Strangest of all, however, was die absence of any mention in die original Statute of academic pedigree;
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and, at least theoretically, there could be no bar to a candidate presenting himself with only a Grade E in GCSE Media Studies. Nor was there any stipulation that the successful candidate should be a senior (or, for that matter, a junior) member of the College, and on several occasions 'outsiders' had been appointed. Indeed, he himself, Sir Clixby, had been imported into Oxford from 'the other place', and then (chiefly) in recognition of his reputation as a resourceful fund-raiser.
On this occasion, however, outsiders seemed out of favour. The College itself could offer at least two candidates, each of whom would be an admirable choice; or so it was thought. In the Senior Common Room the consensus was most decidedly in favour of such 'internal' preferment, and the betting had hardened accordingly.
By some curious omission no entry had hitherto been granted to either of these ante-post favourites in the pages of
STORRS, Julian Charles;
20
DEATH IS NOW MY NEIGHBOUR
CORNFORD, Denis Jack;
Each of these entries may appear comparatively unin-formative. Yet perhaps in the more perceptive reader they may provoke one or two interesting considerations.
Was, for example, the Senior Fellow of Lonsdale so affluent that he could afford to take a taxi everywhere? Did he never travel by car, coach, or train? Well, quite certainly on special occasions he would travel by train.
Oh, yes.
As we shall see.
And why was Dr Comford, soon to be fifty-four years old, so recently converted to the advantages of latter-day matrimony? Had he met some worthy woman of comparable age?
Oh, no.
As we shall see.
CHAPTER THREE
How right
I should have been to keep away, and let You have your innocent-guilty-innocent night Of switching partners in your own sad set: How useless to invite
The sickening breathlessness of being young Into my life again
(Philip Larkin,
DENIS CORNFORD,
In the Trinity Term of 1994, Cornford - a slimty-built, smallish, pleasantly featured man - had taken sabbatical leave at Harvard; and there - somehow and somewhere,
DEATH IS NOW MY NEIGHBOUR
in Cambridge, Massachusetts - something quite extraordinary had occurred. For six months later, to the amazement and amusement of his colleagues, the confirmed bachelor of Lonsdale had returned to Oxford with a woman who had agreed to change her name from Shelly Benson to Shelly Cornford: a student from Harvard who had just gained her Master's degree in American History, twenty-six years old - exactly half the age of her new husband (for this was her second marriage).
It is perhaps not likely that Shelly would have reached the semi-final heats of any Miss Massachusetts beauty competition: her jawline was slightly too square, her shoulders rather too strong, her legs perhaps a little on the sturdy side. Yet there were a good many in Lonsdale College - both dons and undergraduates - who were to experience a curious attraction to the woman now putting in fairly regular appearances in Chapel, at Guest Nights, and at College functions during the Michaelmas Term of 1994. Her wavy, shoulder-length brown hair framed a face in which the widely set dark brown eyes seemed sometimes to convey the half-promise of a potential intimacy, whilst her quietly voiced New England accent could occasionally sound as sweetly sensual as some enchantress's.
Many were the comments made about the former Shelly Benson during those first few terms. But no one could ever doubt what Denis Cornford had seen in her, for it was simply what others could now so clearly see for themselves. So from the start Shelly Cornford was regularly lusted after; her husband secretly envied. But the
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couple themselves appeared perfectly happy: no hint of infidelity on her part; no cause for jealousy on his.
