Cuthbertson laid a hand on his heart in a dramatic gesture very unusual with him. He was breathing heavily, and his eyes behind the heavy glasses were wide and staring. Once more, like pain gathering, he felt the possibility of violence and freedom. ‘Give me your loyalty,’ he said. ‘The least you can do. Loyalty to me. To me. I would like to see male members of staff dressed as follows: dark jacket or blazer, white shirt, tie of a plain colour. I do not specify the colour …’
‘More tea?’ Lavinia said tenderly, rising and holding out her hand for Mr Honeyball’s cup, remembering to lean towards him at the same time, with her left elbow tucked well into her side.
‘Ah, thank you.’ Honeyball handed over his cup with a pinched white smile. He had been from the start both flattered and alarmed by the emphatic hospitality Mrs Cuthbertson had displayed towards him. He took out a white handkerchief, shook if briefly, folded it again into a neat triangle, and brushed at each side of his moustache to remove any lingering crumbs. He also, while Lavinia was busy pouring tea, used the handkerchief to dab at cheeks and brow. He was finding it distinctly hot in the room, a heat compounded, thickened, by sweetish odours. Honeyball’s nostrils twitched puritanically. Mrs Cuthbertson, he had realized, applied perfumes to her person, and these then became something else, an element in a new compound, mingling with the transpirations of her body. His nostrils twitched again, apprehensively. This thought about the perfume was an unusual kind of thought for him, and he was struggling to get it into shape, express it to himself in the careful formal English he generally used in official communiqués, notes and minutes; watching, meanwhile, from his place on the sofa, his slim, unrelaxed back thrust against velvet-textured cushions, his buttocks dangerously deeply ensconced in the yielding stuff of the sofa; watching Lavinia’s form in side view as she occupied herself with the tea-things, the clinging material of her dress shaping itself around the voluptuous contours on her body.
Why had she asked him? He had thought at first pleasurably, that it was to plead with him not to recommend Cuthbertson for the take-over. She did not know, of course, that decisions of that kind did not rest with him. He was merely a cog in the Ministry machine, he merely made reports. It was on the basis of many reports, and on general expediency, that the decision, if there was a decision, would be made. He had said nothing of this to Cuthbertson, because it had been Eric’s express instruction not to, and in any case he enjoyed the sense of power which prolonging Cuthbertson’s anxiety conferred on him. He had been hoping Mrs Cuthbertson would plead with him on her husband’s account, then he could have begun the delicate process of bargaining for a rent-free office in the School. If only, tonight, at the party, he could whisper to Eric that it was as good as settled! Then, surely, he too would qualify for a citation … But the several allusions, which, in order to give her an opening, he had made, she had ignored or carelessly dismissed. Obvious, then, that she had other ends in view … She was turning to him now with his tea. Smiling. Fine figure of a woman, he told himself uneasily. What would Eric have said, how would Eric have managed things?
‘Here we are.’ Lavinia advanced upon him, bearing the steaming cup. ‘Do you mind the music?’ she said. ‘I can turn it off if you like.’
‘Pray don’t do anything of the sort,’ Honeyball said, raising a slim hand in protest.
‘I like a bit of background music,’ Lavinia said, rather vaguely. The music so far had not been very suitable. One or two raucous groups, then some negress plangently bewailing her lot. None of it very conducive to the languorous mood she was aiming at. But things were improving now. It was excerpts from The Desert Song. Apparently there had been a reissue.
‘I didn’t hear who the singer was,’ she said. ‘Did you? It doesn’t sound like the tenor who did it on the original one, does it? More nasal somehow. What was his name, do you remember?’
‘I’m afraid not, the name escapes me,’ Honeyball said. Mrs Cuthbertson was wearing open-work sandals, and he had just noticed, with a distinct shock, that her toenails were painted scarlet, in a highly barbaric manner. She had excellently shaped feet, excellent. The veins rather prominent. Fine figure of a woman. He drank his hot tea with injudicious haste, scalding his mouth slightly. He gasped a little, opening his mouth to let cool air in.
