An Academic Question by Barbara Pym

Author:Barbara Pym
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Epicenter Press
Published: 2013-05-08T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

A few days later we were sitting at breakfast when Alan looked up from The Times and pointed out an item in the Deaths column. The name Esther Clovis meant nothing to me, but Alan seemed to think that I ought to know about her. He told me that she had done very important work at some research centre in London which used to send people out to do fieldwork in Africa and other suitable places in the days when there were still ‘primitive communities’ to be investigated by anthropologists.

‘It says here “suddenly”,’ I pointed out. ‘And there’s to be a memorial service next Wednesday—are you going to it?’

‘Caro, how could I, on a Wednesday of all days?’

‘Oh, of course, the Wednesday Seminar. But you wouldn’t go anyway, would you?’

‘I don’t know, but I feel one ought to pay some kind of tribute. Various people will be there ... It would be expected ...’ He hesitated. ‘I know—you can represent me. You’d enjoy a jaunt to London, wouldn’t you?’

‘Well, not to a memorial service. Still, I suppose it won’t take long.’

‘You could arrange to meet a friend for lunch afterwards,’ Alan suggested. ‘One of those girls you were at school with.’

‘That sounds absolutely super,’ I mocked. ‘Thanks, but I don’t think I’ll bother. I might pick up an interesting anthropologist.’

‘Certainly, darling,’ said Alan in a hurtful, not caring, sort of tone. ‘You could buy yourself something new for the occasion.’

‘Yes, I’m certainly not going to wear that old black suit I wore at Mr. Stillingfleet’s cremation. There, you see, this will be the second occasion when I’ve represented you at this kind of thing. It wasn’t quite the role I saw myself filling when I married you,’ I added with some bitterness.

But Alan wasn’t listening and went off murmuring something about Esther Clovis not caring a bit what anyone wore so I might just as well please myself.

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