Loretta Lawson 01 - A Masculine Ending

by Joan Smith

  ‘He has, sorry, had, a considerable reputation,’ Loretta reminded her, curious to hear more.

  The American rose to the bait. ‘He had a loud voice, a wide vocabulary, and a big line in sarcasm,’ she said. ‘Some people, kids particularly, mistake that for originality. What I’m interested in is ideas, and I didn’t think much of his, or his opinions. He was the sort of guy who jumped at every opportunity to make you look small.’ She put on a passable imitation of a BBC accent. ‘The English novel, Miss Chester? You want to talk about the English novel? Oh dear, I think you’d be more at home in Dr Sykes’s little classes. In my opinion, the only interesting developments in literature in the last ten years have taken place in East Germany. Of course, one needs German to understand what the author is trying to do.’

  Loretta laughed. She could imagine Puddephat saying these lines. The more I hear about him, the less I like him,’ she admitted. She was about to introduce herself when Bridget made a dramatic entrance into the room, bearing a steaming bowl of punch on a tray. Her arrival, and the exclamations of admiration that greeted her, succeeded in defusing the last of the tension caused by Geoffrey’s tactless remarks.

  ‘Can I get you some punch?’ Loretta asked her companion. When she accepted, Loretta moved across the room and helped herself to two glasses. ‘I’m Loretta Lawson’, she said, returning and handing one of them to the American woman. ‘I lecture in English at London. I met Bridget when she was doing her PhD. Are you one of her students?’

  ‘Evelyn Chester,’ the woman replied. ‘I’m doing a doctorate and yes, Bridget’s my tutor. Loretta Lawson, I know that name. D’you write for Fem Sap?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Loretta, with a little glow of pleasure. ‘I’m on the editorial collective, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘I read your article in the last issue,’ Evelyn said. ‘I thought you made some pretty good points. I heard from Bridget there’s some kind of row going on about masculine endings. Where d’you stand on that?’

  The conversation had taken an unexpected turn, thought Loretta, gathering her thoughts. ‘I suppose I have to say I’m a conservative,’ she admitted. ‘I think language has to evolve slowly. I mean, I don’t object to sensible changes - saying chairwoman when it’s appropriate, for instance. But I think the problem with French, say, is on a bigger scale. I don’t think you can impose wholesale changes overnight.’

  Evelyn’s face became animated, and she shook her short brown hair. Drawing a packet of cigarettes out of her shoulder bag, she lit one and put it to her lips. ‘But if you’re a feminist, the whole idea of masculine verb endings including the feminine is a complete joke,’ she protested. ‘It’s an insult.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t argue with that,’ said Loretta. ‘Where you and I probably differ is on the question of what to do about it. What some women are suggesting at Fem Sap - abolishing masculine endings overnight - just seems to me the wrong way of going about it. All it will do is alienate a lot of women who aren’t radical feminists, and open us up to ridicule from our enemies. And we’ve got plenty of those.’

  ‘You’re not telling me you’re afraid of ridicule, Loretta?’ enquired a familiar voice at her elbow.

  Loretta turned to find that Geoffrey Simmons had been listening to the conversation. She was far from delighted to see him. It was only thanks to the scene made by Gilly that his admission about their visit to Puddephat’s rooms had gone unnoticed. Bridget hadn’t been exaggerating when she warned her of his lack of discretion.

  ‘Of course I don’t like being ridiculed,’ she said sharply. ‘And I think anyone who pretends otherwise is just indulging in macho posturing. The point is that sometimes it can’t be avoided - there are some issues which are so important that you have to take a stand and say to hell with how people react. But sometimes it’s better to keep a low profile. To make changes slowly, and carry the maximum number of people with you.’ It really was rather tedious, she thought, having this kind of discussion at a social gathering. Looking round the room, she wondered how to escape from Geoffrey.

  He, it seemed, was not in the least put off. ‘In other words, Loretta,’ he said, poking her in the ribs with his elbow, ‘you’re a gradualist!’

