by Unknown
' Oh yeah. What was the topic ?'
done it . . . he was resolutely borne away . . . Her sensations on
' I've done it on Jane Austen's moral awareness.'
the discovery made her perfectly speechless. She could not even
' That doesn't sound like my style.'
thank him. She could only hang over little Charles with the
'I couldn't understand the title you gave me, Professor most disordered feelings." How about that?' he concluded Zapp.'
reverently. 'If that isn't an orgasm, what is i t ? ' He looked
'Eros and Agape in the later novels, wasn't it? What was up into three flabbergasted faces. The internal telephone the problem?'
rang.
The student hung his head. Morris felt in the mood for a It was the Vice-Chancellor's secretary, asking if Morris little display of high-powered exposition. Agape, he ex-would be free to see the VC some time that morning. Was plained, was a feast through which the early Christians ex-the President of the Student Council quibbling about repre-pressed their love for one another, it symbolized non-sexual, sentation on the Promotions and Appointments Committee, non-individualized love, it was represented in Jane Austen's Morris inquired. The secretary didn't know, but Morris was novels by social events that confirmed the solidarity of willing to take a bet he was right. He'd always been surprised middle-class agrarian capitalist communities or welcomed by the readiness with which the Student President had new members into those communities — balls and dinner waived representation on Promotions and Appointments: parties and sight-seeing expeditions and so on. Eros was of no doubt his militant henchmen had been leaning on him to course sexual love and was represented in Jane Austen by raise the issue again. Morris smiled knowingly to himself as courtship scenes, tete-a-tetes, walking in pairs - any en-he scribbled an appointment for 10.30 in his desk diary.
counter between the heroine and the man she loved, or Mediating between the two sides in this dispute at Rum-214
213
midge he often felt like a grandmaster of chess overlooking a
'Sure. Delighted.'
match between two novices - able to predict the entire
•Lovely.'
pattern of the game while they sweated over every move. To There was a pause, in which he could hear Hilary breath-the Rummidge faculty his prescience seemed uncanny, his ing.
expertise in chairing negotiations amazing. They didn't
' Is that O K, then ?' he asked.
realize that he had seen so many campus disturbances in
'Yes. Morris...'
Euphoria that he knew the basic scenario by heart.
•Yeah?'
• Where were we ?' he said.
'Are you going back to your flat today ?'
'Persuasion. ..'
'Yeah. I'll come round to pick up my bag this evening.'
•Oh, yeah.1
'I was going to say, you could stay another night if you The telephone rang again. 'An outside call for you,' said wanted to.'
Alice Slade.
' W e l l . . . '
'Alice,' Morris sighed. 'Please don't put any calls through
•Mary's away tonight. Sometimes I get scared in the until this class is over.'
night, in the house on my own.'
' Sorry. Shall I ask her to call back ?'
•Sure. I'll stay.'
'Who is it?'
' You're sure it's no trouble ?'
'Mrs Swallow.'
'No, no. That's fine.'
'Put her on.'
'All right. See you this evening, then.' She hung up
' Morris ?' Hilary's voice sounded trembly.
abruptly. Morris swung round in his chair to replace the
•Hi.'
receiver and rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
'Are you teaching or something ?'
' Shall I read my paper or not ?' said the bearded student,
*No, no, not really.' He covered the mouthpiece with one with a trace of impatience.
hand and said to the students, 'Just read through that scene
•What? Oh, yeah. Read it. Read it.'
in Persuasion will you and try to analyse how it builds up to a While the boy drawled on about Jane Austen's moral climax. In every sense of the word.' He leered at them en-awareness, Morris pondered the implications of Hilary's couragingly, and resumed his conversation with Hilary.
surprising call. Could she possibly mean what he thought
'What's new?'
she meant ? He found it difficult to concentrate on the paper,
' I just wanted to apologize for last night.'
and was relieved when the clock in the campanile struck
'Honey, it's me that should apologize,' said Morris, taken ten. As the students shuffled out through the door, Rupert by surprise.
Sutcliffe shuffled in, a tall, stooped, melancholy figure, with
' No, I behaved like a silly young girl. Leading you on and ill-fitting glasses that kept slipping to the end of his nose.
then backing away in a panic. After all, it's nothing to make Sutcliffe was the Department Romantics man, but he was a fuss about, is it ?'
short on joy, and being made Acting Head on Masters'
' No, no.' Morris swung round in his chair to turn his back departure hadn't apparently raised his spirits.
on the students, and spoke in a low voice.' What isn't ?'
' Oh, Zapp. Could you spare a minute ?'
'Anyway, I haven't had such a nice evening for years.'
' Can we discuss it over a cup of coffee ?'
'Let's do it again. Soon.'
' I ' m afraid not. Not in the Senior Common Room. It's
' Gould you bear it?'
a rather delicate matter.' He closed the door conspiratonally 216
217
behind him and tip-toed towards Morris. 'These post-hand on the doorknob. 'By the way, will you be coming to graduate applications -' He placed a stack of files (the same the Departmental Meeting this morning ?'
that Alice Slade had brought in earlier) on to Morris's desk.
