The Noonday Devil Read online

  Also by Alan Judd

  Fiction

  A Breed of Heroes

  Short of Glory

  Tango

  The Devil’s Own Work

  Legacy

  Non-fiction

  Ford Madox Ford

  The Quest for C

  First published in Great Britain by Century Hutchinson, 1987

  This eBook edition first published by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2014

  Copyright © Alan Judd 1987

  This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

  No reproduction without permission.

  ® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.

  The right of Alan Judd to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

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  222 Gray’s Inn Road

  London WC1X 8HB

  www.simonandschuster.co.uk

  Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney

  Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-47113-433-3

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Typeset by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh

  ‘Now comth wanhope, that is despair of the mercy of God’

  Geoffrey Chaucer, The Parson’s Tale

  ‘Shame on the soul, to falter on the road of life, while the body still perseveres’

  Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

  My thanks to Hugh Baker, Richard Cohen, Richard Holmes and Peter Scrafton

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 1

  It was very hot during that final term and the mist on May morning was low, white and heavy. Roofs and towers stretched above it to the sun.

  In a basement lumber room, lit by a yellow bulb, Robert Stephens sat working at an old table that wobbled with each movement of his arm. There was a heap of broken and discarded college furniture in one half of the room and in another corner a pile of stiff, cracked grey canvas. Heating pipes ran the length of the ceiling. The empty half of the room had been used for a play rehearsal which had begun at eight o’clock the previous evening and had not ended until gone three. Everyone, including Robert, had been exhausted, but while the others had gone gratefully to bed he had remained, tired beyond sleep and anyway too anxious. He covered his tattered script with notes, crossings out, arrows and directions.

  The play was not going well. Time and again he saw where it was wrong but nothing he did made it come right. He knew, of course, that plays went through troughs in rehearsal and that directors went through times of despair. He told himself he had only to keep going, and did so, but still it would not come right.

  Daylight paled the dirty window panes just above ground level, showing the tiredness in his face. It was a strong face, freckled, gashed by a big mouth and topped by thick brown hair. He was powerfully built, but his hands were small and delicately formed and his eyes grey and thoughtful. In repose he had a brooding quality, an idle power, careless and decisive. His gaze now was as blank as the mist he stared at. He was a man withdrawn beyond reach, sunk in upon himself. Eventually he got up and slowly gathered his papers. His chair fell over behind him.

  Robert had rooms in the roof of the Old Building. They were at the top of a cramped staircase and were poky and awkward, hot in summer, cold in winter. He managed to make them both sparse and untidy. Most of his clothes were in an open trunk on the floor, his books piled on and beneath his table. There were no paintings or posters nor any sign of anything personal. The impression was of cheerless and temporary occupancy, like a barracks in the process of abandonment.

  It was not yet six. From his window he could look down on the yellow brickwork of the New Building. The sun was already pressing against the closed blinds of the box-like rooms on the upper storey. Below and beyond, the city was as silent as if the mist was a flood.

  He moved about the room in restless indecision, several times returning to the window. He switched on a battered portable radio which, after initial crackling, promised yet another account of the worsening international situation. In grave tones betrayed by a relish for sensation the announcer held out the prospect of Russian and American fighters clashing over Saudi Arabia. Robert switched it off and ran downstairs, not bothering to close his door.

  He walked quickly through the deserted streets. The mist was like dense white smoke but cold and damp on the skin. The May morning ceremony took place at six on Magdalen Bridge. People gathered to hear the college choir sing a hymn from the top of the tower. The rest of the day was an unofficial holiday. There was no traffic at all that morning, though as Robert approached the High he saw other hurrying, solitary walkers, then a few pairs, then a group. All moved quickly and quietly, without speaking.

  By the time he reached the bridge two or three thousand people were packed together there, either on the bridge itself or on the road leading to it. They stood in silence, looking up, the only sounds the footsteps of those still joining. Below them the Cherwell flowed out of and into its own river mist; above, the top of Magdalen Tower was just becoming visible. There were no cars, hardly any movement, only a hushed expectant stillness. The mist lifted moment by moment. Robert looked over the heads of those around him. He was pressed against the wall by a girl with red hair. Through her thin cotton dress he could feel the warmth of her body. When she shifted slightly she glanced, half smiled, then resumed her gaze upwards.

  The bells struck the hour and the mist abruptly cleared from the top of the tower, as if dispersed by the sound. Throughout the city other bells joined in. One, far away, insisted on another time altogether. As the last chime faded the choir on the top of the tower, invisible and at first barely audible, began singing the May morning hymn. Packed elbow to elbow, thigh to thigh, no one moved. The sun touched the tower and the voices of the unseen choir came thinly, hauntingly down.

