It was another fine spring day, though there had been rain and, in contrast to the day of Sam’s visit, there was a slight chill in the breeze. That is, I think the chill was in the breeze, not in me. But perhaps what I am struggling to avoid saying is that on that bright May morning, which began with my routinely making my way (always carry on as normal), like a good scholar, from college to library, I felt the first shadowy premonition of what I am now.
For the scholar on foot, the way to the Library (I mean the University Library, not our quaint but incommodious college library) lies along those very paths which Sam and I had trod, on such different business. Over humped bridges, by flowery verges and through budding groves (the veritable groves of academe). There is only one road to cross; then a further, less sylvan path leads to the looming bulk of the Library.
It is hard not to see in this layout an allegorical significance: the Palace — the Citadel — of Knowledge approached through the meads and thickets of Dalliance, along the by-ways of Beguilement. And anyone can be beguiled, even the worthiest pilgrim of Learning. For there, on this spry spring morning, was Potter. Or rather, there was Potter’s easily spotted and meant-to-be-conspicuous car — a red Audi — drawn up at the edge of the road (the Highway of Worldly Traffic) which the good pilgrim must cross. And there, leaning in at the passenger window, was one of the pilgrims. At least she was dressed in the sombre hue of a votary — black skirt, black sweater, black tights, short, pixyish black boots. But such a funereal outfit on a girl of little more than twenty has a way of suggesting not solemnity, not mournfulness at all.
I recognised her as Gabriella, from that evening at Potter’s.
I could see that Potter was leaning across from the driver’s seat and that his hand was extended through the open passenger’s window and was grasping hers. Or rather — which was a crucial difference — he was not grasping her hand, he was grasping her wrist and pulling at it. And it was clear from the tension of her body that, if she was not exactly pulling away, she was resisting his tug. There are only certain limited circumstances in which this sort of contact might occur between a man and a woman (just as there are only certain circumstances in which a woman might stroke, not just touch but quite deliberately, coaxingly stroke, a man’s unsuspecting forearm).
I thought of slinking off — into the Thickets not of Dalliance but of Discretion. But as is often the case when you stumble upon an awkward situation, evasion is more obvious than holding a steady course. I walked on.
Potter saw me first. I’m sure he didn’t wish to see me. I’m sure these were the last circumstances in which he would have wished me to appear on the scene — I admit to savouring my advantage. But then he didn’t know how much I had seen — least of all that I had observed Gabriella in his clutches before, the clutch being then not to the wrist but to the buttock. He let go his grip. She turned: a furl of dark hair; a face, in the gleaming brightness reflected from the wet road, of startled Latin loveliness. A smile — I couldn’t tell exactly — of pleasurable recognition or of flustered gratitude at my timely intervention. She took the opportunity, at any rate, to depart without more ado, moving round to the back of Potter’s car and waiting in the road for a gap in the stream of traffic. I thought: she is going my way, to the Library; I should continue in that direction too. Then Potter, still leaning across towards the passenger window, exclaimed, “Ah, Bill — just the man,” as if he had been expecting me all along. Then he added, opening the passenger door, “Get in.”
“I’m going to the Library,” I said. My eyes may have flickered for a moment to where Gabriella was still standing, waiting for the chance to cross.
“I know. Get in,” he said, in the peremptory tone that gangsters in films use, often reinforcing their words with a gun. Come to think of it, with his eyes hidden by a pair of thick-framed dark glasses, Potter looked, intentionally or otherwise, not a little like a gangster. I had the feeling of having happened on him at his most absurd and desperate — caught in some outlandish charade. Perhaps he realised this. I was glad his eyes were hidden. Perhaps he merely wanted to prevent me from joining Gabriella on the walk to the Library. Perhaps he was trying to save the situation by an apparent seizing of the initiative.
Like a fool, I got in.
Gabriella had crossed the road and was about to disappear from view. The black sweater almost eclipsed the black skirt. He stuck his head out of the driver’s window and shouted “Ciao bella!” in her direction. She didn’t turn. Perhaps she didn’t hear. As we drove off, he said, “I think you’ve met Gabriella. Research student. From Verona. Sweet kid. Sweet kid.”
He looked at the briefcase lying on my knees.
“Where are we going?” I asked meekly.
“Oh — just for a ride. A ride, a spin, a chat. Lovely morning like this. Don’t worry, the Library won’t go away. You’re working on the Pearce manuscripts?”
“Yes, as it happens—”
“And how’s it coming along?”
I shrugged.
“You can’t do it, Bill. You can’t fucking do it!”
“I can’t?”
“You don’t have the background.”
“I’ll find out. That’s why I was—”
“Why should you spend a year researching what I could tell you right now?”
There was an answer to this, not an easy or a scholarly answer. But this was no time to give it.
“They’re my notebooks,” I said.
“It’s my field.”
“It’s my business.”
We stopped at traffic lights. He groped for a cigarette and roughly offered me one. Inside the car there was still a faint trace of scent. The seat was warm. How casually we human beings exchange places. Then I noticed on the shelf in front of me, beneath the dashboard, hidden from Potter by assorted clutter, a small, cylindrical bottle of perfume. So (the evidence of a hasty exit): while they had “had words,” she had coolly taken out her perfume and dabbed herself, perhaps serenely eyed her compact mirror as well. Then, the words getting more heated, she had got out and slammed the door, having absent-mindedly flung the perfume bottle beneath the dashboard. Then she had remembered and reached in through the window—“My perfume”—and he had grabbed her wrist.
These little scenes …
He turned to light my cigarette. The glare of the sun, as it had set off Gabriella’s limpid complexion, showed up his tired features. Minor celebrity-dom has not become Potter. As his TV face has acquired definition, so his private face has become blurred. Perhaps it is exposure to the studio cameras which has given him, in the light of day, the worn-but-defiant looks of a faded matinée idol. The hair, which affects a tousled nonchalance, is betrayed by the crinkled brow. The eyes, when not masked by the raffish sun-glasses, have their own shadowy nimbus. Every so often they have this vexed expression, as if a serious man were trying to get out from the guise of a clown.
“What were you going to look up?”
“Lyell.”
“The Principles?”
“Yes.”
“Which edition?”
“What do you mean, which edition?” I said ingenuously. I knew perfectly well that Lyell published more than ten editions of the Principles of Geology, three with significant revisions, and that the edition I should use — the edition which Matthew would have lent to Rector Hunt and which the Rector failed to finish — was the 1853 (revised) edition.
“You see, this is just the sort of thing I mean. Lyell published a dozen editions. He revised the thing several times. His thinking changed. Are we talking about the 1850, the 1853 …?”