Tim Connor Hits Trouble (6 page)

Aisha took a taxi onto campus for the beginning of term staff party. The idea behind the occasion was for staff to meet up in an informal setting before work took over. Well before the cab reached the university gates she heard snatches of guitar music and youthful singing. This was unlikely to be her new colleagues. She guessed that some kind of student event was also taking place. As the taxi drew up outside the main building she felt a shiver of excitement very different from the hyper-anxiety of her interview. She wanted to belong here and was eager for things to begin. The journey cost the thick end of ten pounds. Aisha handed the driver a note waving aside his feeble fumbles in search of change. Pleased, the driver decided to be helpful.

‘I think the student do is in the Union – that’s the big building over there, Miss. You’re a bit early though.’ He pointed to a square concrete and glass structure some fifty yards behind the main administrative centre.

‘Many thanks.’ Aisha was flattered to be mistaken for
a student. She checked her watch. It was almost an hour to eight o’ clock when the party was due to begin. In her eagerness to be on time she risked being amongst the first to arrive and perhaps not knowing anybody. She could hear the music more clearly now and decided to pass the time by tracking it down. It had been a hot day and a soft haze was beginning to settle over campus. Several buildings were already lit up, their light merging with the sun’s early evening glow. She was happy to be part of this enclave of civilised enquiry and human relations. Or so she supposed it to be. She glanced towards the student union and near-by residential blocks. The music was not coming from that direction. She turned to look further up the campus. Beyond the teaching blocks on an open stretch of ground was a period-built mansion circled by a high, solid wood fence. She guessed that this might be the Vice Chancellor’s residence. The voices and music seemed to come from some way beyond. As she strolled up the campus the fragments of music began to cohere into recognisable melodies, unexpectedly more sixties than noughties.

High up the campus she wandered onto a stretch of grassland not visible from the main drive. Students were scattered around in singles, couples and small groups: reading, writing, lost to lap-tops or mobiles, playing cards, conversing, some intently, some light-heartedly. One couple seemed to be making love. No one appeared to be expecting rain. It was a scene deserving of a campus Lowry. A frizbee whizzed towards Aisha. She plucked it nimbly from the air. Applause broke out from a trio of young men. One of them must have launched it.

‘Good catch,’ this from a gangly youth with an American accent.

She threw the frizbee back to him.

‘Wow, man. Good throw.’

‘Thanks.’

‘So why don’t you join in? We need someone that can
throw straight. These guys can’t keep it off the ground.’ He gestured dismissively in the direction of his two companions.’

‘Thanks but not this time, I’m heading for the music. I’ve walked across most of the campus to get to it.’

‘Right. You’re on track. It’s all happening on the other side of that red brick wall, in the ecological garden area.’

‘Great. Thanks,’ she replied.

Aisha made her way over to the wall, threading her way through a gap strewn with a jumble of battered and decaying bricks. The ‘garden’ turned out to be an uneven stretch of semi-cultivated grassland interspersed with shrubs, a few trees and some small beds of flowers. It may once have served as a place of quiet retreat but was now given over to informal socialising. It was quite densely occupied by several dozen students and a handful of older adults that Aisha took to be academics. In the centre of the garden was an ornamental fountain with a stone rim and surrounding patio. The fountain was dried out leaving streaks of oxidised rust across its metal surface. Everyone’s attention was fixed on two figures sitting on the stone pedestal, guitars slung around their necks. Both looked faintly familiar to Aisha. Intrigued she eased her way through the crowd that thickened as she got nearer the fountain. Finally close enough, she recognised Henry Jones and Fred Cohen. Not wanting to interrupt the flow of their performance, she decided to watch incognito. Retreating several yards she found a spot under a cedar tree. There was a pause in the music and some banter started up between the two musicians and a section of the audience.

‘Give us
When I’m Sixty-Four
,’ shouted a youthful voice.

‘What! So you think I’m sixty-four,’ responded Henry with mock indignation.’

‘At least.’

‘Cheeky bugger.’

Aisha winced at her boss’s language.

‘What about
The Long and Winding Road
?

Henry turned enquiringly to Fred Cohen who shook his head.

‘Appropriate, but not one I can do.’

‘
All You Need is Love
,’ shouted another voice.

Henry and Fred exchanged a smile.

