I went about the job as we walked round Long Field together that afternoon. Lempriere was entirely unruffled. The doubts raised in Gender and Atlas as a consequence of the state of confusion to which Peter had been reduced before them he seized upon as an occasion for sardonic comment, and he contrived to view my visit to London as part of a family conspiracy in which we were involved together. This was to carry our kinship by way of Aunt Charlotte decidedly far, and it also violated the facts of the case to an extent suggesting that Lempriere was ceasing always to be very clear in the head. I reminded myself that, so far as his years went, he was entitled to be a little dottier than his old pupil Cedric Mumford. Compared with that phrenetic old creature he was wearing fairly well.
‘But the boy will continue with the coach I found for him?’ he suddenly demanded. ‘Right up to the entrance examination?’
‘Yes, of course. I wasn’t coming between him and your generosity, Arnold. I told him to carry on going to your man.’
‘Good. He’ll pick up a trick or two to puzzle them – even in these remaining few weeks.’
‘He doesn’t need any tricks. He’s in. It’s just a matter of his doing his best, and showing he’ll make a decent commoner. We mustn’t expect him to get an award, you know. Although I think that in some ways he’s a remarkable boy, he’s not in that intellectual bracket.’
I waited in some expectation to hear what Lempriere would make of this. One of his most fixed ideas was the duty of good and faithful tutors to treat all examiners as persons to be conspired against in every lawful way. The vision of tutor and pupil hand in glove together was precious to him. It was possible to square this attitude with another to which he was almost as firmly wedded: the conviction (and here he was on common ground with the Mumfords) that the university’s entire system of competitive examination was an absurdity. But there was a further persuasion – one shared by nearly all dons of Lempriere’s generation although scarcely by their juniors – which seemed incompatible with this. It could be called the mystique of the Open Scholarship. A schoolboy who, at the age of eighteen or thereabout, has persuaded two or three college examiners to nominate him for such an award, has thereby established himself in the intellectual elite of the nation. It was just like that. If anything went wrong with him the thing held the dimensions of tragedy. It seemed to me almost impossible that this antique superstition didn’t lurk in Lempriere. At the moment, however, I failed to coax him on to this ground.
‘That’s enough of young Lusby,’ he said. ‘The place has been persuaded to do its plain duty by him. He’ll come up; he’ll take his chance; and that’s all we can do. So what we have to think about now, Dunkie, is the brat.’ Unexpectedly, Lempriere gave his throaty chuckle. ‘And talk of the devil, eh?’
It was true that Ivo Mumford – whom Lempriere now commonly referred to thus – was approaching us. Like ourselves, he was on a path which had narrowed for a space between high banks, and he would be rubbing shoulders with us as he went by. He was by himself, and sauntering gloomily with his hands deep in his trouser-pockets. I had lately come across him like this more than once.
Undergraduates when not gregarious are commonly at least companionable; they seem seldom to have occasions obliging them to walk alone; observe one so doing two or three times running and you may fairly infer that, whether for the nonce or for keeps, he is some sort of odd man out. Ivo, although unpopular with many of his fellows, was unlikely not to be able to command congenial society if he wanted it, so his solitude was probably of his own choice. He had an air, too, of being withdrawn within himself, and had the path been a couple of feet wider he might have gone past us quite unregardingly. It struck me that this would be habitual with him. Like Christopher Cressy, Ivo would divide his world into the noticeable and unnoticeable, and the second batch he just wouldn’t notice at all.
But he did now notice me, and what first signalled his recognition was not any acknowledging glance but that involuntary twitch or spasm which I had remarked on his face when he came to lunch. He then looked quickly at Lempriere – we were at no more than arm’s length now – and his features took on a startled expression which lasted only for a fraction of a second. After that he smiled. It wasn’t his attractive smile. There was something secretive about it that I didn’t like at all.
‘Good afternoon,’ Lempriere said.
‘Good afternoon, sir.’ Ivo had jumped as he walked, and this involuntary nervous exhibition he endeavoured to convert into a sideways swing allowing us to pass. But he mistimed this, and his shoulder bumped heavily into mine. ‘Sorry!’ he muttered angrily, and hurried on – his hands deep in his pockets still.
