‘I don’t suppose Professor Belville-Smith will be very well up with the political situation here in Australia,’ said Mr Doncaster, in a gallant attempt.
‘It’s the same in England,’ said Mrs Turberville. ‘Worse! Look at the Unions there! And the Labour Party. You don’t really think that George Brown could ever have become Foreign Secretary except on orders from Moscow, do you? Don’t be naive. And now Enoch’s gone, there’s no one with an ounce of backbone in the Conservative Party.’
At this point Professor Belville-Smith was grateful for a slight interruption. He had not seen the Wickham offspring before, a freckled boy with devil written all over him. He didn’t much like boys. This one was now tugging at his mother’s arm, with intended mischief oozing from every pore.
‘Mummy! Mummy! Dr Day says that if I don’t let him have a gin and tonic he’ll have the balls off me in no time.’
‘Richard!’
‘Well, that’s what he said, Mummy. I don’t know what he meant, but that’s what he said.’
‘Well, go and pour him one, dear, and then I think it will be time for your bed.’
‘But he’s an academic, Mummy, isn’t he? And you said that the academics were only to have the cheap red . . .’
The rest of the sentence was lost as he was led away by the scruff of the neck, through the door and up the stairs. Lucy Wickham, who had been the champion swimmer of the Kalgoorlie Girls’ High School in her younger days, was perfectly able to deal with her son on the purely physical plane.
Professor Belville-Smith was puzzled what to make of this incident. One side of his brain registered that the voice of Mrs Turberville had been only momentarily stilled:
‘And it’s well known, of course, that they always work through homosexuals . . .’
The other side of his brain registered shrill sounds of pain from the floor above. At this point he was conscious that the well-stratified party, which so far had been exactly what Lucy Wickham had aimed at, was in danger of breaking up. The groups were actually mixing. He found himself suddenly cornered by the drunken Dr Day, on his way back from helping himself to an enormous gin and tonic. His mind, by one of its usual quirks, had now reverted to the question of Tennyson, and he had a desire to try out on somebody an indecent reading of ‘Crossing the Bar’. Professor Belville-Smith found himself once more in a state of complete bewilderment.
• • •
‘Of course, I’m not saying I don’t agree with a lot of what she says about the reds,’ said Mrs Lullham to Mrs McKay. ‘But she does rather go on, doesn’t she?’
‘It really didn’t seem fair on the poor old man,’ said Mrs McKay, who, like Mrs Lullham, disputed the right the Turbervilles arrogated to themselves of being the leading graziers in the district. ‘She really is rather vulgar. No idea of the time and place for things. I don’t think he understood a word of what she was saying.’
‘He’s all right now,’ said Mrs Lullham. ‘Look, he’s got an academic to talk to.’
‘Do you really like academics, Peggy?’ asked Mrs McKay.
• • •
Over by the bar Alice O’Brien and Bill Bascomb were helping themselves to quadruple whiskies while the cat was away. They were also congratulating themselves on having finally got away from the endless discussion on the syllabus.
‘Anybody would think we were trying to educate the little darlings,’ said Alice.
‘Day’s got hold of the Prof,’ said Bill. ‘Shall we go and do our familiar rescue act?’
‘Mother’s little helpers, that’s us,’ said Alice.
‘Peter,’ said Bill, taking Dr Day by the arm. ‘You were telling us about that woman in Sheffield when you were with the adult education people. We never heard the end of that story. Come outside and get a breath of fresh air, and tell me the end.’
‘Let me get you another drink,’ said Alice to Professor Belville-Smith.
‘Should I?’ said Belville-Smith. ‘I confess I feel a little . . .’
‘Exactly,’ said Alice. ‘In this company it’s the best way to feel.’
• • •
‘You’ve got the right idea at Oxford,’ said Miss Tambly.
‘Have we?’ asked Belville-Smith, looking pensively into the brown depths of his new whisky.
‘Lock ’em up early, no girls in the rooms after ten, that sort of thing,’ said Miss Tambly.
‘I see what you mean,’ said Belville-Smith, rather relieved at finding someone to talk to whose conversation he could make some sense of.
