Tim Connor Hits Trouble (18 page)

Tim Connor had decided that Aisha's party offered him a rare opportunity for a public display of his credentials as a family man, diminished, as he conceded, though they were by recent events. After much hesitation, Gina agreed to come over with Maria. Reluctantly she also agreed to stay over-night at Tim's place. Tim was pleased, though less so when she emphasised that she would be sleeping in the spare room with Maria. Still he had no serious expectation of a recall to favour, temporary or otherwise. And there was his slow burning relationship with Erica to consider. On reflection he realised that Gina's insistence on keeping a distance between them made sense. In any case, her loyalties now lay elsewhere. It was just that somewhere in the back of his mind he kept hearing a barely audible whisper, ‘you never know'.

The afternoon of the party found him making a determined effort to dress smartly – more for the sake of Gina and Maria, who was beginning to notice and comment on such matters, than to impress his assembled colleagues.

‘What do you think I should wear for this party? I still have most of my clothes from when we were together.' Tim shouted for sartorial advice from his bedroom to Gina who was with Maria in the guest bedroom.

‘It's not a formal do, is it? Wear something clean and comfortable. You used to look presentable in that white cotton smock and beige linen trousers. Wear them with those open strapped sandals you bought in Turkey.'

‘I don't want to look too hippie, there'll be a squad of the suit and tie boys there, certainly the Dean and maybe others. Aisha Khan has been pretty inclusive in her invitations. And she and her husband are Muslims of some kind so this isn't going to be a let it all hang out affair. At least I'll be amazed if it is. There may not even be any alcohol.'

‘Wear a suit and tie yourself, then, if you're that concerned.' Gina sounded terse. She still found everyday chat with Tim a strain. But she was determined to keep to their agreement to avoid post-break-up bitterness and sniping. And she wanted Maria to be able to maintain a relationship with her father. She reverted to faux cheerful mode.

‘Tim, we're ready now. It's time to stop prettying yourself up. Maria, go and show your father how nice you look.'

Maria took a couple of steps and then hesitated. ‘Why can't he come and see me instead.'

Tim overheard Maria's remark and quickly went over.

His daughter was dressed in a blue and red party dress with her hair tied back with a striped ribbon of the same colours. Her skin, almost as dark as her mother's, shone against the silk dress

‘Wow! You look great, as pretty as your mum.'

Maria gave him an uncertain look but was drawn by the compliment. The moment hung in the balance. Then she tumbled towards him. ‘Pick me up Daddy, I want to give you a big kiss.'

Tim swung her off her feet lifting her high in the air. They exchanged noisy kisses.

‘Put me down now Daddy, you only deserve one kiss so far.'

‘So far what?'

‘I don't know, you might get another one after the party. Can we go now?'

Gina drove them to Aisha's place in Tim's car. There were already several vehicles, some luxury class, parked in the wide semi-circular drive. She managed to squeeze the old Volvo in between a gold Mercedes and a gleaming jet-black four-by-four.

‘Well done, a scratch on either of those could cost the thick end of half a grand,' said Tim.

A tall Asian man with a head of hair like a lion's mane greeted them at the door. He was wearing a dark suit, white shirt and bow tie.

‘Good afternoon, my name is Waqar Khan, I'm Aisha's husband. I assume you must be Tim Connor. Aisha has talked about you from time to time. She mentioned that you are rather tall which is how I recognised you.'

‘That's right and this is Gina and our daughter Maria.'

‘I'm delighted to meet you. I've been looking forward to putting faces to the names Aisha has mentioned.' He smiled down at Maria, ‘That's a lovely dress you're wearing, beautiful colours.'

‘Thank you, Mummy bought it for me,' Maria's face lit up.

‘The party is in the extension at the back of the house and spilling out into the garden,' Waqar continued. ‘We thought we would keep it as open as possible – there are a few children here and we want to give them space to play in. And on a decent day like this people enjoy gathering round the pool.'

