‘Professor Welch. Professor Welch, please.’
Dixon huddled himself further into the periodical he was reading and unobtrusively made his Martian-invader face. To him, it was a serious offence to pronounce that name in public, even when there was no chance of its bearer being thereby conjured up; Welch was known to be taking the whole day off, as distinct from days like yesterday (the day of their conversation about Dixon’s job) when Welch merely took the early and late morning and the afternoon off. Dixon wished that the porter, a very bad man, would stop bawling that particular name and go away before his eye fell on Dixon and marked him down as a Welch-surrogate. But it was no use; in a moment he felt the approach of the porter down the length of the Common Room towards his chair, and had to look up.
The porter wore an olive-green uniform of military cut, and a peaked cap which didn’t suit him. He was a long-faced, high-shouldered man with hairs growing out of his nose, and his age was hard to estimate. His expression, which rarely altered, couldn’t be expected to at the sight of Dixon. Still approaching, he said huskily: ‘Oh, Mr Jackson.’
Dixon wished he had the courage to twist energetically about in his chair in search of this quite new and unknown character. ‘Yes, Maconochie?’ he said helpfully.
‘Oh, Mr Jackson, there’s someone on the telephone for Professor Welch, but I can’t seem to find him. Would you take the call for him, please? You’re the only person in the History Department I can find,’ he explained.
‘Yes, all right,’ Dixon said. ‘Can I take it in here?’
‘Thank you, Mr Jackson. No, the telephone in here goes on to the public exchange. The lady wanting the Professor’s on the College switchboard. I’ll switch her through to the Registrar’s Clerk’s room. He won’t mind you taking it in there.’
A lady? It must be either Mrs Welch or some poor half-crazed creature connected with the arts. Mrs Welch would be better, in that her message would be comprehensible, but worse in that she might have found out about the sheet, or even the table. Why couldn’t they leave him alone? Why couldn’t every single one of them without any exception whatsoever just go right away from where he was and leave him alone?
Luckily, the Registrar’s Clerk, another very bad man, wasn’t in his room. Dixon picked up the phone and said: ‘Dixon here.’
‘Intermediate Geology, that’s right, yes,’ a voice said comfortably. ‘Who’s that?’ another said. A buzzing followed, terminated by an eardrum-cracking click. When Dixon had got hold of the receiver again and put it to his other ear, he heard the second voice say: ‘Is that Mr Jackson?’
‘Dixon here.’
‘Who?’ It was a vaguely familiar voice, but not Mrs Welch’s; it sounded like an adolescent girl’s.
‘Dixon. I’m taking the message for Professor Welch.’
‘Oh, Mr Dixon, of course.’ There was a noise which might have been a smothered snort of laughter. ‘I might have guessed it’d be you. This is Christine Callaghan.’
‘Oh, hallo, er, how are you?’ The apparent deliquescence of the bowel that recognition brought on was only momentary; he knew he could deal with her voice creditably enough while the rest of her remained, presumably, in London.
‘I’m fine, thanks. How are you? I hope you’ve had no more trouble with your bedclothes?’
Dixon laughed. ‘No, I’m glad to say that’s all blown over; touch wood.’
‘Oh, good . . . Look, is there any way of getting hold of Professor Welch, do you know? Isn’t he anywhere in the University?’
‘He hasn’t been in all the morning, I’m afraid. He’s almost certain to be at home now. Or have you tried there?’
‘Oh, how annoying. Perhaps you can tell me, though: do you know if he’s expecting Bertrand down?’
‘Well, yes, as it happens I do know that Bertrand’s coming down at the week-end. Margaret Peel told me.’ Dixon’s equanimity had departed; evidently this girl didn’t know she’d been junked by Bertrand, at least as far as the Summer Ball was concerned. Answering her questions about Bertrand was going to be tricky.
‘Who told you?’ Her voice had sharpened a little.
‘You know, Margaret Peel. The girl who was staying with the Welches when you came down that time.’
‘Oh yes, I see . . . Did she happen to mention whether Bertrand will be going to your Summer Ball affair?’
Dixon thought quickly; no questions about Bertrand’s possible partner must be asked. ‘No, I’m afraid not. But everybody else’ll be going, anyway.’ Why didn’t she get hold of Bertrand and ask him?
‘I see . . . But he is definitely coming down?’
‘Apparently.’
She must have sensed his puzzlement, because she now said: ‘I expect you’re wondering why I don’t ask Bertrand himself. Well, you see, he’s often rather a difficult chap to get hold of. At the moment he’s just sort of gone off, nobody knows where. He likes to come and go when he feels like it, hates being tied down and all that. Do you see?’
