Disgrace Read Free Page A

your home?'
              'No, I grew up in George.'
              'I live just nearby. Can I invite you in for a drink?'
              A pause, cautious. 'OK. But I have to be back by seven-thirty.'
              From the gardens they pass into the quiet residential pocket where he has lived for the past twelve years, first with Rosalind, then, after the divorce, alone.
              He unlocks the security gate, unlocks the door, ushers the girl in. He switches on lights, takes her bag. There are raindrops on her hair. He stares, frankly ravished. She lowers her eyes, offering the same evasive and perhaps even coquettish little smile as before.
              In the kitchen he opens a bottle of Meerlust and sets out biscuits and cheese. When he returns she is standing at the bookshelves, head on one side, reading titles. He puts on music: the Mozart clarinet quintet.
              Wine, music: a ritual that men and women play out with each other. Nothing wrong with rituals, they were invented to ease the awkward passages. But the girl he has brought home is not just thirty years his junior: she is a student, his student, under his tutelage. No matter what passes between them now, they will have to meet again as teacher and pupil. Is he prepared for that?
              'Are you enjoying the course?' he asks.
              'I liked Blake. I liked the Wonderhorn stuff.
              'Wunderhorn.'
              'I'm not so crazy about Wordsworth.'
              'You shouldn't be saying that to me. Wordsworth has been one of my masters.'
              It is true. For as long as he can remember, the harmonies of The Prelude have echoed within him.
              'Maybe by the end of the course I'll appreciate him more. Maybe he'll grow on me.'
              'Maybe. But in my experience poetry speaks to you either at first sight or not at all. A flash of revelation and a flash of response. Like lightning. Like falling in love.'
              Like falling in love. Do the young still fall in love, or is that mechanism obsolete by now, unnecessary, quaint, like steam locomotion? He is out of touch, out of date. Falling in love could have fallen out of fashion and come back again half a dozen times, for all he knows.
              'Do you write poetry yourself?' he asks.
              'I did when I was at school. I wasn't very good. I haven't got the time now.'
              'And passions? Do you have any literary passions?'
              She frowns at the strange word. 'We did Adrienne Rich and Toni Morrison in my second year. And Alice Walker. I got pretty involved. But I wouldn't call it a passion exactly.'
              So: not a creature of passion. In the most roundabout of ways, is she warning him off?
              'I am going to throw together some supper,' he says. Will you join me? It will be very simple.'
              She looks dubious.
              'Come on!' he says. 'Say yes!'
              'OK. But I have to make a phone call first.'
              The call takes longer than he expected. From the kitchen he hears murmurings, silences.
              'What are your career plans?' he asks afterwards.
              'Stagecraft and design. I'm doing a diploma in theatre.'
              'And what is your reason for taking a course in Romantic poetry?'
              She ponders, wrinkling her nose. 'It's mainly for the atmosphere that I chose it,' she says. 'I didn't want to take Shakespeare again. I took Shakespeare last year.'
              What he throws together for supper is indeed simple: anchovies on tagliatelle with a mushroom sauce. He lets her chop the mushrooms. Otherwise she sits on a stool, watching while he cooks. They eat in the dining-room, opening a second bottle of wine. She eats without inhibition. A healthy appetite, for