by Mark Lawson
‘Oh, Edmund, you do talk bollocks sometimes. But I like you.’
He smooths some stray strands of black hair away from her brow. ‘Why don’t we just go to bed?’
‘In a bit,’ she says. ‘Can I let my spaghetti digest? I want to talk a bit more about the play.’
He tops up her glass of Bulgarian red, but she says: ‘That’s masses.’
‘Play? It’s a series – goes on for about another seven weeks,’ he corrects her, his irritability, he knows as he speaks, a payback for her delaying their move to the bed.
‘You know what I mean. Is it historically accurate?’
‘Wow, that’s a big one. As the movie star said to the archbishop.’
She rolls her eyes. ‘You’ve got a one-track mind. I’m serious. Was he really like that? It’s not often you get to watch historical drama with a historian.’
‘Ph.D. student. By he you mean Claudius?’
A shampoo-ad bounce of her hair on the shoulders as she nods.
‘It’s not my period.’ He censors an innuendo about hoping it isn’t hers either. ‘But I think Robert Graves, who wrote the …’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘Was a proper classicist. The stammer and the limp are in Plutarch and/or Suetonius, I think. So that’s accurate. And there seems be a widespread consensus that, if you had lunch with Caligula, then you’d be on the menu.’
During their brief relationship to date, he has learned that she likes to feel she has earned the sex first: with a film, play or serious conversation. So his energy in this impromptu lecture was entirely driven by the possibility of History being an aphrodisiac.
The payphone in the hall is ringing.
‘Should you go and … ?’
‘No. It will only be my mother. I’ll call her …’
Billy checks her watch. ‘Wow. Mummy would never ring me that late.’
A banging on the door, followed by the growly smoker’s shout of Consuela, the Spanish teacher in 3, with a message in three staccato parts: ‘Ned! Phone! For You!’
Seeing his guest about to speak, he puts his right hand across her mouth and a finger of the other hand to his lips. He waits until irritated feet clomp away and down the stairs.
‘She’ll take a message. I’d rather be here with you.’
He nudges her into a hug, which she does not resist. After a summer of record temperatures, September is also unseasonably warm. The greedy division of the house into as many bedsits as possible has left his with a single rickety window, which is open. Billy is wearing a summer dress, the cardigan she wore for work draped over the back of the sofa.
As they lie kissing side by side on the narrow cushions, he touches her outside and then inside her knickers.
‘Neddles,’ she says, a name he hates. ‘Let’s lie down.’
With the aim of keeping some division between his activities, he has placed the futon in the opposite corner from the desk. The small square of linoleum that forms the kitchen and a pullacross curtain that hides the patch of bathroom (loo, basin and shower so close that ablutions demanded dexterity) form the other corners of the rectangle.
‘Let me clean my teeth, Sweetheart.’
‘I like the way you taste, Wilhelmina.’ Red wine and cigarettes: the tang of adulthood.
During a stumbling embrace, she raises her arms for the dress to be pulled up and over, then reaches to release the clasp of her bra, while he stoops to complete her nakedness. As usual, to his continuing regret, she leaves him to undress himself, apparently unaware of the erotic power of a shirt unbuttoned and belt pulled loose by a woman’s fingers.
All through the months when the mercury burned in thermometers, she has slipped quickly under the duvet and he thinks it is modesty rather than coldness that leads her to do so again. As he lifts up the edge to join her, she says: ‘Light.’ He walks to the switch by the door, proud of the heft of his erection. Now, as she lies on the mattress, the bedding pulled up past her chin, he can see her only in stripes of streetlight that leaks around the roller blind.
He is still astonished at the regular availability of what seemed, until only four years ago, an unattainable pleasure. It is still more exciting that, on this occasion, she has not asked him in advance if he brought ‘the gubbins’. Just before they met, she stopped taking the pill because of side-effects and is waiting to be prescribed an alternative brand.
