As he digested this, the middle managers in the office next to him began to phone their wives, to warn them Dad would now be needing Mummy’s Renault Five.
* * * *
‘So I’m looking for another job,’ he told Susannah, as they walked through the Close. ‘I hope I’ll find one before the bastards fire me, or go into liquidation. Where’s Jemima?’
‘Just round the corner here, in Deanery Row,’ Susannah said. ‘I’ve got a permit.’
‘What a very well-organised, meticulous girl you are – I’d never think of getting a parking permit,’ muttered Gavin, not altogether kindly.
Jemima didn’t want to start, so Gavin had to go and borrow jump leads from a master at the school, who came out on this frosty Saturday morning most unwillingly.
The car’s old canvas seats had lost their bounce, the heater didn’t really work, and the engine sounded like a lawnmower with croup. The windows wouldn’t open unless they were forced down, and then they wouldn’t close.
‘Roll on the day when I can afford a decent car,’ growled Gavin, as he shoved Jemima into gear, ‘then I can dump this piece of shit.’
‘Oh, but she’s sweet,’ Susannah said. ‘She’s slow to start, but once she’s warmed up and gets going – ‘
‘I want an automatic, anyway. I’ve always hated changing gear.’
‘Why, are you left-handed?’
‘Yeah, so like all cag-handers I’ve got no co-ordination. Come on, you bloody thing.’
* * * *
‘God, I don’t know why we agreed to this,’ Gavin complained, as he fed a steady stream of coins into a meter in the High Street.
‘You didn’t have to come,’ muttered Susannah, shrugging into her jacket and shivering in the cold east wind.
‘Sorry, Susie.’ Gavin realised he was being a pig. He grinned and hugged Susannah round the shoulders. ‘Let’s get on with it. We’ll go and see old Gandalf, then we can find a decent pub and have a pint or three.’
It was warm and silent in All Souls, which smelled of money, port and leather. Julius welcomed them effusively, kissing Susannah and shaking Gavin’s hand.
‘My dear Gavin,’ he began, ‘how very nice to see you again. You’re looking very well! As is dear Susannah, with whom I am also very much in love.’
He apologised for not acknowledging Gavin at the restaurant in town. ‘I hate to wear my spectacles,’ he said. ‘But of course I’m almost blind without them. So you must please forgive a poor old man.’
‘Julius, is there anything I can do?’ Susannah asked.
‘Not a single thing.’ Julius excused himself, disappearing into what he called his sorcerer’s den. ‘You will come through in two minutes precisely, if you please,’ he called to them. ‘Then all will be prepared.’
‘God,’ muttered Gavin, ‘listen to him. Does the bugger fancy himself, or what? I reckon he’s gone in there to cast a spell.’
‘Shut up,’ hissed Susannah, but she giggled anyway.
* * * *
In the professor’s study, which overlooked the quadrangle, they found a dining table laid for three. At a laden sideboard stood two young men in jeans and cotton shirts, who smiled in welcome.
‘Here are my dear friends Gavin and Susannah, to meet my dear friends Tom and Alexander.’ Julius beamed all round. ‘These two sweet boys will wait on us,’ he said.
The two sweet boys served Julius Greenwood’s guests with a succession of courses, blending into the background while they ate, but reappearing as if by magic to change the plates and dishes and top up glasses.
They teased and flattered Julius, flirted with Susannah, and deferred to Gavin, who Susannah could see was of no interest to them. After they’d served coffee, they said goodbye and left. Susannah had half expected them to vanish, in a puff of smoke.
‘I like your friends,’ she said to Julius, as she lolled back in her chair and sipped her excellent coffee. ‘They’re very nice.’
‘Indeed they are,’ said Julius. ‘They’re also two of the brightest students I have ever taught, and I shall try to keep them here as long as I am able.’
‘I didn’t know fellows of All Souls taught students,’ murmured Gavin.
‘My dear Figaro – I’m so sorry, slip of the tongue, dear Gavin – we’re not obliged to teach at all. But some of us still do so, all the same. Dear creature, do you smoke?’
‘I gave it up,’ said Gavin.
