Tim Connor Hits Trouble

by Frank Lankaster

  ‘Best avoid that,’ agreed Henry. ‘In the middle ages they used to send criminals to live in Reading as a punishment.’

  Tim resisted the impulse to query Henry’s historicity. He cleared his stuff from the table and exited purposefully.

  After some sparring with the drinks machine, Henry picked up Aisha’s tea from the porous metal plate and handed it to her. For a moment he thought of filling the seat next to her just vacated by Tim. Instead he sat a couple of seats away. There was a composure and self-containment about the young woman that he thought better than to intrude on.

  ‘So how have things been going for you? Everything I hear is that the students love your teaching.’ Henry had reverted to his default avuncular role, uncomfortably aware that he had been so self-preoccupied that he had failed even to ask Aisha how she was settling in.’

  ‘I’m fine. Things were a bit scary at first but I’m really beginning to enjoy it now. People have been great, very supportive. Starting at the same time as Tim has helped; we’ve been a kind of reality check for each other, as well as swopping a bit of teaching. Rachel and Erica have been very good too. Rachel seems to know all there is to know about feminism including lots of stuff in my area. Not that I always agree with her. So… yeah, no, things are fine.’ She hesitated for a moment. ‘How are things with you? You look a little tired.’

  Henry glanced defensively at Aisha. Her enquiry was routine enough, but to his surprise there was genuine concern in her voice. It disconcerted him. He had become unused to serious enquiries about his welfare. Her eyes held his gaze. Still raw from the events of the morning he wanted to unload emotionally. But he could not trust himself. He had no idea whether he could trust her. There’s no fool like an old fool. He ignored Aisha’s enquiry and tried to keep the conversation at a safe level.

  ‘So, have you found any time to carry on with your research?’

  Aisha’s expression of concern relaxed. ‘A little, not really, there’s just been so much else I’ve had to do. It’s not just work. As you know I have a child, not to mention a husband. Waqar is finding it more difficult to adjust to my career than I am. He really wanted me to work in his family business. But in some ways I think having separate jobs is better; there’s more to share when we get home. He’s more conservative than me and we have interesting times challenging each other’s views. Do you have strong views Dr. Jones? I believe you are or used to be quite a radical.’

  Henry blinked, her directness, politely, almost formally expressed caught him off-guard. Clearly superficial chitchat was not Aisha’s style. He remembered that what he had liked about her at interview apart from her obvious intelligence was her focused energy, powerful if not necessarily informed by experience. Not in the mood for an in-depth discussion of his political ideas, he responded with an adapted Wildeanism.

  ‘Like me, my radicalism has a great future behind it. I’m good at critiquing capitalism but come up short on changing it. It’s not just me. The left in general has got to rework its strategy. It’s unfortunate that it isn’t more effective because capitalism itself looks ready for the taking. It’s an organisational shambles itself and chronically unfair. Anyway all that’s going to fall to your generation if you have the mind and stomach for it.’

  Henry gave Aisha a world-weary glance. He now seldom made eye contact in conversation but he felt almost a compulsion to do so with Aisha Khan.

  ‘Dr. Jones…’

  ‘Please, it’s time you called me Henry.’

  Thank you. Henry. You know I was talking to Tim earlier. We were saying how upset you were at the departmental meeting. We both think you should have been briefed earlier about the role changes.’

  Despite himself Henry was drawn by his colleague’s empathy. It washed over him like balm. His voice shook slightly as he struggled with his feelings.

  ‘I… maybe it was time that someone else… It gives me the chance to catch up on my research, I…’ to his embarrassment, he was suddenly in danger of tears. ‘Look, thank you. It’s very kind of you. Thank you, but don’t let my troubles keep you from your work.’

  Henry’s resistance ebbed from this point and he began to discuss his problems more openly. He was not a great believer in ‘the talking cure’ but as he let go, tension he barely recognised began to ease from him. As he spoke he began to appreciate more clearly the depth of his personal crisis. This was not a crisis like those of his youth – at a crossroads – but a crisis in a cul-de-sac: an old man’s crisis. It ain’t dark outside but it’s getting there.

  But if he saw no way ahead, he had at least found momentary comfort. As they talked Aisha shared something of the new challenges in her own life but mainly she listened. When they parted it was with a quantum of affection.

