Incredible Bodies

by Ian McGuire

  The hearing began. Brendan Bombay began to talk; Doris Pamplona began to write. The air was dense with fear and expectation. Morris doodled, made notes to himself (‘deny everything’), concentrated on breathing regularly. Fat photocopies of University ordinances and regulations were handed out. Bombay reviewed them, pointing out recent amendments, pertinent sections, areas for possible discussion. His tone was flat but cheerful. Mordred Evans raised his skeletal hand and pointed out passionlessly that Brendan Bombay was in error when he suggested that paragraph four of Regulation XVIII was a recent amendment – it was actually a revival of a regulation which had been temporarily suspended since 1979. Roy Dervish confirmed this. Brendan Bombay apologised to the tribunal. Mordred Evans accepted his apology, the transparent purpose of this exchange being to remind all concerned that if this case came down to University regulations, Mordred Evans would piss all over them. The Crocodile looked amused. He whispered something to Doris Pamplona, who giggled.

  They continued. Bombay outlined the charges against Bernard – gross professional misconduct in relation to his statutory duties of examination and assessment. As he listened, Bernard’s face seemed to fade beyond paleness to a grotesque, glutinous trans-lucency. He was blinking uncontrollably. Bombay reviewed the material evidence, which struck Morris as surprisingly skimpy. A review of the past several years of Bernard’s exams and essays had, it appeared, revealed his tendency to repeat the same comments verbatim from time to time, but little else. Rigorous triple marking had indeed not shown any statistically significant discrepancies between the marks Bernard gave his students without ever reading their work and the marks their work apparently deserved.

  Bombay asked Mordred Evans whether he would like to comment on these findings. Mordred swivelled to face the tribunal. His left ear, Morris noticed, was as hairy as a coconut.

  ‘We believe these findings speak very clearly for themselves,’ Mordred said, ‘but since Dr Littlejohn’s explanation of the very minor peculiarities of his assessment practices, the …’ Mordred paused as if these peculiarities were indeed so very minor they had actually slipped his mind, ‘… occasional repetition of comments on assessed essays, is that they were the unfortunate but inevitable response to the intolerable marking burden placed upon him firstly by Professor McWurter, while Head of Department, and then by his carefully groomed successor, Professor Declan Monk, we wish to remind the tribunal that when the investigating officers came to gather the scripts and essays from the last five years of Dr Littlejohn’s teaching, in order to transfer them from the department’s storage facility to the investigator’s base room, the sheer bulk of paper was found to be so massive that I believe the services of a fork-lift truck were required to effect the transfer. Was that not so, Mr Bombay?’

  Brendan Bombay confirmed that this had indeed been the case. The eyebrows of the tribunal were collectively raised. There was a certain amount of jotting. Bernard nodded and whispered rather loudly: ‘Too fucking right.’ The Crocodile’s look of amusement stiffened slightly.

  Brendan Bombay moved on to Morris’s evidence and to the damning statement he had given to the investigating officers, a précis of which had been distributed to all parties well in advance.

  ‘Professor Evans,’ he said, ‘I believe you wish now to call Dr Gutman as a witness?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  Morris walked to a large chair, placed in between the wings of the U-shaped table, and sat down.

  ‘Let us not dawdle, Dr Gutman,’ said Mordred briskly. ‘You made this statement two weeks ago, I believe.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘My question is simple. Do you stand by this statement today?’

  In the pause before he replied, Morris could hear the quiet squeak of Doris Pamplona’s fibre-tip.

  ‘No, I do not,’ he said.

  The Crocodile stood up. His orthopaedic chair flew backwards and bumped against the wall.

  ‘Mr Chairman,’ he began.

  ‘Professor McWurter, please.’ It was Brendan Bombay. ‘You have no authority to cross examine here.’

  ‘So you wish to retract your statement?’ Mordred continued.

  ‘We were very drunk,’ said Morris. ‘My first statement may have contained inaccuracies.’

  ‘So you wish to withdraw it?’

  ‘Yes. I feel that in the circumstances I cannot be certain of anything.’

  No one moved. Morris could hear the Crocodile breathing – the air whistled through his moustache like wind through the blades of a combine harvester. The tribunal collectively frowned. Dennis Sloze audibly sucked his teeth.

