‘Of course,’ I said to his back, now unsettled, as he stretched across the table. Then I added, ‘But I’d be careful about calling Dr Loxton “Dennis”. Best not to presume.’
‘Yeah, but he doesn’t mind. He suggested I call him that at the end of our first tutorial.’ He waved a glass in the opposite direction. ‘Hugh, you call him Dennis don’t you?’
Over the other side of the table, Hugh nodded. ‘But I don’t think Chloe does.’
That seemed unlikely, but Tyler didn’t see it that way. ‘He’s more formal with women, then,’ he said. ‘Swell.’
He turned back to me. ‘So what do your students call you?’
I was still thinking about Loxton and his odd inconsistencies and for a moment forgot what Tyler had asked. As it happens, I couldn’t recall discussing names with any of the students – only debating it with Jenny.
‘We call her Sarah.’ Jim, oven-cloth in hand, was on his haunches checking the dial on the Rayburn. ‘She suggested it.’
‘Did I really?’ I had no picture of the occasion.
‘Yeah. You said in your family “Dr Addleshaw” was assumed to mean one of your brothers. You were pretty cross about it.’
‘They call you other things too, of course,’ said Martin. ‘What was it Barny said? The “thinking man’s crumpet”, like that woman on television. Quite a compliment, really.’
I wasn’t sure about this. The Dean had called Joan Bakewell ‘the Bakewell Tart’, and then wound me up with a claim that I was ‘Histotty’ to some of my colleagues, which was even worse – not least as he was capable of doing the coining. The ensuring spat – I’d remonstrated; he’d said I had no sense of humour – had been definitive.
But perhaps ‘crumpet’ wasn’t such a bad nickname to have amongst students, especially from one as likeable as Barnaby. It could have been worse.
‘Lay off. You’ll embarrass her,’ said Jim, ‘and him.’ He was almost protective.
‘Never,’ said Martin, and he gave me another of his winks. ‘Sarah’s above embarrassment – she’s far too worldly. Anyway, Barny needs embarrassing.’
‘Are they embarrassing you, Sarah?’ Tyler asked, passing me tea.
‘Not a bit,’ I teased back. ‘Besides, Barnaby’s a catch. It’s the blue Guernsey: he’s got that rugged sailor look.’
After that little exchange – why say that to Tyler, of all people? – it was a relief to escape to my reading.
Loxton wanted the two of us to move around – it was his way of policing. The act of carrying my things to the drawing room set me pondering again how the house used to function, looking for clues. That door, for instance: it was a normal one, whereas the ones to the study were made to look like a continuation of the wall. Why? After the evening meal, had the women of the house always withdrawn to sit with their needlework and their sketches, leaving the men to talk over cigars and port? Perhaps the family hadn’t bothered with such formalities – would there have been much entertaining in such an out-of-the-way location? And what about the servants – when had they been allowed to retire? It was a puzzle, like the harbourmaster himself. I wanted to work it all out.
Back in the present, Eddie had swapped the sofa for an armchair and had his legs draped over the side, a new colour of sock clearly visible. He looked languid yet absorbed, his face oddly childlike despite the stubble. Amazingly, he was still – though stillness might be another act, a ploy he was trying out for size.
Mei was at her little table, surrounded by neat notes. She used an ordinary pencil like mine, except that she stuck one of those awful plastic figures on the end, and kept a piece of paper for the shavings, carefully creased so the lead collected in the middle, whereas I spilled and smudged everywhere. Such precision!
Barnaby, my supposed admirer, couldn’t settle. First it was the games table, which can’t have been quite level and had him crouching underneath to find the fault; then it was the pile of books, which were endlessly shuffled and then thumped to the floor. Perhaps I should have recommended one of the women after all; at least they were diligent.
What was Tyler’s quip about historians and their reading habits? Something about being like the lawyers – always skimming. Doing moral or political theory, as he was now, he said you got reading lists of only three or four articles, but soon learnt it was a good day when you got through a dozen pages. That was endearing. It was that same modesty; he didn’t make a thing of being brainy.
