Listen to the Voice

by Iain Crichton Smith

  His favourite character was the Chief Constable in Softly, Softly which he never missed. He liked to affect that sudden sharkish smile, the brutal physical presence, the air of decision, the ultra-sophistication and self-confidence.

  He had long ago given up any pretence to creative science involved as he was in administration. After all, the university was expanding—what it was expanding to was another question—and there were so many people to see, so many people to consult … How could one retire to a laboratory in moments of such frantic change?

  It is true that now and again he felt a certain nostalgia for his days of creativity, for the military companionship which he had so much enjoyed, for certain equations, for the marvellous randomness of the world. But though he felt this nostalgia there was a part of him which hated randomness, which felt that God must in fact be a ruler and not an artist. He used to say that Einstein was right in not accepting by intuition alone the ideas of probability.

  Perhaps if he had had children … but he hadn’t.

  It was this man who met Professor MacDuff for lunch in a Chinese restaurant neighbouring the university. He had a fondness for Chinese restaurants though he couldn’t have said why. Perhaps it was memories of the war when he had been busy outmanœuvring the inscrutable Japanese. Not that there seemed much difference between the Chinese and the Japanese: they both looked expressionless and were probably very cunning. He didn’t really find their reading of the newspapers backwards very odd: after all he did this himself on Sundays with the Times and the Observer.

  There was something churchlike about Chinese restaurants too. Or perhaps templelike. And the decor always seemed to be either lilac or red. Dragons on friezes on the walls. A moody Chinaman standing next to a telephone. You knew where you were in Chinese restaurants. It was really a business transaction. No nonsense about ‘dearie’ or ‘love’ or any of that stuff. All straightforward capitalist procedure.

  It was on a Monday that he met Professor MacDuff who came in rather hesitantly not to say gingerly as he was not a devotee of Chinese restaurants, in fact hating them a bit and not liking the food very much. ‘I see you’re grazing already,’ he said as he sat down looking with disfavour on the acres of rice the Principal was guzzling. He ordered some tomato soup and shuddered. He knew in advance what it would be like. Why did the Chinese manage to take all the flavour out of European food? What would happen if we ever went into the Chinese Common Market?

  The Principal had decided to flatter him. ‘I suppose you’ve done the Ximenes this week,’ he said. ‘What was that word for Six Across? I believe the clue was “Brown, that is, was Northern shall, a Highland gentleman”. Eleven letters.’

  ‘Dunie wassal,’ said MacDuff with not much satisfaction since he knew he was being conned and didn’t like being patronised. Nevertheless there was enough of the pedagogue in him to explain that ‘dunie wassal’ was a Highland gentleman (grossly anglicised) and that ‘sall’ was the Northern version of ‘shall’.

  ‘Of course you’re Highland yourself,’ said the Principal. ‘I keep forgetting that. You’ve been here so long.’

  MacDuff didn’t bother to reply.

  After a while the Principal said, still munching, ‘Funny how we academics are always doing crosswords. I often wonder whether Kant would have been a crossword fan. Perhaps it’s something to do with solving the enigma of the world by words alone.’

  ‘O I think it’s just an amusement,’ said MacDuff bluntly. The tomato soup was as bad as he’d feared. It looked like blood mixed with water. And not very high class blood at that. There was also some horrible music leaking from the walls like sweat. ‘Naturally,’ he said aloud, ‘these are Chinese from Hong Kong.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the Principal vaguely. ‘Exiles.’ He raised his eyes from the suey and said, ‘Have you ever read any of the Charlie Chan stories.’

  ‘All of them,’ said MacDuff, ‘I believe there are only five full length ones in existence. I wish people would republish the great detective classics. You never get anything but thrillers nowadays and sociological analyses. These things have no place in the true detective story, which should be a puzzle. The people should be cardboard not human beings. As in Ellery Queen for instance. Or Carr in his great period.’

