Eating People is Wrong (22 page)

‘I see,’ said Viola. ‘He’s over there by the door now, smelling girl’s ears when they go past. You know, you can’t go on like this. You’re a mess,
Stuart. Oh, don’t look like that. I don’t mean any harm, but nothing’s getting anywhere. This department has settled down into staid middle age. So have you. So will I, if I
don’t squeal a little occasionally. You’ll come up to my bedroom every Bank Holiday Monday and the students will persuade you to ring your handbells every departmental tea party and
you’ll charm all the little girls straight from school for ever and ever, amen. And there we are. What are you doing for Christmas?’

‘Conference at Oxford,’ said Treece.

‘Oh yes; you told me,’ said Viola. ‘Look, Stuart, I’m feeling randy. Come outside and give me a kiss. See me home. You know what all this has been about.’

‘Viola, you’re a little tight, and we’ve got to stay here and be sociable.’

‘Just because I fell down and bruised my butt doesn’t mean I’m tight, my pet,’ said Viola. ‘I’m going to have another drink.’

‘I’ll join you,’ said Merrick. ‘Hello, Viola. Nice dress, and a new haircut! You do us proud. Fascinating glimpses of lovely white buz. I see in
Vogue
that the
last cry is to have the hair done
en bouffon
.’

‘It wouldn’t suit me; my face is too round,’ said Viola.

‘Nonsense,’ said Merrick. ‘It’s not too round, is it, Treece?’

‘Drink, Merrick?’ asked Treece.

‘I’ll have Dubonnet,’ said Merrick.

At the bar, Treece, congenitally a person who was always served last, found himself in the centre of a violent contest for attention, for it was now closing time. Beside him was Oliver, the sort
of person, it was apparent, who was always served first. ‘Observing all the local idylls?’ asked Oliver. ‘All this lotus-eating. Came for a bit of lotus-eating myself, actually.
Did you see that girl I was with? The one in blue? Never saw her before tonight in my life. Bet I get there, though. Here, serve this man next, barman. He’s a professor. Make way for the
prof, please. Make way for the prof. New rule: professors served first.’

‘Thank you, Oliver,’ said Treece. ‘Let me get yours.’

‘Ta, then,’ said Oliver. ‘That’s a gin and lime and a Guinness.’

Treece got the drinks and turned.

‘By the way,’ said Oliver. ‘Don’t forget next term, I’m going to show you the local
vie littéraire
, the British beats.’

‘Are they interesting?’ asked Treece, picking up one of the drinks from the tray and drinking it. Treece found himself speculating about his relations with Oliver (of course Treece
found himself speculating about his relations with anyone, for the mysteries of human contact were, to him, so profound, that he wondered how he ever
did
it, how he went out and had
relations at all). The way in which he was affected by Oliver was in the splendid freedom of Oliver’s existence; the barriers, the bolts and bars, that one discerned on every side, were
invisible to Oliver. He was not awed by professors or barmen or moral codes or any of the things that limited, for Treece, free access to the world. He patted him on the shoulder in a very amiable
sort of way, and drank the last drink off the tray. He then went back to the table and Merrick said: ‘Viola went off outside with someone from French. Have a tiggy?’

‘Thank you,’ said Treece, rather relieved about losing Viola. It was a Turkish tiggy. What had happened with Viola that evening seemed to Treece rather disastrous, and it was this
curiosity of his strained relationship with Viola that was to act as a solvent in a situation that was to develop later in the evening.

‘Do you like this tie?’ asked Merrick. Treece looked him up and down. Merrick always looked as though he had just that moment dismounted from a horse: his clothes were always
cavalrytwill-y, trousers with sixteen-inch cuffs, the standard wear (at this time) of the Guardsmen/Stockbroker/Underwriter smart set, though already the teddy boys were being imitative and
spoiling things. You could always tell that Merrick went off to Cambridge or London for his clothes – ‘even for his socks and pants’, Viola once avowed. Whenever Treece talked to
Merrick, he was reminded of that Poet Laureate who confessed that his idea of Heaven was to sit in a garden and to receive constant telegrams announcing alternately a British victory by sea and a
British victory by land. Merrick was so Establishment that it just was not true; he was one of the Old Boy system who had somehow just not known quite enough Old Boys to get a Cambridge fellowship,
or into the Diplomatic, and so he had missed the gunboat and was left, continually mystified, among people that no one really mixed with at all.

‘It’s a very nice tie,’ said Treece.

‘It’s a mistress tie,’ said Merrick. ‘Why is it that one’s mistresses always give one ties?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Treece, who didn’t. Merrick was, in his romantic way, a sort of professional co-respondent; he was in bed so often that the wonder was that he
didn’t have bed sores. From behind, someone tapped him on the shoulder. It was Oliver. ‘Do you happen to have any contraceptives on you?’ he asked confidentially.