  ‘And what of the voice recording you apparently made of that evening’s conversation?’

  ‘Unfortunately erased,’ said Morris. ‘The buttons on those things are really fiddly.’

  ‘Oh I’m sure they are,’ agreed Mordred. He seemed to be enjoying the consternation. Morris was trying not to look at the Crocodile, but the thought of his flesh-wrapped and reddening face made him shiver. He fancied once or twice he could smell him, hot and visceral like a plate of giblets.

  Brendan Bombay was clearly confused.

  ‘May I clarify, Dr Gutman,’ he said. ‘You wish to withdraw your previous statement. And due to alcoholic befuddlement you wish to offer the tribunal no alternative version of that evening’s conversation?’

  ‘That’s correct. I can’t be certain of what was said.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Of my uncertainty? Yes, absolutely.’

  The tribunal collectively leaned back in their chairs and looked quizzically at Morris. The Crocodile made a loud and frightening ‘bah’. Morris smiled and fixed his gaze unflinchingly on a shiny red mole just above Roy Dervish’s right eyebrow.

  ‘You’re aware that this is quite irregular?’ Brendan Bombay continued.

  ‘I thought it preferable to risk some personal embarrassment rather than be party to an injustice.’

  ‘Very noble, I’m sure,’ said Mordred.

  Given the circumstances, Morris thought, the tone was rather sardonic. Morris turned to look at him. Mordred’s large brown lenses gave back in miniaturised form the parallel lines of fluorescent tubing.

  ‘I thought it a price worth paying,’ he said tartly. He didn’t much wish to provoke Mordred, but he thought it only fair to remind him of exactly what was going on here. Almost immediately, however, Morris realised that this had not been a good idea. Mordred’s already stiff and lifeless face stiffened further and died a little more. He looked down for a second at his notes, removed his glasses and looked up again.

  The tribunal emitted a collective gasp. Doris Pamplona dropped her pen. Mordred’s eyes were swollen clots of pus and blood. They looked like badly fried eggs, like oysters that had turned. As they stared at him unflinchingly, Morris had a sudden appalling vision of his own death, the decomposition of his flesh, the disappearance of his mind, the nullification of all that he cared about and loved.

  ‘So why did you lie to the investigating officers?’ Mordred asked.

  ‘Lie?’ Morris’s mouth hung open for a second. He was transfixed by the two weeping slits like elephantine urethras inset into Mordred’s face.

  ‘It wasn’t a lie,’ he managed after a while. ‘It was a confusion.’

  ‘A confusion?’ Mordred echoed. ‘It’s a quite long and detailed confusion, isn’t it? Seven pages in the original.’ He replaced his glasses. Morris blinked and began breathing more regularly.

  ‘Um yes, I suppose it is,’ was all he could manage.

  ‘Yes, I suppose it is,’ echoed Mordred again, but more unpleasantly. ‘Isn’t it more likely,’ he continued, ‘that rather than this statement,’ he waved it, ‘being a product of confusion it is actually a deliberate and malicious fabrication, constructed by yourself and unnamed others to blacken the name of Dr Little) ohn?’

  Morris realised with horror that he himself was being double-crossed. That Mordred, having got the (false) retraction was now goi
ng on the attack, using Morris to get at the Crocodile, lumping them both together in a conspiracy to deceive. He should have seen it coming. It was fucking obvious. He was screwed. If he tried to retract his retraction he would be admitting to at least one large and obvious lie; if he turned against Mordred no one would believe him and even if they did he would have to bring Zoe into it.

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ he said.

  ‘Ridiculous? Tell me, Dr Gutman. After a night on the tiles, of which I’m sure you have had more than your fair share, do you often find yourself struck by the uncontrollable urge to make defamatory statements about a colleague. Do you make a habit of it?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Of course not. So this is a one-off?’

  Morris didn’t respond.

  ‘I was asked for information,’ he said eventually.

  ‘By Professor McWurter, I presume?’ said Mordred.

  ‘If I am myself the subject of an accusation,’ said Morris after another pause, ‘I would like the chance to respond formally and through the proper channels.’

