Under World

Chapter 3

In depression as in toothache, rational analysis is no palliative. Ellie knew that a gloom had settled upon her since her visit to Burrthorpe but knew no way to disperse it. A recent ritual clearing out of the family medicine chest, aimed principally at Peter who had the mild hypochondriac’s reluctance to dump old pills, had washed away her own little store of uppers and downers, putting that particular temptation out of reach. Drink made things worse, and long walks in the very fresh air didn’t make them any better. She could see that Peter was puzzled by her dullness, and in particular by the absence of the full action replay which her descent into the pit would normally have produced. It wasn’t that images of the visit did not fill her mind. Closing her eyes in sleep brought a darkness which was rapidly filled by the bobbing lights of helmet-lamps. Tunnels curved away with gates branching off in all directions, and as she moved along on the ever accelerating paddy, she had the retrospective fancy that she was in the bloodstream of some monstrous creature, being sucked along a main artery by the audible pumping of its huge heart. And at that heart stood a solitary figure, Colin Farr, his naked body caked with glittering coal dust like a fell of dark pricked with a myriad stars. Then she was in the car with his hand between her legs and in the back seat his mother talked sadly of her pit-maimed husband lying dead in the darkness at the foot of the old shaft.

She was able to toy with these dreams in a variety of ways, but no amount of no matter how eclectic a self-analysis could lighten her depression. She told herself that the terrifying otherness of that underground world which in itself would probably just have provided good copy for a radical dinner-party had somehow, indeed almost literally, been rammed home into her subconscious by the brutal indifference of Col Farr’s assault. Had he simply made a pass at her, that would have been different. In the Ivory Tower’s paternoster she had experienced his physical proximity like an electrical current. But this had been something else. It might just as well have been his ‘ringer’ which he had thrust beneath her skirt. There had been something intensely impersonal as well as whatever was intensely personal in that gesture. It meant separation, dismissal, perhaps even contempt. She made up her mind to ring Adam and call off the rest of her classes.

But on Monday afternoon she was there as they came drifting in, and with them, neither ostentatiously last nor challengingly first, Colin Farr. She caught his eye without meaning to, and he rubbed the back of his hand across his nose and gave a little grin, sheepish almost, like a small boy acknowledging his fault but sure of his forgiveness. Instantly the dullness lifted from her mind like a morning mist and she had to take deliberate control to keep the returning lightness from catching at her voice.

That class was one of the best she had taken. There had been a big CND rally in London the previous Saturday which Ellie had been severely reprimanded by Thelma Lacewing for not attending. She had, however, partly retrieved her position by pointing out that as part of her group’s study of media distortion, she had asked them to read the account of the rally in whatever Sunday paper they normally took, and to come along on Monday ready to discuss it.

‘Forget personal belief or knowledge,’ she said. ‘Let’s just discuss the rally and the issues in the light of what you’ve gleaned from the paper you normally read.’

It took a while to divert the class from their fascinated curiosity into her reaction to visiting a pit, but once discussion of the papers got under way, the miners were soon competing to make their points.

At the end of the session which had overrun by nearly half an hour, Colin Farr took his time in packing his insubstantial gear together and soon only he and Ellie remained in the room.

‘That was good,’ he complimented her. ‘I enjoyed that.’

She felt an absurd amount of pleasure.

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘How’s your mam?’

‘Why?’ he asked, immediately alert. ‘Did you think she looked poorly?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s just the kind of polite inquiry us middle-class academics make. Sometimes it’s meaningless. Sometimes it stems from a real interest.’

‘And what’s it stem from this time?’ he asked.

‘Real interest. I liked her. I hope she liked me. Did she?’

He smiled, no sheepish child’s grin this time, but sardonic and watchful.

‘You oughtn’t to ask questions unless you want to hear the truth,’ he said.

‘That’s the only reason I ever ask questions,’ she retorted with spirit.

‘In that case,’ he said, ‘Mam said you seemed quite a nice kind of woman.’

‘Oh.’ Ellie considered. ‘Is that good or bad?’

‘Well, she might’ve said you seemed quite a nice kind of lady,’ said Farr.

‘And would that have been better or worse?’

‘What do you think?’

He rose from his chair and strolled slowly towards her. She felt all her muscles tense. He halted only a foot away.

She said, controlling her voice with difficulty, ‘If you’re planning the mixture as before, Colin, I should point out that I’m wearing an extraordinarily sturdy pair of jeans today.’

