Over Hill and Dale

by Gervase Phinn

  ‘Gervase, what are you wearing?’

  ‘A suit. Why?’

  ‘Do you always have to wear that dreadful grey outfit? We are contributing to a creative arts course, not attending a Foreign Office funeral. Relax, get casual. It’s a residential course for lively teachers, not an undertakers’ convention. You want to look colourful, expressive, exciting, artistic. You’re not inspecting this weekend, you know!’

  ‘I didn’t stop to think about what to put on, to be honest. My mind was on other things.’

  ‘Oh dear, I do hope this is not a taster of things to come. I sincerely hope that you are not going to mope around Oxford like some medieval mystic contemplating the meaning of life. You really will have to ask her, you know.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘This weekend will give you a perfect opportunity to get your thoughts together and rehearse what you will say to her when you get back and pop the question. I’ll give you the benefit of my extensive experience with the opposite sex. We will have some rehearsals. Now, come and help me load up.’

  We packed the car with Sidney’s boxes of paints and brushes, great plastic bags of clay, folders and files, easels and display boards, drapes and canvasses, dried flowers and gnarled lumps of driftwood and, on the very top, we wedged a ferocious-looking stuffed stoat savaging a rabbit, a snarling fox, a pair of fat hedgehogs and assorted sharp-beaked birds.

  ‘I shall carry the badger on my knee,’ announced Sidney. ‘He is very precious is Barry.’

  We said goodbye to his long-suffering wife, Lila, who smiled and shook her head as I pulled away and headed for the main road.

  Sidney spent the first part of the journey chattering inconsequentially and the second part in deep sleep with his arms wrapped lovingly round the stuffed badger. The sight of him in an amorous embrace with the black and white creature drew many a stare from other motorists.

  When we arrived in Oxford, Sidney rubbed his eyes, stretched, yawned and peered through the window. ‘Drop me off at the college, will you, Gervase,’ he directed. ‘I shall unpack and find Miss de la Mare and tell her we’ve arrived. You park the car somewhere and then would you book us in while I sort out the workshop rooms? I’ll see you in an hour for lunch.’

  During the summer months, after the undergraduates have gone down for the Long Vac, the university becomes available for a huge variety of outside courses and conferences. Miss de la Mare’s art course was to take place at one of the oldest, most beautiful and prestigious of the colleges.

  Having dropped off Sidney and parked the car as instructed, I made my way to the entrance of Wentworth College, a large, square, imposing building of honey-coloured stone. Moving round various tourists who were peeking through the small opening set in a vast ancient door stretching across an entrance archway, I arrived at the Porter’s Lodge. I peered through a leaded window for a sign of life, and found myself staring into the face of a gaunt, lugubrious-looking porter with a hatchet of a nose. The nose could have cut a rock in two. A few seconds later the funereal figure emerged through the portal like some black beetle creeping out from a hole.

  ‘Good morning, sir,’ he intoned. ‘May I be of assistance?’

  ‘Good morning,’ I replied cheerily. ‘I’m here for the meeting.’

  ‘You will find your colleagues in the Stafford Chamber.’ He gestured with a long stick of a finger across the quadrangle. ‘I’ll enter your name, sir, if I may.’

  ‘Gervase Phinn,’ I replied.

  ‘Thank you, Dr Phinn. Pre-prandial drinks are at present being served.’

  ‘And I am expecting my colleague, so if you could direct him to where the meeting is taking place?’

  ‘Of course, Dr Phinn,’ replied the porter, smiling like a frog.

  I walked out from under the archway and into the quadrangle, in the middle of which was set a large beautifully mown square of lawn. The hum of the traffic outside hardly permeated this peaceful sanctum.

  I made my way across the quadrangle to the Stafford Chamber. It was a magnificently ornate room with dark oak wainscoting, a great domed ceiling, and an uneven but highly polished floor. Portraits of former Earls of Wentworth lined the walls, and a great imposing portrait of Charles I on horseback, resplendent in silver armour and flowing blue cloak, hung at the head of the room. There was a pleasant smell of old wood and beeswax. A small gathering offormally dressed people was chatting away amiably and sipping sherry, but I could see no sign of Miss de la Mare. Everyone seemed to be remarkably relaxed. I was relieved to be in a suit. I would have been entirely out of place in one of Sidney’s suggested outfits and wondered if he would be allowed in when he arrived.

