(g) If one place is between two others, and is north of the first, it is south of the second.
(‘Nxy’ is ‘x is north of y’; ‘sxy’ is ‘x is south of y’; ‘bxyz’ is ‘x is between y and z’; ‘c’ is Cupar’; ‘d’ is ‘Dundee’; ‘e’ is ‘Edinburgh’; universe of discourse: places). Show by formal derivation that (a), (d), (f) and (g) together imply (b). You may need to supply a further premise expressing one of the properties of ‘is north of’ referred to above.)
Bob shook his head in a fish farm sort of way. ‘Wow, who thinks this stuff up? What are they on?’ We had exited the lift by now, of course, as it only takes a sentence to travel the two floors to the ground, and then a longish paragraph to reach the Students’ Union where, to a seemingly endless diet of ‘American Pie’ on the jukebox, I plied Bob with (Scotch) pie and beans in an effort to cheer him up. Terri was asleep at a table. She was wearing a long cloak and a pair of high-heeled black boots with a little astrakhan ankle-trim and had a moth-eaten black lace parasol clutched in her nerveless hand. She looked like someone Jack the Ripper would be attracted to. I told Bob to tell her to meet at two o’clock in the Tower and left him playing table football while I went to a women’s liberation meeting.
‘Liberated from what,’ Bob said, rolling his eyes, ‘that’s what I don’t understand.’
‘Before we can produce a blueprint for praxis we have to understand the ideology behind the revolutionary consciousness—’ Heather broke off her one-sided conversation to tell me I was late. ‘You’re late.’
‘So?’ I said.
Heather had recently declared that separatism was the way forward for women and the logical conclusion of this, she explained, was that we must all become lesbians. Heather was having some trouble finding anyone willing to take her up on this theory, let alone the praxis, although Philippa had volunteered (‘Well, I’m willing to give it a go,’) as if we were talking about playing a new rule in lacrosse.
Heather glared at me and then continued zealously, ‘The subordination and oppression of women within capitalism is the real issue. We all know that male hegemony leads to the oppression and subjugation of women.’ Kara nodded in vigorous agreement, without taking her eyes off the piece of petit-point she was absorbed in stitching.
— Who’s Kara? Nora asks.
‘You were asleep.’
Proteus had been shucked from a Moses basket and was being dandled on Olivia’s knee. He smelt like sour milk and he was drooling like a dog all over Olivia’s velvet dress. Foolishly or ironically or riskily — almost any adverb would do for this situation, Olivia was sitting next to Sheila, Roger Lake’s stay-at-home wife. Sheila had no idea that Roger was having an affair with Olivia, a fact that always added a certain frisson of tension to these meetings for everyone else. Heather, before becoming a lesbian separatist, had also had a fleeting affair with Roger Lake — an affair that Sheila Lake did know about — and which added even more of a frisson to the proceedings.
Olivia smelt of Miss Dior while Sheila was wearing babyscent, which is a perfume made from Milton fluid, curds and vomit. The newest little Lake was outside in the corridor in a handed-down Silver Cross pram built like a tank.
‘Engels says that the emancipation of women remains impossible as long as women are excluded from socially productive work . . .’ This was just like being in one of Archie’s tutorials, except I could tell Heather to shut up when she got too overbearing.
‘So you don’t think being a housewife is socially productive work?’ Sheila snapped at Heather. Proteus turned his head and gave her a surprised look.
‘Well, Sheila,’ Heather said carefully, ‘in a society defined by the white, western, ruling-class male—’
‘Exactly,’ Kara said. Philippa barged into the room at that moment, lugging a mountain of student essays and a bag of hamster bedding and apologizing loudly for her lateness. ‘I was doing the Cartesian Circle with first-years,’ she said, making it sound like an exotic eastern European folk dance or a forgotten play by Brecht.
‘We were talking about the sexual imperialism of housework,’ Heather said.
‘You were,’ Sheila said tartly.
In my opinion, these meetings would have been much improved by the presence of a few men. Seeing Philippa reminded me of Ferdinand — I wondered if he was awake by now and if I could find the time to visit the McCue house today and come upon him as if by chance.
I was distracted suddenly from these pleasant thoughts by noticing that, like the eyes in certain portraits, Heather’s nipples seemed to have the uncanny ability to follow you round the room. This is the kind of observation that once made, cannot be unmade. Unfortunately.
‘Some of us have to stay home and rear the children,’ Sheila spat at Heather. ‘If it was left up to you, the human race would die out.’
‘It won’t be long before men are relegated to a biological footnote anyway,’ Philippa said breezily and then, apropos of nothing, ‘We’re having a party tonight, by the way, everyone’s welcome.’ In my experience, a party is simply an invitation to disaster but everyone in the room nodded and murmured enthusiastically. Everyone except Sheila who reared up like a cobra in front of Heather and said, ‘You think that screwing anyone that takes your fancy is a gender equality issue.’
‘Well, Sheila,’ Heather said querulously, ‘if you want to be the private property of some man, that’s up to you.’
‘Better to be private property than to be a public whore,’ Sheila hissed triumphantly. Heather suddenly grabbed a chair and prodded it at Sheila like a lion tamer (this is how accidents happen) and screamed, ‘At least I’ve worked out how to use birth control.’
I decided discretion was the better part of valour and made my apologies: ‘I’ve got an essay to do.’ Olivia followed me out, handing Proteus back to Kara who gestured vaguely at the Moses basket at her feet. Olivia replaced him in the basket and pushed it under Kara’s chair as far out of harm’s way as it would go.
The last thing I heard as she closed the door was a high-pitched wail as if someone had jabbed a baby with a pin.
‘I don’t know why people bring children into the world,’ Olivia said. ‘They don’t seem to love them and the world’s so awful anyway.’
‘Have you got an essay on George Eliot, Olivia?’ I asked (rather callously, I can see now).
‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘I didn’t choose that one. I’ve got a Charlotte Brontë if that’s any good to you?’ She was going to say something else but then she started to look uncomfortable and fled towards the toilets. ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’
I followed her and held her lovely blond hair out of the way for her.
‘Thank you,’ she said politely.
‘Do you want that coffee now?’ I asked, but she shook her head and said she was going home. Olivia lived in a civilized flat on the Perth Road that she shared with three other girls. All four of them knew how to cook and use a sewing-machine and they held ‘dinner parties’ and shared Immac and Stergene and did each other’s hair and cleaned up each other’s vomit when necessary. Olivia had a pleasant room painted dark green, full of nice things like oil-lamps and healthy plants and old embroidered linen from Dens Road market. Olivia sat in her pleasant room and listened to Bach and Pachelbel and worked hard, waiting for Roger Lake to squeeze her into his timetable.
At the back of the Tower a student who sold the Socialist Worker on Saturdays thrust a yellow leaflet into my hand. In crude black letters it said, ‘END THE FASCISM NOW! — All concerned meet in New Dines 6.00p.m.’ A sudden gust of wind caught it and whisked it out of my hands.