  Chapter 11

  Mending and Upending Fences

  Tim was in a mixed frame of mind as he left Peyton. His visit to Maria had gone better than usual but he was concerned at what lay ahead on his return to Wash. He pulled out onto the A13 which looked its usual drab and polluted self. People must have found the post-war East End pretty rough if moving here represented progress. Perhaps pastoral bliss lay off the road somewhere between the A13 and the A12 but he doubted it. Still, the attractions or otherwise of the local countryside were not his concern. Maria was.

  He had taken his daughter and one of her friends to see the latest Harry Potter and driven by guilt had bought them more sugary treats than was healthy. The presence of Maria’s friend seemed to act as a buffer and to dissolve the anxiety that sometimes marred their time together. After the film Tim watched relieved as the two girls, still high on excitement, ran shouting and skipping ahead. Clearly ‘bring a friend’ was a strategy for the future. It certainly worked better than his lone attempts to ‘have fun’ with his daughter whilst trying to ignore the turmoil of their conflicting feelings. And Gina was leaving them to it, believing that it was Tim’s responsibility to work out his relationship with his child post-split. If anything she had closed up over recent weeks. Perhaps that was her way of coping with the feelings she still had for him. Or, perhaps it was a sign that these feelings had further diminished. He couldn’t tell.

  His visit to see his daughter had been shorter than usual. Arriving late on Friday, he was returning on Saturday evening to leave Sunday free to prepare the following week’s lectures. He had extra work having agreed to do a session for Aisha with the first year social scientists. She had asked him to give a basic introduction to Freud’s ‘map of the mind’ and to describe how it had influenced one or two later thinkers. For long fascinated by Freud he decided to include himself in the latter group, partly to add a lighter, self-deprecating tone to the lecture. He was determined to do a good job for Aisha and that was going to take serious preparation time.

  On top of work commitments, he had set up a meeting with his increasingly troublesome neighbour, Darren Naylor. Naylor had now made a demand – he didn’t do requests - for what he insisted was ‘a proper contribution’ to the cost of the still only half-assembled fence. His tactic was to delay completion of the work in an attempt to pressure Tim to come up with more money. Tim was having none of it. What Naylor had so far assembled was an ill-fitting row of cheap concrete posts loosely connected to planks of plywood streaked with brown resin. If this was not yet a complete mess, Tim was not looking forward to a complete mess turning up. He was certainly not going to pay to hasten its arrival. But he had learnt not to underestimate his neighbour’s ugly determination to get his own way. He knew about bullyboys. They kept on bullying if you didn’t stop them early – if you could. But this was a tricky situation: worse than a feud at work. Civil avoidance was no longer possible and Naylor was not about to go away. But if he couldn’t put the stoppers on him, maybe he could outlast him. Staying power, keeping on keeping on, was one of his qualities. Not matinee stuff exactly, but effective, maybe.

  His mind was still scanning through his bunch of problems when the traffic thickened at the junction w
ith the M25, compelling his full attention back to the road. The traffic only began to thin again as he passed the big city north of Barnet. He grimaced slightly as he recalled that Barnet was Thatcher territory, where she was regularly re-elected in ‘leafy Finchley.’ God eternally be damned for letting her loose on this green and pleasant island. He mused that without Thatcher Britain might have developed like Norway. Norway! What the hell did he know about Norway? He remembered that he had once almost attended a conference in Bergen but was put off by the high value of the Norwegian kroner against the pound. He reaffirmed his intention to read a book about that country.

  He circled down south of Watford making good time towards the M4. He hit heavier traffic as he approached Heathrow. Once past the airport, the traffic thinned again. People were heading eastwards to the bright lights of London rather than to the comparative quiet of the West Country, though he knew he would run into knots of traffic around Reading and then Swindon. He hammered the old Volvo close to its limits as he attempted to gain time. He watched the speedometer touch a hundred. Better ease off. So far the police had never stopped him on his trips across the country. Perhaps they preferred to nail the drivers of posh new cars than battered old ones. But this was not a light-hearted game of hide-and-seek. He knew he couldn’t be sure his brakes would hold up if he had suddenly to stop at top speed.

