Cupid's Dart.

by David n.o.bbs.

For Leslie Ash

Acknowledgements

The idea for this book started life as a play for Yorkshire Television, transmitted in 1981 in a series called 'Plays for Pleasure'. Would that such a series t.i.tle could happen today.I received at least twice as many fan letters for this play as for any other single piece of television. It was brilliantly acted and directed, and stayed with me, demanding eventually to be updated, lengthened and deepened.I have dedicated this book to Leslie Ash, because she was tremendous, in her first television role, as the Ange character, then called Ros, and because she has been such a terrible victim of the hospital superbug and has done so much to try to puncture the complacency in which this dreadful disease is shrouded.But I must also mention the late Robin Bailey as Alan; Marjorie Bland, wonderfully awful as Jane; and Julian Holloway, the very essence of a complacent don as Lawrence. Their sparkling performances all helped to inspire me to write this book.Thanks also to David Cunliffe, the director, and Pat Sandys, the producer , who served me so well in those magical days when one-off plays still mattered.The older I get, the more I realise how much I need the support of others. I owe much to my wife, Susan; my agents, Jonathan Clowes and Ann Evans; and my editors, Susan Sandon and Georgina Hawtrey-Woore.

ONE

I travelled on the same train today, exactly a year after our first meeting. A year! Was it really only a year ago? Has only a fifty-sixth of my life pa.s.sed since that day which changed everything? It seems a lifetime ago, and yet it also seems like yesterday. I mentioned that to Lawrence. 'That's women for you,' he said. 'That's what they do to you.' I don't think he likes women but then, if I was married to Jane, I don't think I would like women either.I say 'the same train'. I mean, of course, the train that left Manchester and was due at London Euston at the same time on the same day as that train a year ago. It wasn't the same train at all. Well, it might have been, I didn't check the carriage numbers or the name on the engine, such trivia have never interested me, but I think it extremely unlikely. Anyway, I don't give a d.a.m.n about these linguistic minutiae. Not any more. Not after her.This time two people sat at the other side of the table from me. They were fat and boring and I hated them. I wanted the seat to remain empty at least until Stoke, so that . . . what? She would get on again? Ridiculous. This was life, not a fantasy. Some other woman would get on, lovely, s.e.xy, available, and we we would get talking and I would invite would get talking and I would invite her her to a posh restaurant? What rot. to a posh restaurant? What rot.For fourteen years I had been busy writing my great book, the book that would make my reputation. I had written 527 pages of 'Germanic Thought from Kant to Wittgenstein', and I still hadn't got further than Nietzsche. Now I have decided to put the project aside, until I have written this this book, my book about her. I'm calling it 'Cupid's Dart'. I am no longer frightened of the obvious. book, my book about her. I'm calling it 'Cupid's Dart'. I am no longer frightened of the obvious.As the train pulled slowly out of Stoke's unlovely station, I found myself looking out of the window, observing every detail. A year ago I had also been looking out of the window as the train rattled through the Midlands, but I had been seeing nothing except my thoughts. She had pointed that out to me. 'You look, but you don't see nothink,' she had said. Well, there's no point in my hiding from you that grammar was not her strong point.So now I looked as I thought that she would have looked. I saw some small factories with ugly corrugated roofs, enough waste ground to solve all the area's housing problems, and one lone brick kiln, a pathetic reminder of the golden age of the decrepit pottery towns. She would have felt sorry for that sad, isolated kiln, and now I found myself feeling sorry for it. Yes, I was anthropomorphising about a kiln. How I had changed. How I would have despised this me a year ago.She would have laughed at me if she had known what I was thinking now. Not cruelly, though. Her laugh was never cruel.I had a sudden fear that tears would spring to my eyes. That would never do. I said that it had been a day that changed everything. If I gave way to tears now, it would have changed nothing. If I was not different now, better now, braver now, then it had all been a waste of time. That would mean that Lawrence had been right. Just for a moment I saw Jane's cool, laser smile. 'We did warn you, Alan.' I owed it to myself not to allow Jane any kind of victory. I owed it to myself not to cry. I hadn't come on this train to wallow in self-pity.I looked out at the water meadows, beside the uninspiring Trent. Rivers could inspire. Danube, Tigris, Orinoco. Amazon, Yangtze, Mississippi. These were names that quickened the blood. Trent did not.A brightly painted narrow boat was chugging along an absurdly small ca.n.a.l at the side of the train. A middle-aged man stood at the helm. He was wearing a yachting cap and in his body there was the tension and self-importance of a man steering an oil tanker through treacherous waters. A middle-aged woman brought him a cup of tea. He planted a middle-aged kiss on her forehead. I waved at them. I, Alan Calcutt, Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford, who had spent fourteen years of my life writing 'Germanic Thought from Kant to Wittgenstein', had waved from a train to a middle-aged couple on a boat. Yes, I had changed.I smiled at the fat couple. Now that we had pa.s.sed Stoke, I didn't need to hate them any more. They didn't smile back. f.u.c.k you, I thought. Go and drown in your sad obesity. I had been thinking that perhaps I shouldn't mention that they were fat that it was an unacceptable detail in these days of political correctness but it was true, they were, and there is not much point in telling you my story if I'm not truthful. Besides, they were sitting where she had sat, and they were forfeiting any sympathy I might have felt by their constant munching of anything that crunched crisps, chocolate bars, munch, munch, munch, crunch, crunch, crunch, these mouths were made for eating and not for talking: they barely said a word.A heron flapped slowly over the sodden fields. It was raining, just as it had rained a year ago. I thought that I had never seen a heron before. I mean, herons had been in my field of vision, from time to time, but I hadn't really noticed them. How long and thin they were, and how inelegant when they flew. They were absurd. Life was absurd. If only I had realised that long, long ago, how different my life would have been.But if my life had been different I wouldn't have met her, and I was delighted that I had met her, so it was impossible for me to wish that anything in my life had been different, so it was a blessing that I hadn't realised sooner how absurd life was.The overweight couple were looking at me, and it occurred to me that they were wondering what I was thinking, and it pleased me that they could have no possible concept of what I was thinking, just as I could have no concept of what they were thinking but then the man helped me. 'I've been thinking,' he said. 'I could murder a cup of tea.'We pa.s.sed the cooling towers of Rugely. We rattled through Rugby. I wondered what she was doing at that moment. I recalled my very last words to her, and I found . . . yes, I did, I really did . . . that I had the strength in me to live by those words.I smiled ruefully to myself at the thought of that sad, virginal, pedantic anorak who had travelled this route exactly a year ago . . . well, not exactly a year ago, this train was going to be late, it kept slowing down . . . who had travelled this route exactly a year and seventeen minutes ago. I laughed at this caricature of my pedantry, laughed out loud, which made my travelling companions uneasy, which gave me a little stab of wicked satisfaction.I smiled at them. I wondered how they had managed to find a bed strong enough to stand up to their ungainly couplings, but I didn't say anything about that, of course.I said, 'I wouldn't have laughed like that a year ago, before I'd met her. I've a lot to thank her for. That's why I've made this journey really.'They looked frightened. There were forty-five miles to go before we reached London, and they were beginning to think I was unhinged, and they were stuck with me on that crowded train.I thought of the waiter in the sn.o.bby French restaurant, that first night, and I leant across the table towards them.'I'm out on parole,' I said, 'but I have to report in every week.'They retreated into their blubber in horror. How she would have laughed.It made me sad to think of how she would have laughed.

