The Light of Amsterdam (11 page)

He thought of his son and said, ‘Fine.' He wished Stan would stop staring at him so intently.

‘You know we need to talk soon about your staff appraisal?'

‘That time again? Well we won't get too worked up about that, will we?' he said, remembering the previous year's experience that seemed to be nothing more than a bit of form filling.

‘We might have to, Alan.'

‘Have to what?' he asked, staring at the dark palimpsest of beard on his head of department's lower face that threatened to seep through the ageing surface of his skin and re-form its former glory.

‘Get worked up about it. Everything's changing here, Alan – if you ever actually read anything that's sent to you or lifted your head up and had a look about, then you'd know that.' He picked up his pen and held it this time like it was a syringe. ‘This can't be a rubber-stamp job any more. There are certain issues I have to address with you and I'm afraid we need to come up with convincing answers.'

‘What issues would those be?' he asked, not entirely sure he wanted his question to be answered.

Stan loudly clicked the pen and it made him think that he was about to inject him with a truth serum.

‘Well perhaps it might be no bad thing if I flagged them up for you, gave you time for a considered response.' He paused, stared across the desk through to the outer room. ‘Shut the door, Alan.'

So it was this bad. It was shut-the-door bad and for a second he considered running away while the door was still open. When he sat back down on the chair it groaned in complaint. Stan was leaning closer across the desk and when he spoke his voice had dropped and the sudden sense of intimacy shrank the room even smaller until he felt claustrophic and struggling for breath.

‘There's been complaints.'

He immediately thought of his moment of madness. Was she complaining about her marks – hardly possible since he'd been entirely and imprudently generous? Was she complaining about his performance? He was certainly no expert but in times of deep and inexplicable emotional need, performance didn't seem particularly crucial. Surely this, too, hadn't fallen prey to the vocabulary of performance indicators and success criteria?

‘Complaints?' he repeated, attempting a tone of mild curiosity.

‘From some of the students.'

The bitch. He'd lost a marriage out of it and she'd printed herself on a slab of clay in a way she hadn't intended then got marks her mousey little gimcrack pots didn't merit. The world didn't know how to be fair any more.

‘Listen, Stan, if it's about that
MA
student I'd just like to say . . .' But he couldn't actually think of what to say and so he was almost relieved when Stan held up his hand like a policeman stopping traffic.

‘It's not about the
MA
student and right now if there was a problem there I'd rather not know about it so let's just focus on the problems I do know about.'

‘Fair enough,' he said, thinking it good tactics to appear open and relaxed about whatever was coming.

‘There's been complaints from a series of students and, before you ask, I'm not able to give their names at this stage of the,' he hesitated, ‘proceedings. I can summarise them best as falling into three categories. One: not giving a reasonable allocation of individual time to each student and not being available for guidance to final-year students when needed. Two: being insensitive and overly dismissive about work you don't like. And three: not turning up for some scheduled seminars and tutorials.'

‘And I'm to face these complaints without knowing my accusers?' he asked, momentarily believing that attack might be the best course of defence.

‘Listen, Alan, take my advice – don't dramatise this and don't for God's sake get on a high horse. And, believe me, you should be grateful that there are no names attached to the complaints because if there were, it would be formal and we wouldn't be able to chat about it in my office.'

‘So I should be grateful that I'm accused of stuff without knowing my accusers.' But already he could think of a full range of potential point-the-fingerers. ‘I don't think I missed that many tutorials – perhaps a couple when I had the flu.'

‘Alan, I'm speaking to you as a friend as well as the person who's supposed to manage you, I don't wish to trawl through all the various issues but I do need you to take on board some basic points and reflect on the need to implement them. The first is that things have changed in here and out there as well.' He swept his hand in an all-encompassing movement. ‘You need to register that more clearly than you have done to date. They're all paying good money and as soon as they do that they believe, rightly or wrongly, that it entitles them to certain things and our time is one of them. They've come from a system that spoon-fed them and pushed them through every exam they ever faced so they need to feel that assurance of personal support.'

He went to say something in reply but was faced with the traffic-controller's hand again and he fell obediently silent and sat a little higher in his chair to show that he was paying attention.

‘This might stick in your throat – it might even stick in mine – but it's the way it is and if you can't face up to it you're only going to get more grief than you want. And you can't sneer at their work or tell them it's no good.'

‘But what if it
is
no good?'

‘Tell them how to make it bloody better and do it with sensitivity so that they're not here in my office crying or having a hissy fit. And if you want my private opinion there's one or two out there who have the potential and the knowhow to cause us all real trouble, who should be told they're the next Damien Hirst or Tracey Emin if it keeps them off our backs.'

‘You think I'm a dinosaur, Stan, don't you?'

‘You're old-school, Alan. And there's a lot to be said for that but we let other people take over and perhaps you should think about your contribution to that and now they want the game played by different rules. And although you haven't worked this out there isn't a nice quiet corner for you to hide in any more. And I suppose in some ways you are a dinosaur but I tell you this, Alan, you have a choice – evolve or face extinction.' He leaned back in the chair, making it squeak again, and his face had reddened as if he'd just finished blowing up a balloon.

‘Well listen, Stan, I appreciate your honesty and I'll try to shape up, toe the line.'

‘Don't take the piss. Just do what you want but know that we're in a system where there'll be consequences and I don't want to lose someone I know is a good teacher.'

The kindness of the compliment affected him more than any of the other words and he didn't want to give his old comrade any more problems so he said nothing but nodded to show he'd understood. He stood up but Stan signalled him to sit down again.

