Tim Connor Hits Trouble (4 page)

‘Your wife’s just come in Tim,’ a voice shouted above the noise.

Ted lurched to his feet. He spun forward, almost landing in Tim’s lap as he attempted to clap him across the shoulder.
‘That’s it, sunshine. Enjoy the rest of yer life. Look after those ye’re supposed to.’

‘Thanks, you too.’ Tim’s attention turned towards the disembodied voice.

‘I doubt if she still believes she is my wife.’

‘Partner, then.’

‘I haven’t got one of them either, ex-partner. Where is she?’

He looked towards the pub entrance. Standing up he spotted Gina’s head of curls bobbing through the crowd.

‘Relax, man, she’s heading your way.’ The disembodied voice again.

Tim waved, hoping Gina would pick him out.

‘Gina, over here,’ he shouted into the crowd.

He caught sight of her, as she returned his wave followed by a hand-signal that he interpreted to mean that she was pausing to exchange a few words with friends.
Keeping me on a string even tonight
. Gina always dressed smartly even on less formal occasions. Physically she benefited from her mixed race heritage of African, French and Portuguese. The colourful clothes she liked to wear enhanced the sheen of her light coffee-coloured skin. Tonight she had put on a favourite blue satin dress matched with shiny maroon heels. As usual she wore several bracelets and more rings than Tim had ever bothered to count, her lean bare arms catching the gleam of silver and gold. A thin chain bracelet accentuated the fineness of her ankles.

Finally she reached him. With difficulty she resisted his usual smothering embrace. Now that their relationship was over, she was determined to maintain her distance. She kissed him lightly on the cheek and gently pushed him away. He looked crestfallen.

‘Tim, are you ok? You look a bit drunk.’ She was already adopting what had become her default tone of concerned disapproval.

‘Well, this is my official send-off so I’m allowed to get pissed. Anyway, thanks for making the effort to come. I
guess that you got Joy in to look after Maria. Let me pay for that. What can I get you to drink?’

‘Tim, I’m aware it’s your send-off. That’s why I’m here. Don’t worry about the child minding, it gets done on an exchange of favour basis. I thought you knew that.’ She paused for a moment, scanning the crowded pub. ‘They’ve really turned out for you. You must be more popular than you think,’ she added partly reassuring, partly teasing.

‘Not really, it’s not just for me. Don’t forget it’s the end of term. Anyway, you haven’t said what you want to drink.’

‘I’ll have a glass of red wine, just one drink. It looks like I might be driving you back – to your digs that is, not home,’ she added, keen to avoid any ambiguity.

They had promised each other not to argue about their relationship problems tonight. This was not the time or place. There was much that was unresolved between them, far more than they yet recognised. They had blundered into a break-up through a series of mistakes and failures of communication. Who was wronged and who was guilty remained ambiguous as they spiralled downwards into chronic mistrust. Gina had become convinced that Tim was having a full-blown affair with a woman he had met at a conference. He swore that what had happened was a romantic flirtation that both parties had decided to pull back from. But self-indulgently and confusingly for Gina he kept open the possibility of further involvement in the weeks following the conference. Gina tried to believe his protestations that it was ‘just a friendship’ but was eventually unconvinced. The messages she read on his mobile were not conclusive but to her they indicated something more than ‘just friendship.’ Insecure and unsure of him she began to distance herself.

As the atmosphere in the home began to tighten, their decision to hide their rift from their daughter Maria rebounded. Maria began to pick up on the suppressed emotion and double-entendres. Formerly an easy child she was
becoming anxious and demanding. Both parents agreed that they needed to resolve the situation for her sake. They tried to restore trust in their own communication. But distrust had caught hold of the relationship like a virus in the blood.

With the ties of commitment beginning to fray Gina found herself half responding to the persistent attentions of a slightly younger man she regularly came across in her role as a delegate to the regional committee of the National Union of Teachers. His intelligence and charm offered some respite from her disillusionment and loneliness as well as a change from Tim’s less polished style. Their occasional drinks after meetings became more frequent and eventually developed into a habit she looked forward to. At the umpteenth time of his asking she agreed to sleep with him.