‘Takes you back a bit, doesn’t it?’ Lavinia said, noticing nothing of this. ‘My goodness.’ She laughed and touched her hair, as if those days still needed living up to. ‘Not that I saw the original show, of course.’ She laughed again.
Mr Honeyball stared blankly at her for some moments, then with a shaft of insight saw what needed to be said. ‘Saw it?’ he said. ‘I should think not. You weren’t born then.’ He smiled thinly, pleased with his graceful compliment, worthy, he thought, of Eric himself.
‘I wouldn’t go quite so far as that,’ Lavinia said. She smiled tenderly at Mr Honeyball, and crossed her legs with a certain carelessness. ‘Don’t forget you’re coming to my party tonight,’ she said.
‘As though I could forget,’ Honeyball said, keeping up the tone.
‘I did tell you about the masks, didn’t I?’
‘Yes. I have my costume all prepared.’
‘Don’t tell me what it is; it’s bad luck. No one will know who anybody is, until we all unmask at midnight. You can guess, of course. No harm in guessing.’
‘I think it’s a marvellous idea,’ Mr Honeyball said.
Lavinia raised her head alertly. ‘It is Richard Tauber,’ she said. ‘That is who it is. Beautiful voice, hasn’t he?’
‘He has indeed,’ Mr Honeyball said. ‘Very mellow.’ He did not care for music of any kind.
‘It was Sigmund Romberg who wrote the music. The director was a man named Fink. I knew all their names at one time. I still think it’s the best musical that’s ever been. So romantic, you know. I think a good musical should be unashamedly romantic, don’t you?’ She gave him a meaning look. ‘I am very romantic in my outlook,’ she said.
‘My friend, Eric,’ Honeyball said quickly, scenting an opportunity, ‘Eric Baines, who you have been kind enough to ask to your party tonight, he is a very romantic person, too. He listens a lot to the music of Gilbert and Sullivan. He is a very fine man, I’m sure you’ll like him. He’s a real patriot. You’ll hardly believe this, but at present he has absolutely nowhere to – ’
‘I would call that more operetta myself,’ Lavinia interposed, rather sharply. She did not really like Mr Honeyball praising another man to her. It showed a generous nature, of course, but he should be promoting his own interests. All the same, this Baines sounded an interesting person.
‘Well, the years pass,’ she said. ‘We can’t put the clock back.’
Nothing if not sensitive, Mr Honeyball had noticed the change in Lavinia’s tone, the slight note of reproof. She was obviously not ready yet to lend an ear to Eric’s predicament. Selfish cow, he thought with a spurt of vindictiveness. A great man like Eric. Cautiously he sought again that vein of gallantry which had seemed so successful. ‘The years have wrought no loss to you, dear lady,’ he said. From the depths of the sofa he inclined his narrow head with timid courtesy. ‘They have given you dignity,’ he said, ‘without detracting from your bloom.’
Lavinia smiled dreamily at him, in an effort to live up to this. She felt however that things were not really moving to any sort of climax, nothing was coming to a head. Mr Honeyball was constantly defusing things with his elaborate language and old-world courtesy. He was also half-submerged in the sofa, and there seemed no immediate way of getting at him. They might go on like this for the rest of the afternoon.
She surveyed Mr Honeyball thoughtfully. It was shyness, of course. Underneath, she felt sure that he was rearing to go. Interiorly speaking, he was rampant. Look at the way he was sitting, rigid backed, tense, as if coiled for a spring. Like a beast of the jungle, some questing predator. His knees were pressed together, and the creases in his trousers made sharp, fierce lines.
‘Milk?’ s
he said, with a peculiar emphasis, leaning towards Mr Honeyball, with the milk-jug poised above his cup. This posture, by allowing the loose dress to fall away in front, revealed the full glory of her upper breasts, which were presented some eighteen inches from Mr Honeyball’s eyes, in all their scented, slightly heaving nudity – a devastating effect she was hoping, and one which, in any case, rendered her hospitable question distinctly ambiguous.
Mr Honeyball pressed his back against the sofa. His forehead felt clammy, and the sides of his nose prickled. Overt sexuality in women had always frightened and repelled him. ‘Just a little,’ he said, looking fixedly at the jug in his hostess’s hand. ‘Just a drop.’ In self-protection, in the evasive energy his mind had to summon to escape from the effulgence and blandishment of that bosom, he recalled the sequence of names his hostess had uttered in connection with Desert Song.
