The Prodigal Son

Desdemona grinned. “They encounter women like her all the time, Millie. All she’s doing is postponing what will be a nastier interview because she did postpone it. And enough of all that! Have you a nice frock for tonight?”

Millie’s face clouded. “Unfortunately, no. Kate let me pick through her enormous wardrobe, but tonight is a long dress that has to hold up academic robes, so I’m back to my graduation black dress. Men have their ties to hook robes and hoods around, but women don’t. You and Carmine are coming tonight, I hope?”

“We’ll be there, Millie,” said Desdemona, smiling.

“You said tonight was an annoying inconvenience, Mommy,” said Julian, stomping in like a soldier back from the wars.

“He’s turned into a parrot,” his mother said. “I absolutely despair of sensible conversation with him.”

“Why do you absolutely despair of sensible conversation with me, Mommy? I know lots of big words.”

“You know them like a parrot.”

“Pooh, nonsense!” said Julian.

“Oh, lord, I said that weeks ago, and he won’t forget it!”

Alex opened his mouth and grinned, revealing teeth.

Ivy Hall was one of the oldest buildings at Chubb University, itself nearly three hundred years old, and Ivy Hall had been preserved with loving care. Built of red brick in 1725, it had been the original classroom, though for the last hundred years it had been used only for important banquets. Until Mawson MacIntosh, fondly known as M.M., had taken over as President of Chubb, its accommodation had been on the spartan side—scarred wooden benches and refectory tables. With his unparalleled genius for fund raising, M.M. had persuaded the Wicken family to donate a large sum to refurnish Ivy Hall; it now had proper dining tables of the finest mahogany, with upholstered mahogany chairs.

Its walls were hung with priceless Flemish tapestries between floor-to-ceiling Georgian windows, with space for long paintings of landscapes here and there. The oak floor had been treated, and the dais designed to take a high table given a much needed spit and polish.

The official reason for giving this particular banquet was to mark the retirement of the present Head Scholar of the Chubb University Press, and the assumption of the title Head Scholar by his successor. How the man responsible for the administration of C.U.P. had come to be known as its Head Scholar was lost in the mists of time for most: in actual fact it went back to the founding of C.U.P. in 1819, and was supposed to reflect Chubb University’s charter principles. This night, however, also marked another fact about C.U.P.: it was 150 years old, and celebrating its sesquicentenary. For that reason, the heavy place mats bore a beautifully chased design based on the number 150, dreamed up by C.U.P.’s associated design firm, Imaginexa; it was therefore the brain child of Davina Tunbull, who had gone further and put a few festive gold-and-silver touches on the hall that not the most conservative of academics could have damned as in bad taste.

Four tables had been laid, decorated with gold-and-silver 150s cunningly wrought out of metal to form something like epergnes. One, the high table, sat upon the raised dais at the end of the hall, and because of its orientation, the three tables down on the floor of the hall were also laid from side to side of the room, which gave the whole assemblage a discriminatory feel, as it went high table for the major dignitaries, then the Chubb University table, followed by the Chubb University Press table, and, farthest from the high table and closest to the food ingress and egress, the table of Town dignitaries.

Each of the four tables held nine couples, which meant that a total of seventy-two people would sit down to what would be a function most didn’t want to attend but couldn’t not; the speeches and the involuntary exposure of many to people they tried to avoid summed up the negative side of being there, while the quality of the food, the fairly comfortable chairs and the chance to catch up with old friends represented the positive side. Tradition demanded that academic robes be worn by all the men but only by those women holding Chubb faculty positions, which added to the torments; police captains like Carmine Delmonico and Fernando Vasquez voted it an utterly wasted evening.

“Whoever planned this setup made a boo-boo,” Commissioner John Silvestri said as he ensconced his still beautiful wife in her chair and sat down next to her. “They put Nate Winthrop on the high table and Doug Thwaites down on the floor—man, they will rue that!”

Carmine, to whom this remark was made, gave his boss a grin. “They need Delia,” he said.

“We could rent her out, a thousand bucks an hour.”

“No, we won’t. M.M. might grab her.”

“M.M. won’t be pleased when he sees he’s gotten Nate but no Doug,” said the District Attorney, Horace Pinnerton. “Yes, Marcia, I’ll see if I can get you an extra cushion. They never cater for shorties,” he said to Fernando Vasquez.

“Or long drinks of water,” Fernando said, nodding at the two metres-plus of Manfred Mayhew, Holloman’s Town Clerk, once a famous basketballer. His wife, of course, was barely five feet tall. Another cushion coming up!

“And for this, Ginny and I have to miss our free night,” said the Fire Chief, Bede Murphy, who didn’t wear a robe.

His wife was giving Liza Mayhew the look of a martyr. “Bede doesn’t fit his tux anymore,” she said, low-voiced, “and my long dresses went out with Norma Shearer. Sometimes I hate Chubb! Academic gowns, tuxes, long dresses—pah!”

“The place mats and decorations are superb,” said Desdemona pacifically. “Millie told me that Davina Tunbull designed them. Is that her on the next table up?”

