Dying on Principle

by Judith Cutler

  The meeting began.

  I’m afraid that money has never really interested me for its own sake, and I suppose that Chris and Aberlene were right to suggest I wasn’t very good at spending it. And my leg was beginning to think longingly of more frozen peas and more aspirin, so I paid no more than polite attention to Fairfax’s proposals. He’d been talking about the advantages of brokerled investments, or something similar, when Frank, who’d been covering his agenda with extravagant and possibly Freudian doodles, looked up.

  ‘How about investing some of the society’s assets in that Newtown project I’ve heard rumours of?’ he asked.

  Fairfax looked at him coldly. ‘I never advise organisations such as this to invest in anything with which I am connected. Now, if the orchestra insist on their ethical investments – and may I remind you how quixotic this is – I would draw your attention to the following items in the proposals before you. Page seven, I believe, ladies and gentlemen …’

  Aberlene insisted on making the coffee, dismissing me to the sofa, but Simon wandered into the kitchen after her. There was a quick burst of music; I presumed he was checking his handiwork. Adrian talked to Fairfax about something but kept looking at me. Frank hovered, waiting for a chance to speak to Fairfax, but it seemed to me he was deliberately snubbed. Eventually they exchanged perhaps three sentences, their backs hunched away from the rest of us, and Frank left without waiting for the coffee. Berkeley and Hobbs inspected me and my home with some condescension, and left a couple of minutes later.

  Adrian lounged over to my sofa and applied a charming smile, which I found difficult to reciprocate. I could find no immediate reason for not liking him; could I be plain, old-fashioned jealous? Time would tell, perhaps.

  Fortunately Aberlene and Simon returned with the coffee, and we managed to turn my lack of CD equipment into a conversational asset. Fairfax unobtrusively chomped a couple of large tablets and became more animated than he’d been all evening, describing the delights of his system with almost voluptuous gestures. Simon joined in. Adrian, presumably as ignorant as I, lapsed into silence, and Aberlene glanced from her watch to the window. Was Tobias too circumspect to come to my front door to collect her? I asked the odd question, and wondered if I might take some more aspirin on a very empty stomach. If only everyone would just go home.

  At last they did. Everyone except Fairfax. This time the wretched man did act the host, ushering the others out. And then he offered to help me to my feet.

  ‘You have to eat,’ he said ‘Le Provençale, I thought.’

  I was too taken aback to argue.

  ‘I booked a table earlier. We shall be a little late, thanks to all that talking shop, but they’ll hold it till we arrive. You have a coat?’

  ‘Hanging in the hall,’ I said meekly.

  He parked just outside the restaurant, on a double yellow line. I expected him to settle me and then go and find somewhere more legal, but he seemed unconcerned. Somehow I didn’t want to hear what he’d say if I reminded him, so I kept quiet and told myself that anyone who drove a car like his could pay the fine as easily as I paid my bus fare. And I didn’t like the thought.

  On certain days of the week, Le Provençale had a cheaper, set-meal option, as well as the usual à la carte. Among the table d’hôte items was a salad with hot smoked cheeses which really engaged my foodie’s imagination. And the chicken with cream and tarragon sauce appealed too.

  But it seemed Fairfax wanted to order for me: ‘Smoked salmon, surely? And then duck?’

  At last he acquiesced, but with startling ill grace. He wasn’t crass enough to say anything, so I was left to work out how I’d offended him. Eating my own choice of food – would that be enough to upset him on principle? Had I somehow implied he couldn’t afford the most expensive? I let him have his minor revenge with the wine; I’d have preferred their particularly flirty Gewürztraminer, but it seemed we were to have champagne. Vintage, too. Who was I to argue? I’d better have the lion’s share, too, since he was driving.

  The conversation was horribly dull. I refused to mention life at college, because I didn’t want another anti-teacher diatribe. The only response would have been to walk out, and I was in no position to do that. So we talked about the food before us, and the decor, and the future of Harborne, and one or two sites he saw as ripe for development and which I hoped would remain valued landmarks. Then he turned, with somewhat more animation, to my accident. He wanted chapter and verse.

