The photograph next to Domagk's is inscribed _To Jim Elgar. Good luck! Alexander Fleming._ Flem is silver haired and unaccountably wistful, with rimless glasses and a spotted bow tie and a herpes lesion on his lower lip. It is a studio study from the time of his second marriage in 1953 to his bacteriological assistant from Greece, Dr Amalia Koutsouris-Voureka-who to my mind achieved even mightier distinction by being the first woman allowed by Sir Almroth Wright to work in his Department. Fleming's photograph is dated November 11, 1954, precisely a year and four months before he died from a coronary thrombosis in bed. He lies in the crypt of St Paul's, with Wellington and Nelson.
My third photograph is from the bacteriologist Leonard Colebrook _(For Professor John Elgar, Regards, Coli)._ A kind scholarly face, a long mouth with a deep upper lip and protruding lower one, beetling brows and beaky nose under heavily-rimmed glasses. He died on September 29, 1967-another coronary. The remaining one was given me by Jack Drummond, one of the editors of the journal which contained Fleming's paper. He signed it when he was knighted in 1944. He was murdered after the war by a French farmer. After such a gallery of fatalities, my wife has strictly forbidden me to sign anything for presentation to anyone.
Hargraves would certainly frame my own photograph and hang it on the wall if he thought it would reliably speed my demise. Hargraves is a coming man, and most impatient about it. I do not like Hargraves. Not that he is in the slightest unpleasant. On the contrary, he is always smiling, encouraging our juniors, joking with our students and shaking hands warmly with our visitors. He is an outstanding chemist and exceptional organizer. He has stylish hair, a fancy moustache, glistening teeth, square glasses, and his clothes always look new. At home, he has a pink plastic swimming pool and a talkative wife. He goes for holidays on baked, insanitary beaches in Spain and discusses television. I suspect that he eats breakfast cereals and drinks vodka and even applies after-shave lotion.
Hargraves had wedged his way between my filing cabinets and my desk, ostensibly to chat about my research. Nobody at Arundel knows exactly what research I am doing. I am remote in my own small laboratory, like the ageing Sir Almroth Wright, who would arrive at St Mary's after lunch and potter scientifically until released by dinner. Suddenly Hargraves threw in a confession. 'I was at the College Council meeting yesterday-they were sorry again you couldn't make it-when the pleasant suggestion cropped up that you might be allowed to round off your time here with a sabbatical year.'
He meant that he had urged them to push me out early. 'What should I do all day?'
'Travel?'
'Oh, God!'
'Well, we all know how you love your farm, Jim.'
Why must everyone use Christian names? Hardly through friendship in this age of intense mutual suspicion. To insist that we are all equal? Supposing I had called my mentor 'Almroth'?
'My wife runs the farm. If I were there all week I'd only get in the way.'
'You're being modest, Jim. She told me you were invaluable with the livestock.'
'No, I prefer to stay here to the bitter end. It's disheartening, slogging your way through a marathon and giving up at the last lap.'
'Personally, of course, I'm delighted that you're prepared to carry responsibility for the department a little longer.'
'I'm sure you are.'
Hargraves left. He will try again at the next Council meeting, unless I mischievously swallow my boredom and attend.
The summer of 1934 saw an improvement in my condition. I escaped from the basement and I found a job. For both I was indebted to Archie Fry.
I left home in the middle of July. Perhaps my parents were secretly glad to shed the puppy they had become over-fond of, which turned into a dog they had no idea what to do with. Rosie turned pale. Sir Edward had sailed to America, but Lady Tip summoned me up to the drawing-room.
'I thought you might have asked to see me of your own accord, Jim.'
Elizabeth sat on the sofa beside her, just released from boarding school, bewitching in soft summer dress of cream silk. She sat looking at me wide-eyed, as though I were some queer fish dredged from the depths for her biological inspection.
'I didn't imagine that you would be particularly distressed if I failed to say good-bye, your Ladyship.' I did not know in my own mind if I were being rude or apologetic.
'I am distressed. Not because you didn't _faire vos adieux,_ that's a matter of indifference. But you are leaving my house after _eight years_ without so much as coming to thank me for sheltering you, for feeding you and for doing absolutely everything for you during that time. You went to Germany and came back again without so much as a murmur of thanks, or even asking my leave. That's exactly the same with everyone of your class. Rank ingratitude, all take and no give.'
'My parents may be your Ladyship's servants, but I'm not,' I said more boldly.
'As far as I'm concerned, I can see no distinction.'
'I can't understand that attitude. But of course, I'm so much better educated than you are.'
'How dare you! Remember your position.'
Whether through embarrassment, or fright, or simply from seeing the fun of the situation, her daughter broke the tension by giggling.
'Shut up,' snapped Lady Tip at her. But without avail. _'Shut up!_ Oh, get out, you little swine,' she dismissed me.
Archie Fry's flat was the first floor of an enormous house at the corner of Belgrave Square, gloomy and rambling, full of heavy furniture and bad paintings in expensive frames, everywhere terribly dusty. David and I shared a huge room at the back, and looked after ourselves. Archie was out all day and often most of the night, running hostels for down-and-outs in the East End, or reforming the world with the Fabian Society, or nursing a north London constituency which he hoped to win as Labour candidate in the next election. (He failed.)
Shortly after my arrival, we all three contrived to dine together in the vast green and gold dining-room. Archie was eager for my impressions of Germany.
'Surely you can't condemn these labour service camps out of hand,' Archie objected. 'The young Germans may make themselves look ridiculous by shouldering arms with shovels, but there's plenty of men in this country who'd jump at the chance of doing the same for three square meals a day.'
'That's not the point. The Nazis turn even the digging of ditches into a military exercise for the glory of the Fatherland.'
'How can we blame them? The Treaty of Versailles was perfectly wicked. We couldn't expect any self-respecting nation to lie down under it. After fifteen years it seems high time to admit that, and admit Herr Hitler's right to demand parity of armaments with us and the French. In the meantime, digging ditches seems a preferable occupation for young men in uniform than digging graves.'
'But don't you understand? The Nazis don't see war as we do, something to be avoided at all costs. They see war as necessary and desirable, the great national purifier.'
'The Hegelian view,' commented Archie. 'The moral health of nations is corrupted by unbroken peace, as tern-pests preserve the sea from the foulness brought by prolonged calm." Of course, a lot of German philosophy is sheer lunacy. I suppose because they're not blessed with authors like Lewis Carroll and W S Gilbert, who can write lunacy properly.'