‘Yes, of course.’ Dixon bunched his free hand and waggled its first two fingers.
‘So I thought I’d see if his father knew where he was or anything. The whole point is, what I really wanted to know is this. My uncle, Mr Gore-Urquhart, got back from Paris sooner than he expected, and he’s got an invitation from your Principal to the Summer Ball thing. He doesn’t really know whether to come or not. Well, I could persuade him to come if Bertrand and I were going, and then Bertrand and he could get to know each other, and Bertrand wants that. But I must know soon, because it’s the day after tomorrow and Uncle would want to know in good time, where he’s to spend the week-end, I mean. So . . . well, it’s rather a mix-up, I’m
afraid.’
‘Can’t Mrs Welch throw any light on the matter?’
There was a pause. ‘I’ve not actually been on to her.’
‘Well, she’s bound to know more about it than I do, isn’t she? . . . Hallo?’
‘I’m still here . . . Listen, keep this quiet, won’t you? but I’d like not to get on to her if I can find out any other way. I . . . we didn’t hit it off too well when I stayed. I don’t want to have to, well, discuss Bertrand with her over the phone. I think she thinks I’m . . . Never mind; but you see what I mean?’
‘I do indeed. I don’t hit it off too well with the lady either, as a matter of fact. Now I’ve got a suggestion. I’ll ring up the Welches for you now and get the Professor to ring you. If he’s not there I’ll leave a message or something. Anyway I’ll see to it, somehow or other, that Mrs Welch doesn’t get involved. If it’s no good I’ll ring you back myself and tell you. Will that do, now?’
‘Oh, that’d be lovely, thanks so much. What a marvellous idea. Here’s my number; it’s the place I work at, so I shan’t be there after five-thirty. Ready?’
While he took it down, Dixon assured himself several times that Mrs Welch couldn’t have found out about the sheet or the table, or Margaret would surely have warned him. How nice this girl was being to him, he thought. ‘Right, I’ve got that,’ he said finally.
‘It’s damn good of you to do this for me,’ the girl said with animation. ‘But doesn’t it make me out a bit of a fool, you taking all this trouble just to save me . . . ?’
‘Not in the least. I know exactly what these things are like.’ None better, he told himself.
‘Well, I am grateful, really. I just couldn’t face . . .’
A sort of Morse signal fell between these sentences, and then a rushing noise supervened. A woman’s voice said: ‘Your second three minutes are up, caller. Do you require a further three minutes?’
Before Dixon could speak, Christine Callaghan had said: ‘Yes, please, leave me through, will you?’
The rushing noise stopped. ‘Hallo?’ Dixon said.
‘I’m still here.’
‘Look, isn’t this costing you a packet?’
‘Not me; only the shop.’ She gave one of her laughs, the non-silver-bells sort. Over the phone its cacophony was more noticeable.
Dixon laughed too. ‘Well, I hope this business comes off all right; it would be an awful shame if it didn’t, after all these preparations.’
‘Yes, wouldn’t it? Will you be going to the Ball thing?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’
‘Afraid so?’
‘Well, I’m not really much of a dancing man, you know. It’ll be a bit of an ordeal for me, I’m afraid.’
‘Why on earth are you going, then?’
‘It’s too late to get out of it.’
‘What?’
‘I said I may get some fun out of it.’
‘Oh, I expect you will. I’m not much good as a dancer myself, really. I’ve never learnt properly.’
‘You must have had plenty of practice, surely.’
‘Not much, as a matter of fact. I haven’t been to many dances.’
‘We’ll be able to sit out together, then.’ That’s a bit forward, he thought; shouldn’t have said that.
‘If I come.’
‘Yes, if you come.’
The pre-leavetaking pause fell upon them. Dixon felt sad: he realized for the first time that it was really very unlikely that she would come to the Ball, a good deal more unlikely than she had any reason to think, and that it was correspondingly unlikely that he’d ever see her again. It was nasty to think that the deciding factors would be the strength and nature of Bertrand’s ambitions, sexual and financial-social.
‘Well, thank you again for your help.’
‘Not at all. I hope very much you will be coming on Saturday.’
‘I hope so too. Well, good-bye. I may be hearing from you later, then.’
‘That’s right. Good-bye.’
He sat back and puffed out his cheeks, trying to picture her at the other end of the line. She’d be sitting up straight in her office chair, of course, like an airman-clerk told to ‘carry on’ during an inspection by the Air Vice-Marshal. Or would she? She hadn’t sounded like that over the phone; she’d talked in the relaxed style he’d had glimpses of during the sheet and table campaign. But her apparent friendliness over the phone might be an illusion based on her physical absence. On the other hand, how much of her severity at other times was an illusion based on the way she looked? He was feeling for his cigarettes when Johns came in at the door, carrying a sheaf of papers. Had he been listening?
