Incredible Bodies

by Ian McGuire

  Afterwards, Dirck van Camper looked (they always did) like the victim of an extraordinary erotic mugging. His eyeballs, already dilated, bobbed like ping-pong balls on the colourless puddle of his face. His mouth had the bruised looseness of a dental patient enjoying a temporary respite from the drill. In the meantime Dorothy, who had for the duration of the kiss remained pressed, goggle-eyed, against the plate-glass like a desperate but penniless shopaholic, now freed herself from the door, from ‘the goat’, from the kiss, and was walking, no, running (as best she could given the density of the partygoers and the unsuitability of her paratrooper boots) away from Dirck and Zoe towards the private escalator.

  Dirck van Camper gurgled and blinked. Zoe squeezed his corduroy buttock and giggled.

  ‘You’d better be off, sweetheart,’ she said. ‘And remember, it’s Charles Manson next week.’

  Chapter 5

  Walking back from the Staff House to the Arts Faculty, Zoe and the Crocodile shared a golf umbrella.

  ‘So what’s your angle,’ the Crocodile asked, ‘with Dirck Van Camper?’

  ‘He’s Firenze Beach’s stepson.’

  The Crocodile whistled. ‘So what’s the play? Small grant, seminar series, sign her up for the editorial board of Vagina Dentata?’

  ‘Oh there’s more.’

  ‘How much more?’

  ‘Day conference, plenary address, published proceedings. Plus she has a finger in the EU gravy train.’

  ‘The Goethe Fellowship?’

  ‘Precisely.’

  The Crocodile purred. Zoe Cable had been his big idea. Her purpose (for with the Crocodile there was always a purpose) was to suck prestige from Mordred Evans, Arthur Andersen Professor of Anglo-Saxon Studies. Donald McWurter and Mordred Evans were the bitterest of enemies. Thirty years before, when they had been junior lecturers under the tyrannical regime of Professor Ronald Doppet, they had been the closest of friends. In those days, they would huddle together after lectures in the snug of the University Arms (long since demolished) to smoke their pipes, pore over the TLS, swap anecdotes about the hideous Doppet and console themselves for the disappointments of all of the above with dreams of eventual promotion. They lived two streets apart in the academic garden suburb of Gooseberry Hill; their children played together after school; their wives met for coffee; their families gathered every week or two for fondue and Liebfraumilch.

  Doppet’s death changed all that. He keeled over one Tuesday morning during a lecture on ‘Samson Agonistes’. When they met that Thursday in the University Arms their conversation was guarded, hesitant, brief. The death of Doppet was like the death of a pope; it implied not merely a change of leadership but a change of epoch. Nothing could be the same. Mordred and Donald were both forty-eight but they were still the youngest members of the department. The future belonged to them, but which one of them?

  Perhaps neither one was a natural schemer, but they both had scheming thrust upon them and they rose to the challenge. There was to be an election for head of department and it was understood that the winner would inherit Doppet’s Chair. There may never have been an election before: no one was certain, no one could remember life before Doppet. There were certainly election rules – there were indeed three sets of them which, a minute from the late forties indicated, should be read concurrently. When this was done, the rules seemed to undermine themselves, to suggest that no election was necessary, or possibly that any election would be itself against the rules. Mordred campaigned for a change of rules – he took it to the University Council, Donald opposed him. Mordred won. This, however, was part of Donald’s plan. He wished to portray Mordred as a schemer, a Jesuit, a vile politician. His victory over the election rules was prima facie evidence of this. Donald, on the other hand, wished to present himself, oxymoronically, as concerned yet indifferent, interested and disinterested, above it all yet willing to get his hands dirty. He calculated that this impossible persona, if accepted, would see him to victory. He was right; it did. It was his subsequent decade as head of department which earned Donald his nickname, the Crocodile.

