Death of an Old Goat

by Robert Barnard

  ‘Of course they don’t,’ said Lucy, dabbing at her layers of make-up in the driving-mirror. ‘Get a move on, you idiot. You’ve wasted enough time on that old fool as it is.’

  CHAPTER II

  AT BEECHER’S

  PROFESSOR BELVILLE-SMITH perched his tired body irritably on the side of the bed, blinked twice, and picked up the telephone. Really, the man was most inconsiderate — most inconsiderate. Why, he’d hardly even bothered to disguise his intention of dumping his guest, of forcing him to spend a lonely evening in a hideous motel in a one-horse town . . . It was all very well to keep saying ‘You must be tired’; it had never once occurred to him to say ‘You must be hungry’. It was, in Professor Belville-Smith’s opinion, a much more pertinent observation. He had found that, as he grew older, he needed less sleep than formerly, perhaps because he spent so much of the day only half-awake. He had not found that he needed less food. Quite the contrary. And he could not eat just anything. The meal served on the train had been too disgusting for words. He was conscious, now, of being very hungry indeed. He banged resentfully on the receiver-rest of the motel telephone.

  ‘Yes, can I help you, sir?’ came a voice of killing Australian gentility.

  ‘Yes, you can. I wish to order dinner,’ said Belville-Smith, in the voice he used for negligent servants.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I . . . wish . . . to . . . order . . . dinner,’ he said, spacing out his words as if they were milestones.

  ‘I’m afraid, sir, you’re labouring under a misapprehension. Dinner we don’t serve.’ The implication was that any other meal he might care to name was well within their capacity.

  ‘What? You don’t serve dinner?’

  ‘No, sir. But if you would care to order your breakfast for tomorrow you will find an order form . . .’

  ‘I do not want breakfast,’ he almost screamed into the telephone. ‘I’m hungry now. I want my dinner.’

  He heard, though clearly he wasn’t meant to, a muttered ‘They’re just like little children, at times.’ Then the voice, resuming its Kensington vowel-sounds, came through loud and clear again.

  ‘You could try Beecher’s Hotel, you know. Just down the road and turn to the right. Or there’s a very nice little Chinese caffay . . .’

  ‘Chinese! Do you think I’m going to eat that rubbish?’ shouted Belville-Smith, breathlessly.

  ‘I couldn’t say, I’m sure,’ said the voice coolly. ‘But we must try not to be prejudiced, mustn’t we?’

  He found himself sharply and pointedly cut off. He sat down on his bed again, the whimpers rising uncontrollably from his empty stomach. Nowhere else had he been treated like this. If you’re an Oxford Professor and consent to come to the back of beyond, you do at least expect to be an honoured guest. You don’t expect to be stranded, deserted, left to starve. His mind ran lovingly over the things he would say to Professor Wickham tomorrow, then tore itself reluctantly away. When you are old, you have to concentrate on one thing at a time. He concentrated unremittingly on food. Buttoning his coat around him again, he aimed himself at the door.

  Irritation giving purpose to his steps, he made his way through the courtyard of the motel, through the sounds of love-making and television commercials, and turned towards what he thought must be the centre of the town. The night air woke him up a little and he looked curiously round him. All those square, verandahed houses with their paint peeling off and their drab and dry little gardens. Truly, he was in limbo, he thought to himself. He set off towards the sound of cars and juke-boxes. The centre of the town, he soon discovered, was a street, a short street, intersected, always at right angles, by other streets. Australia, he thought, was a country of circles and squares, and they could plan their towns in no other way. One was intolerably confusing, the other simply boring. Where was this hotel? He peered dimly up the street. It reminded him of what the Wild West of America must have been like in the days of his youth: taverns with long balconies all round them, and posts to tie the horses to. Some of the men were not unlike characters he had once seen in a Wild West film long ago, in the days before films began to talk. If those things with balconies really were taverns, then presumably one of them was his destination. He didn’t fancy walking into one; in fact, he rather thought he might get shot at. But he forgot his skin in his concern for his stomach, and he walked along the street peering hungrily about him.

