Wilt in Nowhere (2 page)

Next morning Wilt was up early and he cycled down to the Tech. He had to speak to
Swinburne and get him to agree to swap.

‘The Canadian course has been scrapped. I thought you knew,’ Swinburne told Wilt when he
finally found him in the canteen at lunch-time. ‘Not that I care though I could have done
with the money.’

‘Any particular reason?’

‘Sex. Roger Manners screwed some woman from Vancouver last year.’

‘What’s so special about that? He’s always acting like a goat. The silly ass is sex
mad.’

‘Chose the wrong woman,’ said Swinburne. ‘Got her pregnant which wasn’t very wise
because her husband had had a vasectomy. Came as a nasty surprise having a pregnant
wife. So nasty he flew over from Vancouver and tracked Roger the Lodger down and then went to
the Principal with the good news.’

‘Which was?’

‘That he was getting a divorce and Roger was the corespondent. And secondly that he
owned a TV station and several newspapers across Canada and that he intended to see the
Tech got maximum publicity for running a course on British Culture and Tradition that
included extramarital sex. Bam went the course. I’m surprised you didn’t know.’

Wilt took the bad news back to Peter Braintree.

‘I’ve got to think of something quick. I’m damned if I’m going to Wilma.’

‘It sounds a nice trip to me. All expenses paid, and Americans are very hospitable. Or
so I’ve always understood.’

Wilt shuddered.

‘Hospitality is one thing but you obviously haven’t met Uncle Wally and Auntie
Joan. Last time they were over here we had to go to dinner with them at their hotel in
London. And of course it had to be the biggest, newest and most expensive hotel with
dinner served in their suite. It was unadulterated hell. First we had to have what Wally
calls ‘real’ dry martinis. God alone knows what proof the gin was but I’d say it was liquid
Semtex. I was stewed to the gills by the time lobsters came. Then the biggest steaks I’ve
ever seen. No wine. Uncle Wally reckons wine is for pansies so we had to switch to malt
whisky and Coke. I ask you, malt whisky and Coca-Cola. And all the time Auntie Joan was
bleating on about how wonderful it was Eva having quads and how nice it was going to be
when we all came over to Wilma. Nice? Sheer murder and I’m not going.’

‘Eva isn’t going to be pleased,’ said Braintree.

‘Maybe not but I’ll think of something. Stratagems and deceptions that will make my not
going seem a positive boom. We must approach the problem from the psychological angle
and ask why Eva is beside herself with joy. I can answer that. Not because she’s visiting
the Land of the Free for the first time. Oh no. She’s got a hidden agenda and that is to suck
up to Uncle blasted Wally and Auntie J to such good effect that, they being childless
and therefore necessarily without issue, will leave their vast fortune to our four dear
daughters when they finally drop off the Dralon perch and go to the Bible Belt in the
sky.’

‘You really think…’ Braintree began but Wilt raised a hand.

‘Hush, I am trying to. That being Eva’s intention, what will put the mockers on the
diabolical scheme? Frankly, loving father that I am, I’d still have to say that having
Penny, Samantha, Emmy and Josephine about the house for two months ought to do the trick
quite nicely. By the time they leave even Auntie Joan, who oozes sentimentality and
drools on about how cute things are, will be dying to be rid of them and Wally will
celebrate their departure by throwing the biggest party Wilma’s seen for years. The only
snag is that I would have to be there sharing the inferno and getting the blame for their
appalling behaviour. No, I shall have to think of something in the way of a pre-emptive
strike. I shall go away and meditate.’

He did so through an hour of Gender Assertiveness for Mature Women none of whom had
anything to learn about asserting themselves. In fact they asserted themselves so
thoroughly that all he had to do was to get them going. After that he could sit back and
nod and agree to everything they had to say. He had learnt the trick from Eva who was always
pointing out how inadequate he was as a husband, a father and a sexual partner. Wilt had
long since given up disputing his failings and now let the tide of her disapproval roll
over him without really noticing it. He did the same with the Mature Women but first he
had to provoke them. He did this now by pointing out that there could be no such thing as
male menopause because men didn’t menstruate. The resulting storm of disagreement
occupied the class very happily for the rest of the hour while Wilt wondered why it was so
easy to provoke people who had fixed ideas and also why, having got them going, they
adamantly refused to listen to any counterarguments. It had been the same with his old
classes of Gasfitters and Printers. Then it had only been necessary to say he thought
capital punishment was wrong or that there was a perfectly sound case for thinking
homosexuals were born that way and all hell would break loose. Wilt considered Wally
Immelmann’s most violent prejudice and realised it was socialism. He particularly
loathed trades unions and equated them with communists, devil worshippers and the Evil
Axis. Wilt had once admitted he’d voted for the Labour Party and belonged to a trades
union. The explosion that had followed suggested Uncle Wally was about to die of
apoplexy. Remembering the occasion, Wilt realised he had found the solution to his
problem.

