G Malliet - Death at the Alma Mater

"You'll remember India, I think," he said, his voice deliberately kept low in the vain hope Augie Cramb would follow suit.

"Indy!" shouted Augie. He clapped her on the upper arm hard enough to send her flying into traffic; she was just prevented from such a fate by her husband's quick thinking. Grabbing her, Sir James set her to rights. Unlike her husband, India could not be bothered to hide her antipathy: Augie Cramb had always been a buffoon, and while age had not withered him-he had to have put on two stone, and all of it around his middle-custom, she felt sure, would quickly stale his infinite variety.

"It's my GPS." Augie was explaining now, in excruciating detail, the device he held to within a few inches of James' nose. "It uses satnav-satellite navigation-see? I just love this thing."

This thang fumed India silently. Oh, my god. To think at one time she had found this prat worth putting on net stockings for.

"Then you punch in the address, see? And look, it's even got a world travel clock with time zones, a currency converter, a measurement converter, a calculator…" James, to his credit, looked on with every appearance of polite interest. James, who could not insert a battery in the electric toothbrush and had no wish to learn how. That was what servants were for. "I was headed for the Eagle," Augie went on. "The GPS tells me where to turn. You should get one of these things. Tells you where you are."

"I know where I am," said Lady Bassett.

"And surely," said James, hesitating, "you remember the Eagle? We all spent many an afternoon there during our wasted youth."

Augie sighed. "That's not the point. It's that… well you see… I can't miss it this way." Reluctantly, he pocketed the little device. Difficult to explain the thrill of technology to two people probably still wedded to their ABC railway guides. "Why don't you two kids join me for a drink?"

James and India, fighting to keep the looks of desperate horror off their faces, spoke simultaneously:

"We're due for drinks with the Master."

"We're having drinks with the Bursar."

India gave her husband a subtle stomp on the instep. It would have been bearable if she hadn't been wearing heels.

"They'll both be there," she finished brightly. "The Master and the Bursar, you see. Dreadfully sorry. Some other time, perhaps." She did not allow her voice to end on an upward inflection that would turn the last sentence into a question. She would have drinks with this ruffian colonist when hell froze over and not before.

"Sure," said Augie. They thought they were fooling someone but he knew better. The friendlier he tried to be, the more these bluebloods looked down their noses. He didn't get it. Folk high and low were friendly where he came from.

And it's not as if the three of them didn't go way back together…

"Sure," he said again. "Catch up with you later." -- "I wonder when it'll be safe to go back. They're everywhere. Including my parents. Could this get any worse?"

Sebastian Burrows stood at the rear bar of the Eagle. After countless visits he had become oblivious to its history and the golden ambience created by its warm yellow walls. The famed ceiling, its darkened surface scorched with the writing of British and American fighter pilots, went unnoticed and unremarked.

"Insult to injury, I agree," said Saffron Sellers. She stood behind the bar in jeans, a knee-length T-shirt, and iridescent green eye shadow.

"You want another?" She indicated the pint at his elbow. "Manager'll never know. He's out somewhere with the missus; they won't be back until business picks up around five."

"Sure, why not?" Sebastian shoved the glass in her direction. Having a girlfriend who tended bar had its perks. Besides, he wasn't officially in training right now.

"Have you seen Lexy yet?" he asked Saffron's turning back.

"Oh, yes. I caught a glimpse," she sighed, expertly pulling his pint. "She's amazing." Saffron had lost the struggle with the knowledge there was something slightly shameful about her avid interest in their distinguished visitor. It was like having a movie idol visit the college. Not that Lexy had ever done anything but be Lexy. She had no discernable talent except for being a lesser member of the minor nobility who happened to be stylish and hugely photogenic. For some people, that was enough. By a little-understood process-little understood even to the reporters and reviewers who followed her every move-Lexy's presence at a restaurant meant years-long success for that restaurant, however marginal may have been the meal she'd eaten there. Her being seen wearing a particular designer's dress spelt triumph for the designer and steady employment for the knock-off designers.

Sebastian, reading the longing in Saffron's eyes-she was the most transparent of creatures, Saffy-laughed, with a mockery that was not quite gentle in his voice. "She's famous for her hairstyle, isn't she? Why on earth would you care about that?"

Ruefully, Saffron ran a hand through her own tousled, multi-colored mop-a mop she styled herself, often with a straight razor.

"You wouldn't understand," she said.

"Anyway, the parents aren't half in a twist about her being there. What's odd is, I guess I'm sort of related to her. What do you call your stepfather's ex-wife?"

"I don't think there's a name for it."

"My mother has a few names for it," said Sebastian. "None of them suitable for printing in a family newspaper. She hates Lexy's being here."

"It is jolly odd."

"I wonder if Lexy thinks there's a chance of breaking the pair of them up?"

Saffron shook her head solemnly: Dunno. What the oldies got up to in the name of amor was beyond her ken.

Sebastian had his own reasons Lexy, and the other visitors, made him uncomfortable. Just one was the unhappiness Lexy caused his mother, and James-although Sebastian cared less about the happiness of his stepfather. But he liked James, really. For a stepfather, James was all right. Like all old people, James tried too hard to get Sebastian to like him, asking about his studies and his professors and trying to show an interest. But James, had he but known it, didn't have to try quite so hard. He seemed to make his mother happy. That was good enough for Seb.

Besides, James wasn't stingy. Sebastian had to give him that. All Seb ever had to do was ask, and money would flow into his bank account. If he asked for a fiver, James would hand over a hundred-pound note. It drove Sebastian mad, actually-he didn't want handouts, although sometimes he had no choice. It was bribery, besides. Seb knew that: Here's a hundred, now go away. But like most young people, Sebastian wanted to be independent, not relying on money from the wrinklies. Money like that always came with strings attached. He was hoping very much at this moment his independence day wouldn't be far off.

"… It's brilliant," Saffron was saying. "You're a genius, Seb."

Sebastian hoisted his pint, acknowledging the compliment.

"Working like a charm so far."

Saffron's attention was distracted just then by a new customer. She hadn't seen or heard him come in, treading lightly in an expensive pair of trainers. Now he sat patiently at a far corner table, some old guy wearing a weird shirt with pointed pockets and mother-of-pearl buttons-the kind of pockets that snapped shut instead of buttoning in the normal way. A cowboy shirt, like she'd seen on the telly. Howdy! He wore an enormous belt with a buckle the size of a tea saucer. This had to be an American. Jeez, they grew them big over there. He was taller than Seb, who was well over six feet.

"Shhh," she said to Sebastian.

She walked over to see what Matt Dillon wanted.

Portia De'Ath was working on her thesis. At least she sat, pen in hand, surrounded by books, notebooks, papers, and other tools of the academic trade. On one side of her desk sat a laptop, its cursor blinking balefully, like the countdown-to-doomsday screen in an old science-fiction movie.