  His tone suggested he’d caught her out in some minor misdemeanour, Loretta thought angrily - putting penny coins in a parking meter, or dodging fares on the underground. She decided to extricate herself with dignity. ‘A thirsty gradualist,’ she said firmly, holding up her empty glass. Smiling at Evelyn, and ignoring Geoffrey, she made her way across the room to the punch bowl. It was already empty, apart from the odd slice of orange stuck to its sides, and she decided to try the kitchen. The only occupants of the room were a couple of young men who were sitting at the table, smoking Turkish cigarettes. Loretta guessed that Bridget, a non-smoker like herself, had banished them there. Listening with half an ear as she examined the cluster of bottles on the draining-board, she caught the names of several authors and concluded that they were discussing contemporary novelists.

  ‘My sister gave me a book by this woman Anita something, the one that won the Booker prize,’ she heard one of them say.

  ‘Brookner,’ interrupted the other.

  That’s it,’ the first speaker agreed. ‘She said it was all the rage at her school, and she’d got an A minus for her essay on it. It was all about a woman who goes on holiday to a hotel in Switzerland. I’ve never read anything so dreary - I gave up half-way.’

  ‘I’m surprised you got that far,’ said the other. ‘I can’t see the point in her books at all. You might as well watch a documentary about depressed women on Channel 4. What about Martin Amis? Have you read him?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I see him as a sort of spiritual descendant of Norman Mailer, just as Mailer took on the mantle of Lawrence - in fact I wrote an essay on that very subject in my last term at school. ‘Scuse me, but I think you’ll find the wine’s run out,’ the speaker added, having just registered Loretta’s presence.

  Mumbling a reply, Loretta opened the fridge and peered inside. She remembered that Bridget had put a couple of bottles of white in the freezer compartment at the last minute. She drew one out, grumbling silently to herself. Public school twits, she thought, an old prejudice welling up in her. Their accents alone were enough to drive anyone mad. Thank God her college wasn’t yet fashionable enough to attract more than the odd one or two. How on earth did Bridget put up with them? She picked up Bridget’s corkscrew and examined it. It was not a design she had encountered before.

  ‘Can I help?’ asked a voice just behind her. Turning, she found herself confronting Jamie Baird. Lost in her condemnation of the two young men at the table, she had not heard him come in. ‘I wasn’t implying you couldn’t do it yourself,’ he added hastily, seeing her expression. Realizing she was still frowning, Loretta put on a smile. It was a nuisance, she thought, that Jamie had come upon her unawares. She had not yet decided how to deal with him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘My mind was elsewhere.’ She handed over the corkscrew.

  ‘Listening to those two?’ he asked, nodding towards the table.

  Loretta blushed. ‘I’m afraid so,’ she said, glancing towards them. They were, she saw with relief, still deep in conversation. By now, they’d moved on to Hemingway.

  Typical pseudo-intellectuals,’ Jamie said in a low voice. ‘At heart, they’re no different from the other public school type - the rugger-bugger sort, the ones that follow daddy into the services. They both have an unshakeable confidence in the lightness of their own opinions. This lot are the public schools’ great concession to modernity. Now we don’t need so many generals and governors, they let some of them read a few books. As long as they’re the right sort of books, of course. I know what you’re thinking,’ he added. ‘I sound just like them myself. But I’m not. You shouldn’t hold my upbringing against me. I’m doing my best to cast it off.’ His tone sounded genuine, but Loretta was quick to spot what looked like an inconsistency.
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  Then why did you come to Oxford?’ she demanded. ‘Why not break with tradition altogether and go to Leeds, say, or London?’

  Jamie hesitated for a moment, leaning forward to fill her glass. Tamily reasons,’ he said shortly, putting the bottle down.

  The atmosphere between them had suddenly become frosty. Loretta chided herself for her tactlessness. Although Jamie was no longer as vital an interviewee as she had once thought, it was silly to antagonize him. She could hardly follow up the exchange they had just had with a question about his relationship with Puddephat. Casting around for a safe topic, she remembered that she had not introduced herself. ‘My name’s Loretta Lawson,’ she said, doing her best to look relaxed. Tm an old friend of Bridget’s.’

  ‘Jamie Baird,’ he replied flatly, his good humour not fully restored. ‘And you knew Hugh Puddephat too, didn’t you?’

  Loretta blinked. How did Jamie know? And, more importantly, what did he know? He did not keep her in suspense.

