Acquired Tastes (16 page)

'You ought to count your blessings, my dear. I think you had a lucky escape. That man was a pernicious influence on his students and a notorious womaniser,' Zelda said tartly.

'I know he had a bit of a reputation, but he was always a gentleman with me,' Alicia sighed wistfully.

'He was probably just waiting for the right moment to pounce, men are all the same,' Zelda said firmly. 'Look what he did last night and with your best friend, too.'

'It was probably her idea,' Alicia's tone was harsh.

'Oh, surely not,' Zelda protested unconvincingly.

Alicia poured herself some more tea. Zelda waved the pot away, her eyes never leaving Alicia's face.

'I suppose I've always known what she was really like, it was just that I didn't want to admit it to myself,' Alicia said slowly.

'Well, I have to say that I didn't take to her from the start, and neither did Ernst, and he's always a good judge of character,' Zelda said. 'There are certain women - how shall I say this - who always let the side down. Men will always be slaves to their libidos, but women should be above such feelings.'

Why? Alicia thought. What good had it done her trying to be above those feelings? Perhaps if she had been different, Fergus would not have chased after Vanessa. It was all her fault. A tear squeezed its way out of the corner of her eye, trickled down her cheek and plopped into her tea. She sniffed.

'Tell me something,' Zelda asked. 'Why on earth did you allow Dr Archibald and your friend to go off together like that? I should have thought it a trifle unwise.'

Alicia swallowed. 'It was my fault really. Vanessa came to Heartlands to talk to Fergus about his research. She was very excited about it, and thought it might make a good television programme - or was it a series? I can't remember. Anyway, it seemed like a good idea to let them talk it over by themselves. I thought it might be a break for Fergus, he's had such a hard time lately with all those academic journals turning him down.'

Zelda's eyes narrowed. It was too much. She had spent months quietly feeding the choicest bits of gossip about Fergus to the right people and now, just when there wasn't an academic journal in the country that was prepared to publish him, his research was going to get exposure on national television.

She tore the piece of toast she was holding in half. Even though it was over a year ago, she could still hear the sound of his bellowing laughter echoing in her mind. She would never understand what grotesque impulse had made her - Dr Zelda Drake - suggest to that buffoon that he come back to her rooms. Nor would she ever forgive him for rejecting her. She thought that he would stay away from her after that, but then he had started to come round to St Ethelred's, openly courting Alicia under her nose. She had tried to warn Alicia, but Alicia wouldn't believe her. Last night had presented the perfect opportunity to prove to Alicia what Fergus was really like, but even she had been shocked by what they had seen when they burst in on Fergus and Vanessa. Although later, when she recalled the scene, she found herself more than a little aroused. Luckily Ernst had been on hand with his soothing milky cocoa.

Zelda offered Alicia some more toast. 'Now, tell me about this Swift woman.'

'She was always the most popular girl in the class. Everyone wanted to be in her set because she was always first at everything. Not academically, of course,' Alicia said hastily, 'but in the things that matter when you are fourteen. All the other girls tried to look like her. I remember once, she decided she wanted to be blonde, so she dyed her hair. All the girls in her set dyed their hair too.'

'Did you?'

'I didn't have enough pocket money to go to a hairdresser to have it done properly, so Vanessa poured a bottle of peroxide over my hair one night in the dormitory. It looked terrible and started coming out in handfuls. I was given washing-up duty for a month, as it was against the rules to dye your hair.'

'But what about Vanessa?'

'Oh, she said she had been out in the sun and it had bleached her hair blond. She always seemed to get away with things, even then.'

Zelda sipped her tea thoughtfully. 'I wonder what people would think of her if they knew what she really gets up to.'

Alicia looked worried. 'Oh, but we couldn't. Remember what the Principal said. It would cause such a scandal.'

'I was merely speaking hypothetically, Alicia dear,' Zelda patted her arm. 'I wasn't really suggesting you actually
do
anything. It's just such a pity those two will get away scot-free. But, as no doubt our admirable bursar would say: vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.'

