Martin Edwards: The Coffin Trail

‘Look at them, Daniel. Do you recall how it felt to be eighteen? Your early struggles with Tocqueville stick in my mind. Remember telling me that you intended to change subjects, that you wanted to study…ah, Politics, Philosophy, and Economics?’

He rolled the words out as if they were exotic profanities. Daniel couldn’t help smiling. ‘And I remember your telling me to have patience.’

‘And I was right, was I not?’

Conversing with Theo was like playing chess with Capablanca. You always had to anticipate the move after next to have a prayer of staying in the game. In his mind, Daniel heard Miranda’s words.

‘Yes, but life is short.’

‘It may feel longer for those who fritter away the opportunities that it affords.’

‘Sorry, but I didn’t come here to be talked round. You gave me time to think over my decision. I’m grateful, but my mind’s made up.’

Incapable of crude exasperation, Theo fingered his cravat. ‘You always had a streak of stubbornness.’

He’d once employed the same tone to criticise a truncated account of the coal mining industry’s role in Britain’s industrial development that Daniel had dashed off during an essay crisis prompted by a hectic affair with a girl from St Catz. That was the first time Daniel had heard the advice that Theo gave to all his disciples: to quote from one source is plagiarism, to quote from several is scholarship.

‘And it’s no good telling me that a man who’s tired of Oxford is tired of life.’

‘Yet of course it is true. Oxford is unique. Look out of the window, Daniel.’ Theo’s tone became warm although he was not, Daniel thought, a warm man. For all his many acts of personal kindness and his unfailing manners, he always seemed remote from the quotidian. Quotidian was, Daniel thought, the right word: very Theo. Theo simply did not do emotion; according to Edgar, he loved his cats more than any human being, and Daniel wasn’t sure that Edgar was joking. ‘The brightest and the best come here to learn from us. We owe it to them to give them what they seek.’

‘They seemed to manage well enough when I was away.’

‘We are about to start Trinity Term, Daniel. As you well know, the custom is to give notice during Michaelmas, so that interviews for a replacement may be conducted during Hilary with a view to an appointment commencing at the start of the new academic year.’

‘Sorry, Theo, but you won’t be short of strong candidates available at short notice. Have a word with Pederson, he’s chafing to move back from Wales. Or how about…’

Theo put up a mottled hand. It was more like a claw, these days, Daniel thought. ‘Enough. I hope this isn’t a delayed reaction to Ernst Walter’s boorishness?’

Last summer, an argument had raged in the Senior Common Room about Daniel’s entitlement to a sabbatical. The guiding principle was that one was eligible for a term away from college after completing six years as a tutorial fellow. Daniel had spent his sixth year as a visiting fellow on the other side of the Atlantic. A law don called Ernst Walter Immel had complained that a year’s absence from Oxford should not be permitted to count towards the entitlement to yet more leave, but Theo had ruled in Daniel’s favour. The deal was that he’d continue teaching until the end of Hilary. By giving notice now, Daniel could honour his side of the bargain and still leave college at Easter.

‘Much as I hate college politics, I promise that wasn’t the reason.’

‘What of the response to your television series? Petty jealousies are always vexing.’

Daniel’s scripts had been edited by ratings-driven zealots. The book on which they were based proclaimed a parallel between historical research and the work of a detective; the rewrites transformed it from a light academic essay into a quasi-crime show. The producer said this made the programmes more accessible and the viewer figures left him salivating with delight. A couple of reviewers from rival faculties of history, on the other hand, had frothed with rage. The focus on history as popular entertainment was symptomatic of collapsing educational standards and they made it pretty clear that Daniel was personally to blame.

‘By the time the editors had done their worst, the series didn’t feel as though it had much to do with me.’

‘Don’t tell me you’re planning a new career as a — ’ Theo’s cough became a choke, as if at the horror of it, ‘- a celebrity?’

‘Been there, done that. Never again.’

Theo’s saurian eyes narrowed. ‘Do tell me, then. How is the new book progressing?’

‘So-so.’ Not at all was the truth, but he refused to allow Theo to score too many points. Time to score one himself. ‘You know how it is.’

‘Indeed.’

A rival from Cambridge had savaged Theo’s last book in The Times Literary Supplement . Although he had brushed off the assault with his customary suavity, during the past decade he had published nothing but a handful of articles in obscure journals. No ego, Daniel knew, is as easily bruised as an academic’s.

‘But will pursuing this rural idyll provide fresh inspiration?’

Put with such urbane irony, the idea sounded absurd. ‘I want to make a new start, simple as that.’

‘There was a dreadful rumour — scurrilous, I’m sure — that you might be moving to Harvard.’

‘Your grapevine’s as efficient as ever. God only knows why you were never recruited by the security services.’

‘How do you know that I wasn’t?’ Theo’s eyebrows might have been designed to be arched. ‘So — Harvard?’

Daniel shook his head. His series had been shown in the States and picked up a couple of awards, although to his chagrin one of them came in the category of Best Docu-Crime. For a few weeks Harvard’s extravagant offer lingered in his mind, until he met Miranda and everything changed. Only yesterday he’d received a chaser from the Americans, but at once he’d scribbled a reply saying how flattered he was, but no thanks. He was going to extend his break from teaching for a while. Stay in England and write another book. Perhaps they might come back, putting even more dollars on the table, but it would make no difference.

‘So you said no?’

‘This really isn’t about money.’

Theo sniffed. ‘Have I ever mentioned that your famously vague, rather dishevelled charm can be a little wearisome on occasion? When it acts as a cloak for intransigence, for instance?’

‘Thanks for pointing that out, Theo,’ Daniel said easily. ‘I’ll bear it in mind.’

There was a scuffing at the door and Lucrezia made an entrance, heading for Theo’s lap. ‘There, there, my pretty. Now look, Daniel, you don’t have to resign. Why not get the best of both worlds? Pursue your rural dream and remain on the Faculty. Keep the flat. Rent it out, become a filthy capitalist. If you come back in Michaelmas, you won’t have to do much teaching. For goodness sake, sixteen lectures for the university over the space of a year are scarcely going to wreck your work-life balance. You’re hardly likely to succumb to occupational stress on the — ’

‘It’s not about the teaching, either.’ Daniel couldn’t ever recall interrupting Theo before. It simply wasn’t done, it was worse than singing bawdy songs during a sermon from the Archbishop of Canterbury. ‘It wouldn’t be fair to you or to the students if my heart wasn’t in my work. I just want a break, end of story.’

‘The sabbatical wasn’t long enough for you?’

‘Don’t worry, I’m well aware that I’ve not done enough for college lately. Better to resign than deprive a worthier candidate of a place at high table.’

Theo kept probing, like a dentist seeking evidence of decay. ‘I’m glad you want to write. But with the greatest of respect to the libraries of Cumbria, they can scarcely match the resources of the Bodleian. Why not research your book here?’