Dr Standish is our leader,’ he added.
‘Yes.’
‘An excellent headmaster,’ he said. ‘Despite what some people say.’
‘I see.’ Parts of this conversation I must admit I missed entirely.
‘A headmaster must exert total control over a school. Otherwise …’
His ‘otherwise’ trailed off rather, at the very moment at which plates of soup were set before us, and I looked away from the playful Miriam and Alexander and returned my attention to my mathematical friend.
‘Sorry? You were saying?’
‘Otherwise …’
‘Uh-huh. “Otherwise”?’
‘Otherwise? Well. A good leader must be feared and respected,’ said my friend, factually. Perhaps because of his accent, or perhaps because I hadn’t been listening closely to what he was saying, I wasn’t entirely sure if he was referring to the school or to a nation. ‘But. A glass of our modest vin de table, Mr Sefton?’
‘Thank you,’ I said.
He poured and we shared a toast.
‘To knowledge!’ he said.
‘Indeed.’
‘Now, eat!’ he said.
I had a bellyful of People’s Mints and a day of Morley behind me. I did not argue.
Dishes were served and conversations undertaken. At the head of the table, deep in reminiscence, Morley and the headmaster carried on like long-lost brothers. The meal itself was a curious affair. Dr Standish was apparently a recent convert to the cause of vegetarianism, and was determined that all meals in the new school were to be prepared with ingredients from their own farm. Setting the example, he dined, therefore, on a small dish of carrots and a bowl of new potatoes that looked particularly dull and surly – grey-brown, speckled, about the size of bantam eggs, and rather few in number. For the rest of us, however, there were plates of steak, grilled lamb and whole chickens, fresh bread and pats of butter the size of cricket balls: a veritable feast.
On my right sat the school nurse, the woman who had greeted us on our arrival, a Miss Horniman. She was a young, round neurotic thing who wore Harold Lloyd glasses and picked at her food absent-mindedly like a schoolgirl and who kept telling me how terribly lucky she was to have a job at the school, and how brilliant and creative were all the staff, particularly Alexander, of course, with whom she occasionally exchanged glances across the table – just as I exchanged glances with Miriam – and with whom she was clearly in love. Her paean to All Souls, to its staff and pupils, and to the extraordinary Alexander in particular soon became rather tiring.
‘He takes photographs you know,’ she said. ‘He’s terribly modern and up-to-date. He’s taken photographs of all of us here in the school.’ I momentarily entertained an image of her lounging on a divan, her innocence protected with a carefully draped Chinese shawl, or perhaps a strategically placed puppy, her eyes glowing like ruby sparks behind the Harold Lloyd glasses, and Alex hovering over her greedily with his lens …
‘Really?’ I said. ‘I also take photographs—’
‘And he paints,’ she said. ‘He’s influenced by the surrealists, you know.’
‘Yes. He certainly looks like a man who might be influenced by the surrealists.’
‘And he makes sculptures – clay models. Bronzes.’
‘Is there no end to his talents?’ I asked. This was not, I must confess, intended as an entirely serious question, but Miss Horniman took it entirely as such.
‘Really, I don’t think there is,’ she said, ‘he is so extraordinary.’ She then duly launched into a list of his various other accomplishments, including his athletic prowess, his culinary skills – he was reputed both to be able to boil spaghetti – ‘Italian spaghetti!’ she exclaimed – and to make a fine mayonnaise – and his amazing ability on the recorder. ‘And he plays the organ!’ she concluded. ‘He writes his own tunes!’
‘He is like J.S. Bach himself,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ she agreed.
‘Crossed with Pablo Picasso and Auguste Escoffier.’
‘Exactly like J.S. Bach crossed with Picasso,’ she said. ‘And Escoffier! Exactly!’
All the time, opposite us, Alex and Miriam continued deep in conversation, Miriam occasionally looking across the table in my direction, with what could only be described as a mischievous glance.
Tearing through a slice of perfectly pink lamb, I turned back to my German friend, Woland, who proceeded to discourse enthusiastically upon his love of the English countryside, explaining that he had hiked the length and breadth of Devon with nothing but his trusty knapsack on his back and the goodwill of the local people to guide him. Unaware of the torrent of tiresome trouble I was about to unleash, I then foolishly revealed that we were here not just for Founder’s Day but were intending to explore Devon for the second volume of The County Guides series, and I asked, innocently, if perhaps he could recommend anywhere that we should visit? This was a terrible, terrible mistake.
In later years I learned not to mention our purpose to others, in case what happened then happened again – though of course it often happened anyway. Everywhere we visited during our time together working on the books we found people excessively proud of their counties, as though of some prize cow, or a local cheese, and intent upon offering recommendations of where to visit in order best to enjoy the local delights. It was like listening to parents extolling the virtues of their children – which is to say, deeply tiresome.
‘Ah!’ said Woland, flexing his fingers in preparation for what was clearly going to be a serious bout of totting up. ‘Recommendations of where to visit?’
‘Yes, that would be very helpful, if you have any.’
‘Beer,’ he said definitively.
I thought I’d misheard him.
‘Beer?’ I said. ‘No thank you, I’m fine.’ We were by this stage in the meal drinking a red wine so sweet that it might almost have been used for communion.
‘Nein! Nein! Nein! Beer. Beer?’
‘Beer?’
‘A fishing village, not far from here, just a few miles. Surely you know Beer, Mr Sefton? I thought it was famous in England? The stone from Beer, it has been used in the Tower of London?’
‘Of course. The stone from Beer, yes, used in the—’
‘And it has a lovely sheltered bay.’
‘Good.’
