The Savage Garden. Mark Mills

right. You see, it’s wartime – 1940, to be precise – and while the Battle of Britain rages in the skies above a small Hampshire village, an altogether different battle is about to unfold on the ground. As above –’

      ‘– so below’

      Were they really quoting Hermes Trismegistus at each other over this?

      ‘And who or what is Herr Atherton spying on?’ he persevered, regretting the question almost immediately.

      ‘A secret submarine base in Portsmouth harbour.’

      So this was where two years of English literature studies had led her, all that Beowulf and Chaucer, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: to a secret sub marine base in Portsmouth harbour.

      ‘What?’ demanded Gloria warily.

      ‘I was just thinking,’ he lied, ‘that your narrator’s a man. Unless she’s a woman who happens to play cricket for the village team.’

      ‘So?’

      ‘It’s a challenge, I imagine, writing a male narrator.’

      ‘You don’t think I’m up to it?’

      ‘I didn’t say that.’

      ‘Four brothers,’ she said, holding up three fingers. ‘And it’s not as if you’re the first chap I’ve ever stepped out with.’

      This was a truth she liked to assert from time to time, dishing out unsavoury details to drive home her point, although she was too angry for that right now.

      She tossed the remainder of her wine away, the liquid crescent flopping into the tall grass. She got to her feet a little unsteadily. ‘I’m going.’

      ‘Don’t,’ he said, taking her hand. ‘Stay’

      ‘You hate it.’

      ‘That’s not true.’

      ‘I know what you’re thinking.’

      ‘You’re wrong. I could be jailed for what I’m thinking.’

      It was a crass play, but he knew her vulnerability to that kind of talk. Besides, this was the reason they’d skipped their lectures and come to the meadow, was it not?

      ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, capitalizing on her faint smile, ‘I suppose I’m just jealous.’

      ‘Jealous?’

      ‘I couldn’t do it, I know that. It’s great. Really. It hooked me instantly. The drunken vicar’s a great touch.’

      ‘You like him?’

      ‘A lot.’

      Gloria allowed herself to be drawn back down on to the blanket, into their sunken den, out of sight of the river towpath where the stubby willows bristled.

      His fingers charted a lazy yet determined course along the inside of her dove-white thigh, the flesh warm and yielding, like new dough.

      She leaned towards him and kissed him, forcing her tongue between his lips.

      He tasted the cheap white wine and felt himself stir under her touch. His hand moved to her breasts, his thumb brushing over her nipples, the way she liked it.

      Sexual favours in return for blanket praise. Was it really that simple?

      He checked his thoughts, guilty that his mind was straying from the matter in hand.

      He needn’t have worried.

      ‘You know,’ said Gloria, breaking free and drawing breath, ‘I think I’ll give Mr Atherton a granddaughter. My hero needs to lose his heart.’

      The note was waiting for him in his pigeonhole when he returned to college. He recognized the handwriting immediately. It was the same barely legible scrawl that adorned his weekly essays. The note read:

      Dear Mr Strickland,

      Apologies for making this demand upon your busy schedule, but there is a matter I should like to discuss with you regarding your thesis.

      Shall we say 5 p.m. today in my office at the faculty? (That’s the large stone building at the end of Trumpington Street, in case you’ve forgotten.)

      Warm regards

      Professor Leonard

      Adam glanced at his watch. Fifteen minutes to get across town. The bath would have to wait.

      Professor Crispin Leonard was something of an institution, not just within the faculty but the university as a whole. Although well into his seventies, he was quite unlike his elderly peers, who only emerged from their gloomy college rooms at mealtimes, or so it seemed, shuffling in their threadbare gowns to and from the dining hall across velvet lawns whose sacred turf it was their privilege to tread. Few knew what these aged characters did (or had ever done) to justify the sinecure of a college fellowship. Authorship of a book, one book, any book, appeared to suffice, even if the value of that work had long since been eclipsed. For whatever reason, they were deemed to have paid their dues, and in return the colleges offered them a comfortable dotage unencumbered by responsibilities.

      Professor Leonard was cut from a far tougher cloth. He lectured and supervised in three subjects, he continued to offer his services as a college tutor, and he remained involved in a number of societies, some of which he had also founded. And all this while still finding time not only to write but to be published. By any standards it was a remarkable workload, and one he appeared to shoulder quite effortlessly.

      How did he manage it? He never hurried and was never late; he just loped about like a well-fed cat, giving off an air of slight distraction, as if his mind was always on higher things.

      He was deep in slumber when Adam entered his office. The first knock didn’t rouse him, and when Adam poked his head around the door and saw him slumped in an armchair, a book on his lap, he knocked again, louder this time.

      Professor Leonard stirred, taking his bearings, taking in Adam. ‘I’m sorry, I must have nodded off.’ He closed the book and laid it aside. Adam noted that it was one of the professor’s own works, on the sculpture of Mantegna.

      ‘No court in the land would convict you.’

      Professor Leonard invited irreverence, he actively encouraged it, but for a moment Adam feared he had overstepped the mark.

      ‘That might be funnier, Mr Strickland, if you’d ever bothered to read my book on Mantegna. Which reminds me – how is your serve?’

      ‘Excuse me?’

      ‘Well, the last time I saw you, you were cycling down King’s Parade in something of a hurry. You were gripping two tennis rackets, and the young lady riding side-saddle was gripping you.’

      ‘Oh.’

      ‘Has it improved?’

      ‘Improved?’

      ‘Your serve, Mr Strickland. We would all feel so much happier if you at least had something else to show for your absence.’

      ‘I work hard,’ bleated Adam. ‘I work late.’

      Professor Leonard reached for some papers stacked on the side table next to his chair. ‘Since you’re here, you might as well take this now’ He flipped through the pile and pulled out Adam’s essay. ‘I probably marked you lower than I should have done.’

      ‘Oh,’ said Adam, a little put out.

      ‘Thinking about it, you might have had more of a point than I credited you with at first.’

      ‘Which point was that?’

      ‘Don’t flatter yourself, Mr Strickland. To my knowledge – and I read it twice – you only made one point. The others were lifted straight from the books I suggested you read.’ He raised a long, bony finger. ‘And some I didn’t suggest…which, I grant you, displays