At first it was Gina’s need for comfort and reassurance that drew her into the relationship, but it slowly became more serious. She had never been able to separate sex from attachment. Nor on this occasion could her lover. They carved out opportunities to meet, but with a child to manage Gina found it difficult to hide it all from Tim, particularly as he usually looked after Maria in her absence. In any case Gina was unconvincing in deceit and unconvinced that she should allow herself to deceive. The gathering tension between them detonated into a fierce row ending in an out-of-control spillage of hurtful information and declarations on both sides that things had become unbearable. Gina announced that she didn’t think she still loved Tim and now had a new partner who she intended to try and make a go of things with. Angry and upset, Tim’s reaction was confused. He continued to deny that he had slept with ‘his friend from the conference’. He implored Gina to ‘stop playing the blame-game’ and insisted that he still loved her. Gina simply did not believe him.

It was the damage they feared they were inflicting on Maria that finally convinced them that they had to separate.
Gina was a step ahead of Tim, asking him to move out and insisting that of course Maria was going to remain with her. Dispirited, he agreed to go, provided that he was given an absolute guarantee that he could visit Maria regularly. Gina saw no problem with that but insisted on access being properly organised. Emotionally drained, they struggled to shift from six years of love and intimacy into a workable separation. Their moods swinging between anger and regret, at times they spontaneously reached out to comfort each other…
Please don’t tell me this is how the story ends
. But this was only the beginning of it. They would go through these emotions many times before they could feel that the break was real. And still the pain of loss would linger.

For years the idea of Tim getting a new job was to have been a change for the family, a shared adventure and a new beginning. He had not quite given up that hope following his successful interview. But now he faced the prospect of a lonely exile.

Tim handed Gina the glass of red wine she had asked for. He looked at her thoughtfully for a few moments. There was something he wanted to get off his chest.

‘I know that I said goodbye to Maria earlier today but I’d like to see her one more time before I go. I’m off early tomorrow so I won’t be able to see her then. What about me taking a peek at her tonight?’

Gina hesitated.

He persisted. ‘Last night favour.’

She continued to look reluctant.

‘Please. She’s my daughter.’

Still doubtful she agreed. ‘Ok, but it’s nearly ten already. You’ll have to slip quietly into her bedroom. We’ll have to leave as soon as we’ve finished our drinks.’

Back at the house he could no longer call it his home, he slipped quietly into his daughter’s bedroom. As usual she had pulled the duvet up over her face. Only her mouth and nose poked out. He lifted the cover. She was a perfect
replica of her mother, apart from the wide sensual bow of the mouth that was his. Her eyes opened, wide and surprised. Her lips flickered into a soft smile of recognition.

‘Bye Maria, see you soon.’

‘Bye Daddy, love you.’ Her eyes closed and she was asleep again.

‘I love you, too’ he murmured.

Downstairs Gina had just closed the door on the childminder.

‘I suppose I had better offer you a cup of tea.’

‘I’d prefer something else.’

She looked at him sceptically.

‘And what might that be?’

‘A goodbye present … maybe.’

Gina was used to his habit of reverting to basics in matters of sex. ‘Idiot, Rupert is moving in tomorrow. ’

‘I know but … he’s not here now.’

‘No chance.’

‘Maybe you could take me in hand, as it were.’

She stared at him astonished, but impressed despite herself.

The decision hung in the balance for several moments.

‘Open your trouser zip.’

His hands trembled as he did so.

She pulled his cock out, teasing it until it was ripe and firm.’

Kneeling down, she took it in her mouth, sucking it rhythmically as she manipulated his balls. Her teeth closed around the head of his cock. For a moment he feared the worst as she played the groove between pain and pleasure. Then pure sensation took over.

He exploded like Vesuvius on Speed. She joined in the wild laughter of his release. Reaching for a tissue she wiped the remaining semen from his cock. He leaned heavily against the kitchen wall, sated, tension gone. She stood up and they embraced and kissed gently.

‘Strange man you are.’

He smiled down at her through half-closed eyes. ‘Not really, we’re all like this, we men.’

‘Not quite, some men make love before they make sex. Or even at the same time.’

He winced and she regretted her remark. But she couldn’t believe what she had been persuaded to do.

