My Uncle Oswald(37)

“Now, my dear,” A. R. Woresley said, laying down the pipette and turning round for the first time. “What was it you--” He stopped dead in mid-sentence. His mouth dropped open and his eyes became as large and round as half-crowns. Then the tip of his red tongue appeared underneath the bristles of his nicotine moustache and began sliding wetly over his lips. For a man who had seen little else but Girton girls and his own diabolic sister for years on end, Yasmin must have appeared before him like the creation, the first morning, the spirit moving over the waters. But he recovered quickly.

“You had something to ask me, my dear?”

Yasmin had prepared her question brilliantly. I have forgotten precisely how it went, but it dealt with a situation where chemistry (his subject) and biology (her subject) became intertwined in a most complex manner, and where a deep knowledge of chemistry was required in order to unravel the problem. The answer, as she had so shrewdly calculated, would take at least nine minutes to deliver, probably more.

“A fascinating question,” A. R. Woresley said. “Let me see how best to answer it for you.” He crossed to a long blackboard fixed to the wall of the lab. He picked up a piece of chalk.

“Would you like a chocolate?” Yasmin said. She had the paper bag in her hand and when A. R. Woresley turned round, she popped one into her own mouth. She took the second chocolate from the bag and held it toward him in her fingertips.

“My goodness gracious me!” he burbled. “What a treat!”

“Delicious,” she said. “Try it.”

A. R. Woresley took it and sucked it and rolled it round in his mouth and chewed it and finally swallowed it. “Glorious,” he said. “How very kind of you.”

At the moment when the chocolate went down his gullet, I noted the time on my watch. I saw Yasmin doing exactly the same thing. Such a sensible girl. A. R. Woresley was standing at the blackboard giving a long exposition with many splendid chemical formulae written in chalk. I didn’t listen to it. I was counting the minutes passing by. So was Yasmin. She hardly took her eyes from the watch on her wrist.

Seven minutes gone by . . .

Eight minutes . . .

Eight minutes and fifty seconds . . .

Nine minutes! And dead on time, the hand that held the chalk against the blackboard suddenly stopped writing. A. R. Woresley went rigid.

“Mr. Woresley,” Yasmin said brightly, timing it to perfection, “I wonder if you’d mind giving me your autograph. You are the only science lecturer whose autograph I still don’t have for my collection.” She was holding out a pen and a sheet of chemistry department notepaper.

“What’s that?” he stammered, putting one hand into his trouser pocket before turning round to face her.

“Just there,” Yasmin said, placing a finger halfway down the sheet as I had instructed her. “Your autograph. I collect them. I shall treasure yours more than any of the others.”

In order to take the pen, A. R. Woresley had to remove his hand from the pocket. It was a comical sight. The poor man looked as though he had a live snake in his trousers. And now he was beginning to bounce up and down on his toes.

“Just there,” Yasmin said, keeping her finger on the notepaper. “Then I shall paste it in my autograph book along with all the others.”

With his mind fogged by gathering passions, A. R. Woresley signed. Yasmin folded the paper and put it in her purse. A. R. Woresley clutched the edge of the wooden lab bench with both hands. He started rocking about all over the place as if the whole building were in a storm at sea. His forehead was damp with sweat. I reminded myself that he had had a double dose. I think Yasmin was reminding herself of the same thing. She took a couple of paces backwards and braced herself for the coming onslaught.

Slowly, A. R. Woresley turned his head and stared at her. The powder was hitting him hard and there was a glimmer of madness in his eyes.

“I . . . er . . . I . . . I . . .”

“Is something wrong, Mr. Woresley?” Yasmin said sweetly. “Are you feeling all right?”

He went on clutching the bench and staring at her. The sweat was all over his face now and running onto his moustache.

“Can I do something to help?” Yasmin said.

A funny gurgling noise came out of his throat.

“Can I get you a glass of water?” she asked. “Or some smelling-salts perhaps?”

And still he stood there, clutching the bench and waggling his head and making those queer gurgling noises. He reminded me of a man who’d got a fishbone stuck in his throat.

Suddenly he let out a great bellow and made a rush at the girl. He grasped her by the shoulders with both hands and tried to push her to the floor but she skipped back out of his reach.