  ‘I’m sure you will be given that chance, Dr Gutman. For now, I agree that enough is certainly enough.’

  After giving them a moment to digest these sudden events, Mordred turned ponderously to the tribunal.

  ‘With no witnesses and no significant material evidence, I see no reason for this case to continue, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘You may be curious, as indeed I am, as to why and how it was brought in the first place, but that, I suspect, is a matter for others to investigate. I would only urge that such an investigation be rapid and unflinching.’

  Brendan Bombay began to confer excitedly with Roy Dervish. The tribunal talked heatedly among themselves. During this temporary lull, Dennis Sloze got to his feet, padded over to Brendan Bombay and handed him a carefully folded note. He then turned and left the room without glancing to either side. Brendan Bombay read the note then carefully refolded it. He rose to make an announcement.

  ‘I believe it would be best,’ he said, ‘to close the hearing at this point in order to allow the tribunal to consider the rather startling evidence offered by Dr Gutman. I can assure Professor Evans,’ he leered fawningly at Mordred, ‘that the possibility that these accusations were maliciously motivated will form part of those deliberations. Participants will be informed of the tribunal’s decision in writing within seven days. Good afternoon.’

  The Crocodile was staring at his shoes and sucking his lips so hard that his moustache had all but disappeared. Above the metallic blue of his afternoon stubble his cheeks were blanched entirely white, save for two small dots of throbbing redness, one on each cheek, like dollish caricatures of health.

  Whatever the Crocodile was thinking, and his thoughts were undoubtedly both deep and violent, Morris knew it presaged no good for him. No good at all. Mordred’s investigation would come to nothing, he suspected – there was no real evidence to link him with the Crocodile – but it was designed to maim, not to kill. The Digital Faculty Proposal was gone already; for the Crocodile it was now a question of damage limitation. And when it came to finding a patsy, a man to take the bullet, a body to throw on to the flames, Morris knew very well whose body would be uppermost in Donald’s mind. Why had he ever put his trust in Mordred? He had been a fool to imagine that that bloodless carapace would give a toss.

  Morris sank back into his chair, closed his eyes and tried to dispel the memory of those eyeballs like old and raggedy vaginas cut into Mordred’s face. When he opened his eyes again the room was empty. He was staring up at the allegorical painting which loomed like a Renaissance altarpiece above the tribunal’s empty chairs. The seven founders dressed in Grecian robes were proferring the oil lamp of wisdom to the benighted operatives of Coketown. The latter seemed in the main rather ungrateful for the offer. Some were clearly turning away, dazzled by its brightness, others were being deliberately pulled off into the outer darkness by a red-faced publican, a sinister-looking trade unionist and an obviously syphilitic whore. A number of the other operatives were simply asleep. There was only one of their number, a sallow-faced young man whose kneeling form occupied the painting’s middle ground, who seemed to be actively interested in the oil lamp of wisdom. He was indeed stretching for it yearningly, his eyes slurred by tears of joyful anticipation, his fingertips forever poised, it appeared, an inch or so from its adamantine base. The title of the painting, spelled out in gothic script on the brass plate affixed to the dense gilt hedgerow of the frame was The Worthy Poor. The sallow-faced young man reminded Morris of a skinny cat leaping up amusingly for a toy kept forever beyond his reach. Hopeless. Had Zoe known what Mordred was planning? Perhaps she had. Perhaps she had thought he could handle it, talk his way out. Perhaps she hadn’t really cared. She’d got the result after all. The Hub was hers.

  His mobile rang. It was Zoe.

  ‘How did it go?’ she asked, her voice a trembling mezzanine of anticipation.

  ‘Case dismissed.’

  She whooped. Morris held the phone away from his ear.

  ‘You sound different,’ she said.

  ‘I haven’t said anything.’

  ‘Something’s wrong.’

  ‘I’ve looked into Mordred Evan’s eyes. That has an effect on a person.’

  ‘I should have warned you about that. Mordred doesn’t believe in antibiotics – he’s hardcore even for a medievalist.’

  ‘I saw things, Zoe. I had a flash.’

  ‘Things?’

  ‘Rottenness, decay, failure, death.’