‘Can I help you?’ Dixon said with caricatured graciousness.
Johns saw that he’d have to speak. ‘Where is he?’
Dixon peered searchingly under the desk, into its top drawer, into the wastepaper-basket. ‘Not here.’
The other’s junket-coloured features stayed where they were. ‘I’ll wait.’
‘I won’t.’
Dixon went away with the intention of ringing up the Welches from the Common Room phone. As he was passing the porter’s office he heard Maconochie say: ‘Ah, there he is now, Mr Michie,’ and made his Eskimo face, which entailed, as well as an attempt to shorten and broaden his face by about half, the feat of abolishing his neck by sucking it down between his shoulders. This done, and the final effect held for a few seconds, he turned and saw Michie approaching.
‘Ah, Mr Dixon, I hope you’re not busy.’
Dixon knew exactly how well Michie knew exactly how and why he, Dixon, couldn’t be busy. He said: ‘No, not just at the moment. What can I do for you?’
‘About your special subject for next year, sir.’
‘Yes, what about it?’ Until now, the intrigue had been mostly in Dixon’s favour; the three pretty girls whom he was plotting to secure for his class had all seemed more ‘interested’ at their last discussion, while Michie’s ‘interest’, though it hadn’t declined, had shown no signs of increasing.
‘Shall we go for a stroll on the lawn, sir? It seems a pity to be indoors on such a glorious day, doesn’t it? About the syllabus, sir: Miss O’Shaughnessy, Miss McCorquodale, Miss ap Rhys Williams, and I have all been into it very carefully together, and I think the feeling of the ladies is that the reading is a good deal on the heavy side. I don’t myself think it is: as I said to them, a subject like this requires considerable background knowledge if it isn’t to be quite meaningless. But I’m afraid they weren’t convinced. Being women, they’re of rather more conservative temperament than ourselves. With Mr Goldsmith’s Documents, for instance, they feel on safer ground. They’re sure of what they’re getting there.’
Dixon was fairly sure too, but he allowed Michie’s voice to go on dinning in his ears while they emerged into the heavy, dizzying sunlight and crossed the tacky asphalt to the lawn in front of the main building. Was Michie breaking to him the news that the three pretty girls were crying off and he himself was crying on? He would prevent that, if necessary by unlawful wounding. In a moment he said, without quite succeeding in keeping the plangency out of his voice: ‘What am I supposed to do about it, then?’
Michie looked at him. His moustache seemed a size larger than usual; his Windsor-knotted silk tie toned unimprovably with his biscuit-coloured shirt; his lavender barathea trousers swayed gracefully with his walk. ‘That’s up to you, sir, of course,’ he said, with a courtly minimum of surprise.
‘I wonder if the thing could be cut down at all,’ Dixon said, almost at random.
‘I don’t think there’s much that could easily be sacrificed, Mr Dixon. As far as I’m concerned, the broad basis is the chief attraction.’
This, at any rate, was worth knowing. A basis consisting of a single point—the geometrical entity having position, but no magnitude—was clearly the thing to work for. ‘Well, I’ll have another look at it, anyway, and see if anything can be cut out.’
‘Very well, sir,’ Michie said, his demeanour that of a chief of staff about to put into action his general’s unworkable plan. ‘Will you get in touch with me, then, or shall I . . . ?’
‘I’ll look through it tonight and see you about it in the morning, if that’s convenient.’
‘Certainly. Would you care to come to the Second-Year Common Room at about eleven? I’ll ask the ladies to come, and we could all have a cup of coffee.’
‘That’ll be splendid, Mr Michie.’
‘Thank you, Mr Dixon.’
After this Victorian, or variety-team, salutation, Dixon went back to the Common Room, which was now empty, and sat down at the phone. Everything that might conceivably interest Michie must be slashed from the syllabus, even, or rather especially, what was indispensable. What did it matter? He’d probably never have to take the course. In that case why was he worrying about the ‘interest’ shown by Michie and the three pretty girls? He sighed, and picked up the phone.
Things at once happened very quickly. While, as he had reason to know, outgoing calls from the Welches’ were liable to take some time, incoming-ones were horrifyingly swift. In less than a quarter of a minute Mrs Welch had said to him: ‘Celia Welch speaking.’
He felt as if he’d crunched a cracknel biscuit; in his preoccupation he’d forgotten about Mrs Welch. Still, why worry? In an almost normal tone he said: ‘Can I speak to Professor Welch, please?’