‘Ironical,’ he said, raising his fragile-seeming head in pride and contempt. He was wedged now in the corner of the sofa, so that he felt secure at least from rear or flank attack. He looked beyond Mrs Cuthbertson, at the gold and black stripes on her wallpaper.
‘What is?’
‘Those names,’ he said.
The yearning voice of the sheikh came over to them, full of a desolation far beyond the words it was uttering:
One alone, to be my own
I alone to know her caresses
‘What do you mean?’ Lavinia said. ‘I don’t quite see what you mean.’ She rose from her place and sat down beside Mr Honeyball on the sofa, thus entrapping him still further in his corner.
This would be a wonderful world for me,
If you were mine alone,
sang the lonely tenor. Lavinia moistened her lips, looking wide-eyed at Mr Honeyball.
‘Romberg, Fink,’ Mr Honeyball said, and the names were a bitter incantation against the pressure of Lavinia’s thigh. He compressed his lips. The skin above his cheek-bones tightened. He shifted, reducing the pressure slightly. ‘They write music about the desert and the outdoor life,’ he said. ‘What do they know about it?’
‘Who?’ Lavinia was bewildered. ‘Who are you talking about?’ she said.
‘All those people are Jews, you know.’ Mr Honeyball was now again very strongly aware of his hostess’s musky odour. He said desperately, ‘What do they know about camping out and roughing it? Hiking, and biking, all the things that have made this country what it is. What do they know about it?’
‘What about Israel?’ Lavinia said. ‘Plenty of desert and outdoor life there.’
‘Impressarios,’ Mr Honeyball said, as if he had not heard. ‘Do you mean to say you are not aware of it?’ He felt for his handkerchief again, and wiped the sides of his nose. ‘You should hear Eric on the subject,’ he said. ‘My friend Eric Baines.’ He was moved. His eyes met hers almost with boldness. ‘Everywhere,’ he said. ‘They are everywhere. In all our vital nerve-cells. Do you mean to say you hadn’t realized it?’
7
After Cuthbertson’s outbreak about clothing, the staff meeting broke up in some disorder. Cuthbertson sat on at his desk, white-faced, staring in front of him, breathing audibly. Bishop got the staff out somehow, mainly by walking to and fro uttering jovial monosyllables and gesturing in a certain way to show that things were for the moment at an end. Mafferty, staying behind in accordance with instructions, heard him ask Cuthbertson in low tones if he felt well enough to carry on, whether he wouldn’t like to something or other–exactly what was not clear to him. He saw Cuthbertson shake his head, and heard him say, in a slow voice, ‘You know they have a stupefying effect on me.’
He had no further time to speculate about this as the other two now came out of their rather secretive huddle, and he found himself being regarded. Cuthbertson was still white, but he had controlled his breathing.
‘It now falls to my lot,’ Cuthbertson said, and with the words he sat forward, with a visible increase of energy and control, ‘and I must say that I find the whole business distasteful in the extreme, as I say, it now falls to my lot to tell you, Mr Mafferty, that you have been detected in your forgeries and false pretences.’
‘Forgeries?’ Mafferty, thinking quickly in this crisis, realized that they must have checked his credentials, after all – he had been hoping it had been overlooked.’
‘To my mind,’ Cuthbertson said, ‘to play fast and loose with academic standards is one of the most depraved things that a man can possibly do. Possibly do.’
‘There was no forgery,’ Mafferty said, his native insolence rising within him. ‘I demand that you take that word back.’
‘Demand?’ Bishop said. He took a sudden step towards Mafferty. ‘You change your tone,’ he said. ‘Change your tone when speaking to your Principal, or I’ll give you one on the jaw.’
‘Just a minute now, Bishop,’ Cuthbertson said. ‘Don’t allow this fellow to get under your skin. A man who obtains a teaching post through false pretences is not worth losing your temper over.’
‘I’ll wipe that sneer off his face,’ Bishop said. ‘What he needs is a straight left on the jaw.’
