The Morning Gift

Chapter 13

Within three days of the beginning of term, Ruth was thoroughly at home at Thameside. To reach the university, she had to walk across Waterloo Bridge and that was like getting a special blessing for the coming day. There was always something to delight her: a barge passing beneath her with washing strung across the deck, or a flock of gulls jostling and screeching for the bread thrown by a bundled old woman who looked poor beyond belief, but was there each day to share her loaf — and once a double rainbow behind St Paul’s.

‘And it always smells of the sea,’ she told Dr Felton, who was becoming not only her tutor but a friend. ‘The rivers in Europe don’t do that — well, how could they with the ocean so far away?’

Dr Felton was a fine teacher, an enthusiast who shared with his students the amazing life of his creatures.

‘Look!’ he would cry like a child as he found, under the microscope, a cluster of transparent eggs from a brittle star, or the flagellum with which some infinitely small creature hurled itself across a drop of liquid. As she prepared slides and made her diagrams, Ruth was in a world where there was no barrier between science and art. Nor could anyone be indifferent to the extraordinarily successful lives led by Dr Elke’s tapeworms, untroubled by the search for food or shelter — living, loving, having their entire being in the secure world of someone else’s gut.

But if the staff were kind, and the work absorbing, it was her fellow students who made Ruth’s first days at Thameside so happy. They had worked together for two years, but they welcomed her without hesitation. There was Sam Marsh, a thin tousle-haired boy with the face of an intelligent rat, who wore a flat cap and a muffler to show his solidarity with the proletariat, and Janet Carter, a cheerful vicar’s daughter with frizzy red hair, whose innumerable boyfriends, of an evening, fell off sofas, got their feet stuck in the steering wheels of motor cars and generally came to grief in their efforts to attain their goal. There was a huge, silent Welshman (but not called Morgan) who was apt to crush test tubes unwittingly in his enormous hands… And there was Pilly.

Pilly’s name was Priscilla Yarrowby, but the nickname had stuck to her since her schooldays for her father was a manufacturer of aspirins. Pilly had short, curly, light brown hair and round blue eyes which usually wore a look of desperate incomprehension. She had failed every exam at least once, she wept over her dis-sections, she fainted at the sight of blood. The discovery that Ruth, who looked like a goose girl in a fairy tale, knew exactly what she was doing, filled Pilly with amazement and awe. That this romantic newcomer (with whom Sam was already obviously in love) was willing to help her with her work and to do so tactfully and unobtrusively, produced an onrush of uncontainable gratitude. Within forty-eight hours of Ruth’s arrival, it became almost impossible to prise poor Pilly from her side.

To the general niceness of the students there was one glaring exception. Verena Plackett’s arrival for the first lecture of term was one which Ruth never forgot.

She was sitting with her new friends, when the door opened and a college porter entered, placed a notice saying Reserved in the middle of the front bench, and departed again, looking cross. Since the lecture was to be given by Dr Fitzsimmons, the gangling, rather vague Physiology lecturer and was attended only by his students, this caused surprise, for Dr Fitzsimmons was not really a puller-in of crowds.

A few minutes passed, after which the door opened once more and a tall girl in a navy-blue tailored coat and skirt entered, walked to the Reserved notice, removed it, and sat down. She then opened her large crocodile-skin briefcase and took out a morocco leather writing case from which she removed a thick pad of vellum paper, an ebony ruler, a black fountain pen with a gold nib and a silver propelling pencil. Next, she zipped up the writing case again, put it back into the briefcase, shut the briefcase — and was ready to begin.

Dr Fitzsimmons had decided to start with an outline of the human digestive system. Moving slowly from the salivary glands of the mouth to the peristaltic movements of the oesophagus, he reached the stomach itself which he drew on the blackboard, occasionally breaking the chalk. And as he spoke, or drew, so did Verena follow him. There was no word that Dr Fitzsimmons uttered that she did not write down in her large, clear script; no ‘and’ or ‘but’ she omitted. Then, at five minutes to ten, she wound down the lead of her propelling pencil, screwed on the top of her fountain pen, opened the briefcase, unzipped the morocco leather writing case… But even when all her belongings were back in place, Verena did not at once follow the other students into the practical class, for she knew how gratifying it must be for a member of staff to have the Vice Chancellor’s daughter in the audience — and approaching the dais where Dr Fitzsimmons, lightly covered in chalk, was obliterating the human stomach, she stepped towards him.

‘You will have gathered who I am,’ she said, graciously holding out her hand, ‘but I feel I should thank you on behalf of my parents and myself for your interesting lecture.’

It was not till she entered the Physiology lab that Verena was compelled to communicate with her fellow students. Waiting on the benches were a number of coiled rubber tubes, each with a syringe on one end, and a slightly daunting set of instructions. Swallow the tube as far as the white mark and remove the contents of the stomach for analysis, they began.

The demonstrator, a friendly young man, came forward helpfully. ‘You will have to work in pairs,’ he said. And to Verena: ‘Since you’re new, Miss Plackett, I thought you might like to work with Miss Berger who’s started this year also.’