‘Any girl will be a slut, if you give her half a chance,’ said Miss Tambly.
‘Oh, now . . .’ said Professor Belville-Smith.
‘So don’t give ’em a chance, that’s what I say.’
‘Of course, one of the points you’ve got to remember about our rules is that we expect the young men to get around them,’ said Professor Belville-Smith timidly.
‘What the hell’s the point of that?’ asked Miss Tambly.
‘Well, we wouldn’t like the . . . er . . . colleges to become too like prisons, would we?’
‘Why not, in God’s name? I know what I’m talking about. I’ve got experience of prison. That’s how I got my present job. Keep ’em locked up. You know where they are, and so do they.’
‘Well, it’s a point of view, I suppose,’ said Belville-Smith. He had known Headmasters and Principals of Colleges who went to prison, but he’d never before known one who came from prison. It made him a little apprehensive.
• • •
‘We encourage outside activities,’ said Mr Doncaster to Professor Belville-Smith. ‘That’s one of the ways we try to stick to the best of the English tradition. They keep animals, do survival courses, all that sort of thing.’
‘Survival courses?’ said Professor Belville-Smith, his brain making one of its odd leaps into liveliness. ‘For if they are attacked by kangaroos, or koala bears, I suppose.’
‘Something of the sort,’ said Doncaster doubtfully, rather unsure whether the Professor was completely compos mentis.
‘A pleasant relief from . . . from Latin, and such subjects, I suppose,’ said Belville-Smith with a drunken attempt at urbanity.
‘All work and no play, you know . . .’
‘Scouts, too, I suppose?’ said Belville-Smith, whose brain had apparently jumped back into its groove of weary, distant condescension.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Scouts,’ said Belville-Smith, with a far-away look on his face. ‘The Boy Scouts, you know. That fine soldier Baden-Powell. I remember them being founded.’
‘Oh yes, of course. Yes, we have our own troop.’
‘There’s nothing like the scouts for bringing out the . . . bringing out the . . .’
‘Best in a boy, no,’ said Mr Doncaster.
‘Were you ever a scout yourself?’ asked the distinguished visitor, his voice seeming to come from an immense distance of tiredness and memory.
‘No, not personally,’ said Mr Doncaster. ‘Would you care to sit down? You look a little tired.’
‘You can always tell when someone’s been a scout . . .’
• • •
‘What I can’t understand,’ said Merv Raines, appearing to push Professor Belville-Smith into the corner of the sofa by the tipsy sense of grievance with which his whole body seemed possessed, ‘is why all the universities in England do American literature, and nobody seems to know that Australian literature exists.’
‘Yes,’ said Professor Belville-Smith, his eyes focused on the ceiling, his mind infinitely further off.
‘But was there ever a more over-rated book than Moby Dick? All that fuss about a bloody whale . . .’
‘Yes . . .’
‘And yet there’ll be a lot of people in England who’ve never even heard of Henry Handel Richardson,’ said Merv.
‘About ninety-nine point nine per cent,’ said Bill Bascomb, who was standing by the sofa.
‘Yes,’ said Professor Bel
ville-Smith.
‘See what I mean?’ said Merv. ‘Just plain bloody ignorance. Do you wonder that we get fed to the teeth here with being the poor relation? Nobody cares a damn about us over there.’
‘Yes,’ said Belville-Smith. The conversation went on in this fashion for quite some time.
• • •
Dr Day sat in the middle of the rose-bed, picking a few late blooms, and murmuring tenderly to them.
‘Christ, she was a marvel,’ he said to a pale pink bush. ‘You’ve never seen such tits. Well, she used to go to all the lectures they had there, and she got a bit of a name around the place. She always went up and talked to the lecturers afterwards. So I heard all about her before I ever set foot in the place. Peter, my boy, I said, that’s for me. So when I got her home, I’d hardly taken off my coat, when would you believe it, she . . .’
• • •
‘That’s the last of the booze,’ said Bill Bascomb, pouring a few drops of gin into his red-wine glass. ‘Do you think we ought to be getting the old man home?’