When the class finished and the mature women dispersed to assert themselves somewhere
else, Wilt went across to the library and took out six books.

‘And where do you think you are going with those?’ Eva demanded when he got home and put
them on the kitchen table and she spotted their titles.

‘I’ve got to give a course on Marxist ideology and revolutionary theory in the Third
World next term. Don’t ask me why but I do. And since I don’t know the first thing about
revolutionary theory or Marxism and I’m not even sure there is a second world let alone a
third, I have to bone up on it. I’m taking them to Wilma.’

Eva was gaping at the title of another large volume which read _Castro’s Struggle
Against American Imperialism._

‘Are you insane? You can’t take that to Wilma,’ she gasped. ‘Wally would kill you. You
know what he feels about Castro.’

‘I daresay he doesn’t like him very much…’

‘Henry Wilt, you know perfectly well…you know…you know he was involved with whatever
that attempt to invade Cuba was called.’

‘The Bay of Pigs,’ said Wilt and considered saying how appropriate it was for Wally
Immelmann but Eva had found another book.

‘_Gaddafi. The Libyan Liberator_. I don’t believe it.’

‘Nor do I as a matter of fact,’ said Wilt. ‘But you know what Mayfield’s like. He’s
always inventing new courses and we’ve all got to–’

‘I don’t care what you’ve got to do,’ Eva said furiously. ‘You are not going to Wilma
with those dreadful books.’

‘You think I want to?’ said Wilt ambiguously and picked up another. ‘This one is about
how President Kennedy wanted to use the atom bomb on Cuba. It’s really rather
interesting.’

There was no need to go on but Wilt did.

‘Well, if you want me to lose my job, I’ll leave them behind. They’ve already made five
Senior Lecturers redundant this year and I know I’m on the short list. And with the
pension I’d get we wouldn’t be able to keep the girls at the Convent. We’ve got to think
about their education and their future and there’s no point my taking the risk of getting
the sack simply because Uncle Wally doesn’t like my reading about Marxism in Wilma.’

‘In that case you are not coming,’ said Eva, now thoroughly convinced. ‘I’ll tell them
you’ve had to stay here and teach during the holidays to pay for the girls to go to school.’
She stopped, struck by a sudden thought. ‘That course for the Canadians. You said last night
you couldn’t come because you had to stand in for Swinburne.’

‘Cancelled,’ said Wilt hurriedly. ‘No problem there. Not enough students.’

Next day while Eva was busy in Ipford trying to decide what new clothes to buy for the
quads Wilt made his own preparations. He knew now what he was going to do: go on a walking
tour. He had found a rain cape in the form of an old army groundsheet, a suitably shabby
rucksack and a water bottle from the Army & Navy stores, and had even considered
buying a pair of khaki shorts that came down over his knees only to decide that his legs
weren’t the sort to expose to the world and he didn’t want to go round the West Country
looking like a superannuated Boy Scout. Instead he chose blue jeans and some thick socks
to go with the walking boots Eva had bought for their family holiday in the Lake District.
Wilt wasn’t sure about the walking boots. They were purpose-built for fell walking and he
had no intention of going anywhere near anything resembling a fell. Tramping was all
very well for them that liked that sort of thing but Wilt intended sauntering and not
doing anything too strenuous. In fact it had occurred to him that it might be a good idea
to find a canal and walk along the tow-path. Canals had to stick to the flat and when they
came to anything resembling a hill they very sensibly made use of locks to get over them.
On the other hand he couldn’t find any canals in the part of the world he had in mind to walk
across. Rivers were his best bet. On the whole they took even easier ways than canals and
there were bound to be footpaths beside them. And if there weren’t, he would take to fields
provided there weren’t any bulls in them. Not that he knew anything about bulls except that
they were dangerous.

There were other contingencies he had to take into account, like what would happen if
he couldn’t find anywhere to sleep at night. He bought a sleeping-bag and took the lot back
to his office and crammed it into a cupboard before locking it. He didn’t want Eva
bursting in unexpectedly (she did this every now and then ostensibly to collect
something from him like the car keys) and finding out what he really planned to do while
she was away.

But Eva had her own problems to concentrate on. She was particularly worried about
Samantha who didn’t want to go to America because the cousin of a friend at school had been
to Miami and said she’d seen a man shot in the street there.

‘They’ve all got guns and the murder rate is terrible,’ she told Eva. ‘It’s a very
violent society.’

‘I’m sure it’s not like that in Wilma. And besides, Uncle Wally is a very influential
man and no one would dare do anything to make him angry,’ Eva told her.

Samantha was not convinced.

