by Jonathan Coe
‘Well, that was four years ago. Perhaps he’s changed since then. To my mind, there’s been nothing unusual about him recently. He often disappears for days at a time. He often forgets to shave. He always smells like that. He’s a student. Worse than that, he’s a postgraduate student. What incentive is there to keep up appearances?’
Ted could not follow the logic of this argument.
‘Robin is studying for his doctorate. That is a respectable profession like any other.’
‘Profession my arse,’ said Hugh cheerfully. ‘Robin will never finish his thesis. Doctorate my fanny. I’ve seen dozens like him. How long’s he been doing it now? Four and a half years. And do you know why he’s nowhere near finishing it?’
‘Why?’
‘Because he hasn’t started it yet.’
Professor Davis was now approaching their table. He was thin, bespectacled, and almost bald, and had a habit of staring around him as if looking hopefully for someone who he knew, in his heart, would not be there. His progress towards them was painfully slow; at one point he tripped on the carpet and stumbled against a plastic table. Behind him, Christopher (who seemed to be about Robin’s age) was carrying a tray which held two cups of coffee and a macaroon.
‘Professor Davis is actually quite a celebrity,’ said Hugh. ‘You’ve probably heard of him.’
Ted found it convenient to nod.
‘In the academic world he has the reputation of being something of an iconoclast. His new book, The Failure of Contemporary Literature, provides a radical and provocative overview of the last twenty years. Critics have hailed it as the logical successor to his earlier book, Culture in Crisis, which provided a radical and provocative overview of the previous twenty years. He and I are old friends. We came to the university at exactly the same time.’
‘When was that?’
‘Sixteen years ago.’
As Ted pondered this information, the professor finally arrived and Hugh rushed to get him a seat, which he sank into, wheezing like an asthmatic. Christopher drew up a fourth chair and put the tray down in the middle of the table.
‘So,’ said Hugh, after a pause, ‘are you well? How are things in the department?’
‘Oh, not too bad, not too bad,’ said Davis, helping himself to sugar.
His students hung on these words and nodded sagely after he had spoken them. Then there was another silence. When he seemed about to speak again, Hugh and Christopher leaned forward in anticipation.
‘The trouble with getting sugar in lumps,’ he said, ‘is that two is never enough, and three is always too much. Don’t you find that?’
He continued sipping his coffee, thoughtfully.
‘I see you’ve got Kronenburg’s new book on narrative aesthetics,’ said Christopher, picking up Hugh’s library book. He turned to Davis. ‘You’ve read this, of course?’
‘It looked a bit too German and theoretical to me,’ he said, with a benign smile. ‘I gave my review copy away to a nephew in Chipping Sodbury.’
Christopher handed the book back to Hugh.
‘The older one gets,’ said Davis, with his mouth full of cake, ‘the less useful critical theory seems.’
‘You mean one should go back to texts?’ asked Hugh.
‘Yes, perhaps. But then, the more one reads them, the less interesting the texts themselves appear to become.’
‘This essentially is what you’ve been arguing in your new book,’ said Christopher. ‘It’s a radical and provocative viewpoint, if I may say so.’
Davis nodded his acquiescence.
‘But does this mean,’ Hugh asked carelessly, ‘the end of literature as we know it?’
‘As we know it?’
‘As it is taught in our schools and universities.’
‘Ah! No, no… indeed not. Far from it. In fact I think –’ here there was an almighty pause, far surpassing any that had gone before ‘– I think…’ Suddenly he looked up, the gleam of insight in his eye. The tension in the air was palpable. ‘I think I’d like another macaroon.’
