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qualm.
    As we ate, Austin oscillated between outbursts of light-hearted chatter and periods of taciturnity when he seemed lost in his own thoughts. I tried to talk of the interests we had once shared but he seemed incurious, and I remembered with a pang the boyish passion with which we had sat up late talking about Plato. I attempted to get him to talk about the town – the school and the little community around the Cathedral – but he evaded my questions.
    I found that he did not want to talk about the past, either. It was as if he had forgotten it. When I alluded to people or incidents from the former time, he seemed uninterested. I talked of our fellows at Cambridge and what had become of them, and he smiled and nodded and when I prompted him he told me news of those with whom he had remained in touch but I had not. I told him of my work on Alfred and my interest in his heroic resistance to the invading heathen, and he nodded as if he was not paying much attention. Altogether, his manner made me all the more puzzled about his reasons for renewing our acquaintance.
    At last he stood up: ‘We will take our dessert upstairs and ...’
    ‘Stop!’ I said, raising a hand. ‘I heard the street-door. Someone has come in.’ I was sure I had heard the click of the lock.
    ‘Nonsense,’ he said impatiently. ‘You probably heard the stairs creaking. This is an old house and it mutters to itself like a dotard. As I was saying, we will go upstairs and I will tell you the story of the restless Canon.’
    ‘But tell me your own story first!’ I cried. I hadn’t meant to be so frank but the wine – although I had not drunk very much – made me less restrained than usual. For two decades he had dwelt in this town grinding out his mathematics for the benefit of the loutish sons of prosperous linen-drapers, apothecaries and farmers. I had often contemplated his narrow, weary life and wondered whether he thought of me and of how different things might have been.
    He looked at me strangely.
    ‘The story of your life, I mean. The tale of your days here.’
    ‘I have no story,’ he said shortly. ‘I have been quietly working here at my duties. There is no more to tell.’
    ‘Is that all you can say of twenty years and more?’
    ‘What is there to say? I have my friends, some of whom you will meet. Some of my fellows at the school – bachelors like myself – are close friends and I also have acquaintances in the town. Altogether we’re a raffish, slovenly crew of men who sit in public-houses too long because we have nobody waiting for us to come home. And I move in more genteel circles, for I have been taken up as a kind of pet by some of the wives of the canons and the masters.’
    I smiled. ‘And have you never thought of marrying?’
    He glanced at me with a smile. ‘Oh, who would marry me? I wasn’t much of a catch when I was a young fellow and I’m less of one now.’
    I dared not ask more because I didn’t want him to think I was merely curious. I thought of the delicacy with which he had avoided asking me any questions about my life, since we had lost touch, that might wound. It had occurred to me that he had asked me to come because he needed my advice or help on some matter and from what I had just heard in the Cathedral, I believed I had an inkling of what it might be. I would at least give him the opportunity to unburden himself: ‘Is everything all right at the school?’
    ‘Why do you ask?’
    ‘Oh, just that I heard there is some dispute there.’
    He stared at me with sudden intensity. ‘What do you mean? Who could have told you that?’
    I wished I hadn’t spoken. ‘The old man – the verger – mentioned some sort of difficulty there.’
    ‘Gazzard? Why on earth do you imagine he knows anything about it?’ He glared at me. ‘It might be better if people paid attention to their own business. Gazzard is a gossiping old woman. Just like most of the canons. They spend their time inventing malicious