Lucky Jim
Page 21
‘One thing I like about Fred Karno,’ Beesley said, ‘though it’s about the only thing when I come to think of it: he’ll never try to push anyone through that he doesn’t really think’s worth it. No Firsts this year for us, four Thirds, and forty-five per cent of the first-year people failed; that’s the way to deal with ’em. Fred’s about the only prof. in the place who’s resisting all this outside pressure to chuck Firsts around like teaching diplomas and push every bugger who can write his name through the Pass courses. What’s Neddy’s angle on the business? Or hasn’t he got round to getting one yet?’
‘That’s right. He leaves most of it to Cecil Goldsmith, and that means everyone gets through. Cecil’s a tender-hearted chap, you know.’
‘Tender-headed, you mean. It’s the same everywhere you look; not only this place, but all the provincial universities are going the same way. Not London, I suppose, and not the Scottish ones. But my God, go to most places and try and get someone turfed out merely because he’s too stupid to pass his exams—it’d be easier to sack a prof. That’s the trouble with having so many people here on Education Authority grants, you see.’
‘How do you mean? The students have got to get their money from somewhere.’
‘Well, you know, Jim. You can see the Authorities’ point in a way. “We pay for John Smith to enter College here and now you tell us, after seven years, that he’ll never get a degree. You’re wasting our money.” If we institute an entrance exam to keep out the ones who can’t read or write, the entry goes down by half, and half of us lose our jobs. And then the other demand: “We want two hundred teachers this year and we mean to have them.” All right, we’ll lower the pass mark to twenty per cent and give you the quantity you want, but for God’s sake don’t start complaining in two years’ time that your schools are full of teachers who couldn’t pass the General Certificate themselves, let alone teach anyone else to pass it. It’s a wonderful position, isn’t it?’
Dixon agreed rather than disagreed with Beesley, but he didn’t feel interested enough to say so. It was one of those days when he felt quite convinced of his impending expulsion from academic life. What would he do afterwards? Teach in a school? Oh dear no.
Go to London and get a job in an office. What job? Whose office? Shut up.
They entered the main building in silence, went into the Common Room, and moved over to their pigeon-holes. Dixon took out of his a reminder that he hadn’t yet paid his Common Room subscription for the year and a postcard, addressed to Jas Dickson Esq BA, informing him of the publication of some flatulent work on textile trades in the time of the Tudors. These he dropped into the wastepaper-basket with the maximum of dispatch. Beesley was looking through a newly-arrived issue of the journal of university affairs to which he subscribed, muttering to himself. There was nobody else in the room. Before rousing himself to find Barclay, Dixon, feeling he could do with a sit-down at the start of such a day, dropped into an armchair and yawned.
In a moment or two Beesley came over, holding his journal open. ‘Something that’ll interest you here, Jim. “New appointments. Dr L. S. Caton to the Chair of History of Commerce, University of Tucumán, Argentina.” Isn’t that the chap you sent your article to?’
‘Christ, let me have a look.’
‘You’d better get through to him a bit sharpish, before he escapes on the banana-boat. Looks as if his new review’ll be packing up, unless he thinks he can edit it from there.’
‘Oh God, this looks pretty bad.’
‘I should get through to him on the blower if I were you.’
‘Oh God. Yes, I will. Well, thanks for pointing it out to me, Alfred. I’d better find Barclay before he gets a job out there too.’
A prey to vague but powerful misgiving, Dixon hurried out and over to the Music School, where, to his surprise, Barclay proved to be present, available, cooperative, and in possession of just the sort of book Dixon wanted. Feeling a little less disturbed, Dixon went round with it to the library and obtained, with almost sinister promptitude, a book on medieval costume and furniture. In the revolving door on the way out, his movement was abruptly checked by the intervention of somebody outside trying to revolve the door in the opposite, and (according to several large, well-designed notices) wrong, direction. It was Welch, looking suspiciously about him, stepping back with a frown as Dixon went on pushing and emerged by his side.
