Free The Unburied by Charles Palliser Page A

fellowship. His lack of success was at least partly due to his refusal to work at the things he was not interested in – though other factors were also responsible.
    ‘I’m not sure that I would want the Chair. A life of quiet scholarship and teaching is all I desire and I have that already. The respect and even affection of my pupils mean more to me than the title of “professor”.’
    Austin smiled to himself in the most irritating way. ‘Suppose you find the manuscript but it disproves your argument?’
    To change the subject, I said: ‘Why don’t you open your gift, Austin?’
    He picked it up. ‘I’d almost forgotten about it.’ He removed the paper with great delicacy and held the book in front of him. ‘Thank you,’ he said.
    In some embarrassment, I said: ‘I understand it’s a formidable contribution to the debate about chronology.’
    ‘It was kind of you to think of it. I’m sure it’s a very intelligent piece of work.’
    He made a pretence of being interested, opening and looking at it.
    ‘The author is a Fellow of Colchester which for you and me must be the strongest recommendation anyone could have. And he is, indeed, a brilliant man in his field. I know you will disagree, but he argues that the evidence from geology pushes the date of the Creation back to millions of years ago. I understand that ...’
    ‘I suppose it’s because of this blessed manuscript that you’ve arranged to see Locard?’ he interrupted me.
    ‘I assume you know him?’
    ‘Oh yes, I know him. I know him for a cold-hearted, ambitious and dry-as-dust pedant. He is one of those men for whom the shell is more important than the content, the form than the substance. He is one of those men who have stood on the edge of life, too frightened to dip more than a toe in the water.’
    ‘I don’t mind how dry Dr Locard keeps his feet so long as he knows his business,’ I said with a smile.
    ‘He might know his business as a scholar but he certainly does not know it as a churchman. Beneath all the accoutrements of a Ritualist, he’s as devoid of faith as the author of this.’ He tapped the book. ‘Like so many in our age, he has abandoned the centre of our religion and fled to the trappings. But all of these scientific hypotheses about apes and fossils and galaxies are irrelevant. The fact that everything can be explained by one theory – the rationalistic-scientific as it might be termed – does not mean that there is not a larger theory to which it is subordinate.’
    ‘Oh, you mean that God put the fossils there when he made the world one Monday morning in 4004 BC just in order to test our faith, as some of your distinguished co-religionists have argued?’
    ‘No, I do not mean that. If you would do me the courtesy of attempting to follow my argument, you might grasp the point I’m making.’
    I felt in his cruel words all the frustration of a clever man who knows he has thrown away his opportunities.
    There was a moment of silence. ‘I hope you haven’t made an enemy of Dr Locard,’ I said, remembering what old Gazzard had said. ‘He’s obviously a powerful man.’
    ‘Powerful? Why, what could he do to me?’ he said, throwing the book down on the floor beside him.
    ‘At worst, I imagine he could have you dismissed from your post.’
    ‘Yes, in worldly terms he is powerful, if that is what you mean.’
    ‘How would you live if you lost your situation?’
    ‘Very poorly. I have no resources and no friends who could help me. But do you think I would regret the loss of my post – teaching lumpen youths in this vicious little town? I long to return to Italy. You remember I was there once?’
    ‘But Austin, how would you live? Even in Italy you would need some sort of income.’
    ‘You reduce everything to money and jobs. Don’t you see that none of that really matters? Not ultimately.’
    ‘Then what does matter?’ I asked.
    He gazed at me with an unfathomable expression and when at last I realized