I was trying to work out Albacore’s game. Did he really think I was such an innocent abroad that simply by giving me a nice room and bulling me up in front of the nobs he could sweet talk Sam’s unique research notes out of me in time to incorporate them in his own book?
Perhaps looking down on the world from the mountain deanery of a Cambridge college gives a man a hearty contempt for the little figures scuttling around below. If so, I assured myself grandiloquently, he would soon find that he’d underestimated me.
Instead, I quickly came to realize that I’d underestimated him.
After the reception we all adjourned to a lecture room where the official business of the conference began with a formal opening followed by a keynote address from Professor Duerden on the theme ‘Imagining What We Know: Romanticism and Science’.
It was interesting enough, he had a dry Yankee wit (he comes from Connecticut; fate and a tendency to bronchitis took him to California) and was a master in the art of being provocative without going out on a limb. I listened with interest from my reserved seat on the front row, but part of my mind remained concentrated on the puzzle of Albacore, whose duties as chair of the meeting kept him from his other task of stroking my ego.
But when the lecture and subsequent discussions were over and we were all dispersing to our rooms, my new friend Justin was at my side again, his hand on my elbow as he guided me out into the quad and away from the general drift of delegates.
‘And what did you think of our transatlantic friend?’ he said.
‘It was a real honour to hear him,’ I gushed. ‘I thought he put things so well, though I’ve got to admit, a lot of it was well over my head.’
I’d decided to have a bit of fun with this idiot by playing the eager and enthusiastic but not too bright student and seeing where that led. I didn’t expect my performance to provoke cynical laughter.
‘Oh, I don’t think so, young Franny,’ he said, still chuckling. ‘I think an idea would have to be very deep indeed to be over your head.’
This didn’t sound like simple flannel any more.
‘Sorry?’ I said. ‘Don’t quite follow.’
‘No? I’m simply letting you know what a great respect I’ve got for your mental capacities, dear boy.’
I said, ‘That’s very flattering, but you hardly know me.’
‘On the contrary. You and I are long acquainted and I know all your ways.’
He looked down at me from his height, eyes twinkling like distant stars.
And suddenly I was there.
J.C. to his readers. Justinian to his acquaintance. Justin to his friends.
And to his wife, Jay.
I said, ‘You’re Amaryllis Haseen’s husband.’
It seems so obvious now. Probably you with your fine detective mind got there long before me. But you can see how the revelation bowled me over, especially as I’d spent so much time earlier today raking up that bit of my past for your benefit. Nothing is for nothing in this life, so Frère Jacques preaches. The past isn’t another country. It’s just a different part of the maze we travel through, and we shouldn’t be surprised to find ourselves re-entering the same stretch from a different angle.
Albacore was spelling things out.
‘My wife developed a very high opinion of your potential, Franny. She says that in terms of simple academic cleverness you are bright enough to hold your own in most company. But she also detected in you another kind of cleverness. How did she put it? A mind fit for stratagems, an eye for the main chance, nimble of thought, sharp in judgment, ruthless in execution. Oh yes, you made a big impression on her.’
I said, ‘And on you too, from the sound of it.’
‘Hardly,’ he said, smiling. ‘I was amused when she told me how you neatly got her in a neck lock. But at the time I was on my way from the ghastly wasteland of South Yorkshire back to God’s own college, and apart from a little chortle at the idea of dear Sam Johnson being landed with a cunning convict as a PhD student, I never gave you another thought. Not of course till I heard about poor Sam’s sad demise. Couldn’t make the obsequies myself, but a friend described the dramatic part you played in them, and I thought, hello, could that be that chappie whatsisname? Then I heard that Loopy Linda had appointed you as Sam’s literary heir or executor or some such thing, which was when I asked Amaryllis to dig out all her old case notes.’
‘I’m surprised you didn’t just read her book,’ I said.
He shuddered and said, ‘Can’t stand the way she writes, dear boy. Subject matter is generally tedious and her style is what I call psycho-barbarous. In any case, it’s the marginalia of her case notes that make the most interesting reading. Unless she is wrong, which she rarely is, you are someone I can do business with.’
‘The business being the redistribution of Sam Johnson’s Beddoes research,’ I said.
‘There. I knew I was right. No need to soft soap a supple mind.’
‘No? Then why do I feel so well oiled?’ I wondered. ‘The Q’s Lodging, all these flattering introductions.’
‘Samples,’ he said. ‘Simply samples. When you’re getting down to a trade-off, you have to give the man you’re trading with a taste of your wares. You see, I’m very aware that while I know what you have to offer, you may have doubts about what’s in my poke. It’s little enough unless it’s what you want, and then it’s the world. It is this –’
He made a ring master’s gesture which comprehended the quad, and all the buildings around it, and much much more.
‘If it is something you’re not interested in, then we must look for other incentives,’ he went on. ‘But if, as from my brief observation of you in person I begin to hope, this cloistered life of ours, in which the intellect and the senses are so deliciously catered for, and the inhibiting morals kept firmly in their place, has some strong attraction, then we can get down to business straight off. I have influence, I have contacts, I know where many bodies are buried, I can put you on a fast-track academic career, get you on the cultural chat shows, if that is your desire, I can put you in the way of editors and publishers. In short, I can be thy protector and thy guide, in thy most need to go by thy side. So, do I judge right? Can we do business?’
This was straight talking with a vengeance. This was complete no-holds-barred honesty, which is always a cause for grave suspicion.
Time to test him out with some of the same.
‘If I want these things you offer,’ I said, ‘what is to stop me getting them for myself? I am, as you acknowledge, bright. I may be, as your wife alleges, ruthlessly manipulative. Your book, I presume, is mainly a reworking of the few known facts of Beddoes’ Continental life, embellished, no doubt, by whatever you were able to lift from Sam before he became aware of your perfidy.’
That hit home, just a flicker of reaction, but I got used to reading flickers in the Syke when not to read them could mean losing a game of chess. Or an eye.
I
