by David Nobbs
'Bit strong, Alan,' he said.
'Yes. Sorry. I'd better be off.'
'Stay. There's heaps of curry. Make your peace with Jane.'
I tried to refuse. I thought maybe I would go to the station and see if I could find Ange before she went home. But I knew that Lawrence was right, it would be a tremendous risk, if the argument flared up again it might become fatal. And I didn't fancy a lonely evening in my rooms. And Lawrence was my Head of Department and it might be diplomatic. Oh, and Jane's curries were wonderful.
'All right,' I said. 'Thank you. I'll stay.'
'Good. You really care about that girl, don't you?'
'Yes, Lawrence, I really do.'
'I can sympathise. I don't think I . . . I don't believe that I . . . this sounds stuffy . . . "approve", because I can't see a happy ending in it, but . . . if you want to . . . er . . . whatever you do, I regard it as irrelevant to your work in the department.'
'Thank you.'
'Provided you don't bring it into disgrace, of course.'
'Of course.'
'It was no use going after her, Alan, pleading, showing your weakness. There would have been no benefit in that route. You would just have humiliated yourself needlessly. I know,
I . . . I once . . . but that's another story.'
He leant forward, and I came out in goose-pimples. I knew that he was about to make a revelation which he would regret in cooler moments.
'I fucked a cabin stewardess on the Oriana when Jane was laid up with seasickness in Biscay. She was lovely, Alan. Lovely. Ange reminds me of her.'
'Thank you.'
I wasn't quite sure why I said 'Thank you.' Perhaps because I could think of nothing else to say, and my usual 'sorry' would have been inappropriate – but the revelation did explain why Lawrence had been so ready to suggest that we came for Jane's curry. He liked having Ange around. Probably he fantasised about her. I hated that thought. Cabin stewardesses and upper-class women. I wondered how often he had been unfaithful.
'So I do understand,' he continued.
'Thank you.'
'An affair is one thing, Alan. A fling is one thing. I'm all in favour, though I'd never admit that to Jane – it might even be good for you – but a commitment, Alan, a commitment. I don't think that would be a very good idea. Not, as I say, that it would have any bearing on our professional relationship. Incidentally, Alan, I told you that about the Oriana in strict confidence.'
'Of course.'
'I trust you never to repeat it.'
'Of course.'
'I trust you also never to use it against me, if . . . well, if you should ever have any temptation to use anything against me.'
'Why should I ever have that?'
'Who knows? Who ever knows what will happen? When I accepted the office of Head of the Department, I was aware that sometimes I might have to make difficult decisions.'
'Are you trying to tell me something?'
'Alan! We're philosophers. We're masters of the hypothetical. I don't say you will ever have any reason, but I'll tell you why I trust you. You're a gentleman. There aren't many of us left.'
I wondered if he would have thought me a gentleman if he had known that, earlier that very day, the thought of killing my mother had first occurred to me. Not that I had taken it seriously. It had just been a passing thought. I was quite surprised to find it popping up again.
FOURTEEN
I hardly slept a wink during the long night that followed. It wasn't the curry that kept me awake, it was Ange. I couldn't stop thinking about her, trying to picture her in her bedroom in Gallows Corner, trying to see inside her beautiful head. Was she tossing and turning, thinking about me? I didn't think so. Or was she still fuming over my perceived mocking of her? I didn't think that either. I felt that she would be sleeping soundly, evenly, deeply. I resented her for it. I knew that was stupid. I was resenting her for something that I had imagined, something for which I had no evidence. That wasn't the behaviour of a rational man. But was I any longer a rational man?
I didn't want an affair. I didn't want a fling. I wanted . . . well, I didn't put a word to it. I was aware that my friends would think me reckless in the extreme to commit myself emotionally to this woman. I didn't care. After a lifetime of being miserly with my emotions, I was ready to be utterly and totally reckless. I didn't decide to be so. I was so. There wasn't any choice in the matter.
Whenever I have a really bad night, I give up on the whole idea of sleep. As dawn breaks, I give thanks that the long night is ending at last, and in my relief I fall into a really deep sleep. So it was that night. By the time I woke up it was too late to phone Ange, she would already be at work, and I knew better than to ring her there.