‘So wise. But you’ll excuse me?’ Lighting a long, black cigarette, Julius inhaled, then sighed. ‘The world is becoming so suburban nowadays,’ he complained. ‘Even in a place like Oxford, there are so many dull, diluted people! They seem to think the taking of stupéfiants will make them fascinating. But the expensive rubbish in favour with so many undergraduates merely serves to dull wits that were feeble in the first place.’
Julius met Susannah’s gaze. ‘My dear child, you are not into these vile substances? Ach, that was a stupid question, you are not so foolish. So, never be tempted. Promise me?’
I promise,’ said Susannah. ‘I couldn’t afford them, anyway.’
In spite of railing against stupéfiants, Julius had opened a variety of wines, and several half-full bottles still stood on the table. Susannah realised she and Julius must have drunk the most, so it was no wonder she felt light-headed, if not exactly sloshed. Gavin preferred draught bitter, which was probably why he’d merely sipped a glass of Meursault, and hadn’t finished that.
When Susannah glanced up at the clock, she saw to her astonishment that it was half past three. As the lights began to twinkle all over the city, there was a sharp rap on the study door. A college servant opened it.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you, Professor Greenwood,’ he began, ‘but Dr Henderson just rang the Lodge. He says to remind you that you agreed to meet him in Duke Humphrey’s Library, at three o’clock today.’
‘My dear God!’ Julius clapped a hand to his forehead, then turned to his guests. ‘My dear Susannah – dear Gavin – I’m so sorry, but I must slip away. I shall be an hour or two at least. Why don’t you go and sit down on the sofa? Take your drinks, look at my pictures, listen to some music if you wish.’
Then, apologising yet again, Julius put on his coat and disappeared into the Oxford night.
Susannah picked up a glass of wine. It slopped against the crystal walls of a lovely antique goblet. She made her way unsteadily into the sitting room. She flopped down on the sofa.
Gavin sat down beside her. ‘You’re absolutely rat-arsed,’ he observed.
‘I’m not.’ Susannah swallowed another mouthful of red wine. She hiccuped, giggled drunkenly. She lay back on the cushions, stretched and yawned. ‘I say, Gavin – d-do you think this is a casting couch? Do you think this could be where J-Julius makes his conquests?’
‘Jesus, how would I know?’ Gavin took the glass from her and put it on the floor.
‘I’m not drunk,’ Susannah whispered, knowing that she must be.
‘Let’s not argue, Susie.’ Gavin kissed her on the cheek and then he stroked her neck.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she asked him, as she rubbed against his hand and giggled.
‘Nothing bad,’ he murmured, kissing her again, but on the mouth this time. ‘Slow to start,’ he murmured, ‘but once she’s warmed up and gets going – ‘
‘You’re taking advantage.’ Susannah tried to focus on his face, but found she couldn’t. ‘You – you can see I’m not myself.’
‘Who are you, then?’
‘I d-don’t think I know.’
‘Let’s have a look, then – see what we can find.’ Gavin slid his hand under her jumper. He undid one button of her shirt, and then another, then a third. ‘You have lovely skin,’ he whispered, as he stroked her stomach. ‘It’s as soft as satin.’
‘You say that to all the girls,’ she giggled. ‘I know you, Gavin Hunter, superstud, God’s gift to women!’ But then she kissed him, brushing his face with hers and searching
greedily for his mouth.
Minutes or maybe it was hours later, Gavin’s hand was toying with the zip on her new jeans. He began to slide it down and down.
Susannah froze. ‘Gavin, no!’ she whispered, suddenly sober. ‘We can’t do this, not here! What if Julius comes back? What if he comes in and sees – ‘
‘He’s not coming back, don’t worry.’ Gavin kissed her navel, then he licked it. Then he began to work his way along the trail of down that snaked into her knickers.
‘Julius set this up,’ he murmured. ‘Julius wanted this to happen, he wants us to shag each other senseless, he’d be thrilled if he could see us now.’
‘But we can’t, not here!’
‘Where, then?’ demanded Gavin.
‘We’ll go home,’ she told him.
‘You mean, go back to Marbury?’ Gavin stared in horror. ‘You think I can wait that long?’