‘Graceless little brute,’ Lempriere said. He spoke almost affectionately, as if graceless little brutes constituted a category of persons for whom he had a particular regard.
‘Ivo has a long way to go,’ I said, ‘before he matches his father at making friends and influencing people. By the way, was that greeting the first word you’ve ever uttered to him?’
‘Certainly it was. But I suppose a very senior man can pass the time of day with a junior member if he wants to?’
‘Yes, of course. It struck me you startled him. Perhaps, Arnold, he was suddenly saying to himself “That must be my grandfather’s tutor”. It would be quite a thought suddenly to come into an undergraduate’s head.’
‘No doubt. But the point is that we have to have him in our heads. For as far as this damned examination goes the brat’s now past saving.’
‘I’m not surprised to hear it.’
‘Fortunately Edward is softening up.’
‘The Provost?’ My surprise was for some reason so marked that I had to make sure of this identification.
‘Yes, of course. Don’t be a fool, Dunkie.’
‘He’d let Ivo stick around even after another flop?’
‘It isn’t to be seen quite that way. These are matters of general policy – how to deal with various classes of undergraduates in one situation or another. They naturally vary from time to time. Various expediencies have to be weighed. Edward’s good at that. But he needs support when some sensible notion strays into his head. You can lend a hand there.’
‘I think what you mean is that he needs leaning on. And I’m not sure I want to lean on him about Ivo. As I’ve told you before, I’ve come round to the view that the boy’s best chance is to clear out – gracefully if possible.’
‘You mustn’t cross the floor of the house, confound you!’ Although Lempriere said this humorously, he was clearly serious. ‘You’re a key man, there in the Lodging. Mrs P. is fond of you. She was fond of you as a kid, it seems.’
‘She was fonder of Ivo’s father, as a matter of fact. And you know how she quite tolerates the boy himself. But I’m damned if I care for petticoat politics, Arnold. Particularly when they’re basically unaccountable to me. And this affair is that. Edward and the Mumfords make a petty puzzle – with a piece missing bang in the middle of it.’
‘Irritating things, jigsaws,’ Lempriere was amused. ‘My sister does them like mad, and when she gets held up there’s just no reasoning with her. The dogs suffer.’ He paused on what was presumably a glimpse of squirarchal life in Northumberland. ‘She’d do better playing bridge.’
We were back within the walls of the college, and the Great Quadrangle was before us. Following his custom, Lempriere surveyed it briefly, before finding some formula of dismissal.
‘Can’t offer you tea,’ he said. ‘Never touch the stuff. Afternoon to you, Dunkie.’ And with a light touch on the arm – his occasional way of asserting our cousinship – he walked away.
Minutes later I was offered tea by Nicolas Junkin. He had seen my approach, and was waiting for me at the doorway of Surrey Four.
‘You’ll do me a favour,’ he said. ‘For I’m chuffed to the bollocks.’
These were both familiar locutions on Junkin’s lips, but each offered its quota of perplexity. The first, it seemed, could be emp
loyed at need without any implication of irony or challenge. The second stood beyond the reach of interpretation – ‘chuffed’ belonging to that small and interesting group of words which are employable in diametrically opposed senses. Only Junkin’s tone could indicate whether he was announcing himself as pleased or as disgruntled. All that I could actually catch was that note of perplexity or bewilderment which he so frequently exhibited.
‘Guess where I’ve been to lunch,’ he said, leading the way upstairs.
