interest to hush it up, no one's but your own. Am I allowed to tell you how stupid it looks?'
`No, you are not.'
‘I will anyway. Stupid, and ugly too. I don't know what you do about sex and I don't want to know, but this is not the way to go about it. You're what - fifty-two? Do you think a young girl finds any pleasure in going to bed with a man of that age? Do you think she finds it good to watch you in the middle of your...?
Do you ever think about that?'
He is silent.
`Don't expect sympathy from me, David, and don't expect sympathy from anyone else either. No sympathy, no mercy, not in this day and age. Everyone's hand will be against you, and why not? Really, how could you?'
The old tone has entered, the tone of the last years of their married life: passionate recrimination. Even Rosalind must be aware of that. Yet perhaps she has a point. Perhaps it is the right of the young to be protected from the sight of their elders in the throes of passion. That is what whores are for, after all: to put up with the ecstasies of the unlovely.
‘Anyway,' Rosalind goes on, 'you say you'll see Lucy.'
`Yes, I thought I'd drive up after the inquiry and spend some time with her.'
`The inquiry?'
`There is a committee of inquiry sitting next week.'
`That's very quick. And after you have seen Lucy?'
‘I don't know. I'm not sure I will be permitted to come back to the university. I'm not sure I will want to.'
Rosalind shakes her head. 'An inglorious end to your career, don't you think? I won't ask if what you got from this girl was worth the price. What are you going to do with your time? What about your pension?'
‘I'll come to some arrangement with them. They can't cut me off without a penny.'
`Can't they? Don't be so sure. How old is she - your inamorata?' `Twenty. Of age. Old enough to know her own mind.'
`The story is, she took sleeping-pills. Is that true?'
‘I know nothing about sleeping-pills. It sounds like a fabrication to me. Who told you about sleepingpills?'
She ignores the question. 'Was she in love with you? Did you jilt her?'
`No. Neither.'
`Then why this complaint?'
`Who knows? She didn't confide in me. There was a battle of some kind going on behind the scenes that I wasn't privy to. There was a jealous boyfriend. There were indignant parents. She must have crumpled in the end. I was taken completely by surprise.'
`You should have known, David. You are too old to be meddling with other people's children. You should have expected the worst. Anyway, it's all very demeaning. Really.'
`You haven't asked whether I love her. Aren't you supposed to ask that as well?'
`Very well. Are you in love with this young woman who is dragging your name through the mud?'
`She isn't responsible. Don't blame her.'
`Don't blame her! Whose side are you on? Of course I blame her! I blame you and I blame her. The whole thing is disgraceful from beginning to end. Disgraceful and vulgar too. And I'm not sorry for saying so.'
In the old days he would, at this point, have stormed out. But tonight he does not. They have grown thick skins, he and Rosalind, against each other.
The next day Rosalind telephones. 'David, have you seen today's Argus?'
`No.'
`Well, steel yourself. There's a piece about you.'
`What does it say?'
`Read it for yourself '
The report is on page three: 'Professor on sex charge', it is headed. He skims the first lines. `. . . is slated to appear before a disciplinary board on a charge of sexual harassment. CTU is keeping tight-lipped about the latest in a series of scandals including fraudulent scholarship payouts and alleged sex rings operating out of student residences. Lurie (53), author of a book on English nature-poet William Wordsworth, was not available for comment.'
William Wordsworth (1770-1850), nature-poet. David Lurie (1945-?), commentator upon, and disgraced disciple of William Wordsworth. Blest be the infant babe. No outcast he. Blest be the babe.
SIX
THE HEARING IS held in a committee room off Hakim's office. He is ushered in and seated at the foot of the table by Manas Mathabane himself, Professor of Religious Studies, who will chair the inquiry. To his left sit Hakim, his secretary, and a young woman, a student of some kind; to his right are the three members of Mathabane's committee.
He does not feel nervous. On the contrary, he feels quite sure of himself. His heart beats evenly, he has slept well. Vanity, he thinks, the dangerous vanity of the gambler; vanity and self-righteousness. He is going into this in the wrong spirit. But he does not care.
