Scholars & Gentlemen

Curiouser and Curiouser

Marcus eventually surfaced from two days of exploratory passion with Sophie feeling very tired and slightly sore. There was, he thought, no pleasure to equal the thrill of waking up in the morning beside this warm and responsive body. It required a real effort of will to tear themselves away from each other's arms, but both of them knew that they had an eternity to enjoy, and that the mundane things of life must eventually be attended to. So he had dropped Sophie off at her flat, kissed her goodbye, until lunchtime, and made his way to his miserable room in the hut to resume the life of his mind, shared now, as he was constantly reminded whenever he thought of Sophie, which was all the time, by the life of his body. In spite of his tiredness he felt calm and balanced, as though mind and body were now in harmony, the one no longer fearful of the other. Sir Thomas Browne might well be right in asserting that copulation was the most foolish thing that a wise man did in his entire life, but copulation was part of a complementary world with its own rules and infinite pleasures to enhance the pleasures of the mind alone. The white heat which he had kept caged within his heart was now joyfully diffused throughout his body, leaving only one unopened gateway in the deepest dungeon of his emotions behind which there raged another and altogether more destructive fire.

He worked his way through the pile of letters on his desk until he came to the letter from Cambridge. It was simply an acknowledgement of receipt of his doctoral thesis, but it was dated Thursday the first of June and it was now Thursday the twenty second of June. The thesis had been despatched on the first of April. There was an additional note to the effect that the internal examiner would contact him in due course to arrange the viva voce examination, but there was no indication of who the internal, or external, examiners might be, or why it had taken so long to respond. Marcus was nonplussed and could only think that the letter had been delayed by one of the now frequent strikes at local sorting offices. No reply was required, and there had been no sign of a letter from the internal examiner, so he would simply have to wait. It did seem to be taking a very long time and pangs of the old anxieties returned to plague him. He fiddled around for a while filing bits of paper, trying to concentrate on planning his work for the summer vacation, but thinking constantly of Sophie until, around eleven o'clock there was a tap on his door. His heart leapt up. It could only be Sophie, come back early to be with him, but it was actually James Sinclair looking for coffee and sympathy.

"You were missed," James exclaimed, "at the dinner. Did you go off with Sophie?"

Marcus smiled at him and nodded. James sipped tentatively at the Nescafe Continental instant coffee which Marcus provided as an antidote to the ersatz coffee offered in the morbid Senior Common Room, closed now for the summer vacation on the reasonable assumption that St Dynion's finest scholars had gone into their customary period of aestivation.

"Was it good?" James probed.

"Let's say you were right about Sophie. I should have listened to you."

"Well given what happened at the meeting you might just as well be hanged for a sheep as for a goat. Did you tell her what happened?"

"No, not in so many words. But I think Drew Parkin has already worked it out. Sophie doesn't seem to care too much. She's hardly talked about it. She seems to be much more excited about us."

"So," James said morosely, "you've found the love of your life. Well, my life is going to hell in a bucket."

Marcus frowned. "What do you mean? What's happened?"

"The dinner was a disaster. I was with that wretched Kelpy and Medusa, and Dr Ellerby and his wife, and Seaton joined us instead of sitting with his enemies on the Welsh table. And he manoeuvred the conversation round to the business with Sophie and put it into Sandra's head that I was having some kind of relationship with her. Sandra stormed out and now she's been to see the solicitor and she's going to divorce me for alleged adultery. I slept in my office on Monday night. I'm back in the house now, but I'm in the spare room and she's yelling at me all the time to get out. I'm going to have to find digs somewhere."