‘We might as well kill two birds with one stone here. I have, I'm afraid, one final issue to raise with you and one which has caused some awkward questions down the corridor. You haven't had a show in more years than I can remember. But more importantly than that you haven't published a piece of research in the last couple of years and with this inspection in the pipeline we need everyone to make a contribution. Research will be one of the things that affects our final score. So do you have anything on the go at the minute?'

He felt an obligation to his old friend and perhaps out of guilt for the grief he had caused him, or perhaps just out of impulse, he suddenly heard himself say, ‘Well actually I have an article I'm working on – it's about Van Gogh and Gauguin and the period when they shared the house at Arles. I'm analysing the work – the precise chromatic range – in relation to immediately earlier and later paintings and showing how this period of physical intimacy affected their colour choices, how there was a kind of chromatic symbiosis.' He couldn't help smiling because he was pleased with his imagination and because it struck him as a pretty good idea.

‘Don't take the piss, Alan.'

‘No seriously, Stan. I think I can get a publisher.' He saw that his head of department was still unconvinced so he tried to clinch it by saying, ‘Actually next week I'm going to Amsterdam to complete some research.'

One of Stan's eyebrows curled slightly but his face remained stonily impassive. ‘I look forward to reading it. And I can pass this piece of news on to the Dean?'

‘By all means,' he said, slowly pushing himself out of the chair. ‘And thanks, Stan, I appreciate your help and I'll do my best to take on board the things you've said.' For a second he thought of offering him a handshake but Stan was leaning back in his chair rubbing the point of his chin as if he was sanding away the press of stubble.

Five

‘You can't be serious, Shannon,' she said, pointing at the two costumes splayed across the bed. ‘I can't wear that.' She looked at her daughter who was standing hands on hips, all her admiration evident in her posture. ‘Of course you can. Just go with the flow, Mum. You'll look great. It's out of Elliott's costume shop – the real thing and it's not tacky or anything. It looks great.'

‘Look at the length of the skirt,' she protested, measuring it against herself. ‘It's far too short – I can't wear a skirt this short at my age.'

‘You've great legs – you can get away with it. Just wear thick tights and your suede boots and, Mum, you're going to Amsterdam – no one's going to know you, or ever see you again. It's just a laugh.'

‘There'll be plenty of laughs, all right, but I don't want people laughing at me all weekend.'

‘Mum, it's a hen party. Everybody always dresses up and it could've been something worse – like schoolgirls or tarty nuns.'

‘But Indians, Shannon. Why Indians?'

‘I think it looks great. Look at your top with all the beading and put your feather on,' Shannon said, handing it to her and nodding encouragement as if she was talking to a child. ‘In fact try on the whole costume.'

‘Should I not keep it till we get there?'

‘Till we get there? We're travelling like this.'

‘We're getting on the plane dressed like Indians?'

‘That's the whole idea of it – that's what happens on a hen trip.'

She slipped the skirt over her jeans and for some reason didn't want to undress in front of her daughter. ‘Well, if I have to do it, let's see you in yours.' She was glad when Shannon took hers across the landing into her bedroom.

‘And take those jeans off,' her daughter called. ‘And try to get in the spirit of it, Mum, or you're not going to enjoy yourself. It's only a bit of craic.'

As she changed she couldn't imagine that the weekend would hold much enjoyment for her and while she was initially flattered to be asked, she now held serious doubts about the whole trip, not least because she was increasingly conscious that she'd never been in a plane before, a prospect which caused her deep anxiety. She stood in front of the mirror and saw a ridiculous Indian squaw in imitation buckskin decorated with plastic beading.

‘Put your headband on, Mum,' Shannon insisted as she entered. She of course looked tall and willowy as if her outfit was a designer label. ‘Well how do I look?' she asked in the way she only ever did when she already knew the answer.

‘Like a catwalk Indian. How does this thing go?'

‘Give it here – you're putting it on back to front. The feathers go at the back.' Her daughter stood behind her peering over her shoulder at the mirror. She was smiling and then she rested her hands lightly on her mother's shoulders, stooping a little as she did so in order to catch more of her reflection.

‘You look great. And, here, don't forget your hatchety thing.'

‘I think it's called a tomahawk. Where does it go?'

‘In the waistband. Tuck it in like that.'

‘A handy thing for a woman to have on her. And you're telling me the other girls are going dressed like this? They're turning up at the airport like this?'

But her daughter was preening herself sideways to the mirror while pressing her dress smooth with the palms of her hands and when she spoke it was to say that she was going to ring Ellie to tell her the costumes were cool. She listened to her daughter's excited feet on the stairs and wondered if she would jump the bottom two steps the way she always did on Christmas morning but guessed that age and the tightness of the skirt would prevent it. Turning to the mirror again she repeated the word ‘cool' in a vain attempt to convince herself then sat down on the edge of the bed.

She had been saving for over a year for the wedding, had gone without in lots of ways – she'd hardly bought a thing to wear apart from a few pairs of tights and couldn't remember the last time she'd been out socially. She'd lost track, too, of the extra shifts she'd done in the home, had done so many that some of the girls said she should ask for a room. She'd dined off leftovers from the home and stuck every spare penny in the bank account she'd opened especially to pay for everything. It wasn't going to be the biggest wedding in the world or something you'd see in the pages of
Hello!
but it was going to be as good as anybody else's and she was determined to show the world that she had done right by her child despite everything.