TWO

Young women had spoken to me before, of course. They had said, 'Can I help you, sir?' and, all too frequently, 'There you go', and recently, to my chagrin, a couple of times, 'Would you like this seat?' But I couldn't remember any young woman speaking to me as if she was interested in me. Not even Rachel, in all the seventeen months of our sterile and abortive relationship.This young woman got on the train at Stoke-on-Trent, and walked slowly down the carriage, looking for a seat. The train was rather full, but I had a table to myself. There is . . . or was . . . something about me that deterred other travellers. The seats near me were always the last to go. That pleased me, but it also hurt me somewhat. I am more sensitive than people imagine.She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, on which was the legend, 'Townsend Tissues', below which was a thoroughly off-putting picture of a large man with a beer belly sneezing into a tissue.She was carrying an overnight bag, and she gave me a little smile as quick as a snake's tongue.Her first remark didn't really count. It was, 'Is anybody sitting there?'I looked across the small table, on which some notes for my lecture were strewn, and said, 'I have an uninterrupted view of the frankly rather dull upholstery. I think I can safely deduce, therefore, that n.o.body is sitting there.'I was appalled by my pedantry. What on earth had possessed me? But it seemed to wash over her.'Thanks,' she said.She reached up to put her bag on the rack. As she did so she revealed a few inches of smooth young flesh below her T-shirt. The top of a tattoo peeped shyly out of her jeans, like a cautious cat.There was a jolt as the train started abruptly. She sat down more quickly than she had intended, and gave another quick little smile, but this one had elements of a grimace in it. I found myself smiling back, which surprised me. I'd never been known for smiling. 'There's no risk of anybody ever calling you Smiler Calcutt, is there?' Rachel had once said. Or, more probably, at least twice. Her dry comments on my failings used to come round on a fairly short loop.The train slid slowly out of Stoke's suitably sombre station. The young woman . . . girl? (how should I think of her? What age was she? Twenty-five? I had so little experience of judging ages, especially young women's ages) looked out of the window. I found myself doing the same, but I saw nothing, and I soon went back to my notes. I found that I could no longer concentrate. I was too aware of her.She sighed, stood up, lifted her bag off the rack, opened it, removed a magazine from it, closed it, and put it back on the rack.'A disorganised mind,' I thought dismissively, my first brief interest fading.She began to read her magazine. The train gathered speed. I tried to gather my thoughts. I couldn't. It wasn't going well. It didn't really matter, there were several weeks to go before the lecture, but it made me feel uneasy. I was, in truth, just beginning to be gripped by a still distant fear that, having been given my great chance to show the academic world something of my innate brilliance, I would discover that I had nothing to say.I became aware that she had looked up and was studying me. This was extraordinary extraordinary that she should be studying me, and extraordinary that I should sense it. I had never been intuitive.I looked up too and met her eye. That also surprised me. Why on earth should I have looked up? Why on earth should I be interested in her, once it was established that she had a disorganised mind?That was when she came out with it, her question, her three monosyllabic words, which she would surely not have bothered to say if she hadn't been at least slightly interested in me.'What are you?'I was so surprised that for a moment even these three simple words made no sense, but I pulled myself together.'Ah!' I said. 'Good question. Funny you should ask me that. I'm a philosopher. I have devoted a lifetime to the painful process of finding it harder and harder to answer even such apparently simple questions as "What are you?"''No,' she said 'I meant, "what sign?"''Sorry?''What star sign?''Ah. Sorry. Er . . . Virgo.'It was absurd, at my age, to feel ashamed of my star sign.'Virgo, eh? Oh yeah!' She laughed. There was no cruelty in her laugh, and I noticed how good her teeth were. I'd have struggled to remember the colour of Rachel's eyes, yet here I was noticing this young woman's teeth!'But I'm on the cusp,' I said, as though this made things better.'I'm on the pill,' she said.I smiled, carefully hiding my alarm at her directness.'Virgo!' she repeated. 'I ain't never met many virgos. Bet it's not very appropriate.''Oh well . . .' I let my remark hang in the air. I found that I didn't want her to know how appropriate it was. It's not exactly fashionable to be a virgin at fifty-five, in the twenty-first century, in s.e.x-mad Britain. I wished that I was braver, less inhibited, less self-conscious. If only I could have said, quite casually, 'It's very appropriate actually', the whole embarra.s.sment would have been over in seconds. How complicated I make life for myself.I hoped my face wasn't revealing any of these thoughts to her.I welcomed the little two-tone ring that precedes public address announcements the world over.'Good afternoon,' said a slightly stilted male voice over the Tannoy. 'My name is . . .' There followed two words spoken so swiftly that n.o.body could catch them. People are so familiar with their own names that they see no need to speak them distinctly. '. . . and I am your customer services manager for this journey. For those customers who joined the train at Stoke, this is the 2.48 Virgin train for London Euston.''Shouldn't be on this train if it's for virgins, eh?' she said.I feared for a moment that I would blush.I felt that I must offer her some comment, to show that I was not being unfriendly or sn.o.bbish, but what could I possibly say to her? I couldn't even make small talk to my fellow dons, people of the same s.e.x and similar age. What could I say to a young girl at least thirty years my junior?'Probably not many people should be,' I said, gamely entering into her little joke.'You can say that again,' she said.I didn't. I hadn't been too proud of saying it the first time. But I had to say something.'So,' I asked, less than brilliantly, 'what are you you? What sign?' I tried to look as though I cared.'Guess.''Oh . . . well . . . it's not the kind of speculation I habitually . . . Aries?''No! Never in a million years.' She laughed. 'Leo.''Ah! Lion-hearted!''Of course. Sorry, I'm interrupting, ain't I?''No. No. Not really. The . . . er . . . the train of thought's been pretty well broken.''So, this philosophy,' she said, 'what's that all about when it's at home?' The impossibility of giving an adequate answer to anyone, let alone to her! Suddenly I felt extremely tired. I longed to close my eyes and have a Churchillian nap.'Ah!' I said, playing for time. 'Now that's quite a question.' I have sometimes been told that when I discuss philosophy I can sound like a walking text book. As I spoke, I was painfully conscious of this, but I didn't know how to avoid it. 'Well . . . er . . . it's the search for truth and knowledge about the universe, human existence, perception and behaviour, pursued by means of reflection, reasoning and argument.''Bleedin' 'ell. So in the morning do you wake up and say to your wife, "Well, darlin', I s'pose it's time to get up and search for truth and knowledge about the universe and that?"''I . . . er . . . I don't have a wife.'I said it casually, as a man might say, 'I don't have an umbrella', but for the first time in my life I felt that maybe it was a cause for regret. I also felt just a faint tingle of . . . yes . . . distant s.e.xuality. Very distant still. I had . . . no, not an erection, but, if it doesn't sound too silly, an intimation of erections to come.She went back to her magazine. I saw, on the front cover, details of the jewels within. 