Fred said. ‘She paid a small deposit, and the balance was due when Ron fitted them for her in mid-January. She’s had a reminder.’
I asked how much was outstanding and Fred said it was four hundred pounds - ‘As I remarked at the time, she has very good taste.’
I went to my study to send an email to Alex and found a new one from her in my inbox, commiserating with me over Dad’s death and reiterating her wish to attend the funeral. I replied, thanking her for her condolences, and said that the funeral was to be a small private affair for the family only. I decided it would compromise the formal and distant tone of my message to mention the matter of the curtains.
23rd February. Alex called me this morning, after Fred had gone into the city centre. She said she understood about the funeral, but she was very anxious to meet me to discuss something. I said I was far too busy, and would be for some time, sorting out my father’s probate, and disposing of his possessions and the house. I asked her what it was about, and she said she would rather explain in person, at her flat. When I said that wasn’t possible, she suggested Pam’s Pantry, and when I rejected that proposal too she reluctantly told me over the phone why she had been trying to reach me ever since my return from Poland.
‘I can’t go on being supervised by Colin Butterworth,’ she said. ‘It’s impossible, for obvious reasons. It’s the only thing we agree on. He asked me if there was anyone else in the Department I would like to transfer to, and I said no, there isn’t, but I would love to be supervised by you. He thinks it’s a brilliant idea, and he’s sure there won’t be any problem getting the University to approve it. You’d get some kind of payment, not a lot I guess, but something. And I don’t need to tell you I’d be absolutely thrilled.’
‘No, Alex,’ I said when she had finished her pitch.
‘Why?’ she wailed. ‘When I asked you before, you said it would be an insult to Colin, but that doesn’t apply any more.’
‘I just don’t want to,’ I said.
‘But why?’ she persisted.
‘If you really want to know, it’s because I don’t understand you, I don’t trust you, and I seriously doubt whether you are capable of writing a PhD thesis. I’m afraid I would end up writing it for you.’
She was silent for a moment.
‘I guess you’re upset about your daddy’s death,’ she said. ‘I can understand that. I’ll let you think about it for a while.’
‘I won’t change my mind,’ I said, and to change the subject I added: ‘By the way, Fred tells me you have an outstanding account with her, for some curtains. It would avoid embarrassment if you could settle it.’
There followed another of Alex’s enigmatic telephonic pauses. ‘Yeah, I’m sorry about that. Fact is, I’m short of cash at the moment. You wouldn’t lend me the money, would you?’
‘You mean lend you the money to pay my wife?’
‘Yeah. It’s only four hundred and fifty pounds.’
‘Fred said it was four hundred.’
‘Oh yeah, right. I paid a deposit of fifty, I remember now.’
It was my turn to pause for rapid thought. I was pretty sure her mistake had been deliberate, and pretty sure too that this loan would never be repaid. Her cool cheek amazed me, but for a moment I was tempted to pay her off, so to speak, with this favour. Then I thought of what mischief she might make with a cheque for £400 signed by me, unknown to Fred, and handing her a brown envelope full of used banknotes under the table at Pam’s Pantry might be equally compromising. ‘No, Alex,’ I said, for the third time, and rang off.
Later today I got an email from Butterworth saying that, for reasons I was aware of, it had become impossible for him to continue supervising Alex, and that he had tried without success to find a colleague willing to take her on. She herself had suggested I might be approached, indeed urged it with great enthusiasm, since she had already received valuable informal advice from me. He could think of no one better qualified than myself to supervise her, and was sure that there would be no problem about appointing me as an external supervisor with an appropriate stipend. He himself, needless to say, would be extraordinarily