A Touch of Love

PENGUIN BOOKS

A TOUCH OF LOVE

Jonathan Coe was born in Birmingham in 1961. His most recent novel is
The Rain Before It Falls.
He is also the author of
The Accidental Woman, A Touch of Love, The Dwarves of Death, What a Carve Up!
, which won the 1995 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize,
The House of Sleep
, which won the 1998 Prix Médicis Étranger,
The Rotters’ Club
, winner of the Everyman Wodehouse Prize, and
The Closed Circle.
His biography of the novelist B.S. Johnson,
Like a Fiery Elephant
, won the 2005 Samuel Johnson Prize for best non-fiction book of the year. He lives in London with his wife and two children.

A Touch of Love

JONATHAN COE

PENGUIN BOOKS

PENGUIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, So Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published by Gerald Duckworth and Co. Ltd 1989
First published in Penguin Books in 2000
This edition published 2008
1

Copyright © Jonathan Coe, 1989
All rights reserved

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance
to real persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject
to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,
re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s
prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in
which it is published and without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

978-0-14-191690-3

Contents

PART ONE
   The Meeting of Minds

PART TWO
   The Lucky Man

PART THREE
   The Lovers’ Quarrel

PART FOUR
   The Unlucky Man

Postscript

Note

I’d like to thank Michèle O’Leary for making it possible for me to write about a lawyer; and Pip Lattey for introducing me to the work of Simone Weil, which came to influence this book.

The manuscript was read at various stages by different friends, all of whom were helpful; but two people were especially generous with their support and criticism. They were Nuala Murray (on the first half) and Ralph Pite (on the second). My thanks to them, and also, belatedly, to Anna Haycraft, whose suggestions were both far-reaching and valuable.

The quotation on pages 223-4 is from
Gravity and Grace
, by Simone Weil, translated by Emma Craufurd and published by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.

PART ONE
The Meeting of Minds

Thursday 17th April, 1986

‘Darling, don’t be silly, of course there isn’t going to be a nuclear war.

…

‘I’m just approaching Junction 21. Should be in Coventry in about twenty minutes. I’ve got to call in at the university.

…

‘Well, forget what he said. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. The world is run by sane and sensible people, just like you and me.

…

‘I miss you too. Kiss Peter for me. And tell him I –

…

‘What? No, some maniac pulled out straight in front of me. Some of these people are doing at least ninety. I don’t know why the police don’t catch them.

‘I don’t know if I’ve got time to call on him. Not if I want to be home tonight.

…

‘Anyway, what would I say to him? I haven’t seen him for years. I can barely remember what he looks like.

…

‘No, I don’t see why we should let him use our holiday cottage. We bought it for us, not for letting out to strangers.

…

‘What do you mean, he sounded peculiar?

…

‘Darling, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And neither do you. Libya, Syria, America, Russia – it’s a very complicated situation. If you really think the world is going to be plunged into war, then… well, I’ll come home, obviously.

…

‘All right, give me his address.

…

‘Yes, I’ll pop in this evening when I’ve been to the university. It means I probably won’t be home till ten. May be later. No, I can find it, I’ve got an A to Z.

…

‘Now don’t panic. Don’t watch the news if it’s upsetting you. Forget he said it.

…

‘I’ll explain to him about the cottage. I doubt if there’s anything wrong, really. Perhaps he’s just been working too hard. You know how it is with students, they do nothing for weeks and then they stay up until all hours.

…

‘Don’t worry. I will.

…

‘You too.

…

‘Kiss kiss.’

∗

Ted came off at Junction 21 and joined the M69. The important thing, as he had come to realize, was to maintain good relations with clients. He had little hope of making a new sale at the university but it was some weeks since he had spoken to Dr Fowler and he wanted to check that the new system had been working properly. After glancing ahead to see that the middle lane was clear, he allowed his eyes to flick across to the passenger seat, and to the file in which he recorded the personal details of his customers. With his left hand he turned the pages until he reached the letter F. Fowler, Dr Stephen. Married, two children: Paul and Nicola. Nicola had had a dental appointment on the 24th of March. Two extractions. This would give him something to start off with. (‘Steve! Good to see you again. Just thought I’d pop in. You know, in the area and all that. How’s the wife and kids? Nicky’s teeth aren’t still giving her trouble, I hope? Good. Glad to hear it…’)

He arrived on campus shortly before five, but Dr Fowler had gone home. A note on his door said that he would be available for consultation the next morning.