In the cold light of a grey English morning I might have expected to feel altogether cooler and calmer, but I didn't. I was perfectly well aware that anyone who knew about the relationship would feel that I was making a complete fool of myself – but what sort of an impact had I made during the long years when I hadn't been making a fool of myself? At least as a fool I would stand out. At least I would be a talking point at last. Have you heard about old Calcutt? He's got a woman. No! She's twenty-four. No! He bought a pair of jeans yesterday. He never!
Yes, I did. During the long day that followed that long night I went out and bought my very first pair of jeans, tried them on, kept them on, walked out of the shop in them, for fear that if I didn't I would never have the courage to wear them. I felt terribly conspicuous and self-conscious as I walked through the centre of Oxford in them, with my old trousers in a bag under my arm. Nobody looked at me twice, of course.
I couldn't quite bring myself to buy a T-shirt.
Don't laugh, but I bought the jeans in order to feel more confident when I phoned her. I didn't mind looking fifty-five in front of Ange. I didn't want to look fifty-five if I happened to have to talk to her mother.
I waited until six fifteen, thinking that by then she would probably be at home after work, but her mother answered. I could imagine her only as an older version of Ange. I tried to picture the scene in that house in Gallows Corner, but it was entirely beyond me. I had no idea what anything in Gallows Corner looked like.
'Hello. It's . . . er . . . my name's Alan. I . . . er . . .'
Her mother was probably younger than me. I hated this.
'I . . . er . . . is Ange in at all?'
Even as I said it, I thought what a stupid way I'd put it, she either was in or she wasn't in, she couldn't be partly in.
'No, she's not back yet. Are you the same Alan who rang before?'
It really was beginning to sound as if there were dismayingly large numbers of Alan's in Ange's young life.
'Yes, I . . . er . . . I am, yes.'
I couldn't imagine that, when she came home, her mother would tell her that a sparkling conversationalist and wit had been asking for her.
'Do you know when she'll be back?'
'No, I don't. You know Ange.'
No, I don't!
I wanted to ask what sort of mood Ange had been in the previous evening when she got home unexpectedly from Oxford. I couldn't, of course.
'Thank you,' I said, 'I'll try later.'
I couldn't stay in my rooms a moment longer. The walls were closing in on me. I went for a brisk walk, hoping that it would raise my spirits. I strode down the High and turned left into Longwall Street.
I came to a modern building, part of New College, which looked like a multi-storey car park that didn't have enough storeys. It might have looked good in miniature in an architect's office. In reality it looked dreadful – ugly, brutal, unadorned. If this was the best that a modern generation of architects could think up for my great city, our civilisation was doomed.
It had a long flat roof and I thought of Ange saying 'They put something on top of everything in the olden days, didn't they?' and my heart almost broke. Oh, why wasn't she there to say 'They ain't put sodding nothink on top of that, have they?', and
to share my pessimism and bitterness about our world.
I turned left into Holywell Street, full of charming domestic architecture, but not looking sufficiently cared for. Several of the buildings needed painting. A few had appalling modern doors. I felt suddenly fearful for my Oxford and her future. Was this a displacement activity for my fears about Ange and our future?
I stopped for a half of beer in a pub. I couldn't remember when I had last been in a pub on my own. It had bare boards and wooden tables and it was full and very lively. Most of the drinkers were young. When I had been young I hadn't really enjoyed it, I had wanted to become older because I had felt that I had no talent for being young. Now, for the first time in my life, I wished that I was young. Was that what I was doing with Ange – trying to live at last the youth that I had missed? No. This relationship wasn't about me. It was about her – lovely, unselfconscious Ange. Yes, I was besotted, and I didn't care.
It took me twenty-five minutes to force the beer down.
I hurried back to my rooms, fearing that I had left it too long.
I phoned. I was so nervous that I could hardly speak.
I got her mother again. My heart sank.
'Hello,' I said. 'It's me again. Alan. Is . . . er . . . is Ange in at all?'
Oh no. Why did I say that again?
'No, she's just gone out.'
'Oh. Did she say how long she'd be?'
'No.'
'Do you have any idea how long she'll be?'
'No. You know Ange.'
Don't keep saying that.
'Well, could you . . . er . . . tell her that Alan called?'
'I'll tell her.'
The implication of her tone was that she would tell her, but a fat lot of good it would do. You know Ange.
'Did you . . . er . . . did you by any chance tell her that I called before?'
'I did. I said there was a call from a man called Alan.'
'Thank you. Did she say anything?'
