Machines Like Me

In fact, it troubled me when we passed Stonehenge without a commentary. He was silent too after we crossed the Plain and caught our first view of the cathedral spire. Miranda and I exchanged a look. But we forgot about him for a tetchy twenty minutes as we tried to find her house in Salisbury’s one-way system. This was her home town and she wouldn’t tolerate the satnav. But her mental map of the city was a pedestrian’s and all her instructions were wrong. After some sweaty u-turns in disobliging traffic and reversing up a one-way street, narrowly avoiding a quarrel, we parked a couple of hundred yards from her family home. The downturn in our mood appeared to refresh Adam. As soon as we were on the pavement, he insisted on taking the heavy canvas bag from me. We were close to the cathedral, not quite within the precinct, but the house was imposing enough to have been the perk of some grand ecclesiastical.

Adam was the first with a bright hello when the housekeeper opened the door. She was a pleasant, competent-looking woman in her forties. It was hard to believe that she couldn’t cook. She led us into the kitchen. Adam lifted the bag onto a deal table, then he looked around and banged his hands together and said, ‘Well! Marvellous.’ It was an improbable impersonation of some bluff type, a golf-club bore. The housekeeper led us up to the first floor to Maxfield’s study. The room was as large as anything in Elgin Crescent. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on three sides, three sets of library steps, three tall sash windows overlooking the street, a leather-topped desk dead centre with two reading lamps, and behind the desk an orthopaedic chair packed with pillows and among them, sitting upright, fountain pen in hand and glaring across at us in focussed irritation as we were ushered in, was Maxfield Blacke, whose jaw was so tightly clenched it seemed his teeth might break. Then his features relaxed.

‘I’m in the middle of a paragraph. A good one. Why don’t you all bugger off for half an hour.’

Miranda was crossing the room. ‘Don’t be pretentious, Daddy. We’ve been driving for three hours.’

Her last few words were muffled within their embrace, which lasted a good while. Maxfield had put his pen down and was murmuring into his daughter’s ear. She was on one knee, with her arms around his neck. The housekeeper had disappeared. It felt uncomfortable, to be watching, so I shifted my gaze to the pen. It lay, nib exposed, next to many sheets of unlined paper spread across the desk and covered by tiny handwriting. From where I stood, I could see that there were no crossings-out, or arrows or bubbles or additions down the perfectly formed margins. I also had time to observe that, apart from the desk lamps, there were no other devices in the room, not even a telephone or a typewriter. Only the book titles perhaps and the author’s chair declared that it was not 1890. That date did not seem so far away.

Miranda made the introductions. Adam, still in his strange, genial mode went first. Then it was my turn to approach and shake his hand. Maxfield said unsmilingly, ‘I’ve heard a lot about you from Miranda. I’m looking forward to a chat.’

I replied politely that I had heard a lot about him and that I looked forward to our conversation. As I spoke, he grimaced. I appeared to have fulfilled some negative expectation. He looked far older than his photograph in the profile, published five years before. It was a narrow face, whose skin was thinly stretched, as though from too much snarling or angry staring. Miranda had told me that among his generation there was a certain style of irascible scepticism. You had to ride it out, she told me, because beneath it was playfulness. What they wanted, she said, was for you to push back, and be clever about it. Now, as Maxfield released my hand, I thought I might be capable of pushing back. As for being clever – I froze.

The housekeeper, Christine, came in with a tray of sherry. Adam said, ‘Not for now, thanks.’ He helped Christine fetch three wooden chairs from the corners of the room and set them out in a shallow curve facing the desk.

When we three were holding our drinks, Maxfield said to Miranda, gesturing towards me, ‘Does he like sherry?’

She in turn looked at me and I said, ‘Well enough, thanks.’