  His accession (for that was what it seemed like) coincided with an onslaught of government initiatives to do with expansion, cost-cutting and quality management. The Crocodile, who had by then lost interest in his research on Ben Jonson and was seeking some other outlet for his executive energies, took to the new regime with unguarded enthusiasm. When looked at from the top rather than the bottom, he saw that the department was not the intricate intellectual topiary Doppet had always claimed, but just a tangled thicket of dead wood. There were people who had taught the same courses for twenty-five years and who refused to read books written after the Great War. He decided to hack away. Since it was impossible to fire people, even the worst, he set about undermining them, eroding their confidence, making their lives intolerable. Since most of the people he targeted lived entirely in worlds of their own devising this was not easy to do. He waged, of necessity, a dirty war of infiltration, interception and psychic betrayal. Graduate students were his weapon of choice – he would befriend them, wine them, dine them and turn them against their mentors. He would show them that what they had taken for academic eccentricity was actually professional incompetence, that what they had written off as clumsiness was sexual harassment. He would surprise them, he would support them, he would suggest they file formal complaints.

  The Crocodile scored some notable early successes – people were pushed over the edge. Magnus Walhalla, a specialist in Old Norse who had hardly spoken to or seen an undergraduate for twenty years, was taken before two disciplinary tribunals and, quite hysterical, ended his career by attempting to assault the Crocodile in the Department Office with a replica Iron Age rake. Landry Valentine, a specialist in the poetry of Edna St Vincent Millay and a functioning alcoholic, was, following a three-month external audit of his teaching practices, discovered unconscious in the University Arms, lying in a vomit-spattered pile of final exam scripts. The following day the Dean accepted his resignation. And there were others, several others: early retirements, constructive dismissals, resignations made in the heat which could not be recanted, sandaled feet which didn’t even touch the floor. The Crocodile had no doubt of the ethical probity of his actions. Coketown, England, the world had moved on and the University must move with them – modernisation, professionalism, quality. But at the same time, of course, he enjoyed himself. The Crocodile had always relished a fight.

  The Crocodile had grown up in a large and raucous family. His father, who worked as a postman, was a ferocious autodidact; his mother was a school teacher; he had three brothers and two sisters. Over dinner they would argue about Zionism, the Suez crisis, Elvis Presley, transubstantiation; they would howl and bark, they would gesture and denounce. In the evening they would retire to their crowded, book-crammed parlour to read and listen to the wireless, and then over breakfast they would begin it all again. Their vehemence was a form of love, displaced a little, but no less real for that. And at nineteen, as a scholarship student choosing to pursue the life of the mind, that was what the Crocodile had been seeking – another family, more of the same. He had never found it, of course – English universities, he soon learned, were places of deference and probity. If you shouted, people got upset. He learned to adjust, to curb himself, but as a new Chair and Head of Department he remembered finally who he was. He attacked without retreating, he slashed and he burned, he crunched and he most certainly chewed. If there was pleasure in this, it was the natural pleasure of the intellectual carnivore, the Crocodile, and if there was a measure of revenge, it was revenge for the twenty years of captivity and muzzling. As colleagues, deferential and incompetent every one of them, had strokes, lapsed into addiction, disappeared into premature and inglorious old age, the Crocodile lost no sleep. There was only one thing that still bothered him: Mordred Evans.

  Since his defeat in the election, Mordred Evans had pursued the quite brilliant strategy of applying for and winning every majo
r grant, first in Great Britain, then in Europe. Barricaded behind these piles of money and research assistants, he was untouchable. He had his own fiefdom. Without teaching a single student he earned the faculty more money than many mid-sized departments. And from this fastness in the east wing, he waged a subtle yet concerted campaign against the Crocodile and all he stood for. He had the ear, the Crocodile knew, of more than one Pro-Vice-Chancellor. And when it came to new appointments, computer upgrades, debates about the recurrent grant he was always there in the background, like a kind of noxious gas, a silent force of reaction and restraint.