I settled into a cushioning of chintz and suddenly it was mid-morning, Loxton collecting shoppers, Barnaby helping with the coffee. Good to see Loxton allowing it – perverse of him to like bracing walks but rule against stretching your legs, and Barnaby did seem to work better after that, though he was always fiddling with something: worrying at his scalp, scratching a shin, or stroking the back of that bronzed neck. I wanted to catch his hands, pin them down and say, ‘Stop that!’ as Dad had done with me when my skin flared. But although Barnaby joshed with the women, he didn’t invite touching. Odd, for a guy so straightforwardly good-looking: you’d have thought he’d be used to intimacy.
When later we all trooped into the kitchen for lunch, Eddie was making fun of Loxton’s shopping habits with Mei silently looking on. Apparently, they’d been to both Mevagissey greengrocers, Loxton having a favoured supplier but needing to check the competition. According to Eddie, he was a demanding customer – fruit and veg often described as ‘disappointing’, like an unsatisfactory student – and would itemise deficiencies for the purpose of instruction in what ‘good’ looked like. Mei now knew how to distinguish a bad apple from a good one, and would be screening all produce for the duration.
Funny though the story was, it seemed pretty far-fetched – Loxton was much too polite – but Eddie was less concerned with the truth than with making us laugh. He ignored Mei’s protests about exaggeration – brave of her, I thought – and carried on with his mimicry until he had several of us clutching our middles, urging him to stop; even Tyler, who could look a bit polished, rather too dignified, was chuckling away. When Loxton came back, Eddie made no concession to his arrival and delivered his punchline with such aplomb that Loxton could hardly get crusty – in fact he remained remarkably good-humoured throughout the meal, telling the odd anecdote about past Reading Parties and entertaining us in his own reserved way. Easy to see why Tyler thought of him as the quintessential ‘English gentleman’.
It may have been a function of it being the second proper day, or maybe it was getting used to the presence of women: anyway, Loxton had palpably relaxed. Perhaps, now that we’d got the hang of what Carreck Loose had to offer, he felt he could leave us to it. The tinge of hysteria from our first evening had segued into more sustainable low-level banter – Loxton and I often included in it. Suddenly everyone was proposing things we might all do and Loxton wasn’t objecting.
That afternoon it was surprisingly still outside – pines almost motionless, plants upright, blue sky – and Rupert asked about the tennis court, which looked as if it needed to be used. A dull ochre mould was creeping in from the edge where it was too close to the shrubs, and the lines were fading into the asphalt, which had bleached to pale grey – Jenny’s parents would have been appalled.
Loxton said it was a long time since anyone had played on the Reading Party and he couldn’t remember whether the racquets were kept in the house or the outhouses, but he didn’t say “no”, so Rupert and Gloria set off to track them down while the rest of us cleared the table. They came back when we were finishing coffee, having located a ‘sports room’ in the old stables. Apparently there was lots of ancient kit – wooden racquets with catgut strings, a rounders set with four markers, even croquet – and the adjoining horsebox was stacked with bicycles. They were loud with the possibilities.
Eventually Gloria sat down, still looking hot, charged even – her skin luminous, almost glistening. Abruptly, she changed the subject. ‘And this place is full of cupboards and wardrobes. How many did we find u
pstairs, Rupe? Everyone seems to have one.’
‘God knows. Somebody liked buying those ugly Victorian things; there’s nothing new. Dr Loxton has a vast one, the kind with a bank of drawers in the middle and a shelf where the valet could lay things out. Not that we peered in there.’
I should hope not, I thought, glancing for Loxton’s reaction: how cheeky can you be? And what else had they been up to?
Lyndsey leant into the table, jiggling like an excited child: ‘I know just what you mean! So roomy you feel they might expand, like the Tardis, or take you elsewhere, like the one that goes to Narnia.’ She looked around. ‘D’you remember that book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe? I read that so many times. I’d definitely have been Lucy. Weren’t they playing sardines or something?’
Gloria seemed to snap back into attention. ‘Voilà! We could play sardines, or murder in the dark!’ She turned to Loxton, her face alight. ‘This is the perfect place. After supper one day? Our last night, p’rhaps. Fab!’
