The Gaudy

by J. I. M. Stewart

  Babylon (or Liddell and Scott) was eventually put away − not without being replaced (it was a hint I recalled as prescriptive) by the volumes currently being collated. The Bedworths and I accordingly made our farewells, and the Talbert household moved en masse with us into the garden. We admired some red roses, trained − I am afraid to an effect of mild discordance − round the brickwork of the porch. Then Talbert, attended by Thunderbox, led the way down the narrow flight of steps and into Old Road. There was a certain amount of traffic, occasioned in the main, perhaps, by Oxford citizens returning from a summer afternoon jaunt. We had to cross over, and Talbert cautiously toddled into the road to survey the scene. He stepped back, motioning to us to wait. Thunderbox, however, decided to have a look for himself, and lumbered into the fairway. Above our heads, Charles Talbert gave a warning shout. There was a sudden scream of brakes, and a single yelp.

  Seconds later, we were all standing, stricken, round the body of a dead dog.

  XVII

  I walked back into Oxford alone. The Bedworths had remained with the Talberts, who were very upset. I supposed that I myself was taking an objective and dispassionate view of the death of Thunderbox. He was an elderly dog, and one could conjecture him to have led an honourable and useful life. His sudden end had spared him the distresses of a slow decline, and very possibly spared his owners from having one day to decide − in a horrible phrase − to ‘put him down’. In fact, nothing was here for tears.

  Half-way across Magdalen Bridge, I found that my feet were not in their accustomed unnoticing contact with the ground. They were behaving in a slightly uncontrolled fashion, and I had to be careful with them. Something of the sort was true, too, of my physiological make-up as a whole. I had to lean on the parapet of the bridge for a couple of minutes and stare down at the slowly moving stream.

  Shock is, of course, infectious. And I did very much feel with the Talberts − particularly with Albert Talbert, who had clearly been as attached to Thunderbox as ever Launce had been to Crab his dog. (This is perhaps an undignified comparison, but I have confessed that for me my old tutor was inescapably a figure of comedy.) I believe that even if the dead creature had been an unknown stray this disturbance would have visited me. Years ahead, when I had forgotten the existence of Thunderbox, it was probable that I should remember with some sadness the fate of Paul Lusby. Impelled by what was in an adult regard almost no reason at all, the boy had taken his own life while his mother went from shop to shop collecting the supper he wasn’t going to eat. It was a small authentic tragedy, vivid for the imagination, formidable to the intellect. But I hadn’t witnessed Lusby die, whereas Thunderbox I had seen alive one moment and mangled and dead the next. More notably, the same twenty-four hours had brought me an experience as deep as any that a man like myself is likely to meet within years. But in point of sheer somatic response to stimulus it was this inconsiderable brute fatality that carried the day.

  I walked on, recovering my equanimity as I followed the gentle curve of the High. I was now anxious to get out of Oxford, and it was just going to be possible to catch the later of two trains I had been told about. Whether I was really going to return in a semi-permanent way had become obscure again, or had become like one of those issues which, as one works towards the resolution of a play, one discovers to be no part of its story. Did I − to put a question cautiously − want to sit on a college council, or whatever it was called, with Charles Atlas, and Jimmy Gender, and my new-found kinsman Arnold Lempriere, and Ranald McKechnie? Perhaps I had been precipitate in my acquiescence. The thing needed distancing. I resolved to take the next day’s plane to Naples, and to consider this and other questions amid the little tumbledown poderi, the dead chestnut trees, the interminable stony scale of Ravello. I could go anywhere in the world on impulse, I told myself. So why should I put my unhoused free condition into circumscription and confine? It was a question which Othello ought to have asked himself twice.

  This grandiose comparison brought me − hurrying now − within the college gate. And there I bumped straight into Tony Mumford, Lord Marchpayne.

  It was my first thought that something must have gone wrong with Ivo Mumford’s rescue operation, after all − a confused notion, since it didn’t marry with Tony’s return to Oxford in any way.

  ‘Good God! ‘I said. ‘What are you doing here again?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I be here again?’ Tony appeared to regard my surprise as uncivil, as perhaps it was. But his tone, at the same time, was one of easy good humour. ‘I’m on my way, as a matter of fact, to a couple of nights’ conferring with a batch of American economists. They’re hutched in some grand mansion or other near Warwick. But it occurred to me I ought to stop by − as they’d say − and offer a civil word to the old girl.’

  ‘The old girl?’

  ‘Mrs P., you idiot. Your saying you were lunching with her put it in my head. I rather hurried away, you know. And she expects a call.’

