Now, next day he came to me with a demand that he should be empowered to arrange the coming terms work according to ideas which I dont really see much point in elaborating but suffice it to say that his point of view amounts to damning generations of scholarship out of hand. He said, what was wrong with that? That it is a historical commonplace that ideas valid for centuries can vanish overnight. I may say that Charles is very fond of talking in centuries if not millennia, always the sign of a lazy mind, to my way of thinking. However, I asked him what gave him the confidence or did I say conceit? to talk about the work of scholars infinitely better than himself, in such terms. Did he really have no qualms at all. He said no, that it was perfectly obvious to an unprejudiced mind that he was right.
I must confess we quarrelled violently. I think it was the first quarrel we have ever had astonishingly. He was abusive and derisive. Usually of course he is rather bland, or appears to be indifferent. I was patient I am, in fact, a patient man. He became increasingly unpleasant. You understand that all the time there was the underlying implication that it must be obvious he was in the right and that I could see it if I wasnt stupid. Finally, I asked him to leave before I lost my temper.
Next morning he rang up as if nothing had happened. No explanation. His manner, as always, was that an unimportant incident was over. Not that he had been in the wrong, no. Not, even, that I was rigidly in the wrong and that he had had to force himself into my mould though I suppose that was implicit. No, it was that nothing had occurred that was in the least bit important. Yet that was intolerable, because what in fact he had done, and in front of an American colleague who may yet be working with us, was to damn not only our team and its work, and of course our respective careers, his included, but all scholarship in our field to date. Or most of it. And, having done that, and behaved with shocking offensiveness, he was now quite casually arranging to meet me and discuss a series of public lectures which only the day before he had refused to consider at all and about which he had been exceedingly abusive. His manner was appropriate with saying: Im sorry I was a bit off colour last night, but I had a headache.
I dont know if I am succeeding in conveying to you the flavour of this particular incident.
I dont think I can tell you more, though there is an infinite choice of such examples.
I am at this moment in the usual frame of mind when thinking about Charles he forces me to ask myself what it means to like or dislike a person. We have always been in each others lives. We have our friends in common. It is my considered opinion that Charles Watkins is a destructive person. Negative, perhaps, is the better word. I find him a pain in the neck, even, far too often, a bore. I conclude from all this that we do not know very much about human relationships.
Yours very truly,
JEREMY THORNE
P.S.
I do hope you will let me know if there is anything else I can do to help. It goes without saying, I hope, that I would do anything for Charles. An idea has struck me: I dont know if you have been contacted by Constance Mayne, or if her name has cropped up at all? She has been Charles mistress, or perhaps still is. She was one of his pupils. No, I have nothing to complain of in his behaviour, as she did not become his mistress until she had ceased to be his student. And I am not a moralist. I tell you this because I believe his wife Felicity does not know of her existence. If you think it might be of assistance, let me know and Ill get hold of her address for you. She was in Birmingham when I heard last.
DEAR DOCTOR Y,
Can I assist you in rehabilitating Charles Watkins? I dont know. Yes, I do know him, very well indeed. How very tactful you are. I was his mistress. You must know that or otherwise why did you write to me? I would be interested to know who told you, but I dont expect you will. Well, now, about Charles he has lost his memory? He cant remember who he is? I am very sorry to hear it, but how does it concern me? No, dont think I am being dishonest. I wish it did concern me, but as it happens, I think you should ask his wife Felicity Watkins. I suppose you must have done. Did she tell you to contact me? If so, it is no more than I would expect of her. What I mean by that, specifically, is that it would be so damned high-minded and above every normal human emotion, just like Charles. I am sure these things rub off. They say married people get to resemble each other, but of course I wouldnt know.
DEAR DOCTOR Y,
Can I assist you in rehabilitating Charles Watkins? I dont know. Yes, I do know him, very well indeed. How very tactful you are. I was his mistress. You must know that or otherwise why did you write to me? I would be interested to know who told you, but I dont expect you will. Well, now, about Charles he has lost his memory? He cant remember who he is? I am very sorry to hear it, but how does it concern me? No, dont think I am being dishonest. I wish it did concern me, but as it happens, I think you should ask his wife Felicity Watkins. I suppose you must have done. Did she tell you to contact me? If so, it is no more than I would expect of her. What I mean by that, specifically, is that it would be so damned high-minded and above every normal human emotion, just like Charles. I am sure these things rub off. They say married people get to resemble each other, but of course I wouldnt know.