'Stretch marks of the Stars'. 'I'd never had an o.r.g.a.s.m till I met my optician he opened my eyes to s.e.x'. 'Condors and condoms where SA means s.e.x Appeal as well as South America'.I looked away hurriedly, and began to study her face. I was vaguely aware how unusual it was for me to find a person more interesting than their reading matter.She had dark, straight hair, pale blue eyes and high cheekbones. I particularly liked the curl of her nostrils. There was a small, slightly irregular indentation on her chin. It might have been a natural dimple or the result of a fall from a bicycle. I guessed, from my memory of her reaching up to the rack, that she was five foot three. There was a slightly cheeky air about her, an unselfconscious gamine confidence which lent charm to her immaturity.She looked up, and I looked away, embarra.s.sed to have been caught in such a detailed survey. Then I decided that looking away had emphasised my embarra.s.sment, so I looked back at her just as she looked away because there was no point in looking at me if I wasn't looking at her.I tried to work on my notes, but they seemed dreadfully dull.I looked up again. I wanted to talk to her. But how? What about? I had no idea how to talk to young women. Or indeed, for that matter, old women. Or, come to think of it, young men. Or, actually, old men. In fact, to be honest, anybody.Rachel's voice came to me, sharp and strident across two and a half decades, tart, icy, every other word a hand grenade, giving me advice before a party to which I hadn't wanted to go, when I'd moaned that I wouldn't have anything to say to her radiologist friends. 'Ask them about themselves, the way normal people do. Pretend to be interested.'I could ask her what she'd been doing in Stoke-on-Trent. She might say that she'd been on the stopping train from Congleton, but in that case it shouldn't be beyond me to ask what she'd been doing in Congleton. Surely I could manage to sound as if I was interested?And then a minor miracle occurred. I found that I really was interested.'Er . . . what . . . er . . . were you doing in Stoke-on-Trent?''I'd been to the darts, hadn't I?' she replied.'The . . . er . . . the darts?''The Extra Wet Strength Eliminator.''The what?!''Townsend Tissues sponsor this event, don't they? It's like a regional qualification for the national championships, know what I mean?'I've noticed that people of a certain background invariably say 'Know what I mean?' when it's blindingly obvious what they mean 'I find it difficult to get up in the mornings, know what I mean?' but on this occasion I had to admit to myself that I didn't know what this young lady meant. I hadn't a clue. There were worlds I knew nothing about.'You . . . er . . . you like darts, do you?'I don't think I have ever felt that my conversational efforts were quite as lame as they were on that train.'You could say that,' she replied. 'I'm a darts groupie.''Sorry. What?''A darts groupie.''Ah. A darts what?''Groupie.''I see. Yes.' I didn't want to admit that I was lost, but I had to. 'Er . . . what is a darts groupie?''Well you know what a groupie is.''Yes. Yes. In the . . . rather special sense of . . . er . . . no.''Well a groupie follows pop groups around, mobs them and that, cuts off bits of their underpants, tries to sleep with them and stuff, know what I mean?''Yes. Yes. Yes.''Well I follow the top darts players around, don't I? I . . . er . . . I had quite a day yesterday.''Ah.' Come on, Alan. You can't leave it there. 'Er . . . in . . . er . . . in what way, quite a day?''I slept with Shanghai Sorensen.''Who?''Shanghai Sorensen. The Dashing Dane.''He sounds Chinese to me.''Not that Shanghai. Shanghai in darts.''Ah!'I had tried to inject a knowing element into my 'Ah!' I had failed dismally.'You do know what Shanghai is in darts, don't you?''Yes.' Oh come on, Alan. 'Once again in the . . . in the rather special sense of "No".''Bleedin' 'ell. And you said philosophy was knowledge and that.''Well, yes, broadly.''And you don't know what Shanghai is in darts. It's when you get a single, double and treble of the same number in three darts. Shanghai Sorensen, the Dashing Dane, does these demonstration matches where he bets on getting Shanghai. If he doesn't do it fifteen times out of twenty the punters get their entrance money back. It's like his speciality. That's why they call him Shanghai. And I've slept with him.'I had never met this girl before. I didn't think that I would ever meet her again. She meant nothing to me. I was more than somewhat surprised, therefore, to discover that I was rather upset that she had slept with Shanghai Sorensen, and that I resented Mr Sorensen for being such a dashing Dane.'Well . . . jolly good,' I said absurdly.'Twice. But yesterday was the last time. He says he can't never ever have s.e.x with me again, cos I affected his adjustment, didn't I?''Sorry. His what?''His adjustment. Like if the first dart's in the five, which it almost never ever is with him, but if it was, he'd adjust to get the next dart in the treble twenty, right?''And after you'd slept with him, this process of adjustment proved ineffectual?''Yeah. He played last night. He was all over the place. He said to me, "I can't sleep with you no more. It was great s.e.x, but it's f.u.c.king up my ranking position." He's the first Dane to get into the Top Ten, see.''Yes.' This was a lie. I didn't see. 'Well, how sad.' This was an even greater lie.'I nicked one of his socks. His left sock. I'll never wash it. It'll go in my trophy cabinet, won't it?''Trophy cabinet?''Yeah. I got all sorts of things. I got a pair of underpants worn by Rob Crawley, the Chirpy c.o.c.kney Boy Wonder.''The Chirpy c.o.c.kney Boy Wonder?''That's what Jake Plimsoll calls him. He's this writer about darts. He comes up with these fantastic descriptions. He's a great writer.'To my horror the words 'What, the equal of Tolstoy?' came into my head and approached my mouth. I kept my lips firmly clamped.'I got an initialled handkerchief belonging to Tons Thomas.'She blushed slightly as she mentioned his name.'Tons Thomas?''The Mercurial Man Mountain from Merthyr.''Jake Plimsoll again?''Yeah. He's fantastic. But you must have heard of Tons Thomas?''Er, yes.' Why was I so pathetic? 'In the . . . erm . . . once again in the . . . er . . . the rather special sense of . . . er . . . no.'Silence fell between us, as if my not having heard of Tons Thomas had put me beyond the pale. To my astonishment, I found that I did not want to be beyond the pale.She began to stare out of the window.'I like looking out of the window,' she said. 'You see things. You see things you'll never see again. A man wheeling a bike. Never seen him before. Never see him again. I like that.'I could think of no reply.'Look at that!' she exclaimed.I looked, though I wasn't quite sure what I was supposed to be looking at. I saw a small field, roughly ploughed, very stony, with three burly men in it, and in the field there were posts with string running tautly between the them. The three men were looking at the train. The scene meant nothing to me.'Marking it up for housing,' said the young woman. 'All be houses next year. Look at them lazy b.u.g.g.e.rs, looking at a train as if they've never seen one before. Any excuse to stop working.''You notice a lot.''Just because I'm not a philosopher doesn't mean I'm thick.''Of course not.''My brother, he is is thick. He had to have elocution lessons before he could say, ' "Come on you Spurs".' thick. He had to have elocution lessons before he could say, ' "Come on you Spurs".'She laughed. In her laugh there was joy at being alive. She had a wonderfully unaffected laugh. I suppose it was the first thing that . . . 'turned me on' is a bit strong . . . 