'That's all right. You do now. Don't forget either that I know your writing pretty well by this time, but it won't always be me reading it. Now your spelling. I'm quite tolerant about that,' because a policy of being quite intolerant would multiply the failure rate by something like ten, which would never do, 'but the same thing applies. I know some of these names are difficult; even so, I think it might pay you for 'instance' to remember that Mediterranean is spelt with one T and two Rs and not the other way round. Especially,' he went on, striving not to shake from head to foot with rage and contempt as he spoke and summoning to his aid the thought that in the Oxford of the '70s plenty of his colleagues would share Miss Calvert's difficulty, 'since it appears in the actual title of the subject and is very likely to come in the wording of some of the questions—four times on this paper, in fact.' Was she listening? All right, call it the fucking Med! was what he wanted to shout, but for-bore. 'I've put a wavy line under some of the other examples.
'In general, you clearly have a concentration problem,' are an idle bitch, 'and I was wondering whether there was anything in your personal life that..... I'm not asking you to tell me about it but you could mention it to your Moral Tutor. Or if you like I could—'
'No it's all right thanks. There isn't anything really. Except the point.'
'What point?'
'The point of going on.'
'With the subject.'
'Well....
'With Oxford?'
'All sorts of things really.'
Jake said in his firmest tone, 'I think most people feel like that from time to time. One just has to hang on and have patience and hope it'll put itself right.' He couldn't remember now why he had started to ask her; habit, something to say, show of concern to assuage possibly wounded feelings. Yes, habit, a carry-over from the days when he might have gone on to suggest discussing her problems under more informal conditions. Oh well. 'Now you answered only two questions but I'm going to give you a beta-double-minus all the same,' like a bloody fool. You must try for three next time. Now which of the other questions would you have tried if you'd had longer?'
Muttering to herself, Miss Calvert studied the paper for a space. At last she said, 'I think 'Culture is the most profitable export.' Discuss with reference—'
'Oh yes. Well, suppose you take that as your subject for next week.' This favourite tactic not only gratified his perennial need, strangely exacerbated today, to avoid having to think up essay subjects whenever remotely possible, it also relieved him, having just marked several exam answers on the topic, from the slightest mental exertion about it till next week came, if then. He tried to turn his complacent grin into a smile of friendly dismissal, but before the process was finished felt his face stiffen at the tone of the girl's next remark.
'Mr Richardson .... 'you' know that article of yours in JPCH you asked us to look at? On Ionian trade- routes?'
'Yes?'
'Well, the copy in the Bodleian's all .... well, people have been writing things on it.'
'Writing things? What sort of things?'
'Like graffiti.'
'Really.'
'I sort of thought you ought to know.'
Malice or goodwill? Those two should on the face of it be no trouble to tell apart, but not much thought was necessary to recall that in practice they mixed as readily and in as widely-varying proportions as coffee and milk, no sugar, no third element, needed. But then what of it? He would look in at the library on the way to or from his lecture the next morning; for now, he thanked Miss Calvert, gave her her script back and sent her off, noticing at the last moment that she bore a handbag like a miniature pack-saddle, all flaps and buckles. He watched out of the window to see if she tossed the script over her shoulder as she left, but she held on to it at least until after she had vanished into the tunnel. Her walk showed that their interview had entirely left her mind.
12—I Have Heard of Your Paintings Too
Jake stood at the window in thought, though not of any very purposeful description, for a couple of minutes. It took him as long to make quite sure that the locked drawer of his desk was indeed locked, secured, made fast, proof against anything short of another key or a jemmy. Then he collected himself and went into the bedroom to unpack. It was small and dark but dry and not particularly draughty, and had in it the only decent object in the set, the bed that filled about a third of it, his own property from long ago and as such safe from the Domestic Bursar's depredations. By the time he had finished in here and glanced through his notes for the next day, the chapel clock, the nearest among innumerable others, was striking six. He slung his gown over his shoulder and sauntered across the grass, looking about at the buildings, which had once been attributed to Nicholas Hawksmoor; recent research, after the fashion of a lot of recent research, had disproved this without producing any certain reattribution. Never mind: they were pleasing to the eye for two sufficient reasons—someone had put them up well before 1914, and no one, out of apathy, lack of money, instinctive conservatism or sometimes even perhaps deficiency of bad taste, had laid a hand on their exterior since except to clean them. Until about a quarter of a century back, Jake had had no architectural sense that he knew of but, like every other city-dweller in the land with eyesight good enough to get about unaided, he had acquired one since all right, had one doled out to him willy-bloody-nilly. So it was no great wonder that he halted and looked about all over again before entering the staircase in the far corner.
Here, on the first floor, there lived an English don called Damon Lancewood, like Ernie in being an almost exact contemporary of Jake's but unlike him in an incalculable number of ways. One of the fewer ways in which he was unlike Jake has already been mentioned: he lived where Jake only popped in and out. Lancewood belonged to the lonely and diminishing few who still treated college as home. It was true that he had a cottage near Dry Sandford and also true, while less well known, that he was joined there most week-ends by the owner of a small business in Abingdon, a man of fifty or so to whom he had been attached for the past twenty-two years.
Jake knocked at the door, which had a handsome brass fingerplate and other furniture on it, and obeyed the summons to come in. He saw that Lancewood had somebody with him and spoke up at once.
'I'm sorry Damon, I didn't realise you were—'
'No no no, my dear Jake, I was expecting you. I'd like you to meet a colleague of mine....'
Introductions were made. Jake failed to gather or shortly forgot the Christian name and college of the