‘That’s Mr Dixon, isn’t it? Before I get my husband, I’d just like you to tell me, if you don’t mind, what you did to the sheet and blankets on your bed when you . . .’
He wanted to scream. His dilated eyes fell on a copy of the local paper that lay nearby. Without stopping to think, he said, distorting his voice by protruding his lips into an O: ‘No, Mrs Welch, there must be some mistake. This is the Evening Post speaking. There’s no Mr Dixon with us, I’m quite sure.’
‘Oh, I’m most awfully sorry; you sounded at first just like . . . How ridiculous of me.’
‘Quite all right, Mrs Welch, quite all right.’
‘I’ll get my husband for you straight away.’
‘Well, actually it was Mr Bertrand Welch I wanted to speak to really,’ Dixon said, smiling at his own cunning as best he could with a distorted mouth; in a few seconds this horror would be over.
‘I’m not sure whether he’s . . . Just a minute.’ She put the phone down.
Better hang on, Dixon thought, and the information, which Mrs Welch had obviously gone to get, about where Bertrand could be reached was just what he wanted for the Callaghan girl. He’d be able to ring her up and tell her, too. Yes, hang on at all costs.
One of the costs was immediately presented in the form of a well-remembered voice baying directly into his ear ‘This is Bertrand Welch’, so directly, indeed, that Dixon could have fancied that Bertrand was actually in the room with him and had by some sorcery substituted for the receiver those rosy, bearded lips.
‘Evening Post here,’ he managed to quaver through his snout.
‘And what can I do for you, sir?’
Dixon recovered slightly. ‘Er . . . we’d like to do a little paragraph about you for our, for our Saturday page,’ he said, beginning to plan. ‘That’s if you’ve no objection.’
‘Objection? Objection? What objection could a humble painter have to a little harmless publicity? At least, I take it it’s harmless?’
Dixon got out a laugh, the Dickensian ‘Ho ho ho’ which was all his mouth could manage. ‘Oh, quite harmless, I assure you, sir. We have a few facts about you already, naturally. But we would just like to know what you’re engaged on at the moment, you see.’
‘Of course, of course, most reasonable. Well, I’ve got two or three things in hand just now. There’s a rather splendid nude, actually, though I don’t know whether your readers would want to know about that, would they?’
‘Oh, very much so, Mr Welch, I assure you, as long as we tell them in the proper way. I take it there’d be no objection to calling it “an undraped female figure”, would there, sir? I imagine it is a female?
Bertrand laughed like a leading hound announcing the end of a check. ‘Oh, she’s female all right, you can bet your bottom dollar on that. And “bottom” is the exact word.’
Dixon joined in this with his own laughter. What a story for Beesley and Atkinson this was going to make. ‘Anything about what I believe’s called the treatment, sir?’ he asked when he might have been supposed to be calm again.
‘Pretty bold, you know. Fairly modern, but not too much so. These modern chaps jigger up the detail so much, and we don’t want that, do wam?’
‘Indeed we don’t, sir, as you say. I suppose this would be an oil painting, sir?’
‘Oh God, yes; no expense spared. She’s about eight feet by six, by the way, or will be when she’s framed. A real smasher.’
‘Any particular title for it, sir?’
‘Well, yes, I thought of calling her Amateur Model. The girl who sat for it’s certainly an amateur of a sort, and she acts as a model, at least while she’s being painted, so there you are. I shouldn’t put in that little explanation of the title if I were you.’
‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ Dixon said in something like his ordinary voice; his mouth had tightened involuntarily during the last few seconds and had temporarily abandoned its O. What a lad this Bertrand was, eh? He remembered the insinuations about the week-end with the Callaghan girl that Bertrand had made at their first meeting. God, if it ever came to a fight, he’d . . .
‘What did you say?’ Bertrand asked, a little tinge of suspicion in his tone.
‘I was talking to someone in the office here, Mr Welch,’ Dixon said, through the O this time. ‘I’ve got all that, sir, thank you. Now what about the other things you’re working on?’
‘Well, there’s a self-portrait, an outdoor one against a brick wall.
More wall than Welch, as a matter of fact. The real idea is the pallor and sort of crumpledness of the clothing against the great, red, smooth wall. A painter’s picture, more or less.’
‘Ah, just so, sir; thank you. Anything else?’
‘There’s a little one of three workmen looking at a newspaper in a pub, but that’s hardly started yet.’
‘I see; well, that’ll do us nicely, Mr Welch,’ Dixon said. Now was the moment for a daring switch. ‘The young lady said something about an exhibition, sir; would that be right?’
‘Yes, I am having a little show locally in the autumn; but what young lady is this?’
