Death is Now My Neighbour

On such evenings, no particular table-plan was provided, although it was the regular custom for die visiting preacher (on diis occasion a black bishop from Central

Africa) to sit on the right side of the Master, with the College Chaplain on the left. The other occupants of High Table (which was usually fully booked on Sunday evenings) were regularly those who had earlier attended the Chapel service, often with their wives or with a guest; and in recent years, one student invited by each of the Fellows in rotation.

That evening the student hi question was Antony Plummer, the new organ scholar, who had been invited by Julian Storrs for the very good reason that the two of them had attended the same school, the Services School, Dartmouth, to which establishment some members of the armed forces were wont to send their sons whilst they themselves were being shunted from one posting to another around the world - in former colonies, protectorates, mandated territories, and the few remaining overseas possessions.

Plummer had never previously been so honoured, and from his new perspective, seated between Mr and Mrs Storrs, he looked around him lovingly at the gilded, dimly illuminated portraits of the famous alumni - the poets and the politicians, the soldiers and the scientists -who figured so largely in the lineage of Lonsdale. The rafted timbers of the ceiling were lost in darkness, and the shadows were deep on the sombre panelling of die walls, as deftly and deferentially die scouts poured wine into die sparkling glasses.

Storrs, just a litde late in die proceedings perhaps, decided it was time to play die expansive host.

'Where is your fadier now, Plummer?'

'Last I heard he was running some NATO exercise in Belgium.'

'Colonel now, isn't he?'

'Brigadier.'

'My goodness!'

"You were with him in India, I think.'

Storrs nodded: 'Only a captain, though! I followed my father into the Royal Artillery there, and spent a couple of years trying to teach the natives how to shoot. Not much good at it, I'm afraid.'

'Who - the natives?'

Storrs laughed good-naturedly. 'No - me. Most of 'em could have taught me a few things, and I wasn't really cut out for service life anyway. So I opted for a gender life and applied for a Fellowship here.'

Angela Storrs had finished the bisque soup, and now complimented Plummer on the anthem through which he had conducted his largely female choir during the Chapel service.

'You enjoyed it, Mrs Storrs?'

'Er, yes. But to be quite truthful, I prefer boy sopranos.'

'Can you say why that is?'

'Oh, yes! One just feels it, that's all. We heard the Faure Requiem yesterday evening. Absolutely wonderful -especially die "In Paradisum", wasn't it, Julian?'

'Very fine, yes.'

'And you see," continued Angela, 'I would have known they were boys, even with my eyes shut But don't ask me why. One just feels that sort of thing, as I said. Don't you agree? One shouldn't try to rationalize everything.'

Three places lower down the table, one of the other dons whispered into his neighbour's ear:

'If that woman gets into the Lodge, I'll go and piss all over her primroses!"

By coincidence, colonialism was a topic at the far end of the table, too, where Denis Cornford, his wife beside him, was listening rather abstractedly to a visiting History Professor from Yale.

'No. Don't be too hard on yourselves. The Brits didn't treat the natives all that badly, really. Wouldn't you agree, Denis?'

'No, I wouldn't, I'm afraid,' replied Comford simply. T haven't made any particular study of the subject, but my impression is that the British treated most of their colonials quite abominably.'

Shelly slipped her left hand beneath the starched white tablecloth, and gendy moved it along his diigh. But she could feel no perceptible response.

At the head of the splendid oak plank diat constituted the High Table at Lonsdale, over the roast lamb, served with St Julien 93, Sir Clixby had been seeking to mollify the bishop's bitter condemnation of the English Examination Boards for expecting Rwandan refugees to study the Wars of the Roses. And soon after the profiteroles, the atmosphere seemed markedly improved.

All the conversation which had been criss-crossing the

evening - amusing, interesting, pompous, spiteful -ceased abruptly as the Master banged his gavel, and the assembled company rose to its feet.

Benedictus benedicatur.

The words came easily and suavely, from lips that were slightly over-red, slightly over-full, in a face so smooth one might assume that it seldom had need of the razor.

Those who wished, and that was most of them, now repaired to the SCR where coffee and port were being served (though wholly informally) and where the Master and Julian Storrs stood side-by-side, buttocks turned towards the remarkably realistic gas fire.

'Bishop on his way back to the railway station then?' queried Storrs.

'On his way back to Africa, I hope!' said the Master with a grin. 'Bloody taxi would have to be late tonight, wouldn't it? And none of you lot with a car here."

'It's this drink-driving business, Master. I'm all in favour of it. In fact, I'd vote for random checks myself.'

'And Denis there - hullo, Denis! - he was no help either.'

Comford had followed their conversation and now edged towards them, sipping his coffee.

'I sold my old Metro just before Christmas. And if you recall, Master, I only live three hundred yards away.'

The words could have sounded light-hearted, yet somehow they didn't

'Shelly's got a car, though?"

Cornford nodded cautiously. 'Parked a mile away.'

The Master smiled. 'Ah, yes. I remember now.'

Half an hour later, as they walked across the cobbles of Radclifle Square towards Holywell Street, Shelly Corn-ford put her arm through her husband's and squeezed it. But, as before, she could feel no perceptible response.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

But she went on pleading in her distraction; and perhaps said things that would have been better left to silence.

'Angel! - Angel! I was a child - a child when it happened! I knew nothing of men.'

Tou were more sinned against than sinning, that I admit'

'Then you will not forgive me?*

*I do forgive you, but forgiveness is not all.'

'And love me?'

To this question he did not answer

(Thomas Hardy, less of the dVtlerviUes)

'COFFEE?' SHE suggested, as Cornford was hanging up his overcoat in the entrance hall.

'I've just had some.'

Til put the kettle on.'

'No! Leave it a while. I want to talk to you.'

They sat together, if opposite is together, in the lounge.

'What did you do when the Chaplain invited us all to confess our manifold sins and wickedness?'

The measured, civilized tone of Cornford's voice had

shifted to a slightly higher, yet strangely quieter key; and the eyes, normally so kindly, seemed to concentrate ever narrowingly upon her, like an ornithologist focusing binoculars on an interesting species.

Tarrdon?'

'"In thought, word, and deed" - wasn't that the formula?'

She shook her head in apparent puzzlement 'I haven't the faintest-'

But his words cut sharply across her protestation. 'Why are you lying to me?'

'What-?'

'Shut up!' The voice had lost its control. "You've been unfaithful to me! /know that. You know diat. Let's start from there!'

'But I haven't-'

'Don't lie to me! I've put up with your infidelity, but I can't put up with your liesV

The last word was hissed, like a whiplash across his wife's face.