  Years ago he’d been at fault in a nasty crash. The memory of the heavy thud followed by an implosion of metal and glass as he smashed into the back of a truck still turned his stomach. As he lost control his grip froze to the steering wheel, jolting his right forearm permanently out of precise alignment on impact. His brow furrowed and his mouth went dry as the image of the crash reformed in his mind. To injure himself he could live with, but he did not want the serious injury or killing of another person on his conscience. Luckily the only mangling then had been machinery. Maybe now he should give luck a helping hand. He dropped back to between seventy and eighty, the informally permitted zone for those in a hurry. A lesson half learned.

  As he accelerated into the long, westward bound stretch of the M4 he began to mull over his first few weeks in Wash. Whatever else, the place was no kind of escape hole. Balancing the demands of a new job with visits most weekends either to his daughter or his mother in Lancashire was barely manageable. To cope he often found himself defaulting into a neutral state of mind or trying to; just getting things done. On the plus side, life in Wash had begun to take on an acceptable shape, the core of it built around work: teaching and research. And he had not been as alone as he had anticipated. Erica continued to drop by from time to time. Her liking for emotionally distanced, ritualised sex had not blocked the gradual emergence of a guarded affection between them. The sheer pleasure they found together made it easy for them to like each other. It was a relief to him that Erica only occasionally tried to play the dominatrix outside of their sexual performances. It wouldn’t have worked with him. As well as the frequent sex, still the centrepiece of their relationship, they talked and laughed a lot. Erica, it seemed, found Tim ‘amusing and funny’ although he wasn’t always clear why. Yet, she seemed uncomfortable when the conversation touched on her own personal life and Tim did not persist. However he saw no point in being evasive about himself and Erica proved an interested and sympathetic listener.

  Despite their growing affection, an unspoken understanding emerged to keep separate their personal and professional lives. Erica framed the terms. Without her needing to say so Tim quickly realised that at work she preferred that they behave only as colleagues, politely friendly but giving no hint that there was anything more between them. When she wanted to see him she called him to say so. Usually he could arrange his life accordingly, especially as their liaisons had so far always been at his place. For now this set-up also suited him. Logically he knew that his relationship with Gina was over but he still felt emotionally tied. Far from looking for another deep involvement he was open to a period of hedonistic encounters. Despite his unsettled state of mind, he was confident that he could compartmentalise his feelings pretty well.

  His concentration on auto, he reduced speed as the traffic fed in from the Reading conurbation. His thoughts drifted to Aisha, the other of his younger female colleagues. He found himself reflecting that physically there was some resemblance between Aisha and Gina. Both were gifted with a satin beauty and lean athleticism that played on his consciousness whenever he was with them. He wondered vaguely whether such reactions could be described as sexist? He didn’t think so. Unbidden feelings were not corrigible to PC regimentation, although he understood the protective role political correctness could play. But it was his habit to question orthodoxy, particularly if it came in moral wrapping. His commitment to the equality of the sexes did not mean he thought they were the same. He found no problem in reconciling equality with difference and he perceived most women as different, at least from himself. But if he was drawn to difference he had also learnt caution. He was not sure he understood women. He realised that as far as Aisha was concerned he had better respect the difference, not only of gender but also of culture and religion and so of expectation. He had better behave himself! He remembered that as a student an intense attraction had developed between himself and a young Muslim woman. Tim’s tutor, who took a guiding interest in his promising but wayward charge, had warned him ‘not to mess with her’ unless he intended very serious commitment. There was an edge to his tutor’s voice new to Tim. It persuaded him to think of consequences – for others as well as himself. He backed off.

  As he reached the final few miles of his journey he again refocused on his driving. It was easy if not advisable to drift day-dreaming along the M4 but to do so on the narrow, winding road down into Wash invited disaster. And here the world beyond his windscreen was worthy of attention, the steeply contoured countryside and farmland on either side of this stretch of road. When he had the time, shortly after leaving the motorway he would park the car, stretch his long limbs, breathe deeply of the fresh air and enjoy the view of the city in the valley. At other times, his appetite sharpened from the journey, he would pull into a farmshop and buy a homemade ice cream for immediate consumption and a dozen fresh farm eggs for later. But not this time. He needed to get to his meeting with Darren Naylor.