  ‘I see,’ said the Principal keenly, ‘a puzzle eh?’ Suddenly MacDuff realised and not for the first time that this man was no fool but in fact had a very fine brain when he chose to use it.

  ‘There was another one, wasn’t there?’ said the Principal. ‘Van somebody or other. He did the Bishop Murder Story. I’ve been trying to get hold of his books for some time.’

  ‘Van Dine,’ said MacDuff briefly. ‘Yes, he’s good, very good.’ He pushed the half-consumed tomato soup away from him. Some of it had spilt on his jacket.

  ‘Yes, the Chinese detective stories all seem to be a bit comic,’ said the Principal laying a cunning emphasis on the last word, as if he thought it would entrap MacDuff into some revealing confession.

  But MacDuff at this point was holding in front of him a menu as big as a newspaper and was trying to work out which would be the least punishing item for him to choose.

  ‘I said they’re slightly comic,’ said the Principal.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Chinese detectives. Chink private eyes.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so, but then the rest of us don’t have the same insight into the Oriental mind as you have,’ said MacDuff. He wished he could smoke his pipe. But Chinese restaurants didn’t seem to take kindly to pipes. It would be like smoking in church. He thought: The best clue I ever saw was ‘Nothing squared is cubed. ‘The answer was OXO. That was pure genius.

  ‘Regarding your lectures,’ said the Principal, deciding on a frontal attack.

  ‘I beg your pardon.’

  ‘I said regarding your lectures. Comic, I’ve been hearing,’ said the Principal. ‘I mean I’ve had letters. From influential parents. Complaints. Some from ministers and nationalists. Crank ones of course. But some very fierce. Some of them accuse you of being a communist.’

  ‘I see,’ said MacDuff scrubbing vaguely at the red stain left by the tomato soup.

  ‘By the way, are you?’ said the Principal.

  ‘Am I what?’

  ‘A communist.’

  ‘You must know my background.’

  ‘Yes I know. Brilliant First in English, in 1934. Member of University Socialist Party Club for the last two years of your student career. Spoke against Franco at various meetings. Why didn’t you go to Spain?’

  ‘Cowardice basically, I suppose. I should have gone. Why didn’t you?’

  ‘You must remember I’m younger,’ said Carstairs with some satisfaction. He pushed the plate away and ordered banana fritters from an impassive waiter. ‘Junior lecturer. Senior lecturer. Full professor. You’ve never been in any other university. Oh I forgot. You married in 1940. You weren’t in the war of course were you?’

  ‘I have bad eyesight as you know.’

  ‘Of course. Your wife was a lecturer in Greek. Died last year. We were all very sorry.’ He jabbed at his banana fritter. ‘I wonder why you lectured on the comics. It’s not really the sort of thing one does. And you of all people. What was that book you wrote, The Theme of Resurrection in Shakespeare’s Later Plays.’

  ‘I also wrote two on Milton.’

  ‘Of course. I know you’re a popular lecturer but you can’t possibly continue with this rubbish. Desperate Dan indeed. Many people might think you were going off your rocker.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘No, I don’t. I still don’t know what the game is.’

  ‘It’s not a game. It’s desperately serious.’

  ‘I see. After all you’re a scholar and you’re not off your rocker as we’ve agreed. So what is all this about? I know I’m only a scientist and as far as I know we haven’t got the equivalent of comics in the world of …’ He paused for a moment and then said dreamily, ‘apart of course from Berg
en. But that’s beside the point. I should like to know what you’re trying to do. Parents are protesting. You must realise that this is an odd situation. In fact I’ve never heard of anything like it before.’

  ‘Well, if that’s all,’ said MacDuff.

  ‘Naturally some people on the Senatus are likely to discuss it. However I’ll leave it with you now. I’m sure you will see reason.’