  ‘I’m not at all sure she expects anything of the sort.’ I found myself staring at Tony. He was a man transformed. ‘You want to butter her up?’

  ‘Coarsely put, Duncan. In fact, with your habitual Caledonian gaucherie.’

  ‘I lost that before I lost my maidenhead, God help me. And at your hands, largely.’ It was impossible to talk to Tony in what was plainly his present mood without falling into rubbish of this sort. ‘Is she really going to be useful to you?’

  ‘If you ask me, she runs that pompous old donkey. Don’t you get the whiff of that?’

  ‘Perhaps so. But perhaps you underestimate the Provost. You ought to go for him direct, as Mogridge advised. Talking of Mogridge, have you had anything further from New York?’

  ‘From New York?’ It would have been impossible to affirm that Tony’s momentary blankness was an affectation. ‘Oh, all that! It was a complete mare’s nest. All my father’s doing. Between ourselves, Dunkie, the old boy’s getting a bit past it. He panicked.’

  ‘He panicked you. Stop fooling, Tony, and explain yourself.’

  ‘Oh, all right.’ Tony’s euphoria would have been absurd, if it hadn’t been rather touching. ‘The moment I got back to town, I sent a chap down to Otby. A top silk on the criminal side. Incognito, more or less − or at least just as a family friend. I felt the time to act had come.’

  ‘I see.’ Tony’s state of mind when on the telephone came back to me. He had spoken of trying one throw himself, and employed strong language about its probable uselessness. ‘And what happened?’

  ‘He rang up and reported, just before I came away. He interviewed this little whore in the presence of her precious father and a senior local copper. All perfectly regular.’

  ‘No doubt. Q.C.’s don’t go out on a limb. So what?’

  ‘The bitch didn’t stand up to it for five minutes. Half the lads of the village tumble her in that barn every week − with no more rape to it than a slap and tickle. It was nothing but a commonplace gang-bang. And when she put on her senseless turn later, she just threw in Ivo for good luck.’

  ‘But Ivo was there.’ I looked curiously at this eminent public figure whose son had assisted at a commonplace gang-bang. Tony was perhaps keeping some feelings to himself. He presented, as much to me as he would to the world, an appearance that was buoyant and assured.

  ‘Doesn’t matter a damn,’ he said.

  ‘And Ivo did think something not too pretty was going on.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter a damn, either. There’s nothing the fuzz feel they need be concerned with.’

  ‘The locals?’

  ‘No more bark or bite to them than to a dead dog. They know their place at Otby still, thank God. So I tell you it’s water under the bridge.’ Tony laughed suddenly, and so loudly as to attract the attention of the porter in his little glass box. We moved into the Great Quadrangle, which was serenely empty. ‘Dear old Mogridge!’ Tony said. ‘He didn’t half over-react, wouldn’t you say? Still, it has got Ivo to New York for free. He’ll g
et his air-fare returned, if you ask me, and paint the place red with it. Well, that’s that. Duncan, give me a ring some time. We must dine together. And now I’ll just drop into the Lodging. This damned nonsense about exams. That’s the next thing to deal with. Splendid Gaudy, didn’t you think? Goodbye.’

  I watched Lord Marchpayne stride confidently towards the Provost’s Lodging. Then I asked for a taxi, and made my way back to Junkin’s room. Bottles and all, it had entirely lost its strangeness. Over the mantelpiece Ishii Genzo seemed as familiar a sight as Young Picts watching the arrival of Saint Columba had been long ago. I picked up my bag and carried it down the staircase into Surrey.

  A Staircase in Surrey

  These titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels

  1. The Gaudy 1974

  2. Young Pattullo 1975

  3. Memorial Service 1976

  4. The Madonna of the Astrolabe 1977

  5. Full Term 1978

  Other Titles by J.I.M. Stewart

  Published or to be published by House of Stratus

  A. Fiction

  Mark Lambert’s Supper (1954)

  The Guardians (1955)

  A Use of Riches (1957)

  The Man Who Won the Pools (1961)

  The Last Tresilians (1963)

  An Acre of Grass (1965)

  The Aylwins (1966)

  Vanderlyn’s Kingdom (1967)

  Avery’s Mission (1971)

  A Palace of Art (1972)

  Mungo’s Dream (1973)

  Andrew and Tobias (1980)

  A Villa in France (1982)

  An Open Prison (1984)

  The Naylors (1985)

  B. Short Story Collections

  The Man Who Wrote Detective Stories (1959)

  Cucumber Sandwiches (1969)

  Our England Is a Garden (1979)

  The Bridge at Arta (1981)

