The World According to Bertie - Alexander Hanchett Smith [134]
‘Miss Macgregor?’
Pat slowed down. ‘Dr Fantouse. Sorry, I was thinking. I wasn’t looking.’ And she had been thinking, of course, though he would never guess about what.
Dr Fantouse smiled. ‘As an aesthetician,’ he said, ‘I would be inclined to suggest that one should first look, then think.’
Pat thought for a moment. She did not immediately realise that this was a joke, but then she understood that it was, and she laughed politely. Dr Fantouse looked proud, in a modest sort of way.
It was clear that they were both walking in the same direction– across the Meadows, that broad, tree-lined expanse of park that separated the university area from the semi-Gothic nineteenth-century tenements of Marchmont – and so Pat fell into step with the aesthetician.
‘You’re enjoying the course?’ he asked, glancing at her in his mildly apologetic way.
Pat suspected that nobody ever told Dr Fantouse that his course was enjoyable, and yet she knew how much effort he put into his work. It must be hard, she thought, being Dr Fantouse and being appreciated by nobody.
‘I’m really enjoying it,’ she said. ‘In fact, it’s the best course I’ve ever done. It really is.’
Dr Fantouse beamed with pleasure. ‘That’s very good to hear,’ he said. ‘I enjoy it too, you know. There are some very interesting people in the class. Very interesting.’
Pat wondered whom he meant. There was a rather outspoken, indeed opinionated girl from London who was always coming up with views on everything; perhaps he meant her.
‘Your views, for example,’ went on Dr Fantouse. ‘If I may say so, you always take a very balanced view. I find that admirable.’ He paused. ‘And that young man, Wolf. I think that he has a good mind.’
Pat found herself blushing. Wolf did not have a good mind; he had a dirty mind, she thought, full of lascivious thoughts . . . like most boys.
Dr Fantouse now changed the subject. ‘Do you live over there?’ he said, pointing towards Marchmont.
‘I used to,’ she said. ‘Now I live at home. In the Grange.’ It sounded terribly dull, she thought, but then Dr Fantouse himself was very dull.
‘How nice,’ he said. ‘Living at home must have its appeal.’
They walked on. Dr Fantouse was carrying a small leather briefcase, and he swung this beside him as he walked, like a metronome.
‘My wife always makes tea for me at this hour,’ said Dr Fantouse. ‘Would you care to join us? There is usually cake.’
Pat hesitated. Had the invitation been extended without any mention of a wife, then she would have said no, but this was very innocent.
‘That would be very nice,’ she said.
Dr Fantouse’s house was on Fingal Place, a stone-built terrace which looked out directly onto the footpath that ran along the Meadows. Pat had walked past these houses many times before and had thought how comfortable they looked. They were beautiful, comfortable in their proportions, without that towering Victorianism that set in just a few blocks to the south. That an authority on the Quattrocento should live in one seemed to her to be just right.
The flat was on the first floor, up a stone staircase on the landings of which were dried-flower arrangements. The door, painted red, bore the legend FANTOUSE, which for some reason amused Pat; that name belonged to the Quattrocento, to aesthetics, to the world of academe; it did not belong to the ordinary world of letter-boxes and front doors.
They went inside, entering a hall decorated with framed prints of what looked like Italian cities of the Renaissance. A door opened.
‘My wife,’ said Dr Fantouse. ‘Fiona.’
Pat looked at the woman who had entered the hall. She was strikingly beautiful; like a model from a pre-Raphaelite painting. She stepped forward and took Pat’s hand, glancing inquiringly at her husband as she did so.
‘Miss Macgregor,’ he explained. ‘One of my students.’
‘Pat,’ said Pat.
Fiona Fantouse drew Pat away, into the room behind her. Pat noticed that she was