‘No false pretences either,’ Mafferty said. ‘You keep your distance,’ he added, looking at Bishop.
‘You are an anguis in herba,’ Bishop said.
‘Do you maintain,’ Cuthbertson said, ‘that you did not claim to be a Cambridge graduate?’
Mafferty considered a moment. Then he said, ‘Yes, I do. I said nothing about having a degree, nothing whatever.’
Cuthbertson looked at him. ‘As far as I can see, Mr Mafferty,’ he said, ‘you are a man devoid of principle.’
‘Don’t talk to me about principles,’ Mafferty said. ‘What you are doing is selling degrees, and making a good thing out of it.’
‘It is only to be expected a person like you would take that tone,’ Cuthbertson said and, to Mafferty’s fury, an expression of pity had appeared on his face.
‘A word to the local newspaper wouldn’t do you much good,’ Mafferty said.
‘The newspapers both national and local have referred to my establishment more than once.’ The look of pity was still on Cuthbertson’s face. ‘They, like you, were prevented by their own baseness from seeing more than the money aspect. As a result of the publicity we had a flood of applications. It really only remains for me to pay you what is proper and ask you to leave. I will give you a week’s salary in lieu of notice. What is the person’s salary, Bishop?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t remember off-hand, Donald.’ Bishop flushed guiltily.
‘Can’t remember? Good God, man …’
One hundred and sixty pounds a month,’ Mafferty said, ‘and little enough it is, in these days of rising prices.’
‘I’ll take your word for it.’ Cuthbertson said, with contempt. This conversation appeared to have restored him; there was colour in his face now and his manner was much more collected. He took out a cheque book and fountain pen from his inside pocket.
‘I will not have you here in a teaching capacity for one moment longer,’ he said, writing rapidly. ‘The thought of my charges being exposed to the crude mind of a man who has shown an equal lack of regard for qualifications and for truth, quite frankly the thought is shocking.’ He tore off the cheque and handed it to Mafferty. ‘However,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to be completely heartless. You may attend the ceremony this afternoon for the last time, if you wish.’
‘No, thanks,’ Mafferty said. He took the cheque that Cuthbertson extended to him. Rage at being bought off in this way, and at the lofty attitude adopted by the trickster Cuthbertson made it for the moment difficult for him to speak. He thrust the cheque hastily into his top pocket. ‘If you think,’ he said, ‘that I regard it as a favour to go and witness all that flummery, then you are mistaken entirely.’
‘As you like.’
Mafferty turned, and after an attempt to sneer at Bishop which rage made into a failure, strode from the room. As soon, almost, as he was outside, reaction set in. He
felt the need for a cigarette, but realized in the same moment that he hadn’t got any. He thought of Cuthbertson’s silver cigarette box on his desk. Now would be a good time to get one while they were still jawing in the Committee Room. The work of a moment to extract a couple. He went quickly along the corridor, down a short flight of stairs, on to the longer corridor that led to Cuthbertson’s office. Take the lot, he thought. The word ‘Principal’ had been painted over, leaving the door completely blank, like a cancelling of Cuthbertson’s identity. It was not locked. He went swiftly over the thick carpet and reached over the desk for the cigarette box. Haste, however, the apprehension of being surprised there, made his movements clumsy. He caught with the sleeve of his jacket a pile of type-written cards, barely noticed until this moment, stacked at the side of the desk alongside a pile of quarto-sized papers. The cards went here and there across the desk. Mafferty thrust several cigarettes into his pocket, encountering as he did so Said’s essay on ‘Divorce’ which he had thrust there earlier. He gathered the cards together carelessly, without paying particular attention to them. When he glanced at the uppermost document of the other pile, he saw at once from the variously coloured inks and elaborate Gothic script that these were the actual degrees. They were arranged in order, ready to be conferred. Sweating with haste, but unable to resist the vindictive impulse, he mixed them up with a rapid shuffling process. Then Said’s essay came again to his mind. As if fate were favouring him, the sheets were almost exactly the same size. Quickly he inserted the loose sheets of the essay among the pile of degree certificates. Then, exhilarated and appalled, he rapidly left the room.
The Big Day Page 13
