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skimmed through the columns to see whether there was any De"siree, your concern that I should have a full sex-life comment on my contribution, and sure enough there it is: while I am over here is touching, but you should think

  'Turning to Professor Zapp's essay . . .' and I can see at a twice before you put such generous thoughts in writing: it glance that my piece is honoured with extensive discussion.

  could louse up your divorce petition, though I continue to Imagine receiving a poison-pen letter, or an obscene hope that our marital problem is not terminal. In any case, telephone call, or discovering that a hired assassin has been I haven't felt inclined to avail myself of your kind dispensa-following you about the streets all day with a gun aimed at tion. They have winter here, you see, Desiree - the old the middle of your back. I mean, the shock of finding some seasonal bit, and the sap is sunk low at the moment.

  source of anonymous malice in the world directed specifical-Tell me more about the twins. Or, better, ask them to ly at you, without being able to identify it or account for it.

  write a line to their old Dad, if the Euphoric public school Because this guy really wanted to hurt. I mean, he wasn't system is still teaching such outdated skills as writing. But 126

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  that is great about the gardening. O'Shea is what you might slush outside the front door wearing galoshes and an absurd call an avant-gardener. He believes in randomness. His yard kind of cossack's hat. He didn't need any persuading -

  is a wilderness of weeds and heaps of coal and broken play practically knocked me over in his eagerness to get in the equipment and wheelless prams and cabbages, silted-up house. I took him into the front room for a quick sherry, but bird baths and great gloomy trees slowly dying of some un-it was like an iceberg -1 don't bother to light a fire in there specified disease. I know how they must feel.

  now you're away - so I had to take him into the dining-Love,

  room, where the children were just beginning a fight be-Morris

  cause they were hungry for their dinner. I asked him if he would mind finishing his drink while I served the children PS. I did write to M. but it was sent back marked Not their meal, hoping this would be a hint to him to leave Known Here. Try to get me her new address, will you, from promptly, but he said no, he didn't mind and I should eat the Dean of Students' Office ?

  too, and he took off his hat and coat and sat down to watch us. And I mean watch us. His eyes followed every movement from dish to plate to mouth. It was acutely embarrassing.

  The children fell eerily silent, and I could see that Amanda Hilary to Philip

  and Robert were looking at each other and going red in the face with suppressed giggles. In the end I had to ask him if he Dearest,

  wouldn't like to join us at the table.

  Many thanks for your long and interesting letter. What a pity, though, that you had to write those words in it. Because I don't think I've ever seen anyone so heavily built move I couldn't of course let Amanda read it, though she pestered quite so fast. It was lucky that I'd cooked a biggish joint me for days. Rather thoughtless of you, dear, wasn't it, because there wasn't much left on the bone by the time Mr because naturally the children are interested in your letters.

  Zapp had had his third helping. Though his table manners And I must say it seemed to me quite uncalled for.

  left something to be desired, I didn't really begrudge him the You didn't tell me, by the way, that there was a bomb food, since he was obviously starved of decent home cooking.

  explosion in your building shortly after you arrived, but I He also did his best to entertain the children, and made quite a hit with Amanda because he seemed to know all about her suppose you didn't want to worry us. Were you in any favourite pop songs-the names of the singers and the titles of danger? If things get any worse you'll just have to come the records and how high they had got in the Top Twenty home, and bother the money.

  and so on, which seemed to me quite extraordinary in a man By the way, as you didn't answer my question about the of his age and profession, but impressed the children hugely, washing-machine I have bought a new one. Fully automatic especially Amanda as I say. But I presumed he'd have the and rather expensive, but it's super.

  tact to scoot off fairly soon after dinner, and served coffee I heard about the bomb from Mr Zapp. A very curious straight away to give him the hint. No such luck. He sat on encounter, which I must tell you about. He came round the and on, telling stories - admittedly rather funny ones - about other evening with Let's Write a Novel, which he'd found in the extraordinary household he is living in (a doctor called your room after all. It was the most awkward time, about O'Shea - have you heard of him ?) until eventually I just 6, just as I was about to serve up the dinner, but I felt I had had to send Matthew off to bed and Robert and Amanda to to invite him in since he'd taken the trouble to bring your do their homework. When I started ostentatiously clearing book round and he looked rather pathetic standing in the 128

