Adam Mars-Jones - Cedilla

‘I would have left her letter unanswered were it not for the fact that I am taking next term as a sabbatical. It didn’t seem fair to pass on to my replacement the obligation of dealing with as tricky a customer as I have come across in my experience as a tutor.’

I could hear regular metallic impacts in the background, from which I deduced that Dr Beamish was finding amusement in setting Newton’s Balls a-clack.

‘I’m not referring to you, John, though you yourself do not offer the authorities the easiest of rides. I mean your mother.

‘As you may not know, your mother has written to me roughly every two weeks of university term since you first came up.

‘John? Are you there?’

‘Yes, Dr Beamish.’ I was very shocked to learn that Mum had been so hideously active on what she imagined to be my behalf. Knowing that my tutor had been screening me from her interference for the last two years felt almost as bad as being pushed down King Street by him with a stranger’s sick caking my wheels.

‘Shall I continue? I hope I’m not interrupting any important activity. The file on Cromer, Mrs L is even larger than the one on Cromer, J . For some time her idea was that I should forbid you from changing your course of study. Now it seems that your family has exploded in some way. I have to say I have no interest in how you all get on with each other. I propose simply to read you my reply to your mother’s latest letter so that you know where you stand. Is that agreed?’

‘Agreed.’

‘“ Dear Mrs Cromer, I am sorry to learn that John has fallen victim to sexual deviance and drug addiction. These scourges do unfortunately claim a small proportion of undergraduates, and not always the unpromising ones, during their years of study. The evidences of wrongdoing which you mention, however, came to light during the vacation and on private property: as such they cannot be said directly to involve the College or indeed the University. If John is found in possession of further caches of smut or illegal narcotics I will, of course, inform you at once. I myself had always imagined that his temptations were the more traditional ones of strong drink and bad company. ”’

I could hear a self-satisfied smile in his voice, and could imagine him looking at me over the tops of imaginary half-moon glasses, while he congratulated himself on the neatness of this oblique reference to my kidnap at the hands of Write Off Tuesday.

He was certainly getting his pennyworth of revenge for an evening when he was made to feel uncomfortable in the Senior Common Room, sniffing the air from time to time and checking his smart shoes for traces of undergraduate vomit.

Eats doctors for breakfast

‘“ As for your suggestion that he should receive medical treatment, although it is true that the University has access to the ‘top men’ in many fields, most of them indeed the products of our system of education, it is my impression that John knows almost as much as any of the health professionals with whom his difficult history has brought him into contact. Some say that he eats doctors for breakfast, others that he merely chews them and spits them out, without going to the trouble of swallowing. ”’ It is perhaps true that I was impatient with the general practitioner assigned by the university to preside over my health. Dr Beamish paused, as if trying to detect down the telephone wire whether his bufferish persiflage was succeeding in making me squirm.

‘“ There seems no pressing need to add to the list of casualties, unless of course John’s academic progress begins to suffer. If and when that happens, we will certainly seek medical help. ”

‘Does this reply seem satisfactory to you, John?’

‘Perfectly satisfactory, Dr Beamish. Thank you.’

‘Not at all, John. I shall see you in the new year, after my sabbatical term. But please go easy on my replacement. Not everyone has my inner strength.’

All in all it was a fine show of donnish humour, in a style which I imagine has changed little over the decades, even the centuries. I had to be grateful to Beamish for fobbing off Mum and Dad with his elegant mockery, even if it did sting me a little in the process. To judge from his sardonic references to drink and so on he regarded me as having good character more or less by default. Mechanically unable to sin rather than either virtuous or vicious on the level of morals.

With the Washbournes’ permission I phoned Granny. I wasn’t sure which way she would jump, which was of course just the way she liked it. Her tone was predictably crisp from the word go. ‘Halnaker 226.’

‘Hello, Granny, this is John.’

‘Good morning, John.’

‘Have you heard from Mum lately?’

‘Indeed I have not. We are not in morbidly regular communication. Laura seeks to shield me from good and bad news alike. Luckily Peter retains some dim memory of his grandmother.’

‘Well, Granny, the thing is, we had a row and I’ve moved out.’

‘So I hear. People are always saying that blood is thicker than water but I can’t say I’ve noticed.’ Wonderful Granny, so unsuspectingly Hindu in her instincts! So right in thinking that the fluids of kinship have no metaphysical claim to viscosity. ‘Are you well placed where you are staying now?’

‘Very well placed, Granny.’

‘I am pleased to hear it. I take it your allowance has been discontinued?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘What sums were involved?’

‘Dad gave me £10 a month.’

‘I will maintain that level of stipend. Were there other expenses met by your parents?’

‘Only books.’

‘I see. I will carry that burden also, though I shall expect scrupulous accounts. Goodbye, John.’

‘Of course, Granny. Thank —’

But she had already put down the receiver at the Tangmere end. It’s true she was of a generation that didn’t necessarily perform expansively on the phone, but I think her brusqueness was more idiosyncratic. Granny just got a kick out of hanging up, without footling politesse. And for all the terseness of the conversation, that was my finances fixed, for the time being, without opposition or even haggling. It’s true that Granny liked any such arrangement to be provisional, renewed or withdrawn as she pleased.

In her financial conversations she could be oddly playful, even skittish. She might say, ‘I had a little investment, John, and nothing would it bear — not even a silver nutmeg or a golden pear, I’m afraid, though that would have been charming. But now the King of Spain’s daughter has paid me a rather nice dividend after all, and I thought I would send you some of it — not all the fruit from my little nut tree, but enough I hope to give you a pleasant taste.’ Or else: ‘I’m afraid my portfolio has caught rather a bad cold, John — it may even be ’flu — so we must both tighten our belts for the time being and hope for improvement. Portfolios are particularly susceptible to coughs and sneezes at this time of year, as perhaps you know. Cases of pneumonia have been reported in the Square Mile. We must watch and wait.’

I returned to Cambridge for the academic year 1972–3 as an honorary orphan (at least in my own mind), and deprived of the tutor who had protected me in previous years.

It was my chance to get a telephone installed. I seized it. I got to work right away. I wasn’t confident of putting one over on his replacement — I could all too easily imagine Graëme leaving a note saying THE ENDLESSLY PESTERING JOHN CROMER IS NOT TO HAVE A TELEPHONE HOWEVER ELOQUENTLY HE PLEADS HIS SPECIOUS CASE — but it was worth a go. And then it went like a dream. I had my paperwork with me: the original note from Roy Wisbey proposing it, not to mention my photocopy of the relevant section of the Disabled Persons Act 1971. The tender-hearted substitute asked for no documentation (locums are usually pushovers). My case spoke for itself. I should have asked for a fridge and a shower in my room while the going was good.