Cushing's Crusade by Tim Jeal

Colin’s shirt.
    ‘A boy in my form’s got a shirt like that.’
    ‘They are mass-produced,’ Colin replied coolly. Derek was irritated by the slight sarcasm in his voice. At least Giles had been trying to start a conversation.
    ‘Normally of course it’s the pelican which is portrayed with a bleeding beak. I don’t know the medieval fable well, but it’s something about the female pelican feeding her young with blood from her breast. There’s some parallel with Christ’s shedding his blood for mankind.’ Derek gave Colin a donnish smile and reapplied himself to his soup.
    ‘I don’t see the relevance myself,’ Colin replied.
    ‘You must be a man of few words if they’re all relevant,’ answered Derek.
    Charles laughed loudly and Angela joined in. Colin looked at Derek angrily.
    ‘If you mean do I bore people with academic marginalia at every possible opportunity, the answer is that I don’t.’
    ‘I didn’t mean that at all, so you’re the irrelevant one, old man.’ Derek wasn’t sure why he added the last two words; possibly an instinctive feeling that they would annoy him more. The effect was considerably more insulting than he had intended.
    Angela turned to Derek and said quietly, ‘I suppose Charles asked you to be rude to Colin?’
    ‘Let him play with himself,’ cut in Colin derisively.
    ‘Are you suggesting that I ought to start masturbating?’ asked Derek mildly. Giles’s spoon stopped halfway between his plate and his mouth. Diana was studying the surface of the table.
    ‘Do what you like but just leave me alone.’
    Derek nearly made a joke about mutual masturbation but restrained himself. Instead he smiled blandly. ‘It’s strange how many aggressive people wear anti-war shirts.’
    ‘That’s a pretty cheap generalization,’ said Angela in a flat matter of fact voice.
    ‘I’m a bit mean with my expensive ones.’
    Giles laughed nervously but when nobody else did he blushed and pretended to scrape a last spoonful from his already empty plate.
    ‘Do you find it amusing to make jokes about people’s beliefs?’ Angela enquired with polite interest rather than anger.
    ‘Prig,’ exploded Charles. ‘Haven’t you ever told a joke about a Jew? Do you think Derek’s a mass murderer because he hasn’t got Love or Peace written on his clothes? I suppose it never occurred to Colin that Derek might feel strongly about medieval fables.’
    Derek found himself grinning at Charles: an alliance of old friends. It was almost as though Charles had deliberately set up Colin as a target for a repetition of the vitriolic wit which had first drawn him to Derek when they had been at university together. And I fell for it, thought Derek with incredulity. No reason to dislike Colin. He hardly knew the man. The real reason for his irritation had had nothing to do with the wretched art critic. He had been angry because Diana had taken such trouble with her appearance. Charles and Diana should have been his targets. He ought unobtrusively to have taken Colin’s side but of course that was no longer possible. Charles’s cook, Mrs Hocking, had shuffled in and was removing the plates.
    ‘What delicious soup,’ said Diana brightly. ‘Did you make it, Mrs Hocking?’
    Before the woman could reply Angela cut in, ‘Haven’t you heard of Porthleven crab soup? It’s tinned ten miles away. Every crab a Cornish crab, if that’s any consolation.’
    When Mrs Hocking had gone, Charles murmured, ‘That wasn’t very tactful.’
    ‘God, how frightful of me. I’m terribly sorry.’ Angela gave her brother a look of grovelling contrition and then tossed back her head and laughed. ‘Tactful! I’m surprised you’ve got the gall to use the word.’
    Up to that moment Derek had thought Angela rather glum buther sudden animation made him wonder whether her remarks about his attack on Colin had been made tongue in cheek. The last time he had seen her she had been seventeen or eighteen, ten years ago, and