A Whistling Woman by A.S. Byatt Page B

that difficult and irrelevant things like Frederica’s classes in Metaphysical Poetry should be abolished. Frederica’s classes in contemporary fiction became a series of repetitive attempts to find out the first principles of why art students should bother themselves with literature at all. Frederica had no answer. It was clear to her that it was better to be interested in things than not interested in them, and that included literature, as it might have included botany or nuclear fission. But she found it increasingly difficult to retain her own interest in the transient phenomenon of being a student, especially a student who didn’t study, but talked and talked. She suggested that the contemporary fiction class agree a topic on contemporary fiction and discuss it. Someone proposed
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
. After lengthy debate this proposal was adopted. The seminar took place. Frederica sat at the back, in a non-authoritarian position. No one spoke. No one spoke. Frederica asked if anyone had read
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
. No one had, or no one would admit it. Frederica stood up. She said “If I had lectured on this book, I should have learned something. One or two of you might have learned something. As it is, we breathe a bit, and it gets to be lunch time. I have my life to live. I’m going.”
    She glared at them. They stared back, critical and recalcitrant. She walked out. She walked along the corridor, and tapped on the door of Richmond Bly’s office.
    â€œMore trouble?” he said, with a kind of pleasure, sensing the electric field of Frederica’s rage.
    â€œNot really. I want to resign. As of now.”
“You don’t want to be too rigid, Frederica. These are exciting times. You don’t want to be hide-bound and
old
. There’s a lot to learn from the passion of these young people.”
    â€œYes,” said Frederica. “But not the things
I
want to learn, that’s the point. I’m in the wrong place, at the wrong time. OK, I accept what you say, I’m too old to be here. Who the hell wants to be twenty forever? I need to
learn
something, and it isn’t how to be a Student.”
    â€œOK,” said Bly, equably. “As of now?”
    â€œAs of now.”

    Why? she wondered later. It was true that she wanted to learn something, to
think,
and it was true that she was a good teacher because she was more interested in the books she taught than in the students who listened—which is not to say that she wasn’t interested in the students, only that she had her priorities. It was also true that she had no idea
what
she wanted to do. There was the projected thesis on metaphor, impossible now—she would never get a research grant as a single woman with a small child. She envied Agatha, who had a career and made real decisions that changed people’s lives. But Agatha had said, once, that she felt that she was becoming her job, that a civil servant was what she
was,
whether she liked it or not, which she wasn’t sure about. Agatha was defined. She herself—though still undoubtedly in her own mind, and in other people’s, “brilliant”—was somehow a scrappy structure lacking outline and architecture. She considered her options. She had to, there was the problem of no money, and perhaps she had meant to drive herself to action by creating a financial crisis where there had been a bare sufficiency. Like most freelance persons she had become addicted to opening envelopes containing cheques. Cheques from newspapers for small reviews. Cheques from Rupert Parrott for reading the slush heap of Bowers & Eden. Cheques for extra-mural teaching. Pink cheques, grey cheques, duck-egg blue cheques for £3.7.6
d
or £1.12.7 1 ⁄2
d
meaning trousers for Leo, a pair of tights, an Iris Murdoch novel, washing-up liquid, apples, roses, wine.

So, how to replace the art school cheques? What did people do? She asked