  Carstairs sat staring at his coffee for some time after MacDuff had gone. For some reason a tag kept coming into his mind, ‘Lead on, MacDuff.’ He couldn’t make up his mind whether he was going to be Duncan or Macbeth. After thinking about this for some time he decided it didn’t make much difference. He looked vaguely around him. Odd that MacDuff didn’t like Chinese restaurants. Perhaps if it had been a communist restaurant he might have liked it better. Or perhaps it was all a big bluff. He got up slowly and paid his bill at the desk. Then he went out into the fine spring day, where everything was fresh and new. If one didn’t have troubles like this one might even enjoy it. There was a Chinaman standing in the sunshine just outside the door staring at him inscrutably.

  Professor MacDuff lived by himself since his wife had died a year before. In general he took most of his meals out, though in the evenings he made some food for himself and did a good bit of reading. He had also taken to playing chess though it wasn’t until three years before that he had bought a set and was surprised to find that it wasn’t quite as tormenting as he had feared. His wife had died of cancer and it had been a slow death. He had married her when he was thirty years old. He had met her in the university library where she was reading a book on Vergil. He remembered that she had looked rather like a nun, perhaps like the one mentioned in Il Penseroso. Her face was classical yet not cold. She was quite small.

  When he came home at night he often thought about her and about the classics. The whole house seemed very empty especially in the winter time. At times however he felt that she was still there and sometimes even in his bed he would stretch out his arm as if she was present. It was a strange feeling. Sometimes he would glance up from his book thinking that she was still sitting in the chair opposite him. And then he was stabbed by the most incredible pain.

  He had let the house become rather untidy though not dirty. Books were piled behind the chair in which he sat. He read indiscriminately, Science fiction, detective stories, academic books, they were all grist to his mill. Sometimes he would be reading five books at the one time. He was all right during the academic year but the vacations were difficult because they were so long. The previous year he had gone to British Columbia to see his brother who was a businessman over there. He had found the trip interesting—Fable Cottage on Vancouver Island for instance but was a bit put off by the ‘stroll down Chaucer Lane in the English Village which leads to Anne Hathaway’s Cottage’. However he hadn’t particularly cared for his brother who had become much more vulgar and superficial than he had remembered, and who was absolutely interested in money and little else. His brother in fact was a brutal red-faced crashing bore. He would never see him again.

  He sat down in the chair after coming back from his meeting with the Principal. On the floor in front of him was a bottle of Parozone, yellow, and he stared at it for a long time. It seemed in some way to soothe him. After a while he slept. Then he got up and got out his notes on Milton. In his new book which he might never complete he was trying to show how far Samson Agonistes was from the true Greek style of drama, how clumsy the versification was. He had always believed that Milton was strongest in poems like Allegro and Il Penseroso and that at that point there was life and gaiety and the exact elegance of true poetry.

  He thought about his wife. She had a clear quick-witted practical mind but at the same time she was an idealistic scholar. She had been in far more jobs than he had ever been. For instance she had once been a waitress during the long vacation. Another time she had worked in the cinema as an usherette. She had looked after the garden which he now neglected. She also had, he thought, a purer and more zealous love of learning than he had, a combination of love and precision. Her feeling for the classics made her adore Housman whom he had always considered a bad poet. But, strangely, after she had died he had read the poems again and found that they were more piercing than he could recall. Sometimes when searching in a drawer for a cuff link he would come on a glove or handkerchief that had belonged to her and would be stabbed by that dreadful agony.

  But he was all right now, wasn’t he? He was even reasonably happy. At least during term time. The Logic Professor would sometimes visit him arriving at about ten o’clock at night (for he seemed to have no regard for or even knowledge of time) and they might play chess for a time. Or drink beer. Or sometimes talk. Often about Wittgenstein who after a difficult life had said that he had been the happiest of men. ‘Imagine that,’ the Logic Professor would say, ‘an odd man. A strange man. Fine fine mind. But odd.’ (He himself dabbled in alchemy and had a sundial in his garden to tell the time.) ‘Something very prophetic about him. He hated the academic world, you see, and I don’t blame him.’ Forgetting that it was three o’clock in the morning and settling himself like a gnome on a red cushion from which the feathers were falling out as if it were moulting.