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Hardly. Mordred just accused me of lying and conspiracy.’

  ‘Shit. He told me he wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘You discussed it with him?’

  ‘He’s very unpredictable, Morris. When it comes to the history of spelling he’s a legend but he has the social skills of a nine-year-old. Did you say something to annoy him?’

  ‘No, I did not. The man’s a fucking lunatic. He doesn’t believe in antibiotics? Isn’t that a clue?’

  ‘Listen sweetie, the Hub’s safe. That’s what counts.’

  ‘The Hub’s safe, but my balls are dangling over the Magimix. I need help.’

  ‘I know what you mean, but politically, the Hub has to remain aloof.’

  ‘Aloof?’

  ‘Think medium-term, Morris. If you survive this, the co-directorship will still be there.’

  ‘If? You can’t cut me loose, Zoe. I know too much.’

  There was a pause in which Morris involuntarily recalled every inch of Zoe Cable’s body, from her purple toenails to the tip of her bleached mohican, giving special attention to certain areas in between. He began to deeply regret what he had just said.

  ‘To be honest, Morris,’ Zoe said, ‘I doubt whether threats are the way to go on this one.’

  Morris said nothing. Looking down, he noticed that his legs were sticking straight out in front of him. His heels had risen several inches from the parquet floor.

  ‘Listen,’ said Zoe, ‘I can guess it was rough in there Morris, but it’s over now. Get a cab to my place. We’ll get pissed.’

  ‘No, I have to go home.’

  Morris rather portentously pressed ‘end’. It took him forty-five minutes to leave the building. When he finally emerged into the main quadrangle the sun was angling in through the Western Gate, gilding the thinly gravelled car park and the cast-iron planting pots. Seeing his shiny Ford Focus, he felt both comforted and accused. How hard would Mordred push, he wondered, and how hard would the Crocodile push back? He was now the meat paste in their thick and unpleasant sandwich. All he could do was wait, hope and keep his consistency. He should talk to the union, but then again, what could he tell them? The truth was appalling. Perhaps he could claim alcoholism, that he was an incorrigible drunk, prone to malicious fantasising. That would get him six months in rehab, light duties for a semester and thereafter a murderous teaching load, no hope of promotion and, in twenty years’
time, enforced early retirement, a bunch of flowers and a kick up the arse. It was an option; he had seen it done.

  Before starting the car, he glanced at himself in the rear-view mirror. His eyes were bloodshot, he looked sweaty and sick. He also noticed a strange taste in his mouth – a bitter, cloying egginess – which he recognised but couldn’t name. He thought for a second. Then he remembered it was the taste of humiliation. Eighteen unsuccessful job interviews – how could he ever have forgotten? Yes, he had been humiliated in there. Mordred had dressed him down, peeled him like a piece of fruit. And today was only the beginning. He was now Mordred and Donald’s plaything. He was the new ball in their vindictive game of tennis. And Zoe, it seemed, was content to spectate, to watch him being batted back and forth, all for the sake of her precious bloody Hub.

  Perhaps there was another way out, if he could only think of it, some triple-cross, some procedural loophole. But his confidence in his own fledgling ability to scheme had been so badly damaged by the afternoon’s events that the thought of further machination only scared him. He needed refuge, safety, a place to catch his breath. He thought suddenly, hungrily – in a way he had not done for months – of E and Molly.

  When he arrived home, Morris was surprised not to see his mother’s car in the drive. Hadn’t she said she was staying two nights? He walked in. Molly was sitting on the sofa in the living room, intently watching a Channel Five documentary on teenage Satanism.

  E was standing in the kitchen doorway.

  ‘Is this programme suitable?’ he called out.

  ‘I doubt it.’

  He came out into the hallway and looked at her. She was poised like a gymnast about to hurl herself at the asymmetric bars. Then he looked past her.

  ‘Where’s the kitchen floor?’

  ‘It’s in the wheely bin.’

  ‘Where’s my mother.’

  ‘Rotherham.’

  ‘Is there something wrong?’

  E walked back into the kitchen and pressed play on the answering machine. Morris followed her. He recognised Bernard’s voice before he realised what was being said.