‘“There seems no pressing need to add to the list of casualties, unless of course John’s academic progress begins to suffer. If and when that happens, we will certainly seek medical help.”
‘Does this reply seem satisfactory to you, John?’
‘Perfectly satisfactory, Dr Beamish. Thank you.’
‘Not at all, John. I shall see you in the new year, after my sabbatical term. But please go easy on my replacement. Not everyone has my inner strength.’
All in all it was a fine show of donnish humour, in a style which I imagine has changed little over the decades, even the centuries. I had to be grateful to Beamish for fobbing off Mum and Dad with his elegant mockery, even if it did sting me a little in the process. To judge from his sardonic references to drink and so on he regarded me as having good character more or less by default. Mechanically unable to sin rather than either virtuous or vicious on the level of morals.
With the Washbournes’ permission I phoned Granny. I wasn’t sure which way she would jump, which was of course just the way she liked it. Her tone was predictably crisp from the word go. ‘Halnaker 226.’
‘Hello, Granny, this is John.’
‘Good morning, John.’
‘Have you heard from Mum lately?’
‘Indeed I have not. We are not in morbidly regular communication. Laura seeks to shield me from good and bad news alike. Luckily Peter retains some dim memory of his grandmother.’
‘Well, Granny, the thing is, we had a row and I’ve moved out.’
‘So I hear. People are always saying that blood is thicker than water but I can’t say I’ve noticed.’ Wonderful Granny, so unsuspectingly Hindu in her instincts! So right in thinking that the fluids of kinship have no metaphysical claim to viscosity. ‘Are you well placed where you are staying now?’
‘Very well placed, Granny.’
‘I am pleased to hear it. I take it your allowance has been discontinued?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘What sums were involved?’
‘Dad gave me £10 a month.’
‘I will maintain that level of stipend. Were there other expenses met by your parents?’
‘Only books.’
‘I see. I will carry that burden also, though I shall expect scrupulous accounts. Goodbye, John.’
‘Of course, Granny. Thank —’
But she had already put down the receiver at the Tangmere end. It’s true she was of a generation that didn’t necessarily perform expansively on the phone, but I think her brusqueness was more idiosyncratic. Granny just got a kick out of hanging up, without footling politesse. And for all the terseness of the conversation, that was my finances fixed, for the time being, without opposition or even haggling. It’s true that Granny liked any such arrangement to be provisional, renewed or withdrawn as she pleased.
In her financial conversations she could be oddly playful, even skittish. She might say, ‘I had a little investment, John, and nothing would it bear — not even a silver nutmeg or a golden pear, I’m afraid, though that would have been charming. But now the King of Spain’s daughter has paid me a rather nice dividend after all, and I thought I would send you some of it — not all the fruit from my little nut tree, but enough I hope to give you a pleasant taste.’ Or else: ‘I’m afraid my portfolio has caught rather a bad cold, John — it may even be ’flu — so we must both tighten our belts for the time being and hope for improvement. Portfolios are particularly susceptible to coughs and sneezes at this time of year, as perhaps you know. Cases of pneumonia have been reported in the Square Mile. We must watch and wait.’
I returned to Cambridge for the academic year 1972–3 as an honorary orphan (at least in my own mind), and deprived of the tutor who had protected me in previous years.
It was my chance to get a telephone installed. I seized it. I got to work right away. I wasn’t confident of putting one over on his replacement — I could all too easily imagine Graëme leaving a note saying THE ENDLESSLY PESTERING JOHN CROMER IS NOT TO HAVE A TELEPHONE HOWEVER ELOQUENTLY HE PLEADS HIS SPECIOUS CASE — but it was worth a go. And then it went like a dream. I had my paperwork with me: the original note from Roy Wisbey proposing it, not to mention my photocopy of the relevant section of the Disabled Persons Act 1971. The tender-hearted substitute asked for no documentation (locums are usually pushovers). My case spoke for itself. I should have asked for a fridge and a shower in my room while the going was good.
I remember nothing about Beamish’s temporary replacement except that he was a historian. As he opened my file and then Mum’s a look of amazement spread across his face. What a teeming archive of pathology he had in his hand! Such bad luck that it wasn’t from the formative years of a Beethoven or a Churchill.
‘How is your relationship with your parents?’ he asked.
‘Non-existent.’
‘Well, you’re already getting the maximum grant, so that won’t change. Do you have resources of your own?’
‘My Granny helps out.’ These few words painted a wonderfully pathetic picture. Granny would have given an elegant snort of glee at it.
‘I see that the Bell Abbot & Barnes Fund helped out in another … emergency. Do you want me to try them again?’
‘I suppose so.’ Said with the right amount of swallowed pride. In fact it was resentment I was swallowing, at the way the college had used an outside agency to reward its own greed, in the matter of the ceiling rail. And indeed Bell Abbot & Barnes came up trumps, matching Granny’s £10 monthly. I was now better off than I was before the bust-up, though I had to budget very carefully if I was to get through the vacations (and I had no idea where I would be spending them). God bless Bell, God bless Abbot and God bless Barnes. Bless their cotton-rich socks. Bless every fibre.
The Zeitgeist had me fooled
I was now an undergraduate of means. I was more or less flush. So when an English student called Robin Baines-Johnson I met at a Tragedy lecture asked to borrow £5, I gave it to him. He was already known to me at second-hand, since his uncle was the Governor of the Bank of England. He was a mini-celebrity of the student body. I hardly hesitated. If anyone in Cambridge — anyone in the whole world — was good for a loan, then surely it was the nephew of the Governor of the Bank of England! I entirely misunderstood the mood of the times. The Zeitgeist had me fooled good and proper. This was a period when all institutions were considered evil by student culture, above all those which were explicitly capitalist, and personal responsibility was felt to be a bourgeois perversion. I should have understood. The nephew of the Governor of the Bank of England was the last person in the country who would risk repaying a debt. Existentially it would be a disaster. It would strip him of his last shred of authenticity. At all events I never got my fiver back.
I didn’t really relax until my phone connection was installed. It didn’t seem impossible that Graëme would reappear from wherever he had gone, with a tan and a straw hat, a suitcase in each hand, specifically to hiss at the engineers, ‘Kindly disconnect that phone!’ In the event he stayed away, and at last I had a proper link with the world.