you know more about it than I do.’
Liz has no intention of mentioning the Baldai fantasy to Ivan: it would not even amuse him, it is too bizarre, too foreign. She allows him to rattle on for a while about Charles’s ex-wife Lady Henrietta, one of whose children has been involved in a drugs scandal. A small, dull drugs scandal. Liz cannot take much interest in it, can feel only a very limited degree of
Schadenfreude
, as she can think with only a limited degree of complacency of her own family. They may not go in for quite such vacuous pursuits as the upper classes, but they cause her anxiety, nevertheless, in their separate ways, and there seems little point in triumphing over Lady Henrietta’s bad management. She refuses to be drawn into bitching about Henrietta.
Ivan moves from Lady Henrietta to Robert Oxenholme, Minister of Sponsorship for the Arts, by a transition that seems more natural to him than it does to Liz, for Liz has forgotten that these two characters are vaguely related, that their names are part of the meaningless genealogical reticulation of Hestercombes, Ox-enholmes and Stocklinches. Liz is more interested in Robert, for he is a friend of her friend Esther, and it is this connection that Ivan wishes to probe.
‘Well,’ says Liz, ‘the last I heard, they were writing a book together. On some minor Bolognese or Ferraran figure. But I don’t suppose they’ll ever finish it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Esther never finishes anything. And Robert’s too busy.’
‘Why doesn’t Esther finish anything?’
Liz considers. ‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘I’ve often wondered. She lacks ambition. Not confidence, but ambition. I don’t think she sees the point. Of trying to make a lasting mark.’
‘It seems odd, perhaps. When her profession is to study the lasting marks of others?’
Liz smiles.
‘And you, Liz, how lasting will your mark be? Do you ever wonder?’
Liz stares at Ivan, who squats before her, neckless, toadlike, but, like a toad, somehow enchanting.
‘In my job,’ she says, ‘one doesn’t expect to make a
lasting
mark. One’s patients recover, recirculate, suffer less. That is all.’
‘And yet,’ says Ivan, ‘some would say your profession is full of megalomaniacs who long to live for ever, and who impose their views on others with an autocratic zeal, and who are quite happy to kill off all dissent in order that their own names should shine more brightly in the halls of fame?’
‘You’re only speaking of a small percentage. Of the stars. I grant that many of them are megalomaniacs. But there are a lot of quiet toilers in the vineyard. Like myself.’
‘I’ve never seen you as a quiet toiler.’
‘That’s because you never see me at work, you only ever see me at play. Eating a nice lunch, like this. Wasting time in the company of timewasters like yourself.’
‘
I
think of you as a more—forceful figure. A bit more of a star than you suggest! Surely?’
‘That’s very kind of you. But to be a star, one has to . . . ’ She hesitates. She is not sure if she wants this conversation, is not quite sure how Ivan led her into it.
‘Yes?’ he prompts.
‘To publish. To have one’s own theory. To defend one’s own theory. To be—in a word—original.’
‘And you think you are not?’
‘I know I am not. I am a pluralist. I take from here and there, I use other people’s bits and pieces. I use what seems useful. This seems to me pragmatic. It’s a good way to care for patients, but it’s not a good way to make oneself famous.’
‘But you have published, I thought?’
‘Only papers. Articles. Like Esther, I’ve never got round to writing a whole book.’
‘But you could, now, presumably? Now you have time, and the family are all grown?’
‘Ivan, what
is
this? Why are you being so peculiarly mephistophelean? My life is perfectly busy, thank you, without any further ambitions. Why can’t I just carry on as I am?’
‘Why not indeed?’
A
Liz has no intention of mentioning the Baldai fantasy to Ivan: it would not even amuse him, it is too bizarre, too foreign. She allows him to rattle on for a while about Charles’s ex-wife Lady Henrietta, one of whose children has been involved in a drugs scandal. A small, dull drugs scandal. Liz cannot take much interest in it, can feel only a very limited degree of
Schadenfreude
, as she can think with only a limited degree of complacency of her own family. They may not go in for quite such vacuous pursuits as the upper classes, but they cause her anxiety, nevertheless, in their separate ways, and there seems little point in triumphing over Lady Henrietta’s bad management. She refuses to be drawn into bitching about Henrietta.
Ivan moves from Lady Henrietta to Robert Oxenholme, Minister of Sponsorship for the Arts, by a transition that seems more natural to him than it does to Liz, for Liz has forgotten that these two characters are vaguely related, that their names are part of the meaningless genealogical reticulation of Hestercombes, Ox-enholmes and Stocklinches. Liz is more interested in Robert, for he is a friend of her friend Esther, and it is this connection that Ivan wishes to probe.
‘Well,’ says Liz, ‘the last I heard, they were writing a book together. On some minor Bolognese or Ferraran figure. But I don’t suppose they’ll ever finish it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Esther never finishes anything. And Robert’s too busy.’
‘Why doesn’t Esther finish anything?’
Liz considers. ‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘I’ve often wondered. She lacks ambition. Not confidence, but ambition. I don’t think she sees the point. Of trying to make a lasting mark.’
‘It seems odd, perhaps. When her profession is to study the lasting marks of others?’
Liz smiles.
‘And you, Liz, how lasting will your mark be? Do you ever wonder?’
Liz stares at Ivan, who squats before her, neckless, toadlike, but, like a toad, somehow enchanting.
‘In my job,’ she says, ‘one doesn’t expect to make a
lasting
mark. One’s patients recover, recirculate, suffer less. That is all.’
‘And yet,’ says Ivan, ‘some would say your profession is full of megalomaniacs who long to live for ever, and who impose their views on others with an autocratic zeal, and who are quite happy to kill off all dissent in order that their own names should shine more brightly in the halls of fame?’
‘You’re only speaking of a small percentage. Of the stars. I grant that many of them are megalomaniacs. But there are a lot of quiet toilers in the vineyard. Like myself.’
‘I’ve never seen you as a quiet toiler.’
‘That’s because you never see me at work, you only ever see me at play. Eating a nice lunch, like this. Wasting time in the company of timewasters like yourself.’
‘
I
think of you as a more—forceful figure. A bit more of a star than you suggest! Surely?’
‘That’s very kind of you. But to be a star, one has to . . . ’ She hesitates. She is not sure if she wants this conversation, is not quite sure how Ivan led her into it.
‘Yes?’ he prompts.
‘To publish. To have one’s own theory. To defend one’s own theory. To be—in a word—original.’
‘And you think you are not?’
‘I know I am not. I am a pluralist. I take from here and there, I use other people’s bits and pieces. I use what seems useful. This seems to me pragmatic. It’s a good way to care for patients, but it’s not a good way to make oneself famous.’
‘But you have published, I thought?’
‘Only papers. Articles. Like Esther, I’ve never got round to writing a whole book.’
‘But you could, now, presumably? Now you have time, and the family are all grown?’
‘Ivan, what
is
this? Why are you being so peculiarly mephistophelean? My life is perfectly busy, thank you, without any further ambitions. Why can’t I just carry on as I am?’
‘Why not indeed?’
A
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