‘I think you have no choice.’ Susannah shrugged. ‘Well, you’re twice my size, so you could rape me on the hearth rug – ‘
‘Yeah, okay, okay.’ Gavin sat up and tucked his shirt in, raked his fingers through his messed-up hair. ‘But I don’t know how I’m going to drive.’
‘I’ll drive us, then.’
‘No, sweetheart – you will not.’
Susannah was about to argue, but then she saw that Gavin’s jaw was set, and his eyes were hard and bright as comets. She could see herself reflected in them, and she stared in fascination.
‘Susannah, love, you’re out of it,’ he said. ‘So although I’m going to humour you, to the extent I’ve never humoured anyone before, I’m not prepared to end up in the Radcliffe with a hard-on like a spanner, just because you drove into a tree.’
Chapter 15
Gavin drove out of Oxford and then got on the motorway, although quite how he managed this he never really knew.
Why was he putting up with this, he wondered. Why was he indulging her, why had he listened to her nonsense? Why hadn’t he just shagged her on the sofa in that faggot’s fancy sitting room? She was gagging for it, she wouldn’t have put up any fight.
He’d ignored Susannah until they reached the motorway. But finally he glanced at her and, as he’d half expected, she was fast asleep. Now and again she muttered to herself, then groaned and coughed a bit.
He hoped she wasn’t going to be sick. He hated it when girls threw up. But the thought of ice princess Susannah Miller chucking it was so downright disgusting, and such a total turn off, that it helped to calm him down a bit. He drove the next few miles in reasonable comfort. He turned the radio on and listened to the news, the shipping forecast, and other boring stuff.
As they rolled in neutral down the last of the steep hills that ringed the city, Susannah sort of choked. She was awake. Or her eyes were open, anyway.
‘We’re nearly home,’ he murmured, then thought what a stupid thing to say, he must sound like somebody’s Dad.
‘We go left here,’ Susannah said.
‘Actually, we don’t.’ Gavin overtook a trundling lorry. ‘It’s another three or four miles yet.’
‘I told you to turn left!’ Susannah flicked the indicator. ‘This is the way home!’
Gavin peered at the road sign that was looming up ahead. Great Wellesley, Stoke Wellesley and Eddington. ‘But that’s the way to the excavation, isn’t it?’ he said.
‘It’s the way to Wellesley.’ She smiled. ‘We’re nearly home.’
‘You’re off your head.’ There was a lot of traffic on the dual carriageway, and Gavin couldn’t stop. Since he was still indicating left, he thought he’d better not confuse the motorist behind him, who was pulling out, then pulling in, and probably ready to blow a fuse by now. ‘Susannah, what’s got into you?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘You want to go to the excavation. For God’s sake, it’s the middle of December. It’s dark, it’s freezing cold, it’s going to rain.’
‘Okay.’ Susannah shrugged. ‘If you’ll drop me off just here, I’ll try to hitch a ride. But if no one comes along, it’s not too far to walk. Gavin, I must get home.’ She looked at him and smiled, and he was lost. ‘My darling, come with me?’
He shook his head. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Well, he could believe it, he just didn’t want to, that was all. Susannah was completely out of it, away with the bloody fairies. Do I really want to screw this lunatic, he thought. It’s not as if I’m desperate, after all.
Except that he was desperate.
If it had been any other woman, he thought grimly, he’d have told her to where to go. He didn’t fancied doing it out of doors, he never had, even in summer. He wanted children some day. So getting terminal frostbite, in the course of a one night stand on a bloody freezing building site, didn’t seem a bargain.
At the thought of frostbite, the remains of his erection ebbed away to nothing. Okay, he decided, he would humour her, they’d go to the fucking excavation. They could have a snog or something, get into the mood. Then they could go back to her place, where in warmth and comfort –
‘Right,’ he said ungraciously, ‘we’ll go on your precious scenic detour. But I warn you now, don’t push your luck. I don’t like manipulators, and I don’t let people jerk my chain.’
They drove the rest of the way in silence. Bumping and swaying over ruts and furrows, Gavin headed for the spot marked car park, where he assumed the diggers left their vans and other rust heaps.
The excavation seemed to be deserted. There was a single light on in a distant portacabin, but no sign of any dogs or guards. Presumably they’d sloped off to the pub.
