‘I found this, a catalogue of names.’
Phyllida glanced at the scribbled page.
‘Obviously trying to work out what to call his characters, and doing rather badly, poor sod.’
Murray wondered why he hadn’t realised it earlier. The disappointment sounded in his voice.
‘You think so?’
She gave his hand a sympathetic squeeze.
‘Undoubtedly.’
‘Shit, I thought it might have been something.’
He snapped his notebook shut.
Murray’s curse seemed to wake Vic Costello from his trance. He necked the last three inches of his beer.
‘It’s my shout.’
‘Not for me, thanks.’ Lyle Joff raised his glass to his lips and the last of his heavy slid smoothly down. ‘It’s past my curfew.’ He gave Murray a complicit look. ‘Bedtime-story duty. Winnie the Pooh — a marvellous antidote to a hard day at the coalface.’
As preposterous as the image of chubby Joff at a coalface was, it seemed more feasible than the picture of him sitting at the bedside of freshly washed, pyjama-clad toddlers reading about a bear of little brain. Murray had been introduced to Joff’s wife at a faculty party once; she was prettier than he’d expected. He wondered how they’d met and why Joff was so often in the early-evening company of people for whom the only alternative to the pub was the empty flat, the armchair tortured with cigarette burns and the book collection that was only so much comfort.
Vic Costello looked at his watch.
‘It’s gone half-nine. They’ll be safe in the land of Nod by now surely, long past breathing in your boozy breath, Lyle.’
Lyle Joff looked at his own watch as if astonished to see that the hands had moved round. He hesitated, then looked at his glass as if equally amazed to find it empty.
‘You’ll get me shot, Costello.’ He grinned. ‘Just one more for the road then.’
Vic raised his empty glass in the air until he caught the attention of Mrs Noon. He held five fingers up and the manageress gave a curt dip of her head to show she’d oblige, but only for the moment.
Phyllida leaned over and whispered, ‘You’re a cunt, Vic. You won’t be happy until that boy’s marriage has gone the same way as yours and you’ve got a full-time drinking companion.’
‘Why would I need that when I’ve got you, Phyl?’
Costello gave her a hug. Phyllida pushed him away.
‘You forget yourself sometimes.’
Drink took the sting from the scold, but there was a seed of bitterness in her voice that would blossom with more watering, and when Vic Costello tried for a second squeeze her shove was impatient.
The tray of drinks arrived and Lyle Joff helped himself to a fresh pint. He took a sip and wiped the foam from his top lip.
‘There’s nothing wrong with my marriage.’
‘I’m sure it’s rock solid.’ Rab patted Lyle’s arm and asked Murray, ‘Have you met Lyle’s wife? A beautiful girl, classical profile, a touch of the Venus de Milo about her.’
He winked and Murray wearily took his cue.
‘Armless?’
‘Wouldn’t hurt a fly.’
Phyllida laughed and Lyle said, ‘Built on strong foundations. Love, affection, shared values.’
He looked into the middle distance as if trying to recall other reasons his marriage would endure.
‘Children,’ Phyllida said. ‘Children are a blessing.’ Vic Costello excused himself to go to the gents.
Keeping his voice uncharacteristically low, Rab turned to face Murray, cutting the pair of them off from the rest of the company.
‘I’m glad you dropped by.’ The phrase sounded old- fashioned, as if Murray had accepted an invitation to afternoon tea. ‘I owe you an apology, for coming on too strong when I saw you last. Just because I’m not getting any doesn’t give me a right to become one of the moral majority.’ Rab’s face set into a stern inquisitiveness, eyebrows raised almost to the ridges of his brow. It was only acting. The look he gave nervous students to encourage them to speak up. He held out his hand. ‘Shake?’
Murray had let slip about Rachel a month into the affair. The two men had eaten dinner with a visiting speaker then gone for a drink on their own to discuss the lecture free of its author. Maybe it was the combination of wine and beer or maybe it was the rose-tinted evening. Maybe he was boasting or maybe, just for that instant, Murray had thought his friend might be able to help. Whatever it was, as they’d left the pub, skirting the exiled smokers loitering on the pavement outside and stepping into the gloaming of a pink sunset, Murray had found himself saying, ‘I’m having a bit of a thing with Rachel Houghton.’
Rab Purvis had been more forthright than a casual listener might expect a professor of chivalric romance to be.
‘She’s a ballbreaker. I wouldn’t touch her with a bargepole.’
Murray had glanced at his friend’s tubby abdomen and tried to imagine Rachel propositioning Rab as she had him, shutting the door of his office on sports afternoon Wednesday, pushing the essays he’d been trawling through to one side, sitting on the edge of his desk, so close he’d wondered, then guiding his hand under her sweater so that the quality of his wonder had shifted and magnified.
‘It wasn’t a bargepole that I was thinking of.’
‘Any kind of pole. Leave well alone, if you know what’s good for you.’
‘What if it’s my one last chance of true love?’
‘Then run for the hills. Rachel Houghton isn’t looking for love, Murray. She’s happy with Fergus. She simply likes spicing things up by screwing around.’
‘And what’s wrong with that?’
‘Nothing, if shagging your head of department’s wife doesn’t bother you.’
‘Why should it?’
‘Would you like me to give you a list?’
‘Not really.’
But his friend had gone on to recite a long, frequently crude but eminently sensible catalogue of reasons why Murray Watson should steer clear of Rachel Houghton. It hadn’t made one iota of difference. The affair remained acknowledged but unmentioned again, until now.
Murray took Rab’s proffered hand and shook it.
‘She just dumped me.’
‘Ah.’ Rab sucked another inch off his pint. ‘In that case I take back my apology. You’re better off out of it. You know what the department’s like. A busy little hive with bees swarming all over each other and Fergus at the centre, gobbling up the golden globules of honey we lay at his feet.’
‘Pollen.’
‘What?’
‘Pollen. The bees bring the queen pollen and she makes it into honey.’
‘Pollen, honey — it’s all the same.’ Rab abandoned the analogy. ‘The place is a poisonous rumour mill. Look,’ his voice took on the fatherly tone that indicated advice was about to be proffered. ‘It’s not easy working where we do. Bad as being a diabetic in a candy shop, all those delectable sweet things passing through your hands every day and you not even allowed the tiniest little lick.’ He laughed. ‘That was slightly filthier than I intended.’
‘It’s okay, I get your drift.’
‘You don’t have to tell me how frustrating it can be. When I started it was different but. .’ Rab drifted off for a moment to the happy land where lecturers and students were still compatible. ‘But times change.’ He sighed, staring into the middle distance. ‘I was having a nice drink until you came in looking like Banquo’s ghost and reminded me how everything has gone to shit. You had a good time and now it’s over, just thank whatever ancient gods it is you worship that you didn’t get caught.’
‘We did. Someone saw us.’