Alan Hollinghurst - The Sparsholt Affair

‘She’s Connie, is she?’ I said, and nodded. I felt I should have asked about her before. He paced off to the far end of the roof, where I saw from his stance he was relieving himself into the corner drain – delayed and just audible came the thin cascade through the gargoyle’s mouth on to the flagstones far below. It was his turn to go down but when he strolled back he said, ‘I’ll stay up a bit and see the day in.’ In fact he had his own question, put with that throwaway air which doesn’t quite conceal a longer curiosity:

‘So do you have a sweetheart?’ he said.

Like his ‘decent’, the word touched me. ‘Well . . .’ I murmured. Something in me longed to say yes, and dress up a mere hope as a certainty, or a boast. But could Jill, even if things went well, ever turn into a sweetheart? I said, ‘As it happens, there is someone, yes.’

‘Is she in Oxford?’

‘Yes, at St Hilda’s.’

‘You’re lucky,’ said David. ‘Do you think you’ll get married?’ This was rather a jump, and I felt my claim had been put to an immediate test.

‘Well, it would be nice to think so,’ I said. ‘What are your plans?’

He seemed conscious of speaking beyond his years. ‘We’re hoping to do it as soon as I leave. Connie’s moving to Oxford at the end of the month.’

‘Well, you’re the lucky one, in that case. Is she a student too?’

‘No, we’re friends from home. She’s just managed to get a job down here.’

‘In the university, you mean?’

I could see him lean forward and peer down, as though even here we might be overheard; but all he said was, ‘No, something else.’

‘Well, there’s a lot of something else going on in Oxford these days,’ I said and looked at him slyly to see his reaction.

‘She’ll be putting up at Keble College,’ he said. ‘She’s a qualified shorthand typist.’

‘Ah, yes, I see,’ I said, ‘I see.’

He seemed warily relieved that I did. ‘Can’t say much more about it,’ he said.

When we left the roof he said, ‘I had another look at that book of yours,’ and he made one or two remarks about how ‘fancy’ the writing was, and how far-fetched the narrative. ‘I don’t know what Enid sees in Mark Gay,’ he said; ‘I don’t think a real woman would have felt like that about such a boring bastard.’ He laughed briefly, conscious but not ashamed of his disrespect. I thought it was the kind of criticism that might have ensued if readers with no literary training were to write the newspaper notices instead of professional reviewers; but I was on the back foot as I found myself trying to defend Victor Dax, since what Sparsholt said, though ignorant, was lethally true. ‘I think there’s rather more to it than that,’ I said, regretting my superior tone. ‘You know it’s all based on Arthurian legends.’

We turned off the light and began our descent from the ringing chamber to the quad and the blessed humdrum of gowns and breakfast. Our conversation had again that air of inadvertent candour: I was coming down rather cautiously with the back of his cap and his close-cropped neck a foot or two below me. ‘Do you know a man called Coyle?’ he said.

‘Well, I know Peter Coyle,’ I said, glad he couldn’t see me – it was the very first time I’d been caught unawares by the Sparsholt affair, and I blushed hotly. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘He asked if he could draw me. Now he wants to paint my picture, for some reason.’

‘Oh, well, I hope you’ll let him,’ I said.

There was a pause as he felt for the light switch for the lower stair. ‘I suppose he’s a bit of a pansy,’ he said. I felt the word itself was a bit of an experiment for him.

‘Peter? Lord, yes,’ I said. ‘But I imagine you can look after yourself.’

Now I wanted to see his face. There was a good deal in reserve in his short laugh.

Once on the ground, I pulled the door to and locked it – in that detail, I hoped, regaining my dignity. As I pocketed the key we stood looking at each other, two friends who’d seen something through. Or merely two chance colleagues? There was no knowing what the relations were between us. Was he, were both of us, chafing to be free? Or did we mean gracefully to carry our alliance through to the moment after breakfast when, like husband and wife, we would have to part and get on with our separate days? It struck me that if I saw Evert as I went into Hall I could ask him to join us, and break the news of the double swop that had given me the prize he longed for: I could bring them together then for a few minutes at least. But I doubted at once if Evert would be able to carry this off – I saw myself reassuring each of them, out of my intimacy with the other. It was a kind of reprieve when Sparsholt was hailed by a rowing friend, and taken off without a backward glance to their table nearest the door.

7

I met Connie a few hours later. I had slept all morning, and after lunch went out for a stroll round the Meadow. It was a dazzle of autumn sunshine, eights and fours flashing by on the river, and on the faces of passing couples the wartime pleasure in daylight. As I came back down the avenue I saw the lamp on in Evert’s window, and had a troubled image of him shut up in there, in his fury of desire and suspicion. He was furious, at least, about my night with Sparsholt, and had reacted to the facts I passed on over breakfast – the stuff about Nuneaton, and the steel-works and the marriage plans – with envious mistrust.

I was almost at the College gate when I saw a couple approaching down the centre of the Broad Walk, among the spinning and drifting leaves, the man a good head taller and leaning over sideways to keep his left arm round the girl’s shoulders. There was something clumsy in their linked progress, and I wouldn’t have looked at them again if he hadn’t raised his right arm and held it high – a command as much as a greeting. I stopped, nodded, and moved slowly towards them, seeing him tell her in a quick phrase (what was it?) who I was.

‘Green!’ he said. ‘I want you to meet my Connie.’

I came up to them, smiling with a mixture of pleasure, curiosity and faint irritation at Sparsholt’s matey tone. Connie was a healthy-looking girl, with thick dark hair under a red beret, rather prominent teeth, and a bosom which was all the more striking in a woman of modest height. Tightly covered in green jersey, and crossed by the broad lapels of a belted mac, it seemed to come between us, to be a kind of brag on Sparsholt’s part, unmentionable, but undeniable. I didn’t find her otherwise especially pretty, but she had the interest of being what he wanted. ‘Hello,’ I said, ‘Freddie Green.’

We shook hands and Connie said, ‘I’ve just been hearing about last night.’

‘Ah, yes!’ I said. I saw that Sparsholt was anxious for a moment about what she might repeat. He said cheerfully,

‘So did you get some sleep?’

‘I did,’ I said, ‘I missed two lectures,’ and smiled complacently rather than utter the question which lurked in the air about us, as to how much sleep they had had. ‘I thought you might be on the river,’ I said airily.

‘Not this weekend,’ said Sparsholt, and grinned, as did Connie, colouring but confident. If she hadn’t been there I’d have said a quick word to him about keeping his scout sweet, all the more important if he was unpopular on his staircase. A fiver (or so I’d heard) would buy a scout’s silence about having a woman in College overnight.

‘I hear you’re a great reader,’ Connie said. She had the West Midlands twang more clearly than he did, and a directness, a curiosity as she looked at you, that I enjoyed. There was a flattering suggestion that they’d talked about me quite a lot. ‘What have you got there?’ She nodded at my coat pocket, square with the bulk of Horseman, What Word? . I tugged the book out, wondering how to describe it, and she craned forward to see it. ‘Oh, A. V. Dax,’ she said, ‘yes – do you like him?’