‘Look, you must go. This isn’t sensible. I can’t drive you back now. It’s still warm outside … the walk will clear your head.’

She steered him towards the front door. He turned to kiss her goodbye. Instead she pressed her forefinger to his mouth. ‘Be good, and call us when you get there. Maria will miss you.’

‘And you?’

She gave a wistful smile as she opened the door. ‘Who knows,’ she said, as he stepped outside.

Tim looked closely at the possibility of commuting from Peyton to Wash but the distance was too great. His temporary accommodation in Peyton, little more than a glorified B and B, offered no long-term appeal. It was obvious that once work got underway he would have to move into Wash or close to it. Wash University provided him with a list of local rented accommodation and within two days of checking out of his digs, he had signed a three-month lease on a first floor flat in the restored Georgian terrace of Calcott Place. It was located in the Western part of the city, about a mile south of the River Wash. A short lease suited his plans. He hoped to be able to raise a mortgage on a small house, made possible by the salary hike from his new job. It would stretch his finances, but he wanted the freedom of owning his own property as well as the possibility of a long-term profitable investment. And he planned to have his daughter over to stay, if not her mother.

The flat consisted of a tiny entrance hall, two large square rooms - a living room and a bedroom, both painted in plain
white, a small kitchen and even smaller bathroom. The walls of the main rooms were decorated with cornices that were clearly recent additions, possibly replacing originals. He noted the large king-size wooden bed with approval. It was more than big enough for his lanky frame and better than what he had recently been used to. The living room overlooked a main street separated from the block of flats by a surprisingly broad terrace that softened the traffic noise to a murmur. ‘Pretty good for now,’ he concluded.

Once he had sorted out short-term accommodation he responded to an invitation from Henry Jones to meet. There was no response to his call to Henry’s mobile, so he tried the house phone. His call was answered by a sharp female voice that he took to be Henry’s wife.

‘I’ll get him,’ an irritated staccato. The phone clattered down before he had time to give his name.

Henry’s voice came on, friendly through the catarrh. ‘Tim, good to hear from you. So, you’re down here. When can we meet up?’

‘Yeah, I’ve fixed up a place to live … temporarily … from next month. I’m free to get together whenever it suits you, anytime in the next couple of days. Where do you want to meet?’

He was not surprised when Henry suggested a pub.

‘Why don’t we kick off with a drink? There’s a pub with decent ale down by the river, the
Mitre
. It’s easy to get to. Let me give you the best route. Get onto the footpath by the riverbank just below the Cathedral and then walk westwards. It’s about quarter of a mile from there, just back from the river. We could meet today. How about in a couple of hours, say four-o’-clock?’

‘Fine. Do you want me to bring anything … any notes for modules that I might introduce?

‘You could do. All you really need is a notebook or a diary. To be honest we’re so near the start of term that you’ll have to teach to the existing curriculum. But we can talk about all this later. So, see you in the
Mitre
at four.’

‘See you then. Cheers.’

The
Mitre
turned out to be an old Tudor-style pub, with an open forecourt that extended to the river pathway. The battered timber of its outer shell looked original. The interior clearly was not, although the low wooden roof beams and wall paintings of rural scenes were a decent stab at retrieving tradition. Hampered by the low-key lighting and thick support columns Tim struggled to pick out Henry. Finally his attention was caught by the flapping of a newspaper to the accompaniment of assorted incoherent noises.

‘Hey … ay … ere … hey.’

Behind the newspaper was Henry. Two pints of bitter were already on the table. One was half empty, the other untouched. Tim greeted his new Head of Department.

‘Hi. Nice pub but not the easiest of places to find someone in. I guess this pint is for me unless you’re drinking two at a time.’ Tim grinned at his own chancy humour but nothing about Henry suggested the need for formalities. He sat down opposite him.

‘It’s yours. Yeah it is a bit dark inside, but I like that. You found this place easily enough then?’

‘No problem. It was only when I got inside that I got lost. Is this your regular watering hole?’

‘One of many.’ Without too much difficulty Henry adopted an expression of mock decadence. ‘And before you get too comfortable, why don’t you bring in your round? I’m about done with this pint,’ he picked up his glass, emptying it with a gulp.