‘Ok, we think we can manage that,’ said Fred, ‘but we might need some help.’

‘Right, here we go. Make sure you lot join in, the lyrics shouldn’t stretch you too much,’ shouted Henry.

After a couple of practice chords the two men launched into the optimistic chant. The students joined in with raucous enthusiasm swelling to total cacophony as they attempted to vocalise the erratic trumpet sequences of the original. They clattered to a chaotic climax as they tried to keep up with Henry and Fred’s manic fade-out. Laughter and ironic applause greeted the end of the song. Merry-making and self-piss-taking hung in the heavy, late-evening air.

Red faced and panting slightly, Henry began to unhitch his guitar. ‘Ok, that’s it. We have to go somewhere now. Don’t you guys have something going on tonight as well?’

‘One more song before you go,’ someone shouted.

‘One more song, one more song,’ the rest started chanting.

A lone voice shouted above the din.

‘Henry, Fred, tell us what you think of the banking crisis and the protests. What can we do about those selfish bastards?’

Henry was about to reply when Fred cut in.

‘I’ll answer that, don’t set Henry off, it’s more than his job is worth.’

‘Shame! Free speech!’ a voice interjected.

Fred carried on. ‘Look, in my view your generation needs to push on from what we did. We freed things up culturally, I mean. But it’s pretty obvious we didn’t manage to do much about inequality. In fact it’s getting worse. Not that it will be any easier for…’

An agitated Henry burst in.

‘Listen. I agree with Fred. But this might surprise you coming from an old leftie, be careful, think before you act. My generation; those of us who were involved, anyway, in the end we threw it away. We fell out among ourselves. Keep your discipline and keep together. Keep the protests going but don’t imagine that violence offers a short cut. We have to win the intellectual and moral arguments, then the system will lose credibility. Look at the Soviet Union, never a genuine socialist society by the way. Look what happened there: the system collapsed because it was rotten from the inside, rotten to the core. It can happen to Western capitalism, not in the same way, but it can happen.’

Some of the audience broke out in spontaneous applause. Others looked uneasy.

Fred came in again. ‘Yeah, Henry’s right. One thing we oldies can contribute is to help you avoid the mistakes we made. It’s that old cliché - the value of experience, but unfortunately it doesn’t always stack up well with youthful idealism. I hope we don’t sound too parental. In any case the world in the next thirty or forty years will be the world you make. The best of luck with it.’ He hesitated for a moment, unsure whether he was connecting with the crowd.

A spare looking youth with closely cropped hair dipped in with a comment. ‘You guys sound more like poets than revolutionaries. We have to be realistic. In the sixties and seventies you could move in and out of the system, more or less when you wanted to. Lots of us guys can’t even get into the system in the first place except into low-paid, shitwork. Places like this just keep us in storage for three years.’

A young, hippie-looking, woman interrupted. ‘Don’t be so negative, man. It’s bread
and
roses. Can we get back to some music? It’ll soon be dark. Give us one more song? Do either of you guys know anything written after nineteen seventy-five or did the Beatles have the last word?’

Henry and Fred grinned at each other self-deprecatingly. Fred decided to take the opportunity to tie things up.

‘Well, we’re not exactly rap specialists. We can probably
just about do
Common People
if you all join in with the lyrics. Is that cool?’

There was a murmur of approval.

‘Ok,’ said Henry, ‘but I don’t really know it.’ He looked out at the audience. ‘Can any of you guys hack out a tune?’

A student sat on the rim of the fountain waved his hand.

‘Great.’

‘Anyone want to take over from me?’ asked Fred.

The hippie woman waved enthusiastically.

The ageing minstrels passed over their guitars to the two volunteers. Fred found a place to sit a few feet away inside the bowl of the fountain. Henry must have noticed Aisha arrive because he went straight over and sat next to her.

‘Terrific stuff,’ she smiled, ‘the music, I mean, I’m not sure about the teach-in.’

‘Good to see you again. The whole thing is for fun really but it was good to have a bit of political rap. I guess you didn’t expect to meet up again quite like this.’

‘Not really but you’re right, people really seem to be enjoying themselves and for me it’s interesting. It is a bit different.’

‘Look, it’s great to see you here. By the way you remember Fred from the interview panel. He’s here for the party, creature of pleasure that he is. He’s staying at my place for a couple of days.’

