said Jed, ‘she was a lovely, lively Prunella. Her name was a joke; her life was a joke: that was why I married her. Marriage is a fearful institution. What it does to people! Take off your clothes, Ellen. Poor Prune won’t come in. She’s hurt her ankle. She can’t get up the stairs. She won’t mind. She just wants me to be happy. She thinks if I’m happy I won’t leave her. She thinks it’s unhappiness breaks up homes.’
‘But it isn’t,’ said Eleanor, ‘it’s sheer surplus of energy.’
She took off her jacket, belt, her scarf, her jeans, her blouse. She wore a red bra, red pants and red suspenders to keep up her black stockings.
‘That is nice,’ said Jed. ‘Prune wears washed cotton, whitish grey. It’s so sensible. It stretches. And you wear red and black and end up with a poor withered old stick of a Vice Chancellor. It doesn’t bear thinking about.’
‘He is not so,’ said Eleanor, refastening her bra as fast as Jed undid it. ‘He’s a fine man and I’m proud of him. In fact I love him.’
‘Nerina’s curse strikes again,’ said Jed. ‘How’s he keeping?’
‘A little heart palpitation,’ said Eleanor.
‘I should watch that,’ said Jed. ‘How’s Bernard? I heard he was back in the faith. I heard he had a bad back. I heard all kinds of things and none of them good.’
‘Don’t you see him at all?’
‘He’s a loser,’ said Jed. ‘I don’t.’ Eleanor put her jeans on.
‘What a pity,’ said Jed. ‘I seem to have said the wrong thing. Suspenders under jeans. Prune would never do a thing like that.’
‘You’ve kept in remarkably good health.’ said Eleanor, putting on her blouse. ‘Considering.’
‘I have my punishment,’ said Jed. ‘I have poor Prune. I’m sorry you’re leaving. Can’t I persuade you to stay?’
‘Not with Prune downstairs making lunch,’ said Eleanor. ‘I really shouldn’t.’
‘That’s what I mean,’ said Jed. ‘As you see, I’m no villain. Just another victim. Personally, I blame Philip Horrocks, Head of Faculty. He panicked and disbanded my mass hysteria group overnight. They’d used the college library to try to castrate a goat. I would have stopped it had I known. There was blood splashed over the walls—it got away, mid-slice. Tender-hearted vegetarians, most of our students. No idea how to deal with animals. Have they, Rufus?’ He stirred the dog with his sandalled toe. Rufus sighed. ‘You won’t change your mind, Ellen? No? Pity. Academia lost a very promising student in Nerina: that’s my main quarrel with Horrocks. One more little balls-up: one more contribution to the drop-out rate. Another young person turns their back on education. Yes, I blame Horrocks. Why don’t you go and see Nerina? She and I are still in touch, of course.’
‘She scares me.’
‘Nothing scares you, Ellen.’
‘I don’t like Julian’s heart jumping about. Where will it end?’
‘Go and ask Nerina. She’s quite safe, at the moment. She’s de-energized. Married, covered in black, with a nose mask and pregnant. Her mother lives with them.’
‘Is it your baby?’
He looked helpless, but flattered.
‘How would I know?’ He shook his head sagely, sat back in his armchair and attended to his pipe. He was not the man he was, but hadn’t noticed.
‘Once they’d castrated the goat, what would they have done?’ asked Eleanor.
‘God knows what their fantasy was. Boiled its balls for dinner and served them up to Satan. They’d left me way behind.’
‘Lunchtime, darling,’ called poor Prune from down below.
Nerina had set up house with Sharif above a betting shop and next to a fish-and-chip takeaway, as if to underline her determination to be ordinary. Eleanor felt Nerina had somewhat overdone it and was not reassured. The door was opened by a young man in his mid twenties, dark-eyed, olive-skinned, hook-nosed, broad of shoulder; in general handsome in mien and appearance. He was both smooth and fierce. Lucky Nerina, thought Eleanor, and lowered her eyes from the brilliance of his countenance, as she could see she was expected to do.
‘Well?’ He wore a white shirt, open-necked, and dark trousers. He had a heavy gold bracelet on his wrist and rings on his fingers. He was tall. His feet were long: his shoes were clean, but not pointed, as Julian’s were. She felt dissatisfied with Julian and with herself for not having been dissatisfied with him in the past.
‘I came to call on Nerina’s mother,’ said Eleanor. And she explained how she and Mrs Khalid had worked together at the poly: she wished to renew an old acquaintance.