The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday

Mendelson, it announced, is the literary executor of W. H. Auden and the Lionel Trilling Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University. He is the author of numerous critical works on Auden and is editing the poet’s Complete Works. His subject tonight is guilt, neurosis, and the elucidation of a moral standpoint.

Guilt, thought Isabel, and found herself wondering what Marcus would be doing now—while she was sitting in this lecture theatre, he would be slumped in his armchair, she imagined, just as he had been when she visited their flat; sitting and staring out over the top of Princes Street to the hills of Fife beyond. He’s innocent, she thought. He’s an innocent man wrongly condemned to shame and the end of the career that had been his life.

Of course, there were other innocent men suffering for things they did not do. Isabel wondered what proportion of those in prison were innocent of the crimes of which they had been convicted. She had read somewhere that the figure for this was between five and ten percent, which meant that at least one in twenty of those in prison had simply not done what they were accused of doing. And in places where they executed people, then presumably some at least of those who faced death did so as innocent people. Did those who signed the death warrants or turned down the last-minute appeals for clemency ever think, This might be an innocent man?

She could not help the innocent in prison, but she could help a man who had been otherwise unjustly punished. Or, rather, she could try.

EDWARD MENDELSON delivered his lecture. Auden, he said, had a strong sense of guilt, which was neurotic in origin. There was plenty of evidence for that in the poems, but should we concern ourselves with the roots of the poet’s engagement with morality, or should we look rather at what the great artist has done to transform his personal neuroses into a vision of moral truth that we all can share? He put the question, and Isabel, from the second row, made her own choice without having to think about it very much. The work of art was what mattered to her—the moral statement that helped us to live better, which is what, she believed, the purpose of art was. She was not interested in the doubts and infirmities that preceded the lines that minted a truth: it was the lines themselves that mattered, and we should not diminish their force by diminishing the poet. Auden behaved badly on occasion, as we all did. He lived in domestic squalor, his personal conversation could be arch, he worshipped punctuality, he became irritable. But none of that diminished the truth of what he said. And there were other writers whose personal lives did not bear examination. At least Auden managed money sensibly. Writers—and musicians—generally handled money badly.

She slipped out at the end of the lecture. A well-known Edinburgh bore, famous for his buttonholing of distinguished visitors, had positioned himself at the foot of the steps that led down from the stage. There would be no escape for Edward Mendelson now unless the organisers of the lecture were prepared to be ruthless and sweep their guest past the bore; push him over, perhaps. She glanced over her shoulder as she left the theatre: a phalanx had assembled around the lecturer and somebody was gesturing for him to accompany them, but the bore was on to them, and like a rugby forward he nimbly dodged past the literary editor of The Scotsman, wove past the professor of English literature, and positioned himself in front of Edward Mendelson. “Professor Mendelson, something you said rather interested me…”

Isabel walked out of the lecture theatre bemused. The bore was an earnest man who believed in a civilised society of conversation and debate, an Edinburgh of the Scottish Enlightenment; but such an Edinburgh would always exclude those who tried too hard. So he had become a lonely man, accustomed to the glassy looks of others; she should make more effort with him, she thought, because all of us should take on our allocation of lame ducks. But the last time she had seen him, at the opening of a special exhibition at the Royal Scottish Museum, he had addressed her on the subject of wind farms, and as he spoke she had suddenly formed a mental image of the bore talking endlessly at high volume, while before him spun round the blades of a small power-generating windmill, driven by the hot air.

She detached herself from the crowd milling round the entrance to the lecture theatre and made her way out into George Square. It was not yet Festival time, but a small group of men was already erecting the Spiegeltent in the gardens of the square; later there would be marquees, crowds, and performers, talented and otherwise. She walked along the cobbled lane in front of the university library; a student, engaged in conversation on a mobile phone, gestured to emphasise his point. He was angry, thought Isabel, and she wondered what the cause of his anger could be. Betrayal? Infidelity? The selfishness of a flat-mate? She wanted to say to him: Does it really matter? But it did matter, of course, as these small things do.

She walked on and became aware that somebody was walking immediately behind her. She slowed down, and the person behind her drew abreast. She glanced sideways: Nick Smart.

His manner was casual. “I saw you at the lecture,” he said. “I was surprised.”

She looked at him quickly, but did not keep eye contact. It annoyed her that he should be surprised to see her at the lecture; Auden was her poet, and this was her city. Why should he be surprised? Was it because he thought that she was somehow unworthy of Auden?

“I wouldn’t have thought he was your sort of poet,” Nick went on.

Isabel stopped. She turned to face him. “Why do you say that?” she demanded. She felt hot—and angry.

Nick shrugged. “Just not your sort.”

She suddenly thought: He’s laying claim to him, and I’m excluded.

“What sort of poet would you expect me to like?” she asked, and then, “I find that sort of assumption rather irritating…”

Her reply did not seem to disturb him. That smug expression, she thought; that demeanour of condescension. But then his expression changed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

She started to walk again, and he continued with her; they were stuck with one another at least until the end of the lane, unless one of them were to turn and walk back.

“Don’t think about it,” she said. “It’s all right.”

“You’ve taken against me,” said Nick. “I don’t know what I’ve done, but you’ve taken against me.”

“I don’t know why you think that,” said Isabel. Of course I have, she thought, but how can one confess pure dislike—to the object of the dislike?

Nick shook his head. “Maybe I’m imagining it.”

“Maybe.”

They had reached the end of the lane, and Isabel began to bear left, towards the Meadows. “I hope that you enjoyed the lecture,” she said.