Lucky Jim Part 14

Welch recognized him almost at once. 'Dixon,' he said.

'Yes, Professor?' Dixon had forgotten until now Margaret's report that Welch, in common with the other members of his family, was 'out for his blood'. How would Welch manifest his pursuit of that ent.i.ty?

'I was wondering about the library,' Welch said, rocking to and fro on his heels. He was looking more than usually wild-eyed and dishevelled this morning. There was a small golden emblem on his tie resembling some heraldic device or other, but proving on closer scrutiny to be congealed egg-yolk. Substantial traces of the same nutritive were to be seen round his mouth, which was now ajar.

'Oh yes?' Dixon asked, hoping to encourage Welch to indicate what point, within the framework of ideas connected with the library, could be taken as the focus of his wonderment.

'Do you think you could go there?'

Dixon began to feel definitely alarmed. Had Welch's long-heralded derangement finally come to pa.s.s? Or was this a bitterly sarcastic way of alluding to Dixon's own disinclination to approach any possible arena of academic work? Badly rattled now, he stole a glance over his shoulder to make sure that they were, in fact, standing within two paces of the library entrance. 'I expect so' seemed the safest sort of reply.

'You're not overburdened with work just now?'

'Just now?' Dixon bleated. 'I don't think I...'

'I was thinking of your lecture for Wednesday. I suppose most of it's complete by now?'

Dixon s.h.i.+fted the two books he had under his arm, in case Welch might be able to see their t.i.tles. 'Oh yes,' he said wildly. 'Professor. Yes.'

'I haven't got time to go to the library, you see,' Welch said in the tone of one removing the last trivial obstacle in the way of complete understanding. 'I've got to go in here,' he added, pointing towards the library.

Dixon nodded slowly. 'Oh, you've got to go in here,' he said.

'Yes, one or two points have come up in the examination answers. I want to check them up before the External Examiner's meeting tomorrow. You'll be all right for that, I take it? Five o'clock in my room.'

Christine was meeting Dixon at four o'clock the next day. Even with a taxi he could only have three-quarters of an hour with her. He wanted to bundle Welch into the revolving door and whirl him round in it till lunch-time. He said: 'I'll be there.'

'Good. Well, you can see that I shan't be able to spend any time pottering about looking things up in the library.'

'Oh, quite.'

'It's good of you to do this for me, Dixon. Now, as regards what I want from the library: it's all down here.' By degrees, he drew a sheaf of papers from his breast pocket and unfolded them. 'It's all quite self-explanatory, you'll find. The reference is down in nearly every case, I think... yes. Oh, there are a few here, yes, without... just long shots, really. I don't suppose there's much of value, if anything, but you might just look through the subject indexes. If there aren't any, then you'll just have to use your own... your own... The chapter t.i.tles will probably help you there. This one, for instance, you see. Just see if there's anything relevant. I shouldn't think there would be from the date. But you never know your luck, do you?' He scrutinized Dixon's face, seeking confirmation.

'No, you don't.'

'No, you don't. I remember being held up for weeks once over a thing I was doing, just because of one missing fact. It seems that in the autumn of 1663... no, the summer...'

Dixon now had some of the basic facts clear. He was being asked to fill certain gaps in Welch's knowledge of the history of peasant arts and crafts in the county, and these papers, written in Welch's pointlessly neat and clear hand or typed by him with hilarious inaccuracy, would enable him, Dixon, to perform his task without all that much confusion, though not without some loss of time and integrity. Still, he daren't refuse; this sort of task might easily, to Welch, seem a more important test of ability than the merit of the Merrie England lecture. So much was obvious; but what was all this business about the library? When Welch's silence indicated the end, or possibly the abandonment, of the anecdote, Dixon asked: 'Will they have all this information here, sir? I mean, some of these pamphlets must be pretty rare. I should have thought the Record Office would have...'

Welch's expression was slowly adapting itself to incredulous rage. In a high, petulant tone he said: 'No, of course they won't have the information here, Dixon. I can't imagine any one thinking they would. That's why I'm asking you to go down to the library for it. I know for a fact they've got ninety per cent of the stuff I want. I'd go myself, but as I took the trouble to explain, I'm tied up here. And I must have the information by tonight, because I'm giving the talk tomorrow evening after Professor Fortescue gets... goes... goes back. Now do you see?'

