by David Lodge
The file merely confirmed what Morris knew already: that Dempsey was much the stronger candidate on grounds of research and publication, while Swallow’s claim was based on seniority and general service to the University. As teachers there was no evidence on which to discriminate between them. Normally, Morris wouldn’t have hesitated to back brains and recommend Dempsey. Service, after all, was cheap. The laws of academic Realpolitik indicated that if Dempsey didn’t get quick promotion, he might leave, whereas Swallow would stay on, doing his job in the same dull, conscientious way whether he got promoted or not. Furthermore, if Morris had no great personal warmth for Dempsey, he had several good reasons for positively disliking Philip Swallow, who had screwed his daughter, butchered his work in the TLS and, for all he knew, filled that cupboard with empty cans as a booby trap. It was a strange and should have been a satisfying twist of circumstance that had placed the fate of this man in his hands. Yet Morris, mentally fingering the executioner’s axe and studying the bared neck of Philip Swallow held out on the block before him, hesitated. It wasn’t, after all, only Swallow’s happiness and prosperity that were at stake here. Hilary and the children were also involved, and for their welfare he felt a warm concern. A rise for Swallow meant more bread for the whole family. And, he couldn’t help thinking, whatever it was that Hilary had meant to imply by the invitation to stay an extra night, her welcome could only be made warmer by the news that Philip was to get a promotion partly through his (Morris’s) influence, right? Right.
“I’d say, promote Swallow,” Morris said, handing back the file.
“Really?” Stroud drawled. “I thought you’d favour the other man. He seems the better scholar.”
“Dempsey’s publications are OK, but they’ve more show than substance. He’s never gonna really make it in linguistics. The senior class at MIT could run rings round him.”
“Is that so?”
“Also, he’s not popular in the Department. If he gets promoted over so many older people, all hell will break out. The Department is already drifting into collective paranoia. No point in making things worse.”
“Very true, I’m sure,” Stroud murmured, making a tiny, fatal stroke on the list of names with his gold fountain pen. “I’m much obliged to you, my dear fellow.”
“You’re welcome,” said Morris, getting to his feet.
“Don’t go yet, old chap. There’s something else I wanted to—”
The VC broke off and stared indignantly at the door which connected with his secretary’s office and had suddenly opened. The secretary hovered timidly at the threshold. “Yes? What is it, Helen? I said I was not to be disturbed.” Irritation made his manner almost brisk.
“I’m sorry Vice-Chancellor. But there are two gentlemen… and Mr. Biggs of Security. It’s very important, they say.”
“If you would just ask them to wait until Professor Zapp has left—”
“But it’s Professor Zapp they want to see. A matter of life and death, they said.”
Stroud lifted an eyebrow in Morris’s direction. Morris shrugged his incomprehension, but felt a twinge of apprehension. Had Mary Makepeace given birth on the 8:50 to Durham?
“Oh, very well, you’d better let them come in,” said the Vice-Chancellor.
Three men entered the room. One was the superintendent of the campus security force. The other two introduced themselves as a doctor and a male nurse from a private psychiatric clinic somewhere in the sticks. They came quickly to the point of their intrusion. Professor Masters had escaped from their care the night before and it was thought that he would probably make for the University. Unfortunately, there was reason to believe that he might be intending violence to certain parties, in particular Professor Zapp.
“Me?” Morris exclaimed. “Why me? What have I ever done to the old guy?”
“It appears from notes made by one of our staff,” said the doctor, looking curiously at Morris, “that he associated you with certain recent disturbances at the University. He feels that you conspired with the students to weaken the authority of the senior staff.”
“You was a Quisling, was how he put it, sir,” said the male nurse, with a friendly grin. “Said you plotted to get him removed.”
“That’s ridiculous! He resigned of his own free will,” Morris exclaimed, looking appealingly to Stroud, who coughed and lowered his eyes.
“Well, we did have to use a little persuasion,” he murmured.
