Authors: Stephen Fry
‘What about it?’ said Gary.
‘You can forge my signature, which is delicate and elegant. This scrawl can’t be beyond you?’
‘You dirty fucker.’
‘Well quite.’
V
Adrian walked through Clare College towards the University Library. The impertinence of the building, as it launched upwards like a rocket, had always annoyed him. Compared to the feminine domed grace of Oxford’s Bodleian or London’s British Museum, it was hardly a thing of beauty. It strained up like a swollen phallus, trying to penetrate the clouds. The same principle as a Gothic spire, Adrian supposed. But the union of the library and the heavens would be a very secular Word-made-Flesh indeed.
He went inside and made his way up to the catalogue room. He flipped through the card indices, scribbling down hopeful titles. Everywhere grey-faced research graduates and desperate third year students with books under their arms and private worlds of scholarship in their eyes hurried back and forth. He spotted Germaine Greer clutching a pile of very old books and Stephen Hawking, the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, steering his motor-driven chair into the next room.
Do I really have a place here? Adrian wondered. All this work? This sweat? No short cuts, no cheating, no copying out, no grafting? Of course I do. A physicist doesn’t work any harder than I do. He just copies out God’s ideas.
And
he usually gets them wrong.
*
Gary watched Trefusis leave his rooms, briefcase in hand, trailing a cloud of smoke. He waited until five minutes after he had crossed the Sonnet Bridge before climbing the stairs to the first floor.
The latch of the outer oak door surrendered easily to Adrian’s Barclaycard, as Adrian had said it would. Gary turned on the lights and surveyed the Manhattan of books before him.
It’s got to be in here somewhere, he said to himself. I suppose I’ll just have to wait for it to reveal itself.
*
Adrian went to the desk in the reading-room and waited to be noticed. It was very tempting to slap the counter and shout ‘Shop!’ He managed a polite cough instead.
‘Sir?’
Librarians always seemed to treat Adrian with as much apathy and contempt as was possible without being openly rude. He would sometimes ask any one of the UL staff for a book written in, say, a rare dialect of Winnebago Indian, just for the hell of it, and they would hand it over with wrinkled noses and an air of superior scorn, as if they’d read it years ago and had long got over the stage where such obvious and juvenile nonsense could possibly be of the remotest interest to
them
. Had they somehow seen through him or was their contempt for undergraduates universal? The specimen who had come forward now seemed more than usually spotty and aloof. Adrian favoured him with an amiable smile.
‘I’d like,’ he said in ringing tones, ‘
A Fulsome Pair of Funbags
and
Fleshy Dimpled Botts
please, and
Davina’s Fun with Donkeys
if it’s not already out … oh and
Wheelchair Fellatio
I think …’
The librarian pushed his spectacles up his nose.
‘What?’
‘And
Brownies and Cubs on Camp, Fido Laps it Up, Drink My Piss, Bitch
and
A Crocodile of Choirboys
. I believe that’s all. Oh,
The Diary of a Maryanne
, too. That’s a Victorian one. Here’s an authorisation slip for you.’
Adrian flourished a piece of paper.
The librarian swallowed as he read it.
Tut-tut, thought Adrian. Showing Concern And Confusion. Infraction of Rule One of the Librarian’s Guild. He’ll be drummed out if he’s not careful.
‘Whose signature is this please?’
‘Oh, Donald Trefusis,’ said Adrian. ‘He’s my Senior Tutor.’
‘One moment.’
The librarian moved away and showed the paper to an older man in the background.
It was like trying to get a large cheque cashed, the same whispered conferences and sly glances. Adrian turned and took a leisurely look around the room. Dozens of faces immediately buried themselves back in their work. Other dozens stared at him. He smiled benignly.
‘Excuse me, Mr … Mr Healey, is it?’
The older librarian had approached the counter.
‘Yes?’
‘May I ask for what purpose you wish to look at these … er … publications?’
‘Research. I’m doing a dissertation on “Manifestations of Erotic Deviancy In …”’
‘Quite so. This
appears
to be Professor Trefusis’s signature. However I think I should ring him up if you don’t mind. Just to make sure.’
Adrian waved a casual hand.
‘Oh, I’m sure he wouldn’t want to be bothered about this, would he?’
‘These authorisations are not usual for undergraduates, Mr Healey.’
‘Adrian.’
‘I would be much happier.’
Adrian swallowed.