Dixon did: Welch had all the time been talking about the public library in the city, and, since this was clear to him, naturally hadn't thought of the confusion he might cause by talking about 'the library' within five feet of a totally different building known in the area as 'the library'. 'Oh, of course, Professor; I'm sorry,' he said, having been well schooled in giving apologies at the very times when he ought to be demanding them.

'All right, Dixon. Well, I won't hold you up now; I expect you'll want to get started if you're to finish by five. You'd better come up to my room afterwards and show me what you've got. It's very kind of you to offer to help; I appreciate it very much.'

Dixon dropped the papers between the pages of Barclay's book and turned away, only to start violently and look back as a loud thundering noise broke out behind him. Welch, his hair flapping, was straining like a packed-down rugby forward to push the revolving door in the wrong direction. Dixon stood and watched, allowing his mandrill face full play. After a time Welch, somehow divining his error, began pulling instead at the now-jammed door, changing his semblance to that of anchor in a losing tug-o'-war team. With a sudden bursting click the door yielded and Welch overbalanced backwards, hitting his head on the panel behind him. Dixon went away, beginning to whistle his Welch tune in a solemn, almost liturgical tempo. He felt that it was things like this that kept him going.

XVIII.

'WELL, that's really splendid, Dixon,' Welch said seven hours later. 'You've filled in all the gaps in a most... a most... Really quite admirable.' He gloated over his notes for a moment, then suddenly added: 'What are you doing now?' with an effect of suspicion.

In point of fact, Dixon had got his hands behind his back now and was gesturing with them. 'I was just...' he stammered.

'I was wondering if you were doing anything this evening. I thought you might like to come over and have a meal with us.'

After a day of doing Welch's work, there was plenty for Dixon to do that evening in connexion with his lecture, but it was obvious that he couldn't afford to turn down this offer, so he said unhesitatingly: 'Well, thank you very much, Professor. That's very kind of you.'

Welch nodded as if pleased, and gathered up the papers to put them into his 'bag'. 'I think this ought to go down very well tomorrow night,' he said, turning on Dixon his s.e.xual maniac's smile.

'I'm sure it will. Who's the talk being delivered to?'

'The Antiquarian and Historical Society. I'm surprised you haven't seen the posters.' He picked up his 'bag' and put his fawn fis.h.i.+ng-hat on his head. 'Come along, then. We'll go down in my car.'

'That'll be nice.'

'I must say they're a marvellously keen lot,' Welch said pa.s.sionately as they went downstairs. 'A very good audience to talk to. Attentive and... keen, and plenty of questions to fire at you afterwards. Of course, you get mainly town people there, but we always get some of the better students along. Young Michie, for instance. A good lad, that. Have you managed to get him interested in your special subject at all?'

Reflecting that Michie was lying ominously low these days, Dixon said: 'Yes, he seems quite set on it,' and hoped that Welch would take due heed of this testimony to his power to 'interest' such a good lad.

Welch went on as before: 'A very good lad, he is. Very keen. Always turns up to the Antiquarians. I've had one or two chats with him, as a matter of fact. I think we've really got quite a lot in common.'

Dixon doubted whether Welch and Michie had much in common beyond a similar view of his own capacities, but, judging that Welch's professional ethics would prevent him from instancing that, asked with a show of curiosity: 'In what way?'

'Well, we both have this interest in the English tradition, as you might call it. His is more philosophical, I suppose, and mine more what you could sum up as cultural, but we've got quite a lot in common. I was thinking the other day, by the way, that it's remarkable how my own interests have turned more and more towards this English tradition in the last few years. Whereas my wife's are... I always sum her up as a Western European first and an Englishwoman second. With her, you see, with her sort of Continental way of looking at things, almost Gallic you might say she is in some things, well, the things that are so important to me, the English social and cultural scene, with a kind of backward-looking bias in a sense, popular crafts and so on, traditional pastimes and that, well, to her that's an aspect in a way, you see, just an aspect a very interesting aspect, of course, but no more than an aspect,' and here he hesitated as if choosing the accurate term, 'a sort of aspect of the development of Western European culture, you might say. You can see it most clearly, really, in her att.i.tude towards the Welfare State, and it's a great advantage to be able to view that problem in what you might describe as a wider perspective. She argues, you see, that if people have everything done for them...'