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  the table he insisted on helping me wash up. He obviously Philip to Hilary

  had no idea how to do it and broke two plates and a glass before I could stop him. By this time I was beginning to Darling,

  panic a bit, wondering if I was ever going to get him out of Many thanks for your letter. What an extraordinary the house.

  fellow Zapp seems to be. I hope he won't bother you any Then suddenly he completely changed. He asked me more. Frankly, the more I hear about him, the less I like where the lavatory was and when he came back he was fully him. In particular, I shouldn't like Amanda to see more of dressed in his outdoor clothes and scowling all over his face.

  him than is absolutely unavoidable. The fact is that the man He growled out a good-bye and a curt thank you and rushed is entirely unprincipled where women arc concerned, and out of the house into a whirling snowstorm. He started his while he's not, as far as I know, another Humbert Humbert, car and let out the clutch far too quickly and as a result got I feel he might have an insidiously corrupting influence on stuck in the gutter. I listened to his wheels spinning and his an impressionable girl of Amanda's age. So, at least, I infer engine howling until I couldn't stand it any longer. So I from Mrs Zapp, who recited a catalogue of her husband's put on my fur coat and boots and went out to give him a sins to me in the course of an extremely drunken and dis-push. I got him out all right, but overbalanced in the orderly party to which we were both invited last Saturday.

  process and fell sprawling.

  Our hosts were Sy and Bella Gootblatt. He's a young associAs I picked myself off the ground I saw him disappear ate professor here - very brilliant, I believe, has written the round the corner, skidding wildly, for he didn't stop or even definitive study of Hooker. The Hogans were there, and call out thank you. If Mrs Zapp wants to divorce him she three other couples all from the English Department, which has my sympathy.

  may sound rather inbred, but you must remember that the I saw Janet Dempsey again this morning (we seem to have English Department here is nearly as big as the entire Arts fixed on the same day for supermarket shopping) and she Faculty at Rummidge.

  said Robin knows that he's definitely on Gordon's list of The tempo of a Plotinus dinner party takes some getting nominations for senior lectureships. Are you on it? I think used to. To begin with, the invitation for eight really means what gets me is the way Janet implies that I'm naturally eight-thirty to nine, as I realized from the consternation on going to be as fascinated by her husband's career as she is.

  my host's face when I appeared on his doorstep one minute Also the pointed way she never refers to or asks about yours, after the appointed hour; and even when all the guests are as if it were a dead issue. Professor Zapp says you have to assembled there are several hours' hard drinking to be got push yourself to get on in the academic world, that nobody through before you actually sit down to eat. During this time ever gets anything unless they ask for it, and I'm inclined to the hostess (Bella Gootblatt in see-throu
gh blouse and flared think he's right.

  crushed velvet trousers) brings from the kitchen delicious Do you still want me to send on Let's Write a Novel? What snacks - sausages rolled in crisp bacon, cheese fondue, sour-a funny little book it is. There's a whole chapter on how to cream dips, tender hearts of artichokes, smoked fish and write an epistolary novel, but surely nobody's done that suchlike tangy delicacies, thus increasing one's thirst for the since the eighteenth century ?

  lavish whisky-sours and daiquiris being prepared by the Love from all of us here,

  host. The consequence is that when you finally sit down to Hilary

  dine, at about eleven pm, everyone is totally sloshed and not very hungry. The food is half-spoiled anyway by being kept 130

  warm so long. Everybody drinks a great deal of wine to try as protection against the police truncheons (nightsticks as and wash down a respectable amount of food and so they all they rather sinisterly call them) and his face was glistening get drunker than ever. Everybody is shouting at the tops of with Vaseline which is supposed to protect your skin against their voices and cracking jokes frenziedly and screaming with MACE. I asked him what he wanted and he said he wanted laughter and then someone will say something just a bit too a consultation. I had my doubts but dutifully plied him with outrageous and suddenly there's murder in the air.