  The smell that first assailed his nostrils was of beer rather than food, and the garish advertisements placarded along the wall were of beer too — sun-lit, bubbling glasses, a mere crude appealing to the thirsty. But looking at the sign over the door he realized thankfully that he had reached his destination. As he walked up the steps of Beecher’s Hotel and into the foyer — decorated with an enormous bunch of gladioli — the door to the saloon bar was pushed open, and an intolerable stench of beer and beer and beer flooded in his direction. For a moment the potency of it nearly made him lose his balance, then, gasping, choking, he stumbled faster than he had done for thirty years up the remaining stairs, until he reached the comparative odourlessness of the reception-desk.

  ‘The dining-room,’ he choked hoarsely.

  The young man behind the desk surveyed him for a few moments, then jerked his thumb lazily to his left. It was impertinence, but this was not the moment to protest. Professor Belville-Smith turned and tottered towards the sanctum of the dining-room; pushing open the swinging glass doors, he sank gratefully into the first chair that offered.

  It took him some minutes to get his breath back. He mopped his forehead with his handkerchief, and cleaned his spectacles meticulously. As he puffed and tut-tutted himself back to normality some impressions of the place gradually filtered through to him. Colours — off-white (table-cloths) and dirty blue (walls). The place seemed to be empty — ah, no; not quite. There were two young people at the table next to his own. Otherwise the place was entirely untenanted. At any rate there wouldn’t be any difficulty in getting service here. His eye ranged down the dreary length of the room. By the door at the far end he thought he could make out the figure of what must be the waitress. She was sitting on a table, apparently cleaning her nails with one of the table-knives, and swapping insults with somebody behind the far door. That, he presumed, must be the kitchen.

  He collected his thoughts and signed to her. As if her eyes were unable to penetrate the immense distance she ignored him, and went on cleaning her nails and shouting. He waited, and signed again. She rapped out a little tune with the knife on the table, shouted a last cheerful insult at her antagonist on the other side of the door, and then slowly made the long trek over to him. She turned out to be a rather cheery slattern, with a stained apron and greasy hair.

  ‘Me feet are killing me today,’ she said genially. ‘Something yer’d like?’

  ‘I would like the menu, please,’ said Belville-Smith, distinctly, as if he were talking to an idiot. As, indeed, he was sure he was. She looked at him doubtfully.

  ‘We’ve got a lovely bit of steak,’ she said encouragingly. ‘Wouldn’t that suit yer?’

  ‘The menu.’

  ‘And the fish is nice. Real lovely it smells out there. I’d pick yer a real good bit.’

  ‘What kind of fish?’ said Belville-Smith, pettishly.

  ‘There yer’ve got me,’ said the waitress.

  ‘I want the menu,’ he said, raising his quavering voice in a discontented plainsong.

  ‘Oh well, no peace for the wicked,’ said the waitress, and ambled off to the distant table whence she had come, and returned with a fly-blown, gravy-stained, red-wine-glass-ringed menu of greater antiquity than most things Professor Belville-Smith had seen in this plastic-coated country. It was a mis-typed list of five or six dishes of predictable awfulness. Clipped to the side was a slip which read: ‘Chef’s special for today: mince curry.’ Belville-Smith gazed at it, sunk in dreadful gloom, while the waitress perched her broad bottom on the edge of his table.

 
He was startled out of his depression by a voice from the next table — an English voice:

  ‘Can we help you?’

  It was a rather spotty and extremely ill-dressed young man, who was sitting with his back to him, but had now swivelled round to address him. His companion was a woman — sharp-eyed behind her thick glasses, with a long string of coloured beads round her neck and her make-up badly applied to her sunburnt skin.

  ‘We thought you mightn’t be used to the hotels in Australia,’ said the young man. Professor Belville-Smith even realized that his accent was educated English. How did educated Englishmen land up in a place like this? ‘In fact,’ the voice went on, ‘we wondered whether you mightn’t be our visiting Professor.’

  Professor Belville-Smith, who had not mixed with the general public for many years, was not used to the striking-up of instant acquaintanceships. At any other time he would have administered a peppery snub. However, he felt himself to be decidedly in a storm, and he thought that the rather unprepossessing young man might represent any port. He therefore decided to advance half-way to meet him.

  ‘Well, I don’t know, just possibly . . . I am visiting here, but . . . what college . . . er, what department?’

  ‘English.’