‘Good morning, Professor.’
Welch recognized him almost at once. ‘Dixon,’ he said.
‘Yes, Professor?’ Dixon had forgotten until now Margaret’s report that Welch, in common with the other members of his family, was ‘out for his blood’. How would Welch manifest his pursuit of that entity?
‘I was wondering about the library,’ Welch said, rocking to and fro on his heels. He was looking more than usually wild-eyed and dishevelled this morning. There was a small golden emblem on his tie resembling some heraldic device or other, but proving on closer scrutiny to be congealed egg-yolk. Substantial traces of the same nutritive were to be seen round his mouth, which was now ajar.
‘Oh yes?’ Dixon asked, hoping to encourage Welch to indicate what point, within the framework of ideas connected with the library, could be taken as the focus of his wonderment.
‘Do you think you could go there?’
Dixon began to feel definitely alarmed. Had Welch’s long-heralded derangement finally come to pass? Or was this a bitterly sarcastic way of alluding to Dixon’s own disinclination to approach any possible arena of academic work? Badly rattled now, he stole a glance over his shoulder to make sure that they were, in fact, standing within two paces of the library entrance. ‘I expect so’ seemed the safest sort of reply.
‘You’re not overburdened with work just now?’
‘Just now?’ Dixon bleated. ‘I don’t think I . . .’
‘I was thinking of your lecture for Wednesday. I suppose most of it’s complete by now?’
Dixon shifted the two books he had under his arm, in case Welch might be able to see their titles. ‘Oh yes,’ he said wildly. ‘Professor. Yes.’
‘I haven’t got time to go to the library, you see,’ Welch said in the tone of one removing the last trivial obstacle in the way of complete understanding. ‘I’ve got to go in here,’ he added, pointing towards the library.
Dixon nodded slowly. ‘Oh, you’ve got to go in here,’ he said.
‘Yes, one or two points have come up in the examination answers. I want to check them up before the External Examiner’s meeting tomorrow. You’ll be all right for that, I take it? Five o’clock in my room.’
Christine was meeting Dixon at four o’clock the next day. Even with a taxi he could only have three-quarters of an hour with her. He wanted to bundle Welch into the revolving door and whirl him round in it till lunch-time. He said: ‘I’ll be there.’
‘Good. Well, you can see that I shan’t be able to spend any time pottering about looking things up in the library.’
‘Oh, quite.’
‘It’s good of you to do this for me, Dixon. Now, as regards what I want from the library: it’s all down here.’ By degrees, he drew a sheaf of papers from his breast pocket and unfolded them. ‘It’s all quite self-explanatory, you’ll find. The reference is down in nearly every case, I think . . . yes. Oh, there are a few here, yes, without . . . just long shots, really. I don’t suppose there’s much of value, if anything, but you might just look through the subject indexes. If there aren’t any, then you’ll just have to use your own . . . your own . . . The chapter titles will probably help you there. This one, for instance, you see. Just see if there’s anything relevant. I shouldn’t think there would be from the date. But you never know your luck, do you?’ He scrutinized Dixon’s face, seeking confirmation.
‘No, you don’t.’
‘No, you don’t. I remember being held up for weeks once over a thing I was doing, just because of one missing fact. It seems that in the autumn of 1663 . . . no, the summer . . .’
Welch’s expression was slowly adapting itself to incredulous rage. In a high, petulant tone he said: ‘No, of course they won’t have the information here, Dixon. I can’t imagine any one thinking they would. That’s why I’m asking you to go down to the library for it. I know for a fact they’ve got ninety per cent of the stuff I want. I’d go myself, but as I took the trouble to explain, I’m tied up here. And I must have the information by tonight, because I’m giving the talk tomorrow evening after Professor Fortescue gets . . . goes . . . goes back. Now do you see?’
