Reginald Hill: An Advancement of Learning

The man on the ladder rested his elbow unselfconsciously on the shining brown breast.

“We could saw her off at the ankles,’ he said reasonably. ”d be easiest. Otherwise she’s likely to come apart almost anywhere.”

One of his mates guffawed. The man on the ladder shot him a disapproving glance.

Marion Cargo ignored him and concentrated all her attention on the eight-foot-high bronze nude which towered before her. She (Marion, not the bronze) was in her late twenties, as slim as the nude was Rubensesque, dressed in black slacks and a loose grey sweater, her only concession to the fact that she lectured in Art at the college being her ear-rings, two crystals dangling at the end of long silver chains.

There’s a solid block of concrete down there as a foundation, you see, miss,’ explained the man. ‘ thing’s set in it. Pretty solid too, I’d say, otherwise it’d have keeled over long since.”

“Yes, I know,’ said Marion. ‘ I’d rather the legs weren’t cut.”

“No one’d know,’ assured the man. ”ll dig the base out separate and they can be stuck back together later somehow if the thing’s not going for scrap. She might lose half an inch or so, but she can spare it, eh?”

He slapped the nude affectionately.

“Like I say, who’d notice? No one, except the joker who made it, perhaps, wherever he is.”

He laughed.

“That was me,’ said Marion calmly. ‘ it’s not just that. We’ll have to think of a way. I don’t want her cut. There are other reasons.”

She bent down and looked at the inscribed plaque set into the shallow platform on which the statue rested.

TO THE MEMORY OF ALISON GIRLING

1916–1966

Her memorial is around you.

She was conscious of the overalled men regarding her with semi-amused eyes, but she made no attempt to brush the tears from her eyes before standing upright again.

“No,’ she repeated. ‘ don’t want her cut. There must be a way.”

Conversation stopped for a moment when Fallowfield came into the Common Room. He moved swiftly to the coffee-table and waited till Miss. Disney had poured herself a cup. A smile played around his lips as she replaced the coffee-pot firmly on the table and moved away without a glance at him.

He poured a cup and made a bit of business out of taking a couple of sips while he surveyed the constitution of the various groups scattered around the room.

Grouping tended to be by departments for morning coffee. The geographers sat huddled together as though plotting some government’s overthrow. The English Department lay back easily in their chairs, not speaking, but with faint smiles on their faces as though someone had said, or was just about to say, something elegantly witty. Three mathematicians looked gloomily at each other like unwilling companions on a long train journey. At the far end of the room, the historians were quarrelling again, just before the stage where objective social discussion became personal infighting. Henry Saltecombe, their departmental head, almost recumbent in the deep armchair which was his own, surveyed them benignly over his swelling paunch. Glancing round, he caught Fallowfield’s eye and made a pouring motion with his hand.

Fallowfield picked up the coffee-pot and went across to join him.

“Hello, Sam,’ said Henry cordially. ‘ us a cup, there’s a love.

You’re a silly fellow to be here when you could still be pigging it in bed.” “There are things to do,’ said Fallowfield noncommittally. He sat down and refilled his own coffee-cup.

“Anyway,’ he added, melting a little to Henry’s cordiality, ”s a rare experience to be able to feel like Lord Byron after the scandal. Though nobody actually got up and left!”

“Not quite,’ muttered Arthur Halfdane, one of the young historians at the table, jerking his head so that his long hair tossed like a girl’s.

Fallowfield followed his gesture and saw the slight angular figure of Jane Scotby, the Senior Tutor, wriggle out from under the menacing overhangs and promontories of Edith Disney and move across the room towards him.

“Mr. Fallowfield,’ she said in her high precise voice. ‘ wonder if I could have a word with you?” Fallowfield stared thoughtfully into her small brown wrinkled face whose bright blue eyes stared back as unflinchingly at his round, rather solemn features.

“Of course, Miss. Scotby,’ he said. ”t you sit down?”

“I would prefer that we were private,’ she said.

“I find that hard at the moment,’ said Fallowfield equably.

“Very well,’ said Miss. Scotby. ‘ has been suggested to me… “

“By Miss. Disney?”

‘… that your suspension from duty makes it improper for you to be present in the Senior Common Room or indeed in the College.”

“This is outrageous,’ spluttered Henry. The younger historians, constitutionalists to a man, sat forward in their chairs, eager to offer an opinion at the drop of an amendment.

“I am unable to pronounce authoritatively on the legality of this,’ Miss. Scotby went on inexorably, ‘ on other grounds I can see good reason why it might be better if you weren’t here.”

She halted, just a little breathless. Fallowfield suspected that beneath the brown parchment skin a flush might be struggling to break out.

“Miss. Scotby,’ he said kindly, ‘ have merely been temporarily suspended from my teaching duties here. I certainly do not intend trying to teach anything except perhaps a few lessons in corporate feeling and loyalty.”

He raised his voice slightly and glanced round the room.

“I am suspended. I haven’t caught leprosy. So I won’t wear a bell. And I shall continue to use this room as of right until I am shown why in law I should not.”

“And if that happens, you shall be my guest,’ added Henry Saltecombe, his jowls shaking in emphasis.

The historians glanced at each other and raised their eyebrows in wry humour. Miss. Scotby nodded as though she had expected nothing else.

Which was probably true, thought Arthur Halfdane. Or at least she had the art of always giving the impression that whatever happened was expected.

A pretty young woman with a determined chin, Eleanor Soper of the Social Science department, came across in pursuit of the coffee-pot, apparently unconscious of the tension. Halfdane smiled at her and pulled up another chair beside his own. She sat down.

Miss. Scotby nodded again as if this too, were expected, turned on her heel and, avoiding Miss. Disney’s imperious beckonings, walked smoothly out of the room.

“Nicely timed,’ said Halfdane to Eleanor.

“Why?’ she said. ”s up with Scotby?” “Gone to earth,’ said Henry with a chuckle. ”s furious.”

He was the only person in the college who actually addressed Miss. Disney as ” to her face.

“Now, Sam,’ he said, ”s the latest? If it’s not sub judice or something.”

He rubbed his podgy hands in mock-enthusiastic expectation.

How mock is it? wondered Halfdane.

“There’s nothing new. I’ve agreed to go before the governors to make a statement, but not while the student governors are present. They’re still trying to sort out the legalities.” “Well,’ said Henry dubiously. ‘ students are after all legally elected members of the governing body. In any case, I’m surprised that you are bothering, Sam. Points of order and matters constitutional have always bored you to tears in the past.”

A general movement towards the doors prevented any reply from Fallowfield.