a couple of days after term had started, ‘I’ve certainly been and gone and upset Nerina, of all people. And over such a trivial thing.’
‘Now what have you done?’
‘I told her God didn’t exist and she took offence.’
‘But she must allow you your opinion.’
‘On the contrary. You must remember Nerina’s background. The ideological war is as real to her as any war with guns and tanks. If your idea is contrary to my idea your idea must be eliminated, especially if it starts getting a territorial foothold, and might just possibly catch on.’
‘Excuses, excuses, the girl’s a fool.’
‘Don’t say that, Ellen. Don’t even think it!’ He looked round anxiously, as if for bugging devices. ‘Now listen, Ellen, we’ve unhinged her from her original faith. We shouldn’t have done it. Mention Allah, mention the Prophet, she laughs. It’s dangerous. She worships the Devil, Ellen, and that’s the truth of it. To say aloud that God doesn’t exist is to thereby negate the Devil. What’s more, you see, Jed’s group is on the point of bringing Satan into corporeal existence. She blames me because it’s taking so long. I know she does.’
‘Have you said anything about it to Jed?’
‘I know what he’ll say. He’ll say it’s all part of continual assessment: the whole point of the course is mass hysteria. The control group will be perfectly sane.’
Married to a madman, thought Ellen. If I don’t look at it, it will go away.
‘Perhaps I’d better say something to Jed.’
‘Don’t, don’t. Nerina might find out.’
‘I should just let them get on with it,’ said Ellen lightly, ‘so long as they don’t start sacrificing goats. On the other hand perhaps they should. Then the Animal Rights Activists can campaign against them, and let you off the hook.’
‘You’re not taking this seriously, Ellen.’
‘No.’
He thought a little. He blinked. His mind clicked back into another, less agitated gear. ‘I mentioned to Jed that Nerina had a crush on him, and I’m afraid it got back to her.’
‘You and Jed sit in the senior common room discussing the emotions of students?’
‘Sometimes they are relevant, Ellen. The staff is in loco parentis. Some of our students are very young. We were discussing the probability of Nerina’s essays being all her own work: or whether someone’s fronting her. They really are remarkable. She’s sent them up to a London publisher who is actually going to bring them out—Multiculturalism and Pluralism in the New Europe. Do you think she’s sold her soul to the Devil?’
‘Is Jed’s relationship to Nerina perhaps very close?’
‘It is perfectly proper, Ellen. Of course there is sometimes an erotic element between teacher and pupil. How can there not be? The point is, Nerina apparently took offence.’
‘You mean you told Jed and Jed told Nerina and Nerina told you and blah, blah, blah. Children’s playground stuff.’
‘I suppose in a way a man remains a child until he has his own.’
He wanted a baby. Ellen didn’t.
‘Prune has nearly had lots of babies. It hasn’t grown Jed up, so far as I can see. She has high blood pressure. She’s in hospital. Did he bother to mention it?’
‘No. Perhaps you should visit her? You have lots of time.’
Bernard thought Ellen should take a proper job. Ellen didn’t.
‘What a good idea! Perhaps it’s the black magic group has put her blood pressure up? Perhaps they mean poor Prune to die in labour so Nerina can marry Jed?’
She shouldn’t have said it. He started looking into corners for the bugging device, though he said he was searching for a stray cigarette, left over from the days when he smoked.
‘Ellen, don’t joke. They’ve put a curse on me now, for betraying Nerina. I can feel it.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Ellen. ‘I wish I’d stayed on at college. It seems much more exciting these days than it used to be. Perhaps you should start smoking again? It’s been all trouble since you stopped.’
That night a bird hurled itself against the window pane and woke them both up. After that a bird—the same one or another—fell through the chimney into the grate and then fluttered and banged in terror around the room. Ellen caught it in a towel and put it out and went back to sleep. In the morning Bernard was pale and his hand trembled too much even to lift his coffee cup, let alone butter his toast.
‘You look as you did when you wanted to be a priest,’ said Ellen, irritated. ‘It was only a bird.’
‘Birds don’t fly about at night,’ said Bernard,