As a lover, she is enthusiastic if traditional: never going down on him, although he does on her, and pleading a dodgy back if encouraged to go on top. But she is strong and responsive and scratches at his back as she comes.
‘Oh, Ned,’ he thinks she says. She is doing the sort of quasi-Scandinavian drawl-talking that leaves it an open question whether women saw a lot of motel porn movies or the makers of motel porn movies saw a lot of women.
‘Oh, you,’ he responds. ‘You.’
To call her ‘Billy’ at these moments feels too gay to him.
Sensing the almost unbearable bursting tenderness, he gasps: ‘What are we doing?’
Whatever she says is lost in breathlessness.
‘What?’ he checks, unromantically.
‘Ah I’m …’ – a runner’s panting – ‘ah on the pill,’ he hears her say.
Relaxation of the mind overlapping with concentration of the body.
‘Oh, God, I’m going to …’
Her position shifts suddenly under him. ‘Oh! Oh!’ Bucking him again. ‘Come in me!’
He does, feeling the thrill of his warm wetness thickening hers. ‘God. That was the best ever,’ he tells her.
Ned senses her tension, even anger, immediately.
‘What?’ he asks.
She doesn’t answer. He guesses that she is objecting to the implication of comparison. Are even women these days sensitive about that? ‘I mean the best with you. I’m not …’
The strength of her body surprises him; she seems to be trying to throw him off.
‘What?’ he asks, pulling out of her. ‘Was it finished too quickly?’
A Tariff of Expectations
During the now almost daily staff meetings that seem to have become the main purpose of the university, they have never seen Neades looking or sounding like this before.
He usually wears shapeless grey suits, like Babygros for grown-ups. But today he is encased in something smart, dark, creaseless and almost certainly expensive, as a man of his dimensions is unlikely to be able to shop off the peg.
His stature, though, is somehow reduced, and not just in the way that dark garments thin silhouettes. His physical presence cannot possibly have halved since the previous departmental, but that is the impression somehow given. Sir Richard Agate, though far shorter in height, seems to loom over his host, who introduces him not in the usual Belfast boom but a simpering whisper.
‘I am pleased,’ Neades begins, ‘to introduce the new Vice Chancellor as he attends a meeting of the Directorate of History for the first time.’
Neades illustrates his delight by contriving a wide smile which, it strikes Ciara, is the first she had ever seen from him.
‘And although Sir Richard will bring his exceptional wisdom and experience to bear on each and every directorate at UME, he should bring a particular insight to History because he is himself a historical figure.’
Desmond Craig-Jones and Alex Shaw respond to this comment with the sort of unrestrained laughter generally won only by the most accomplished stand-up comics and members of the Royal Family when speaking in public.
‘Sir Richard,’ the Director continues, ‘spent the earlier part of his illustrious career as the highest of flyers in the Civil Service, ultimately becoming Cabinet Secretary, a position that has been described as “the real prime minister”.’
This punchline draws another paroxysm from the Director’s chortling Amen Corner, conducted, as normal, by his steadfast lieutenant, Joanna Rafferty. Tom Pimm gives a gale-force sigh and throws a roll-eyed glance towards Ned Marriott, thereby al
so taking in Ciara, sitting between them at the back of the Barbara Tuchman Lecture Theatre.
‘Upon leaving Whitehall, he assumed a portfolio of powerful positions, serving as chairman of a leading defence manufacturer, deputy chairman of the BBC Trust, a board member of the Arts Council and a non-executive director of two international banks. It was this university’s luck that most of these terms of office ended at the same time.’
Tom has a notebook open in front of him and writes in it: FUMO.
‘Meaning,’ says Neades, ‘that when the recruitment process began for a new Vice Chancellor of UME to take charge from September 2012, the perfect candidate was available. And, to the luck of all of us here, he agreed to apply to the academic world the qualities from which so many previous fields have benefited. And, since starting last month, his impact has already been considerable.’
Neades, whose standard public manner is studiedly blank, visibly shakes as he speaks. They are witnessing a bureaucratic truth: their terrifying boss is terrified of his boss.