Ruth turned and smiled at Verena. She would have preferred to work with Pilly who was looking at her beseechingly, or with Sam, but she was more than ready to be friendly.

Verena, in silence, stood and looked down at Ruth. There had been a row in Belsize Park after Ruth’s acceptance at Thameside. Leonie had announced her intention of selling the diamond brooch she had secreted in her corset and kitting Ruth out for college, and Ruth had refused to hear of it. ‘There’ll be much more important things to spend money on,’ she’d said firmly.

This morning, accordingly, Ruth wore a lavender smock printed with small white daisies to protect her loden skirt — the property of Miss Violet who had a number of such garments in which to serve tea at the Willow. It was not what Ruth would have chosen to wear in a laboratory, but she had accepted gratefully, as she had accepted the virulently varnished pencil box decorated with pink hearts which Mrs Burtt had bought for her from Woolworth’s. Also in Ruth’s straw basket was her lunch — a bread roll in a paper bag — and a bunch of dandelions she had picked to give the sheep in the basement; and her hair, piled high on her head for purposes of experimentation, was bound by a piece of Uncle Mishak’s gardening twine.

At this extremely unscientific apparition, Verena stared for a few moments in perhaps justifiable distress.

Then she said: ‘I think it would be inadvisable for two newcomers to work together.’

The snub was unmistakable. Ruth flushed and turned away, and Verena proceeded to don a snow-white and perfectly starched lab coat before she decided on the partner of her choice. The group round Miss Berger was obviously unsuitable and a possible candidate — a handsome, fair-haired young man — moved away to another bench before she could catch his eyes. But hovering rather flatteringly near her was a nicely turned-out youth, tall and thin, with sandy hair which he kept short and under control.

‘What about you?’ she said to Kenneth Easton.

She had made an excellent choice. Kenneth, who watched birds (but only if they were rare) was a conscientious, painstaking young man who now saw his career take off under this august patronage and moved eagerly to her side.

‘I hope she chokes to death,’ said Sam viciously, looking across at Verena. But of course she didn’t. While the sycophantic Kenneth stood beside her, ready to receive the contents of her stomach, Verena lifted the rubber tube to her mouth — and calmly, competently, in a series of python-like gulps, she swallowed it.

Because there were so many more men than women at Thameside, and because they were so very disposed to be friendly, Ruth told everyone early on about Heini: that he was coming, that he was incredibly gifted, that she meant — after she got her degree — to spend her life with him.

‘What’s he like?’ asked Janet.

‘He’s got curly dark hair and grey eyes and he plays like no one else in the world. You’ll hear him when he comes — at least you will when I’ve got the piano.’

Heini’s existence was a blow to Sam, but he took it well, deciding to play a Lancelot-like role in Ruth’s life which would be better for his degree than a public passion — and he, and all Ruth’s friends, quite understood that if Ruth only joined those clubs that were free, or refused to come to The Angler’s Arms after college, it was because any spare money she might collect in tips at the Willow had to go into Heini’s jam jar. And soon even Huw Davies (the Welshman who was not called Morgan) could be seen staring into the windows of piano shops, for there is nothing more infectious than involvement in a noble cause.

Afterwards, Ruth wished that there hadn’t been that week at the beginning of term when Quin was not yet back from Scotland. She heard too much about Professor Somerville’s achievements, his intelligence, the wonderful things he had done for his students.

‘I’d give my soul to be taken on one of his trips,’ said Sam, ‘but I haven’t a chance; not even if I got a First. There’s always a queue of people waiting to go.’

Even Janet, who had such a poor opinion of the male sex and continued to bite the heads off her unsuccessful suitors in the manner of the wind spider in the Natural History Museum, spoke well of him.

‘His lectures are really good — he sort of opens up the world for you. And there’s absolutely no side to him. It makes my blood boil to hear Verena go on as though she owns him — she hasn’t even met him!’

But it was from Pilly that Ruth heard most about Professor Somerville. Priscilla might be unable to grasp the concept of radial symmetry in the jellyfish, but her loving heart made her perceptive and skilful where the needs of her friends were concerned, and she now decided that Ruth was not getting enough lunch.

This was true. Ruth had told Leonie that lunch in the refectory was free. She then got off the tube three stops early, used the tuppence she saved to buy a bread roll, and ate it by the river. Ruth was entirely satisfied with this arrangement, but Pilly was not, and on Ruth’s third day at Thameside she asked if she might bring a picnic and join her.

‘Wouldn’t you rather go into the refectory?’

‘No, I wouldn’t. The food doesn’t agree with me,’ lied Pilly.

She then went home and consulted her mother. Mr Yarrowby did not just make aspirins, he made a great many of them. Priscilla was driven to college in a Rolls-Royce which dropped her two streets away because she was shy about her wealth, but her mother was a down-to-earth Yorkshire woman. Mrs Yarrowby had never been overcome by pigeons in the Stephansplatz, but she and Leonie were sisters under the skin.

