A Long Way to Shiloh Read Free

with commendation. I turned and took stock of the situation; and found a creamy young blonde, properly proportioned, taking stock of me.
    ‘Well, Professor Laing, and how are we?’
    ‘Well, Lady Liz, very well. I’m not professing anything just at the moment.’ A pang of something, chagrin, ancient lust, had gone through me.
    ‘Still on your feet, anyway, I’m glad to see. I heard they got you pissed last night.’
    She had a knack, something to do with a late labial, more specifically a fricative, convulsion, of throwing her voice as far as your ear and no farther.
    ‘They tried to.’
    ‘Nobody invited me.’
    ‘Nobody invited anybody. They were just a few people who’d worked under me at one time or another.’
    She noted that one with a faint lengthening of the eyelid. Nothing in the qualifications as stated had disbarred her.
    She said, ‘I expect you’re too proud for me now.’ This had been a private word, too, as her eyelid again indicated.
    I said, ‘You could always find out.’
    ‘I’d have to transfer to Bedford, wouldn’t I?’
    ‘Very bucolic.’
    ‘Very crowded, I hear.’
    ‘I expect we could squeeze in a willing body.’
    ‘I expect I’d have to compete.’
    We’d had relations, this randy young noblewoman and I, enjoyable ones, until an observant dog-faced girl-friend of hers had pointed out the impropriety, as between instructor and instructed. She had promptly switched courses – as I’d believed to enable us to continue. This was a couple of terms ago and I hadn’t seen her since. Something in her last words made me wonder if the reason might not lie with her dog-faced friend; if this unpleasant friend might not have been keeping an eye on me.
    I said, ‘What are you doing here?’
    ‘I’m one of Birkett’s students.’
    ‘Working hard, I hope.’
    ‘Leading a balanced life.’
    ‘I thought you might be.’
    ‘I’d heard you were, too.’
    Almost certainly Dog-face had told her. Chagrin filtered out, leaving only honest lust.
    I said, ‘Are you busy on Sunday?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Very busy?’
    ‘Pretty busy.’
    ‘That sounds relative.’
    ‘We must always try and relate the relative, Professor.’
    ‘Might you be in if I rang about four?’
    ‘I might.’
    ‘Caspar!’
    I spun round. It happens to be my given name. Only one person can make it sound like an oriental bazaar; a person quite capable of making an urbane threesome of what was rapidly becoming a fairly ripe twosome.
    I said, ‘Hello, Uri,’ without enthusiasm.
    ‘Hello, love.’
    He’d slipped in late, but had managed to get himself a glass on the way. He had it in his tight shiny glove and his melancholic smile was irradiating slightly, facial scar becomingly prominent .
    ‘Here on business?’
    ‘Just to pay my respects.’
    ‘Who to?’ He hadn’t taken his eye off the girl.
    ‘To you. Naturally.’ He was very dark brown in the voice, and his features had the assured immobility of the tragic clown; a very international, very well-tailored tragic clown, hair en- brosse , faintly lotioned. ‘I’m an old student of Birkett’s. He knows how I respect you.’
    ‘Yes, love. Elizabeth, this is Uri Namir, warrior, bibliophile and bore.’
    ‘Charming,’ Uri said, impartially.
    ‘Uri is a hero. Of the War of Independence. The Israeli War of Independence. He is an Israeli.’
    ‘Hello.’
    ‘And this is Elizabeth Longrigg.’
    ‘Wonderful!’
    ‘ Lady Elizabeth Longrigg.’
    ‘Marvellous!’ His interest, if possible, notched up a fraction. ‘Are you really? A Lady?’
    ‘Always,’ Elizabeth said. She was looking, with frank interest, at his glove. This girl began to overstimulate me all over again. I recalled her way of looking with frank interest at anything that happened to frankly interest her.
    I said, briskly, ‘Well, Uri, we must have a word before you go.’
    ‘You know,’ Uri said, ‘you’re the first Lady I ever met – the first Lady with a capital L. Extraordinary,