“Professor Masters is of course a sick man,” said the doctor. “Subject to delusions. But I noticed, Professor Zapp—we looked for you in the English Department first—that you’re occupying Professor Masters’ old room—”
“That’s just chance!”
“Quite so. But just the sort of thing to confirm Professor Masters in his delusion, should he discover it.”
“I’ll move back into my old room directly.”
“I think, Professor Zapp, for your own safety, you should stay away from the University altogether until Professor Masters is traced and safely returned to the clinic. You see, we’re afraid he may have obtained a weapon…”
“Oh, come now, doctor,” said the Vice-Chancellor. “Don’t let’s be too alarmist.”
“Well, it is alarming, sir,” said the Superintendent of Security, speaking for the first time. “After all, Professor Masters is an old soldier, and a sportsman. A crack shot, I was always given to understand.”
“Jesus,” said Morris, trembling with backdated fear. “Those tiles.”
“What tiles?” said the VC.
“Twice today I’ve been shot at and I didn’t realize. I thought it was just your lousy new building shedding tiles. Jesus, I might have been killed. That crazy old man’s been sniping at me, you dig? I’ll bet he’s been up on the clock tower with telescopic sights. I thought this was supposed to be a peaceful country! I’ve lived forty years in the States and never once heard a shot fired in anger. I come over here and what happens?” He became aware that he was shouting.
“Steady on, Zapp,” the VC murmured.
“Sorry,” Morris mumbled. “It’s just the shock of discovering that you’ve been near death without knowing it.”
“Quite natural I’m sure,” said Stroud. “Why don’t you go straight home and stay safely indoors until this little problem is solved?”
“I think that’s the wisest thing you could do,” said the doctor.
“You talked me into it,” said Morris, making for the door. He slowed down when he realized that he was not being accompanied, and turned. The four men, grouped around the desk, smiled encouragingly at him. Too proud to ask for an escort, Morris made a gesture of farewell, stalked purposefully out through the secretary’s office, and only as he descended the stairs of the Administration Block remembered that he had left his car keys in his office and would have to return to the Hexagon before leaving the University. He made a complicated detour which kept cover between himself and the campanile, and entered the Hexagon from the rear at the lower ground floor. He boarded the paternoster, here at its lowest accessible point, and was borne silently aloft to the eighth floor. As he stepped out on to the landing, the first thing he saw was Gordon Masters ripping from his office door the temporary paper slip bearing Morris’s name. Morris froze. Masters looked up from grinding the paper under his heel and stared at Morris with puzzled half-recognition: both his eyes were bright with lunacy. He took a pace forward, gnawing and tugging at his unkempt moustache. Morris retreated rapidly into the paternoster and was borne upwards. He could hear Masters galloping up the staircase that spiralled round the shaft of the paternoster. Each time Masters arrived on a landing, Morris was just moving out of sight. On the eleventh floor Morris, thinking to trick his pursuer, jumped out of the elevator and boarded a downward-moving compartment, but not before Masters glimpsed the manoeuvre. Morris heard a heavy thump above his head as Masters leapt into the next compartment. On the fifth floor Morris hopped out and boarded a rising compartment. He was preparing to
get out at the eighth floor again when he saw Masters’ feet coming into view, upon which he quickly turned to face the rear wall and continued his upwards journey. Numb with fright he passed the ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth floors and then entered the limbo of grinding machinery and flashing lights that was at the top of the shaft. The cabin he was in lurched sideways and then began its descent. Morris hopped out at the twelfth floor to meditate his next move. As he stood pondering on the landing Masters appeared before him moving slowly downwards, standing on his head. They gazed at each other in mutual puzzlement until Masters sank from Morris’s sight. It was only much later that Morris deduced that Masters, having been carried upwards beyond the top floor of the paternoster’s circuit, and being under the impression that the compartment turned over to make its descent, had performed a handstand in the belief that he would drop harmlessly from ceiling to floor when his compartment was inverted.