About to sit down, Carmine turned to tally the C.U.P. table. “Your instincts are amazing,” he said. “From Abe’s description of a woman who’d gone to bed in hysterics and wasn’t even on display, that’s her in silver and gold.”

“Well, she’s so beautifully dressed, and matches the decor,” said Desdemona, and gazed down at the table with a sigh. “My back will be giving me gyp at the end of this. Why are dining tables so low, or chairs so high?”

Carmine seated himself, pleased that he was on the correct side of the table to look up the hall. Davina Tunbull was a looker, but what took his eye was the dramatic difference in age between her and her husband. Max looked his sixty years—why hadn’t they begged to be excused tonight? Everybody would have understood. No, she had wanted to come, no matter how Max felt. Dressed in slinky gold and silver panels that left her knobby back bare, she was queening it over the rest of the women at her table—or in the hall, for that matter. Why did women starve themselves to look good in clothes? They resembled greyhounds.

All the Tunbulls had come—Max and Davina, Val and Emily, Ivan and Lily. After Abe’s perceptive reportage, Carmine had the men in his memory now. They represented the printing side of C.U.P., so presumably the others at the table belonged to C.U.P. itself. Interesting! Several of the executives were women; no mistaking who was the professional boss in a relationship, and these women were towing escorts or tame husbands. No equal partnerships here. Three women executives, three men executives.

His eye went to the high table, farthest away, but also the easiest to see, up in the air six feet. Jim and Millie Hunter were seated on it; so were the two senior Parsons, Roger Junior and Henry Junior. Hmm … That was right, then, the Parsons had bludgeoned Chubb into appointing Thomas Tarleton Tinkerman the new C.U.P. Head Scholar. Easy to pick him: his facial expression was reminiscent of Martin Luther having a bad day with his hemorrhoids. Jesus, were they the Parson wives? They could have been sisters to their husbands—the same austere, bony faces—and the same watery blue eyes, he’d be willing to bet if he got close enough to check.

“You’re enjoying this, you ruthless blighter,” Desdemona was whispering. “Grist to your copper’s mill.”

“Yep,” he said amiably, lifted her hand and kissed it, eyes glowing. “None of them can hold a candle to you.”

She blushed. “Flattery will get you permission to massage my back later tonight, otherwise I’ll be a cot case tomorrow.”

“Deal,” he said, and grinned at Patrick and Nessie, down between Horrie Pinnerton and Dave Zuckerman, the head of Social Services. Derek Daiman and his wife, Annabelle, had just come in too; he had gone from Principal of Travis High to Director of Education. It felt good to have a black couple on the Town table—more than Chubb could boast.

“Generous width of seating,” Derek said, sitting opposite Carmine. “If the meat’s tough, I can fly my elbows.”

“Don’t hesitate to put them on the table when they’re not flying,” Carmine said. “This is your first banquet, you and Fernando, but it’s my skeedy-eighth.”

“Will the meat be tough?” Fernando asked anxiously.

“Put it this way, guys: If the meat is tough, then the next banquet will serve roast caterer for the main course. M.M. is a stickler for good food at these functions.” He raised his glass of amontillado. “Cheers! Here’s to many more Chubb banquets.”

“Speaking as a cop, may they all be boring,” Fernando said, and sipped. “Hey, this is good sherry!”

“Chubb is well endowed, gentlemen.”

“Who’s at the first table below the high one?” Derek asked.

“Chubb U. dignitaries. The rest of the Governors—Dean Bob Highman as senior dean—three specimens of Parson in Roger III, Henry III, and he of the loose mouth, Richard Spaight. But don’t feel sorry for Doug Thwaites, he’ll make mincemeat of them all.”

Thomas Tarleton Tinkerman, now Head Scholar of the Chubb University Press, was holding forth to the Parson Brothers while the entire high table listened, some politely, some happily, some incredulously.

“C.U.P. will return to the spirit of its charter,” he was saying, “and leave scientific publishing to those academic institutions with the interest and resources to do it properly. C.U.P.’s niche under my care of the imprimatur will be in those neglected fields whose students may be few, but whose ideas are so vital to Western philosophy that they have shaped it. In our present climate of worship for the technocrat and the machine, no one publishes them anymore. But I will, gentlemen, I will!”

“I’m not sure how the technocrat and the machine fit in, but I take it you dismiss twentieth century philosophy?” Hank Howard asked, wondering if he could be baited.

The haughty face sneered. “Pah! One may as well call Darwin and Copernicus philosophers! The kind medical students read!”

“I think it’s great that medical students read anything not connected to medicine,” Jim Hunter said mildly.

Tinkerman’s face said “You would!” but his mouth said “Not so, Dr. Hunter. Better they should confine themselves to medicine than read metaphysics for monkeys!”

A small, startled silence fell: Tinkerman had sounded too personal, and several of his auditors resolved to deflect him.

“I’ve known medical students who read Augustine, Machiavelli and Federico Garcia Lorca,” said M.M., smiling easily.

“Perhaps they’re a little off the track of this discussion, Tom, but if novelists like Norman Mailer and Philip Roth were offered to you, surely you’d publish them?” Bursar Townsend asked.