Pushing the boundaries again, just as I would have done. You had to admire her nerve. If she could get that past him, it would be quite a change from chess.
*
Rupert went back to retrieve the racquets, taking Lyndsey and Priyam to check the state of the bicycles, while Loxton mapped out another walk for those interested in seeing the village on foot. His plan was to start out on the drive with the cyclists and then cross the fields to the coastal path. I meant to join the walkers, but Rupert had roped half the men in to play doubles – funny how they stuck to type and went into a huddle centred on sport; even Tyler did it – and Gloria wanted support, so I switched to tennis.
It was a good court. Full size, facing the right way and, although the surface was ropey, the tarmac was still sound; only once did a ball land on a pimple where something was growing through, or maybe the raised edge of a crack, and veer off in an odd direction. The setting was stunning. Someone had thought to put a park bench – silvery wood, simple shape – dead centre on the coach-house side of the court, where you got the wildness of the view and yet might be in shelter if you were lucky with the wind, and there was another protected spot near the larger shrubs where the lawn sloped upwards to a rockery of sorts, which would be good for sitting on the grass in the summer.
By the time I wandered over, they were well underway, a creditable rally audible before it was visible. They may have been a little embarrassed about another woman being left out – Barnaby immediately offered his racquet – but they were already absorbed in the game, so I waved it off, sat on the bench and acted as umpire, rather than muscle in on the court as I’d have done if we’d all been students. At Jenny’s house when we were just into our teens, the two of us would happily be ‘ballboys’, though I was stroppy about the phrase. But I wasn’t about to fetch and carry now; besides, it’s easy to pick up your own balls, playing doubles. However, Gloria seemed happy enough to make a thing of running across the court, bosom heaving, and there was a lot of teasing going on. So much for the sisterhood.
Rupert and Tyler had paired against Barnaby and Martin, which turned out to be a good combination: they were pretty evenly matched. Tyler, who had such a supple body despite not being really tall, had that knack of looking graceful at the start of his serve and then, as he turned, giving a devastating thwack; Martin wasn’t remotely elegant – far too chunky – but he was very strong, good at Björn Borg-style ground strokes. Rupert and Barnaby weren’t a patch on them. In fact, altogether, Rupert’s form wasn’t as good as he seemed to think – his backhand was lousy – but he did make the odd unexpected shot. If he’d been more consistent, he could have played a strategic game.
It was too cold to sit still for long, even on a sunny day, so I was shifting around, rubbing my hands. Perhaps they noticed. Soon enough, Tyler and Barnaby offered to drop out and I thought, Why not? So Gloria and I swapped with them for the remainder – and we did okay. I saved most of Rupert’s balls and Gloria made Martin work hard. He was a good opponent: cracked jokes the whole time and stopped Rupert from getting too serious. Still, it was just as well we played creditably, as we had quite an audience, with the walkers also watching towards the end. Tyler was very gracious about our performance on the way back and said something about me being ‘nimble’ in my use of the court. There was nothing suggestive, though he must have noticed me, too, bouncing around, getting hot and bothered, but somehow the very absence of comment left something hanging. It was Martin who joked that ‘the girls’ had put him off his stroke. He said we’d been ‘quite a spectacle’. Rather cheeky of him, really.
In a place that size you easily lose people. We gathered vaguely for tea, prepared by Loxton with Priyam and Lyndsey, who were spilling over with stories about the bike ride. In the mess of the kitchen no one spotted that we were actually two down, or if they did they didn’t say. Probably, like me, they assumed the others were around somewhere; after all, nobody was counting. It was only as it got closer to 4.30 that I caught Loxton checking the register on his hands.
Eventually he asked outright, ‘We’re missing Chloe and Eddie. Did anybody see them get back?’
Priyam thought they’d peeled away as she and Lyndsey rode through Mevagissey; Lyndsey said it was later – they were there when she stopped to look down to the harbour.
‘Oh, they’ll turn up,’ said Gloria, shunting crockery nearer the sink. ‘Chloe’s never far behind.’