Now Morris could hear him running indefatigably up the stairs towards the twelfth floor. Morris jumped into the paternoster on the down side. As he passed the tenth floor, Masters whizzed past on foot, glimpsed him out of the corner of his eyes, skidded to a halt, and jumped into the compartment above Morris. Morris went down to the sixth floor, crossed the landing and travelled up to the ninth, walked across, went down past the eighth checking that the coast was clear, decided that it was, and got out on the seventh floor to re-ascend. Leaping across the landing to board the paternoster going up, he brushed against Masters agilely transferring himself in the opposite direction.
Morris went up to the ninth floor, across and down to the sixth, up to the tenth, down to the ninth, up to the eleventh, down to the eighth, up to the eleventh, down to the tenth, up and over the top, and got out on the twelfth, going down.
Masters was standing there, with his back to Morris, looking into the shaft of the upward-moving side of the paternoster. With a hard, well-aimed thrust, Morris bundled him into the paternoster and he was borne aloft into limbo. As Masters’ feet disappeared from view, Morris broke the seal on the safety device embedded in the wall and pulled the red lever. The moving chain of compartments suddenly jerked to a halt, and a bell began to ring shrilly. Very faintly, muffled shouts and the hammering of fists could be heard coming from the top of the shaft.
…
Hilary wore a preoccupied frown as she opened the door. When she recognized Morris she went pale, then blushed. “Oh,” she said faintly. “It’s you. I was just going to phone you.”
“Again?”
She let him in and closed the door. “What have you come for?”
“I don’t know, what are you offering?” He waggled his eyebrows like Groucho Marx.
Hilary looked distressed. “Aren’t you teaching today?”
“It’s a long story. D’you want to hear it in the lobby or shall we sit down?” Hilary was still lingering by the front door.
“I was going to say that after all I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to stay the night.” She spoke very quickly, averting her eyes from his.
“Oh? Why’s that?”
“I just don’t think it would be a good idea.”
“OK. If that’s the way you want it. I’ll take my bag round to O’Shea’s now.” He moved towards the stairs.
“I’m sorry.”
“Hilary,” Morris said, in a tone of fatigue, stopping on the first stair, but not turning round. “If you don’t want to sleep with me, that’s your privilege, but for Christ’s sake don’t keep saying you’re sorry.”
“I’m—” She choked back the word. “Have you had lunch?”
“No.”
“There’s nothing in the house, I’m afraid. I should have gone shopping this morning. I could open a tin of soup.”
“Don’t bother.”
“It’s no bother.”
He went up to the guest room to get his suitcase. When he came downstairs, Hilary was in the kitchen, stirring cream of asparagus soup in a saucepan and frying croutons. They ate at the kitchen table. Morris recounted his adventures with Masters, to which Hilary reacted with a suprising lack of excitement—indeed she scarcely seemed to be listening, politely murmuring, “Really?” “Goodness me,” and “How terrifying,” just a little late on cue.
“Do you believe what I’m telling you?” he said at last. “Or d’you think I’m making it all up?”
“Are you making it up?”
“No.”
“Then of course I believe you, Morris. What happened next?”
“You seem to be taking it pretty coolly. Anyone would think this kind of thing happened every week. I don’t know what happened next. I phoned security to tell them Masters was trapped in the top of the paternoster and got the hell out of the place… Hey, this is good.” He slurped the soup greedily. “By the way,” he said, “your husband is going to get promoted.”
“What?” Hilary laid down her soup spoon.
“Your husband is going to get a Senior Lectureship.”
“Philip?”
“That’s right.”
“But why? He doesn’t deserve it.”
“I’m inclined to agree with you, but I thought you’d be pleased.”
“How do you know?”
Morris explained.
“So really,” said Hilary slowly, “you fiddled this for Philip.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say it was entirely my doing,” said Morris modestly. “I just gave Stroud a nudge in the right direction.”
