‘Before we do that, Professor, would you show me one more knife?’
‘Well, yes, of course.’ He looked vaguely at the seas of boxes. ‘What sort of thing do you want?’
‘Can I see the knife that Valentine Clark once gave you?’
After another of his tell-tale pauses, he said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘You did know Valentine, didn’t you?’ I asked.
He levered himself to his feet and headed back into his study, switching off the bedroom light as he went: to save electricity, I supposed.
I followed him, and we resumed our former positions in his wooden armchairs. He asked for my connection with Valentine, and I told him about my childhood, and about Valentine recently leaving me his books. ‘I read to him while he couldn’t see. I was with him not long before he died.’
Reassured by my account, Derry felt able to talk. ‘I knew Valentine quite well at one time. We met at one of those ridiculous fund-raising events, all for a good cause, where people stood around with tea or small glasses of bad wine, being civil and wishing they could go home. I hated those affairs. My dear wife had a soft heart and was always coaxing me to take her, and I couldn’t deny her… So long ago. So long ago.’
I waited through his wave of regret and loneliness, unable to comfort the nostalgia.
‘Thirty years ago, it must be,’ he said, ‘since we met Valentine. They were raising funds to stop the shipment of live horses to the continent to be killed for meat. Valentine was one of the speakers. He and I just liked each other… and we came from such different backgrounds. I began reading his column in the newspapers, though I wasn’t much interested in racing. But Valentine was so wise… and still an active blacksmith… a gust of fresh air, you see, when I was more used to the claustrophobia of university life. My dear wife liked him, and we met him and his wife several times, but it was Valentine and I who talked. He came from one sort of world and I from another, and it was perhaps because of that that we could discuss things with each other that we couldn’t have mentioned to our colleagues.’
I asked without pressure, ‘What sort of things?’
‘Oh… medical, sometimes. Growing old. I would never have told you this once, but since I passed eighty I’ve lost almost all my inhibitions, I don’t care so much about things. I told Valentine I was having impotency problems, and I was not yet sixty. Are you laughing?’
‘No, sir,’ I said truthfully.
‘It was easy to ask Valentine for advice. One trusted him.’
‘Yes.’
‘We were the same age. I asked him if he had the same problem but he told me his problem was the opposite, he was aroused by young women and had difficulty in controlling his urges.’
‘Valentine?’ I exclaimed, astonished.
‘People hide things,’ Derry said simply. ‘My dear wife didn’t really mind that I could no longer easily make love to her, but she used to joke to other people about how sexy I was. Such a dreadful word! She wanted people to admire me, she said.’ He shook his head in love and sorrow. ‘Valentine told me a doctor to go to. He himself knew of all sorts of ways to deal with impotence. He told me he’d learned a lot of them from stud farms! He said I must be more lighthearted and not think of impotence as an embarrassment or a tragedy. He told me it wasn’t the end of the world.’ He paused. ‘Because of Valentine, I learned to be content.’
‘He was great to so many people,’ I said.
The professor nodded, still reminiscing. ‘He told me something I’ve never been able to verify. He swore it was true. I’ve always wondered… If I ask you something, Thomas, will you answer me truthfully?’
‘Of course.’
‘You may be too young.’
‘Try me.’
‘In confidence.’
‘Yes.’
Nothing, I’d told Moncrieff, was ever off the record. But confessions were, surely?
The professor said, ‘Valentine told me that restricting the flow of oxygen to the brain could result in an erection.’
He waited for my comment, which took a while to materialise. I hesitantly said, ‘Er… I’ve heard of it.’
‘Tell me, then.’
‘I believe it’s a perversion that comes under the general heading of auto-erotic mania. In this case, self-inflicted partial asphyxia.’
He said impatiently, ‘Valentine told me that thirty years ago. What I’m asking you is, does it work?’