To her surprise he flushed beautifully.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘I wanted to say I was sorry about that. Sometimes I do things … I was upset, I don’t know why …’

‘Upset by me?’

‘I don’t know what!’ He spoke sharply. ‘Only sometimes when things get a bit mixed up in your mind, it seems to make sense to get ’em all straightened out, nice and simple, even if it means forcing one or two of them a bit. Don’t you ever feel that?’

‘You certainly acted as if you were about to force me. I was terrified.’

‘Were you?’ He sounded genuinely taken aback. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realize. Oh shit. It just seemed to make things simpler if I thought of you as a middle-class bird who fancied a bit of rough.’

‘Well, thank you, kind sir!’

‘No, I’m sorry, that’s not what I really think. I knew it wasn’t true, even when I tried it on. That’s why I did it like I did, I reckon, because I knew it was just a gesture. I’m really sorry, though. Do you believe me?’

‘You’d have got a real shock wouldn’t you if I’d flung myself on top of you and started tearing your clothes off!’ said Ellie pensively.

He began to smile, the true Colin Farr smile, slow, charming, incredibly attractive.

‘I’d have tried to act like a gentleman,’ he said.

He was still very close and Ellie suddenly felt a thrill of danger and knew this time it came from within as much as without. It was time not to be alone with this youth, but she wasn’t yet ready to part company with him altogether.

‘Have you time for a cup of tea or something in the refectory?’ she asked. ‘I’m parched after all that talking.’

‘What about your lassie?’ he asked. ‘Don’t you have to pick her up?’

Oh God, here we go again, she thought. Poor old Rosie!

‘She’s in the crèche,’ she said. ‘I’m late already, but they don’t usually mind. I’ll just ring up to make sure they can hang on to her another half-hour. You could do a bit of tidying up after your mates if you like.’

She gestured at the newspapers strewn around the tables. This feeble attempt to retreat to a teacher-pupil relationship did not go unremarked.

‘Yes, miss,’ he said.

She went out and along the corridor to Adam’s office. He wasn’t in, but he had given her a key so she could use the room to store any material she didn’t want to lug around with her. It took her a few minutes to get through to the crèche, conjuring up pictures of some dreadful crisis with Rosie, mutinous from neglect, at its centre. But no, all was well, a matter-of-fact voice assured her, and yes, another half-hour would make no difference.

But when she returned to the classroom she saw that a few minutes had made a very great difference.

Colin Farr was standing with one of the discarded newspapers in his hand. His face was pale and drawn and suddenly the resemblance to his mother was quite marked.

‘Colin, is something wrong?’ she asked.

‘Mebbe. I don’t know.’

He threw the paper on to the floor and made for the door. She followed him.

‘For heaven’s sake, what’s the matter?’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘That cup of tea’ll have to wait.’

They reached the landing and without pause he stepped on to the paternoster. Unthinking, Ellie followed him, falling heavily against his taut young body as the moving platform dropped away. He put his arms around her to steady her, but he did not take them away. The descent seemed dream-like. Her eyes were closed and when he stepped out, almost carrying her with him, and she opened her eyes once more, she would hardly have been surprised to see the neon glow and whitewashed walls of pit bottom all around them.

He said, ‘I’ve got to get home. See you next week.’

Then he kissed her briefly and turned and loped away towards the car park.

She watched him go till rationality came seeping back.

What in the name of God am I doing? she asked herself, and glanced around, sure that an ambush of curious eyes must have gathered to view this silly old slag who was behaving so daftly.

There was no one to pay the slightest interest. Recalling she’d left her bag in the seminar room, she summoned a lift. The paternoster’s cramped cells seemed to be flying upwards at an impossibly dangerous speed. The lift was a long time coming and an even longer time ascending and by the time she reached the room, she was perfectly composed. She picked up her handbag, checked her face and hair in the pocket mirror and prepared to leave.

Her foot kicked the paper Colin Farr had dropped to the floor. She picked it up. It was the Challenger and it was open at the page containing Episode Two of Watmough’s alleged memoirs. Her eye caught the word Burrthorpe. Peter had been talking about this yesterday, she recalled. She had affected indifference. No, not affected. Yesterday she had been indifferent. But not now.

She read the piece swiftly, then more slowly re-read the final paragraph. She recalled her conversation with Mrs Farr. There seemed no doubt; the dead witness, the man about whom this terrible insinuation was being made, must be Colin’s father.

When she’d finished, she stared at the photograph of Neville Watmough which stared seriously back from alongside the headlines.

‘You bastard!’ she said. ‘You shitty bastard.’