'But what about the Academic Council? Surely they will revoke Fergus's tenure as they are bound to listen to the Principal,' said Alicia.

Zelda buttered another slice of toast and loaded it with marmalade. 'I'm sure they will, Alicia dear, but Fergus will just get a post somewhere else. Given the nature of his offence, the Council are bound to keep their findings secret because of the scandal it could cause. They have to think of the good name of the university. And what about your friend? The Academic Council can't do anything about
her,'
she continued between mouthfuls, 'and she has betrayed your trust, humiliated you in front of your friends and stolen your erm … boyfriend.'

It wasn't quite the word she was looking for, but it would have to do.

The tears welled up in Alicia's eyes again and she fumbled for a handkerchief. She had never been sure of her feelings towards Fergus before, but now she knew for certain that she must be in love with him. Why else would she feel so awful?

Zelda produced a handkerchief, and Alicia gratefully blew her nose. 'There, there, I didn't mean to upset you,' said Zelda, patting Alicia's free hand. 'I'm sure they will get their comeuppance in the end.'

But they wouldn't, would they? Alicia thought miserably, blowing her nose again.

Heartlands had been a haven of peace - a small, unchanging, predictable world in which she felt secure. Now it had all changed, changed utterly. Whatever the Principal had said, word would be all over the university before the end of the day. She felt exposed - naked - and all because she had trusted Vanessa.

She tried unsuccessfully to refold Zelda's handkerchief and offered it back to her, but Zelda waved it away. Alicia crumpled it up and put it into her pocket. She sipped her tea and as often happened when she did, an idea suddenly came to her.

'Zelda, could I use your London flat for a while? Term's nearly over and I really need to get away for a while.'

Zelda looked hard at her. 'Are you sure London is quite the right place?'

Alicia toyed with the pepper pot. 'I just want to go to a few museums and maybe an art gallery or two. You know the sort of thing.'

'Well, if you're sure that's what you want, you're welcome to my little cubby hole. Ernst and I are off to Hungary for the summer. The Blue Danube beckons to our romantic souls. I can hear those gypsy violins already.'

Zelda rose to her feet and, closing her eyes, danced round the room to the strains of a silent waltz. With a final twirl she opened her eyes.

'Ah, how much better the Europeans are at understanding the grand passions of life. When love and honour are betrayed, they cry out for retribution,' she cried dramatically, throwing out her arms.

Alicia hiccuped and put her hand over her mouth.

Mistaking the hiccup for a sob, Zelda enveloped Alicia in a diaphanous embrace. 'My dear, I know how simply wretched you must feel, but believe me, in a little while this will have all blown away like dust in the wind, poof! And then life will return to normal. Trust me.'

Normal, thought Alicia, as she gasped for breath cocooned in Zelda's suffocating embrace. Whatever else life could be, it would never be normal again.

Zelda at last released her. 'Better?' she beamed.

Alicia could only nod as she drank in fresh air. She had thought she was breathing her last,

'No more tears,' Zelda admonished, 'and tomorrow Ernst and I will expect you for lunch when - if you still insist - I will give you the keys to my flat.'

Alicia
had
insisted and four days later, she was carefully counting out a ten per cent tip into the outstretched hand of the taxi driver who had driven her from Euston to Zelda's flat in Camden Town.

It was the first time in her life that she had actually been relieved to see the grubby, rubbish-strewn, anonymous streets of London. Even the dull, indifferent eyes of the cab driver, as he watched her struggle to lift her suitcase from the cab, were welcome after the questioning eyes which had followed her everywhere she went on campus those last few days.

An emergency meeting of the Academic Council was enough to rouse intense interest, but when it became known that the meeting and its findings were to be kept confidential, curiosity had fomented a frenzy of speculation that had engulfed the entire university. The pressures of end of year exams and finals were forgotten, as people clustered in excitable groups all over the campus.