Ted took an immediate liking to Professor Davis. He found him entirely free of a trait which was, in his experience, the failing of most academics, that of excessive commitment to his own discipline. Despite the repeated attempts of Hugh and Christopher to involve him in abstruse and specialized discussions, he refused to be drawn, and seemed far more anxious to talk about computers and the nature of Ted’s job. He spent some time trying to convince him of the university’s suitability as a venue for his employers’ next sales conference; and in return, Ted outlined the many advantages, to a man in his position, of a varied and flexible package of word-processor software. Professor Davis was impressed with the labour-saving potential of his programmes, and admitted that he had long been searching for an alternative to the tedious process of correcting his manuscripts by hand. By the time they parted, they had built up a solid respect for one another, and Ted left with a highly satisfied sense of having dealt with a shrewd and very practical businessman.
∗
‘Professor Davis is a brainless dick,’ said Robin, as he sat in the passenger seat of Ted’s car. It was late in the afternoon and they were driving back towards Coventry. ‘The only radical and provocative thing about him is the number of macaroons he manages to get through in a single day. I don’t know what Hugh sees in him.’
‘I don’t know what you see in Hugh,’ Ted answered. ‘He’s not at all the sort of person you would have chosen as a friend at Cambridge. From what I can gather he does nothing all day but hang around at the university drinking coffee and eating sandwiches.’
‘That’s what most of my friends do.’
‘Why doesn’t he get a job?’
‘Because there aren’t any academic jobs.’
‘Then he should look for something else. It’s time he started being realistic.’
‘If he were to start being realistic it would be disastrous. He’d realize that life had nothing in store for him any more. He’d probably kill himself.’
Ted snorted. ‘Don’t be fanciful.’
‘Anyway, Hugh’s not an isolated case. There are lots of people like him at this university. People who don’t belong here any more, but who like it too much to leave. Except that ‘like’ is the wrong word for this sort of person – it’s much too positive – because anyone who likes universities that much really hates life itself.’
‘Yes, but surely in a few years’ time, if he managed to apply himself, and if he managed to get himself onto some sort of training programme –’
‘Someone like Hugh is completely unemployable,’ said Robin, ‘because his mind has travelled too far along a particular path. There’s a certain sort of intelligence he’s gifted with, which, partly as a defence mechanism, partly as a form of egocentricity, he’s started to believe is the only sort worth having. This has rendered him quite literally unfit for the company of other human beings.’ He looked at his watch. ‘You can just drop me at the flat if you like. I suppose you’ll be wanting to go home.’
‘Yes, I had better be getting back.’ Ted had surprised himself, in fact, by not having left already. He was aching, after less than two days’ absence, to see Katharine and Peter, but at the same time he was nagged by a sense of business unfinished, duties undone. He had been shocked to find Robin so changed, and it was on the basis of this shock that he had slowly begun to contrive an explanation for the peculiarities in his behaviour. Robin had simply forgotten the kind of person he used to be, in the days when he was happy; and so the arrival of an old friend from Cambridge was neither more nor less than a God-given opportunity, sudden and unhoped-for. Continuity with the past, with that former self which he so desperately needed to retrieve, could be re-established; and he, Ted, was the agent through which the link could be made. Not to seize this chance would be an unforgivable dereliction of the obligations of friendship. At the very least it was worth missing his supper for. ‘Still, there’s no mad rush,’ he said. ‘What
were you going to do, the rest of today?’
‘I’m tired,’ said Robin. ‘I might go to bed.’
‘You’ve only been up a few hours.’
‘I might watch the news. See if any more war crimes have been committed by our leaders today.’
‘It doesn’t do to worry about what’s going on in other parts of the world. Leave that to the politicians. What about doing some writing?’
‘I’m sick of that. There’s no point.’ After a while, he added: ‘Maybe I’ll do some work on the second story. It’s still not right, yet.’
‘Why don’t we go for a walk?’ said Ted. ‘There must be a park, where we could go for a walk. It’s going to be another nice evening. You could bring your story along. You might get some ideas.’
They were approaching the street where Robin lived. Ted parked the car while Robin went to fetch his second notebook, and then they started walking towards Memorial Park.
‘It’s a lovely evening,’ said Ted, undoing his tie. ‘You know, I think I could really get to like it round here.’