  ‘Ah yes, well that is my . . . er . . . my subject.’

  ‘So we were right, then. You must be Professor Belville-Smith.’

  ‘Er, yes. We haven’t been introduced, but . . .’

  ‘No. I suppose Professor Wickham is neglecting you as usual, is he?’

  The words struck a very real responsive chord.

  ‘Yes. Yes, he is.’

  ‘Thought so. You’re not the first, you know. Look, would you care to join us?’

  ‘Yes, I will.’ And he gathered up his ill-co-ordinated body, and moved it to the next table. If his stomach was not to be well fed, he could at least give some vent to his grievance. ‘Yes, he is. I’ve never been so neglected in my life.’

  ‘Professor Belville-Smith will have T-bone steak,’ said the spotty youth to the waitress. ‘And bring another bottle of Diwarra claret.’

  ‘Right-ee-ho,’ said the waitress, apparently glad to see her little flock happy.

  ‘Diwarra claret,’ said Professor Belville-Smith faintly.

  ‘It’ll go down,’ said the woman sitting opposite him.

  ‘The T-bone is the only thing worth eating,’ said the boy. ‘You really shouldn’t have come here.’

  ‘Except there’s nowhere else,’ said the girl, whose voice was rich in strangulated Australian diphthongs.

  Professor Belville-Smith was finding their conversation a source of bewilderment to him.

  ‘Er . . . you are — ’ he paused, as a thought struck him — ‘not students.’ He looked at them out of his watery eyes. ‘I hope I have not been at all indiscreet.’

  ‘Relax,’ said the woman.

  ‘We’re lecturers in Wickham’s department,’ said the boy. ‘I’m Bill Bascomb and this is Alice O’Brien.’

  Professor Belville-Smith sank back in relief. Of course the woman was a lecturer. He should have seen that. He’d come to know this type from Perth to Sydney. Whereas the women academics at Oxford had usually resigned themselves long ago to their lack of femininity, here they made efforts to be both academic and normal, an impossible combination. But the boy . . . he couldn’t quite place the boy.

  ‘I’m just out from England,’ Bill Bascomb explained. ‘Only got here a couple of months ago.’

  ‘Oxford perhaps?’ murmured Professor Belville-Smith.

  ‘Balliol,’ said the boy.

  ‘Ah yes,’ said the distinguished guest. ‘I don’t very often run across the young men from Balliol.’

  ‘Do we have to hush our voices every time we mention the old college?’ said Alice O’Brien, in an irritated voice.

  ‘Get lost,’ said Bill Bascomb.

  ‘We thought Bobby would get rid of you as soon as decent tonight,’ said Alice O’Brien, turning to Professor Belville-Smith.

  ‘Or even earlier,’ said Bill Bascomb.

  ‘Party at the Turbervilles’ tonight,’ said Alice. ‘Son’s got a coming-of-age. Officially, that is. Mental age of ten, but nobody seems to notice.’

  ‘Marvellous what money will do,’ said Bill.

  ‘Five cars,’ said Alice. ‘And they use the Volksie as a hen-run.’

  Professor Belville-Smith felt that his bewilderment was not being lessened. He almost welcomed the return of the waitress, still intolerably cheery. She placed a dark bottle between her sturdy knees, and extracted the cork. She wiped around the rim with a greasy cloth, and slopped out a glassful. Then she looked into the particled depths of the glass.

  ‘Cork,’ she said, grinning cheekily at Professor Belville-Smith. ‘How’s that affect yer?’

  ‘Badly,’ said Alice. ‘Get another glass.’

  Professor Belville-Smith looked uncertain whether to burst into smoke or tears.

  ‘I really don’t understand,’ he said loudly, as a new glass of quite drinkable red wine was put in front of him. He sipped it fretfully. ‘I really don’t. Everywhere else . . . everywhere . . . people take care of me. I’m honoured. The honoured guest. And then I come here, to this dreadful place, and . . . and . . .’

  He was conscious of two pairs of eyes looking at him. Was it sympathy or amusement in their eyes?

  ‘We are sorry,’ said Bill.

  ‘But what can you expect from Bobby?’ asked Alice.

  ‘It’s not so much him as his wife. It’s Lucy that puts him up to most of these things he does.’