‘Well of course, if you think it’s necessary. I can give you his number in college if you like. It’s –’
The librarian scented triumph.
‘No, no, sir. We can find it ourselves, I’m sure.’
*
Gary managed to track down the telephone under an ottoman. He answered it on the fifth ring.
‘Yes?’ he panted. ‘Trefusis here, I was just taking a crap, what is it? … Who? … Speak up man … Healey? … “Manifestations of Erotic Desire …”? Yes, is there some problem? … Of course it’s my signature … I see. A little trust would not go amiss, you know. You’re running a library, not a weapons depository, this bureaucracy is … No doubt, but that’s what the guards at Buchenwald said … Very well, very well. You catch me in a bad mood this morning, take no notice … All right. Goodbye then.’
*
‘That appears to be fine, Mr Healey. You appreciate that we had to make sure?’
‘Of course, of course.’
The librarian gulped.
‘These will take some time to … er … locate, sir. If you’d like to come back in half an hour? We’ll provide a private reading-room for you.’
‘Thank you,’ said Adrian. ‘Most kind.’
He bounced springily along the corridor on his way down to the tea-room.
I can fool all of the people all of the time, he thought.
A man walked past him.
‘Morning, Mr Healey.’
‘Morning, Professor Trefusis,’ said Adrian.
Trefusis! Adrian skidded to a halt. He was heading for the reading-room! Not even Trefusis could answer his telephone at St Matthew’s and be in the UL at the same time.
He tried to shout after him but could manage only a hoarse whisper.
‘Professor! … Professor!’
Trefusis had reached the door. He turned in surprise.
‘Yes?’
Adrian ran up to him.
‘Before you go in, sir, I wondered if I could have a word?’
‘Very well. What is it?’
‘Can I buy you a bun in the tea-room?’
‘What?’
‘Well, I wondered … are you going in for a book or to do some work?’
‘To do some work as it happens.’
‘Oh, I shouldn’t if I were you.’
Trefusis smiled.
‘You’ve tried it and find it a disagreeable pursuit? I’m afraid in my case it has to be done. Someone, after all, has to write articles for future undergraduates to copy out.’
He put his hand to the finger-plate of the door.
Adrian only just managed to stop himself from tugging at his sleeve.
‘Full. Not a reading table to be had. That’s why I wanted to speak to you. Wondered if you could show me a good place to work.’
‘Well, I find the ninth-floor reading-room is generally free from distraction. You might try there. However I am bound to say that I would feel a little bothered working in the same room as you. I’ll go and see if there are any private rooms free on this floor, I think.’
He pushed against the door. Adrian practically screamed.
‘No that’s all right, sir! You go to the ninth floor. I’ve just remembered, I’ve got to go anyway. Got a … meeting.’
Trefusis came away from the door, amused.
‘Very well. I am greatly looking forward to your master-work, you know. People think our subject is airy-fairy, namby-pamby, arty, not to put too fine a point on it, farty. But as you are no doubt discovering, it is grind and toil from Beowulf to Bloomsbury. Grind, grind, grind. Toil, toil, toil. I like the Kickers. Good morning.’
Adrian looked down at his shoes. They were indeed smart.
‘Thank you, Professor. And your brogues are a riot.’
With breathless relief he watched Trefusis disappear round the corner towards the lifts.
Adrian got back to St Matthew’s to find that Gary had pushed all the furniture back to the walls and cleared the floor, which was covered with a vast sheet onto which he was drawing in charcoals.
‘How’d it go?’
‘Fabulous. Like a breeze. Did you put a handkerchief in your mouth?’
‘Nah! If there’s one thing Trefusis sounds like, it’s a man with no handkerchief in his mouth. I just went up two octaves and sounded pissed off.’
Adrian scrutinised Gary’s activities.
‘So. Second question. What are you doing to my room?’
‘Our room.’
‘Our room, that I furnish and pay for?’
‘This is a cartoon.’
‘A cartoon.’
‘In the original sense.’
‘So the original sense of cartoon is “total fucking mess” is it?’
‘The original sense of cartoon is a sheet of material onto which you draw the outlines of your fresco.’
Adrian picked his way through the debris and poured himself a glass of wine from a half-empty bottle on the mantelpiece. A half-empty bottle of the college’s best white burgundy, he noted.
‘Fresco?’
