The Red Door (54 page)

He had let the house become rather untidy though not dirty. Books were piled behind the chair in which he sat. He read indiscriminately, Science fiction, detective stories, academic books, they
were all grist to his mill. Sometimes he would be reading five books at the one time. He was all right during the academic year but the vacations were difficult because they were so long. The
previous year he had gone to British Columbia to see his brother who was a businessman over there. He had found the trip interesting – Fable Cottage on Vancouver Island for instance –
but was a bit put off by the ‘stroll down Chaucer Lane in the English Village which leads to Anne Hathaway’s Cottage’. However he hadn’t particularly cared for his brother
who had become much more vulgar and superficial than he had remembered, and who was absolutely interested in money and little else. His brother in fact was a brutal red-faced crashing bore. He
would never see him again.

He sat down in the chair after coming back from his meeting with the Principal. On the floor in front of him was a bottle of Parozone, yellow, and he stared at it for a long time. It seemed in
some way to soothe him. After a while he slept. Then he got up and got out his notes on Milton. In his new book which he might never complete he was trying to show how far
Samson Agonistes
was from the true Greek style of drama, how clumsy the versification was. He had always believed that Milton was strongest in poems like
Allegro
and
Il Penseroso
and that at that
point there was life and gaiety and the exact elegance of true poetry.

He thought about his wife. She had a clear quick-witted practical mind but at the same time she was an idealistic scholar. She had been in far more jobs than he had ever been in. For instance
she had once been a waitress during the long vacation. Another time she had worked in the cinema as an usherette. She had looked after the garden which he now neglected. She also had, he thought, a
purer and more zealous love of learning than he had, a combination of love and precision. Her feeling for the classics made her adore Housman whom he had always considered a bad poet. But,
strangely, after she had died he had read the poems again and found that they were more piercing than he could recall. Sometimes when searching in a drawer for a cuff link he would come on a glove
or handkerchief that had belonged to her and would be stabbed by that dreadful agony.

But he was all right now, wasn’t he? He was even reasonably happy. At least during term time. The Logic Professor would sometimes visit him arriving at about ten o’clock at night
(for he seemed to have no regard for or even knowledge of time) and they might play chess for a time. Or drink beer. Or sometimes talk. Often about Wittgenstein who after a difficult life had said
that he had been the happiest of men. ‘Imagine that,’ the Logic Professor would say, ‘an odd man. A strange man. Fine fine mind. But odd.’ (He himself dabbled in alchemy and
had a sundial in his garden to tell the time.) ‘Something very prophetic about him. He hated the academic world, you see, and I don’t blame him.’ Forgetting that it was three
o’clock in the morning and settling himself like a gnome on a red cushion from which the feathers were falling out as if it were moulting.

At other times the Divinity Professor would come all aflame with the latest conference he had attended and bringing along with him questions such as ‘How far can we use the work of
atheistic writers in studying theology?’ His thin, pale, ravaged face showed how he was struggling against the stream.

And then of course there were his neighbours (the two houses divided by a hedge), a young couple of whom the husband was a young mathematics lecturer and his wife a teacher in a city school.
They had a child of about five years old.

When he had finished his work on Milton he made himself some tea and switched on TV. A keen-eyed announcer of the type satirised by Monty Python was looking straight at him and saying:

‘ . . . the initiative on Ireland. To discuss what the package may be we have brought along to the studio tonight Mr Ray of the Conservative Party, Mr Hume of the Labour Party and Mr
O’Reilly of the Unionist Party and Miss Devlin.’ Each face nodded modestly, mouthing some phantom unheard words which might have been Good Evening.

The announcer trained his gimlet eyes on one of the four people and said, ‘And now, Mr Ray, may I ask you the following question. It has been rumoured that there is a split in the Tory
Cabinet, some hawks saying that nothing should be done until the IRA have been beaten on the ground and some doves saying that there must be an initiative now. What are your views on
that?’

