appeared to be a little distraught and very hot: he kept trying to push the hair off his forehead with the back of the hand that was holding the bottle.
‘What do you want to drink?’ he said. ‘There seems to be white wine, red wine or beer, and I believe there is some Scotch hidden in the kitchen cupboard. Or there was, once. Would you like some Scotch?’
‘No thank you, really, I’d rather have some white wine, I hate Scotch.’
‘Do you really?’ he said, as he started off through the crowd to a table in the corner of the next room. ‘I thought you used to be a hard drinker? Don’t I remember you and Francis and me getting through a bottle or two?’
‘Maybe,’ I said, ‘but times have changed.’
‘Not for me they haven’t.’
‘Haven’t they?’
‘There, will that do?’
He handed me a half-pint beer-mug full of wine: ‘Oh God,’ I said, ‘that’s far too much, it looks so bad.’
‘Well, you’ll get through it, won’t you? Are you drinking to talk or to get drunk, as Aristophanes once said to Socrates?’
‘Did he really? You old pedant. To get drunk, I suppose. Not much chance of a conversation round here.’
‘What do you mean? There’s lots of intelligent people here. Lots of old friends. And how is Francis? He’s a real pedant, old Francis.’
‘Oh, he’s all right. Who’s here then that I like?’
‘Don’t you like everyone? What about Stephanie and Michael? There they are, talking about H-bombs. Go and tell them not to be so worried.’
‘All right, I will. Will they make me sign anything? I saw Stephanie on a newsreel the other day, handing out pamphlets at that to-do outside Brize-Norton.’
‘Darling Stephanie, I wonder why she isn’t a bore. She must see how absurd it all is. You go and talk to her, I must fly off and deal with the new arrivals. If I know any of them. Honestly, there are so many people here that I’ve never seen in my life before. Do you think they would gatecrash my parties if I wore glasses like Francis?’
‘Of course they wouldn’t,’ I said, loudly, over the heads of people who started to surge between us: then I turned and made my way over to Stephanie and Michael. On the way I caught sight of Tony. He was dancing, in a very confined space, with a beautiful foreign-looking girl who was wearing an extraordinary bright yellow dress with a silk fringe round the bottom.
Stephanie and Michael were both very much from the old administration. They had been one of the steady couples in Oxford, with a predictable career mapped before them of three years’ idyll followed by a July wedding immediately after Finals: all of which had, of course, charmingly happened. Stephanie had been my great stand-by just before exams: she had kept drifting into my room late at night, as I sat up with cups of coffee over volumes of
Beowulf
and the dead relics of past essays, bringing with her patterns for wedding dresses, scraps of material, and ideas for bouquets from
Vogue
. I discussed these things with her with much greater enthusiasm than I could summon up for eleventh-hour revision, and was sorry I missed her wedding through being in Paris. She wasn’t at all a frivolous person, as that description of her might suggest: but then neither was she a real academic bore like me.
Both she and Michael are, separately and as a couple, the sort of people one might very much like to be, if one didn’t suspect that through thus gaining nearly everything one might lose that tiny, exhilarating possibility of one day miraculously gaining the whole lot. Both their families were connected with professional politics, and they followed politics with the kind of committed, critical enthusiasm that others reserve for theatre reviews or literary fashions. They made political earnestness respectable in our circle, because of their evident soundness and intelligence, but somehow I could never go the whole way with them. ‘It’s no good,’ Francis had said to me late
‘What do you want to drink?’ he said. ‘There seems to be white wine, red wine or beer, and I believe there is some Scotch hidden in the kitchen cupboard. Or there was, once. Would you like some Scotch?’
‘No thank you, really, I’d rather have some white wine, I hate Scotch.’
‘Do you really?’ he said, as he started off through the crowd to a table in the corner of the next room. ‘I thought you used to be a hard drinker? Don’t I remember you and Francis and me getting through a bottle or two?’
‘Maybe,’ I said, ‘but times have changed.’
‘Not for me they haven’t.’
‘Haven’t they?’
‘There, will that do?’
He handed me a half-pint beer-mug full of wine: ‘Oh God,’ I said, ‘that’s far too much, it looks so bad.’
‘Well, you’ll get through it, won’t you? Are you drinking to talk or to get drunk, as Aristophanes once said to Socrates?’
‘Did he really? You old pedant. To get drunk, I suppose. Not much chance of a conversation round here.’
‘What do you mean? There’s lots of intelligent people here. Lots of old friends. And how is Francis? He’s a real pedant, old Francis.’
‘Oh, he’s all right. Who’s here then that I like?’
‘Don’t you like everyone? What about Stephanie and Michael? There they are, talking about H-bombs. Go and tell them not to be so worried.’
‘All right, I will. Will they make me sign anything? I saw Stephanie on a newsreel the other day, handing out pamphlets at that to-do outside Brize-Norton.’
‘Darling Stephanie, I wonder why she isn’t a bore. She must see how absurd it all is. You go and talk to her, I must fly off and deal with the new arrivals. If I know any of them. Honestly, there are so many people here that I’ve never seen in my life before. Do you think they would gatecrash my parties if I wore glasses like Francis?’
‘Of course they wouldn’t,’ I said, loudly, over the heads of people who started to surge between us: then I turned and made my way over to Stephanie and Michael. On the way I caught sight of Tony. He was dancing, in a very confined space, with a beautiful foreign-looking girl who was wearing an extraordinary bright yellow dress with a silk fringe round the bottom.
Stephanie and Michael were both very much from the old administration. They had been one of the steady couples in Oxford, with a predictable career mapped before them of three years’ idyll followed by a July wedding immediately after Finals: all of which had, of course, charmingly happened. Stephanie had been my great stand-by just before exams: she had kept drifting into my room late at night, as I sat up with cups of coffee over volumes of
Beowulf
and the dead relics of past essays, bringing with her patterns for wedding dresses, scraps of material, and ideas for bouquets from
Vogue
. I discussed these things with her with much greater enthusiasm than I could summon up for eleventh-hour revision, and was sorry I missed her wedding through being in Paris. She wasn’t at all a frivolous person, as that description of her might suggest: but then neither was she a real academic bore like me.
Both she and Michael are, separately and as a couple, the sort of people one might very much like to be, if one didn’t suspect that through thus gaining nearly everything one might lose that tiny, exhilarating possibility of one day miraculously gaining the whole lot. Both their families were connected with professional politics, and they followed politics with the kind of committed, critical enthusiasm that others reserve for theatre reviews or literary fashions. They made political earnestness respectable in our circle, because of their evident soundness and intelligence, but somehow I could never go the whole way with them. ‘It’s no good,’ Francis had said to me late
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