“I think it’s perfectly foul.”
“What?”
“It’s corrupt. To think that people’s careers can be made or marred like that.”
Morris dropped his spoon with a deliberate clatter, and appealed to the kitchen walls. “Well, that’s gratitude—”
“Gratitude? Am I supposed to feel grateful, then? It’s like the films, what do they call it, the casting couch. Do you have a promotions couch in your office in America?” Hilary was on the verge of tears.
“What’s gotten into you, Hilary?” Morris expostulated. “How many times have you said that Philip would have done better in his career if only he’d pushed, like Robin Dempsey? Well, I pushed for him.”
“Bully for you. I just hope it’s not wasted effort.”
“What d’you mean?”
“Suppose he doesn’t come back to Rummidge?”
“What are you talking about? He’s got to come back, hasn’t he?”
“I don’t know.” Hilary was crying now, great big tears that plopped into her soup like raindrops into a puddle.
Morris got up and went round to the other side of the table. He put a hand on each of her shoulders and shook her gently. “What is this all about, for Chrissake?”
“I phoned Philip this morning. After last night… I wanted him to come home. Straight away. He was horrible. He said he was having an affair—”
“With Melanie?”
“I don’t know. I don’t care who it is. I felt such a fool. There I was, tortured with guilt because I kissed you last night, because I wanted to sleep with you—”
“Did you, Hilary?”
“Of course I did.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Morris tried to pull her to her feet, but she shook her head and clung to the chair.
“No, I don’t feel like it now.”
“Why not? What did you ask me to stay over for anyway?”
Hilary blew her nose on a Kleenex. “I changed my mind.”
“Change it again. Seize the moment. We have the house to ourselves. Come on, Hilary, we both need some loving.”
He was standing behind her now, gently kneading the muscles of her neck and shoulders, as he had offered to do the night before. This time she did not resist, but leaned back against him and closed her eyes. He unfastened the buttons of her blouse and slid his hands down over her breasts.
“All right,” said Hilary. “Let’s go upstairs.”
…
“Morris,” said Hilary, shaking hi
m by the shoulder. “Wake up.”
Morris opened his eyes. Hilary, rosy-complexioned and demure in a pink dressing-gown, was sitting on the edge of the bed. Two cups steamed on the bedside table. He detached a wiry pubic hair from his lower lip. “What time is it?” he said.
“Gone three. I’ve made a cup of tea.”
Morris sat up and sipped the scalding tea. He met Hilary’s eyes over the rim of the cup and she blushed. “Hey,” he said softly. “That was terrific. I feel great. How about you?”
“It was lovely.”
“You’re lovely.”
Hilary smiled. “Don’t overdo it, Morris.”
“I’m serious. You are one lovely piece of ass, you know that?”
“I’m fat and forty.”
“Nothing wrong with that. So am I.”
“I’m sorry I hit you about the head when you started, you know, that kissing stuff. Not very sophisticated, you see.”
“I like that. Now Désirée—”
Hilary lost a little of her radiance. “Could we not talk about your wife, please? Or Philip. Not just now.”
“OK,” said Morris. “Let’s neck instead.” He pulled her down on to the bed.
“No, Morris!” she protested, struggling feebly. “The children will be home soon.”
“There’s plenty of time,” he replied, delighted to find himself capable of making love again. The telephone began to ring downstairs in the hall.
“Telephone,” Hilary moaned.
“Let it ring.”
But Hilary wrenched herself free. “If something had happened to the children, I’d never forgive myself,” she said.
“Be quick.”
Hilary soon returned, her eyes wide with surprise.
“It’s for you,” she said. “It’s the Vice-Chancellor.”
Morris took the call standing in the hall in his underpants.
“Ah, Zapp. Terribly sorry to bother you,” the VC murmured. “How are you feeling after your adventures?”
“I’m feeling terrific right now. What happened to Masters?”