‘Not really our job,’ said Alice. ‘But he looks as if he should have been home hours ago.’
They looked towards the sofa, where Professor Belville-Smith was still seated, still gazing at the ceiling, and making little or no attempt to cope with Mr Turberville, who was patiently, but drunkenly, doing his duty by the old man.
‘Trouble with a drought,’ they heard Mr Turberville say to his empty glass, ‘is you’ve got nothing to fall back on. You’ve just got the bloody sheep dying on you the whole time, nothing but skin and bone, and you’ve nothing to fall back on — see?’
‘Difficult though we undoubtedly find it,’ murmured Professor Belville-Smith to the chandelier, ‘to enter the magic circle of Cranford, how rich are the rewards, and how subtle are the pleasures of those of us who are willing to . . .’
Bill Bascomb hurriedly drained his glass and interrupted this meeting of intellect and wealth.
‘Professor Belville-Smith,’ said Bill, ‘don’t you think you ought to be getting back to the motel?’
‘What?’ he said, starting.
‘Back. Don’t you think you should be getting back? You have a lecture to give tomorrow.’
‘Lecture?’
‘I thought you might be a little tired.’
‘Yes. Yes, I am tired. Call me a taxi.’ He stood up imperiously and looked around the room. ‘Call me a taxi at once,’ he said loudly.
‘Of course, of course,’ said Professor Wickham, bustling up from the opposite corner, where he had been the last of a long line of recipients of Mrs Turberville’s monologues. ‘I’ll do it at once. I should have thought of it before.’
Belville-Smith focused upon him, and mentally associated him with some grievance or other from earlier in the day. His grievances were very dear to Professor Belville-Smith.
‘Yes, you should,’ he said severely. ‘Call me a taxi at once. You have been most remiss. And tell the driver to knock up Smithers when we get there.’
Professor Wickham, already dialling, was somewhat nonplussed.
‘Smithers, Professor Belville-Smith?’
‘The porter, of course,’ said his guest tetchily. ‘Give me your arm, young man.’
This last was said with a grandiose condescension which was so overdone that Bill decided that the distinguished guest was by now very drunk indeed. The heavy pressure on his arm bore out the diagnosis. Professor Belville-Smith, however, was by now quite unaware of his condition.
‘I’m not feeling very steady, young man,’ he said, resuming his imitation of the Grand Old Man of Letters. ‘Just age, you know, just age. I trust the night will be clement. The autumn nights of Oxford can be treacherous, most treacherous to a man of my age.’
‘I believe the night is . . . clement,’ said Bill, conscious of Alice O’Brien’s sardonic gaze on him as he brought out the adjective.
They came to the hall where Professor Wickham was bustling around with coats and scarves; Alice opened the front door to give Belville-Smith a breath of fresh air, which he seemed to need. Outside it turned out to be a bitterly cold early autumn night.
‘Where is the taxi?’ he said grandly. ‘It should be here. Negligence on somebody’s part.’
‘I’ll drive him home,’ said Alice. ‘Just a minute while I get my car keys.’
‘No, you will not, Miss O’Brien,’ said Lucy, emerging from the lounge. ‘We don’t want any accidents. We’ll wait for the taxi, thank you.’
‘I can drive on a lot more grog than I’m likely to get my hands on in this dump,’ muttered Alice to Bill, enraged. And to do her justice, she could.
The taxi drew up outside, and they led Professor Belville-Smith down the garden path, Lucy pushing Alice aside from his right arm. Lucy found the conversation a little bewildering. He was apparently reminiscing to Bill about a meeting he had had with Jane Austen at Winchester shortly before her death:
‘Charming woman, charming. Sick, you know, very sick, but brave. Quite what you would expect from the novels, and most witty, even though she must have been in pain.’
Bill opened the door of the taxi, and they eased him into it, still talking, the others expressing their profound interest.
‘You must let me tell you more about it some time,’ said Professor Belville-Smith. ‘Now, I feel rather too tired.’
