Part 7 (1/2)

'Exactly Well he's the President of Footlights this year'

'Coo'

'Yes, and he needs so you over to his rooms at Selwyn'

'Me? But I don't know hi two cushi+ons in succession 'I introduced you at Edinburgh'

'You did?'

There were no cushi+ons left so she flung lance that had been flung in Caood memory,' she said, 'you have a terrible wick Avenue towards Selwyn College It was a cold Noveunpowder fro held so on the rugby-ground side of Grange Road, not far froe, Robinson

Eh the open street door and up some stairs She knocked on a door at the end of the corridor A voice grunted for us to enter

He was sitting on the edge of his bed, a guitar on his knee At the other side of the roohtly Like Elish at Newnha blonde hair and a ravishi+ng ss of his cheeks more pronounced than ever 'Hullo,' he said

'Hullo,' I said

We were both people who said 'hullo' rather than 'hello'

'Red wine or white?' said Katie

'I've been writing a song,' he said and started to stru in the character of an American IRA supporter

Give money to an IRA bomber?

Why, yessir, I'd consider it an honour, Everybody ing superb It see

'Woolworths,' he said as he laid the instruuitars that cost ten times as much, but they just don't do it for oing to tell hihts I'htcap you were nificent it was brilliant,' I said in a rush

'Oh Gosh Well No Really? Well, erLatin! Latin! Top Absolutely top' Top Absolutely top'

'Nonsense, oh shush'

'Co horror of mutual admiration out of the e both paused, unsure of how to continue

'Well, go on,' said Emma

'Yes So There are two Smokers left this term, but most importantly there's the panto'

'The panto?'

'Yup The Footlights pantoh was the Emperor of China,' Katie said

'I ht I would have too If I hadn't been in it Anyway, this year we're doing The Snow Queen The Snow Queen'

'Hans Christian Andersen?'

'Yup Katie and I have been writing it We've got this ' he showed h and I riting a scene together as if we had been doing it all our lives

You read about people falling suddenly in love, about roh quivering strings and resounding chords and you read about eyes thatof Cupid's bow, but it is less often that you read about collaborative love at first sight, about people who instantly discover that they were born to work together or born to be natural and perfect friends

The e ideas it was starkly and most wonderfully clear that we shared absolutely the same sense of as funny and the same scruples, tastes and sensitivities as to e found derivative, cheap, obvious or stylistically unacceptable Which is not to say that ere si for sockets and sockets looking for plugs, as roughly speaking the Platonic allegory of love suggests, then there is no doubt we did seem each to possess precisely the qualities and deficiencies the other h had music where I had none He had an ability to be likeably daft and clownish He moved, tumbled and leapt like an athlete He had authority, presence and dignity I hadhang on, what did did I have? Patter and fluency, I suppose Verbal dexterity Learning Hugh always said that I also added what he called I have? Patter and fluency, I suppose Verbal dexterity Learning Hugh always said that I also added what he called gravitas gravitas to the proceedings Although he had great authority hi older authority figures I wrote too I mean I actually physically wrote lines doith pen and paper or typewriter Hugh kept the phrases and shapes of theon in his head and only wrote thee-s Although he had great authority hi older authority figures I wrote too I mean I actually physically wrote lines doith pen and paper or typewriter Hugh kept the phrases and shapes of theon in his head and only wrote thee-h was deterrown-up but never pleased with itself or, God forbid, cool We both shared a horror of cool To wear sunglasses when it wasn't sunny, to look pained and troubled and emotionally raw, to pull that sneery snorty 'Er?!! What What?!' face at things that you didn't understand or froht it stylish to distance yourself Any such arid, self-regarding stylistic narcissism we detested Better to look a naive simpleton than jaded, tired or world-weary, we felt 'We're students students, for fuck's sake,' was our credo 'We have peopleour rooms for us We live in panelledpresses, first-class cricket pitches, a river, boats, libraries and all the tiht have we got totortured?'

We were fortunate that the age of young people doing stand-up comedy hadn't yet arrived The idea, and I am afraid it has since beco listless and ainst the burden of life would be more than either of us would have been able to bear We were exceptionally attuned to pretension, aesthetic discord and hypocrisy The young are so priggish I hope we are much more tolerant now

Ale or afterwards quite seenify it with such a word It is probable that our fear of being unoriginal, of looking cocky, of being obvious or of being seen ever to have chosen the line of least resistance caused us difficulty in our coht also have pushed us to some of our best endeavours too, so there is no real reason to regret the sensitivity and fastidiousness that only we appeared to share We soon becaht flicker over the faces of those who suggested soainst our instinctive sense of what could or could not be funny, right or fit I don't think ere ever aggressive or unkind, certainly not deliberately, but when two people are absolutely in harness with regard toto outsiders, and I expect two tall public-school figures like usand aloof Inside, of course, we felt anything but I would not want to paint a picture of us as earnest, dogues, the Frank and Queenie Leavis of Cos would set us off like teenagers, which of course we had only just stopped being

Hugh had coe as a successful international youth oarsold with his schoolfriend James Palmer in the coxless pairs event in the Junior Olympics and at Henley Back in the thirties his father had been in a winning Cae Blue boat for each of his three years and went on to row in the British eight at the Berlin Olyain in the coxless pairs in the 1948 London galandular fever not struck, Hugh would certainly have rowed for the university straight away but, denied by his illness a seat in the Blue boat for his first year, he looked about for so else to do and found himself cast in Aladdin Aladdin and then, two terhtcap In his second year he abandoned the Footlights and did what he had coh the water On the river by five or six in the yot his Blue in the 1980 boat race, which Oxford won by a canvas, the closest result there had ever been You can iine the disappointment How many times he must have revisited every yard of that race in his head Upping the stroke rate by one beat aon the bend, 2 per centto have come so close I tried to tell hi to Merton in the final of University Challenge University Challenge ave me could have stripped the flesh from a rhinoceros ave me could have stripped the flesh froh Laurie and his poor dear friends are having to propel the year, his last, he could either stay with rowing or return to the Footlights, but he could not do both President of the Cae Footlights? He claione to Edinburgh and seen Latin! Latin! and decided that perhaps I hts Only he and Emma were left from the first year and he needed fresh blood Kim was co-opted on to the committee as Junior Treasurer, Katie was Secretary, Emma Vice-President and a computer scientist froubrious perforh's, was already on board as Club Falconer This strange office went back to the days when the Footlights were quartered in Falcon Yard I don't believe there were any duties attached to being Falconer, but it looked good, and I envied Paul's title sorely and reprehensibly and decided that perhaps I hts Only he and Emma were left from the first year and he needed fresh blood Kim was co-opted on to the committee as Junior Treasurer, Katie was Secretary, Emma Vice-President and a computer scientist froubrious perforh's, was already on board as Club Falconer This strange office went back to the days when the Footlights were quartered in Falcon Yard I don't believe there were any duties attached to being Falconer, but it looked good, and I envied Paul's title sorely and reprehensibly