Merrick promptly opened up his wallet and went carefully through it. ‘Should be able to oblige, old boy,’ he said.

‘Good,’ said Oliver. ‘Always wanted to do it outside, you know, ever since I read
Sons and Lovers
.’

‘No, sorry, old boy. I’m out,’ said Merrick. ‘I didn’t think I’d be coming tonight.’

Treece took out his wallet and looked in it; if he hadn’t been drunk he would have been shocked, and if he hadn’t been drunk he wouldn’t have tried to pretend he had any, when
he most certainly hadn’t.

‘Don’t let me take your last,’ said Oliver.

‘Sorry, I haven’t,’ said Treece, slapping his wallet to.

‘Just have to risk it,’ said Oliver, departing.

‘I say,’ said Merrick. ‘I thought you brought me a drink?’

‘I must have drunk it myself,’ said Treece.

‘Well, that’s a bit thick, old chap. The bar’s closed now.’

‘Sorry,’ said Treece.

‘Never mind. I say, absolutely ducky pianist, isn’t he? Have you seen the local jazz band? You should. All trad stuff, of course, and straight off the records. But then there is no
English culture left, is there?’

Viola now came back into the bar with the fat little lecturer from French. ‘How about a round on the Ford Foundation?’ she cried to the man from French, who had a grant from that
institution. ‘The bar’s closed,’ said Treece. ‘Nonsense,’ said Viola. ‘Don’t you be so easily put off.’

The French lecturer went over to the bar.

‘Soon they’ll be having all these research foundations in England too,’ said Treece, ‘as part of the conspicuous consumption of industry. It seems the next stage in the
democratic process. You’ve got the Nuffield Foundation; next it will be the Marks and Spencer’s Foundation, the Chappie Dog Food Foundation, the C. and A. Modes Foundation . .
.’

‘The Strodex Foundation Foundation,’ said Viola; she was really very drunk. They were all really very drunk. Looking around, Treece felt upset nearly to tears by the sort of wanness
of the milieu, by the Violas and the Merricks, by everything.

He wondered if he was going to be ill. The sensation of being in the world, in this spot, suffused about him in a dull wash, and all at once he thought of a sentence out of Thomas Mann, and he
thought of himself reading the sentence, as he did when he talked on D. H. Lawrence, to bored students in a lecture-room. The sentence was this: ‘In an age that offers no satisfying answer to
the eternal question of “Why? To what end?”, a man who is capable of achievement over and above the expected and average modicum must be equipped either with a moral remoteness and
single-mindedness which is rare indeed and of heroic mould, or else with an exceptionally robust vitality.’ Perhaps there were some people like that; but here there were, really, no heroes
and no vital men, and one simply filled in time.

This was no thought to be bringing to realization amid the entertainments of an evening like this, Treece told himself. ‘I feel sick,’ said a girl behind him. ‘Try and hold it
till we get outside,’ said her escort. At the bar the lecturer in French was in the middle of a fracas with the barman, who was washing up the dirty glasses. At this moment Treece noticed
Emma Fielding coming into the bar, and he felt relieved of his disgust. He went over to her; she looked over her shoulder. ‘Good evening,’ he said. ‘Are you having a good
time?’

‘Well, I don’t really like these hops very much, but I’m certainly having a time. One sees life.’

‘Are you alone?’ asked Treece.

‘I came with a friend, but she got picked up.’

‘Oh, dear.’

‘No; she was pleased.’

‘I mean for you.’

‘I thought you’d gone looking for him, or the other one,’ said a loud whisper from Emma’s other side. It was Louis Bates.

‘Good evening, Miss Fielding,’ said Viola, returning to the group. ‘I like your dress. Good evening, Mr Bates,’ she added, observing this unwelcome figure in the group.
‘Mr Bates, Mr Bates, what does that word remind me of?’

‘Don’t be naughty,’ said Treece in Viola’s ear; he had an instinct for these things, and knew that Viola was determined to be very brilliant at Louis’s expense.
This opening sally had already gone down very well, and Viola was ready for more.

‘You know, Miss Fielding, I’ve often thought: you would be pretty if you stood up straight. Your eyes are lovely. You really don’t make the most of yourself. You don’t
rate yourself high enough. You go about with quite the wrong sort of people. You’re a mature woman; you need a more adult society; you’d flourish in it.’

‘Well, thank you,’ said Emma, taken aback.

‘You must come to one of my parties,’ said Viola. ‘They’re rather fun. Even Stuart likes them, and that is something of a commendation, isn’t it, Stuart
darling?’