  He was beginning to regret agreeing to meet at Naylor’s house rather than his own. His sporting experience told him that there was a better chance of a good result on his own turf. He swung into his driveway and parked the car, not bothering to unload his luggage. Slipping through one of several large gaps in the semi-erected fence he knocked on the Naylor door. No response. He knocked again more loudly. This time the bull-like form of Naylor appeared. Not for the first time Tim was struck by his neighbour’s seamless blend of ugliness and menace.

  ‘Ye trying to knock the bloody door down? Ye fink we’re all deaf or somefink?’

  Naylor stepped out into his driveway. Evidently tea and biscuits were not on offer.

  Tim was already feeling drained. Normally confident in his ability to keep his temper and even to weave a bit of diplomacy he was irritated. He came straight to the point.

  ‘Look if you want to finish the fence off I’ll live with it. Or you can take it down and I’ll put one up. The money you’ve already had from me is a lot more than that,’ he paused for a second, ‘shambles is worth. That’s it, no more money.’ Naylor’s boorishness and his own tiredness were straining his patience.

  Naylor moved to within a couple of feet of him.

  ‘Listen, ye gangling pansy. There’s somefink ye need to know about me. I’m an arse ’ole. I’ll mek yer fuckin’ life miserable if ye don’t fork out for what ye owe me. I want that fuckin’ money now or that fence stays the way it is.’

  Tim eyed the beefy form of Naylor, taking his measure. He was not going to back down or back off. He moved in closer. They squared up like a pair of dinosaurs, tall and angular, short and wide. Tim responded to Naylor in kind.

  ‘Yo
u’re fuckin’ right you are a fuckin’ arse ’ole. You can stick that monstrosity up your fat backside as far as I’m concerned. And don’t waste yer time threatening me my friend, it won’t work. I don’t give a flying turd whether you leave the bloody thing up or take it down. I’ve had enough. Good night, arse ’ole.’

  He was about to turn round to go but thought better of it. It was safer to keep Naylor in his sights. He moved off sideways and stepped through a gap in the fence. ‘Are you planning to charge for the gaps?’

  ‘Fuck off Connor. Don’t worry, I’ll get ye.’

  They exchanged further insults as Tim unloaded his car. Once inside the house he opened a can of tomato soup and a tin of sardines. He made a sardine sandwich of doorstep dimensions and spun the soup for a few seconds in the micro-wave, wolfing them down before collapsing for half-an-hour’s kip on the couch. Then he settled down to work. Busy as he was, it did occasionally cross his mind that Naylor was unlikely to leave things as they were. A self-described arsehole well positioned to let fly. Expect a shower of shit. It was unfortunate that Naylor brought out Tim’s macho side. What was that daft Wayne quotation? – Never explain, never apologise, it makes you seem weak. He knew this was rubbish but it matched his mood. He would certainly have managed his meeting with Naylor more calmly if he hadn’t been so exhausted. There would be consequences. Even so, when he hit the sack that night he slept soundly, comprehensively knackered from a tough weekend, undisturbed by thoughts of his imbecile neighbour.

  Over the next few days the shape of Naylor’s revenge emerged. He would try to wear Tim down by making his life so unpleasant that Tim would either give in or sell up and move out. The strategy was the drip-drip of attrition rather than a frontal attack. Tried and tested delinquent that he was, Naylor was not going to risk arrest unnecessarily. Tim had to concede that for such an apparent bone-brain his neighbour was not without a degree of evil cunning. Naylor’s first move was to park his van, with its absurd slogan of ‘Premiership Builders’, on the grass verge fringing the footpath outside Tim’s small front garden, blocking the view from the window. Tim’s response was simply to avoid looking in that direction but it was more difficult to ignore the muddy mess that the van made of the verge. These manoeuvres brought the two men’s conflict into to the uneasy if fascinated attention of the neighbours. Several pulled disapproving expressions at the churned up tyre-tracks but none showed any inclination to intervene. Under siege Tim got some light relief when the van got stuck in its own mess. He offered to help bump the van back onto the road, never short of a sense of irony. His offer was declined in predictably florid terms. Meanwhile Tim patiently waited for an opportunity to land Naylor in as big a mess as his van.