I became conscious of scanning the rear view of Junkin which our relative positions alone permitted me. My first glimpse of him, which hadn’t been many months before, had been in brightly coloured pants and nothing else; since then I had never seen him except in jeans below and pullover or anorak or combat-jacket above. What Junkin now wore was a pin-stripe suit. When he turned to usher me into his room I was confirmed in the impression that the outfit was tailored on modest and conservative lines. I recalled the pleasing fact (first revealed to me by Plot) that Junkin enjoyed the favour of an aunt whose Cokeville wealth ran not merely to a sweetshop but to a number of desirable urban dwellings as well. Junkin’s gent’s suiting, as well as Junkin’s Honda, must have its origin in this resource. But what made me conscious that a small chunk of social history stood before me was something else. Had the undergraduate Cyril Bedworth – a Junkin of sorts in his time – dressed himself up like this he would have looked like a shop-boy on holiday. Junkin, because without any social self-consciousness to speak of, was indistinguishable from the first Harrovian or Rugbeian one might have run into. He might even have been, so to speak, Ivo Mumford from across the landing, appropriately habited for a London jaunt. I wasn’t sure how I felt about this evidence of assimilative pressures as at play upon Junkin.
It would be my guess,’ I said, ‘that you were lunching in the Lodging.’
‘You’d be dead right.’ Hospitably intent, Junkin grabbed his electric kettle. ‘Do you remember when I didn’t even know it was the college H.Q? I thought the Provost was just the chap who preached the sermons and that kind of thing.’ Junldn said this on a reminiscent and nostalgic note, although the particular nescience to which he referred was distanced from us by not much more than a long vacation. ‘Do you mind chocolate biscuits?’
‘I like chocolate biscuits. Were the Pocockes kind to you?’
‘Vigorously kind. It was a bit disturbing, really. You might say I lacked orientation. Tell you in a minute.’
Junkin disappeared to fill the kettle, and I glanced around the room which had seen the end of my own youth. Like its present proprietor, it was in process of change. The prized collection of empty bottles which had paraded below the ceding had vanished – chucked out on the landing, no doubt, for Plot to cart away. The bug-eyed Ishii Genzo still held his place where my own Young Picts watching the arrival of Saint Columba had hung. But the op-art reproductions had gone, and in their place were displayed Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, Roy Lichtenstein’s Whaam!, and Blake’s tondo of Saint Michael binding Satan. These were all outsize affairs, and thus represented value for money as well as artistic taste. Another innovation was the presence of a framed photograph on the writing-table; it was of a very pretty girl with eyes thoughtfully downcast upon an open book. Junkin had currently opted, I knew, for a settled attachment to a Cokeville maiden. And here she was.
‘Of course they get round to everybody in time,’ Junkin said, returning and getting out his teapot. ‘But I gather they don’t usually come at you till about the end of your second year. So it was a bit of a shock – specially with me being rather a doghouse type at the moment, examination-wise.’
‘Such things aren’t permitted to affect social intercourse.’
‘I see.’ Junkin had greeted this remark with proper suspicion. ‘The Provost called it a working lunch. Could I possibly spare the time, he said in a note, to drop in for a working lunch. I thought it a shade casual.’
‘I’d have thought it a shade mysterious.’
‘That too – you’re telling me. And I’d rather have expected the invitation to come from the old trout.’
‘Not necessarily.’ I was a little depressed by this further evidence of Junkin’s increased trafficking with convention. ‘And not if Mrs Pococke wasn’t going to be part of the working-party.’
‘Oh, but she was. She’s a decent old bag, I’d say, and was quite a comfort to both of us. The Provost has his overpowering side, don’t you think? Have a biscuit while you’re waiting for the brew-up.’
‘Thank you, Nick.’ I took a biscuit. ‘Who’s both of us?’
‘Larry and me. Larry Andrews. He’s president, you know, and I’m secretary.’
‘Of the Dramatic Society?’
‘Yes, of course. That’s what the working lunch was about. It was a plot about you, among other things.’
‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘About roping you in to do the summer term production. The Provost turns out to be fearfully keen on our next effort. It’s funny. Larry says the old boy has never registered all that interest in the Dramatic Society before. He always turns up to one of the performances, of course. But Larry says it’s a gracious-behaviour turn rather than a thirst for dramatic experience.’
‘I get Larry’s point. But perhaps it might be a bit of both.’ I offered this, I suppose, out of an instinct to defend the elderly from the too penetrating eye of youth. ‘Did the Provost discuss the choice of a play?’
