affairs and beach stones

14th October 1957

I ALWAYS KNOW there's going to be trouble when Houghton pops his gleaming pate around my door and trills, 'Luncheon, Tomlinson? The East Street?' The last time the two of us luncheoned he demanded I display more local watercolours. I agreed, but have managed to ignore the demand thus far.

The East Street Dining Room is very Houghton: large white plates, silver gravy boats, knocking-on-a-bit waiters with crumbling smiles and no hurry to get your food to you, everything boiled. But the wine is usually passable and they do a good pud. Gooseberry pie, treacle sponge, spotted dick, that sort of thing.

Following a long wait for any service at all, we finally finished our main courses (a rather chewy Sussex lamb chop with what I'm sure were potatoes out of a tin, dressed up with a few sprigs of parsley). Only after this did Houghton announce he'd decided to give my art-appreciation afternoons for schoolchildren the go-ahead. However, he could not, on any account, agree to the lunchtime concerts. 'We're in the business of the visual, not the aural,' he pointed out, polishing off his third glass of claret.

I'd had a couple of glasses, too, so I countered: 'Does that matter? It would be a way of encouraging the aurally inclined towards the visual.'

He nodded slowly and took a deep breath, as if this was just the sort of challenge he'd expected from the likes of me and he was, in fact, glad I'd responded in a way for which he was fully prepared. 'It seems to me, Tomlinson, that your job is to ensure the continuing excellence of our collection of European art. The excellence of the collection – not some musical gimmick – is what will bring the public into the

museum.' After a pause, he added, 'Do you mind if we skip pudding? I'm in rather a rush.'

Pudding, I wanted to say, was the only thing that would have made this experience worthwhile. But, of course, his question required no answer. He asked for the bill. Then, fiddling with his wallet, he made the following little speech: 'You reformers always push things too far. Take a tip from me and let it rest. It's all very well steaming in with new ideas, but you need to let a place settle around you before asking too much of it, d'you see?'

I said that I did. And I mentioned that I'd now been at the museum for almost four years, which, I thought, gave me the right to feel fairly settled.

'That's nothing,' he said, waving his hand. 'Been there twenty myself and the board still think I'm a newcomer. It takes time to allow your colleagues to get the real measure of you.'

Very politely, I requested he clarify this statement.

He looked at his watch. 'I didn't mean to bring this up now, but' – and I understood this was actually where our lunch had been heading all along – 'I was talking to Miss Butters the other day and she mentioned a project of yours about which I knew absolutely nothing. Which was rather odd. She said it involved portraits of ordinary townsfolk.'

Jackie. What on earth was Jackie doing in Houghton's office?

'Now, of course I don't listen to the prittle-prattle of office girls – at least one tries to block it out ...'

On cue, I gave a laugh.

'... but on this occasion my ears were, as they say, pricked.' He looked at me, his green eyes steady and clear. 'And so I'm asking you, Tomlinson, to please observe museum protocol. Each new project must be approved by me, and, if I think fit, by the board. Proper channels must be utilised. Otherwise, chaos reigns. Do you see?'

Didn't you ever ignore protocol, I wanted to ask, when you were an aesthete at Cambridge? I tried to imagine Houghton in a punt on the Cam, some dark-haired mystery of a boy resting his head on his knee. Did he ever follow through? Or was it merely a flirtation with him, like leftist politics and foreign food? Something to be experimented with at the Varsity and swiftly discarded upon entrance to the real world of adult male employment.