  My Aunt Christina (1983)

  Parlour Four (1984)

  C. Non-fiction

  Educating the Emotions (1944)

  Character and Motive in Shakespeare (1949)

  James Joyce (1957)

  Eight Modern Writers (1963)

  Thomas Love Peacock (1963)

  Rudyard Kipling (1966)

  Joseph Conrad (1968)

  Shakespeare’s Lofty Scene (1971)

  Thomas Hardy: A Critical Biography (1971)

  Plus a further 48 Titles published under the pseudonym ‘Michael Innes’

  Synopses

  Published by House of Stratus

  The Gaudy

  The first volume in J.I.M. Stewart’s acclaimed ‘A Staircase in Surrey’ quintet, (but the second in time), ‘The Gaudy’ opens in Oxford at the eponymous annual dinner laid on by the Fellows for past members. Distinguished guests, including the Chancellor (a former Prime Minister) are present and Duncan Pattullo, now also qualified to attend, gets to meet some of his friends and enemies from undergraduate days. As the evening wears on, Duncan finds himself embroiled in many of the difficulties and problems faced by some of them, including Lord Marchpayne, now a Cabinet Minister; another Don, Ranald McKenechnie; and Gavin Mogridge who is famous for an account he wrote of his adventures in a South American jungle. But it doesn’t stop there, as Pattullo acquires a few problems of his own and throughout the evening and the next day various odd developments just add to his difficulties, leading him to take stock of both his past and future.

  Young Pattullo

  This is the second of the ‘A Staircase in Surrey’ quintet, and the first in chronological order. Duncan Pattullo arrives in Oxford, destined to be housed off the quadrangle his father has chosen simply for its architectural and visual appeal. On the staircase in Surrey, Duncan meets those who are to become his new friends and companions, and there occurs all of the usual student antics and digressions, described by Stewart with his characteristic wit, to amuse and enthral the reader. After a punting accident, however, the girl who is in love with Duncan suffers as a result of his self-sacrificing actions. His cousin, Anna, is also involved in an affair, but she withholds the name of her lover, despite being pregnant. This particular twist reaches an ironical conclusion towards the end of the novel, in another of Stewart’s favourite locations; Italy. Indeed, Young Pattullo covers all of the writer’s favourite subjects and places; the arts, learning, mystery and intrigue, whilst ranging from his much loved Oxford, through Scotland and the inevitable Italian venue. This second volume of the acclaimed series can be read in order, or as a standalone novel.

  Memorial Service

  This is the third novel in the Oxford quintet entitled ‘Staircase in Surrey’. Duncan Pattullo returns in middle age to his old college. The Provost is heavily engaged in trying to secure a benefaction from a charitable trust which the old and outrageous Cedric Mumford influences. One significant complication is the presence in college of Ivo Mumford, Cedric’s grandson. He is badly behaved and far from a credit to the college. His magazine, ‘Priapus’ proves to be wholly objectionable. Stewart explores the nature of the complicated relationships between the characters with his usual wit, literary style and intellectual precision and turns what might otherwise be a very common and ordinary situation into something that will grip the reader from cover to cover.

  The Madonna of the Astrolabe

  In the fourth of J.I.M. Stewart’s acclaimed ‘Staircase in Surrey’ quintet the gravity of a surveyor’s report given to the Governing Body is the initial focus. The document is alarming. The Governing Body, an assembly of which Pattullo was in awe, was equally awed by the dimensions of the crisis revealed. It would seem that the consideration was whether there would literally be a roof over their heads for much longer. The first rumblings from the college tower brings the thought well and truly home to Pattullo. ‘Professor Sanctuary,’ the Provost said evenly, ‘favours the immediate launching of an appeal . . .’ And so it begins . . . In J.I.M. Stewart’s superbly melding of wit, mystery, observation and literary prowess a gripping novel develops that will enthral the reader from cover to cover. This can be read as part of the series, or as a standalone novel.

  Full Term

  The final volume in the ‘A Staircase in Surrey’ quintet. Duncan Pattullo is coming to the end of his term as ‘narrator’ and is thinking of re-marrying, although his former wife continues to cause difficulties. His intended is also providing gossip for the college, but that is as nothing compared to the scandal caused by Watershute, an eminent nuclear physicist. His misdemeanours range from abandoning his family and conducting an affair in Venice, to being drunk at High Table. However, things get very serious when he appears to be involved in activities that might amount to treason. An interesting and convoluted plot, which is a fitting end to this acclaimed series, is carried forward with J.I.M. Stewart’s hallmark skill and wit. Full Term can be read in order, or as a standalone novel.

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