practised the permanent mistress’s courtesy of priming herself on his deceptions.
‘No. With a graduate student,’ Toby said. ‘James Sutherland, playing pool.’
‘You smell wrong,’ Louise cautioned. ‘Not smoky enough.’
‘He has a pool table at his house.’
Louise raised her eyebrows. ‘Our students are going up in the world,’ she observed. ‘Which one is he?’
‘The one who drives the white Porsche,’ Toby said grimly. ‘God knows where they all get their money. D’you know, I teach a group of undergraduates who are sharing a house – but they’re not squatting, they’re not even renting it, they’re buying.’
Louise nodded. ‘The student bar has started stocking Lanson champagne. God! When we were undergraduates we used to save up for Friday nights and then get drunk on cider and gin.’
Toby chuckled. ‘Did you really?’
‘We called them “Happies”.’
Louise remembered wrongly. She had mostly stayed sober to study. It was Miriam who was the sybarite in those days. ‘Miriam and I used to drink three each and then fall off our bar stools.’
‘I never saw you fall off your bar stools,’ Toby said with regret.
‘You met us in our finals year,’ Louise reminded him. ‘Our salad days were over then. It was all continuous assessment when we were students. We were on the rack from September to June.’
‘But more thoroughly assessed,’ Toby prompted.
He and Louise had fought an easily defeated campaign to preserve the university’s practice of continuous assessment, in which students demonstrate their learning and research skills with work written over weeks of preparation. In practice, the conscientious ones worked themselves into a stupor of fatigue with week after week of late nights and early mornings, while the lazy ones drank to excess and fooled around until two days before the deadline when they went into a frenzy of last-minute labour. The results were broadly comparable.
The university, weary of supervising students rushing to extremes, had instituted the convention of a finals exam fortnight so that all the breakdowns and alcoholism and suicides were concentrated into one short, manageable period.
Louise and Toby had fought this change on the grounds that it was a deviation from the radical nature of the university. Of course, no-one had ever proved that continuous assessment was more or less radical than examinations, and once continuous assessment was adopted as the Conservative government’s policy for GCSEs it had rather gone out of fashion as a Cause. Nonetheless Toby and Louise still loyally paid lip service.
‘I learned more in my final year than I did in the other two put together,’ Louise said.
‘I wish I’d had that opportunity,’ Toby sighed, hypocritically hiding his pride in his own degree. ‘Finals fortnight at Oxford was madness.’
He glanced at the kitchen clock, drained his glass of wine and stood up. ‘See you tomorrow.’
Louise followed him from the kitchen to the sitting room and passed him his jacket. She was attractively dressed in a silky dressing gown. Toby had a moment’s regret that hewas leaving her to go into the cool summer night and drive home to Miriam who would be irritable and worried from her meeting at the Alcoholic Women’s Unit.
‘I’m not coming in to university tomorrow,’ Louise reminded him. ‘I shall make sure the old woman moves on and then I’ll work here all day. I’m overdue on that Lawrence essay.’
Toby hesitated. It would be fatal to his plans if the old woman disappeared again into the lanes of Sussex with her precious bundle of primary sources and her irreplaceable oral history. But he could not think of any reason to stop Louise from moving the trespasser on her way. All he could do was delay her. ‘I’m free in the morning,’ he said. ‘I’ll come out and have breakfast with you. I’ll bring fresh croissants and the newspapers.’
Louise lived far beyond the restricted
‘No. With a graduate student,’ Toby said. ‘James Sutherland, playing pool.’
‘You smell wrong,’ Louise cautioned. ‘Not smoky enough.’
‘He has a pool table at his house.’
Louise raised her eyebrows. ‘Our students are going up in the world,’ she observed. ‘Which one is he?’
‘The one who drives the white Porsche,’ Toby said grimly. ‘God knows where they all get their money. D’you know, I teach a group of undergraduates who are sharing a house – but they’re not squatting, they’re not even renting it, they’re buying.’
Louise nodded. ‘The student bar has started stocking Lanson champagne. God! When we were undergraduates we used to save up for Friday nights and then get drunk on cider and gin.’
Toby chuckled. ‘Did you really?’
‘We called them “Happies”.’
Louise remembered wrongly. She had mostly stayed sober to study. It was Miriam who was the sybarite in those days. ‘Miriam and I used to drink three each and then fall off our bar stools.’
‘I never saw you fall off your bar stools,’ Toby said with regret.
‘You met us in our finals year,’ Louise reminded him. ‘Our salad days were over then. It was all continuous assessment when we were students. We were on the rack from September to June.’
‘But more thoroughly assessed,’ Toby prompted.
He and Louise had fought an easily defeated campaign to preserve the university’s practice of continuous assessment, in which students demonstrate their learning and research skills with work written over weeks of preparation. In practice, the conscientious ones worked themselves into a stupor of fatigue with week after week of late nights and early mornings, while the lazy ones drank to excess and fooled around until two days before the deadline when they went into a frenzy of last-minute labour. The results were broadly comparable.
The university, weary of supervising students rushing to extremes, had instituted the convention of a finals exam fortnight so that all the breakdowns and alcoholism and suicides were concentrated into one short, manageable period.
Louise and Toby had fought this change on the grounds that it was a deviation from the radical nature of the university. Of course, no-one had ever proved that continuous assessment was more or less radical than examinations, and once continuous assessment was adopted as the Conservative government’s policy for GCSEs it had rather gone out of fashion as a Cause. Nonetheless Toby and Louise still loyally paid lip service.
‘I learned more in my final year than I did in the other two put together,’ Louise said.
‘I wish I’d had that opportunity,’ Toby sighed, hypocritically hiding his pride in his own degree. ‘Finals fortnight at Oxford was madness.’
He glanced at the kitchen clock, drained his glass of wine and stood up. ‘See you tomorrow.’
Louise followed him from the kitchen to the sitting room and passed him his jacket. She was attractively dressed in a silky dressing gown. Toby had a moment’s regret that hewas leaving her to go into the cool summer night and drive home to Miriam who would be irritable and worried from her meeting at the Alcoholic Women’s Unit.
‘I’m not coming in to university tomorrow,’ Louise reminded him. ‘I shall make sure the old woman moves on and then I’ll work here all day. I’m overdue on that Lawrence essay.’
Toby hesitated. It would be fatal to his plans if the old woman disappeared again into the lanes of Sussex with her precious bundle of primary sources and her irreplaceable oral history. But he could not think of any reason to stop Louise from moving the trespasser on her way. All he could do was delay her. ‘I’m free in the morning,’ he said. ‘I’ll come out and have breakfast with you. I’ll bring fresh croissants and the newspapers.’
Louise lived far beyond the restricted
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