Dixon, having long ago summed up Mrs Welch on his own account, allowed Welch to go on about her political views, her att.i.tude towards 'so-called freedom in education', her advocacy of retributive punishment, her fondness for reading what Englishwomen wrote about how Parisians thought and felt. His own thoughts and feelings, all the time they were getting into the car and driving off, were busy on the subject of Margaret. He didn't know how he was to face meeting her; this reflection, which had been occupying him for most of the day at the Public Library, had become much more urgent now that he'd have to face meeting her very shortly. He'd also presumably have to face meeting Bertrand and Mrs Welch, but these encounters must in comparison be much less appalling. There'd be Christine as well; he didn't really want to see her either, not because of anything to do with her personally, but because she formed a portion of his worry about Margaret. He'd have to do something to show Margaret she wasn't entirely alone; he wouldn't, he mustn't let himself, get back on the old footing with her, but he must somehow rea.s.sure her of his continued support. How was he going to do that?

In search of some distraction, he looked out of the window at his left just as Welch slowed to a walking pace at a road junction. Standing on the pavement was a big fat man whom Dixon recognized as his barber. Dixon felt a deep respect for this man because of his impressive exterior, his rumbling ba.s.s voice, and his unsurpa.s.sable stock of information about the Royal Family. At that moment two rather pretty girls stopped at a pillar-box a few yards away. The barber, his hands clasped behind his back, turned and stared at them. An unmistakable look of furtive l.u.s.t came over his face; then, like a courtly shopwalker, he moved slowly towards the two girls. Welch now accelerated again and Dixon, a good deal shaken, hurriedly switched his attention to the other side of the road, where a cricket match was being played and the bowler was just running up to bowl. The batsman, another big fat man, swiped at the ball, missed it, and was violently hit by it in the stomach. Dixon had time to see him double up and the wicket-keeper begin to run forward before a tall hedge hid the scene.

Uncertain whether this pair of vignettes vignettes was designed to ill.u.s.trate the swiftness of divine retribution or its tendency to mistake its target, Dixon was quite sure that he felt in some way overwhelmed, so much so that he listened to what Welch was saying. He was saying 'Most impressive', and for a second Dixon felt like picking up the spanner he could see in the dashboard pocket and hitting him on the back of the neck with it. He knew the sort of thing Welch found impressive. was designed to ill.u.s.trate the swiftness of divine retribution or its tendency to mistake its target, Dixon was quite sure that he felt in some way overwhelmed, so much so that he listened to what Welch was saying. He was saying 'Most impressive', and for a second Dixon felt like picking up the spanner he could see in the dashboard pocket and hitting him on the back of the neck with it. He knew the sort of thing Welch found impressive.

The rest of the journey pa.s.sed uneventfully. Welch's driving seemed to have improved slightly; at any rate, the only death Dixon felt himself threatened by was death from exposure to boredom. Even this danger receded for a couple of minutes while Welch disclosed a few facts about the recent history of the effeminate writing Michel, a character always waiting in the wings of Dixon's life but apparently destined never to enter its stage. This Michel, as indefatigably Gallic as his mother, had been cooking for himself in his small London flat, and had in the last few days made himself ill by stuffing himself with filthy foreign food of his own preparation, in particular, Dixon gathered, spaghetti and dishes cooked in olive oil. This seemed fit punishment for one so devoted to coagulated flour-and-water and peasants' b.u.t.ter-subst.i.tute, washed down, no doubt, by 'real' black coffee of high viscosity. Anyway, Michel was evidently coming down in a day or two to recuperate on his parents' English fare. Dixon turned his head to laugh out of the window at this last stroke. This time he experienced nothing worse than a small rage at the thought of a little louse like that having a flat in London. Why hadn't he himself had parents whose money so far exceeded their sense as to install their son in London? The very thought of it was a torment. If he'd had that chance, things would be very different for him now. For a moment he thought he couldn't think what things; then he found he could conceive the things exactly, and exactly how they'd differ from the things he'd got, too.

Welch went on talking, his own face the perfect audience for his talk, laughing at its jokes, reflecting its puzzlement or earnestness, responding with tightened lips and narrowed eyes to its more important points. He went on talking even while he drove up the sandy path into the yard next to his house, grazed the shattered water-tap, nosed into the garage entrance, and, with a single frightful bound, brought the car to rest within a couple of inches of the inner wall. Then he got out.