  A distinguished, elderly gentleman, with the face of a Roman senator, approached me. ‘Have we met?’ he asked amiably.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I replied, holding out my hand. ‘I’m Gervase Phinn.’

  ‘John Morton, Emeritus Professor of Medieval History. I am very pleased to meet you. I once knew a bishop called Gervase. A very saintly man. You are a new face at our gathering, are you not?’

  ‘Yes, and very honoured to have been invited.’

  ‘Whereabouts are you from?’

  ‘Yorkshire.’

  ‘Ah yes, I did detect a certain northern burr in the voice. You’ll know Professor de Longue, of course. He’s a Halifax man. And David Willett-Smith is from your part of the country, Sheffield I think.’ As I cast my eyes around the throng, I had an uneasy feeling that this august gathering was not a group of primary school teachers on a weekend creative arts course. My suspicions were strengthened as my friendly companion took me round and introduced me to one distinguished person after another. They were confirmed when a large begowned individual appeared and announced: ‘Fellows of the College, luncheon is served.’ I had gate-crashed a meeting of the Fellows of Wentworth College.

  ‘So you are Dr Finn, are you?’ I turned to face a rather portly, elderly man with grey nibbled eyebrows and skin as white and shiny as a waxwork figure. ‘I’m Herbert Rawnsley and have been so looking forward to meeting you.’

  I shook a cold hand. ‘You have?’ I replied nervously.

  ‘Yes, indeed. I was so delighted to hear that you had been elected one of our Honorary Fellows. You are a Cambridge man, are you not? Trinity, was it?’

  ‘Er… well… I…’

  ‘Your book on Multi-Dimensional Scaling and Log-Linear Contingency Analysis was refreshingly readable. We must get together after lunch.’

  ‘Yes, we must,’ I replied, thinking how, in heaven’s name, was I to get out of this place.

  ‘I must say, you have lost your Canadian accent,’ continued the wax-faced individual.

  ‘Gervase is from Yorkshire, Herbert,’ said Professor Morton who had just joined us.

  ‘I thought you were Canadian? It is Maurice Finn, isn’t it, author of Statistical Measurements in Social Science?’

  ‘I’ll just wash my hands, if I may,’ I replied, turning in the direction of the exit.

  ‘There’s a lavatory through here,’ my companion said helpfully and, grasping my arm, he added, ‘I’ll come with you. We’ll sit together at lunch and compare notes. I’m working on some economic models in which you may very well be interested.’

  I hid in a toilet cubicle for a few minutes, then crept away unobserved. Once outside in the quadrangle, I breathed great gulps of air in relief. I found Sidney pacing up and down near the main entrance.

  ‘There you are!’ he cried. ‘I thought you’d thrown yourself in the river or something. Where have you been?’ Before I could answer, he rattled on. ‘Never mind, it’s all sorted. I’ve seen Miss de la Mare, found where we are to work and have copies of the programme. I’ve taken the larger room because I need the space. You’ll be all right in the little annexe, won’t you? Yes, of course, you will, you don’t need equipment for poetry, do you? Now, let’s go and have some lunch.’

  Miss de la Mare was waiting for me in the entrance to the seminar room wh
ere I was to lead the poetry workshop later that afternoon. She was wearing a beige cotton safari concoction, with pockets and zips everywhere. Her summer ensemble ended with a pair of pink plimsolls. There was a broad grin on her plump face.

  ‘Mr Phinn, Gervase!’ she cried, grasping my hand and shaking it vigorously. ‘How very nice to see you. Always a great relief to know that the speakers and tutors have arrived. I saw Mr Clamp earlier and he said you’d found the college without too much difficulty. Now, come along in and see if you’ve got everything you need. There’s a flip chart, screen, overhead projector, plenty of paper and materials.’ Miss de la Mare seemed more nervous than I.

  ‘It’s fine, Miss de la Mare,’ I reassured her, glancing around the small room.

  ‘But is the room big enough, do you think?’

  ‘It’s fine,’ I repeated.