'inspired an affectionate response' might be more the mark.A little boy ran up the carriage gleefully, pursued by his angry, worried mother, who grabbed him and carried him screaming back to their seats. Absurd jingles rang out from two mobile phones.'I bet you're an Alan,' said the young woman.'Sorry?''I have this thing where I can tell people's names. I bet you're an Alan.''That's amazing!''You are are an Alan?' an Alan?''Yes. Alan Calcutt.'It warmed my heart to see her looking so thrilled at getting my name right, and this would have surprised me if I'd thought of it. My heart wasn't that easy to warm.'I don't always get it right,' she admitted. 'Once I said Darren, and it really p.i.s.sed him off. He was a Julian. What am I?''Sorry, what?''What's my name?''Oh. I don't know. No, I really . . . it's not the kind of speculation that I habitually . . . I'm really not very good at guessing. I think that too much reasoning has blunted my intuitive powers.' I looked out of the window again. I daresay I could have caught a glimpse of the three slender spires of Lichfield Cathedral, had I had eyes to see, but I was looking only for inspiration. 'Sandra?''No! Never in a million years!''Ros?''Not bad, I could have been, but no.''I give up.'I could tell that she was disappointed in me. I wasn't a good sport. I never had been. Charades? Ugh. French cricket with people's odious offspring? No thank you.'Ange''Ah. I wouldn't have got it.''I'm stopping you working, aren't I, Alan? You're busy.''No, Ange, not at all.' I was aware that I had said 'Ange' as if I could hardly believe it. 'I'm . . . I'm enjoying talking to you.''What's all this writing you're doing then? All them pages?''Ah. I've been chosen . . .' I tried not to show how proud I was. '. . . to deliver this year's Ferdinand Brinsley Memorial Lecture.'We sped through Tamworth Low Level. The station was a blur. Two men in red shirts wheeled a refreshment trolley past us. I said that we didn't want anything, without consulting Ange.'I'd have liked a c.o.ke,' she said.'Oh. Sorry, Ange,' I said. 'A c.o.ke, please,' I called out.The trolley returned.'It's Pepsi. Is that all right?''Is it, Ange?'I kept repeating 'Ange' in the vain hope that I would get used to it.'Yeah. Thanks.'Believe it or not, but I had never bought a c.o.ke or a Pepsi. This girl was already changing my life.'So what's this thingummy whatsit lecture all about?' she asked.'Ah. I . . . er . . . I . . . I should perhaps explain that the Ferdinand Brinsley Memorial Lecture is not a strictly academic occasion. It's an opportunity to let our philosophical trousers down, as it . . . as it were. It's philosophy for an audience who are intelligent but not . . . not philosophers or even students of philosophy. It is, I suppose, a trifle . . .' I hesitated before the dreaded word, '. . . populist. You've heard of the black holes of...''Calcutta,' she interrupted triumphantly.'Einstein. I had thought of expanding a little talk I gave in the seventies, when there was still a bit of the maverick in me . . . my conceit was that there are social black holes, where time moves at a slower pace than in other places. Budleigh Salterton, Hove, ironically the whole of white South Africa. Time has moved on, however, and its . . . er . . . its humorous impact has dated. Then I . . . er . . . I hit upon a t.i.tle which rather intrigued me: "The Social Politics of Incomprehension".''I don't understand.''Exactly. You weren't meant to. Well done.''Oh!' She was pleased.'But that didn't work either. So then I toyed with the basic principles of logic, but I decided it was all too basic, and . . . er . . . at the moment I'm trying to develop something with . . .well, with the whole subject of chance. Can there be chance in life or is everything purposive? Do you know what teleology is?''Is it where you know what's on the telly without you have to look at the TV Times TV Times?''No. No! Though that's rather good. No, that is is good. No, teleology is a philosophical term, for the belief that all phenomena, all natural processes, are directed towards a goal or have a purpose. A man drops a book out of a sixteenth-storey window. It hits, and kills, a man pa.s.sing beneath.' good. No, teleology is a philosophical term, for the belief that all phenomena, all natural processes, are directed towards a goal or have a purpose. A man drops a book out of a sixteenth-storey window. It hits, and kills, a man pa.s.sing beneath.''That's horrible. Poor man.''No, no. It's hypothetical. There is no man. There is no book. But if there was . . . if there was . . . could we say that if the man dropped the book deliberately, he caused the other man's death? Let's a.s.sume that he dropped the book deliberately, but he had no intention of killing anybody. But he did kill somebody. Did he cause that man's death or was it an accident? Was he responsible for that man's death? And, if he had dropped the book accidentally, was he still responsible? And if he dropped the book accidentally, and killed the man by malign ill-chance, is it possible that, although this was a chance event from his point of view, there is another, greater system of causation within which he had to drop the book, whether or not he intended to? Supposing a man dropped a book deliberately to land on someone's head and kill him, but he mistimed it and killed someone else. You can see that the moral aspects are deeply complex.'I paused, wondering what she had made of it all. She appeared to be staring out of the window. I hoped that this was to help her concentrate better on what I was driving at. My hopes were dashed.'I wonder if birds are ever frightened of heights,' she said.'Sorry?''All them birds up there. I was just thinking, it'd be a right old do if one of them was afraid of heights. Like a lark for instance. f.u.c.k up his life a bit, wouldn't it? The old singing and that. Know what I mean?''Extraordinary thought. Fascinating. You know, one of the problems of being clever, it seems to me, is that one ceases to have extraordinary thoughts. One's thoughts are too conditioned by one's knowledge of all the thoughts that have gone before.'I realised my error immediately, and I blushed. This was my second blush in less than an hour. I hate blushing. Thank goodness n.o.body from the department was there to see it.She was on to it like a flash, of course. 'Are you saying I'm not clever? You do do think I'm thick.' think I'm thick.''No. No!''I wouldn't blame you. I didn't listen to all that you were saying about chance, did I? I must be a disappointment to you.''Not at all. To be disappointed one has to have had hopes. I have no hopes.'I didn't mean it to sound so abrupt. I could tell that it flattened her. It was rude, it was thoughtless, and it wasn't even true. I couldn't believe it. It wasn't true. I did have hopes. I didn't know what they were yet, but I knew that I had them.'I wonder what cows think about.''I beg your pardon?''Cows. What do they think a train is? All them black and white jobs in that field. What does a train mean to them? f.u.c.k all, probably. You're annoyed.''No! Why should I be annoyed?''Because you want to talk about philosophy and all I do is rabbit about cows. Hey, that's not bad, is it? Rabbit about cows. Sorry.''No, no, no. You aren't a student. You don't have to listen to me. No, if I looked annoyed, it was because you used that word. The f word.''Everybody uses it these days.''Exactly, and that's why I don't like it. It's so boring. So lazy. I'm sorry. It's not for me to tell you not to use it, but it's rather spoiling our conversation.'I could see her brain registering the fact that if a conversation was capable of being spoilt, there must be something in it that was worth not spoiling. It was her turn to blush slightly.'Sorry,' she said. 