  ‘Truly, Richard, I can’t remember much. I know it was essentially my fault. I should have used the pelican crossing. But I’ll swear the man grinned when he accelerated.’

  ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘I don’t know – all I remember is the wretched man’s grin. Like the Cheshire Cat!’

  ‘But the car, surely you remember the car?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Surely!’ he insisted. ‘What about the number?’

  I shook my head again. He would have pressed further, had not Geoff, the proprietor, who knew me of old, strolled over to offer me condolences and a sweet. His suggestion, an extravagantly calorific ice cream, was inspired. Not just for the flavour and texture, but for the extraordinary effect it had on Fairfax; his face lit up and he started to talk about his youth and a particular make of ice cream he used to eat on holiday in Devon. I’d never before seen him unbuttoned, as it were. He talked solidly for ten minutes about his boyhood.

  ‘No, of course you haven’t been boring me,’ I said, truthfully, when he interrupted himself to apologise. At last I’d seen the vulnerable side of this public man. Presumably it was the poverty of his early days in the Hospital Street area of the city that had driven him on to make money later. OK, as psychology it was pretty pat, but it gave me something to go on.

  While he’d been talking, his sweet had congealed on the plate, and he pushed it away. More tablets.

  ‘A touch of indigestion,’ he apologised, patting his ribs. ‘I’m too old to eat big meals late at night.’

  My recollection was that he’d done little more than pick at anything except the smoked salmon, and his original glass of champagne had bubbled itself flat. But I merely smiled acquiescence. Neither of us wanted coffee or brandy. Geoff helped ease me into the car, which still reposed on its yellow lines, unsullied by a parking penalty. To those who have, shall be given.

  The trouble is, I never can sleep after champagne. And that night, the questions kept bubbling up in my mind. What was I doing eating out with Richard Fairfax? What was I thinking of when I agreed to accompany him to the next concert at the Music Centre? And – this was the question that niggled most deeply – why should he want to spend time with someone so obviously out of tune with his own opinions?

  At about three in the morning I got up and burrowed in the bathroom cabinet. In the depths lurked a little bottle of extra strong painkillers they’d given me after my accident. By now enough of the champagne must have left my system for me to risk them. I took two, and slept at once.

  14

  If I’d been back at William Murdock, I wouldn’t have hesitated for more than a minute about going in to work. I’d have taken a taxi and somehow persuaded the lifts to work. There’d have been plenty of friendly, willing hands ready to carry things I couldn’t manage while I was leaning on a walking stick. But I was at George Muntz College, just a hundred and fifty yards from my house. And the excuses for not travelling even that far sprang out like green leaves.

  Eventually, however, my sterner self pointed out that my leg was so indisputably less swollen and less painful that I could hardly justify a day off. Not with things as they were. I ought to be in the thick of it, supporting my colleagues. I ought to be working on the project – any excuse that I could do exactly the same thinking and development work at home was a sad reflection on my lack of commitment – and I ought to be poking my nose still further into the Melina affair. And I ought to ask Phil what he’d found on Dr Trevelyan’s computer.


  So I was just about to cross Balden Road when a car pulled up ten yards ahead of me and then reversed sharply and dramatically towards me. The driver was out of the car, arms akimbo, glaring at me before I could look right and left again.

  Dr Burrows: my GP ever since I’d been in Harborne.

  ‘Get back into the house. Go on! Back on your settee and leave the door open. I’ll get my bag of tricks and follow you.’ She flung open her boot. Presumably she didn’t worry about parking parallel to the kerb.

  I did as I was told. I’d removed my jeans and the tubi-grip by the time she swept in, flourishing her case.

  I couldn’t see anything obvious, even though it was my knee and I knew most of its bumps and lumps with reasonable intimacy, but Dr Burrows shoved two cold fingers on a place that made me scream.

  ‘Pop along after work. See the physio. We’ve got one of those now. And a part-time shrink. And a guy that does hypnotherapy and a spot of acupuncture on the side. All mod cons. Anyway –’ she gave my patella a final prod – ‘she’ll sort you out. Give you some exercises. Support and light exercise, that’s the thing. But keep the whole leg supported for a couple of days, or it’ll ache like hell.’ She seized her bag and exited to the hall. Then she popped her head back round the door. ‘Had an anti-tet recently? There’s a campaign – more money for me if I give you one.’