‘Well, Terence, first of all as you know very well I can’t speak for the Cabinet, otherwise I would be a member of it, but it seems to me obvious speaking personally, and I must
emphasise this, that we can’t allow violence, the rule of violence, to prevail in Ireland or anywhere else. If you recall, an analagous situation arose in Cyprus some years ago as well as in
Algeria . . . ’

‘Yes I appreciate that but could you be more . . . ’

‘I was trying to lay the foundation for an answer.’

‘I understand. Can I take it then that you support the hawks? Mr Hume, what do you say to that?’

Mr Hume, a large slow man with beetling brows, leaned forward, dominating the screen like a serene basking shark.

‘I think it is totally typical of the Conservative Party to take such a position. Their idea of solving any problem is to use force. The lame duck philosophy . . . We see it in UCS, in
their handling of the question of children’s milk, in their whole philosophy of government . . . ’

‘Yes but about the Irish initiative . . . ’

‘I was just coming to that . . . How can one believe that the IRA can be beaten when they obviously have behind them the whole Catholic . . . ’

Professor MacDuff put the volume down so that the lips moved but nothing could be heard. The mouths opened and shut like those of goldfish in a pond. He went to the back of the set and fiddled
about with the controls. The faces lengthened and shortened like Dali’s picture ‘The Persistence of Memory’ which shows watches and clocks hung like plasticine and liquorice over
chairs. One could imagine cutting them up and eating them from a knife. ‘The new Chinese food,’ he thought. After he had played about for some time, allowing lines and dots to invade
the screen, shaping faces and bodies into gluey masses, making the bodies tall and thin as the man in
Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday
and fat and squat figures as in a spoon, he switched to
the other channel which showed a number of girls dancing to the music of pop songs, swaying their bodies, flicking their hands, tribal people.

In the middle of this the phone rang and he went and answered it. ‘Who’s that?’ he asked.

‘BBC here. TV actually. That is Professor MacDuff, isn’t it?’

‘Yes this is Professor MacDuff.’

‘Well, we have heard some rumours that you are teaching something to do with Desperate Dan and that you believe that this is as valuable as the more conventional stuff. We were wondering
perhaps if you could come along to the studio and . . . ’

‘When?’

‘When?’ The voice seemed slightly disconcerted. ‘Well, we were thinking in terms of this week. There’s a spot called
Matters of Moment
which you may have watched
. . . ’

‘What time?’

‘If you could be along here at six o’clock on Friday night. Would that be all right? I could come along beforehand. I would handle it myself. My name is Burrow by the way.’

‘On my own you mean?’

‘Well, have you any other suggestions as to the format? We are always open to . . . ’

‘I thought I might discuss my ideas with a student perhaps if you . . . ’

‘Uh huh, have you anyone in mind?’

‘As a matter of fact I have. His name is Mallow, Steven Mallow. I could provide you with his address if you . . . ’

‘That would be fine. We could get in touch with him. You would wish to discuss this issue with him, is that right?’

‘That is right,’ said the Professor picking up and laying down a copy of Catullus’s poems which were lying near the phone.

Steven Mallow was the student who had defended him at the lecture. Not that he knew much about him except that in one examination he had gained one mark by defining Grimm’s Law.

‘I can take it then that you will be at the studio for five,’ said Burrow. ‘We usually provide some food before you go on and then of course you have to be made up. But
don’t worry about that. Our girls are very expert.’

‘Fine,’ said the Professor, ‘if that’s all . . . How long would we be on for?’

‘Oh I think we could give you fifteen or twenty minutes. Is that fair? Does that sound OK to you?’

‘Yes, it’s fine as far as I am concerned.’

‘Good then. We will see you at five. Ask for me personally please. Nigel Burrow.’

Professor MacDuff put down the phone. As he looked into the darkening garden he could see the statue of the Greek boxer, arms raised in front of him, pale and trembling in the twilight.