‘No, not that. He said he’d be enormously interested to hear what we decided upon, but it wasn’t for him to influence us in any way. He’s rather a correct man.’
‘So he is. There’s much to be said for it in his position.’
‘I suppose so. But listen – I haven’t really told you. Oh, how do you like your char?’
We got this settled. I realised that Junkin’s point of main perplexity was yet to come.
‘The Provost paid more attention to me than to Larry. It was the wrong way round, it seemed to me – Larry being a fourth-year man and having enormous experience. Armstrongs Last Goodnight is what everybody says was our highlight for years. And it seems that Larry humped it pretty well on his own.’
‘But Larry wasn’t awkwardly left out?’
‘Oh, no. The Pocockes know their stuff. You have to give them that. Mrs P. had all the gen on Larry; you felt you couldn’t have stumped her on his old grandad’s favourite brand of fish paste. But it was the Provost who knew all about me. And do you know what it felt like? That medicinal buttered bun again. He was quite ignoring that I might no longer be in Oxford’s land of the living six months from now. We’ll do this, Junkin – and we must think about that. It wasn’t natural. It seemed like he was due to hand me a medal for meritorious services to the college. Stalwart contribution to an important aspect of the life of the dump, he said. I ask you! Do you think perhaps Lempriere put him up to it?’
‘More psychotherapy of warm praise? No, Nick, I don’t imagine so. Did you manage a decent show?’
‘A decent show? I tell you, man, I felt like doing a quick cop out. But yes, I suppose so. Junkin fights back. That sort of thing.’
‘Capital! The Provost will now be able to say that he happens to have become well acquainted with you, and is impressed by your firmness of character, tenacity, sagacity, modesty, and all the other unassuming virtues.’
‘Stop making fun of me.’
‘I’m not – nor of the Provost either. He does his homework – knows his gen, as you’ve remarked.’
It’s rather worrying.’
‘Forget it, Nick. Is there any more tea? And I’ll have another biscuit’
‘Any amount of tannin, mate.’ This circumstance cheered up Junkin much, I imagine, as it would have cheered up his affluent aunt. ‘I say I I’m doing no end of work. And Lempriere’s being terribly stout. No end cunning.’
‘I don’t doubt it.’
‘For instance, do you know what a parliamentary train
is?’
‘I haven’t a notion.’
‘It’s a train carrying passengers at not more than a penny a mile, and has to be run daily each way over the company’s system. It’s 7 and 8 Vict. 85.’
‘What on earth’s that?’
‘I suppose it’s an act or regulation or something, and of course it’s the hard part to remember. But Lempriere says it amuses examiners to have mugged-up out-of-the-way facts ingenuously unloaded on them. I think “ingenuously” was the word. Puts them in a good humour. Generates favourable vibes.’
‘I see. I’d imagine it’s a technique to be adopted with discretion.’
‘Lempriere says that too.’
It was something, I thought, that Junkin had come so stoutly to believe that he had a paragon of a tutor. Perhaps he really had. Lempriere must possess something like fifty years’ experience of shoving young men through examinations, and his methods weren’t for me to assess. Junkin and I talked about Joe Orton for the rest of our tea.
As I left Junkin’s room I was bumped into, for the second time that afternoon, by his neighbour Ivo Mumford. Ivo seemed to have emerged from his own room and dashed for the staircase in some excitement. He had a letter in his hand.
‘Sorry,’ he said perfunctorily, and then recognised me. ‘Oh, Lord!’ he added. ‘Done it again. Sorry about Long Field. I wasn’t feeling too good. However, things are looking up. The bastards are caving in. Only I’m not sure I’m going to let them.’
I was less struck by these remarks – although they were mysterious – than by something that appeared to have happened (or to be happening) to the young man uttering them. It was as if Ivo had put his hand on the tip of something he’d been looking for.
‘Just who are caving in, Ivo?’ To let curiosity loose in this way went a little against the grain with me. I’d tried to get on terms with Ivo and it hadn’t come off; there wasn’t much point in attempting to advance again on chit-chat with him. But I did want to know what he was talking about.
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