that another man had used.
Afterwards they lay together silently, their skins damp. For both of them what had happened was shocking, although of course
they had made love thousands of times before. How strange then, he thought, how perverse, that this love-making should seem
illicit.
His father loved a singer called Tim Hardin. He had a vinyl recording of his songs which he played endlessly and would sing
in the bath. Now the words come to Conrad unbidden, and he sings:
If I listened long enough to you, I would find a way to believe It's all true, knowing that you lied straight-faced while
I cried. Still I'd find a reason to believe.
'Tim Hardin?'
'Tim Hardin.'
'Conrad, I'm glad we did this. But it'll never happen again.'
If I listened long enough to you, I would find a way to believe It's all true, knowing that you lied straight-faced while
I cried. If I gave you time to change my mind, I'd find a way to leave the past behind.
'Do you still love me, Conrad?'
The bakery smells that rose up from below were strong now, coming in gusts. Their possessions, arranged as if in a charity
shop, seemed to him utterly worthless, without purpose or substance. He could hear his father, singing quite tunefully in
the bath. Two thirty-five-year-olds were lying semi-naked in the Camden afternoon, which intruded weakly through the dirty
panes.
'Fran, even gannets mate for life.'
'Oh shit. I'll sort out all our things and make sure it's fair. I owe you that.'
She seemed to be eager to go. Perhaps John was waiting somewhere to hear how her encounter with the erratic one had gone.
He watched her get dressed again. She usually goes into the hospital in jeans and changes into her blue scrubs there. In future
John will be sharing this intimate knowledge of her, how she pulls on her jeans and leans slightly forward to do up the top
button and how she passes both her hands through her hair, and then leans forward again to shake it for a moment, before raking
it back. What do these little things mean? He couldn't believe this would never happen again.
His intimacy with Francine, whose buttocks, he noticed, were beginning, ever so slightly, to droop, would be relegated, like
his father's singing, to a different and more treacherous intimacy, the realm of memory where almost anything goes.
When she had gone, he felt strangely exalted. He lay on the bed and then fell asleep for a while, and he heard his father
singing I would find a way to believe. Sometimes in his memory his father shuffles, small steps, like a dutiful Japanese woman's, as he sings It will never happen again.
4
MENDEL WAS ELECTED a fellow of All Souls in the autumn after he returned from Jerusalem. In those days Englishness had a sort
of radiance and Mendel's parents could not help basking in it, explaining to their relatives and friends that a fellowship
of All Souls was the highest honour in the English academic world. Their son Elya's triumph had allowed them to feel that
they were sitting in the box-seat, as the saying went. Actually their son was also an immigrant, six years old when his family
arrived in Britain by steamer, but the children shake off the whiff of the old country very quickly even as it clings to the
parents like some faintly noxious gas, for ever.
By the time Conrad met him, Mendel was that necessary figure, the publicly acknowledged wise man, known not just in Oxford
but in the wider world. A few of these people spring up in every generation. So, reading the letters, Conrad was surprised
and touched by Mendel's pride in his election to All Souls. We tend to think that well-known people were always celebrated.
Conrad visited Mendel once in All Souls, for lunch. It was 1991. He remembers the elderly college servant — a dying breed,
said Mendel, and this one was clearly moribund - serving the oxtail soup with his thumb dangerously close to the brown Plim-soll
line.
'Often he doesn't notice when his
Afterwards they lay together silently, their skins damp. For both of them what had happened was shocking, although of course
they had made love thousands of times before. How strange then, he thought, how perverse, that this love-making should seem
illicit.
His father loved a singer called Tim Hardin. He had a vinyl recording of his songs which he played endlessly and would sing
in the bath. Now the words come to Conrad unbidden, and he sings:
If I listened long enough to you, I would find a way to believe It's all true, knowing that you lied straight-faced while
I cried. Still I'd find a reason to believe.
'Tim Hardin?'
'Tim Hardin.'
'Conrad, I'm glad we did this. But it'll never happen again.'
If I listened long enough to you, I would find a way to believe It's all true, knowing that you lied straight-faced while
I cried. If I gave you time to change my mind, I'd find a way to leave the past behind.
'Do you still love me, Conrad?'
The bakery smells that rose up from below were strong now, coming in gusts. Their possessions, arranged as if in a charity
shop, seemed to him utterly worthless, without purpose or substance. He could hear his father, singing quite tunefully in
the bath. Two thirty-five-year-olds were lying semi-naked in the Camden afternoon, which intruded weakly through the dirty
panes.
'Fran, even gannets mate for life.'
'Oh shit. I'll sort out all our things and make sure it's fair. I owe you that.'
She seemed to be eager to go. Perhaps John was waiting somewhere to hear how her encounter with the erratic one had gone.
He watched her get dressed again. She usually goes into the hospital in jeans and changes into her blue scrubs there. In future
John will be sharing this intimate knowledge of her, how she pulls on her jeans and leans slightly forward to do up the top
button and how she passes both her hands through her hair, and then leans forward again to shake it for a moment, before raking
it back. What do these little things mean? He couldn't believe this would never happen again.
His intimacy with Francine, whose buttocks, he noticed, were beginning, ever so slightly, to droop, would be relegated, like
his father's singing, to a different and more treacherous intimacy, the realm of memory where almost anything goes.
When she had gone, he felt strangely exalted. He lay on the bed and then fell asleep for a while, and he heard his father
singing I would find a way to believe. Sometimes in his memory his father shuffles, small steps, like a dutiful Japanese woman's, as he sings It will never happen again.
4
MENDEL WAS ELECTED a fellow of All Souls in the autumn after he returned from Jerusalem. In those days Englishness had a sort
of radiance and Mendel's parents could not help basking in it, explaining to their relatives and friends that a fellowship
of All Souls was the highest honour in the English academic world. Their son Elya's triumph had allowed them to feel that
they were sitting in the box-seat, as the saying went. Actually their son was also an immigrant, six years old when his family
arrived in Britain by steamer, but the children shake off the whiff of the old country very quickly even as it clings to the
parents like some faintly noxious gas, for ever.
By the time Conrad met him, Mendel was that necessary figure, the publicly acknowledged wise man, known not just in Oxford
but in the wider world. A few of these people spring up in every generation. So, reading the letters, Conrad was surprised
and touched by Mendel's pride in his election to All Souls. We tend to think that well-known people were always celebrated.
Conrad visited Mendel once in All Souls, for lunch. It was 1991. He remembers the elderly college servant — a dying breed,
said Mendel, and this one was clearly moribund - serving the oxtail soup with his thumb dangerously close to the brown Plim-soll
line.
'Often he doesn't notice when his
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