‘Yeah. When I’ve designed it, I simply hang the sheet over the wall, prick the outline onto the wet plaster and get to work as quickly as possible before …’
‘What wet plaster would that be?’
Gary pointed to a blank space of wall.
‘I thought there. We just rip off the old plasterwork, bit of bonding on the laths, and Bob’s your uncle.’
‘Bob is not my uncle. I have never had an uncle called Bob. I never intend to have an uncle called Bob. If being Bob’s nephew involves destroying a five-hundred-year-old …’
‘Six hundred years actually. It’s going to be a representation of Britain in the late seventies. Thatcher, Foot, CND marches, unemployment. Everything. I paint it, then we cover it with wood panelling. That’s the expensive bit. The panelling will have to be hinged, see? In a hundred years’ time this room will be priceless.’
‘It’s already priceless. Couldn’t we leave it as it is? Henry James had tea here. Isherwood made love to a choral scholar in that very bedroom. A friend of Thomas Hardy’s committed suicide here. Marlowe and Kydd danced a galliard on these exact floorboards.’
‘And Adrian Healey commissioned Gary Collins’s first fresco here. History is an on-going process.’
‘And what’s our bedder going to say?’
‘It’ll brighten her day. Better than picking up the manky Y-fronts of the economists opposite.’
‘Fuck you, Gary. Why do you always make me sound so prissy and middle-class?’
‘Bollocks.’
Adrian looked round the room and tried to fight down his bourgeois panic.
‘So, hinged panelling, you say?’
‘Shouldn’t cost too much if that’s what you’re worrying about. I picked up this builder who’s working on the site of Robinson College. He reckons he can get me some good stuff for under five hundred and he’ll do all the rendering and plastering for free if I let him fuck me.’
‘Not exactly in the great tradition is it? I mean, I don’t think that Pope Julius and Michelangelo came to a similar kind of arrangement about the Sistine Chapel. Not unless I’m very much mistaken.’
‘Don’t bet on it. Anyway, someone’s got to fuck me, haven’t they?’ Gary pointed out. ‘Since you won’t I’ve got to look elsewhere. Makes good sense.’
‘Suddenly the whole logic becomes clear. But what about work? I’m supposed to be working this term, don’t forget.’
Gary got to his feet and stretched.
‘Bugger that, that’s what I say. How was the porn?’
‘Incredible. You’ve never in all your life seen anything like it.’
‘Naughty pictures?’
‘I’m not sure I’m ever going to be able to look a labrador in the face again. But, ruined as my faith in humankind may be, I have to say that we of the twentieth century are a pretty normal bunch compared to the Victorians.’
‘Victorian porn?’
‘Certainly.’
‘What did they
do?
I’ve often wondered. Did they have dicks and fannies and the rest of it?’
‘Well of course they did, you silly child. And the zestier volumes indicate that they had a great deal more. There’s a –’
Adrian broke off. He had suddenly given himself an idea. He looked at Gary’s cartoon.
Why not? It was wild, it was dishonest, it was disgraceful, but it could be done. It would mean work. A hell of a lot of work, but work of the right kind. Why not?
‘Gary,’ he said. ‘I suddenly find myself at life’s crossroads. I can feel it. One road points to madness and pleasure, the other to sanity and success. Which way do I turn?’
‘You tell me, matey.’
‘Let me put it this way. Do you want to pay off all your debt in one, plus the five hundred for wooden panelling? I’ve got a job for you.’
‘Okay.’
‘That’s my boy.’
*
Trefusis approached the counter of the reading-room. The young librarian looked at him in surprise.
‘Professor Trefusis!’
‘Good morning! How wags the world with you today?’
‘I’m very fit thank you, sir.’
‘I wonder if you can help me?’
‘That’s what I’m here for, Professor.’
Trefusis leant forward and lowered his voice conspiratorially, not an easy task for him. Among his many gifts he had never been able to count speaking in hushed tones.
‘Oblige the whim of a man old and mad before his time,’ he said, quietly enough for only the first twelve rows of desks behind him to catch every word, ‘and tell me if there is any reason why I shouldn’t have come in here an hour ago?’
‘Pardon?’
‘Why should I not have come into this room an hour ago? Was something afoot?’
The librarian stared. A man who services academics is used to all forms of mental derangement and behavioural aberration. Trefusis had always struck him as blithely and refreshingly free from nervous disorder. But, as the saying had it, old professors never die, they merely lose their faculties.