  ‘You’ll meet her,’ said Alice. ‘She’ll be all over you tomorrow. But today was the Turberville party. And she’s been working for an invitation for weeks.’

  ‘I shall protest tomorrow,’ said Professor Belville-Smith, grabbing his napkin eagerly as a plate was put in front of him.

  ‘You do that small thing,’ said Alice, obviously pleased. She and Bill Bascomb, their own plates empty, sat and watched with fatherly interest as the visiting Professor tucked into the steak with something between a hearty appetite and naked greed. The steak was tender but overcooked, though Belville-Smith was much too hungry to complain. In any case he had got used to the Australian habit of being proud of half-way perfection. The steak went down not unpleasantly, and the wine sent little fingers of warmth exploring through his body; his stomach regained its natural equilibrium, and he mellowed towards the two young people who had taken him under their wing; they were raw of course, but then he found that all young people were raw these days. And, as junior followers of his own calling, he felt they were entitled to any scraps of graciousness he could find the strength to throw their way.

  ‘I shall look forward greatly to meeting you again tomorrow,’ he said expansively. He picked up the glass of brandy, which they had suggested he should take without coffee. (‘even more disgusting than English coffee’ Bascomb had said). He toyed with it a little apprehensively; his drinking experiences had been so variable in this country.

  ‘We’re looking forward to your lectures,’ said Alice, lying.

  ‘I enjoyed your Victorian series so much at Oxford,’ said Bill Bascomb, lying.

  Professor Belville-Smith positively bloomed. It did not occur to him that if Bascomb had been to his lectures he ought to have identified him more confidently. He was past the stage where he investigated compliments to ascertain how sincere they were. The mere fact of receiving them was enough, and was becoming rarer. He smiled with gratified vanity.

  ‘Ah, did you? Good . . . good. One should not say so, of course, but there are one or two touches in those lectures which I must admit I myself do not . . . er . . . despise.’

  ‘The one on Mrs Gaskell I remember particularly,’ said Bill (who had in fact once read an article by Belville-Smith entitled ‘Thackeray, ambivalent jester’, and had avoided his lectures entirely, deciding that he could not bear to hear all the great Victorians being reduced to the level of a F
anny Burney).

  ‘Ah yes. Such a difficult subject for . . . er . . . modern youth. So dependent, you see, on an atmosphere, on nuances. Yes, I’m glad you liked that one. I have been interested to see how that goes down with . . . er . . . Australians.’

  ‘Talking of Cranford,’ said Alice, ‘we meet for tea and buns at the Wickhams’ tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh dear, tea and buns . . .’

  ‘Tea and buns at four for the Department, then a party later for the gentry,’ said Bill Bascomb. ‘Would you believe it? That’s typical of the Wickhams.’

  ‘You mean they will be expecting me to go to both?’ said Professor Belville-Smith.

  ‘Oh yes,’ they said in chorus.

  ‘I will not. It’s quite preposterous to arrange such a programme without consulting me.’

  ‘It is,’ said the chorus.

  ‘An unheard-of liberty. I shall refuse.’

  ‘You tell him tomorrow,’ said Alice, with barely concealed glee.

  ‘I shall. One party at most. And I shall expect to meet the Department there. It is the least he can do.’

  ‘You’ve no idea how least Bobby can do if he tries,’ said Alice. The two young lecturers were enjoying themselves, and scenting free alcohol from their Professor, a rare experience.

  ‘I shall insist,’ said Belville-Smith, struggling to his feet, ‘and I shall look forward to seeing you again.’

  ‘Do you know your way back?’ asked Bill.

  ‘Well . . . I’m . . . not sure . . . If you could direct me . . .’ It was a blatant appeal for help.

  ‘Let’s settle up,’ said Bill, ‘and we’ll see you home.’

  So when the waitress had reluctantly counted out their change from a dirty purse apparently secreted among her underclothes, they took him back to his motel, past the spewing drunks at the entrance to Beecher’s, and along the dark, inhospitable side-streets, walking at a suitably gentle pace. They left him in his room, and drove back to their respective colleges, eminently pleased with their night’s work.

  ‘Don’t get in early tomorrow,’ said Alice to Bill as they parted by their cars. ‘Bobby will be needing cigarettes the whole morning.’