  ‘Had one last year. By the way, d’you need any jabs for Australia?’

  ‘They may be descendants of the riff-raff, dear, but they’re quite civilised now. I understand they even have running water.’

  ‘Nothing at all?’

  ‘Yellow fever. That’s if you come from a country where yellow fever is endemic. Haven’t had too many outbreaks in Birmingham recently so you should be safe. Australia, eh? I thought you teachers were supposed to be hard up. I’ll fix you an appointment for that leg – about four fifteen? Shouldn’t miss any classes at this time of the year, eh?’

  I set off across Balden Road again.

  This time the car that stopped was entirely familiar, and Chris slowed it quietly and undramatically, pulling up about three inches from the kerb. If he stood arms akimbo, it was momentarily.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Coffee for two.’

  While he made it, I made a couple of phone calls to explain why I’d be in late. When I called la Cavendish I didn’t mention the knee. Just that I was helping the police with their inquiries. The expression on Chris’s face when he returned suggested he might have overheard.

  ‘What I can’t believe,’ he said, ‘is that you can’t remember anything. You, of all people. Go on, you should keep that leg supported. All the way along.’

  I reclined on the sofa and pulled a face. ‘It was my fault, Chris. Just carelessness. I suppose I don’t like remembering being a fool. What’s the matter? What nasty little thought is polluting your mind?’

  He shrugged. He looked round for something I could use as a table, but failed. He compromised eventually by reaching for a dining chair and plonking my coffee mug on that, just out of reach. He noticed immediately and shifted it closer.

  ‘Biscuit?’ he said, heading for the kitchen.

  ‘Not for me. I’m not going to be able to exercise off extra calories for a bit.’ But I took one when he brought them.

  ‘What make of car was it?’ he asked casually.

  ‘It must have been an old one,’ I said, ‘mustn’t it? After all, most modern ones have lowish bonnets, and this was high enough for me to vault on. Probably still got my hand print on it.

  ‘Would it show?’

  ‘Probably. On dark-blue paint – Chris, what are you up to?’

  He shook his head. ‘So, was it particularly dirty?’

  ‘Dusty. And the idiot had those go-faster stripes down the side. And Escort in large letters. As if he needed to announce the fact … Mark Two Escorts are pretty easy to identify. Easier than the bloke, Chris. Truly I don’t remember anything about him, except he was one of those irritating types who need to hold their roof on. Drive with the left hand, beat devil’s tattoos on the roof through the open driver’s window,’ I explained.

  ‘So you saw his hands. What about his fingernails? Rings?’

  I shook my head. ‘I’m trying too hard now. Let it simmer a little longer. Why the interest, Chris?’

  He looked embarrassed.

  ‘There was a cycle accident I never told you about,’ I said. ‘I got knocked on to a load of refuse sacks. Full, smelly refuse sacks.’

  ‘All the better for bouncing on.’

  ‘Lots of bad drivers in Brum,’ I said hopefully.

  ‘Oh, the place is renowned for them,’ he agreed. ‘But I suspect that, despite your well-known charm and tact, you may have annoyed someone, Sophie.’

  I certainly annoyed Mrs Cavendish. Not because I had missed any classes but because I inhabited the same planet. She summoned me to her desk as soon as I got in, and I stood before her, just as I’d once stood in front of my secondary-school head teacher accused of the awful crime of playing cricket with the lads. Girls were supposed to stick to rounders, you see. Now, as then, I found I could keep my temper by thinking about something else. And the cricket season was just beginning.

  ‘The police, Miss Rivers? It seems to me that you spend an unreasonable amount of your time with the police.’

  ‘How infinitely superior to spending it with criminals,’ I said, dead-pan.

  I’d meant simply to be madly insolent, but I was rewarded by the expression on her face.

  ‘What are you implying?’ she asked at last.

  ‘No more, Mrs Cavendish, than you were implying.’ I smiled with implausible sweetness. ‘Now, how can I help you?’