It soon became obvious that Henry had no intention of providing Tim with a detailed job description. He pushed a timetable across the table, mentioning that he had left most of Thursday blank so that Tim could continue with his research. That was more or less it. What he really wanted to talk about emerged soon enough.

‘You know, I don’t usually talk about job interviews; why somebody gets a job or not I mean, but in this case it’s a bit different. You need to know how the wheels of power
and decision making turn in our small world. You’ve probably worked out how the panel split, anyway.’ He glanced at Tim, gauging his reaction. ‘You don’t mind me talking about this? I suppose it is a bit unethical but I don’t always go by the rulebook; there are so many rules and procedures these days I don’t even know most of them. Anyway more was going on in that panel than just straight interviews.’

‘Really? Go ahead, feel free. I’m no ritual conformist myself. Some rules do more harm than good.’ He checked himself. It was a bit early in his career at Wash to start unloading his opinions. And he was more interested in hearing what Henry had to say. ‘Fire away I’d be interested to know what kind of impression I made on the panel.’

‘Good point, you’re entitled to a feedback session. This is it. Straight and above-board. The two women, well, originally it was only Steir on the panel with the other three of us. But she insisted on another woman - a fair gender balance she called it. In fact she wanted three and three but Swankie refused to set a precedent. But he caved in to the extent of letting her bring her mate along. As it turned out the two women wanted to block your appointment. It was mainly Steir. They might have got their way if Aisha Khan hadn’t already been appointed. They were determined that a woman should be successful.’

‘Regardless of merit?’ Tim was sceptical.

‘Well, they seem to see more merit in women than men.’ He hesitated for a moment, uncertain that Tim was on side. ‘You need to understand they want to take over the subject. They’ve been moved from the Ridgewell site to Green Park. The college is being re-structured, at least that’s what they call it since it got university status. They ran Social Sciences at Ridgewell but it got closed down. Lack of numbers, I’m not surprised. Rachel Steir treated the students like they were school kids. Everything was regimented and over-organised. She’s trying to do the same thing at our site. Over my dead body! Erica Botham is more open-minded but she usually goes along with Steir. In the end the students voted
with their feet. Some of them decamped to our place. Steir says that the drop in numbers was because they’d exhausted local demand. I think that’s BS.’

By now Tim was uneasy at Henry’s vehement and no doubt biased account of departmental politics.

‘You guys don’t seem to get along that well,’ he said hoping Henry would change tack.

Undeterred Henry carried on in the same vein for several minutes. Tim couldn’t tell whether he was genuinely threatened or paranoid. He was an odd mixture of vulnerability and belligerence. He’d wait and see. He attempted to nudge Henry onto less emotive ground.

‘What about the rest of the department? How many more full-timers are there?’

Henry took a moment to shift gears. ‘Oh, sorry. I should have said. Just one apart from Aisha Khan that is - Toby Woods. But he’s on an exchange this year. Normally you would be sharing an office with him. You’ll like him when you meet him. He used to be in Human Resources but got out when it became more about resources and less about human beings. He was our only full-time psychologist. You take over part of his timetable in addition to your sociology. Toby’s exchange is Brad Purfect, an American from the mid-West. I’ve only met him a couple of times. He talks a lot, seems a bit opinionated. He’s says he’s a Marxist but his thinking seems to stop with Lenin; a bit rigid maybe. Early days though, he’ll probably loosen up.’

‘Quite a small core staff, then?’

‘Yeah, Swankie does a lecture a week, probably more to keep an eye on the rest of us than because he really wants to do any teaching. We’ve got several part-timers or ‘visiting lecturers’ as they’re now called. The management seems to think a fancy name compensates for low salaries. Not their own salaries of course. They find reasons to keep increasing them.’

‘Aren’t you management?’ Tim wanted to shift Henry from his attack-dog comfort zone.

‘Management? There’s management and ‘management’. If you can call what I do management. I try to mitigate the damage done by the bloody bureaucracy. At my level I can still treat people as human beings. It’s possible, easy for me to communicate with people individually. I actually know the people I’m dealing with.’

Henry tailed off and looked across at Tim. ‘I hope to Christ you’re not one of these new managerial types. I’m shafted if you are. That’s not how you came across. And I read one of your articles. All that stuff about grass-roots democracy is right up my street.’

