Eating People is Wrong by Malcolm Bradbury

bewildered Louis, who wondered why, if it was not, Treece had got mixed up
with it. He had not yet associated the philosophy of
Live as I say, not as I do
with Treece. However, he hastily tried another tack.
    ‘Is there anything I can be doing?’ he suggested. ‘I’m afraid there isn’t,’ said Treece, nervous of Louis’s desire to please. He made hastily for the
door and Louis planned an even more desperate move. ‘Do you think I could have a bath?’ he cried.
    But Treece had gone. He had withdrawn to the kitchen and, up to his elbows in pastry (Mrs Watson had taught him how to make cakes), was wondering what Louis was doing and what would have
happened to the room when he got back. In fact, Louis passed through all the stages of privation in a strange house – he examined the ornaments on the mantel, looked at the pictures on the
walls, noticed the books in the bookcase and read the spicier pages of the medical directory, peered at his teeth in the mirror, made sure his fly buttons were fastened – and he was cutting
his hair at the back with a pair of scissors found in an open drawer of the bureau when Treece returned, nearly an hour later, to start the fire. ‘I ought to have done this before I
came,’ said Louis Bates.
    II
    And now the other guests began to arrive, chilled by the frost, noses watering, to find Louis, ensconced before the fire, his hair cut at one side, acknowledging his
introduction to his colleagues, whom he knew well, but to whom Treece introduced him none the less, with a gracious ‘How do you do?’ The group accumulated, sitting in a quiet
half-circle about the barren room, discussing the weather and how the house must be filled with sun during the summer. ‘What a lovely fire!’ exclaimed a very young-seeming girl. As
people began to point out to one another, it was an odd house; Treece looked as though he had been billeted here; he probably slept on straw. ‘I wonder whether it looks any different when
it’s empty,’ whispered someone.
    A drawing by Picasso of a dove of peace was pinned roughly up over the mantlepiece. ‘I say,’ said a knowing girl, coming into the room, ‘isn’t that a Peter Scott?’
A girl who was always having her bottom pinched had it pinched in one corner; she let out a cry and Treece looked round nervously. ‘Wind,’ said the girl unsteadily. It was a usual
enough group of people, for those who were in it, and everyone knew how everyone else could be expected to behave. Louis Bates, from his chair, was wondering how many women in the room were
virgins, and he determined to ask before the night was out. Treece, coming again into the room, heard someone say: ‘. . . I suppose he remembers the war.’
    The evening promptly started, when it did start, on an unfortunate note when Professor Treece, steering the tea trolley into the room, took the corner too wide and drove it hard against the
doorpost. People jumped up and exclaimed in fright. ‘It’s all right,’ cried someone heroically; cakes and sandwiches hailed about the room; cups flew into the air and smashed hard
on to the floor. ‘All’s well,’ cried Treece so genially that it seemed as if he had done it on purpose. Students gathered round and salvaged the debris, wiping buns clean on
skirts and trousers. ‘Never mind, never mind,’ said Treece. ‘Let it stop until Monday.’
    ‘Didn’t I see you at the theatre last Saturday night?’ said a student with a beard in a very sly manner. Treece noticed some of the female students looking at him curiously. He
remembered the nudes. He said something noncommittal. The doorbell rang.
    It was Emma Fielding, breathless from her bicycle ride. Treece greeted her warmly. ‘Come inside, Miss Fielding; how nice,’ he cried, taking her coat as though his life up to that
time had been empty without it. He ushered her into the hall, where a Utrillo reproduction hung precariously. ‘Isn’t Utrillo delightful?’ said Emma