Lucky Jim

Avoiding thinking about Margaret, and for some reason not wanting to think about Christine, he found his thoughts turning towards his lecture. Early the previous evening he'd tried working his notes for it up into a script. The first page of notes had yielded a page and three lines of script. At that rate he'd be able to talk for eleven and a half minutes as his notes now stood. Some sort of pabulum for a further forty-eight and a half minutes was evidently required, with perhaps a minute off for being introduced to the audience, another minute for water-drinking, coughing, and page-turning, and nothing at all for applause or curtain-calls. Where was he going to find this supplementary pabulum? The only answer to this question seemed to be Yes, that's right, where? Ah, wait a minute; he'd get Barclay to find him a book on medieval music. Twenty minutes at least on that, with an apology for 'having let my interest run away with me'. Welch would absolutely eat that. He blew bubbles for a moment with the milk in his spoon at the thought of having to transcribe so many hateful facts, then cheered up at the thought of being able to do himself so much good without having to think at all. 'It may perhaps be thought', he muttered to himself, 'that the character of an age, a nation, a class, would be but poorly revealed in anything so apparently divorced from ordinary habits of thought as its music, as its musical culture.' He leant forward impressively over the cruet. 'Nothing could be further from the truth.'

At that moment Beesley entered, rubbing his hands in the way he had. 'Hallo, Jim,' he said. 'Post here yet?'

'No, not yet. Is he coming?'

'He's finished in the bathroom. Shouldn't be long now.'

'Good. What about Bill?'

'He was up before me; I heard him trampling the floor. Wait a minute; I think this must be him.'

While Beesley sat down and started on his cornflakes, Atkinson came slowly into the room. As so often, especially in the mornings, his demeanour seemed to imply that he was unacquainted with the other two and had, at the moment, no intention of striking up any sort of relation with them. This morning he looked more than ever like Genghis Khan meditating a purge of his captains. He halted contemptuously at his chair, clicking his tongue and sighing histrionically like one kept waiting in a shop. His dark, mysterious eyes ran round the walls, making leisured halts at each photograph, summing up adversely Miss Cutler's nephew in the uniform of a Pay Corps lance-corporal, Miss Cutler's cousin's two little girls, Miss Cutler's former employer's country house with a gig at the portico, Miss Cutler vehemently dressed as a bridesmaid in the fashions of the First World War. He was perhaps engaged in whittling down the huge volume of abuse evoked by these sights into four tiny toxic gouts of hatred, one for each photograph. Still silent, however, he took his place at the table, his large hairy hands idle and palm-upwards on the cloth. He never ate cereals.

While Miss Cutler was in the room dispensing vermilion bacon, the day's post could be heard arriving. Beesley nodded significantly at Dixon and went out into the hall. When he came back he nodded again, more significantly. Dixon felt none of the pleasurable excitement he'd expected; even when, a couple of minutes later, Johns came silently in holding his letter, he was still almost unmoved. Why was this? Merrie England? Yes, and other things too, but never mind about them. He tried to fasten his attention on the letter, which Johns was now opening and unfolding. Beesley, his mouth full of food, had stopped chewing; Atkinson, outwardly unconcerned, was watching Johns through his thick lashes. Johns began reading. The silence was intense.

Johns put his spoon down carefully. There seemed to be something subtly wrong about his hair. His usual lard-like pallor, though diversified this morning by several inflamed patches (the consequence, no doubt, of shaving with a blade far too blunt for anybody with a normal attitude towards money), was too extreme to allow of any further whitening in consequence of emotions like alarm or fury. Soon, however, he raised his eyes, not, of course, to the level of the others' faces, but much nearer it than usual. Once Dixon even fancied he caught Johns's glance for a moment or two. The man was evidently stirred in some way; he was twisting about with a sort of arch, self-deprecatory motion. After reading the letter through once or twice, he stuffed it quickly back in its envelope and shoved it into his breast-pocket. Looking up again and finding the others still watching him, he picked up his spoon so hurriedly that it spattered milk over his navy-blue cardigan. A bursting sound came from Beesley.

'What's the matter, sonny boy?' Atkinson asked Johns, clearly and very slowly. 'Had a bit of bad news?'

'No.'

'Because I shouldn't like to feel that you'd had a bit of bad news. It would spoil my day. Are you sure you haven't had a bit of bad news?'

'Nothing at all.'

'Haven't you had a bit of bad news?'

'No.'

'Oh. Well, be sure to let me know if you ever do. I might be able to give you some advice. Mightn't I?'

Atkinson lit a cigarette. 'Not much of a talker, are you?' he asked Johns. 'Is he?' he asked the other two.

'No,' they said.

Atkinson nodded and went out. From the passage they heard his rare laugh; without any definite point of change, it led to a fit of coughing which gradually receded up the stairs.

Johns began on his bacon. 'It isn't funny,' he said, suddenly and surprisingly. 'It isn't funny at all.'

Dixon caught a glimpse of Beesley's flushed, delighted face. 'What isn't?' he asked.

'You know what, Dixon. Two can play at that game. You'll see.' With a shaking, wristless hand he poured himself some coffee.

The encounter ended with no more said. With a last hostile glance in the direction of Dixon's tie, Johns hurried out. His work on the College staff's superannuation policies and National Health cards began at nine o'clock. As he went, Dixon saw that there was something funny about the back of his head.

Beesley leaned over. 'All right, eh, Jim?'

'Not too bad.'

'Did you notice how much he said? An absolute bloody flood of eloquence. It's what I've always maintained: he never says a word unless he feels he's being threatened in some way. Hey, I haven't told you. Did you notice how queer his hair looked?'

'Now you mention it, I did think it looked a bit odd.'

Beesley began eating toast and marmalade. Chewing angrily, he went on: 'He's bought himself a pair of hair-clippers. I found them in the bathroom yesterday. Cuts his own hair now, you see. Too sodding mean to pay out his one-and-six, that's what it is. My God.'

This, then, was why, from the back, Johns appeared to be wearing a blatant toupee which had slipped over slightly to one side, and why, from the front, his face appeared to be surmounted by a curious helmet. Dixon was silent, thinking that Johns had at last done something he rather respected.

'What's up, Jim? You don't look too happy.'

'I'm all right.'

'Still worrying about the lecture? Look, I've got those notes on The Age of Chaucer I promised you. They're not very exciting, but there'll be a few things you can probably use. I'll stick them in your room.'

Dixon cheered up again; if he could dare to wait long enough, he might be able to construct the rest of his lecture entirely out of others' efforts. 'Thanks, Alfred,' he said; 'that'll be fine.'

'Going up to College at all?'