Read Death of an Old Goat for Free Online Page B

freeze her.’
    â€˜She knows him already, you know. They met last night — in Beecher’s I think.’
    â€˜ Really ? Bloody impertinence, muscling in like that. You’ll have to get rid of that girl. With her accent she’s not fit to teach in an outback infants’ school. Well, if she comes near, I’ll just suggest she shouldn’t try to monopolize — in Beecher’s I think.’
    Lucy walked over to the window. It was dark, and the only sound was of semi-trailers, and the local yobs in their hotted-up cars. She looked out.
    â€˜No prizes for guessing who will arrive first. Bound to be an academic, they’re always so bloody thirsty. And pretty sure to be that bastard Day.’ (Lucy Wickham was aminer’s daughter from Western Australia, and in the privacy of her own home her vocabulary tended to betray her origins.) ‘Why you keep him I don’t know. He’s the world’s worst lecturer, and he’s never sober.’
    Professor Wickham tried to explain — as always when his wife seemed to confuse his powers with those of Ivan the Terrible — that it was hardly a question of ‘keeping’ him, since once he had been engaged he could hardly be sacked for anything short of rape or communism. But as usual, Lucy wasn’t listening. She interrupted him:
    â€˜Bobby. He’s here already. Now that really is too much. Five minutes to go before the time we said. For heaven’s sake — you’d think he’d have the decency . . .’
    â€˜I’ll do something with him, dear, don’t worry.’
    â€˜You’d better, or I’ll skin you. Take him into your study. I don’t want him in here before twenty past eight at the earliest. Even then he’ll be drunk by half past.’
    Peter Day seemed to have anticipated her, however. His progress up the pathway was instinct with laborious concentration — it was the walk of one who knows that if he relaxes his vigilance for a moment he will sway or swerve. He kept his finger on the door-bell just five seconds too long, and Professor Wickham counted himself lucky that he did not have to catch him when he opened the door. With the fear of Lucy in his heart, he took him by the arm and led him into the study. Peter sat down firmly in the easy chair, and then looked round with an air of surprise and grievance. Clearly he felt he’d been had. Professor Wickham, à propos of nothing, forced him into a detailed conversation about the merits of the Ricks edition of Tennyson, and surveyed with despair the bloodshot eyes and the grubby shirt (he had been made to change the torn one, but though his wife tried to send him out clean, she could do little about keeping him that way). This is what one gets for employing Adult Education lecturers who got their degrees at Leeds, thought Wickham grimly. Hisopinion of the man was not improved when Day seemed to cotton on to the game they were playing, and launched into a lengthy disquisition on some textural nicety from one of the Tennyson dialect poems, with incomprehensibly broad and lengthy quotations. He wasn’t quite sure whether he was being got at or not. Sometimes he felt that his staff seemed to be taking a kind of revenge on him — but for what he was never able to fathom.
    By the time Wickham led his captive into the lounge it was nearly half past eight, and Dr Day had sobered up considerably. He always sobered up quickly, which was why he drank almost constantly. Wickham noted with satisfaction that he pointed himself immediately at the party of academics, which Lucy, without his aid, had shunted into the far corner away from the bar. He hoped that she hadn’t simply told them to go there. She was quite capable of it.
    â€˜Hallo, Alice,’ said Day loudly. ‘You’ve got a drink. Is this a drinking party, or did you bring it with you?’
    Wickham went to get Dr Day a drink.
    â€˜Enjoy