Bill spoke to the driver and told him to make sure he got to his room in the Yarumba Motel.
‘St Peter’s, driver,’ said Professor Belville-Smith. ‘And drive carefully if you please.’
The car moved off, and they all wandered back to the house. The party was undoubtedly breaking up, and tempers were frayed. Lucy found Peter Day in the middle of a highly anatomical description to a yellow rose-bush, and told her husband to throw him out. Merv Raines had found some cooking sherry in the kitchen cupboard, and was sharing it around among a favoured few.
‘Do you think he understood the point I was trying to make about Henry Handel Richardson?’ he asked Bill.
‘Don’t suppose he even heard it,’ said Bill.
‘Bloody pommies are all alike,’ said Merv. ‘And elderly pommies even more so.’
‘Perhaps if you’d got hold of him before you were both pissed to the rooftops,’ said Bill.
‘I simply can’t understand the need of some people to drink,’ said Beatrice Porter to Alice O’Brien.
‘What do you use — vinegar?’ said Alice.
‘Just like the Wickhams to let the drink run out,’ said Mrs McKay, a little tipsily, to Mrs Lullham. ‘They’re only academics, after all, however much they try to hide it. It’s not the sort of thing I’d like to happen.’
‘Back to the prison-house,’ said Miss Tambly to Mr Doncaster at the door. ‘Still, makes a change to get out once in a while, doesn’t it? See how the outside world lives.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ said Mr Doncaster. Since the Drummondale School was an institution of infinitely higher prestige than the Methodist Ladies’ College, he felt compelled to add: ‘I find the difficult thing, though, is to limit the number of invitations.’
‘Funny. I’ve never found that,’ said Miss Tambly.
‘So glad you could come,’ said Lucy Wickham to Mrs Turberville at the door, closely watched by Bill Bascomb. ‘I wish you could have heard him tell us about his meeting with Jane Austen. Fascinating!’
By nine-thirty next morning Lucy Wickham had been immortalized by a further celebrated comment, destined to be quoted long after Drummondale knew her no more.
CHAPTER VI
BODY
PROFESSOR WICKHAM was giving a tutorial. Or rather, he was being given one. Every year he put Hardy as late in the term as possible, hoping that by then his first-year students would have become reasonably chatty. This was because he never could be quite sure which Hardy novel it was he had read. Whichever it was, it had left on his mind a vague impression of doom and landscape, but nothing much else remained. So he sat there, encouraging the st
udents to tell him about their response to The Return of the Native, and letting his mind wander freely over his own personal concerns.
Lucy had been angry this morning. It had been a pleasure to get away to the University, even though she had only given him toast for breakfast on the grounds that they couldn’t afford anything more. If you give a party, Wickham thought, you must expect the drink to go. It was quite unreasonable to get annoyed about it — but then, reason and Lucy had merely an occasional friendship of convenience. Someone or other, aggravated beyond endurance presumably by her lack of logic, had once given her Thinking To Some Purpose, and now and then she would produce some scrap which remained from her reading of it to demolish him in argument. Otherwise her mind had been quite unaffected.
Still, at least the party had not been a total disaster. If Professor Belville-Smith had been bored, he had nonetheless stayed for a long time, and talked to a lot of people. This was an improvement on some of their other visiting celebrities. Professor Wickham doubted whether his own staff had shown up in a sparkling light intellectually, but then they never would. How was one to attract sparkling intellects to a cultural Golgotha like Drummondale? Only to someone with the mental level of Guy Turberville could his staff appear like brilliant minds. Still, all in all, he had known worse. Much worse.
He got rid of them at ten to eleven, and went to borrow a cigarette from one of his staff. He always chose one of the most junior members, and they regarded the supplying him with cigarettes during work hours in the light of a payment of tithes. They knew why it was, and in a way forgave him. Lucy was a very expensive wife. To their minds she didn’t pay very handsome dividends, but then she might have talents they knew nothing of. As he let Merv Raines hand him two Peter Stuyvesants (‘one for after the lecture’), and then let him light one, Professor Wickham inclined towards expansiveness.
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