Casting about for means to leave the car, Dixon rejected the six-inch corridor left to him between the door and the side-wall nearest him, and, after some bad-tempered leg-play with the gear- and brake-levers, slid across the front seat to the other door. As he did this, something seemed to pluck at the seat of his trousers. When he'd emerged into the giddy heat of the garage, he felt behind him and found he could comfortably insert his first two fingers into a rent in the material. A glance at the driver's seat showed the tip of what must have been a broken spring just emerging from the upholstery. He began slowly to follow Welch, his heart starting to pound and mist breaking out on his spectacles. He allowed a terrible grimace to dawn on his features, forcing his chin down as far as possible and trying to bring his nose up between his eyes. When this was nearing completion, he took off his gla.s.ses to rub them clear. His sight was good enough without their aid for him to observe that four witnesses of his actions were posted at the long window some yards away; they were (left to right) Christine, Bertrand, Mrs Welch, and Margaret. He quickly restored his nose to its normal position and began pensively fondling his dropped chin, in the hope of seeming a.s.sailed by imbecilic doubt; then, unable to think up any gesture or expression of greeting comprehensive enough to include all the members of such a quartet, pursued Welch's retreating figure round the corner of the house.

What was he going to do about his trousers? Which would be worst: mending them himself, which would involve finding, or more likely re-buying, the required materials, having them repaired at a shop, which meant remembering to ask someone where such a shop could be found, remembering to take the trousers to it and remembering to fetch and pay for them, or asking Miss Cutler to do them? Would the last be quickest? Yes; but it might carry with it the penalty of watching the operation and being talked to by Miss Cutler during it and for an incalculable time after it. Apart from a pair belonging to a suit much too dark for anything but interviews and funerals, his only other trousers were so stained with food and beer that they would, if worn on the stage to indicate squalor and penury, be considered ridiculously overdone. Welch should do the repairs. It was his horrible car, wasn't it? Why hadn't he torn his own vile trousers on the barbed seat? Perhaps he would soon. Or perhaps he had already without noticing.

Pa.s.sing under the thatched barbette over the front door, Dixon averted his eyes from a picture Welch had recently bought and talked about and which now hung in the hall. The work of some kindergarten oaf, it recalled in its technique the sort of drawing found in male lavatories, though its subject, an a.s.sortment of barrel-bodied animals debouching from the Ark, was of narrower appeal. On the other side was a high shelf with an array of copper and china utensils on it. Among them was Dixon's special Toby jug, and, sneering, he now fixed this with his eye. He hated that Toby jug, with its open black hat, its blurred, startled face, its spindle-limbs coalesced with its torso, more strenuously than any other inanimate occupant of this house, not excepting Welch's recorder. Its expression proved that it knew what he thought of it, and it could tell n.o.body. He put a thumb on each of his temples, waggled his hands at it, rolled his eyes, mouthed jeers and imprecations. A third Welch property now manifested itself, a young ginger cat called Id. It was the only survivor of a litter of three; the other two Mrs Welch had christened Ego and Super-Ego. Trying his best not to think of this, Dixon bent and tickled Id under the ear. He admired it for never allowing either of the senior Welches to pick it up. 'Scratch 'em,' he whispered to it; 'pee on the carpets.' It began to purr loudly.

As soon as Dixon had joined the company within, the leisurely tempo of his day jerked abruptly into frenzy. Welch wheeled towards him; Christine, more apple-cheeked even than he remembered her, was grinning at him in the background; Mrs Welch and Bertrand moved in his direction; Margaret turned her back. Welch said energetically: 'Oh, Faulkner.'

Dixon's nose twitched his gla.s.ses up. 'Yes, Professor.'

'At least, Dixon.' He hesitated, then went on with unprecedented fluency: 'I'm afraid there's been a bit of a mix-up, Dixon. I'd forgotten that we'd all promised to go to the theatre this evening with the Goldsmiths. We shall have to dine early, so I shall just have time to change and freshen up and drive us into town. There'll be room for you if you want a lift, you see. I'm sorry about it, of course, but I shall have to rush off now. We must have you over another time.'