  ‘I heard that chap Simmons say something about you getting into Hugh’s rooms,’ he explained. ‘You know, the small dark chap who’s a don at my college. I didn’t really understand what he was on about, to tell you the truth. But it made me think you must have been a friend of Hugh’s. He was my tutor, you see, that’s why I’m interested.’

  Loretta silently cursed Geoffrey. His indiscretion had not gone unnoticed, after all. ‘Oh, that,’ she said, attempting lightness. There was nothing to worry about, she told herself. Jamie had no idea of her real motive for searching the dead man’s rooms. She smiled ruefully. Tm afraid if s a rather discreditable story,’ she said. ‘In my defence, I should say it happened before the body was discovered. I wouldn’t have dreamed of doing it if I’d known he was dead.’ She launched into a brief account of her visit to Puddephat’s rooms, leaving vague what she had done there and making much of the fright she had got when the fire bell went off. Just to be on the safe side, she kept Bridget out of it altogether. ‘So it was all a waste of time,’ she ended brightly. ‘No sign of my notes at all.’

  ‘I always thought Hugh was very lucky to have those rooms,’ Jamie said. ‘You won’t have appreciated it at night, but the view over the gardens is breathtaking. Not that I cared much for the way he kept them. That dreadful picture you must have noticed that? It’s an original, you know.’

  ‘I guessed it was,’ Loretta agreed. ‘Not my taste either, I must admit.’ She remembered the violent daub over Puddephat’s desk.

  ‘And nothing else to look at,’ Jamie went on. ‘Not a single photo of his family or friends.’

  Loretta’s ears pricked up. There was something funny about his tone of voice, almost as if he were asking rather than telling her. The photograph, she thought, in a flash of intuition. He knows about the photograph. He’s trying to find out if I saw it. Convinced she was on to something, she felt emboldened.

  ‘How did you get on with him?’ she asked, taking a sip from her glass to avoid looking directly at his face. She didn’t want to give anything away.

  Jamie paused. ‘Gosh,’ he said at last, ‘that’s a difficult one. To be absolutely honest, I was in a rather awkward position.’ He stopped, and Loretta looked up. Was she imagining it, or had a look of caution entered his eyes? He glanced towards the two students at the table, and lowered his voice. ‘I don’t know how much you know about Hugh’s private life, but the fact is he had rather a crush on me. It really got very difficult. It took me a while to take in what was going on, of course. When I first arrived, and he seemed interested in me, I was rather flattered. I mean, I was just an obscure first-year, and he went out of his way to encourage me. But after a while I began to think there was more to it than that, and I didn’t know how to handle it. He was always inviting me to little supper parties and so on, and it became so noticeable that other people began to make snide comments. I wasn’t imagining it, honestly. I don’t have any delusions about myself. But I didn’t know what to do. He was my tutor, after all. I couldn’t risk falling out with him completely. So, although I’m sorry he’s dead, I’m rather relieved to have Bridget this year.’

  ‘I’m sure you are,’ Loretta said warmly, congratulating herself on her powers of deduction. She had been right in her assumption about the photograph - she was sure now that it had been taken at one of those supper parties, and without prior warning. Even though the episode had nothing to do with Puddephat’s death, her intuition had not led her astray. She was so pleased with herself that she had no qualms about adding: ‘D’you have any theories about his death? Any idea who might have wanted to kill him?’ It was worth a try, she thought. It was still possible that Jamie knew something she didn’t, without realizing its significance.

  But Jamie shrugged. ‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ he said. ‘I’d been trying to see as little as possible of him towards the end of term. My last interview with him was very brief. Do you want some more wine?’

  Loretta nodded, only slightly disappointed. Watching him refill her glass, she noticed he had unusually long fingernails for a man. All in all, she thought, flicking her hair back from her face, he was quite an unusual person. His clothes - a Fair-Isle pullover and collarless white shirt - were quaintly old-fashioned. His attitude to public schools, on the other hand, was anything but traditional.

  ‘Loretta,’ he said suddenly. ‘That’s not a name you hear very often. Is it after Loretta Young?’

  ‘No,’ she admitted, surprised by the abrupt change of subject.

