Joseph O'Neill - This is the Life

Thanks to Susan’s timely departure, my Sunday morning was still intact, and as usual at midday I sprinkled some fragrancer in the bathtub and turned on the hot water tap. Minutes later, I slid, my heels squeaking against the plastic surface, into a stinging, fumy bath.

The water smelled of apples. Gradually, deliriously, I immersed the top half of my body until I lay neck-deep and buoyant. My knees surfaced like snowy islands. Beneath the taps appeared the archipelagos of my toes. I was in a state of bliss. My pores opened, my neck muscles relaxed, my eyes closed. Purified, utterly released from the night before, I began lazily contemplating what to do with my afternoon; and I remembered my copy of the Introduction to Supranational Law. I would read it when I finished bathing, I decided, instead of watching a film. Then I slithered further down the slope of the tub, took a gulp of air and submersed the whole of my head, my cheeks ballooned, bubbles streaming and popping from my nose …

Later, wet-headed in my dressing-gown, imprinting the carpet with my bare feet, I lit the imitation coal-fire in my sitting room and made myself comfortable in front of it. The morning was overcast and this had darkened the flat, so the blue flames licked warmly around the dark, fake rocks. As well as the print-out, I had brought out a chunky file of cuttings and clippings and, seeing them spread out on the floor for the first time in a long time, suddenly found myself back in 1974. As I have said, I am not prone to nostalgia, but sometimes, without wishing it, you simply find yourself in the past, you find that you are back there whether you like it or not. This is what happened to me that Sunday. Looking at those notes sledded me straight into another time.

I was a student at university and I dreamed of becoming an international lawyer. It happened in my second year. One afternoon in autumn, when I had nothing better to do, I had opened a law book — a second-hand copy of Donovan’s International Law. Idly, uninterestedly, I began looking over the first paragraphs. Before I knew what had happened my fingers had turned thirty pages; and to my astonishment (until then I had detested every law book I had ever had the misfortune to pick up), I wanted to read on.

And I did read on. I had no choice, I was hooked. Usually when I read a law book I would stop after a few sentences, gasping for relief from the airless prose. Donovan’s prose, on the other hand, was remarkably spacious — his writing brought the subject to life, rather like those aerators that pump oxygen into dead, Ashless rivers. Inspired, I tried to read every word that he had written — his articles, book reviews, pamphlets, everything. I read his doctoral thesis, The Community of Nations (Butterwells, 1967), I read The Law of Space (Butterwells, 1969), and his first edition of Essays on Space Law (Donovan, Ed., Butterwells, 1973). Then, the better to understand his work, I scoured everything to do with public international law that I could lay my hands on. I harassed the librarians with remote references, took out dusty books which had not been touched in years, spent hours perched on the library step-ladder going through the contents of obscure shelves. Very soon I realized that Donovan, young though he was (he was only just thirty!) was ludicrously superior to his colleagues. While they lumbered towards tentative and uninteresting perspectives, Donovan explored the field playfully and effortlessly, never neglecting, as others did for lack of scholarship and intellectual capacity, the complex political dimensions of the subject. Late at night in my room, thanks to him, I was animated by difficult, heady questions — what was the true nature of international law? How satisfactory were the voluntarist mechanisms of enforcement? What regimes should operate in contiguous zones?

And, head on my pillow, I was also visited by dreams, by futures. I would join Donovan’s chambers and become the junior he could rely on, his trusty number two. I would ride on the coat-tails of his practice and at the same time I would write for the learned journals. Maybe, if I was lucky, some university teaching would fall my way: maybe one day Donovan would not be able to attend a lecture and would ask me to take his place! I saw myself at the podium in the theatre, the students copiously writing down my every word as I strode confidently up and down, my eyes regarding the ceiling, my hands behind my back, my speech unhesitating, wise and humorous. That was how Donovan’s lectures in Cambridge must be, I imagined. Then an idea occurred to me: why not go to Cambridge and see him? What was to stop me? So I telephoned the law faculty there. They were very helpful. Indeed, the woman whom I spoke to sounded positively elated at my inquiry.

‘As it happens, Professor Donovan is due to give the annual Smith lecture next Wednesday!’ she said. ‘You are most welcome to attend!’

‘Really? I can come?’

‘Of course — the more the merrier! It’s at the Senate House, at eleven o’clock.’

The journey to Cambridge took nearly six hours, but I did not mind because I slept deeply most of the way (the coach left at four in the morning). Shortly after dawn I opened my plastic lunch-box and breakfasted hungrily on the cheese and tomato sandwiches I had prepared the day before, so that when we rolled in to Cambridge I was refreshed and alive with anticipation. Making sure my notebook and biro were safely in my briefcase (I was not going to miss a word, not a word!) I walked quickly to the Senate House. It was a quarter to eleven, my timing was perfect. Up to the big front door I went, perspiring a little from my exertions. I took a deep breath. Well, I thought happily, here we go. This is it.

I pushed warily at the door. Then I pulled and tugged. It was shut.

I looked around in bafflement. There was nobody around. And yet — I glanced at my watch — the doors should have been open, it was ten to eleven.

Anxiously I walked over to an adjoining, important-looking building where students were walking in and out. By chance it was the university law library, the Squire Library. There was a security man who sat at the entrance.

‘Excuse me,’ I said, ‘could you tell me where the Smith lecture is being given? It was supposed to start at the Senate House at eleven o’clock.’

The man put his book down and took a good look at me.

‘Let me see your identification,’ he said. ‘You’re not allowed into the library unless you’re a member of the university.’

Ignoring his request (there was no time to lose, the lecture was due to start any minute now) I stopped a student.

‘I’m sorry, but do you know where the M.J.P.J. Smith lecture is taking place?’

‘What?’

I repeated myself, adding, ‘It’s being given by Professor Donovan.’

‘Who?’

‘Donovan,’ I said emphatically, ‘Donovan.’

She shrugged and walked off. She did not know what I was talking about.

Quickly I went over to some posters I saw on the wall, but they were advertising scholarships and postgraduate courses, not lectures. Then I decided to telephone the law faculty again. I was put through to the same friendly lady I had previously spoken to.

‘You’re quite right,’ she assured me. ‘The Smith lecture is not taking place at the Senate House as was envisaged. You see, it’s not taking place at all. Professor Donovan was forced to cancel,’ she said. ‘He’s been called away.’

I forced out, ‘Cancelled?’

The friendly lady detected my disappointment and suggested kindly, ‘I know! Why don’t you give me your name and address, and I’ll send you details of when the lecture will take place?’

‘Jones,’ I said hoarsely, ‘J.Jones.’