‘Oh dear!’ said Pilly, opening her lunch box on the following day. ‘I can’t possibly eat all that — and if I leave anything my mother will be so hurt!’

That was a cry to which Ruth couldn’t help rallying. Leonie’s desperate face when she stopped at one helping of sauerkraut had been a feature of her childhood. She shared Pilly’s flaky meat patties, the hard-boiled eggs, the parkin, the grapes… and even then there were crusts over to throw to the greedy birds which gave Ruth a special happiness.

‘Oh, Pilly, you can’t imagine how lovely it is to be able to feed the ducks again. It makes me feel like a real and proper person, not a refugee.’

‘You’d always be a real and proper person,’ said Pilly staunchly. ‘You’re the most real and proper person I’ve ever met.’

But it was as they sat leaning against the parapet with Ruth’s loden cloak wrapped round their shoulders against the wind, that Ruth learnt how much Pilly dreaded the onset of the Palaeontology course.

‘I’ll never get through,’ she said miserably. ‘I can’t even tell the difference between Pleistocene and plasticine.’

‘Yes you can… But, Pilly, why do you have to take that option? I mean, there are rather a lot of names.’

Pilly looked depressed and threw another crust into the water. ‘It’s to do with Professor Somerville.’

There was a pause. Then: ‘How is that? How is it to do with him?’

‘My father thinks he’s the perfect Renaissance man,’ said Pilly. ‘You know, he does everything. My father saw him on a newsreel about three years ago when he came back from Java with the skull of that Neanderthal lady and some other time when he was riding through Nepal on a yak. Or maybe it was a mule. You see my father had to go into a factory at fourteen and he never had a chance to do a degree or travel — that’s why he’s pushing me through college though I told him I was too stupid. And Professor Somerville is the sort of person he wants to have been.’

‘I see.’

‘He cuts all the articles about him out of the National Geographic. And then there’s the sailing — Professor Somerville won some race in a dinghy with the sea banging about over his head and my father liked that too. And he’s a Great Lover, like the Medicis, though I don’t suppose he poisons people so much.’

‘How do your parents know he’s a Great Lover?’

Pilly sighed. ‘It’s in the papers. In the gossip columns. An actress called Tansy Mallet chased him all over Egypt and now he’s got some stunningly beautiful Frenchwoman he takes to the theatre — and everyone’s always trying to get him to take them on field trips. You wait till he gets back — his lectures are always absolutely packed with people from the outside. They pay the university ten pounds a year and they can go to any lecture, but it’s his they go to.’ She bit into her sandwich. ‘And there’s Bowmont too.’

‘What’s Bowmont?’

‘It’s where Professor Somerville lives. You’ll see when we go on the field course.’

‘I’m not going on the field course,’ said Ruth. ‘But what’s so special about Bowmont? I thought it was just a house with no central heating?’

Pilly shook her head. ‘It can’t be because Turner painted it.’

‘Well, he painted a lot of things, didn’t he? Cows and sunsets and shipwrecks?’

‘Maybe — but everyone wants to go there all the same. Oh, Ruth, I’ll never do it. All those names — Jurassic and Mesozoic and on and on…’

‘You will do it,’ said Ruth, setting her jaw. ‘We’ll make lists — a list for the bathroom, a list for the lavatory… I expect you’ve got a lot of bathrooms so you can have a lot of lists and I’ll hear you every day. They’re only names like people being called Cynthia or George.’

The weather was fine that first week at Thameside and for Ruth everything was a delight. Dr Felton’s lectures, the first rehearsal of the Bach Choir which cost nothing to join and sent the sound of the B Minor Mass soaring over the campus. She coached Pilly, she made friends with a Ph.D. student in the German Department and persuaded him that Rilke, when properly spoken, was not a madman but a poet — and she was faithful to the sheep.

Yet if her happiness was real, it could be fractured in an instant by a reminder of the past. One afternoon she was crossing the courtyard on the way back from a seminar when she heard, coming from a window of the Arts Block the sound of the Schubert Quartet in E flat. She stood still for a moment, making sure that she was right, that it was the Zillers who were playing, and it was: they always took the Adagio with that heavenly slowness which had nothing to do with solemnity. And now the second violin lifted itself above the others to repeat the motif and she could see Biberstein’s dark curls standing on end and his chin pressed against his fiddle as he looked into the eye of Schubert, or of God.

Then she ran across the grass, through the archway, up the stairs… She knew, of course, before she opened the door of the Common Room, she knew it was impossible. Time had not run backward, she was not crossing the Johannesgasse towards the windows of the Conservatoire where the Zillers practised. But there were a few seconds while her body believed what her brain knew to be impossible — and then she saw the horn of the gramophone and the members of the Music Club sitting in a circle — and knew that the past was past, and Biberstein was dead.

It was on the following day that Verena was gracious enough to inform her fellow students that Professor Somerville would be back to give his Palaeontology lecture on Monday.

‘Are you sure?’ asked Sam.

‘Certainly I’m sure,’ said Verena. ‘He is to dine with us that night.’