Lucky Jim

'That's right. Eileen O'Shaughnessy said she was browned-off with it, so I said farewell to it this morning.'

'Good advice, Michie. A great improvement.'

'Thanks. I hope you're fully recovered from your fainting fit or whatever it was?'

'Oh yes, thanks. No permanent injuries.'

'Good. We all enjoyed your lecture.'

'I'm very glad to hear it.'

'It went down like a bomb.'

'I know.'

'Pity you didn't manage to finish it.'

'Yes.'

'Still, we got the main drift.' Michie paused while a group of strangers went by, deluded visitors to the College's Open Week. He went on: 'I say… don't mind me asking this, do you? but some of us wondered if you weren't slightly… you know…'

'Drunk? Yes, I suppose I was, rather.'

'Been a row about it, I suppose? Or haven't they had time to get round to it yet?'

'Oh yes, they've had time.'

'Bad row, was it?'

'Well, yes, as these things go. I've got the push.'

'What?' Michie looked sympathetic, but neither surprised nor indignant. 'That's quick work. Well, I'm really sorry about that. Just over the lecture?'

'No. There'd been one or two other little departmental difficulties before, as you probably know.'

Michie was silent for a moment, then said: 'Some of us'll miss you, you know.'

'That's nice. I shall miss some of you.'

'I'm going home tomorrow, so I'll say good-bye now. I passed all right, I suppose? You can tell me now, can't you? I shan't hear till next week otherwise.'

'Oh yes, all your crowd are through. Drew failed, though. Is he a friend of yours?'

'No, thank God. Very satisfactory, that. Well, good-bye. I suppose I shall be doing Neddy's special subject after all next year.'

'Looks like it, doesn't it?' Dixon put his effects under his left arm and shook hands. 'All the best, then.'

'Same to you.'

Dixon went off down College Road, forgetting to take a last look at the College buildings until too late. He felt almost free of care, which, considering the circumstances, he thought rather impressive of him. He'd go home that afternoon; he'd have gone anyway in a couple of days. He'd come back next week to pick up the last of his stuff, see Margaret, and so on. See Margaret. 'Ooooeeeeyaaa,' he called out to himself, thinking of it. 'Waaaeeeoooghgh.' With his home so near hers, leaving this place wouldn't seem like a move on, but a drift to one side. That was really the worst of it.

He remembered now that this was the day he was to see Catchpole at lunch-time. What could the fellow want? No use wondering about that; the important thing was how to kill time until then. Back at his digs, he bathed his eye, which was beginning to fade a little, though its new colour promised to be just as disfiguring and a good deal less wholesome. A conversation with Miss Cutler about rations and laundry followed; then he had a shave and a bath. While he was in the water, he heard the phone ring, and in a few moments Miss Cutler tapped at the door. 'Are you there, Mr Dixon?'

'Yes, what is it, Miss Cutler?'

'A gentleman on the telephone for you.'

'Who is it?'

'I'm afraid I didn't get the name.'

'Was it Catchpole?'

'Pardon? No, I don't think so. It was longer, somehow.'

'Oh, all right, Miss Cutler. Would you ask him for his number and say I'll ring him in about ten minutes?'

'Right you are, Mr Dixon.'

Dixon dried himself, wondering who this could be. Bertrand with more threats? He hoped so. Johns, having intuited the fate of his insurance policies? Possibly. The Principal, summoning him to an extraordinary meeting of the College Council? No, no, not that.

While he dressed, he thought how nice it was to have nothing he must do. There were compensations for ceasing to be a lecturer, especially that of ceasing to lecture. He put on an old polo sweater to signify his severance of connexions with the academic world. The trousers he wore were the ones he'd torn on the seat of Welch's car; they'd been expertly repaired by Miss Cutler. By the phone he found a pencilled slip in her girlish hand. Though she'd again found the name beyond her, she'd got the number, which, he saw with some surprise, referred to a small village some miles away, in the opposite direction to the Welches'. He didn't know he knew anyone there. A woman's voice answered his call.

'Hallo,' he said, thinking he could write a thesis on the use of the phone in non-business life.

The woman's voice announced her number.

'Have you got a man there?' he asked, feeling a little baffled.

'A man? Who's that speaking?' The tone was hostile.

'My name's Dixon.'

'Oh yes, Mr Dixon, of course. One moment, please.'

There was a brief pause, then a man's voice, the mouth too dose to the microphone, said: 'Hallo. That you, Dixon?'

'Yes, speaking. Who's that?'

'Gore-Urquhart here. Got the sack, have you?'

'What?'

'I said, got the sack?'

'Yes.'

'Good. Then I won't have to break a confidence by telling you so. Well, what are your plans, Dixon?'

'I was thinking of going in for schoolteaching.'

'Are you right set on it?'

'No, not really.'

'Good. I've got a job for you. Five hundred a year. You'll have to start at once, on Monday. It'll mean living in London. You accept?'

Dixon found he could not only breathe, but talk. 'What job is it?'

'Sort of private secretarial work. Not much correspondence, though; a young woman does most of that. It'll be mainly meeting people or telling people I can't meet them. We'll go into the details on Monday morning. Ten o'clock at my house in London. Take down the address.' He gave it, then asked: 'Are you all right, now?'

'Yes, I'm fine, thanks. I went to bed as soon as I…'

'No, I wasn't inquiring after your health, man. Have you got all the details? You'll be there on Monday?'

'Yes, of course, and thank you very much, Mr…'

'Right, then, I'll see you…'

'Just a minute, Mr Gore-Urquhart. Shall I be working with Bertrand Welch?'

'Whatever gave you that idea?'

'Nothing; I just gathered he was after a job with you.'

'That's the job you've got. I knew young Welch was no good as soon as I set eyes on him. Like his pictures. It's a great pity he's managed to get my niece tied up with him, a great pity. No use saying anything to her, though. Obstinate as a mule. Worse than her mother. However. I think you'll do the job all right, Dixon. It's not that you've got the qualifications, for this or any other work, but there are plenty who have. You haven't got the disqualifications, though, and that's much rarer. Any more questions?'

'No, that's all, thank you, I…'

'Ten o'clock Monday.' He rang off.

Dixon rose slowly from the bamboo table. What noise could he make to express his frenzy of hilarious awe? He drew in his breath for a growl of happiness, but was recalled to everyday affairs by a single hasty chime from the legged clock on the mantelpiece. It was twelve-thirty, the time he was supposed to be meeting Catchpole to discuss Margaret. Should he go? Living in London would make the Margaret problem less important - or rather less immediate. His curiosity triumphed.

Leaving the house, he dwelt with exaltation on Gore-Urquhart's summary of the merit of Bertrand's pictures. He knew he couldn't have been wrong about that. Then his walk lost its spring as he realized that Bertrand, jobless and talentless as he was, still had Christine.

XXIV

CATCHPOLE, already there when Dixon arrived, turned out to be a tall, thin young man in his early twenties who looked like an intellectual trying to pass himself off as a bank-clerk. He got Dixon a drink, apologized to him for taking up his time, and, after a few more preliminaries, said: 'I think the best thing I can do is give you the true facts of this business. Do you agree with that?'