‘This is a fucking stupid idea,’ said Robin.
∗
It is another warm early summer’s evening, and the world seems, to all intents and purposes, to be at peace; so they set off again, these two strange bedfellows, to walk the final stretch of their friendship’s path.
Down Albany Road, and up into Spencer Avenue. This should be familiar territory to Ted, he was here only yesterday, but he was preoccupied then, and is preoccupied now, and he feels no glimmer of recognition. As for Robin, his familiarity with this area is like a bad taste in the mouth, it is like a weight around his neck. He longs to leave these pleasant suburban streets, as soon as possible, for as long as possible, but he has no clear plan of how this can be achieved; and his spirit is so tired, he cannot even find it in him to resent Ted for denying him the temporary means of escape.
They walk, in silence, past the deserted playground of an old school, and they head towards the main road. As they wait at the pelican crossing, a curious phenomenon occurs, and their thoughts begin to concentrate, with a sudden rush of purpose and energy, on exactly the same person. And at last, after so much wilful misunderstanding, so much incomprehension, so much distance and difference, their minds meet, after a fashion. They are both thinking of Katharine. Ted, with a gleam of far-off contentment in his eye, is thinking of how pleased she will be to see him again, how clean and welcoming she will have made the house in readiness for his return. He is thinking of the meals she will cook for him, this weekend, and the wine he will buy to go with the meals, and the love they will make after drinking the wine. He is thinking of how pretty she will look; wondering whether she will be wearing her hair up or down. He is flushed with a new, grateful awareness of his own good fortune: their mutual good fortune, in having found one another.
Meanwhile, Robin’s thoughts are all of the past. He is smarting with the recollection of feelings which he has spent five years trying to suppress; which he thought he had forgotten, until yesterday, when Ted had arrived, and he had once again heard her voice over the telephone. He is remembering his obsession with Katharine, and wondering whether she ever realized, or ever suspected. Or perhaps he is simply shutting the certainty out of his mind, for safety’s sake, since it would have been quite obvious to most people that Katharine had always suspected, and it was only because she had despaired, in the end, of his ever making his intentions clear, that Ted’s blunt, straightforward proposal had come like a break in the clouds. And so if Robin had only been a little more dynamic, a little more decisive, then who knows, she might have married him, in the fullness of time, and they would all have lived happily ever after, even Katharine – who is not, in case you were wondering, going to be allowed a voice in this story, because it is the story of Robin and Ted, who have both, in their different ways, resolved to keep her out of it. Which is a pity, in a way, because I think you would have preferred Katharine to either of them, had you been allowed to meet her.
They are now approaching the entrance to Memorial Park, and as they pass through this leafy gateway, Ted realizes that the moment cannot be put off any longer: an attempt must be made, for Robin’s sake, to plumb the well of shared memory, to remind him of a time when their friendship was fresh and sustaining; to show him that the past, if it lives on in their minds, cannot be irretrievable. So he sits Robin down on a bench, and says:
‘Do you remember that day we rode out to Grantchester, the five of us, you, me, Bernie, Oppo and Little Dave, all on our bikes, and how the sun was shining, and how we’d all finished our exams, and how we stopped at the Red Lion, on the way there, and the Green Dragon, on the way back, and the Black Horse, where we had lunch, and I had scampi, and we all drank champagne, and the sun was blazing away, in the sky, and we sat in the garden, by the river, near the bridge, close to the jetty, just by the boats, and the garden was full of people, young people, like you and me, full of hope, full of fun, full of the joys of spring, except that it was summer, which probably explains why it was raining, for a while, but not for long, and we went inside, and Bernie was drunk, and Oppo was pissed, and Little Dave was completely rat-arsed, and the whole thing was like a scene out of Brideshead Revisited.’