  questions about his ghetto novel. He answered distractedly, Mrs Zapp was seated next to me at dinner. As we were his ears cocked for sounds of police activity in the building.

  sitting over the coffee and the ruins of some intolerably Then he asked me if he could use my window. I said, sweet chocolate gateau, I tried to stem her flow of intimate certainly. He threw his leg over the sash and climbed out reminiscence by teaching the company how to play' Humil-on to the balcony. After a few minutes I put my head out, iation'. Do you remember that old game? You've no idea but he had disappeared. I suppose he must have found a how difficult it was to get across the basic idea. On the first window open further along the balcony and left that way.

  round they kept naming books they had read and thought The noise gradually faded. I went on reading Lycidas. ..

  everyone else hadn't. But when they finally got the hang of I've no idea whether I've been nominated for a Senior it, they began to play with almost frightening intensity, Lectureship and I'd rather keep it that way, since I shan't especially a young chap called Ringbaum who ended up then have the mortification of knowing that I was definitely having a tremendous row with our host and left the house in turned down. If Dempsey wants to poke his nose into such a huff. The rest of us stayed on for an hour or so, mainly (as matters, let him. I think myself that there's a lot to be said far as I was concerned anyway, for I was quite exhausted) to for the English system of clandestine patronage. Here, for smooth over the awkwardness of this contretemps with Ring-instance, it's a jungle in which the weakest go to the wall.

  baum.

  There's been the most tremendous row going on all this The bomb, yes, I didn't think there was any point in week about a question of tenure - involving the Ringbaum worrying you by mentioning it. There's been no repetition chap, as it happens - and I'm glad to be well out of it.

  of the incident, though there's still a good deal of disruption You'll be surprised to learn that Charles Boon is living on campus due to the strike. As I write this, sitting in my with me at the moment! He had to leave his previous

  'office' as they call it, I can hear the chanting of the pickets quarters at short notice due to a fire and I offered to put rising up from Mather gate just below my window, ' O N

  him up temporarily at the request of his girl friend, who lives STRIKE, SHUT IT DOWN, ON STRIKE, SHUT IT DOWN!' A downstairs. I can't say he's applied himself very energeti-very strange sound in an academic environment. Every now cally to looking for a new apartment, but he's not much and then there is a confrontation at the Gate between the trouble to me as he sleeps most of the day and is out most of pickets and people trying to get through and then the cam-the night.

  pus police intervene and occasionally the Plotinus police All my love,

  force too and there's usually a scuffle and a few arrests.

  Philip

  Yesterday the police made a sweep through the campus and students were running in all directions. I was sitting at my desk reading Lycidas when Wily Smith burst into my room and shut the door behind him, leaning against it with closed eyes, just like a film. He was wearing a motor-cycle helmet 13a

  Morris to Disirie

  Disirie to Morris

  What does he look like, Decree, for Christ's sake? What Dear Morris,

  manner of man is he ? Swallow, I mean. Do his canines If you really want to know, Philip Swallow is about six hang out over his lower lip? Is his handshake cold and feet tall and weighs I should say about 140 pound - that is, clammy? Do his eyes have a murderous glint?

  he's tall and skinny and stooped. He holds his head for-He wrote it, D6siree, he wrote that review, out of pure ward as if he's hit it too often on low doorways. His hair is impersonal spite, one sunny day five years ago he dipped his the texture of Brillo pads before they've been used and is pen in gall and plunged it into the heart of my lovely article.

  deeply receding at the temples. He has dandruff, but who I can't prove it - yet. But the circumstantial evidence is hasn't? He has nice eyes. I couldn't say anything positively in overwhelming.