'Can't be sure, Rupert,' said Morris, rising from his
'We've got to decide which ones to put forward for approval executive's chair and shrugging on his jacket. 'I have an by the Faculty Committee.'
appointment with the VC at ten thirty.'
'Yeah?'
'That's unfortunate. I was hoping you would chair the
'Well, one of them is from Hilary Swallow. Swallow's meeting. We've got to discuss next session's lecture pro-wife, you know.'
gramme, and there's bound to be a lot of disagreement. They
'Yes, I know. I'm one of her referees.'
will argue so, since Masters left...'
'God bless my soul, are you really? I hadn't noticed. You He drifted out. Morris followed him and was locking the know all about it then ?'
door of his office when Bob Busby came running down the
'Well, something. What's the problem? She was halfway corridor, money and keys jingling in his pockets.
through a Master's course when she got married and quit.
'Morris!' he panted. 'Glad I caught you. You're coming Now her kids are growing up and she'd like to get back into to the meeting ?'
research.'
Morris explained that he probably wouldn't be able to
'That's all very well, but it puts us in a rather awkward make it. Busby looked glum. 'That's too bad. Sutcliffe will position. I mean, the wife of a colleague...'
take the chair, and he's hopeless. I'm afraid Dempsey is He was a bachelor, Sutcliffe, a genuine old-fashioned going to try and force through some proposal about com-bachelor, as distinct from being gay or hip - and women pulsory linguistics.'
scared him to death. The two on the Department staff he
'Is that bad?'
treated as honorary men. If his colleagues had to have Busby stared. 'Well, of course it'
s bad. I thought from the wives, he intimated, the least they could do was to keep way you tore into Dempsey's paper at the staff seminar...'
them at home in decent obscurity. ' I think Swallow might
'I was attacking his paper, not his discipline. I have at least have discussed the matter with us before letting his nothing against linguistics as such.'
wife make a formal application,' he sighed.
' Well, for practical purposes Dempsey is linguistics around
'I don't think he knows anything about it,' said Morris here,' said Busby. 'Compulsory linguistics means com-carelessly.
pulsory Dempsey for the students and I don't think even Sutcliffe's glasses nearly jumped off his nose. 'You mean -
they deserve that.'
she's deceiving him ?'
'You may have something there, Bob,' said Morris. He
'No, no. She wants to be considered on her own merits, had ambivalent feelings about Robin Dempsey. In one sense without any favouritism.'
he was the nearest thing the Department had to a recog-Sutcliffe looked doubtful. 'That's all very well,' he nizable professional academic. He was industrious, am-grumbled.' But who's to supervise her, if she does come ?'
bitious and hard-headed. He had no quirks or crotchets. He
'I think she was rather hoping you would, Rupert,'
was, apart from being necessarily less brilliant, very much Morris said mischievously.
what Morris himself had been at the same age, and indeed
' God forbid!' Sutcliffe picked up the files and made for had made some overtures of friendship, or at least collusion, the door, as if fearing that Hilary might jump out of a cup-with Morris in the course of his visit. Morris, however, had board at him and demand a supervision. He paused with his found these advances surprisingly resistible. He did not fee]
218
219
inclined to join Dempsey in patronizing the rest of the
'Cigarette?' He made a feeble attempt to push a wooden Rummidge faculty. Even if they were in many respects a cigarette box across his desk in Morris's direction.
bunch of freaks, he found them easy to get along with. Never
' I'll have a cigar, if you don't mind. Will you join me ?'
in his academic career had he felt less threatened than in the
'No, no, no.' The VC smiled and shook his head wearily.
last five months. ' Look, Bob,' he said.' I've got an appoint-
'I want to ask your advice concerning one or two little ment with the V C
problems.' He propped his elbows on the arms of his chair
'Yes, I must be on my way, too,' said Busby. He jog-and, by interlacing his fingers, formed a shelf on which to trotted off in the direction of the Senior Common Room.
rest his chin.
'Get to the meeting if you can!' he shouted over his
' Promotions and Appointments ?' Morris queried.
shoulder. Morris had no intention of attending the meeting The shelf collapsed, and the VC's jaw sagged momen-if he could possibly avoid it. Staff meetings at Rummidge tarily. ' How did you know ?'
had been bad enough under Masters' whimsically despotic
'I guessed the students wouldn't let you get away with regime. Since his departure they made the Mad Hatter's excluding them from that committee.'
Tea Party seem like a paradigm of positive decision-making.
Stroud's face cleared. 'Oh, it's nothing to do with the He stepped with a lithe, well-timed movement into the students, dear fellow.' He permitted himself an almost paternoster and subsided gently to the ground floor. As he vigorous gesture of dismissal. 'All that unpleasantness is over emerged into the bright air (another sunny spell was in and done with, thanks to you. No, this is something exclusive-progress) the clock in the campanile struck the half hour ly concerning academic staff, and absolutely confidential.
and he accelerated his pace. It was as well he did so, for I have here -' he nodded at a manilla file reposing on his another tile sprang from the wall above his head with a otherwise immaculate desk - 'a list of nominations from the resounding crack like a bullet ricocheting and scattered in various Faculties for Senior Lectureships, due to come before fragments just behind him. This isn't even funny any more, the Promotions and Appointments Committee this after-he thought looking up at the facade of the building, now noon. There are two names from the English Department.
beginning to look like a gigantic crossword puzzle. Before Robin Dempsey, whom you probably know, and your long somebody was going to get seriously killed and sue the opposite number, now in Euphoria.'