‘I suppose it is,’ said Treece.

‘I worked this afternoon,’ whispered a dull voice in Treece’s ear. ‘Oh, you might as well enjoy tonight, Bates,’ said Treece generously. ‘I don’t want
you to think . . .’ murmured Louis.

‘I didn’t know you two were so intimate,’ said Viola, interrupting. ‘Tell me, how’s the flageolet, Mr Bates? Mr Bates once told me that he has a flageolet, and goes
down by the canal and plays Benjamin Britten-y tunes beginning with “Heigh-ho”. Wasn’t that what you told me?’

‘Something like that,’ said Bates.

‘And the embroidery . . . it was you who did embroidery?’ went on Viola.

‘Oh, no,’ said Bates.

‘Or am I confusing you with Ivy Compton-Burnett?’ asked Viola. ‘Tell me, Mr Bates, how is your chest? Don’t show it to me; just tell me.’

‘It’s a bit nasty,’ said Bates.

‘I’m sure it is,’ said Viola. ‘Mr Bates hasn’t been well since I’ve known him. Were your parents old when they had you?’

‘Yes; they were,’ said Bates.

‘You can always tell,’ said Viola. ‘Well, let that be a lesson to us . . .’ This was a reference to one of Treece’s own jokes, which he had shared with Viola; and
the reference involved him and made him feel very guilty. Viola had said too much, and he tried to tempt her away.

‘Stuart is afraid, Mr Bates, that I find you too attractive,’ said Viola. ‘He is really very protective towards you. You must be grateful to him.’

‘I am, very,’ said Louis.

‘I shouldn’t have thought you were a dancing man,’ continued Viola. Louis by now had realized that he hadn’t a chance of coming out of this alive; you knew he had said
his prayers and left his flageolet to his next of kin. Nor was there any stopping Viola. (She turned to Treece and murmured: ‘Have you ever seen this man’s birth certificate? I swear
one of his parents was a rhinoceros.’) The hunt was on, and every one knew it. ‘Grey suit and everything,’ went on Viola. ‘It might be worth investing in a new tie,
though?’ ‘I haven’t much money, you know,’ said Louis with a touch of defiance. Viola had known he would say this, even down to the defiance, and she went on: ‘Well,
perhaps we could have a whip-round for a tie for him, Stuart?’ Stuart, on whom the fact that this was as much at his expense as Louis’s was not lost – and this precluded his
intervention – said: ‘You mustn’t say that, Viola.’

‘You see how concerned he is for your feelings?’ said Viola. ‘Much more concerned than you are, I’m sure; he imagines that you’re ultra-sensitive. I keep telling
him, I keep saying, “Mr Bates isn’t sensitive at all, you do him an injustice.” You’ve been through the mill, as they say, haven’t you? Didn’t you once teach in
a convent, or something?’

‘It was at a girls’ school, yes,’ said Louis. ‘I did have to work to get here, you see. Lawrence used to work in a factory that made artificial limbs, you know; I worked
in a school. For the same sort of reasons, I believe.’

‘You feel an
esprit de corps
with Lawrence, then?’ said Viola. ‘Do I mean
esprit de corps
?’

‘That’s when you have a body of men,’ said the Ford Foundation lecturer.

‘Well, put Lawrence and Mr Bates together, and it seems like a body of men. I saw you in town the other day, Mr Bates, but I don’t think you saw me.’

‘Did you?’ asked Louis.

‘Yes; you were waiting for a bus. You fell backwards over a wall into someone’s garden. I felt quite concerned for you. You weren’t hurt?’

‘No,’ said Louis. ‘I’m very clumsy like that.’

‘What time is it, Stuart?’

‘Nearly midnight,’ said Treece.

‘Time for bed,’ said Viola.

‘I’ll telephone for a taxi,’ said the Ford Foundation man.

‘No, let’s ask Bates to do it for us,’ said Viola. ‘You’ll do that, won’t you? Wait a minute. You haven’t any money; you’ll need some pennies.
Here we are. One, two, three . . . it is threepence, isn’t it?’

‘No, fourpence,’ said Louis.

‘Oh yes,’ said Viola, who knew. ‘Give Louis a penny, Stuart.’

Everyone dispersed to collect their coats. Treece and Emma both had one like thought in their minds: it was not to go home with the person who seemed intent on taking them. Treece knew that he
could not face Viola in this mood, and to stay the night with her in this spirit would be, for him, masochism. He therefore detained Emma and said: ‘Do you have someone to see you home, Miss
Fielding?’ Emma, likewise, felt an immense relief at this offer, and took advantage of it at once; she could not face the thought of having to fight off Louis at her door.