'I'll try not to say it. Go on. Tell me some more about . . . what was it . . . chance?''Right. Well, let's bring it back to this train. I . . . er . . . I'm interested in . . . in a humorous way, because the Ferdinand Brinsley is basically a light-hearted occasion . . . in the mathematics of chance. How many people are there in this carriage? Fifty? Sixty? If you had asked all sixty, a year ago today, if they would be on this train today, I'm sure that many of them would have scoffed at the possibility.''That baby over there wasn't even f . . . wasn't even born.''Well, exactly. Good point. Good point, Ange.'Don't overdo it, Alan. It's patronising.'I don't think he's three months old. What were the chances of his parents having a f.u.c.k that very night . . . oops, sorry . . .''No, I don't mind it in that context, it's factual. I only object to it as a meaningless adjective.''Oh. Well, I mean you don't f.u.c.k every night do you? Well, parents don't . . . and I mean, you don't conceive anything like every time, do you?''No. Quite. What were the chances a year ago of you being on this train?''Practically nil, cos I had a job last year, till that b.i.t.c.h on Reception started picking on me.''Well there you are.' I was astounded to find myself feeling grateful to that b.i.t.c.h on Reception. If she hadn't picked on her, Ange wouldn't have been on the train. Oh, what a lovely b.i.t.c.h. I would quite like to find out where she was on Reception and go and thank her one day for being such a b.i.t.c.h. 'And to calculate the actual odds of everybody being on this train you would have to multiply the odds in every particular case. If your chances were a hundred to one and mine were a hundred to one then the chances of both of us being on the train are ten thousand to one before we bring in anybody else, yet here we all are and it doesn't seem remotely extraordinary.''If it is ten thousand to one, we're lucky,' she said.'Lucky?''I've enjoyed talking to you.'She had echoed my thoughts! I felt curiously moved, and rather embarra.s.sed. Somewhat out of desperation, I offered her a banana which I happened to have in my briefcase. I haven't graduated to a laptop.'You've only got one,' she protested.'I'd like you to have it.''Well, ta. Thanks.'She peeled the banana and raised it towards me.'Cheers.''Cheers.'Silence fell loudly between us. She returned to her magazine, I to my notes, but the words were dancing. They didn't make sense. We must have remained silent for the best part of half an hour, and I realised that after fifty-five years of living I had insufficient social skills to be able to break that silence. Thank goodness she did.'Virgo.''Yes.'She laughed, and began to read from the magazine.' "A chance encounter with an interesting man could produce far reaching results." It says "man" cos it's a women's magazine so it's aimed at women, but in your case it would be an interesting woman, cos you're a man. Unless you're gay, which I don't think you are cos I can always spot them. Like down the Black Bull I knew Colin Parsley's so-called wife was a bloke before anybody. Hey, do you think I could be the interesting woman? Do you think I could produce far reaching results?' She began to read again. '"You must be quick off the mark or the opportunity will slip by. A generous impulse could have amazing results." 'We were pa.s.sing through Watford Junction.' "A generous impulse",' repeated Ange. 'That could be the Pepsi you bought me.''Hardly. You had to twist my arm.''The banana, then. You gave me your only one.''No. I'm afraid there was nothing generous about that. I hate bananas. No, I never have generous impulses, I'm never quick off the mark, and opportunities always pa.s.s me by.''Oh well.'The train was slowing down. Soon we would be at Euston. I was amazed to discover that I didn't want Ange to disappear from my life. I wanted to see her again. I must see her again.This was absurd. We had nothing in common.I tried to ask her out, but the words froze in my mouth. Instead, I heard myself say, 'What does your horoscope say?'' "You're in a bit of a rut, but you don't know it yet. You are not always able to distinguish between fantasy and real life. Now is a good time to make the distinction, especially early in the month. If you are made a surprising offer, you should accept it." 'We were overtaking a tube train. It looked small and bald and vulnerable outside its tunnel, like a large slug crossing a patio towards the succulent shelter of distant lettuces.I didn't believe a word of it, but I had to admit that the magazine was giving me cue after cue. Surely even I could respond to one of them?Speak now, man, or your life will continue to be as it has been, and that suddenly seems intolerable.'Ange?' I began hoa.r.s.ely. I wish I could pretend that I hadn't sounded so hoa.r.s.e and pathetic. 'Ange . . . will you . . . er . . . will you . . .' I cleared my throat, '. . . will you have dinner with me tonight?'

THREE

'So, where are we going to eat then?' she asked. 'I mean, I don't know restaurants, do I?'We were standing on the platform at Euston Station. All the other pa.s.sengers were scurrying past us, busy ants with ordered, urgent lives.I was astonished that she had accepted my invitation. I think she was too. I wanted to get it all fixed up before she changed her mind. Hurriedly, I suggested L'Escargot Bleu. It was the only London restaurant I could think of.She suggested that I phoned them to make sure that they had a vacancy. I was forced to reveal that I didn't have a mobile phone. She shook her lovely head its loveliness shone out in the functional sobriety of Euston in sadness and shock, as if I had admitted that I had no t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es. She used her mobile to find the number of the restaurant, and I booked a table for eight o'clock. I found it ominous that there should be a vacancy at the time I suggested. Probably the restaurant had gone into terminal decline. I do have a pessimistic streak.I wondered whether to kiss her goodbye. I felt frozen in inept.i.tude. She gave me a very quick little kiss on the cheek, said, 'See you later', and strode off. I watched her till she disappeared down the steps towards the underground.I rubbed my cheek disbelievingly. A loudspeaker announced that the train to Glasgow was ready for boarding, and I fought off an irrational desire to get on to it and go far, far away.I walked towards the station concourse. It was crowded with anxious pa.s.sengers. People were hurrying in all directions. Only I didn't know what to do next. I was, after all, on my way home to Oxford. Had I time to go back home, bath, change, and catch a train back to Paddington? I didn't think so. I needed to find an hotel.On the very rare occasions when I need to spend a night in London I use one of the cheap, impersonal hotels that abound in the vicinity of the Euston Road. I use the word 'cheap' in a specialised sense, meaning 'not as expensive as other hotels' 79 for a box in an hotel without one touch of charm is not cheap. My friend Ashley Coldthrop would think it cheap. He works in the City. I do not. I am an academic. Don't start me off on the values of our society.Actually, I have always liked impersonal chain hotels. I want the minimum of contact with other people, but I don't want to be the only person breakfasting on my own. With the protection of the loneliness and mediocrity all around me, I can melt into the crowd.As I walked into the foyer of the nearest such hotel, I suddenly found myself back at school with Ashley. If I get eight sprouts on my plate, I will pa.s.s my exams in eight subjects. If there is a vacancy in this hotel tonight, she will turn up tonight. If there isn't, she won't.There was a vacancy. The moment I discovered that, my simplistic little fantasy of cause and effect disintegrated. I deserved that. How could I, a mature and reasonably successful philosophy don, even have attempted to connect two such separate events?I paid my bill in advance, as demanded. We are not talking about a civilised environment here. I carried my bag and briefcase over to the lift. I rode up in the lift, which had been built by Blackstone of Preston. I arrived safely. Good old Blackstone.At the exit from the lift there were two arrows, one pointing left to Rooms 301347, the other pointing right towards Rooms 348393. This