'Yes. She said, "Oh. Him" '
'Just that? "Oh. Him."?'
'Just that.'
'Oh.'
The only glimmer of hope was that she had known which Alan it was. Perhaps there weren't queues of randy young Alans after all.
'And then she said, "Mum, I'm just going to change and then I'll pop out." '
'I see. Well, thank you, Mrs Bedwell.'
'Bedwell???'
'Isn't that your name?'
'Did she tell you her name was Bedwell?'
'Er . . . well, yes.'
She screamed with laughter.
'Oh, she is naughty. She is a one. Her name is Clench, Alan. I am Sue Clench and she is Angela, which she hates so she calls herself Ange. Bedwell! Well, I never. Clench isn't good enough for her, I suppose.'
'Well, thank you, Mrs Clench.'
'No problem.'
She was still laughing as she put the phone down. And I? I rushed to the lavatory and was sick.
I would never see Ange again. She was a fantasy even to herself, let alone to me. Bedwell! How she must have laughed. There was no reality to her or to our relationship. It was over. I had well and truly made a fool of myself.
No. I would not accept that it was over. What harm was there in calling herself Bedwell? There might not be any ulterior motive. It might be sheer high spirits, and it was hardly a hanging offence.
It was over, though, or it would be unless she rang. I would never be brave enough to ring her mother again.
I toyed with the idea of going to Gallows Corner the next day. I even phoned up for train times from Liverpool Street, but then I realised that I didn't have her address. I knew that she worked for a skip-hire firm in Romford, but I didn't know whether she went home by train or bus. No, I might have to go to Gallows Corner in the end, but it would be the move of a desperate man, and she would know that, so it would be far from ideal. I would have to be cool, as my students said. Alan Calcutt cool? Don't laugh.
Next day I steeled myself and found that I did have the courage to ring her mother again. I had to. I don't say that I wouldn't have been able to live without Ange. I might have to, if she gave me up, but it wasn't possible for me to give her up.
How I got through that day I can't imagine. I had to give supervisions to a couple of students. I had a lecture to deliver. Between times I ought to have worked on the Ferdinand Brinsley. I had returned to the subject of chance. It was too late to try anything else. I had at least thought of a title that might work – the Improbability of Probability – but that day I couldn't write a word, couldn't summon up a thought.
My lecture was on Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher with whom Lawrence identified so deeply that he had named his house after him. I was always worried that one day he would choose to sit in on my Kierkegaard lecture to see what sort of a fist I was making of the work of his hero. Thank God he didn't choose that particular day, although, to be fair to myself, I think I delivered the lecture pretty well. It was at least the twentieth time I had done so, after all.
I don't think either of my two students would have noticed anything amiss during their supervisions either. I might not have fulfilled my early promise, but at least I was an old pro. I did wonder, once or twice, while I was discussing the inadequacies of their latest essays, how old I seemed to them, how out of touch, how pathetic. I was aware that I was making a determined effort to be a little bit younger. It occurred to me that I had never even thought of the possibility of forming a relationship with one of my students. They had seemed so much younger than me, even when I had started out. Now it would be . . . unseemly.
Was not my relationship with Ange therefore unseemly? No. I knew that teachers quite often did form relationships with their students, but to me that would be a breach of trust, an abdication of professionalism. Ange, however, was not a student, and above all not my student, so I need have no such qualms.
Yes, I used logic as my servant, and came always to the conclusion that I desired.
I was trying to discover, all the time, in the subtext of those two hours, just how realistic or unrealistic it was to hold out any hope that Ange would continue to have a relationship with me. Everything that happened had an impact on my life with her. If a clock struck, I compared its timbre to the sound of her voice. If I heard a bus on the road outside the college, I wondered if she went to work by bus, and, if she did, whether she sat in the front seat upstairs, like a child.
By half past four my university work was finished. I thought about doing an hour on 'Germanic Thought from Kant to Wittgenstein', but I couldn't face it. Instead I went out and bought a London A–Z. I looked up Gallows Corner, and it didn't look like a place, just a corner, between two places I had never heard of, Gidea Park and Harold Wood. There was a flyover, where Eastern Avenue became Southend Arterial Road. Two streets with amazingly unimaginative names led into Gallows Corner. One was called Main Road and the other Straight Road. I wondered if she lived in one of these or in one of the little roads that ran off them. I longed to know. I needed to know.