  ‘Because I could see if there is something a little larger if not.’

  ‘It really is fine,’ I said laughing.

  ‘Good show!’ she cried, rubbing her hands together. ‘I’m sure your session will go really well.’

  My afternoon workshop did, in fact, go well. The teachers were good-humoured and interested and produced some splendid poems. Sidney’s session, however, did not turn out quite as planned. I was sitting in a small rose garden, enclosed by handsome wrought-iron railings, to the rear of the college, when I caught sight of him striding across the quadrangle with the stuffed badger tucked under his arm and a thunderous look on his face. I called to him and a few moments later he banged noisily through the gate, flopped on to the seat next to me and rather unceremoniously, I thought, dumped the badger at his feet.

  ‘I was harangued by a mad woman!’ he exclaimed, eyes blazing and beard bristling. ‘A mad woman in crimson dungarees with bright red hair and clanking metal jewellery. Compared to her, Mrs Savage is a veritable Mother Teresa.’

  ‘Who was she?’ I asked, trying to suppress a smile.

  ‘Some animal rights activist, by the way she behaved. She took against my stuffed creatures from the start and refused to put brush to canvas. “How would you like to be murdered, gutted, stuffed and mounted and then painted by all and sundry?” she screeched at me, as I was arranging the heron. The whole session went from bad to worse and deteriorated into a debate on the rights and wrongs of stuffed animals.’ Sidney’s eyes were now fairly crackling with anger. ‘I endeavoured to explain to her that the animals were not deliberately killed, but had been found dead, but would she have it?’ My colleague caught sight of the slight smile on my lips. ‘You may find this amusing, Gervase, but that smile will rapidly disappear when I tell you that, at my suggestion, Boadicea in the red dungarees and battle jewellery is moving to the poetry workshop with you tomorrow morning. I suggested that she might find poetry more to her liking.’

  ‘Well, thanks a bundle, Sidney!’

  ‘We are doing pottery tomorrow and I certainly don’t intend having that red she-devil savaging me for digging up the environment, stripping clay from river beds, disturbing the natural habitat of snails and generally ruining the planet. I’ll tell you this, Gervase –’

  ‘Excuse me, sir.’ It was the gaunt, lugubrious-looking porter.

  ‘Yes?’ snapped Sidney. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Your voice is carrying across the quadrangle – sir.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘It’s echoing.’

  ‘You don’t say.’

  ‘This garden is reserved for the Fellows of the college.’ He scrutinized Sidney as if looking for dirt and then his eyes rested on the stuffed badger. ‘And pets are not allowed.’

  ‘Pets!’ exclaimed Sidney. ‘It’s not a pet, it’s a stuffed badger.’

  ‘I can see what it is, sir.’

  Sidney patted the creature on the head. ‘And it’s dead.’

  ‘I take it you are not a Fellow of the college, sir?’ continued the man unperturbed.

  ‘Do I look like a Fellow of the college?’ exclaimed Sidney wearily. He was dressed in a coloured T-shirt and bandanna, paint-spattered jeans and multi-coloured plimsolls.

  ‘No, sir, you do not.’

  ‘You are correct! I am not a Fellow of the college.’

  ‘Well, would you mind vacating the garden then, please, sir, taking the animal with you?’

  ‘Am I doing any harm? Am I doing anything heinously wrong in merely sitting on a bench in the sunshine, minding my own business? Is my stuffed companion ripping up the lawn or savaging the flowers?’

  ‘The garden is for the exclusive use of Fellows of Wentworth College,’ the porter persisted. ‘I must ask you to leave.’ With a great exhalation of breath, Sidney got to his feet angrily, snatched up the badger and strode away. I got up to follow him.

  ‘I am sorry that you were disturbed, Dr Finn,’ said the porter. ‘We do get all sorts of unsavoury itinerants over the summer who slide in when my back is turned. I trust you were not too inconvenienced?’ Without waiting for an answer he walked away but turned as if he had suddenly forgotten something. ‘Oh, by the way, Dr Finn, Professor Rawnsley has been looking for you.’