  At other times the Divinity Professor would come all aflame with the latest conference he had attended and bringing along with him questions such as ‘How far can we use the work of atheistic writers in studying theology?’ His thin pale ravaged face showed how he was struggling against the stream.

  And then of course there were his neighbours (the two houses divided by a hedge) a young couple of whom the husband was a young mathematics lecturer and his wife a teacher in a city school. They had a child of about five years old.

  When he had finished his work on Milton he made himself some tea and switched on TV. A keen-eyed announcer of the type satirised by Monty Python was looking straight at him and saying:

  ‘… the initiative on Ireland. To discuss what the package may be we have brought along to the studio tonight Mr Ray of the Conservative Party, Mr Hume of the Labour Party and Mr O’Reilly of the Unionist Party and Miss Devlin.’ Each face nodded modestly, mouthing some phantom unheard words which might have been Good Evening.

  The announcer trained his gimlet eyes on one of the four people and said, ‘And now, Mr Ray, may I ask you the following question. It has been rumoured that there is a split in the Tory Cabinet, some hawks saying that nothing should be done until the ira have been beaten on the ground and some doves saying that there must be an initiative now. What are your views on that?’

  ‘Well, Terence, first of all as you know very well I can’t speak for the Cabinet, otherwise I would be a member of it, but it seems to me obvious speaking personally, and I must emphasise this, that we can’t allow violence, the rule of violence, to prevail in Ireland or anywhere else. If you recall, an analagous situation arose in Cyprus some years ago as well as in Algeria …’

  ‘Yes I appreciate that but could you be more …’

  ‘I was trying to lay the foundation for an answer.’

  ‘I understand. Can I take it then that you support the hawks? Mr Hume, what do you say to that?’

  Mr Hume, a large slow man with beetling brows, leaned forward, dominating the screen like a serene basking shark.

  ‘I think it is totally typical of the Conservative Party to take such a position. Their idea of solving any problem is to use force. The lame duck philosophy … We see it in ucs, in their handling of the question of children’s milk, in their whole philosophy of government …’

  ‘Yes but about the Irish initiative …’

  ‘I was just coming to that … How can one believe that the ira can be beaten when they obviously have behind them the whole Catholic …’

  Professor MacDuff put the volume down so that the lips moved but nothing could be heard. The mouths opened and shut like those of goldfish in a pond. He went to the back of the set and fiddled about with the controls. Th
e faces lengthened and shortened like Dali’s picture ‘The Persistence of Memory’ which shows watches and clocks hung like plasticine and liquorice over chairs. One could imagine cutting them up and eating them from a knife. ‘The new Chinese food,’ he thought. After he had played about for some time, allowing lines and dots to invade the screen, shaping faces and bodies into gluey masses, making the bodies tall and thin as the man in Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday and fat and squat figures as in a spoon, he switched to the other channel which showed a number of girls dancing to the music of pop songs, swaying their bodies, flicking their hands, tribal people.

  In the middle of this the phone rang and he went and answered it. ‘Who’s that?’ he asked.

  ‘BBC here. TV actually. That is Professor MacDuff, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes this is Professor MacDuff.’

  ‘Well, we have heard some rumours that you are teaching something to do with Desperate Dan is it and that you believe that this is as valuable as the more conventional stuff. We were wondering perhaps if you could come along to the studio and …’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When?’ The voice seemed slightly disconcerted. ‘Well, we were thinking in terms of this week. There’s a spot called Matters of Moment which you may have watched …’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘If you could be along here at six o’clock on Friday night. Would that be all right? I could come along beforehand. I would handle it myself. My name is Burrow by the way.’

  ‘On my own you mean?’