  favour of his teeth, but they don't protrude like fangs. His When I think that you dissuaded him from buying the handshake is normal in temperature, if a little on the limp Corvair... the perfect revenge! D6sir6e, how could you ?

  side. He smokes one of those patent air-cooled pipes which I found a copy of that Festschrift, you see, in his house. In leaks tobacco juice all over his fingers.

  the John, to be exact. A very strange John it is, too, a large I had an opportunity to observe all this because I was room obviously designed originally for some other purpose, seated next to him at dinner last Saturday. The Gootblatts perhaps ballroom dancing, in which the WG has been invited me. There seems to be a general conspiracy here to placed on a plinth in one corner. A tiled floor and a small oil pretend that I am lonely in your absence and must be in-lamp burning to prevent the water pipes from freezing give vited out. It turned out to be a fairly sensational evening, the whole place a slightly spooky ecclesiastical atmosphere.

  with our friend Swallow right in the centre of the action.

  There are books there too, not specially selected reading for Doing his British best to redeem what was looking to be a the can, but overspill from the rest of the house, which is draggy dinner, he taught us a game he claims to have practically lined with crappy old books stinking of wet-rot invented, called ' Humiliation'. I assured him I was married and bookworm droppings. The Milestone book has been to the World Champion, but no, he said, this was a game you festering in my subconscious ever since I read that review in won by humiuatingj'oarje//'. The essence of the matter is that the TLS, so I identified its binding and gilt lettering right each person names a book which he hasn't read but assumes away. A curious coincidence, I thought to myself, picking the others have read, and scores a point for every person who the volume off the shelf - for after all it wasn't exactly a has read it. Get it? Well, Howard Ringbaum didn't. You world best-seller - and leafed through it as I sat on the can.

  know Howard, he has a pathological urge to succeed and a Imagine my feelings when I turned to my article and found pathological fear of being thought uncultured, and this t h a t the passages which had been marked exactly corresponded to those game set his two obsessions at war with each other, because cited by the TLS reviewer. Imagine the effect on my bowels.

  he could succeed in the game only by exposing a gap in his Why don't you write to me any more, De'sire'e? I am culture. At first his psyche just couldn't absorb the paradox lonely here these long English nights. Just to give you an idea and he named some eighteenth-century book so obscure I how lonel
y I am, this evening I'm going to the English can't even remember the name of it. Of course, he came last Department's Staff Seminar to listen to a paper on linguis-in the final score, and sulked. It was a stupid game, he said, tics and literary criticism.

  Love,

  and refused to play the next round. ' I pass, I pass,' he said Morris

  sneeringly, like Mrs Elton on Box Hill (I may not read your 134

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  books, Zapp, but I remember my Jane Austen pretty good).

  vacancy in the Department, they've reconsidered the case of But I could see he was following the play attentively, Kroop and offered him tenure after all. I don't suppose he's knitting his brows and twisting his napkin in his fingers as read Hamlet either, but nobody was asking. The students are the point of the game began to dawn on him. It's quite a wild with joy. Ringbaum is convinced Swallow conspired to groovy game, actually, a kind of intellectual strip poker. For discredit him in front of Hogan. Mr-Swallow himself is instance, it came out that Luke Hogan has never read blissfully ignorant of his responsibility for the whole drama.

  Paradise Regained. I mean, I know it isn't his field, but to I'm sorry to have to report that the twins' sudden craze think you can get to be Chairman of the English Department for gardening turned out to be an attempt to cultivate at Euphoric State without ever having read Paradise Re-marijuana. I had to root up all the plants and burn them gained makes you think, right? I could see Howard taking before the cops got wise.

  this in, going a bit pale when he realized that Luke was I'm told Melanie hasn't enrolled this term, so I couldn't telling the truth. Well, on the third round, Sy was leading get her address from the University.

  the field with Hiawatha, Mr Swallow being the only other Desirle

  person who hadn't read it, when suddenly Howard slammed his fist on the table, jutted his jaw about six feet over the table and said:

  Hilary to Philip

  'Hamlet!'