual achievement had been one of the highlights of the autumn term. ‘We don’t have to make excuses. Mind you, as far as his work went, I should think that being supervised by Davis would have been enough to send anyone round the twist.’

‘I gather he’s not the most dynamic of supervisors. They only ever met up about once a year, or something.’

‘He’s out of order. Past it. The sooner we can persuade him to pack it in, the better it’ll be for everybody.’

At this point Professor Davis himself wandered into the café, carrying a battered old briefcase and wiping his spectacles with a dirty handkerchief. After spotting Hugh and Dr Corbett, and after some brief hesitation, he came to join them. Corbett fetched him a chair and Hugh insisted on buying him some coffee and a macaroon. There was a long pause while he struggled to get the lid off his plastic carton of cream, sugared the coffee, ate about half of the cake and blew his nose. Then, looking thoughtful, he remarked:

‘Very wet, today.’

Hugh nodded in attentive agreement.

‘Outside,’ Davis added, to clear up any ambiguity.

‘Absolutely.’

‘On a day like this,’ said Davis, weighing his words with extreme care, ‘you need an umbrella.’

‘Or an anorak,’ said Corbett. ‘An anorak with a hood.’

‘Quite.’

He took a sip of coffee, and decided to add another lump of sugar.

‘Still,’ said Hugh, ‘it’s nearly Christmas.’

‘True,’ said Professor Davis. ‘Very true. The end of another year. Time marches on.’

‘It seems to have gone very quickly, this year,’ said Corbett.

‘I think it’s gone slowly,’ said Hugh.

‘These things are relative,’ said Davis, ‘in the long run. A year only seems long if a lot has happened in it. I would say that quite a lot has happened, in the last year.’

‘Do you mean globally,’ said Hugh, ‘or locally?’

‘Both,’ said Davis. ‘There was Westland. There was Libya. There was Chernobyl. There was that nasty leak in the roof of the Staff Club dining room.’

‘And there was Robin,’ said Dr Corbett.

‘Precisely. There was Robin.’

A respectful silence ensued.

‘Hugh and I were wondering,’ said Corbett, ‘whether the real problem with Robin was his work. Did anyone ever see his work, apart from you? Was it any good?’

‘What was it
about
, Robin’s thesis?’

‘Well,’ said Professor Davis, ‘it covered a wide range of literary topics, from a variety of different viewpoints.’

‘Would you say his approach was… theoretical?’

‘It could have been described as theoretical, yes.’

‘Rather than practical?’

‘It could also have been described as practical, I suppose.’

‘Would you say his methodology was… Marxist?’

‘It had elements of Marxism, undoubtedly.’

‘As opposed to formalist?’

‘But he had certain formalist leanings, it has to be said.’

‘Did he confine his researches to a particular author, or a particular period?’

‘He might have done, in the fullness of time. You see, his work never really took shape. He had difficulty getting his thoughts down on paper.’

‘Did you ever read any of his stories?’ asked Hugh, and they both turned to look at him in surprise.

‘He wrote stories?’

‘Yes. He had these illusions about wanting to be a writer. He didn’t use to talk about them much, but one night when we both got drunk back at his place he showed me these stories he’d written. I read them all.’

‘What sort of stories were they?’

‘Short stories.’

‘And did they tell you anything about him? Did they help you to understand him?’

Hugh considered.

‘Not really.’

‘What were they about?’

‘You see, I can’t see the point of trying to
understand
these things anyway,’ said Hugh. ‘I mean, what’s the point? It’s not going to
change
anything, is it? That’s what I keep saying to Emma: “Look, it’s not going to change anything, even if you find out why he did it. So what?’”

‘Who’s Emma?’ Corbett asked.

‘She was his lawyer.’

‘You’re still in touch with her, are you?’ said Davis. ‘I thought she left Coventry months ago.’

‘She came back. I don’t know whether she’s still working here or what. Anyway she keeps phoning me up and asking questions about Robin. I suppose she feels guilty about it or something: she seems to want to rake the whole thing up again.’