Before he was out of the room, Mrs Welch moved up like an actress dead on her cue. Bertrand was at her side. Rather red in the face, she said: 'Oh, Mr Dixon, I've been wondering when I should see you again. I've one or two points I want to take up with you. First of all, I'd like you to explain, if you can, just what happened to the sheet and blankets on your bed when you were our guest here recently.' While Dixon was still trying to moisten his mouth enough to speak, she added: 'I'm waiting for an answer, Mr Dixon.' The Englishwoman in her seemed, for the moment, to have forged well ahead of the Western European.

Dixon noticed that Christine and Margaret had moved down the room together, talking quietly. 'I don't quite know what...' he mumbled. 'I didn't see...' How could he have forgotten what she'd said over the phone on the occasion of the Beesley Evening Post impersonation? It hadn't crossed his mind once in the meantime.

'Am I to understand that you deny having had anything to do with the matter? If so, the only other possible culprit's my maid, in which case I shall have to...'

'No,' Dixon broke in, 'I don't deny it. Please, Mrs Welch, I'm desperately sorry about it all. I know I should have come to you and told you about it, but I'd done so much damage I was afraid to. It was silly, I hoped you somehow wouldn't find out, but I really knew you would, of course. Will you send me the bill for what it costs you to replace it? blankets as well, I mean. I must make it good.' Thank G.o.d they still didn't know about the table.

'Of course you must, Mr Dixon. Before we discuss that, though, I want to hear how the damage was caused. Exactly what happened, please?'

'I know I've behaved very badly, Mrs Welch, but please don't ask me to explain that. I've apologized and promised to pay for the damage; won't you let me keep the explanation to myself? It's nothing very terrible, I can a.s.sure you of that.'

'Then why do you refuse to say what it is?'

'I don't refuse; I'm only asking you to spare me a lot of embarra.s.sment that wouldn't help you at all.'

Bertrand now joined in. Putting his s.h.a.ggy face on one side, he brought it nearer, saying: 'We can put up with that, Dixon. It won't hurt us to put up with your embarra.s.sment. It'll be some kind of small return for the way you've behaved.'

His mother put a hand on his arm. 'No, don't interfere, darling. It won't do any good. Mr Dixon is used to being talked to like that, I'm sure. We can leave this; it doesn't alter the main facts of the situation. I want to get on to the next thing. I'm now fairly firmly convinced, Mr Dixon, that it was you who rang me up recently and pretended, in fact you lied when I asked you, pretended both to myself and to my son to be a newspaper reporter. It was you, wasn't it? It'll be much better if you admit it, you know. I haven't mentioned any of this to my husband, because I don't want to worry him, but I warn you that unless I get a satisfactory...'

Like a criminal who, having begun to confess, sees no reason for not going on, Dixon was about to admit it, but remembered in time that this would incriminate Christine. (How much, if anything, had Bertrand got out of her?) 'You're quite wrong there, Mrs Welch. I can't imagine why you should think any such thing. Your husband'll tell you I haven't been away once this term.'

'Haven't been away? I don't see how that affects matters.'

'Well, simply that I couldn't have been here and in London at the same time, could I?'

Restraining Bertrand, Mrs Welch said in puzzlement: 'What's that got to do with it?'

'How could I have phoned through from London if I was here all the time? I take it it was a London call?'

Bertrand looked questioningly at his mother. She shook her head and said quietly, hardly moving her mouth: 'No, it was a local call all right. Whoever it was spoke right away. You always get the operator first if it's a London call.'

'I told you you were wrong,' Bertrand said peevishly. 'I told you old David West was behind all this. d.a.m.n it, Christine was certain it was him on the phone to her, calling himself Atkinson. It was some pal of his who spoke to us, not...' His eye fell on Dixon and he stopped speaking.

Dixon was savouring his defensive triumph. He'd remember the advantages of pretending misunderstanding in this situation. And it was now clear, too, that Bertrand had got nothing out of Christine. 'Has that cleared things up at all?' he asked the others politely.

Mrs Welch began to go red again. 'I think I'll just go and see how your father's getting on, darling,' she said.' There are one or two things I want him to...' Leaving the sentence in the air, she went out.