The noise of the party got louder as they followed Waqar through the house. After passing through several rooms they arrived at a large glass extension that opened out onto a spacious garden area. Both were crowded, mainly with people Tim didn't know. Waqar called his wife over to welcome
the new arrivals. She quickly left a group of women who were engaged in an animated discussion. Waqar then made his excuses, bowed politely and moved off to join a group of similarly formally dressed men.

‘I'm so pleased to see you all,' Aisha smiled, opting to greet them with hugs rather than handshakes or a two-cheek kiss. ‘As you can see there's plenty of food and there's lots to drink; non-alcoholic over there and there's some alcohol on a separate table if you want that. But I'd be interested to hear what you think of my homemade fruit and herbal drinks. Waqar is planning to trial them in the restaurants if we get a good reaction from our friends today. So far the feedback has been positive. But you must tell us what you really think. And please, no English politeness.'

She turned to Gina, adding by way of explanation, ‘Oh, I should have said, my husband runs a chain of restaurants and we're always trying to think of new ideas to improve the business. My homemade drinks idea is probably a bit optimistic given that most Brits like a lager with “an Indian.” Anyway let me take Maria outside so she can join in with the other children. My friend Caroline will look after them so Maria will be fine. I won't be a moment.'

Momentarily subdued by the occasion, Maria took Aisha's hand without complaint. They disappeared in the direction of a large French window.

‘What a magnificent house,' said Gina, raising her voice above the noise, ‘and our hosts seem to have thought of everything.'

‘That's right,' Tim agreed, ‘they've made it a real family party.'

Tim was impressed with Aisha's fluency as a host. At the university she quietly and un-fussily got on with the job but today, in her own home there was an easy confidence about her that he had not previously noticed. She was less reserved than he thought. On reflection he realised that her demeanour at work was also well measured. By working
hard but being open about her lack of experience in an academic institution, she attracted the support she needed, sometimes more than she needed.

She was back with them within a couple of minutes.

‘That's worked out well. There are one or two other children of Maria's age as well as my son Ali. He really loves playing the young host so she won't be short of attention.' She paused for a moment. ‘Tim, why don't you pop over to the group I was with when you came in, a colleague of yours was asking where you were. I'll have a chat with Gina and show her round the property.'

‘Ok, thanks,' said Tim. ‘I'll just grab myself some food and a drink first.'

Having loaded up Tim took in the crowded scene. He hesitated for a moment. He was keen to locate Henry rather than join the group Aisha had indicated. Erica, Rachel and Annette were engaged in noisy and excited conversation and he decided not to interrupt. He could catch up with Erica at a better time.

Henry wasn't in the extension. Looking out onto the garden Tim spotted him just beyond the far end of the pool. He was astonished to see that he was sat almost knee to knee with Howard Swankie apparently in animated conversation. However their stiff body language did not suggest a love-in. Tim tensed. He had phoned Henry before the party to warn him not to spoil the occasion by indulging in another bout of his vendetta with Swankie. He pointed out that it would embarrass Aisha whom Henry claimed to like.

He stepped out of the extension and made his way along the edge of the pool. Noticing the children playing in a sandpit on the the far side of the pool, he waved to Maria.

‘Hi Maria, everything ok?'

‘Daddy can't you see we're playing,' came the reply.

Tim might have felt rejected had he not heard her proudly remark as he moved on, ‘That's my Daddy.'

‘You bet I am,' he murmured to himself.

It occurred to Tim as he approached the two men that
they might almost have been designed for the purpose of annoying each other: Swankie precise and self-important, Henry garrulous and wildly iconoclastic. From the sound of it, they had already hit their trouble spot.

Henry was the first to notice Tim. A flicker of guilt crossed his face.

‘Hi, Tim, come and join us. Pull up a chair.'

‘I will if you don't mind, just for a few minutes. Apologies for interrupting. You look like you're in the midst of an interesting conversation.'

‘Oh hello Tim,' said Swankie, ‘yes, it is rather lively, I'm trying to persuade this old traditionalist that times have changed and higher education has to pay its way now. Anyway, yes, do take a seat.'