Dixon did: Welch had all the time been talking about the public library in the city, and, since this was clear to him, naturally hadn’t thought of the confusion he might cause by talking about ‘the library’ within five feet of a totally different building known in the area as ‘the library’. ‘Oh, of course, Professor; I’m sorry,’ he said, having been well schooled in giving apologies at the very times when he ought to be demanding them.
‘All right, Dixon. Well, I won’t hold you up now; I expect you’ll want to get started if you’re to finish by five. You’d better come up to my room afterwards and show me what you’ve got. It’s very kind of you to offer to help; I appreciate it very much.’
Dixon dropped the papers between the pages of Barclay’s book and turned away, only to start violently and look back as a loud thundering noise broke out behind him. Welch, his hair flapping, was straining like a packed-down rugby forward to push the revolving door in the wrong direction. Dixon stood and watched, allowing his mandrill face full play. After a time Welch, somehow divining his error, began pulling instead at the now-jammed door, changing his semblance to that of anchor in a losing tug-o’-war team. With a sudden bursting click the door yielded and Welch overbalanced backwards, hitting his head on the panel behind him. Dixon went away, beginning to whistle his Welch tune in a solemn, almost liturgical tempo. He felt that it was things like this that kept him going
18
‘Well, that’s really splendid, Dixon,’ Welch said seven hours later. ‘You’ve filled in all the gaps in a most . . . a most . . . Really quite admirable.’ He gloated over his notes for a moment, then suddenly added: ‘What are you doing now?’ with an effect of suspicion.
In point of fact, Dixon had got his hands behind his back now and was gesturing with them. ‘I was just . . .’ he stammered.
‘I was wondering if you were doing anything this evening. I thought you might like to come over and have a meal with us.’
After a day of doing Welch’s work, there was plenty for Dixon to do that evening in connexion with his lecture, but it was obvious that he couldn’t afford to turn down this offer, so he said unhesitatingly: ‘Well, thank you very much, Professor. That’s very kind of you.’
Welch nodded as if pleased, and gathered up the papers to put them into his ‘bag’. ‘I think this ought to go down very well tomorrow night,’ he said, turning on Dixon his sexual maniac’s smile.
‘I’m sure it will. Who’s the talk being delivered to?’
‘The Antiquarian and Historical Society. I’m surprised you haven’t seen the posters.’ He picked up his ‘bag’ and put his fawn fishing-hat on his head. ‘Come along, then. We’ll go down in my car.’
‘That’ll be nice.’
‘I must say they’re a marvellously keen lot,’ Welch said passionately as they went downstairs. ‘A very good audience to talk to. Attentive and . . . keen, and plenty of questions to fire at you afterwards. Of course, you get mainly town people there, but we always get some of the better students along. Young Michie, for instance. A good lad, that. Have you managed to get him interested in your special subject at all?’
Reflecting that Michie was lying ominously low these days, Dixon said: ‘Yes, he seems quite set on it,’ and hoped that Welch would take due heed of this testimony to his power to ‘interest’ such a good lad.
Welch went on as before: ‘A very good lad, he is. Very keen. Always turns up to the Antiquarians. I’ve had one or two chats with him, as a matter of fact. I think we’ve really got quite a lot in common.’
Dixon doubted whether Welch and Michie had much in common beyond a similar view of his own capacities, but, judging that Welch’s professional ethics would prevent him from instancing that, asked with a show of curiosity: ‘In what way?’
‘Well, we both have this interest in the English tradition, as you might call it. His is more philosophical, I suppose, and mine more what you could sum up as cultural, but we’ve got quite a lot in common. I was thinking the other day, by the way, that it’s remarkable how my own interests have turned more and more towards this English tradition in the last few years. Whereas my wife’s are . . . I always sum her up as a Western European first and an Englishwoman second. With her, you see, with her sort of Continental way of looking at things, almost Gallic you might say she is in some things, well, the things that are so important to me, the English social and cultural scene, with a kind of backward-looking bias in a sense, popular crafts and so on, traditional pastimes and that, well, to her that’s an aspect in a way, you see, just an aspect—a very interesting aspect, of course, but no more than an aspect,’ and here he hesitated as if choosing the accurate term, ‘a sort of aspect of the development of Western European culture, you might say. You can see it most clearly, really, in her attitude towards the Welfare State, and it’s a great advantage to be able to view that problem in what you might describe as a wider perspective. She argues, you see, that if people have everything done for them . . .’
