The Bearded Tit Part 9

'What about tongue length?'

'Can you touch the end of your nose with your tongue?'

'Let's see,' she said, and closing her eyes tight she stuck her tongue out as far as it would go and curled it back and upwards towards her nose. She couldn't touch the end of her nose with her tongue but it was the s.e.xiest thing I'd ever seen.

'Oh shame; very close, though.'

She pulled a joke sad face. 'Can you do it?'

'Easily,' I said, and leant over and touched the end of her nose with my tongue.

She laughed a lot.

And I did.

My day was made.

But the silver lining had a black cloud around it in the shape of Carl Kramer.

'You're in a ludicrously good mood for someone in a doomed love affair,' he grumbled later over a pint.

'Yes, I touched the end of JJ's nose with my tongue today!'

'Jesus Christ,' Kramer said, shaking his head in despair. 'Are you taking part in the foreplay marathon or something?'

'A little often, my friend.'

Yet, despite Kramer, it had been a good day. They all had been. Why had a note of doubt crept into my mind? I was walking back to my room down the path by the duck pond and something flew over, a dark, silent shadow flapping slowly.

Amazing.

A tawny owl.

Always a delight to see.

Or was it another magpie, I thought to myself. Yes, you know what: I think that was a magpie.

MR CRITCHLEY.

'h.e.l.lo. Is JJ around?'

'Oh dear.'

It was not the answer I expected. The grey-haired man with thick-lensed gla.s.ses precariously close to the end of his pointy nose smiled with a mixture of kindness and pity. 'It's her day off.'

I knew it was her day off. She told me that the last time I saw her. Then why was I here in the natural history department of Blackwaters? Was I turning up to see her in some sort of subconscious reflex action? JJ's immediate boss, Mr Critchley, tilted his head back to line up his eyes with his gla.s.ses and looked at me appraisingly.

'You seem like a nice boy,' he said and shook his head. World-weariness weighed down on him like a block of concrete but he gave off no bitterness. Perhaps the blocks of concrete had squeezed it out of him. Bitterness uses up more energy than kindness; perhaps he was too tired to be anything other than benign. 'She's a nice girl.'

'She is,' I agreed enthusiastically.

'You would have made a lovely couple.' He shook his head again. 'Another lifetime, maybe.'

I was unsure what to make of this and was wondering if I should go through the motions of pretending to buy a book when Critchley suddenly became business-like and said, 'Are you going to buy a book or did you only come in to see JJ? Please don't say you want to buy a book because you know you're over your limit on your account card. Don't make me have to refuse you.' The likeable old man seemed genuinely distraught and I started to a.s.sure him that I was only there to browse: books and shop-girls.

'Well, obviously I did want to see JJ, but as I'm here-'

I was interrupted by the arrival of a handsome young man in a suit. He was self-a.s.sured and immaculate. A lady-killer. A screen idol. Drop-dead gorgeous, if the phrase had been invented in 1975.

'Mr Critchley!' He nodded in Critchley's direction.

'Oh hi, Neil!' said Critchley, and turned to me to introduce the suave devil. 'This is Neil Curtis from social science. He helps me and JJ out from time to time.' He pointed in my general direction and said, 'And, Neil, this is...er...a customer. I'm sorry, I can't remember your name.'

'Rory.'

'Oh yes, of course. Rory's another one who's in love with JJ!'

Neil frowned in my direction. 'Oh, another one I've got to fight off?' He winked at me and patted Critchley on the arm. 'I'll see you later. Call me if you need me!'

The cool Mr Curtis glided effortlessly away, leaving behind a pleasant hint of expensive aftershave and an unpleasant feeling in the pit of my stomach. I felt distinctly uncomfortable about such an obviously good-looking charmer 'helping out' JJ from time to time. My discomfort was increased by his cheeky 'another one I've got to fight off comment and its attendant wink. Whatever that meant, I did not like it.

I took a quick look through my faces to see if there was a brave one I could put on, and said, 'He seems like a nice bloke.'

Critchley slumped back into his chair, swivelled 360 degrees and grabbed the desk to halt himself abruptly.

'Listen, there's something I should tell you-'

I was distracted from Critchley's revelation by the sound of a familiar boisterous cackling coming from somewhere around organic chemistry. I peeped round the corner and saw Degsy and Lobby, the ponding kings, coming up the stairs towards me. I wasn't in the mood for any interaction with these two. I felt my absence was urgently required.

'Er, listen, I've got to go.' I left Critchley and headed down the back stairs to the bas.e.m.e.nt, to modern languages, where I belonged. I picked up the biggest book I could find, opened it in front of my face and scrutinized it. As the maps showing the migration of Latin began to blur, I sensed that the danger had pa.s.sed. I put the book back on the shelf and I became aware of the smell of gentleman's cologne. The tap on my shoulder made me jump.

'You get around, don't you? Modern languages now!' Neil winked again and left with a c.o.c.ky, 'I'll give JJ your love.'

CHICKEN.

Kramer burst anxiously into the bar. He paced up and down, glancing around nervously.