After (believe me) due thought, I am simply sending you the enclosed letter. The letter is one I wrote to Charles. That letter was written after due thought, too. Years of it. What I mean is, I could have written that letter before I did, but I was a fool and didnt.
I sent that letter (the enclosed one) to Charles at his home address. Not out of spite, but I didnt have another address. He came posthaste. When I say posthaste, I mean, for him. About ten days went by. He came by train to Birmingham. He brought my letter with him. It was, as it might be, a goodwill visit. He stayed the night. Why not? Old habits die hard. When he left in the morning, the letter was lying on my night-table. The point is, but I dont expect you to see it as a point, he hadnt left it there on purpose, or for post-departure comment we had after all, touched on its contents the night before. To put it mildly. No, he forgot it. It slipped totally out of his mind. So Im taking this opportunity of returning it to him, via you. He might like to refresh his memory when he gets it back.
Sorry I cant be of any use.
With my good wishes,
CONSTANCE MAYNE
DEAR CHARLES,
Dont be alarmed, this isnt one of those drivelling slobby wet letters I wrote you when you decided youd had enough of me. No fear. Im very far from that now. I woke up this morning and thought it was three years this June since you left me.
The thought of you
So sweet and true
For dreary years
Has been boo hoo.
Boo hoo, boo hoo, boo hoo. BOO!
It occurred to me that far from boo hoo, far from it, I was in a good old paddy, a good old rage. Fury. It occurs to me Charles Watkins that what I feel for you is not boo hoo at all, I hate you. More than that, I simply cant get over your sheer damned preposterousness.
Now let me tell you a tale.
There was once an earnest idealistic young student taking Literature and Languages, who went, God help her, to a lecture, an Introduction to Old Greece, and heard a mad professor claim that there was only one literature and one language, namely Greek, (Ancient, not Modern). And such was his persuasive force that this stupid student dropped her lovely useful literature and French and Spanish and Italian, and went over to Useless Old Greece, just because this professor said so. Three years passed while this stupid student sweated and got full marks all for the sake of an approving smile or two from the Mad Professor. The day she heard she had got her B.A. behold, it happens this Silly student is in London and there is the Mad Professor giving a lecture on the television about Greece, the Cradle of European Civilisation. Intellectual this and Moral that, and so it went on, but not one word about, it occurs to silly Female Student, Women, let alone Slaves in that paradise of Moral Superiority, Ancient Greece. Stupid student got into a taxi as the lecture was ending on the telly, and went to the B.B.C. and he came out of the building, looking oh so Classical and Woolly, rough tweeds, pipe, rugged charm, the lot, she said to him, In all that there was not one word about either Women or Slaves. To which the Mad Professor returned: Oh, is that you Connie? Well done! Congratulations on your results! Well, you are concerned about Women and Slaves are you? What are you doing about them? It took the Stupid Student five dazzling dizzying seconds to get his drift, and she said to him, Right, youre on. At which she refused to go back to University to get her M.A. and probably on to Ph.D. and so on ad infinitum but she went off to Birmingham, got a job in a factory, with women making plastic containers for detergents, found they were indeed Slaves while being Women, and she made scandals and fusses with the management, became a shop steward and a communist and three years later went to Cambridge to confront the Mad Professor with the news. Very well, then, Ive done it, she cried, and told him the tale, three years hard, but very hard, but very very hard, slogging, hard intolerable bloody work for the plastic-detergent-container-making women of Birmingham, and he took his pipe out of his mouth and said: Well done! And then he said: Lets go to bed.
Yes I do know whether to laugh or to cry. This morning I am laughing and God knows it is about time.
So the love of the century begins, in Birmingham for the most part, but a busy and popular Professor of Classics with a wife and two sons hasnt all that much time left over for amusements, and the Silly Shop Steward hardly ever sees her Love. In the meantime this same Stupid Shop Steward has a beau, a Steady, a faithful love, being the Shop Steward on the Mens Components Floor, where Men make plastic containers for transistor radios, for since they are Men and therefore more advanced and evolved, they can put on those difficult buttons and screws and handles and things, much more tricky than detergent containers. This faithful and loving swain gets the boot from the Silly Shop Stewardess, because of the Love of the Century. Forlorn and alone she says Boo hoo, Boo hoo, marry me, and he says, the Mad Professor says, Dont be absurd. But what about your vows, your love, your passion, she cries? He says, anyone who believes a word anyone says in bed deserves what she gets.