‘There was an interview with the boy’s father in the evening paper recently,’ said Davis. ‘Apparently Robin’s family have been writing letters to him, holding him responsible for what happened. It seems rather unreasonable to me.’

‘It’s the same thing again,’ said Hugh. ‘There’s no point in trying to get at the truth behind all that. It doesn’t matter whether Robin actually did it or not. The point is that he
could
have done it. He was capable of it.’

‘What do you mean, capable of it?’

‘Well, he had some very strange ideas about sex. That is clear from the stories, if nothing else.’

‘Strange ideas?’ said Dr Corbett, leaning forward.

‘It’s just that… men and women… going out together: I don’t think he thought it was a very good idea.’

‘How extraordinary,’ said Professor Davis.

‘He had all these affairs,’ said Hugh, ‘and they never lasted very long. I don’t know what he used to do to those women, but… it makes you wonder, doesn’t it?’

Professor Davis and Dr Corbett wondered, silently and in unison. Then Corbett said:

‘This Emma woman – she keeps ringing you up, does she?’

‘Yes. Three or four times in the last week.’

‘I wonder why.’

‘I told you, she’s got this obsession with Robin. A few weeks ago I came across this thing he wrote, something he lent me, and she says she wants to read it.’

‘What is it?’

‘It’s just a copy of his last story. One of the last things he did, apparently, was to throw all his stuff away, but there were these four stories which he was writing in different notebooks. Emma’s still got one of them – the second, I think – and I’ve got the fourth. It’s just a little story with some notes scribbled at the end of it. They’re not very interesting, I keep telling her. Anyway, she’s going to come over and see it.’

‘What, to your place?’

‘Yes, tomorrow night.’

The professor and the doctor exchanged meaningful glances.

‘Didn’t she leave her husband?’ Davis asked.

‘That’s right.’

‘How long have you known her?’ Corbett asked.

‘Quite a while – about four years. Why? What are you suggesting?’

But Dr Corbett simply looked at his watch and stood up.

‘I’ve really got to be getting along,’ he said. ‘Joyce will be wanting to get the dinner ready soon. I’ll be seeing you both next term, no doubt. Have a happy Christmas, Leonard.’ He put his hand on Hugh’s shoulder. ‘Good luck for tomorrow, then. Try and make it a Happy New Year.’

Then he was gone and Hugh was staring after him in puzzlement.

‘That was a weird thing to say.’

‘Norman’s mind tends to run in rather set patterns,’ explained Professor Davis. ‘I think he assumed that your playing host tomorrow night to a young, attractive, unattached lady could only mean one thing.’

He shook his head. ‘He’s wrong.’

‘You mean she’s not so attractive?’ said Davis, attempting to sip from an empty coffee cup.

‘Not at all. She’s very attractive. But all the same…’

Davis chuckled, replaced the cup, and rose to his feet. He picked up his briefcase and brushed crumbs from his corduroy jacket.

‘Look, Hugh,’ he said, ‘you don’t want to live alone all your life, do you? In abedsit? Let yourself go. It’s Christmas.’

Hugh did not answer, until, as Davis was walking away, he called out, ‘Why didn’t you tell me about the meeting today?’ But the professor’s hearing was not all that it used to be.

∗

Hugh got soaked again on the way home and was shivering violently by the time he got back to his room. On the radio the weatherman predicted that the rain would turn to hail or snow overnight. He lay in the bath that evening for more than an hour, until the water was quite cold. He started to make plans for Emma’s visit. He would cook an elaborate meal, maybe something Mexican, and he would tidy up the room properly, leaving the windows open all morning while he was down at the launderette and the supermarket. It felt good to be making plans again. Now that he had had time to think about them, Corbett’s words no longer seemed so foolish: it was true that Emma had been phoning him a lot recently, and hadn’t she made a special effort to come to his birthday party, back in the summer? Probably, like him, she was simply lonely and a little physical affection just before Christmas was exactly what she needed.