Bertrand moved a pace closer. 'We'll forget all about that business,' he said generously. 'Now, I've been wanting us to have a little get-together for quite some time, old boy. Ever since that Ball affair, in fact. Now look here: here's a question for you, and I don't mind telling you I mean to get a straight answer. What precisely was your game the other evening when you induced Christine to skip out of the dance with you? A straight answer, mind.'

This must all have been clearly audible to Christine, who now came down the room with Margaret. Both girls avoided Dixon's eye while they went out, leaving him alone with Bertrand. When the door was shut, Dixon said: 'I can't give any sort of answer, straight or crooked, to a meaningless question. What do you mean, what was my game? I wasn't playing any sort of game.'

'You know what I mean as well as I do. What were you up to?'

'You'd better ask Christine that.'

'We'll leave her out of this, if you don't mind.'

'Why should I mind?' Dixon, in spite of the thought of how Mrs Welch's bill would gobble up his bank-balance, suddenly began to exult. The preliminary manoeuvrings, the cold war between himself and Bertrand, were over at least. This was the whiff of grapeshot.

'Don't be funny, Dixon. Just tell me what was going on, will you? or I shall have to try something a little more forcible.'

'Don't you be funny, either. What do you want to know?'

Bertrand clenched his fist; then, when Dixon took off his gla.s.ses and squared his shoulders, unclenched it again. Dixon put his gla.s.ses back on. 'I want to know...' Bertrand said, then hesitated.

'What my game was? We've been into that.'

'Shut up. What did you intend doing with Christine, that's what I want to know.'

'I intended doing exactly what I did do. I intended to go away from that place with Christine, to bring her back here in a taxi, and finally to return to my digs in the same taxi. That's what I did do.'

'Well, I'm not having that, do you understand?'

'It's too late not to have it. You've had it already.'

'Now just you get this straight in your head, Dixon. I've had enough of your merry little quips. Christine is my girl and she stays my girl, got mam?'

'If you mean do I follow your line of thought, I do.'

'That's splendid. Well, if I find you playing this sort of trick again, or any sort of b.l.o.o.d.y clever trick, I'll break your horrible neck for you and get you dismissed from your job as well. Understand?'

'Yes, I understand all right, but you're wrong if you think I'll let you break my neck for me, and if you think they chuck people out of academic jobs for taking their professors' sons' girl-friends home in taxis, then you're even more wrong, if possible.'

Bertrand's reply rea.s.sured Dixon that Bertrand hadn't so far found out from his father about Dixon's present standing in the eyes of College authority. The reply was: 'Don't think you can defy me and get away with it, Dixon. People never do.'

'People are beginning to, Welch. You must realize that it's up to Christine whether she sees any more of me. If you feel you must threaten someone, go and threaten her.'

Bertrand suddenly yelled out in a near-falsetto bay: 'I've had about enough of you, you little b.a.s.t.a.r.d. I won't stand any more of it, do you hear? To think of a lousy little philistine like you coming and monkeying about in my affairs, it's enough to... Get out and stay out, before you get hurt. Leave my girl alone, you're wasting your time, you're wasting her time, you're wasting my time. What the h.e.l.l do you mean by b.u.g.g.e.ring about like this? You're big enough and old enough and ugly enough to know better.'

Dixon was saved from replying by the sudden re-entry of Christine and Margaret. The scene broke up: Christine, who seemed to be trying to flash Dixon a message he couldn't read, took Bertrand by the arm and led him, still loudly protesting, out of the room; Margaret silently offered Dixon a cigarette, which he took. Neither spoke while they sat down side by side on a couch, nor for some moments afterwards. Dixon found himself trembling a good deal. He looked at Margaret and an intolerable weight fell upon him.

He knew now what he'd been trying to conceal from himself ever since the previous morning, what the row with Bertrand had made him temporarily disbelieve: he and Christine would not, after all, be able to eat tea together the following afternoon. If he was going to eat that meal with any female apart from Miss Cutler, it would be not Christine, but Margaret. He remembered a character in a modern novel Beesley had lent him who was always feeling pity moving in him like sickness, or some such jargon. The parallel was apt: he felt very ill.

'That was about the dance business, was it?' Margaret asked.

'Yes. He seemed to resent it all rather.'

'I'm not surprised. What was he shouting?'

'He was trying to persuade me to keep off the gra.s.s.'

'As far as she's concerned?'

'That's right.'

'Are you going to?'

'Eh?'