Dixon laughed silently with relief through his O. ‘A Miss Callaghan, sir,’ he said. ‘I gather you know her.’
‘Yes, I know her,’ Bertrand said in a slightly hardened voice. ‘Why, where does she fit into this?’
‘Why, I thought you must know,’ Dixon said with feigned surprise. ‘This was really her idea. She knows one of our staff here, and I gather she put the notion of this little paragraph, like, to him, you see, sir.’
‘Really? Well, it’s the first I’ve heard of any of it. Are you quite sure?’
Dixon gave a quite professional laugh. ‘Oh, we don’t make mistakes about things like that, sir; more than our position’s worth, if you take my meaning, Mr Welch.’
‘Yes, I suppose it is, but it all sounds most . . .’
‘Well, I should check with her then, sir, if you’re in any doubt. As a matter of fact, when your Miss Callaghan was on the blower to Atkinson . . .’
‘Who’s this Atkinson character? I’ve never heard of him.’
‘Our Mr Atkinson in the London office, sir. She was on to him just now, sir, and asked us to ask you to ring her, if we could get hold of you. Seems she couldn’t get through to your house, or something. Something pretty urgent seems to have come up, and she’d like you to ring her up this afternoon, before five-thirty, if you would.’
‘All right, I’ll do that, then. What’s your name, by the way, in case I . . . ?’
‘Beesley, sir,’ Dixon said without hesitation. ‘Alfred R. Beesley.’
‘Right, thank you, Mr Beesley.’ (That’s the tone, Dixon thought to himself.) ‘Oh, by the way, when will the paragraph be appearing?’
‘Ah, there you have me, sir. One just can’t tell, I’m afraid. But it’ll certainly be within the next four weeks. We like to have the material by us in plenty of time, just on the off-chance, you see, Mr Welch.’
‘Quite so, quite so. Well, have you got everything you want?’
‘Yes, thank you very much indeed, sir.’
‘No no, thanks to you, old boy,’ Bertrand said, with a welcome return to his earlier comradeliness. ‘Very fine body of men, the gentlemen of the Press.’
‘Nice of you to say so, sir,’ Dixon said, making his Edith Sitwell face into the phone. ‘Well, good-bye and thanks, Mr Welch. Much obliged to you.’
‘So long, Beesley, old boy.’
Dixon sat back, mopped his face, though he’d have liked to mop his entire frame, and lit a cigarette. Panic had made him fearfully rash, but not, he thought, irretrievably so. The key to the situation lay in dismantling the hoax at once, before Bertrand could get round to blowing it up himself. The Callaghan girl must be carefully coached in the following story: Some unknown calling himself Atkinson had rung her up that morning and, posing as a journalist, discussed Bertrand. He’d talked vaguely about the Evening Post, obtained the Welches’ phone number, and rung off. When Bertrand came through on the phone, she must greet him at once with the Atkinson story, saying it had all sounded very fishy to her and that the voice of ‘Atkinson’ had reminded her strongly of whichever of their London acquaintances was most likely, or least unlikely, to play a meaningless practical joke on the pair of them. Without being suspiciously emphatic, she must make it clear that ‘Atkinson’ had phoned her from a London number, that is, not by a trunk line. Provided she held to her story, both she and Dixon were completely safe, even if Bertrand was already ringing the Post in quest of ‘Beesley’. The danger obviously was that she wouldn’t come in with the conspiracy. There were solid grounds, however, for thinking that she would: her gratitude at his offer of help, his success in his mission against heavy odds, her demeanour over the sheet and table affair, finally, if necessary, his extreme vulnerability if the truth got out. If Bertrand were still suspicious, he might worm the story out of her by emotional pressure, but why should he be suspicious? He could hardly think that she’d go to the lengths of suborning some unknown provincial in order to get hold of some information about the Summer Ball, which in fact was almost exactly what she had done.
The thing now was, obviously, to get hold of her and coach her in her story. He must hurry, because he had to get lunch and be back to invigilate at an examination by two o’clock. Before making any move, however, he threw back his head and gave a long trombone-blast of anarchistic laughter. It was all so wonderful, even if it did go wrong, and it wouldn’t. The campaign against Bertrand he’d fantasied about at the Welches’ had begun, and with a dazzling tactical success. A warning voice told him that this campaign, even so far, was too dangerous for a man in his precarious position, that the joy of battle was submerging his prudence, but he drowned it in more laughter of the same sort.
Yet again he picked up the phone, got Trunks and then Christine Callaghan’s number. Better not tell her anything like the full story of his conversation with Bertrand, he thought. After a moment he leaned forward and said: ‘Miss Callaghan? Good. It’s Dixon here. Now listen carefully.’