  He had not, however, managed to stop the Crocodile from becoming Dean, and from these new heights the Crocodile launched what he confidently believed would be his final assault in their ten-year war. He hired Zoe Cable. He hired Zoe Cable as a Faculty Research Fellow, a position which had not existed before and the like of which did not exist anywhere else in the university. The Faculty Research Fellow was paid entirely out of faculty funds, but her renumeration and her job description were both closely guarded secrets. She was reportable only to the Dean. Zoe Cable was his. The purpose of Zoe Cable was to win more in outside grants than Mordred Evans and thus to cut the ground from beneath his well-polished Anglo-Welsh brogues. If Mordred could be toppled from his position as champion grant winner he would become vulnerable. He would begin to lose the confidence of the Centre, research assistants would gradually decamp, the edifice would crumble and the Crocodile would come down from the north like the Huns of old and with the mighty flamethrower of modernisation he would destroy. The Crocodile was convinced that Mordred’s days were numbered. If he had any sense he would already be canvassing for positions elsewhere.

  ‘Remind me again of the totals,’ he said as they slalomed through a crowd of damp undergraduates.

  ‘It’s like fiscal pornography for you, isn’t it Donald? Do you have a pile of stinky old Economists under your bed?’

  ‘Allow an old man his pleasures.’

  ‘350k. Mordred’s on 175.’

  ‘178.’

  ‘Bloody hell. Why don’t you two just get your wodgers out? I’ve got a ruler you can borrow.’

  The Crocodile waved it off with a grin.

  ‘What about the appointment on Friday? Anything in it for you?’

  Zoe shook her head. ‘They’re just touting for another tutorial whore.’

  ‘Morris then?’

  ‘Christ no, there are standards. Morris’ll take it up the jacksie and say thank you. We want someone with a bit more class.’

  The Crocodile nodded.

  ‘Is Dirck van Camper really any good by the way?’

  ‘Oh he’s terrific, like I said, a real Eurogeek. He thinks Morris is a complete lightweight because he doesn’t read Russian.’

  ‘What does Morris do again? It’s Arthur Alderley isn’t it? That’s someone I always meant to read.’

  Zoe rolled her eyes. ‘The Hour of Lead is sentimental twaddle. The House at Hough End is probably his best, but even that’s hit and miss, and the late stuff, A Flag for Veronica, The Scent of Horseradish, is just execrable – of course he was syphilitic by then.’

  ‘You’ve actually read him?’

  Zoe grinned. ‘Well, what do you think Donald?’

  Chapter 6

  When Morris reached the seminar room the students were already there, arranged in a threatening semi-circle with Dirck van Camper in the middle as always. Their keenness dismayed him. Whatever they were expecting, he thought, they were certain to be disappointed. He was utterly unprepared and after that lunch with Zoe Cable and the Crocodile, well, whatever the opposite of adrenalin was, his veins were coursing with it. His axe-wielding anger had lasted only a minute or two and in its wake came only maudlin enervation.

  He put down his bag and stretched his features into a smile. One or two of the nicer ones smiled back – Dirck van Camper did not raise his eyes from his German edition of The Phenomenology of Spirit. Morris opened his course reader, ‘Immanuel Kant – An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?’ He read the first paragraph.

  Enlightenment is man’s release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage [Unmundigkeit] is man’s inability to make use of his understanding [Verstand] without direction from another. It is self-incurred when its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. Sapere Aude! ‘Haνe courage to exercise your own understanding!’ – that is the motto of enlightenment.

  ‘Sapere Aude!’. That assumed, of course, that one had some understanding to exercise. Morris’s brain felt like a soft-boiled egg. The double espresso was giving him hot flushes. Perhaps he should throw himself on their mercy, explain what had happened and suggest that they just have a drink.

  He glanced up. They looked even less merciful than usual, and besides, they had paid fees for this – he would have to rearrange class and it might get back to the Director of Graduate Studies. On the other hand, given the lunchtime debacle he had no chance of the permanent job so sod it. Then again, maybe the lunchtime thing hadn’t been so bad after all, perhaps he was over-reacting; he tended to do that sometimes, didn’t he? And if there was still a chance of the permanent job, even a slim one, wasn’t it better to push on and try to salvage something? He glanced again at the essay. Oh, why hadn’t he read it over the weekend? OK, there had been Molly’s stomach bug, the birthday party, shopping for kitchen tiles, but still, half an hour would have been better than nothing and he’d spent most of Sunday afternoon watching a Stewart Grainger film on Channel 5. Morris felt like punching himself hard in the head. He imagined picking up a house brick and smashing it into his own face. Flattening his nose, breaking some teeth. There would be blood and mucus – lots of it. That would be one way of escaping all this.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘does anyone have any preliminary thoughts or questions before we get into the essay itself?’