  ‘I thought perhaps your mother had seen The Call of the Wild as a child, and liked the name,’ he explained. ‘You know - Loretta Young and Clark Gable?’ Loretta looked blank. She had never heard of the film. ‘Loretta Lynn then? No, of course not, she’s too young for you to have been named after her. So where did it come from?’

  Loretta felt herself blush. ‘I got it from a novel I read at school,’ she said, looking down and shuffling her feet. ‘I can’t remember what it was called, or who wrote it. But it stuck in my mind. I was christened Laura, you see,’ she added, in a rush of confidence, but I never liked it. And when I left home for the first time, it suddenly occurred to me that there was no reason why I shouldn’t change it. So I did.’ She tailed off, embarrassed. She did not very often tell this particular story. But Jamie’s smile was friendly.

  ‘How very enterprising of you,’ he said. ‘And it’s certainly very memorable. Loretta Lawson. In fact, I’m sure I know it from somewhere. Maybe something you’ve written?’

  Loretta’s mind flew back to her conversation with the American postgraduate earlier in the evening. Surely she hadn’t found another reader of Fern Sap? The journal’s subscription list proved its readership to be overwhelmingly female. After an initial flurry of outraged interest from male English dons and undergraduates, it had gone on to be studiously ignored by them. But then Jamie, as she was finding out, was no run-of-the-mill student.

  ‘Yes, that’s it,’ he exclaimed, confirming this view. ‘You wrote an article about Eliot in a feminist magazine I picked up in Blackwell’s. All about how he was a bit of a shit, and you couldn’t get it out of your mind while you were reading The Waste Land. Very refreshing after listening to two terms of this death-of-the-author stuff.’

  Loretta glowed with pleasure. The evening was turning out to be much more enjoyable than she’d anticipated. ‘I’ve just finished a piece for the January issue,’ she said. ‘It’s on women characters in books about the Holocaust. I don’t know if you’ve read any of them. Things like The White Hotel and Sophie’s Choice?’

  ‘Oh, those,’ Jamie said dismissively. They’re just the sort of things your friends over there would like. Absolutely riddled with misogyny.’

  Loretta opened her eyes wide. This was precisely her own conclusion, but Jamie was the first man she’d met who agreed with her. She was about to pursue his remark when she felt a hand on her arm. Turning, she found Bridget, accompanied by a Mack student she had noticed earlier.

 
There you are,’ she said to Loretta. ‘I’ve been wanting to introduce you to Edward all evening. He’s one of my PhD students, and he’s writing a thesis on Virginia Woolf.’ Jamie waited politely until these introductions were over, and then excused himself. Trapped, Loretta had no choice but to give her attention to Bridget and Edward.

  ‘You were deep in conversation,’ her friend said curiously.

  ‘We were talking about misogyny,’ Loretta said firmly. There was a suggestion in Bridget’s tone she did not want to respond to.

  ‘I thought Jamie would be more cut up about Hugh Puddephat,’ Edward said idly. ‘Hugh always had a little group of favourites, an in-crowd so to speak,’ he explained to Loretta, ‘and Jamie was definitely one of them. He seems to have got over the shock pretty quickly.’

  ‘A remarkable recovery,’ drawled a young woman who had just joined the group. ‘After all, they were very close friends.’ Her meaning was unmistakable. Edward recoiled slightly.

  ‘D’you ever have a good word for anyone, Natasha?’ he enquired coldly. Loretta bit her tongue. It was none of her business what people thought of Jamie Baird. She turned to Edward and, ignoring the girl called Natasha, asked a question about the progress of his thesis.

  The first guests began to leave an hour or so later. Loretta had wandered back into the drawing-room, and was chatting to a classics don who taught at the same college as Bridget. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Jamie in conversation with two people she didn’t recognize. She was trying to engineer her escape from the classics lecturer when Jamie made his way over. He waited for the other woman to finish what she was saying, and then smiled shyly at Loretta.

  ‘I have to leave now,’ he said, ‘or I’ll miss my lift. But I enjoyed talking to you. I hope we’ll meet again some time.’ His tone was a little stiff, and Loretta was not sure what to read into it. Disconcerted, she said goodbye, and watched him leave the room.