He looked troubled. Twitchy and uncertain. Nothing out of the ordinary there, then, I thought. He came up to me at the pinball machine and interrupted a cla.s.sic studenty discussion about rock music.

Adrian 'Headbanger' Brown was putting forward the theory that the Moody Blues song 'Nights in White Satin' was, in fact, 'Knights in White Satin', on the flimsy argument that 'Nights in white satin never reaching an end' didn't mean anything.

'What sort of knights would wear white satin, then?' I asked. 'I mean, you couldn't go into battle wearing white satin, could you?'

There was a murmur of agreement from my fellow drinkers.

'I mean, what would the king say if you turned up to fight for him in a b.l.o.o.d.y war against the Saxons wearing white satin?'

A few sn.i.g.g.e.ring nods.

'Sire, here I am, Sir Nigel de Lingerie, come to give myself for your cause, o my liege.'

'No suit of armour then, Sir Nigel?'

'I find it makes me perspire so, your highness, and restricts my use of the sword and lance. Besides, chain-mail is just so pa.s.se!'

'It's metaphorical, you t.w.a.t.' Headbanger was unshaken in his opinion.

Kramer tapped me on the shoulder.

'Bad news,' he said.

'Yes, you are,' I replied.

He took a swig of my lager.

'I need to talk to you urgently in my room.'

'Can it wait?'

'No, and I need some chicken soup. Urgently.'

Kramer sounded serious and I quite fancied some chicken soup.

'So what's the bad news?' I asked as Kramer pa.s.sed me a bowl of soup and a lump of bread that was well past its incinerate-by date.

'Eat your soup, I'll tell you.'

It was midnight by now, and eating late-night chicken soup in Kramer's room had become quite a common occurrence. His aunt Sadie was visiting at the end of term and all four gallons had to be finished.

'Just throw it away,' I had recommended. 'Chuck it down the toilet.'

'She'd have a heart attack. You don't know my aunt Sadie.'

'She'd never guess.'

'You're kidding; as I said, you don't don't know my aunt Sadie.' know my aunt Sadie.'

'Answer me this,' I asked. 'Which is the commonest bird in the world?'

'Do I get a mark for 'don't give a s.h.i.+t'?'

'No'.

'It must be a pigeon.'

'No, closer to home.'

'A homing pigeon?'

'No. A chicken. The domesticated hen. There are about twenty-four billion of them worldwide.'

Kramer shook his head. 'There wouldn't be if my aunt Sadie had anything to do with it.'

'They're descended from the red-jungle fowl, Callus gallus Callus gallus, ' I said, proud of some new t.i.tbits of bird information; chicken nuggets, we'd probably call them now.

'I can't believe the domesticated hen is of any interest to ornithologists.'

'Well, in fact, ornithology was originally the study of chickens.'

'Now you are are talking c.o.c.k,' said Kramer. 'The trouble with chickens,' he went on portentously, 'is you never know what they're thinking. Whenever I've looked a chicken in the eye I've always thought: what the h.e.l.l is that bird thinking? It never looks at you back, for a start. Especially if you're about to wring its neck till it dies.' talking c.o.c.k,' said Kramer. 'The trouble with chickens,' he went on portentously, 'is you never know what they're thinking. Whenever I've looked a chicken in the eye I've always thought: what the h.e.l.l is that bird thinking? It never looks at you back, for a start. Especially if you're about to wring its neck till it dies.'

'Oh yeah, and you've done that a lot, I suppose,' I sneered.

'I spent three months on a kibbutz killing chickens. I know what I'm talking about. That's when I realized you never know what a chicken is thinking.'

'They were probably thinking: 'Watch it, chaps, here comes that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Kramer and look, he's got that neck-wringing glint in his eye!''

Kramer ignored this. 'You can't trust a bird called a 'chicken' that isn't troubled by chicken pox. When have you heard of a chicken getting chicken pox? Never. Mind you, they used to be very valuable. Roosters particularly. In fact, when Socrates was dying of hemlock poisoning, his last words were, 'I owe Asclepius a c.o.c.k.''

'I didn't even know Socrates was dead. Interestingly, Brazil never won the World Cup when he was captain, you know!'

I thought this fatuous comment would bring Kramer back to his apparently urgent 'bad news'.

'Bad news,' he said.

'What's wrong? Are you dying of cancer?'

Kramer laughed. 'Ha, no, I'm not. Well, I probably am, actually; one day certainly, a long lingering death knowing my luck, but that's not what I wanted to tell you.' He took a deep breath. 'JJ has a boyfriend.'

I said nothing. 'Well, I think think JJ has a boyfriend.' JJ has a boyfriend.'

But JJ is the love of my life and I think I'm the love of hers. What was Kramer on about?

I finally said, 'My JJ?'

'Well, how many JJ's do you know?'

'What do you mean, she's got a boyfriend?' I was really struggling to take in the meaning of this statement. A statement of unfortunately simple, unambiguous plain English.

'I saw her leaving the bookshop today. Arm in arm with a bloke. They seemed quite giggly and together.'

I misgulped some soup and coughed painfully.

Kramer shrugged helplessly. 'I'm sorry.'