  They looked entirely blank. There was nothing to indicate they had understood or even heard the question. Morris felt woozy from lack of sleep and was developing a headache. Was it possible, he wondered, that he hadn’t actually spoken the question out loud? Had he just thought about it? No, that was insane. He remembered his lips moving, there had definitely been sound.

  ‘Anyone?’

  Dirck van Camper slowly and unnecessarily raised a hand.

  ‘May I hand in my essay today?’

  ‘Well, the essays aren’t due for,’ Morris checked the syllabus, ‘three weeks. Three weeks on Friday.’

  ‘Yes, but I wrote mine last week. I was reading Schopenhauer and I got a little carried away.’ He smiled mischievously.

  Morris tried to smile back. A couple of other students rolled their eyes and made vomiting motions.

  ‘Terrific. Just give it to me at the end of the class.’

  Dirck nodded.

  ‘Any other questions?’ Morris glanced at his watch. Five past two. OK then, it was a two-hour class, he could end twenty-five minutes early if it looked like he had something pressing to go to, fifteen minutes’ break in the middle – that still left him over an hour to fill. Fuck.

  ‘An Answer to the Question: “What is Enlightenment?”’ Morris read. ‘Well,’ he paused. The silence seemed painfully empty – vacuous. ‘Why don’t we just grasp the nettle? What is Enlightenment?’

  They all looked down intently at their course readers except Dirck, who looked quizzically at Morris.

  ‘Is it something to do with like wisdom?’ someone said. (At least Morris wasn’t the only one who was unprepared.)

  ‘Generally yes. But I would guess,’ (he wasn’t being euphemistic), ‘that Kant is using it in a more specialised sense.’

  Morris expected Dirck to jump in here; he usually did. But this time he remained silent. Morris had an uneasy feeling that Dirck was biding his time. He looked oddly silent, smug. Could Zoe Cable already have told him about the fellowship?

  ‘Enlightenment is man’
s release from his self-incurred tutelage,’ someone quoted facetiously.

  ‘Right, but what does that mean? Tutelage? And why self-incurred?’ The student frowned. Morris thought that perhaps this wasn’t going to be so bad after all. There were things in here he could get his teeth into.

  They talked fitfully for ten minutes about science, especially gravity, personal liberty, the Catholic Church, Divine Right of Kings and Reason with a capital R. When another silence descended, Morris went to the board and wrote down a list of names in order to buy some time: Descartes, Rousseau, Locke, Hobbes, Voltaire, Newton, Pope. The eighteenth was his least favourite century – really it was neither one thing nor the other. And those bloody novels – why couldn’t they just stay in one place? He looked at his list, thought about it for a moment and then rubbed out Hobbes.

  He was struggling to keep his mind on the class. He kept remembering Zoe Cable’s fulsome endorsement of Dirck – ‘terrific’, ‘wonderful’, ‘simply brilliant’. He felt, as he added, rather uncertainly, Thomas Jefferson to the list, a hot cummerbund of jealousy tightening around his middle. He considered her fulsomeness in retrospect to be a terribly bad sign – a person can only have a finite store of enthusiasm, he reasoned, and if so much of Zoe Cable’s was carelessly spent on the frankly undeserving Dirck van Camper, could any at all be left over for him when it mattered most? Fruit and swimming pools – that’s what she had smelt of, and she had been wearing strange matt purple lipstick which had made her mouth look out of kilter with her face.

  He turned around to look at them again.

  ‘So let’s review.’ It was only two fifteen and he was already reviewing! What on earth could he do next?