Moab is my Washpot

Catching Up

I WAS DOWN IN THE basement rooms of Norwich’s Bohemian hang-out, Just John’s Delicatique. On what dark night of the soul the word Delicatique was born no one knew and John refused to say, but his coffee shop was the place in Norwich to talk art, music and politics.

I had not been able that morning to bear the suspense any more of waiting for the postman and news from Cambridge. The promised A levels and S levels had been achieved in the summer, that glorious summer of ‘76, and the following November, alone but for a single invigilator in a huge hall at City College, I had sat the Cambridge Entrance exam. After two weeks of scaring the postman off his bike, I told my mother that I had had enough.

‘I can’t take this any more. I’m going into Norwich. If there’s anything in the post, feel free to open it. I’ll be at Just John’s at lunchtime.’

The post in Booton didn’t arrive until at least ten in the morning and the only bus into Norwich left the corner of the lane at seven-forty on the dot, so the choice was Postman or Norwich.

It was good to be back in Just John’s. The usual crowd were there: Jem, impossibly, Byronically handsome worshipper of Blake and Jim Morrison; Nicky, Rugby School expulsee and amiable conversationalist, Greg and Jonathan, two twinkly and amusing brothers and the small gang of other café society regulars. We sat, drank coffee, nibbled carrot-cake and sipped at communally paid for shared glasses of frighteningly expensive Urquell Pilsner, talking of this, that and everything in between.

‘You look nervous,’ said Greg.

He pointed out that every twenty seconds I had been looking at my watch and that my right leg had been bouncing up and on down on the ball of its foot – a mannerism Hugh Laurie to this day constantly upbraids me for. He used to believe that I did it to put him off when we played chess together at Cambridge (see photograph): in fact I am never aware that I do it. Hugh’s way of putting me off was to checkmate me, which is a great deal less sporting.

‘It’s nothing,’ I said. ‘Just that… no, there can’t be anything. It’s ten past one. If there was a letter my mother would have called straight away.

Just then Just John himself appeared halfway down the stairs: ‘Stephen!’ he yelled across the buzz of frothy talk and frothing cappuccino. ‘Telephone for you!’

I jumped to my feet and streaked towards him, sending my chair backwards on to the floor.

Somehow I managed to overtake John on the narrow stairway and I leaped for the dangling receiver.

‘Mother! Did a letter come?’

‘No, darling. No letter.’

‘Oh…’

Bless her, but damn her too, why did she have to call if there was no letter? She must have known my heart had been in my throat all morning. She wants me to buy some bloody salami or something…

‘No letter at all, I’m afraid,’ she said again. ‘Just a telegram.’

‘A what?’

‘A telegram.’

Who on earth could be sending me telegrams? Christ, maybe it had something to do with the court case. A new charge? A discrepancy in my statement. It was a whole year ago now, but these things could happen.

‘I’ll read it to you,’ said my mother, and then in her best and clearest for-foreigners-and-the-deaf voice, she enunciated: ‘Congratulations stop Awarded Scholarship Queens’ College stop Senior Tutor.’

‘Read that again! Read that again!’

‘Oh darling…’ she said with a sniff. ‘I’m so proud. I’m so proud!’

What did Paul Pennyfeather do? What did W. H. Auden do? It was the only thing to do.

I emerged from London’s Green Park tube station two days later and strolled past the Ritz Hotel. Perhaps I should go in and say hello to Ron, tell him how useful his beloved Reitlinger had been in preparing me for the History of Art paper. Maybe later. My appointment was for eleven o’clock and it would not do to be even a second late. I passed Albany Court and peeped up, thinking of Jack and Ernest, Raffles and Bunny.

Turning left into Sackville Street I searched the doorways until I saw the brass plaque I had been looking for:

GABBITAS amp; THRING

SCHOLASTIC AGENCY

They wouldn’t spurn a good public school fellow, a Cambridge Scholar Elect. There must be a prep school out there somewhere in need of extra staff. In need of someone who knew the system and was prepared to step in at a moment’s notice to teach a little Latin, a little Greek, a little French, English and History. Someone who would muck in, referee a rugby match, help mount a play. A typical Uppingham product: a good, solid, all-round chap.

I rang the bell.

‘Thrrrrring!’

I thought of the great whiskers and the Chapel. I thought of hurrying past those great whiskers to see where he might leave his briefcase in the colonnade. Had I really been caught in such a net of madness for so long? And was that stab I felt inside still a stab of longing? No, no. Surely not.

My whole life spread out gloriously behind me.

I knew how to work now. Preparing for the Cambridge Entrance exam I had read every Shakespeare play and written pages and pages of notes on each: scene breakdowns, character lists, cross references, everything. I knew how to concentrate. No need for Lentizol and constipation to keep me attentive.

Was I exuberant? Was the spring back in the step? When I arrived at Cambridge I would be older than the others in my year. I would be twenty and they would be eighteen. Jo Wood, Matthew, all of those Uppingham friends, they had already left. I would be out of place amongst a milling crowd of youths who, pace Churchill, wanted to sow wild oats while all I wanted to do was grow sage.

‘Thrrrrring! Thrrrrring!’

‘Wizzit?’

‘Um, I have an appointment for eleven o’clock. To see a Mr Howard?’

‘Gabbitas!’ The electric door latch snapped open with a triple clunk and I bounded up the stairs.

No. I was Stephen. I was always going to be Stephen. I would always be that same maddening, monstrous mixture of pedantry, egoism, politeness, selfishness, kindliness, sneakiness, larkiness, sociability, loneliness, ambition, ordered calm and hidden intensity. I would cover my life with words. I would spray the whole bloody world with words. They were still all that I had but at last they were getting me places.

Go and sin no more? I’m sorry, Mr Cromie, but there are sins out there I haven’t even heard of yet -not even me: clever-clogs, smart-arse, read-it-all, know-it-all, done-it-all, seen-it-all me.

You bet I was fucking exuberant.