  ‘Bringing the stuffed animals was a complete and utter disaster,’ growled Sidney as I helped him load the car the following afternoon. ‘I feel like throwing the blasted badger in the river. It’s brought me nothing but grief. I should have got them to paint insipid watercolours of the college and the gardens, do pretty little sketches of flowers. Mind you, we would have been banned no doubt by that gatekeeper from Hell from drawing anything in his wretched Fellows’ garden.’

  Before I could answer, a stately, crimson-gowned figure entered the quadrangle. It was the elderly don with the face of the Roman senator whom I had met the previous day. He smiled benignly at me.

  ‘You missed a very good lunch yesterday, Gervase,’ he said, approaching me. ‘We all wondered where you had got to. Herbert is very keen to speak to you.’

  ‘I was feeling a little unwell,’ I replied sheepishly.

  ‘Oh, I am sorry. I trust you are now recovered?’

  ‘Yes, I feel fine today.’

  ‘That’s good. Are you coming?’

  ‘Coming?’ I repeated.

  ‘To Evensong in the chapel. It’s the special service for the Fellows.’

  ‘I’ll be along in a moment,’ I replied, smiling weakly.

  ‘I look forward to seeing you there.’ There was a swish of red gown and Professor Morton was gone.

  ‘Who the devil was that?’ asked Sidney.

  ‘Oh, just someone I met yesterday.’

  ‘Well, what was all that about lunch and a meeting of the Fellows? You are a dark horse, you know. There are one or two questions I want answering, Gervase, starting with why you were not asked to vacate the Fellows’ garden when I was evicted, who are these important people that you seem to know and, more importantly, how you coped with the wild woman in the red dungarees.’

  ‘Come along, Sidney, let’s go. All will be revealed on the journey home. I need to get back to Fettlesham. There’s a very important question I need to ask and it really can’t be put off any longer.’

  24

  I had booked a table at Le Bon Appetit restaurant in the little market town of Ribsdyke for the Saturday after my return from Oxford. Christine would be in a good mood because term would have ended and she would be looking forward to the long summer break. There would be soft music, subdued lights and, from our secluded table, we would look out along the dale and watch the sun go down behind the noble fells. I would reach out and take Christine’s hand in mine. Our eyes would lock. I would gaze into those deep blue eyes and whisper, ‘Christine, I think you know how I feel about you. Over the year, I’ve grown closer and closer to you. You’re always in my thoughts, you’re forever in my dreams. I love you.’ I would pause for effect. ‘Darling, will you marry me?’ Her eyes would fill with tears. ‘Of course,’ she would sigh.

  That is what I had carefully rehearsed in Oxford but it did not quite work out like tha
t.

  The taxi arrived late. I thought it would set the scene much better if I arrived at Christine’s house in a sleek black taxi rather than in my old, distinctly grubby, Volvo estate. It would also mean that I could have more than one glass of wine. I might need some Dutch courage, I thought, imagining the ordeal ahead of me. My heart sank when I saw the vehicle which spluttered to a halt outside The Rumbling Tum café. It was without a doubt the oldest and smelliest in the fleet, reeking of diesel and stale cigarettes.

  ‘I didn’t know I were pickin’ up t’Prince of Wales,’ said the driver facetiously, when I complained about the state of the interior. ‘You should have asked for t’limousine.’

  When we finally arrived at Christine’s parents’ house, I could see my future bride staring anxiously through the window.

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ I said as I hurried her down the path, ‘the taxi was late.’

  ‘I thought you’d stood me up,’ she said smiling. Then she caught sight of the vehicle. ‘And we’re going by taxi. How nice.’

  Le Bon Appetit was heaving. We squeezed through a crowd of loud young men in smart suits holding pints of lager who were blocking the door, to be greeted by the head waiter. He was a small, dark-eyed, Gallic-looking individual, who eyed me superciliously as I pushed my way forward, clearing a path for Christine. He asked, in a strong French accent, if I had a reservation and, hearing that I had, ran a fat finger down a list in his hand.

  ‘Ah, oui, Meester and Meesis Pinn.’

  ‘Phinn!’ I corrected.

  ‘Meester Phinn. Eef you would like to come zees way, I will show you to your table.’ We followed him through a noisy, crowded restaurant to a small table positioned between two larger tables full of loud, laughing people and directly opposite the doors to the kitchens.