Irene was silent.
Dr Fairbairn, realising that Irene seemed unwilling to pursue the matter, gave a shrug. “No matter. These losses are an inevitable part of life. We lose so much, and all we can hope is that our separation anxiety is kept within reasonable bounds. I have lost so much. You, no doubt, have done so too.”
He looked out of the window. He was a lonely man, and he only wanted to help others. He wanted to help them to recover a bit of what they had lost, and it gave him great pleasure when he did that; it was like making something whole again, mending a broken object. Each of us, you see, has a secret Eden, which we feel has been lost. If we can find it again, we will be happy, but Edens are not easily regained, no matter how hard we look, no matter how desperately we want to find them.
87. A Fantasy Sail on That Slow Boat to China The break-up with Matthew was a great relief to Pat. She had been worried by Matthew’s completely unexpected proposal at A Fantasy Sail on That Slow Boat to China 295
the Duke of Johannesburg’s party; she was too young for that, she knew, and yet she was unwilling to hurt Matthew, who was, she also knew, in his turn unwilling to hurt her. She would never settle down with him; she would never settle down with anybody, or at least not just yet. She stopped herself. That was simply untrue. If somebody came who swept her off her feet, who intoxicated her with his appeal, well, it would be very pleasant to settle down with such a person. If one is really in love, really, then the idea of spending all one’s time in the company of the person one loves, tucked away somewhere, was surely irresistible. That was the whole point, was it not, about slow boats to China – they provided a lot of time to spend with another. And would she have wanted to get on a slow boat to China with Matthew? The answer was no. Or with Wolf? The thought was in one sense appalling – Wolf was bad – but, but . . .
For a moment, she thought of the cabin on this slow boat, in which she and Wolf were sequestered, and she saw herself and Wolf in this cabin, and there was only a half-light and the engine of the boat was throbbing away in the distance somewhere and it was warm and . . . She stopped herself again. This was a full-blown fantasy, and she wondered if it was a good thing to be walking down one side of George Square, fantasising about a boy such as Wolf, while around her others, whose minds were no doubt on higher things, made their way to and from lectures.
Or were they fantasising too?
She had reached the bottom of the west side of George Square, the point where the road dipped down sharply to a row of old stables on one side and Basil Spence’s University Library on the other. She had not been paying much attention to her surroundings, and so she was surprised when she found herself drawing abreast of Dr Geoffrey Fantouse, Reader in the History of Art at the University of Edinburgh, expert in the Quattrocento, and the man whose seminars on aesthetics she attended every Wednesday morning – together with fifteen other students, including Wolf, who sat, smouldering, on the 296 A Fantasy Sail on That Slow Boat to China other side of the room and who studiously averted his gaze from hers; as well he might, given his history of deception and attempted seduction.
“Miss Macgregor?”
Pat slowed down. “Dr Fantouse. Sorry, I was thinking. I wasn’t looking.” And she had been thinking, of course, though he would never guess about what.
Dr Fantouse smiled. “As an aesthetician,” he said, “I would be inclined to suggest that one should first look, then think.”
Pat thought for a moment. She did not immediately realise that this was a joke, but then she understood that it was, and she laughed politely. Dr Fantouse looked proud, in a modest sort of way.
It was clear that they were both walking in the same direction – across the Meadows, that broad, tree-lined expanse of park that separated the university area from the semi-Gothic nineteenth-century tenements of Marchmont – and so Pat fell into step with the aesthetician.
“You’re enjoying the course?” he asked, glancing at her in his mildly apologetic way.
Pat suspected that nobody ever told Dr Fantouse that his course was enjoyable, and yet she knew how much effort he put into his work. It must be hard, she thought, being Dr Fantouse and being appreciated by nobody.
“I’m really enjoying it,” she said. “In fact, it’s the best course I’ve ever done. It really is.”
Dr Fantouse beamed with pleasure. “That’s very good to hear,”
he said. “I enjoy it too, you know. There are some very interesting people in the class. Very interesting.”
Pat wondered whom he meant. There was a rather outspoken, indeed, opinionated girl from London who was always coming up with views on everything; perhaps he meant her.
“Your views, for example,” went on Dr Fantouse. “If I may say so, you always take a very balanced view. I find that admirable.” He paused. “And that young man, Wolf. I think that he has a good mind.”
A Fantasy Sail on That Slow Boat to China 297
Pat found herself blushing. Wolf did not have a good mind; he had a dirty mind, she thought, full of lascivious thoughts . . .
like most boys.
Dr Fantouse now changed the subject. “Do you live over there?” he said, pointing towards Marchmont.
“I used to,” she said. “Now I live at home. In the Grange.”
It sounded terribly dull, she thought, but then Dr Fantouse himself was very dull.
“How nice,” he said. “Living at home must have its appeal.”
They walked on. Dr Fantouse was carrying a small leather briefcase, and he swung this beside him as he walked, like a metronome.
“My wife always makes tea for me at this hour,” said Dr Fantouse. “Would you care to join us? There is usually cake.”
Pat hesitated. Had the invitation been extended without any mention of a wife, then she would have said no, but this was very innocent.
“That would be very nice,” she said.
Dr Fantouse’s house was on Fingal Place, a stone-built terrace which looked out directly onto the footpath that ran along the Meadows. Pat had walked past these houses many times before and had thought how comfortable they looked. They were beautiful, comfortable in their proportions, without that towering Victorianism that set in just a few blocks to the south. That an authority on the Quattrocento should live in one seemed to her to be just right.
The flat was on the first floor, up a stone staircase on the landings of which were dried-flower arrangements. The door, painted red, bore the legend fantouse, which for some reason amused Pat; that name belonged to the Quattrocento, to aesthetics, to the world of academe; it did not belong to the ordinary world of letterboxes and front doors.
They went inside, entering a hall decorated with framed prints of what looked like Italian cities of the Renaissance. A door opened.
“My wife,” said Dr Fantouse. “Fiona.”
Pat looked at the woman who had entered the hall. She was 298 Some Tea and Decency with the Fantouses strikingly beautiful, like a model from a pre-Raphaelite painting.
She stepped forward and took Pat’s hand, glancing inquiringly at her husband as she did so.
“Miss Macgregor,” he explained. “One of my students.”
“Pat,” said Pat.
Fiona Fantouse drew Pat away into the room behind her. Pat noticed that she was wearing delicately applied eye shadow in light purple, the shade of French lavender.
88. Some Tea and Decency with the Fantouses The sitting room into which Fiona took Pat was an intimate one, but big enough to accommodate a baby grand piano, along with two large mahogany bookcases. The wall behind the piano was painted red and was hung with small paintings – tiny landscapes, miniatures, two silhouetted heads facing one another. A low coffee table dominated the centre of the room, and on this were books and magazines, casually stacked, but arranged in such a way that they did not tower or threaten to topple. A large vaseline glass bowl sat in the middle of the table, and this was filled with those painted wooden balls which Victorians and Edwardians liked to collect. The balls were speckled, like the eggs of some exotic fowl, and seemed to be, like other things in the room, seductively tactile.