Ted took a circuitous route back to the carpark, surprised to find himself enjoying the late sunshine and the unaccustomed experience of being surrounded by people younger than himself. When he reached the car he did not get inside, but sat on the bonnet and looked around him. He had been preparing himself for his encounter with Dr Fowler with the single-mindedness which had recently, for the second time running, won him the firm’s coveted ‘Salesman of the Year’ award, so it was only now that he was able to give Katharine’s phone call any serious thought. The prospects it raised were not pleasant. He had no real wish to see Robin again: if he had, he would have called on him before, on one of his many visits to the university. Least of all did he want to be put in the position of having to look after him, if, as Katharine had suggested, there was something seriously wrong.

Then again, she was always exaggerating.

Ted did not like to approach a situation unarmed; and part of his unease, he realized, could be ascribed to insufficiency of data. Seeing Robin again, knowing nothing about how he had spent the last four years, would be like meeting a stranger.

He thought for a while, and then took out his file and opened it at the letter G. The pages flapped gently in the breeze. Soon he had put down everything he could remember about his old friend.

Grant, Robin.

Graduated from Cambridge, 1981.

Last saw him at wedding, 1982.

Have been sending him Christmas cards and family newsletters (NB is this how he knows about our cottage?).

Family: mother and father, one sister.

Now working on thesis – and has been for 4 (?) years.

Said to be sounding ‘peculiar’ and ‘depressed’.

Says he needs a holiday.

Violent reaction to the events of the last two days: says that the bombers should not have been sent into Libya.

Ted laid down his pen, frowned and began to feel even more gloomy. People could change a lot in four years. He hoped that Robin hadn’t gone all political.

∗

As he entered the south-western suburbs of Coventry, Ted stopped to consult his A to Z and found that the relevant page was missing. The spine of the book had cracked and he had been meaning to replace it for more than a month: he had only himself to blame. The only course of action, it seemed, was to ask a stranger for directions. Meanwhile he was not averse to driving at random through these tree-lined avenues, looking at the houses and listening appreciatively to birdsong as it mingled with the music of his practised gear changes. Anything to put off the moment of arrival.

After a few minutes, and after passing several pedestrians who did not, for various irrational reasons, strike him as prepossessing, he caught sight of a young woman walking rapidly ahead on his side of the road, with her back to his car. He drew up beside her and pipped the horn. The woman started and turned; and Ted was dismayed to find that she was Indian. Now he would probably have difficulty making himself understood. But it was too late to do anything about that; she was already approaching his open window.

‘Yes?’ she said, fiercely.

He was looking into a pair of strong wide hostile eyes. For a moment he was thrown off guard, suddenly conscious of an intense, vivid personality in confrontation with his own. Unable to hold her gaze, he looked down and noticed, for the first time, that a button had gone missing from his left cuff.

‘I was wondering if you could tell me,’ he began, ‘how to find –’ and he named the street where Robin lived.

‘Where?’ said the woman: more, Ted might have noticed, in surprise than in incomprehension.

‘Here.’ He fumbled with his file, and found the address which he had scribbled down on a piece of paper after pulling over to the hard shoulder at the end of his conversation with Katharine. He showed it to her.

‘I’ve just come from there,’ she said. ‘Are you going to see Robin?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s round the corner just behind you. I hope you get more joy out of him than I did.’

She turned and walked away, her hands in her pockets, pulling her coat tightly around her even though the evening was still warm. Ted was silenced, at first, but managed within a few seconds to lean out of his window and call after her:

‘Robin Grant? You know him? Are you a friend of his?’

The woman did not stop, or slow down, or even raise her voice; in fact her reply was barely audible.

‘How should I know?’

Ted watched her receding figure until his eyes glazed over. He was numb with confusion. Then, slowly and more reluctantly than ever, he performed a three-point turn and drove up the side street which she had indicated.

The address on his piece of paper referred to a tall grey terraced house, shabbily painted and separated from the pavement only by a bleak strip of untended garden. Ted got out of his car and locked the door. The street was quiet, dappled with the kindly glow of the evening sun. Slinging his jacket over his shoulder, loosening his tie, he stepped boldly up to the front door and rang the bell marked ‘Grant, R.’.

For some time nothing happened. Then there was the distant sound of an opening door, footsteps, a shadow behind the frosted glass and finally, as the door opened, a pallid, unfamiliar, unshaven face.

‘Robin?’

‘Come on in.’

‘You phoned Katharine. Did she tell you I was coming?’

‘Yes. Come on in.’

Wordlessly Robin led him out of the light down a gloomy hallway, past the bottom of a steep staircase, and through a door to the right. Inside his flat it was even darker: the curtains were drawn and the air was dry and smoky. Once Ted’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness he took in the details of a sparsely furnished bedsitting room, with an unmade bed against one wall, clothes scattered over the floor, two bookcases filled to bursting point, and a desk, which was empty except for a biro and three small red notebooks, piled one on top of the other. On the mantelpiece was a radio tuned to Radio Four: an emotionless male voice was reporting the day’s events in Tripoli and at Westminster.