When Alicia had been summoned to attend the Council meeting late on Saturday afternoon, she found her route to the Council room strewn with people who fell suddenly silent as she walked past. The twelve members of the Academic Council listened gravely to her halting account of what had happened, only stopping her once to debate among themselves the most grammatically correct, as well as acceptable, word to describe what Fergus and Vanessa had been doing on High Table. After a brief altercation, it was decided by eight to four, that fornication would be used for the official report. Alicia only got through the ordeal because of the kind urging of Dame Nora, who afterwards assured her that she had done well and must now put the experience behind her.

But she had still been left with the feeling that, in some way, what had happened had been her fault. Vanessa was her friend, and if she had not invited her to Heartlands, none of it would have happened. Joyce had hinted as much when she had telephoned later to say that Fergus had not turned up to the Council meeting and that nobody could find him. Alicia had got the feeling that Joyce thought she was hiding him.

Only Zelda seemed sympathetic and she had turned into a real friend, Alicia thought, as she gazed at the formidably steep flight of stone steps leading up to the front door of the tall house which contained Zelda's flat.

By the time she had dragged, bumped and lifted her suitcase up a further three flights of narrow, dingy stairs, Alicia's chest was heaving, and her arms felt as though they had been wrenched from their sockets. She leant, gasping against the door to Flat D, trying to remember whether Zelda had said to jiggle the key then pull the door, or push the door and jiggle the key. When she finally got the combination right, she found that Zelda's description of her flat as a cubby hole was accurate. It was the kind of flat estate agents describe as compact.

Three doors led off a tiny hall. The first led into a bedroom, in which most of the floor space was occupied by a double bed pushed up against three walls, whilst a large wardrobe took what little space was left. Next door was a tiny bathroom, which necessitated any occupant to either stand on the toilet or wedge themselves between the toilet and the hand basin in order to open the door to get out. The living room was L-shaped, with a tiny galley kitchen at one end, partitioned off by a lacquered screen, decorated with peacocks. One large window opened out on to an unsafe-looking balcony barely two-feet wide, on which stood a window box containing assorted weeds.

The only seating was an ornate, but faded,
chaise-longue
, draped with multi-coloured, fringed shawls, and a bank of floor cushions covered in an assortment of oriental carpet fabrics. These appeared to be the source of a strong, earthy odour, not unlike the sort of smell Alicia would have associated with a camel.

In front of the cushions was a long, low table in dark wood carved with exotic Japanese-looking figures and inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

There was a large shell on the table which looked as though it was used as an ashtray as it still had some ash in it. Alicia picked it up and sniffed. The ash had a distinctly odd smell. She smiled, thinking it was probably some sort of incense. Zelda liked to think of herself as a bit of a Bohemian.

Having unpacked her clothes and squeezed them in beside Zelda's many flowing, kaftan-style dresses and tops, Alicia made herself a cup of tea with some long-life milk she found in a cupboard, and opened the packet of chocolate biscuits she had brought with her for emergencies. Then she settled herself down on the
chaise-longue
to study her
A-Z of London.

She had been right. Vanessa's flat was only two streets away. She would take a look at it later, but her first priority was to buy some food and she had noticed a rather interesting looking patisserie just along the road.

'Magnificent, isn't it?'

Vanessa looked in the mirror. Behind her, stretched out on her bed was Fergus, naked.

His arms were propped behind his head and he was gazing contentedly down at his massive erection which rose pale and taut, out of the dark hairiness of his body.

Vanessa twisted the top off her lipstick. 'Tell me something,' she said flexing her lips. 'Why do all men worship their pricks?'

She began to apply a thick creamy coating of lipstick, skilfully exaggerating the fullness of her lips.

'Because only a divine being could be an instrument of both such agony and ecstasy, that it even makes pissing a pleasure. Freud was right about penis envy. From the moment a little girl realises she cannot pee in a beautiful golden arc like her brother, jealousy is born.'

Vanessa pursed her lips together and blotted them with a tissue. She checked the result in the mirror and then swivelled round on her seat. 'Balls,' she retorted tersely then slipped her feet into a pair of black suede, high-heeled sling backs. She stood up and checked her appearance in the mirrored wardrobe doors which ran the length of the room.

Fergus groaned loudly. 'It's no good. I can't stand it. Either you come over here or I'm going to have to take the situation into my own hands.'