Henry shouted to Fred to join them. His voice was lost as the crowd hit the chorus of
Common People
. Eventually the message was passed to Fred who squeezed his way over. He greeted Aisha with an enthusiastic double kiss. Slightly taken aback, she managed a smile.

‘Time to go time,’ said Henry. ‘It’s getting dark and anyway I’m in serious need of a drink. Let’s get to Swankie’s party. Is that ok with you?’ He turned towards Aisha.

‘That suits me fine. I’m in your hands,’ she replied, hoping that she didn’t sound too keen to please.

Henry left a message for the two musicians to leave the guitars at the main reception. Fred who had a sentimental
attachment to his old guitar looked slightly concerned but went along with it.

They arrived at the main building to the sound of a party already in full swing. To Aisha’s surprise security insisted that they produce their identity cards before entry. She had imagined academics were not subject to such inconveniences. To get Fred in at all required a couple of minutes’ lively negotiation. He was issued with a visitor’s card only after being primly advised that he ‘ought to have arranged this ahead of the event.’ Finally, they were inside the entrance hall.

‘Ms Khan … Aisha Khan isn’t it?’ A high falsetto rose above the din.

Dropping an octave the voice continued, ‘and oh, Henry, Fred, glad you managed to make it.’ An innuendo of disapproval implied that somehow getting themselves to the party might have been beyond them.

The owner of the voice, a tall, expensively dressed, middle-aged, women emerged through the crush. Aisha took her outstretched hand and answered her question.

‘Yes, that’s right. I’m one of the new appointments.’

‘Welcome, I’m Heather Brakespeare; I’m married to Howard. We use our birth names for most purposes. I’m delighted to meet you.’

‘It’s good to meet you, too.’

A further exchange of pleasantries established that Heather Brakespeare worked at the University as Director of a recently established research and teaching unit on health and nutrition. While this brief conversation was going on, Henry and Fred contrived to disappear. Heather took the opportunity to offer what Aisha interpreted as an oblique warning about Henry.

‘Henry’s a bit of an old roué, you know. Apparently he created some serious trouble for the previous Dean. I think he imagines he’s still living in the nineteen sixties. I heard from one student that he can scarcely operate a computer,’ she added unnecessarily. ‘Anyway, don’t let me hold you up
from enjoying the party. I must go and welcome a group of colleagues that have just arrived. The food and drinks are by the wall on your left and afterwards you’ll no doubt want to join in the dancing. Oh, by the way, I can see Dr Connor by the food on his own looking rather neglected. As you probably know he’s also a new appointment. Why don’t you go over and say hello to him?’

Aisha watched Tim for a few moments. He was leaning against a wall clutching a plastic pint glass in one hand and a plate piled high with food in the other while trying to kick away a chunk of salmon mayonnaise that had dropped onto his shoe. Aisha was about to go over and suggest that he put down his plate and pint before trying to remove the mayonnaise when a familiar voice broke in.

‘Aisha Khan, here you are… How good to see you.’

It was Howard Swankie.

‘I hope you haven’t been on your own for long. I must introduce you to some colleagues.’

Aisha tensed slightly as she braced herself for more formalities. She would have preferred to chat with Tim Connor who she was beginning to find oddly diverting.

‘Oh, good evening Professor Swankie. No, I’m fine. Actually I’ve just been talking to your wife. I was about to go over and say hello to Tim Connor, my fellow initiate,’ she said attempting to sound relaxed.

‘I’m sure you’ll catch up with him later. Perhaps I can find Rachel Steir or Erica Botham for you to chat with.’

He looked around the room in an unconvincing attempt to spot one or both of them. The more appealing thought that he might spend a few minutes with Aisha had occurred to him. She would meet other colleagues soon enough. He had better be careful though. He had not completely outlived his old reputation as something of a philanderer, even though it was several years since he had risked serious indiscretion. His affair with a young and exotic postgraduate student from Brazil had almost broken his marriage as well as undermined his performance and credibility
at work. The liaison had begun light-heartedly enough but had become increasingly passionate and out of control. It had dislocated both their lives. Despite or rather because of the intensity of his feelings he had decided that such dalliances were simply not worth the possible fall-out.