  As soon as the hymn had finished the crowd began to break up. Some arranged to have breakfast or go punting, a few went off to work. Robert walked slowly between the various groups, nodding to people he knew but talking to no one until he came upon Tim Albright. Tim was tall and strikingly pale with dark hair and sharp, humorous features. He wheeled an expensive black Raleigh, newly made in an old fashioned style.

  Tim smiled. ‘Breakfast?’

  ‘Bed.’

  ‘You looking for someone in particular?’

  ‘No.’

  Tim leaned with graceful indolence against his bike. ‘I came round to your room but you’d already gone – or else you hadn’t yet got back.’

  ‘Rehearsing.’

  ‘You’re off your head.’

  Robert nodded. Though they lived on adjacent stair-cases and had known each other for nearly three years, they had become friends only at the start of their final year. Superficially they had little in common. Tim read philosophy, had been to public school, had a twice-divorced mother and a stepfather who was a well-known captain of industry. Wealthy, likeable and clever, he seemed entirely lacking in ambition and had achieved everything, including his scholarship, without effort. Now, wit
h the approach of Schools – the name given both to final examinations and the buildings they were held in – he seemed even less concerned with work than before. Sometimes at night when the streets were quiet he would freewheel on his Raleigh, seeing how far he could go before falling off. He claimed to be trying to put into practice a mathematical relation between gradient, mass and velocity.

  Robert read theology and came from Cumbria where his father was a postman. Though he had never spoken much about it, people assumed he was going into the Church. He had worked hard at school and during his first two years at Oxford, achieving an exhibition and a regular place in the college first teams for rugby and cricket. He had been expected to get a rugby Blue in his third year but he had abruptly given up the game at the start of the season. He displayed the same energy and drive as before but his direction was no longer clear. He had become restless, substituted drama for sport, and did little work.

  His manner that morning was remote and unresponsive, due partly to tiredness. Tim almost never took offence.

  ‘Anne Barry was here,’ he said.

  ‘Was she?’

  ‘On the bridge about a minute ago. Heading towards Longwall Street, I imagine. No husband in sight.’ He watched Robert’s studied lack of reaction. ‘You’re more in luck this morning than I am. I’d arranged to meet Suzanne. Thought she probably wouldn’t turn up, but to bolster my confidence I bet a bottle of malt on it with Chetwynd. He’s here somewhere.’

  ‘You’re sure she isn’t?’

  ‘Pretty sure. Unless Chetwynd’s kidnapped her. He’s crazy enough.’

  ‘I suppose it’s too early to go to her room.’

  ‘I was thinking I might, if I could find a way in. Shouldn’t be too difficult. Fancy it? Or are you going to try to breakfast with Mrs Barry?’

  Robert smiled at the transparency of his own motive.

  ‘Haven’t seen her for a couple of weeks.’

  ‘When’s she going to make Dr Barry a father?’

  ‘Very soon. A month, maybe. Maybe less.’

  ‘He’s already a father about nine times, isn’t he, by his first wife?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  Robert turned to go but lingered awkwardly, wanting to show gratitude by making a parting remark but momentarily unable to think of one. ‘Sooner him than me,’ he said lamely. ‘Good luck in your search.’

  ‘Sooner anyone. Drop in later.’

  Robert blamed himself for the break-up of his affair with Anne Barry. It had lasted for most of his second year. She, a year older than him, had stayed on to do research. He blamed himself for the break because it was easier than acknowledging the whole truth. He would say that he had been too selfish and demanding, driving her from him. This was less painful than admitting that he had felt she was beginning to withdraw anyway. At a certain point in their intimacy he had sensed a distance between them which had widened. For some reason that she could not or would not explain, she had stepped carefully backwards.

  Within a week of their last night together she had taken up with Dr Barry, the college’s philosophy tutor and her research supervisor. He was nearly twenty years older than her, had already left his first wife and was popularly supposed to be having an affair with the Bursar’s pretty secretary. This supposition, based on the frequency of their lunches together out of college and on his known flirtatiousness, had been confounded by his sudden marriage to Anne and by her evident pregnancy. More recently the lunches, which had never entirely ceased, had resumed their previous frequency.

  Robert found Anne that morning among the people loitering by Magdalen wall. She was a tall, handsome woman with strong regular features and dark brown hair that spread over her bare shoulders. Her arms and legs were brown with the sun and she wore a flowery cream maternity dress. Her manner in pregnancy had become calm and self-absorbed. When she saw him walk towards her she at first turned away, then looked back with a more prepared expression and a smile.

  ‘I thought you might be here,’ she said.

  ‘I thought you might.’ There was a momentary awkwardness when they might have touched. ‘Pretty good, wasn’t it?’

  ‘It was beautiful. I heard more this year than last.’

  ‘There was that wind last year.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re looking well.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘It suits you.’

  She looked down at herself. ‘It will suit me better when it’s over.’

  He had always felt uneasy in her presence, and reacted now with exaggerated carelessness. ‘Why don’t we have breakfast?’