Tim felt more comfortable now the conversation had moved away from the personal stuff. ‘No, you haven’t misread me, at least not in that respect. I’m no managerialist. Definitely one of us not one of them.’

Henry’s face lit up like a Hogmanay pumpkin.

‘Let’s drink to that, my round.’

Tim gazed thoughtfully at Henry as the old academic weaved an unsteady path to the bar. It was difficult to know what to make of him. He came across as a man of conviction yet also as a clapped out, gossipy old gonzo. Whatever else, he was clearly an alcoholic or so close that the distinction wasn’t worth making. Good judgement and reliability were unlikely to be among his salient qualities. Regardless, Tim found him perversely likeable.

Returning to his seat, Henry changed tack, revealing a still embattled intellectual behind the surface shambles. Abseiling on an alcohol-fuelled surge of inspiration, he talked with drunken fluency for the best part of an hour across a range of classical psychology and sociology, seeming to grow in coherence the more he drank. He then began to expound on his own political philosophy. Drinking more than usual, Tim’s head began to spin as he found himself on the end of a seminar on popular democracy. Tim could see why Henry had been keen to appoint him; they shared similar social and political views. If anything, Henry’s ideas were sharper and more worked out, perhaps too much so for Tim
who recoiled from anything suggestive of political dogma. Maybe Henry did too. Tim had not quite figured him out in terms of his political views or as a person. He didn’t sound like a Marxist but more like some kind of radical democrat convinced that greater social equality won’t happen without a massive extension of democracy into all parts of society. He used the phrase ‘institutional democracy’ several times to describe his belief that just about all major institutional areas of society should be ‘run by the people.’

‘So, you’re a participatory democrat,’ Tim interjected.

‘It’s more than that Tim. I believe that in their own interests the people should have decisive power, not merely participation in the main institutions that run the country; public and private. That’s a step on the way to them getting a fair share of what’s produced. Practical democracy, not just representative democracy would reduce the terrible inequality we’re seeing across the globe; increasing inequality.’

He paused for a moment suddenly apologetic. ‘But you know all that. I shouldn’t keep rattling on.’

Tim found Henry’s ideas interesting, but was conscious that the afternoon was melting away. He gave Henry a non-committal look. Henry took this as a cue to continue, arguing that the introduction of democracy beyond parliamentary and local government was necessary to control elites, and that once the majority of people had access to ‘real power’ they would surely use it to distribute wealth and resources more fairly. ‘Liberty before equality’ he concluded, ‘and if we can get real liberty, equality will follow.’

Tim was becoming impressed with the intensity of Henry’s conviction and decided to test him where it counts.

‘So is that how you run your department?’

Henry was quick to reply. ‘Firstly it’s not my department, it’s our department. No, it’s not run in that way but only because Swankie won’t allow it. If you’re in a bureaucracy and you want to radically reform it like I did … do,’ he corrected himself, ‘you have to bide your time to change things.
But I have to admit that I’ve spent too long biding my time. The opposition has taken over while I’ve been dreaming.’ A shadow of regret crossed his face. He shrugged his shoulders, returning to the present. ‘To be fair I think Rachel and Erica might like the idea of democratising the department and in fact the whole bloody place. Principles aside, it would reduce Swankie’s influence and even mine, pitiful as it is. Rachel thinks I shouldn’t be in the job anyway.’

Not wanting to return to the personal stuff, Tim decided it was time to go.

It was almost as an afterthought that Henry finally gave him a short briefing on teaching allocation for the coming year. The key information for Tim was that he would teach his specialism, the life course, as an option module, using psychological and sociological perspectives.

‘I’ll post a final version of the timetable to you,’ Henry concluded. ‘We can employ part-timers to cover any gaps. That’s if they’ll give us the money to pay for them. Otherwise we’ll have to jam groups together. Efficiency savings they call it. They keep citing some piece of research supposedly showing that class size and learning outcomes don’t even correlate. I’ve become highly suspicious of that phrase ‘research studies show.’ Tim was relieved that Henry had a basic plan for the delivery of the subject, however cobbled together it might be.