Susannah opened the passenger door, got out. Shivering, she reached for her jacket, put it on and pushed her hands into the pockets.
Gavin got out too. As the cold wind hit him, he turned his collar up and hunched his shoulders against the blast. ‘See?’ he demanded. ‘It’s perishing out here, and soon it’s going to start to chuck it down. I don’t know what you’re playing at, but I – ‘
‘Hurry!’ urged Susannah. ‘It’s been dark for hours. They’ll have given us up for lost by now.’
Much against his better judgement, Gavin let her lead him. Soon he saw the ghostly outline of a sort of tent, looming white and spectral in the dusk. He realised they were heading for the grave.
Surely she didn’t actually mean to do it in the grave, maybe lying on those ancient bones? He’d vaguely heard of nutters who got turned on by stuff like that, people who shagged in cemeteries, who –
But she walked right past the grave, past the excavation of the wall, and past a group of test pits. She stopped where there was just a ploughed-up mess of mud and grass. ‘Thank God,’ she said softly, ‘for the light and warmth of this dear place.’
The rain was coming down in torrents now, soaking through his jacket and trickling down the back of Gavin’s neck. ‘Susie, you’ve lost it,’ he began, ‘or you’re hallucinating.’
Susannah shook her head. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘I mean you must be tripping. Anyway, you’re not yourself tonight. What have you been taking?’
But instead of answering him, Susannah sank down on the oily grass. Bewildered, Gavin hunkered down beside her. ‘Susie, do you know where you are?’ he asked.
‘Of course I know.’ She pulled him close, laying her head upon his shoulder and wrapping her arms around his waist. ‘We have come home.’
* * * *
It was the most stupid thing that Gavin had ever done, and he’d done some very stupid things.
There was the time he’d jumped off Vauxhall Bridge, and it was only by the grace of God that the current took him to the Surrey shore, not to a watery grave. There was the time he’d used some stuff he knew was dangerous rubbish, probably cut with Harpic, Vim or something…
But tonight he wasn’t drunk, he wasn’t stoned, and there was no reason why he shouldn’t have frog-marched this poor dopehead straight back to the car. Then they could have done it in the
back, if that was what she wanted.
Instead, he let her hug him, let her kiss him, let her hands explore his body, running like friendly mice along his spine. As the freezing rain poured down, he let her push his coat back from his shoulders – take off all his clothes, in fact, although he’d never let a girl do that for him before.
The cold rain stung his back, his chest, his face. But, amazingly, these needles of iced water didn’t hurt him. The effect was stimulating, and this ultimate in hydrotherapy soon made him as hard as iron again.
He took Susannah in his arms. As he kissed her, she shrugged off her jacket, peeled off her red jumper and tugged open her shirt. Rolling off her jeans and knickers, she kicked off her shoes. Then she lay down on the grass and snuggled into it, as if she were in bed.
That should have been the end of it. That really should have brought him to his senses, made him ask himself what he was doing, naked in the middle of a field, with a nutcase lying at his feet.
‘Get up, Susie, please!’ Crouching down beside her, he shielded her from the wind and freezing rain. ‘Come on, Susannah! We’ll both catch pneumonia. Or get ourselves arrested.’
‘Come to bed, my love.’ She wound her arms around his neck. She kissed him on the mouth.
As his eyes were closing, he saw golden lamplight flicker on painted walls. He heard men’s rough voices and smelled smoke, the acrid kind produced by autumn bonfires. Startled into wakefulness, he stared into the night, but could see nothing.
Then the madness caught him, too.
* * * *
The fire was smoking like a funeral pyre tonight, and the hall was thick with acrid fumes. People were coughing, and the dogs were whining and begging to go out. The chamberlain was scolding the boys responsible for putting such wet logs upon the blaze.
But in the lady’s private bedchamber, the air was clean and pure. It was much colder here than in the hall, but the sleeping platform was heaped with hides and furs, so there was no need to let the winter chill discomfit them.
Except that Cenred wished to look at her. So he moved the lamp a little closer, then raised the heavy pelt that covered them. He watched the flame pour golden light over the lady’s skin. He kissed her shoulder, and she purred with pleasure. ‘So you’re not asleep,’ he said.
Elegy for a Queen Page 14