Another short time and I shall be leaving the university, he thought. And he couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be alone without anything to do. He had no hobbies at all. He did not
play golf, he did not play bowls, he wasn’t a committee man. He would grow old on his own, that was inevitable and terrifying. But as he stood there the line from Tennyson came into his mind,
‘Old age hath yet his honour and his toil’, and he was vaguely comforted by the words and their sound. They seemed to be a guarantee of something, they seemed to provide a music which
he could confront the imminent chaos with. He picked up the Catullus and gazed at it absently. Behind him he could see flashes of light from the TV but no sound and he went back and switched it off
completely. After some time he prepared himself for bed. As he lay down he watched the cold white moon marbling the sky, a persistent chill scrutiny, an eye of light. Forgetting, once again he
stretched out his arm as if to embrace his wife and then withdrew it remembering. Turning over on his side he went to sleep.

3

Professor MacDuff arrived at the studio at five o’clock precisely and after inquiring at the desk about where he should go was met by Burrow who took him up to a room on
the table of which there were salads wrapped in cellophane and a selection of whiskies and beer and sherry. He refused anything to drink and sat down. He felt tense as he had never taken part in a
broadcast before although Burrow tried to put him at his ease. With Burrow was a man called Russell who was perhaps the producer.

‘I should like to say,’ said Burrow, ‘that we won’t discuss the subject beforehand in case you might say during the programme, “As we were mentioning before we came
onto the air!” That looks bad.’

‘I understand,’ said the Professor looking dispiritedly at the salad and convinced that he would not be able to do more than nibble at it.

‘As a matter of fact once you get started,’ said Russell, ‘you will forget the cameras are there and will only be concerned with what you are saying. Isn’t that so,
Nigel?’

‘Absolutely,’ said Burrow. The professor suddenly had the idea that in a short while they would forget his name and even the programme in which he was taking part and that the only
reason he was there was not that he should provide information or discuss fundamental things but that he should fill up a space. Pursuing his thought aloud he said:

‘Have you ever thought that producers of programmes and editors of newspapers must continue with their work because there is a space which must be filled every day? Have you ever had that
feeling?’

He looked at Russell who seemed not quite to understand the question.

‘I’ve never actually thought of it in those terms,’ he said, ‘but I suppose it’s true in a way. Certainly we’re often pressed for time.’

This wasn’t at all what the Professor had meant: in fact when he tried to say what he meant he wasn’t sure that he could express it. It was something to do with the fact that
newspapers and programmes had been originated and that since they had been originated they must proceed by the force of inertia. There was another theory he had about the relationship between space
and time as far as news was concerned but he couldn’t clarify the thought. The clock showed five past five and at that moment Mallow entered wearing a blue polo-necked jersey and tight green
jeans and carrying a folder with papers.

‘Hi,’ he said raising his arm in salute. ‘The communicators are together I see.’ He laid his folder on the table and sat down.

‘I think perhaps we should have something to eat now,’ said Burrow. ‘It isn’t much but it’s the best the canteen can do.’

They all began to remove the cellophane wrappings from the paper plates to reveal chicken and lettuce and beetroot and so on.

The Professor made vague dabs at it. His cuisine, what with the Chinese food, hadn’t been very spectacular recently. His stomach was tied in knots as it always was before an important
occasion, especially one where he would have to expend emotion. He drew in his breath and expelled it slowly knowing that the more tense he was the better he would perform provided that the tension
didn’t reach too high a pitch. There was silence for a while till Russell said, ‘I suppose Nigel has told you that you’ll have to be made up. But don’t worry, it won’t
take long.’

‘Right,’ said Mallow. ‘We don’t get handbags do we,’ and he laughed. Russell who looked as if he had often heard the joke smiled palely. For a moment MacDuff
wondered if Mallow had been on television before. Dearest Mary, he said to the shade of his dead wife, please help me, it is all for you. He tried to forget where he was by thinking of his wife,
sometimes seeing her with her head bent over a book and at other times pruning the roses beside the Greek statue in the garden. The curve of her back was ineffably painful to him.

The conversation around him blossomed and concerned itself with the chess tournament which was at that moment taking place in Russia.