was not an hotel that even its brochure could describe as intimate.I had been given room 393. Does that surprise you? Have you not formed a picture of a man who is always given the room furthest from the lift? This one will do. He won't cause trouble. He won't make a fuss. We'll give him 393.I cannot describe the long walk from the lift to Room 393 as stimulating. It involved traversing two sides of the square building, along carpets designed not to show marks where people had thrown up on them, past forty-five identical doors to a forty-sixth, past bleak walls broken up only by eight sad paintings. In this dark, claustrophobic world, only the red fire extinguishers shone.Nevertheless, just as I pa.s.sed Room 378, my bag getting heavier by the second, I stopped dramatically, struck by a thought. If things went well this evening, I might be bringing her back here, to this. Oh G.o.d.I tried to dismiss this wonderful, terrible thought. I couldn't possibly get that far. I had never got that far. Even with Rachel I hadn't got that far. Especially Especially with Rachel I hadn't got that far. I would have had more chance of breaking into Fort Knox than of having intercourse with Rachel. I thought her knickers were welded on to her body. with Rachel I hadn't got that far. I would have had more chance of breaking into Fort Knox than of having intercourse with Rachel. I thought her knickers were welded on to her body.I couldn't understand why I had suddenly begun thinking of Rachel after thirty years. I think now, looking back on it, that it was because Ange's loveliness brought home to me how stupid I had been to waste seventeen months of my young life in such a futile and half-hearted pursuit of an utterly s.e.xless young woman.I searched in my pockets for my silly little plastic room key. At last I found it. If, when I slid it into the narrow slot provided, a green light flashed briefly and the door of my room opened to reveal the ghastly sterility within, then she would come back with me that night. If, as usually happened, a red light flashed and I had to return to Reception to get the wretched thing reprogrammed, she wouldn't come.A green light flashed, immediately signifying nothing, but I smiled wryly as I removed the plastic from the slot, wondering if anyone had ever used one of those b.l.o.o.d.y little keys as a phallic symbol before.I dumped my bag on the bed. The mattress sagged and creaked. This was a bed made for sciatica, not s.e.x.I went into the cramped, claustrophobic bathroom. It had two cracked tiles and a bath designed for midgets. I lifted the lavatory seat, noting that it was loose, and did what had to be done. As I washed my hands I'm fanatical about washing my hands, don't like touching money without washing them afterwards I looked in the mirror, and saw a neglected face.My eyebrows had been left to their own devices for far too long. My hair had never been cut stylishly. For twenty years I had gone to the same barber because he was cheap and because he didn't make conversation. My abhorrence of small talk was due entirely to the vast areas of ignorance that it exposed. Football, cricket, our dreary politicians, motor cars, pubs, foreign holiday destinations, pop music, theatre, cinema, television, animal life, bird life, insect life, gardens, DIY you name it, I didn't know anything about it.I recalled with horror the one time when, due to circ.u.mstances beyond my control, I found my hair being cut by a trendy young man, who said to me, 'Are we planning anything interesting today, sir?' I had only just resisted an absurd temptation to shock him by saying 'Yes, I'm going home to slash my wrists in the bath.' There hadn't been any point. He wouldn't have cared, might even have tried to sell me a razor.Why did I think of that now? Because I was wondering what on earth I could possibly talk to Ange about. Because I was in a complete and utter panic. What on earth had possessed me to ask her out to dinner? Why on earth had I chosen, of all places, L'Escargot Bleu?Because it was the only London restaurant I had been to in the last two years. Ashley Coldthrop had taken me there. He was the only friend I still had from my school days. All my other real friendships, all six of them, had been made at Oxford. Once every two years Ashley took me out to dinner in London. Once every two years I took him out more modestly in Oxford. His wife didn't come. It worked better that way.I was a man so socially inept in the presence of women that my evenings with my oldest friend went better when his wife was not present. What on earth was I doing asking a darts groupie out to dinner?Darts. That was what we would talk about. Avoid Wittgenstein, concentrate on darts, and everything would be all right. In my adolescent days, my desperate days of p.u.b.erty, paralysis and pimples, I had saved my pocket money for a correspondence course on conversation! I'd soon given it up, it depressed me so much, but the one thing I remembered I'd even tried it at the time was to talk about what the other person is interested in. It hadn't worked very well. I would ask a question and then forget to listen to the reply, or hear half of it but miss vital clues, which would rapidly become apparent, so that I ended up looking stupid. I remember overhearing one of Rachel's radiologist friends saying, in a pub in Pangbourne, 'He's so clever, how can he always be so dim?'I felt better, after that, for at least a minute or two. I examined my face again, wondering if she could possibly find it kissable. Well, it wasn't grotesque, just weary, just lived in. The cheeks were sunken; I had the pallor of celibacy upon me; I should have had my teeth whitened; but no, I wasn't too awful, and if I'd looked after myself I might even have seemed moderately attractive.Then I went back into my room and unzipped my bag. Suddenly it dawned on me that I had nothing to unpack. I had no spare clothes. I hadn't expected to stay away for an extra day. I had never stayed away for an extra day in my life. I had no spare shirt, no clean socks. My underpants were grey with age rather like me, in fact, although I had always thought that it was their dogs rather than their underpants that owners came to resemble.I took a taxi to Regent Street, and bought a complete set of matching clothes in a suitably old-fashioned shop. It was too late to start trying to be fashionable. I needed things I would be comfortable in. The attendant was Asian but very very English. Oh, it's so you you, sir,' he kept saying. 'It's you to a T.' I bought everything, wincing at the cost, wondering if I had taken leave of my senses. My only indecision was, in fact, over the underpants. In the end I bought jockey shorts for the first time in my life, feeling really rather bold, for I suspected that the Dashing Dane and the Mercurial Man Mountain from Merthyr would both be jockey shorts men. The attendant was utterly charming throughout, as indeed he should have been, for this must have been the easiest sale of his life.I went back to my room, stood in the tiny bath, had a handheld shower that only trickled, washed my hair, discovered that there wasn't a hair dryer, carefully dressed myself from neck to toe in my new clothes, looked in the mirror, and saw a man who looked like a model in an advert for insurance for the senior citizen.Any self-a.s.surance that I still had melted away completely. I felt a sudden sickness in my stomach and an excruciating pain in my b.a.l.l.s. 'We aren't used to this. What the h.e.l.l's going on?' they were saying. I had to go and lie down.She wouldn't come. She would. She wouldn't. I blew metaphorical dandelion heads and didn't know which I dreaded most her coming or her not coming.I did consider the option of not turning up myself, but I knew that I couldn't do that to her. There are things that a gentleman can't do, and, anachronistic though it was, I still thought of myself as a gentleman.But why oh why had I asked her out?