To whom he now turns and extends a trembling hand. ‘Vice Chancellor, welcome to History!’
Agate gives a small nod to his introducer and then a deeper forward movement, almost an actor’s bow, towards the teachers.
‘Thank you, Kevan.’ The stress, wrongly, on the first syllable. Although they would already have been together in innumerable meetings, Neades has clearly been too fearful of the consequences to correct him.
‘When one’s CV is recited like that,’ Agate goes on, ‘there is always a slight feeling of: follow that! But one will, believe one, one will.’
Tom uses the cover of Dr Shaw’s delighted whoop – now counterpointed by Rafferty’s deep laugh – to mutter sideways: ‘Three ones don’t make a right.’
Black pinstripe, blindingly white shirt, tie with the horizontal stripes of some educator or employer of posh men, deep RP tones that sound vaguely disappointed not to be reciting Kipling. Agate is a classic representative of the Establishment that the university hopes to join by getting his name on the letterhead. With the practised self-pocket-picking of a regular public speaker, Agate slides several sheets of folded paper from the breast of his jacket and, still without looking, unfurls them.
Now he reads: ‘In my brief time at UME, I have heard great things about this department. Your customers have access to some of the country’s most eminent historians, including Professor Ned Marriott, who, through his exemplary out-reach interventions in the media and publishing industries, has taught me history without my ever enrolling here.’
Tom smilingly makes a wanker sign in the direction of Ned, who is looking down as if carefully reading his notebook, although it is opened at an empty sheet. At the singling-out of Ned, Professor Kempson goes brightly red and clicks intently at the laptop to which he always attended throughout meetings. Desmond Craig-Jones, Henrietta Langham and Alex Shaw swaps looks and tiny head-shakes, their level of dissent restricted by sitting, as usual, together at the front.
‘My working life has coincided,’ Agate is saying, ‘with a period in which most established institutions are re-imagining their contract with their customers and stake-holders in order to ensure that, going forward, they have enabled the skill-sets and solutions demanded by a twenty-first-century public service environment.’
It is Tom’s habit to recoil physically when managers use corporate jargon or scrambled grammar. As Agate speaks, he seems to be being knocked about by an invisible heavyweight boxer.
‘In Whitehall and in broadcasting, in the sectors of banking and military hardware and in the cultural community, I have been part of dynamic reform management. Change is nothing new to me. Everywhere I have worked has been in constant flux.’
‘Chicken or egg?’ mutters Tom Pimm.
‘And you above all, as historians, will know that we cannot go on living in the past!’
Neades laughs loudly. But even the teacher’s-pet-teachers at the front of the room seems unnerved by this assertion, having chosen this subject of study at least in part because it permitted retreat from the present.
‘Through the excellent work so many of you do, we already provide a very good service to our customers. But it is my conviction that – with a few wee tweaks to our offer – we can provide a better one. Over the past few weeks, I have been working with Kevan on drawing up new targets and contracts for academic staff. Which I would like now to ask the Director to outline for you.’
Clever, Ciara thinks: if the changes are unpopular – as reform always is in this faculty – they will be associated with Neades, even though he is just a ventriloquist’s dummy for the man above him.
‘Vice Chancellor,’ the Director says. ‘Thank you for giving us such inspirational words and nutritious food for thought.’
Clumsily, and crumpling one side of his jacket, Neades eventually finds the printed sheets of his own speech. Explosively clearing his throat, he then seems to swallow whatever has been dislodged.
‘As academic staff will be aware, in the most recent Research Assessment Exercise, UME was ranked in the top ten per cent of universities for research in England.’
Ciara thinks back to the year before the RAE cut-off: the struggle to get books finished or published in time for inclusion in the trawl, the generous sabbaticals rapidly available for those deadlines to be met, the envy and resentment of department stars who, as ‘impact’ was measured by audience reached, could count a broadcast programme or newspaper article as worth dozens of University of Yale Press monographs.