Dixon, having long ago summed up Mrs Welch on his own account, allowed Welch to go on about her political views, her attitude towards ‘so-called freedom in education’, her advocacy of retributive punishment, her fondness for reading what Englishwomen wrote about how Parisians thought and felt. His own thoughts and feelings, all the time they were getting into the car and driving off, were busy on the subject of Margaret. He didn’t know how he was to face meeting her; this reflection, which had been occupying him for most of the day at the Public Library, had become much more urgent now that he’d have to face meeting her very shortly. He’d also presumably have to face meeting Bertrand and Mrs Welch, but these encounters must in comparison be much less appalling. There’d be Christine as well; he didn’t really want to see her either, not because of anything to do with her personally, but because she formed a portion of his worry about Margaret. He’d have to do something to show Margaret she wasn’t entirely alone; he wouldn’t, he mustn’t let himself, get back on the old footing with her, but he must somehow reassure her of his continued support. How was he going to do that?
In search of some distraction, he looked out of the window at his left just as Welch slowed to a walking pace at a road junction. Standing on the pavement was a big fat man whom Dixon recognized as his barber. Dixon felt a deep respect for this man because of his impressive exterior, his rumbling bass voice, and his unsurpassable stock of information about the Royal Family. At that moment two rather pretty girls stopped at a pillar-box a few yards away. The barber, his hands clasped behind his back, turned and stared at them. An unmistakable look of furtive lust came over his face; then, like a courtly shopwalker
, he moved slowly towards the two girls. Welch now accelerated again and Dixon, a good deal shaken, hurriedly switched his attention to the other side of the road, where a cricket match was being played and the bowler was just running up to bowl. The batsman, another big fat man, swiped at the ball, missed it, and was violently hit by it in the stomach. Dixon had time to see him double up and the wicket-keeper begin to run forward before a tall hedge hid the scene.
Uncertain whether this pair of vignettes was designed to illustrate the swiftness of divine retribution or its tendency to mistake its target, Dixon was quite sure that he felt in some way overwhelmed, so much so that he listened to what Welch was saying. He was saying ‘Most impressive’, and for a second Dixon felt like picking up the spanner he could see in the dashboard pocket and hitting him on the back of the neck with it. He knew the sort of thing Welch found impressive.
The rest of the journey passed uneventfully. Welch’s driving seemed to have improved slightly; at any rate, the only death Dixon felt himself threatened by was death from exposure to boredom. Even this danger receded for a couple of minutes while Welch disclosed a few facts about the recent history of the effeminate writing Michel, a character always waiting in the wings of Dixon’s life but apparently destined never to enter its stage. This Michel, as indefatigably Gallic as his mother, had been cooking for himself in his small London flat, and had in the last few days made himself ill by stuffing himself with filthy foreign food of his own preparation, in particular, Dixon gathered, spaghetti and dishes cooked in olive oil. This seemed fit punishment for one so devoted to coagulated flour-and-water and peasants’ butter-substitute, washed down, no doubt, by ‘real’ black coffee of high viscosity. Anyway, Michel was evidently coming down in a day or two to recuperate on his parents’ English fare. Dixon turned his head to laugh out of the window at this last stroke. This time he experienced nothing worse than a small rage at the thought of a little louse like that having a flat in London. Why hadn’t he himself had parents whose money so far exceeded their sense as to install their son in London? The very thought of it was a torment. If he’d had that chance, things would be very different for him now. For a moment he thought he couldn’t think what things; then he found he could conceive the things exactly, and exactly how they’d differ from the things he’d got, too.