FOUR

L'Escargot Bleu was dismayingly quiet just three tables taken. Oh, how I wished I had known of somewhere less starchy. I'd read that London was now the most exciting place to eat in the whole world. This restaurant wasn't remotely exciting. It was a relic from the past, and so was I, so it was just what I didn't need.I got there before her, feeling very self-conscious in my new clothes. I seated myself at a little table by the bar. As soon as I sat down I realised that the jockey shorts were far too tight around my crutch and were constricting my private parts. I longed to stand up and give them a good hitch, but I didn't dare to.My new clothes consisted of a check jacket, plain beige trousers, matching shirt, conservative plain blue tie. Oh G.o.d, was that what was 'so very you you, sir'? I knew, the moment I entered the restaurant, that my shopping spree had been an opportunity missed but then, if I was good at anything it was at missing opportunities. It was there that my genius resided.I ordered a dry sherry. The moment I ordered it I regretted that I hadn't made a slightly trendier, slightly less British, slightly more worldly choice. I decided to call the barman back to change my order, but when he turned in response to my 'Excuse me . . .' I said, 'No, sorry, it doesn't matter', because I didn't want him to think that I was indecisive. I don't think I had ever felt so nervous in my life, even when taking my fourth driving test.By this time I was convinced that she wouldn't come, I hoped that she wouldn't come, and then, suddenly, there she was and I knew in less than a second that I could hardly have borne it if she hadn't come.She was wearing a very shiny outfit, in lurid green. On the whole I didn't think I liked the material, but my consolation was that there was very little of it. It was extremely low cut, revealing a charming cleavage, and it was also very high cut, if that is the right phrase, which I doubt, showing lots of no less delightful leg. There was also a gap in the middle, exposing flesh far too young for me. I would hate you to think I am a sn.o.b. Rachel was a sn.o.b. Jane is a sn.o.b. I am not. Nevertheless, I have to admit that I was relieved that the tattoo I had glimpsed on the train was now hidden.She was probably the first person in the history of L'Escargot Bleu to order a pint of lager as an aperitif. The barman wanted to grin at her, but his job wouldn't allow him to. I don't usually notice things like that, but I noticed that I was noticing things I wouldn't usually notice. My senses were sharpened by her arrival, her nearness, her presence, her loveliness.I suppose I ought to admit, in the interests of that prim mistress, Truth, that if you saw her you would probably not think her beautiful. Attractive, yes, but not beautiful. You might describe her as somewhat elfin, or what the French call gamine, but what other people might think of her is, ultimately, irrelevant.There was she, five foot three, raising a pint gla.s.s of lager, and there was I, six foot and half an inch (I don't do metric), raising my tiny sherry gla.s.s. We clinked carefully, for fear the beer gla.s.s would shatter the sherry gla.s.s, and she said, 'Cheers, Alan.''Cheers, Ange.'She smiled, and there was shyness in her smile.'I've never been out with a philosopher before,' she said.'I've never been out with a darts groupie,' I replied.'I was gobsmacked when you asked me.'It was my turn to smile shyly.'I was very very . . . er . . . gob . . . er . . . surprised when I asked you.' . . . er . . . gob . . . er . . . surprised when I asked you.''I wondered if you'd turn up.''I wondered if you'd you'd turn up.' turn up.''I'm glad you did.''I'm glad you you did.' did.''I bet you don't have conversations like this with your philosopher mates.'I smiled inwardly at her use of the word 'mates'. How little she knew of my life. I didn't have any philosopher mates. The nicer philosophers that I knew were deadly rivals, the nastier were deadly enemies.'Not quite, no,' I agreed.An elderly French waiter, a man of the old school, collected us from the bar, placed our drinks on a tray, with a faint supercilious sniff towards the pint, and led us into the restaurant like a funeral director escorting a grieving widow into church. He had white hair and a long nose, ideal for looking down at people contemptuously. He made good use of this natural gift. As he led us, I tried to free my private parts from the constriction of the jockey shorts with a few subtle jerking movements. I was unsuccessful, and it must have looked to the other diners as if I was suffering from St Vitus Dance.The waiter took us, as I had known he would, to the table next to the toilets. I didn't protest. It's my natural place in the scheme of things: Alan Calcutt, next to the toilets.He handed us unfashionably huge menus and also handed me a very serious wine list which would have made the Domesday Book look like a leaflet.'Bleedin' 'ell, it's expensive,' she said, just as I was making a similar observation to myself in slightly different words.She studied the menu in silence, her lips moving slightly as she read, and frowning when she came to difficult words, words like darne and galantine, words which were new to her and which I only vaguely understood.I made my choice, and turned to the wine list. There were more than a hundred clarets, ranging in price from twenty-four pounds to five hundred and twenty.'Can I see?' she asked.I handed it to her. She almost buckled under the weight. She turned the pages slowly. Time seemed to stand still. The waiter hovered obtrusively, but did not approach.'They've got it,' she said. 'The one I like.'I felt a shiver of fear. I couldn't afford five hundred and twenty pounds. But the reality was possibly even worse.'They've put it under "rest of the world".' she said. 'That can't be right, cos it's French. Liebfraumilch.'The waiter approached like gas across a battlefield.'Madam,' he commanded.'I'll have the terrine, please,' said Ange, 'and the fillet steak with pepper sauce. What does that come with?''On its own, madam.''Bleedin' 'ell, it's daylight fu . . . oops, sorry . . . king robbery. With . . . er . . . saute potatoes, mashed potatoes, peas, cauliflower and green beans.''How would you like your steak, madam?''Well done.''Sir?' He could barely get the word out, such was his contempt.'I'll have the scallops, and I'll have the pheasant with courgettes.''Very good, sir.''We'll see if it is.'Oh G.o.d, why did I say that?'I beg your pardon, sir?''You said, "Very good". I said, "We'll see if it is very good".''Yes, sir.''And . . . er . . . we'll have a bottle of . . . er . . .' I swallowed. This took courage. This went against everything I had been bred for. '. . . of the Liebfraumilch.'He scurried off. I had not thought him capable of moving so fast.'I've never had pheasant,' said Ange.'It's very nice if it's well hung,' I said.'Does that make a difference?''All the difference.''Tons Thomas must be nice to eat, then.'I confess that this remark puzzled me, but I didn't challenge it. I knew how ignorant I was about darts. Here, though, was a convenient cue, an ideal opportunity to ask her, to draw her out, to enter the fascinating unknown world of compet.i.tive darts. Something prevented me. Jealousy towards Tons Thomas, perhaps. Anyway, I just couldn't bring myself to broach the subject. I knew that I needed to make conversation. I could hardly expect her to make the running, unsophisticated as she was, but I could think of nothing to say. It's quite hard, actually, to admit to you how inept I was that night.'It's filling up a bit,' I said, as two more people, stuffily dressed, entered the silent temple of gastronomy. I winced. 