But Robin’s memory of this incident is slightly different; for he remembers only a drizzly May afternoon, when his examinations, far from being finished, were at their height, and being dragged away from his desk, where he was revising, with an energy born of panic rather than enthusiasm, the works of August Strindberg and Anton Chekhov, and being plonked on a bicycle by Ted in the company of three perfect strangers, the whole charade apparently deriving from the belief that he needed ‘taking out of himself’. The ride was long, the day was cold, the pub was full, the benches were wet, the champagne was flat. Nevertheless Robin, too, had managed to get drunk, and the consequence of this had been that he was unable to concentrate on his revision that night and had got an extremely low mark on a paper which should have been among his best.
And so Ted, somewhat taken aback by the discrepancy in their recollection, tries again, by saying:
‘Do you remember those long talks we used to have, long into the night, sometimes with a whole crowd of us, talking about all sorts of things, swapping ideas, having arguments, putting the world to rights, talking about politics, and books, and life, and art, and sometimes just with the two of us, drinking coffee, bursting with so much to say that we’d talk until – well, after bedtime, sometimes, about art, and life, and books, and politics, idealistic maybe, but everybody is idealistic at that age, we grow out of it, as time goes by, optimistic maybe, but young people are often optimistic, you get over it, after a while. Do you remember how we used to talk, just the two of us, long into the night, like a scene out of The Glittering Prizes?’
But Robin’s memory of these evenings contains several material points of contradiction, and falls into two distinct halves: he remembers evenings when there were several people in his room, several of his own friends – scattered, now, and all out of touch – and they would be trying to have a serious discussion about the merits of a particular book, or the integrity of a particular philosophic system, or the trustworthiness of a particular politician, and then at some point or other Ted would barge in, lowering the tone, ruining the atmosphere, forcing the conversation around to his own range of interests, which was not extensive, even then. And the other situation was when Robin would just be preparing for bed, possibly quite early in case there was some work he wanted to start first thing in the morning, and then Ted would arrive, proffering two weak cups of instant coffee as an excuse for entering his bedroom, and he would sit on the bed, and talk about his life, which was not much of a life, even at that stage. And sometimes, in the course of talking about his life, he would talk about his feelings for Katharine, and Robin, who had his own feelings for Katharine which were not, in the last analysis, radically dissimilar to Ted’s, would become upset, inwardly, and would not
be able to sleep, so that the whole of his next day’s work would be ruined.
But Ted, not to be put off by one or two minor inconsistencies in these separate versions of the same event, is soon at it again, saying:
‘Do you remember that lovely day, in that last lovely summer, when we went out on the river, the three of us, you, Katharine, and me? Katharine and I had only just got engaged – it can only have been a day or two earlier that I asked her the question that made her mine for ever. We were so much in love. You were standing up, punting, and we were sitting down, watching you. How privileged we felt. Not just privileged to be there, life’s chosen young things, in our white suits and summer dresses, eating strawberries, and cucumber sandwiches, and cream cakes, and drinking champagne, but privileged to be with each other, and to be with you. Yes, the two of us felt privileged to be with you, Robin, to feel that we had a friend in you, a shared friend. You bound us together in those days, it was almost like having a child. Of course, now we have Peter. But I have to know, Robin, I need to know now – did you sense any of that at the time? Did you know how much you meant to us?’
But it is Robin’s quiet suspicion that Ted is kidding himself, for he remembers the day in question distinctly, and it is not at all as Ted had described it. Ted and Katharine had not arrived at any kind of understanding, of that he is quite certain, because their behaviour together would surely have given it away, and then Robin would not have spent the entire afternoon in an agony of indecision, an ecstasy of trepidation, a stupor of half-formed words and held-back propositions. It is clear that Ted, seduced by the memory of an afternoon which might indeed have appeared romantic to one with his limited sense of the connotations of that word, has projected onto it the overtones of a situation which had not yet taken shape. Besides, Robin had never been able to punt; nor had Ted for that matter; Katharine was the only one who was any good at punting. So Robin toys with the idea of telling Ted that both of the concepts of privilege invoked in his reminiscence have their flaws; but something advises him that his breath would be better saved.