"I'll just see you over to your rooms."
"No I'm all right, you go back."
"Don't be silly, it'll only take a second."
"No Damon, if you don't go back straight away they'll think there's something really wrong. Tell them, say it's side-effects of some new pills. Please, Damon."
"If you're really sure. But we'll talk later."
"Yes. Yes, we will. Thanks."
As Jake approached his staircase he met Ernie coming out of it. The porter gave one of his fiercest winks.
"There you are after all, sir," he said. "I told your visitor you probably wouldn't be arraigned for a bit, with the College Meeting and all, but she said she'd wait if that was allayed, and
I couldn't find it in my heart to say her nay. She really does you credit, Mr Richardson, at your time of life—take a bay!"
"What? Oh yes."
He hurried into his sitting room, unable to venture even a surmise.
"Hallo, Jake," said a strange girl in a green trouser-suit.
21—I Can Help You
The next moment he saw it wasn't a strange girl at all but Kelly, smiling, coming up and shaking hands. It bothered him, made him think himself senile, that even with the trouser-suit due he hadn't recognised her at first, though he tried to cover this.
"Kelly, how nice to see you. What are you doing in Oxford?"
"Paying a call on you, Jake. Actually I've been staying with an aunt in Woodstock, so I thought I'd look you up on my way back to London."
"Jolly good idea, I could do with a bit of lively company. I've just come out of a meeting of such boredom...."
"You don't look well, Jake. I know one isn't supposed to say such things, but you don't."
"Had a rotten night. I feel as if I hadn't slept a wink."
"Bad luck. Of course if you're used to sleeping with someone else it is that much more difficult on your own."
"Yes," he said, keeping to himself the fact that his troubles had come about in the opposite way. "How did you track me down?"
She smiled again. "Oh, I'm good at that sort of thing. Remember how I ran you to earth in Burgess Avenue?"
"Finding me here must have been a damn sight more difficult."
"Not really, Jake. Not to me."
"You're a clever girl." He looked at his watch. "We could go out and have some tea soon."
"It's a little early, isn't it?"
"I suppose it is, but I've got to be back here at five o'clock to talk to some undergraduates."
"Can't you put them off?"
"Not possible, I'm afraid."
"You could ring them up," she said coaxingly, nodding towards the telephone on his desk.
"They're not in the same place, they're all over Oxford. I couldn't hope to reach them in the time."
"Oh, what a bore."
"I'm sorry, but if you'd let me know you were coming...."
I still wouldn't have done anything about it, he finished in his mind. At her remark about the demerits of sleeping alone a little alarm-bell of uneasiness had sounded there; it continued to purr away as he came to recognise that she was talking and behaving in an entirely different style from the one she had used at Burgess Avenue the previous Saturday. No cheerful confidence or confidingness now, no long eager speeches; instead, languor with a querulous edge to it. Above all, the Kelly of Saturday would never have tried to get him to cancel his seminar, would on the contrary have offered to leave at once in case he had preparations to make. So he had been half justified in not recognising her straight away. He had meant what he had said about being glad to see her; he only hoped that the uneasiness would turn out to be misplaced, that things were going to take a turn for the better after the last twenty hours or so, that she was no more than tired or perhaps shy without Brenda's diluting presence. Ah!-Saturday—Kelly would certainly have—
"How's Brenda?"
"Oh .... she's fine, thanks."
"I bet she doesn't come here much, does she? No, I thought not, she wouldn't be able to stand it and quite frankly I'm surprised you can, Jake. I mean look at this, pretend you haven't seen it before and look at it properly." Kelly indicated the padded chair she had just got up off. "Isn't it absolutely revolting?"
"I know it's not very nice, but I don't spend much time here, so...."
"What happens when you entertain?—oh of course you're going to tell me you don't entertain. I can't understand how a cultivated man like you can bring himself to live in such, well I can't call it squalor because it isn't actually dirty or damp or anything but it's pretty damn slummy you have to admit. Not even a picture to take your eyes off it. And honestly these curtains, you'd have thought .... Oh I say that really is something. How gorgeous."
Jake joined her at the window where she was apparently admiring the buildings on the far sides of the quad. "Yes it is pretty good, isn't it?"
"What is it, early eighteenth century?"
Christ, he thought mildly. "Yes, about then."
"It must make up for a lot, having that out there in front of you all the time. What's the other way?"
She turned and made for the open bedroom door, past which daylight was to be seen. He followed her.
"There's not a great deal, but...."
"Do you mind?"
"No, go ahead."
The bedroom window showed a stretch of wall and part of the rear quad of Jesus College. Kelly looked appreciatively at them for a few moments and started to back to the sitting room, or so Jake thought till he made to follow her and found she had shut the door and was facing him with her back to it.
At first he felt only mild surprise and puzzlement. "What...."
"Jake, listen to me, this is important and we don't have very much time. We haven't known each other very long but I feel we appreciate each other and I don't know about you but I can say I trust you. It's an old-fashioned expression but I wish you well, and that's good because I can do something for you, I can help you with your problem. You might not think so but I've had a lot of experience, you could almost call it training. You put yourself in my hands and it'll all work out. You just leave everything to me and I mean everything. Okay? Right, let's go."
All this was said in such a friendly, reasonable tone that Jake couldn't believe she meant what he knew she meant until she crossed the room, a matter of no more than a couple of strides, quick ones in this case, and dosed with him, her arms round his neck and what Ed and Rosenberg would call her pubic area pushing into his. Jake had had to evade or discourage amorous females before, though admittedly none as forceful as this, and without Ed and Rosenberg and all that, and in particular without Eve, he would probably have done better than do what he did do, which was to pull Kelly's arms away and thrust her from him and call on her in a frightened voice to leave him alone, leave him alone.
She showed her teeth; as he had noticed before they were good enough teeth, white and regular, but this time he saw something about the way they were set in the gums that told him beyond all doubt who it was she had reminded him of on Saturday. He was horrified and got ready to defend himself, crouching with his balls tucked between his thighs, but she didn't come at him, didn't even throw anything at him, perhaps because there wasn't a lot to throw, no ashtray, no water-jug or tumbler and again no pictures. All she did was shove the bedside lamp on to the floor, which did no more than knock the shade off its frame, and abuse him verbally. She used not only what is often called foul language in great copiousness and diversity but also foul ideas, and produced surprising variations on the themes of old age and its attendant weaknesses. After some minutes she stopped all at once in mid-incivility and seemed taken by a fit of violent shivering. By degrees she moved to the side of the bed and sat down on it with her hands on her knees. Then she started to weep.