University for a million dollars. He made a mental note to
'Philip Swallow?'
mention it to the Vice-Chancellor.
'Precisely. The problem is that we have fewer Senior Lectureships to play with than we thought, and one of these
'Ah, Zapp! Awfully good of you to drop in,' the Vice-men will have to be unlucky. The question is, which one?
Chancellor murmured, half-rising from his desk as Morris Who is the more deserving? I'd like to have your opinion, was ushered in. Morris waded through the deep-pile Zapp. I'd really value your opinion on this ticklish ques-carpeting and shook the hand limply extended to him.
tion. ' Stroud slumped back in his seat and closed his eyes in Stewart Stroud was a tall, powerfully built man whr fatigue after this uncharacteristically long speech. 'Do have affected a manner of extreme languor and debility. Ke a look at the file, old chap, if that would help,' he murmured.
seldom spoke above a whisper, and moved abou' with the The file merely confirmed what Morris knew already: caution of an elderly invalid. Now he sank back into his that Dempsey was much the stronger candidate on grounds chair as if the effort of rising and shaking hands had ex-of research and publication, while Swallow's claim was hausted him. 'Do pull up a chair, old man,' he said.
based on seniority and general service to the University. As 88O
S2I
teachers there was no evidence on which to discriminate
'Very true, I'm sure,' Stroud murmured, making a tiny, between them. Normally, Morris wouldn't have hesitated to fatal stroke on the list of names with his gold fountain pen.
back brains and recommend Dempsey. Service, after all,
'I'm much obliged to you, my dear fellow.'
was cheap. The laws of academic Rtalpolitik indicated that if
'You're welcome,' said Morris, getting to his feet.
Dempsey didn't get quick promotion, he might leave,
'Don't go yet, old chap. There's something else I wanted whereas Swallow would stay on, doing his job in the same t o - '
dull, conscientious way whether he got promoted or not.
The VG broke off and stared indignantly at the door Furthermore, if Morris had no great personal warmth for which connected with his secretary's office and had sudden-Dempsey, he had several good reasons for positively dis-ly opened. The secretary hovered timidly at the threshold.
liking Philip Swallow, who had screwed his daughter,
'Yes? What is it, Helen? I said I was not to be disturbed.'
butchered his work in the TLS and, for all he knew, filled Irritation made his manner almost brisk.
that cupboard with empty cans as a booby trap. It was a
'I'm sorry Vice-Chancellor. But there are two gentle-strange and should have been a satisfying twist of circum-men . . . and Mr Biggs of Security. It's very important, they stance that had placed the fate of this man in his hands. Yet say.'
Morris, mentally fingering the executioner's axe and study-
' If you would just ask them to wait until Professor Zapp ing the bared neck of Philip Swallow held out on the block has left-'
before him, hesitated. It wasn't, after all, only Swallow's
'But it's Professor Zapp they want to see. A matter of life happiness and prosperity that were at stake here. Hilary and and death, they said.'
the chi
ldren were also involved, and for their welfare he felt Stroud lifted an eyebrow in Morris's direction. Morris a warm concern. A rise for Swallow meant more bread for shrugged his incomprehension, but felt a twinge of appre-the whole family. And, he couldn't help thinking, whatever hension. Had Mary Makepeace given birth on the 8.50
it was that Hilary had meant to imply by the invitation to to Durham ?
stay an extra night, her welcome could only be made warmer
' Oh, very well, you'd better let them come in,' said the by the news that Philip was to get a promotion partly Vice-Chancellor.
through his (Morris's) influence, right? Right.
Three men entered the room. One was the superinten-
'I'd say, promote Swallow,' Morris said, handing back dent of the campus security force. The other two introduced the file.
themselves as a doctor and a male nurse from a private
'Really?' Stroud drawled. 'I thought you'd favour the psychiatric clinic somewhere in the sticks. They came other man. He seems the better scholar.'
quickly to the point of their intrusion. Professor Masters had
'Dempsey's publications are OK, but they've more show escaped from their care the night before and it was thought than substance. He's never gonna really make it in lin-that he would probably make for the University. Unfor-guistics. The senior class at M I T could run rings round tunately, there was reason to believe that he might be in-him.'
tending violence to certain parties, in particular Professor
'Is that so?'
Zapp.
'Also, he's not popular in the Department. If he gets
' M e ? ' Morris exclaimed. 'Why me? What have I ever promoted over so many older people, all hell will break out.
done to the old guy ?'
The Department is already drifting into collective paranoia.
' I t appears from notes made by one of our staff,' said the No point in making things worse.'
doctor, looking curiously at Morris,' that he associated you 229
323
with certain recent disturbances at the University. He feels and never once heard a shot fired in anger. I come over here that you conspired with the students to weaken the authority and what happens ?' He became aware that he was shouting.