‘Dad said he’s a bombastic old bugger who thinks America rules the world…’

‘Never mind what your father says. And don’t use words like that in Wilma.’

‘What? Bombastic? Dad says that’s the operative word. Americans drop bombs in
Afghanistan from thirty thousand feet and kill thousands of women and children.’

‘And miss the real targets too,’ said Emmeline.

‘You know perfectly well what word,’ Eva snapped before the quads could really get
going. She wasn’t going to be drawn into using ‘bugger’ herself either.

Josephine didn’t help.

‘All bugger means is anal intercourse and–’

‘Shut your mouth. And don’t ever let me hear you using language like that in front
of…well, anywhere. It’s disgusting.’

‘I can’t see why. It’s legal and gays do it all the time because they don’t have…’

But Eva was no longer listening. She was facing another problem.

Emmeline had just come downstairs with her pet rat. It was a long silver-haired tame
rat she’d bought at a pet shop and had named Freddy and now she wanted to take it to Wilma to
show Auntie Joanie.

‘Well, you can’t,’ Eva told her. ‘That’s out of the question. You know she has a horror of
rats and mice.’

‘But he’s ever so friendly and he’d help her get over her phobia.’

Eva doubted it. Emmeline had trained it to make itself comfortable under her sweater
and move about. She frequently did this when people came to tea and the effect on visitors
was one of horror. Mrs Planton had actually fainted at the sight of what appeared to be
a pubescent breast moving across Emmy’s chest.

‘In any case it’s illegal to take animals out of the country and bring them back again.
It might have rabies. No, it’s not going and that’s my final word.’

Emmeline took Freddy up to her room and tried to think which of her friends would look
after it.

All in all it was a harrowing evening and Eva was not in a good mood when Wilt came home
looking rather pleased with himself. Eva always had the feeling that when he looked like
that he was up to something.

‘I suppose you’ve been drinking again,’ she said to put him on the defensive.

‘As a matter of pure fact I haven’t touched a beer all day. I have put my past excesses
behind me.’

‘Well, I wish you had put a lot of your filthy language behind you too instead of
teaching the girls to talk like…like…well, to use filthy language.’

”Troopers’ is the word you were looking for,’ said Wilt.

‘Troopers? What do you mean ‘troopers’? If that is another filthy word I–’

‘It is an expression. Talking like troopers means–’

‘I don’t want to know. It’s bad enough having Josephine talking about buggery and anal
intercourse without you coming home and encouraging them.’

‘I’m not encouraging them to talk about buggery. I don’t have to. They pick up far worse
expressions at the Convent. Anyway, I’m not going to argue. I’m going to have a bath and
think pure thoughts and then after supper I’m going to see what’s on TV.’

He stumped upstairs before Eva could get in a crack about the sort of thoughts he’d be
having in the bath. In the event the bathroom was occupied by Emmeline. Wilt went
downstairs and sat in the living room looking at the book on revolutionary theory and
wondering how anyone in his right mind could still think bloody revolutions were a good
thing. By the time Emmeline had finished with the bathroom it was too late for him to have
his bath. Instead he washed and went down to supper where Eva was finding it impossible
to persuade the quads to accept the clothes she had chosen for them to impress Auntie Joan
with.

‘I’m not going to wear a silly dress that makes me look like something out of an old
cowboy movie,’ Penelope said. ‘Not for anyone.’

‘But it’s gingham and you’ll all look so nice…’

‘We won’t. We’ll all look ridiculous. Why can’t we go in our own clothes?’

‘But you want to make a good impression, and old jeans and bovver boots…’

Wilt left them still arguing and took himself off to the spare bedroom which he used as
his study and looked at an Ordnance Survey map of the West Country and the route he would
follow on his tour. Brampton Abbotts, Kings Caple, Hoarwithy, Little Birch and up to Holme
Lacy by way of Dewchurch. And beyond that over the Dinedor Hills to Hereford and the great
cathedral there with the Mappa Mundi–the map of the known world when the world was young–and
then on again following the River Wye through Sugwas Pool, Bridge Sollers, Mansell Gamage
to Moccas and Bredwardine and finally to Hay-on-Wye and the little town of bookshops.
He thought he would stay there for two or three days depending on the weather and the books
he bought. After that he would head north again by way of Upper Hergest and Lower, which
seemed to be above it in the map. It was an old map with a cloth back to it and it was
difficult to read the names where it had been folded. It didn’t show the motorways or
anything built after the War but that too suited him perfectly. He didn’t want the new
England, he wanted old England and with names like those on the map he was bound to find it.
By the time he went to bed the dispute downstairs had burnt itself out. Eva had given way
on the gingham dresses and the quads had agreed not to go in their oldest and most patched
jeans. Bower boots were out too.