  ‘I’m supposed to be going to my cousin’s. You know, Michael Mann.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘But it’s a party. There’ll be a lot of people, you know what he’s like. Why don’t you come?’

  ‘Okay.’

  They walked slowly through Magdalen cloisters and quad. Half the college seemed to be up and out for breakfast. There was an air of bustling goodwill.

  ‘You look tired,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve been up all night rehearsing.’

  ‘You’re mad to do a play in Schools term.’

  ‘It passes the time.’

  ‘I don’t believe that’s why you’re doing it.’ She looked thoughtfully at him. ‘Are you doing any work at all?’

  ‘Not much. Nor’s Tim,’ he added, as if in exoneration. ‘Neither of us has any idea what to do when we leave.’ He kicked a stone along the cloisters. ‘Not that it matters much to him, with his money.’

  ‘Well, you’ll get your degree. Everyone does. Just not as good as you could get, that’s all.’

  ‘How’s David?’

  ‘Very well.’ She smiled quickly. ‘I left him in bed. I don’t think he’s had to get up early since he was at school. He was quite incredulous when I said I was coming here.’

  ‘He didn’t mind – doesn’t mind you doing things?’

  ‘Not at all. Far from it.’

  The party was in first floor rooms. They could hear it before entering the building. ‘This will probably be awful,’ she said. ‘All Michael’s acting friends. We don’t have to stay long.’

  ‘You say you’re tired and I’ll say I have to walk you home.’

  ‘That’ll give them something to gossip about.’ Seeing him smile, she laid her hand on his arm. ‘It’s nice that we can talk like this now, isn’t it?’

  About twenty people were sitting on the floor, balancing on the arms and backs of chairs, standing outside on the narrow balcony. The host, Michael Mann, was the most successful drama director in Oxford. Fat and voluble, he had thick black hair, wore thick gold rings and talked about drama with such commanding fluency that in his presence it was hard to believe anything else mattered. He had had two productions at the Playhouse, the premier theatre in Oxford, and was currently rehearsing A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Worcester College gardens. Endowed with surpassing energy, he slept little, read everything, knew everyone, and apparently had no private life at all. His life was like his drama, public property, a matter for debate, open to revision, in need of presentation. Hardly a week passed without his giving a party of some kind. He greeted Anne with open arms but embraced her gently.

  ‘I thought you were never coming, that perhaps you were deterred by disapproval, donnish and uxorious.’

  ‘At this time of day there’s no question of approval or disapproval, donnish or otherwise. He’s blissfully indifferent to whatever I get up to.’

  He nodded at Robert with off-handed affability. ‘So you brought an understudy?’

  Robert assumed equal affability. ‘I created the part in rep.’ It was always important to repay Michael early on and in kind, after which he would usually take no further interest. It was not that he and Robert were serious rivals in drama or anything else – Robert’s theatrical ventures had been too infrequent and maverick for that – but rather that Michael established relations with people in terms of degrees o
f ascendancy. He would assume as much as he was permitted; it was for them to establish the limits. Few did so.

  Michael waved his arms again. ‘Champagne, orange, coffee, croissants. Help yourselves.’

  Anne knew some of the others; Robert was on nodding terms with most but was not anxious to get better acquainted. He felt he knew enough people. Anne accepted orange juice and a seat from a cheerful man who helped himself and everyone else to more champagne.

  ‘I’m going to drink this stuff every day until war breaks out,’ the man said. ‘At least I’ll enjoy myself first and I’d rather die gloating about that than feeling bitter and twisted because I hadn’t.’

  ‘You might feel worse for knowing what you’re missing,’ said a pretty girl in white boots, jeans, jersey and hat.

  Michael joined them. ‘The answer, surely, is to make the most of the actual experience of being fried. I mean, if I had warning of imminent nuclear attack I’d rush into the garden with my deckchair, put on Beethoven’s Ninth and sit back and watch for the big flash. Uplifting in every way.’

  Most people laughed. Robert smiled when he saw that Anne had.

  ‘In fact, I’m more worried about rain during The Dream week than nuclear war,’ continued Michael. ‘I mean, it’s one thing for everyone to be annihilated, quite another if it’s only the audience.’

  There was more laughter, then talk about what else would be worth doing before war broke out, though carried on in a way that suggested no one believed it would. The cheerful man told the girl in white that he would hope to spend more time in bed.

  Robert and Anne left after about half an hour amid jokes about Anne having to wake her husband. Michael asked Robert how The Changeling was going and Robert asked after The Dream. They had a brief and businesslike exchange, Michael’s way of showing goodwill.

  ‘Don’t forget the madhouse scenes,’ he said. ‘Very tempting to leave them until it’s too late. I nearly did that for a school production. Great theatrical possibilities. Anne, we must have tea.’

  She said tea would be lovely at any time but escaped without being specif c.