As it turned out the conversation was less interesting to Tim than he had politely suggested it might be. As he had feared, it was yet another argument in the Howard and Henry saga. Howard was sounding even more superciliously didactic than usual, expounding on the need for ‘cost effectiveness' and the importance of management having the power to ‘weed out time-servers.' He wagged his fore-finger reprovingly at Henry as he made the latter remark. Henry responded according to their standard script, ratcheting up the rhetoric as his irritation with Swankie grew.

Tim found himself nervously observing the dire emotional dynamic between his colleagues rather than listening to their often rehearsed opinions. As Swankie also began to lose his poise their language became more offensive and their angry interruptions more frequent. Henry's over-the-top response to the comment that his argument was ‘perverse' was that Swankie's was ‘morally perverted.'

The two protagonists knew exactly how to wind one-another up, revelling in mutual detestation. Henry's ploy was crude belligerence whereas Howard was more subtly sadistic. Howard was ahead on points having succeeded in annoying Henry more than Henry had annoyed him but he was treading dangerously. Henry was at his most unpredictable
when ridiculed but for the moment he was still trying to hold down an argument.

‘There you go again,' he snorted, ‘your vision of education is determined by economic considerations, whereas mine is humanistic. I don't give a tinker's turd; no disrespect to tinkers, whether my teaching covers a bunch of economic and social ‘competencies' or ‘skills' dreamt up by some moronic quango. Social Science is already rich enough in intellectual and applied skills and it won't be improved by manipulating them so they can be checked off on some silly list. I'm fed up with this new army of educational semi-technocrats, blinkered crackpot would-be bloody realists constantly pissing about telling me what to do. How many ways are there to polish shit, anyway?'

‘Henry,' Swankie's attempted interjection was ignored as Henry gathered momentum.

‘All this bullshit is a huge waste of time and money. It's the likes of you that should be cut. Do you realise that the major area of expansion in higher education in the last twenty years has been petty office-holders, bistro-bureaucrats like your bloody self? You guys have even invented a posh name to justify your useless jobs: ‘the third space.' Remember ‘the third way?' What a cock-up that turned out to be; a fig leaf to hide Blair's lack of meat, a puff of ideological hot air. There was nothing there. This is worse. You can't escape from these ‘third space' people. You can ignore a daft slogan like ‘the third way' but these buffoons are all over the place, making a nuisance of themselves. We'd be better with an empty space. These people are just the foot-soldiers of the mad market extremists. They seem oblivious to the fact that they're implicated in the market swallowing everything. It's not just higher education but the arts, sport, you name it and there's the name of some fucking corporation plastered all over it. There's nothing left to the public good. It's time-servers like you, Howard, that are the worst because you could do something about it.'

‘Henry, please.' Swankie's tone was more emollient as he
sensed that Henry was revving out of control. He enjoyed upsetting Henry but not to the point of goading him into violence, particularly if he, Howard Swankie, Dean of Social Science, was on the receiving end. But he feared any physical consequence less than damage to his reputation. Even though not at fault, involvement in a disorderly incident would hardly promote his career profile. ‘Henry, perhaps we should talk about something else?'

Tim saw an opportunity to cool things down. He cast around for a safe topic. He recalled that both men had an interest in sport.

‘As it happens, there's something I wanted to raise with both of you, and it's nothing to do with work. I need a bit of information. Wherever I've lived, I've always occasionally watched some local football. I used to watch my hometown team Whitetown South End and I saw some of the better teams around the Midlands when I lived in the potteries. Congleton were surprisingly good, I saw them beat Stafford Rangers 4-0 once. I haven't found a team to watch since I came down here. I've tried Wash Wanderers but they were, well a washout, not much better than a team I played for once, Tooting Urinals. So I need you to recommend a team worth watching.'

Henry guffawed into his beer. Swankie smiled sceptically.

‘Tooting what?' They chorused in a rare moment of unison.

‘Urinals. But only kidding.' At least his jest appeared to have diffused matters. ‘Listen I need to check that my daughter is getting on ok, and then maybe percolate a bit. Why don't you two sort out a team within thirty miles of Wash that I could watch from time to time without jeopardising my interest in the great game? I'll drop back later to collect suggestions.'