‘And the History directorate was placed within the top two per cent of research departments within its subject.’
Craig-Jones and Langham begin a round of applause, which almost everyone in the room picks up, except for Professor Kempson, crouched over his keyboard, and the naughty back row of Ciara, Tom and Ned.
Agate looks puzzled and lasers a stare at Neades, who raises a hand to stop the clapping.
‘But,’ he says. ‘But. Now that our customers are paying their own money – or taking out loans – to come here, can we imagine them thinking: “I should take my custom and my money there because the staff are always away writing books and articles and appearing on TV and radio?” ’
Those in the room who have not published or been heard from in public for years, who get through the research assessment exercise with reprinted books or essays in anthologies edited by friends, wobbles their heads in agreement.
‘Our customers are paying to be taught. And so we will teach them. All practitioner contracts will be renegotiated’ – Kempson, the union rep, briefly looks up, then types with heavy pressure on the keys – ‘to agree new teaching duties and hours – at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Each individual will be given a Tariff of Expectations, setting out a series of targets for teaching and other commitments. These will be assessed biannually.’
Biannually or biennially? muttered Tom. It matters.
Langham raises her right arm and waves it, probably in much the pushy perky way that she did at school three decades before.
‘Could I finish myself before I attend to you?’ Neades asks.
Please God none of us ever hears him say that in another context, Tom whispers.
‘Absolutely, Director,’ his reliable disciple agrees.
‘This renegotiation of workloads,’ Neades resumed, ‘will be combined with a root and branch review’ – a right hook to Tom from the phantom boxer – ‘of whether the Directorate is fit for purpose’ – jerked the other way by a blow from the left – ‘at this moment in time.’
As Tom mimes taking a knockout blow, Neades’ voice takes on a perorational quality: ‘I will myself be chairing a special’ – Tom recovers to give an air-tick to this word – ‘sub-group of the academic staffing committee to examine whether our resources are currently being employed in the areas where they give best value to our customers.’ Kempson threatens to break his keyboard. ‘We will attempt to identify where efficiency savings and s
ynergies suggest themselves. A survey conducted at the end of last term also showed that a number of our customers and their parents and guardians have raised concern about the robustness of the University’s duty of care in the light of the incidents in which Professor Padraig Allison regrettably so betrayed the trust placed in him by the management of the directorate. As a result, I have tasked Dr Andrea Traill, from the directorate of Geography, with conducting a survey into the conduct and culture of History. I will cascade details in due course. Now Sir Richard and I are happy to take questions.’
To the hand already raised again: ‘Yes.’ For the visitor: ‘Dr Henrietta Langham, early modern Europe.’
Tom writes in his notebook Savlon, followed by a colon, as if for a character in a playscript, then scribbles down, in bespoke shorthand, her intervention: ‘It’s not really a question. More an observation. As the song has it, birds got to swim, fish got to fly’ – Tom improvises, quiely, Darwin is surprised and so am I – ‘and teachers got to teach. So thank you, Director, for reenabling our vocation.’
Neades, nodding thanks to his apostle, accepts a question from her nearest neighbour, identifying her as ‘Dr Alexandra Shaw, early modern Britain’, while Tom writes Horny: and transcribes the gist of her inquiry: ‘While agreeing entirely, Director, with everything that you and Dr Langham have said, that the provision of tuition must be paramount, will there be an appreciation that some members of faculty may have health and domestic circumstances that might make the body less willing, as it were, than the mind. Will the, er, Tariff of Expectation take that into account?’
Neades inclines an impassive face towards Agate, who says: ‘All employment requirements will be agreed with – and supervised by – the WH directorate.’
The Director tries not to call on Kempson, who ducks the snub by simply shouting out: ‘You talk of re-allocation of resources to maximize value. Translated, that means restructuring and job cuts?’
‘Potential efficiency savings may be identified,’ Neades concedes. Then adds, in an obsequious tone he reserves for Kempson: ‘Subject, of course, to full consultation and agreement with the trades unions.’