Loxton, Gloria and I were still in the kitchen – Loxton fretting about possible accidents; Gloria reassuring – when we heard the clicking of bicycle chains and saw Eddie waving a gloved hand through the glass.
‘They’re back,’ I said superfluously, looking at my watch: nearly twenty to.
‘What did I tell you!’ Gloria said, without looking up.
And as Eddie and Chloe came through the door, she set off down the corridor. It seemed wrong to join the others – I was meant to be his sidekick, after all – so I stayed put.
‘Hiya!’ Eddie glanced round the table, now clear of everything but the teapot, a pair of mugs and the dark crumbs that were the end of the fruit cake. ‘Don’t we get any? We’re not that late.’
Chloe came up behind and edged him to one side so she could see. ‘Sorry about the time.’ She flapped her poncho to let the cool air in. ‘We miscalculated.’
‘Indeed you did,’ said Loxton. He might have been her father, preparing to tick her off.
Chloe seemed oblivious. ‘We stopped to look at that place – the one Sarah thought was the harbourmaster’s old house,’ she said, as if it was my fault. She took her poncho towards the boot room, arm raised to the height of the hooks.
‘Just a minute,’ said Loxton in a manner that brought her back to stand next to Eddie, who was sitting at the table, checking the pot for tea.
Loxton leant over and moved the mugs out of reach. There was an awkward silence until he’d had eye contact with both of them. Then he was swift, which Dad had comprehensively failed to be when my brothers or I had misbehaved.
‘I had hoped to make it clear,’ he said, checking eyes again. ‘The Reading Party is a collective activity. We may read on our own, but we do so as part of the group. The same goes for activities after lunch: it is a shared endeavour.’
Eddie fiddled with the tea strainer; Chloe rocked the neighbouring chair on its hind legs. I didn’t move, remembering dread of my own.
Loxton carried on. ‘I am not interested in how late you are or why and nor is Dr Addleshaw. We expect each of you back in time to start promptly, along with everyone else, afternoon as well as morning, unless a different time has been agreed. In future, you will pay attention, please.’
He was fingering the lid of the teapot. I wondered if he’d ever smashed anything, as I could do in a strop, but he left it where it was.
‘Now, if you’ll permit me, I would like to get on with my work.’ And he set off down the corridor, his feet slapping the flagstones.
Eddie reached for the clean mu
gs. ‘Oh Christ, a dressing-down!’ he said, pouring tepid tea. ‘Heavvvvvy! I haven’t had one of those since Westminster. We used to get them from the housemasters. The polite ones are always the worst, don’t you think, Sarah? Much easier if they lose their rag.’
Chloe took a swig, made a face and poured the remainder down the sink. She opened her mouth to say something, looked at me and shut it again. How had I achieved that?
‘That’s enough of divide and rule, Eddie,’ I said quietly. ‘Now you’d better both get back, or I might have to lose my rag too. On this occasion, I’ll clear up or you’ll be even later. Next time I won’t.’ And I watched, amazed at this new tone of voice emerging unasked from within, as they did just as they were told.
That little scene might have put a pall on the end of our afternoon, but in the drawing room it hardly registered. Eddie was now sitting upright up in his armchair, Mei was chewing the rubber troll topping her pencil, Barnaby was lost in the books on his little table. Nothing was said.
I sat down and tried to get back into the groove.
The article I was working on embroidered a subsidiary theme from my doctorate, about women campaigning for social justice. My plan was to submit by the end of the vac, to free my mind for my main area of research. It was only my third academic paper and I was still learning the craft; it wasn’t the cinch I’d hoped it would be.
Having loosely mapped out my case in a handwritten draft and ploughed through my source material before typing it up, I was now trying to home in on the key line of argument and weave in the evidence without losing the balance of the whole. You could see how hard this was from the annotations I’d been joking about with Tyler; bubbles of handwriting and curling arrows indicating where material was to be inserted far outweighed the crossings-out in the main text. I wished I’d brought my little Olivetti and could retire to a place where it wouldn’t disturb, such as the suite above the extension, to type out a clean copy. The frustration – and the anxiety about the deadline – was getting to me.
The Reading Party Page 12