'It's filling up a bit,' observes Alan Calcutt, once thought to be one of the bright young hopes of British philosophical thinking.The waiter arrived with our bottle of Liebfraumilch. He held it gingerly, as if he might catch a fatal disease off it. He showed it to me. I nodded wretchedly. I wanted to be anywhere else than here. This was all a terrible mistake.He went away, and returned a moment later with the opened bottle. As he poured me a sip to taste, Ange leant forward and said, almost in a whisper, 'Wouldn't you think of going back to Mum, Dad?'The waiter ignored this remark so pointedly that I knew he had heard it. I sniffed the sweet wine, took a sip, nodded miserably. The waiter poured half a gla.s.s for us both and retreated hastily.'What on earth did you say that for?' I asked.'Bit of fun. I like fun, don't I? Cheers.'She raised her gla.s.s. I raised mine. We drank.'M'm. Nice.''No.''What?''It's not nice.''Well, I think it is.''Maybe, but, believe me, it isn't.''I'm not a philosopher like you, but I'd have thought that if I think it's nice then for me it is nice, whatever you say.''Well, yes, that's true.'I had a sinking feeling that I was going to say 'Well, yes, that's true' a lot. I didn't have the energy for argument that I once had. There had been a time when I would even have ventured to disagree with taxi drivers. Not any more. However, I felt that I needed to make a bit of a stab at defending my position.'When Kath Parker had her stag do in Dublin we was all knocking back the Liebfraumilch till it was coming out of our ears and we all thought it was lovely,' she said. 'How can you say we was all wrong?''Well,' I said, 'I suppose I would argue that if people who know a lot about wine all say that a wine isn't nice, and people who don't know much about wine all say that it is nice, the probability is that it's the people who know about wine who are actually right.''That's the first time tonight you've sounded like a philosopher,' she said.I didn't know whether to say 'Thank you' or 'Sorry'.'Were you always a philosopher?''I started to teach philosophy after university, yes. I went to Oxford and somehow I've never left it. It does that to you.'I found myself chatting about myself, not asking her about her. Rachel would have said that this was typical. Oh G.o.d, why was I still thinking about b.l.o.o.d.y Rachel?Suddenly I was talking to Ange in quite an unsuitable way, but anything was better than silence, and at least I was being myself. It was strange. I felt that I was hovering over myself, listening to myself being pretentious. I was having an out of body experience, which I would previously have said was impossible.'I tended to see myself as a bit of a maverick when I was young, a lone philosophical wolf. Arthur Holdall once said my problem was that I couldn't decide whether to be an enfant noir enfant noir or a or a bete terrible bete terrible.''Arthur Holdall?''A colleague.''I bet he's a case.''What? Ah. Yes. Yes. He once described me as a weir over which the turbulent currents of existentialism flowed into the stagnant pools of logical positivism.'I gave a deep sigh.'Oh, Alan,' she said. It was the first time she'd used my name just like that, as if she'd known me for quite a while, and it sounded very pleasant, very natural. 'What an awful sigh. I can't help it if I don't understand. Wish you weren't here with me?'Yes.'No!'Yes and no.'No, Ange, I was just thinking, n.o.body would describe me as Holdall did nowadays. I am one of that great army of thinkers who haven't fulfilled their promise.'Luckily the waiter arrived with our starters, interrupting this morbid self-pity. His arrival wasn't altogether lucky, though. It set her off again.'What was it like in Pentonville, Dad? I mean the nosh. Was it any better than the Scrubs?'The waiter's whole body stiffened. He tried to give me the terrine and her the scallops, even though he must have known that it was the other way round.My flesh crawled with embarra.s.sment.'You're embarra.s.sing me,' I said, when he had gone. 'I don't want you to say things like that.''Oh, Alan,' she said again. 'Who cares what a sn.o.bby Frog waiter thinks?'Casual racial insults of that kind horrify me. There was a risk that she would think me very stuffy, that she would be hurt, that I would be pouring cold water on our evening, but I couldn't let it go. I might have done with a taxi driver, especially a big taxi driver, but not with a dining companion.'You shouldn't refer to the French as Frogs,' I said. 'They're a very civilised nation, with a very strong cultural tradition. Have you ever heard of a man called Jean Paul Sartre?'She thought hard, wrinkling her pert little nose. I longed to trace the curl of her nostrils with a gentle finger.'Didn't he used to play for a.r.s.enal?''He was a philosopher. He was an existentialist.''A what?'How could I explain existentialism to her, without my scallops going cold? The scallops were good, but not great. The freshness of the sea had long departed from them. At that price, it shouldn't have. I munched and thought.'Existentialism is a philosophy that is based on freedom of choice, on taking responsibility for one's own actions, which create one's own moral values and determine one's future.' I was aware that I was sounding like a text book again.She thought about that pretty hard.'Actually that sounds quite sensible,' she said. 'Good old Sparta.''Sartre. What do you mean?''Well, it sounds to me as though he's cracked it. Is that the answer, then?''The answer to what?''Philosophy.''Ah. If only it were that simple. Philosophy is a process, Ange. It explores and examines. It is, ultimately, historically, more to do with asking questions than finding answers. Existentialists found their answers. Many other people question their answers and refute them. It's an on-going process.''It's all a bit beyond me. Easy come, easy go, that's me. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die, that's me.''That's epicureanism.''It is is?' She was delighted.'Well, broadly, yes.''Get that! I'm an epicureanist!'I smiled, thrilled by her delight. For many years I had been feeling that I smelt stale. Not horrid. Not sweaty. I didn't have BO or halitosis. I just smelt stale. My breath, when it came back to me off a mirror, my armpits, my shirts vaguely stale.I was conscious of that now, and I suppose, therefore, that I already knew, deep down, that this girl could wash my staleness away.'I hope I don't sound patronising, Ange,' I said, 'but if you have any questions, any time, about philosophy or indeed about anything, please don't hesitate to ask.'The waiter cleared away our plates lugubriously, standing a bit away from the table and reaching for them.'Was your terrine all right?' I asked.'Yeah. It was good. Very garlicky, I'm afraid.'If she was worried about the garlic, she expected us to end up close to each other. I shivered with a mixture of apprehension and excitement. I couldn't say, now, which was the stronger. Probably I couldn't have said it then either.'There is one question,' she said.'Yes. Yes. Good. Excellent. Fire away. I'll do my best.''If you hate bananas, how come you had one in your briefcase?''What? Oh, I see. Ah. Well, my hotel in Manchester, if you're well known, they put a bowl of fruit in your room. I'm innately mean, and cannot bear to leave what is free.''Are you well known then?'Her amazement wasn't flattering, but I wasn't offended. In fact it amused me.'Not really. Not outside my field, my very narrow field, but I was in Manchester to speak at a conference, and I think they cla.s.sify all the speakers as celebrities.''What's your other name again?''Calcutt. Alan Calcutt.''No. Sorry. Never heard of you.' She gave me a quite lovely smile, childlike, affectionate, kind. It took away all the abruptness of her remark. 'Is that as incredible as you never having heard of Tons Thomas?''Probably not. I think that in the world at large he's probably more widely known than me. Sadly. So what's your your other name?' other name?'She looked a little embarra.s.sed, for the first time.'Bedwell.'Our eyes met. I was terrified that I was going to blush. I didn't, but the effort of not doing so left me feeling limp and exhausted.'Here's another one,' she said, changing the subject hurriedly, and I must say I was very relieved to find that she too was capable of embarra.s.sment.'Good. Good. Fire away.'The waiter was returning with our main courses. This might be my chance to impress him.'Name three fish that begin and end with K.'It wouldn't be my chance to impress him.'Er . . . oh, I've no idea, I really haven't.''Try.'The waiter put her plate down in front of her. Her fillet steak looked like a tiny burnt offering in the middle of its huge white plate. The pepper sauce was dribbled over the plate so artistically t