  ‘I wish to remind you that you are not allowed simply to appear at whatever time seems to suit you. You are extremely late.’

  ‘I telephoned my principal to explain,’ I said. Mr Worrall had been only vaguely sympathetic; he probably realised I was calling him to protect my back.

  I think she missed the pronoun.

  ‘I took no call from you. And Mr Blake is not in his office this morning.’

  ‘Another conference? Tell me, Mrs Cavendish, with a convenient centre just next door, why do Muntz’s staff keep waltzing off to the Mondiale to chat? Must be pretty expensive.’

  ‘We are able to negotiate preferential rates.’

  I was enjoying this. It was a long time since I’d been able to bait anyone into betraying far more than they wanted.

  ‘Oh, is Muntz like that Welsh water company, buying shares in hotels? This must be a benefit of incorporation the FEFC hadn’t anticipated.’ Thank goodness for William Murdock’s principal and his useful acronyms.

  Mrs Cavendish went pale. What on earth had I hit on?

  The phone saved her. While she picked it up, I looked around me, apparently casual. I’d left my stick outside, unwilling to give her the satisfaction of seeing me limp. After these few minutes on my feet the throbbing was becoming more insistent, but I soon found an excellent analgesic: two or three files stamped PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL. They all bore the new George Muntz logo. I couldn’t, of course, pick them up and read through them, but I couldn’t resist reading the neatly printed headings. ‘College without Walls’ – that was quite a thick one. Then there was ‘Newtown Site’. The top two almost obscured the third, but I could still make out the word ‘Provence’. If Mrs Cavendish would turn only an inch further from me, I could shift them to one side. ‘Provence’? Not the sort of thing I’d expect to see as a file heading in a traditional further-education college.

  I glanced at her; dare I risk it? But her eyes were already on me.

  ‘I assure you,’ she was saying, ‘that resting a throat with tonsillitis will only make it worse.’

  At the other end of the line someone expostulated.

  ‘There are several proprietary treatments, and failing that you should be able to obtain an antibiotic from your general practitioner.’

  T
he distant voice interrupted her, but she soon overrode it. ‘All the classrooms have overhead projectors: I suggest you occupy your lunchtime making appropriate transparencies.’

  She put down the receiver and, putting her fingertips together in an unbelievably complacent gesture, smiled up at me. ‘I don’t believe I need detain you any longer, Miss Rivers: I understand you have a great deal of work to do on a project that is already behind schedule.’

  She contrived to make it sound as if it was my fault that my colleagues had been absent and thus, in her book, slacking. This time I did not bite, but smiled in what I hoped was a disturbingly enigmatic way. ‘Don’t worry, Mrs Cavendish. I’m way ahead on most of my other work.’

  I always liked neat Parthian shots. But I’ve often been forced to regret them.

  Someone had been in my office. I was sure of it. I told myself it must have been the cleaners, that to suppose anything else was mere fantasy, and settled to the more pressing problem of how to arrange my office to accommodate the game leg. Using my inverted stick as a hook, I manoeuvred the waste bin alongside the desk, and was just arranging the phone book and Yellow Pages across the top, knowing they would fall in if I shifted them a fraction off line, when someone scratched at the door.

  Before I could answer, Phil pushed his head round and raised his finger ostentatiously to his lips. Then he beckoned me into the corridor.

  ‘Have you found anything?’ I whispered.

  ‘Like I was saying, just you follow me.’

  I hopped back for my stick, and then followed him down the corridor. I’d have loved to use the lift, but Phil legged it briskly down the stairs, so I had perforce to follow. He led me out into the car park. It was becoming a pleasant day, with the clouds beginning to thin.

  ‘Walls have ears,’ he said tersely. Then, as if noticing my limp for the first time, he grabbed my elbow to help propel me towards a bench. This was another reminder of the differences between George Muntz and poor William Murdock: if we’d ever had any benches they’d long since been vandalised into extinction. George Muntz had the sort of teak benches with wide, slatted seats that I associated with National Trust gardens. Phil had chosen to grab my left arm, so he was no use at all as support and the pace he set made me fear for the other leg too. I arrived at the bench with more haste than dignity.