that I cherish, even if most of my subsequent life has been lived in the elite world of literature and music. Both my parents were academics. My father died a peaceful death some time ago and my mother sold off our inherited London house and retired to a splendid home in the Worcestershire countryside. She won a prize for a novel when she was young and still writes poetry for pleasure. I remember the excitement of that earlier time. I’ve never been as successful a writer as my mother, but I’m still hopeful and supplement my professorial income with various articles and editorial pieces. In fact I’ve published two novels and had been planning a third for some time before this new opportunity presented itself to me on a plate.
I have both an elder brother and a younger sister, but none of us have yet produced grandchildren for our mother. That is clearly a matter of regret to her. My brother was an analyst at a London stockbroker and made a lot of money but has now retired to the Caribbean. My younger sister, Claudia, with whom I now share the house, is both extremely beautiful and extremely difficult to know; a psychologist and now a sculptress, with a gleaming but rather cold intelligence. Despite her talents, she eschews fame and fortune and has totally dismissed the attention of numerous suitors, seeming to prefer the company of other women to that of men. She always reminds me of the heroine in that Keats poem,
La Belle Dame sans Merci
.
See a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
Keats,
La Belle Dame sans Merci
*
In the 1970s, my father invented a theory, a ‘coincidence theory’ we jokingly called it within the family. In reality it had had a more abstruse mathematical name; something called ‘cusp bifurcation’. I was never too clear on the detail. My father lectured in mathematics at the same local university where I now teach and achieved a modicum of fame for a time in the 70s and early 80s; his lectures were apparently generally ‘standing room only’. For me, this interface with university academia sparked an unfortunate adolescent interest in unachievable women, a string of twenty-something student babysitters – girls with IQs of 160 and impossibly beautiful figures. They too often left me aching with lust and even more bored with my spotty teenage peers.
*
Richard Baxter was sent to the local public school. At first as a newcomer, he was disliked by the other boys, who found his interest in art and classical music discomfiting. They wondered whether he was ‘queer’, a word that was still in common usage at the time, sniggered when he approached and avoided standing too near to him in the changing rooms, as young boys do. He was smart and tough though, a decent cricketer and an amateur actor. These attributes soon broke down the barriers, especially when his less-able classmates needed help with their homework. He was generous with his time, so attitudes amongst his peers moved on quite rapidly. It quickly became apparent from his reputation for daring behaviour at parties and the minor fame of his parents that he was a magnet to attract the more desirable girls from the neighbouring school.
In turn, it was these girls’ parents who now became wary of his liberal upbringing and warned their daughters to be careful of this perceived predator. There was no boasting but it was clear that he was already intimately familiar with the fairer sex in a way that the other boys only dreamed of. His openness about his experiences intrigued his peers and his experimentation with smoking weed, permitted at home by his parents, created a tension and a reputation that meant he was able to maintain some covetous respect from the prevailing schoolboy cliques. Still, he never tried too hard; if some girl wanted to go to bed with him, he would indulge her, but sex was never a compulsion of his and he did not have a long-term girlfriend
I have both an elder brother and a younger sister, but none of us have yet produced grandchildren for our mother. That is clearly a matter of regret to her. My brother was an analyst at a London stockbroker and made a lot of money but has now retired to the Caribbean. My younger sister, Claudia, with whom I now share the house, is both extremely beautiful and extremely difficult to know; a psychologist and now a sculptress, with a gleaming but rather cold intelligence. Despite her talents, she eschews fame and fortune and has totally dismissed the attention of numerous suitors, seeming to prefer the company of other women to that of men. She always reminds me of the heroine in that Keats poem,
La Belle Dame sans Merci
.
See a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
Keats,
La Belle Dame sans Merci
*
In the 1970s, my father invented a theory, a ‘coincidence theory’ we jokingly called it within the family. In reality it had had a more abstruse mathematical name; something called ‘cusp bifurcation’. I was never too clear on the detail. My father lectured in mathematics at the same local university where I now teach and achieved a modicum of fame for a time in the 70s and early 80s; his lectures were apparently generally ‘standing room only’. For me, this interface with university academia sparked an unfortunate adolescent interest in unachievable women, a string of twenty-something student babysitters – girls with IQs of 160 and impossibly beautiful figures. They too often left me aching with lust and even more bored with my spotty teenage peers.
*
Richard Baxter was sent to the local public school. At first as a newcomer, he was disliked by the other boys, who found his interest in art and classical music discomfiting. They wondered whether he was ‘queer’, a word that was still in common usage at the time, sniggered when he approached and avoided standing too near to him in the changing rooms, as young boys do. He was smart and tough though, a decent cricketer and an amateur actor. These attributes soon broke down the barriers, especially when his less-able classmates needed help with their homework. He was generous with his time, so attitudes amongst his peers moved on quite rapidly. It quickly became apparent from his reputation for daring behaviour at parties and the minor fame of his parents that he was a magnet to attract the more desirable girls from the neighbouring school.
In turn, it was these girls’ parents who now became wary of his liberal upbringing and warned their daughters to be careful of this perceived predator. There was no boasting but it was clear that he was already intimately familiar with the fairer sex in a way that the other boys only dreamed of. His openness about his experiences intrigued his peers and his experimentation with smoking weed, permitted at home by his parents, created a tension and a reputation that meant he was able to maintain some covetous respect from the prevailing schoolboy cliques. Still, he never tried too hard; if some girl wanted to go to bed with him, he would indulge her, but sex was never a compulsion of his and he did not have a long-term girlfriend
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