In the university calendar there is something called an ‘inaugural lecture.’ The term contains two echoes of other places and different times: first, it echoes those ancient universities in which professors are led to their chairs in a Senate House; second, it recalls even more Ancient Rome, where ‘augury’ entailed reading animal entrails and initiating a course of action on the basis of what these gizzards had to say.
Today’s version is much more prosaic. Newly appointed professors are called upon to give a lecture which serves to initiate their professorship. And so, one evening in September 2012, members of the East London university community – staff, students, alumni and friends, gathered to hear what Professor Sally Hume had to say in her inaugural lecture.
Not that Sally was entirely new to the university.
She had been appointed Head of Pete’s School of Media Arts almost a year before; and she arrived to take up her post at the start of Semester B, in February 2012. But what with the spring term being especially busy, and the summer having been taken up with all sorts of things to do with the Olympics, Professor Hume’s inaugural was kept back until September.
She chose as her topic, ‘Dinky Dutta: unforeseen icon of London 2012’. Professor Hume approached this topic from the interdisciplinary field of psycho-social studies. Apart from various pleasantries of an introductory kind (an essential part of any such occasion, though they hardly bear repeating afterwards), this (below) is the gist of her lecture:
‘Even Dinky Dutta’s best friends would not have decribed him as “athletic”. “Fit”, yes. Extremely so, some female fellow students are reported to have said; but not a natural athlete. Nonetheless, when he sprang from his seat at the back of the Clipper, just as it was passing underneath Tower Bridge, the athleticism of his movements would have done credit to any ballet dancer or Olympic gymnast. Unfortunately, if Mr Dutta had hidden talents, they were revealed only in the last moments of his life. Thankfully, because of where he died, each of these moments was unwittingly recorded by various tourists taking snapshots of Tower Bridge, one of London’s most famous attractions; and, because of when he died, in the age of citizen journalism and social media, many of these photographs have been circulated widely. Thus the dying moments of Dinky Dutta live on in a series of photographic images which have already gained the status of icons.
‘In my lecture I will offer a commentary on just a few of those iconic images which have already been compared to Catholic depictions of the Stations of the Cross.
‘This first photograph was taken from the north bank of the river, by someone standing at the southern perimeter of the Tower of London, looking out at the river from a position close to Traitor’s Gate. The camera is set at a high level of magnification, so we appear to be much closer to the boat and the bridge.
The boat is framed between the two, main pillars of the bridge and the roadway running between the two pillars, so that these three elements seem to form a proscenium arch, with Old Father Thames as the stage itself. It is appropriately theatrical, therefore, to see what appears to be a dancing figure, rising high above the floor of the Clipper’s rear deck, almost as high as the roof of the saloon. This is Dinky Dutta, arms and legs outstretched, head erect, performing the star jump which is already a legend.
‘There have been a number of reports to the effect that when Mr Dutta jumped up from his seat, he was holding a sports bag in one hand and a laptop case in the other. This suggests high levels of adrenaline on his part – for him to have jumped so high while weighed down in this way. But it is not unknown for highly motivated individuals to surpass themselves in extremis, far exceeding the limited range of their normal, physical prowess. Indeed such achievements were recorded in Ancient Greek by Herodotus and in Latin by Lucretius.
‘There are no bags to be seen in this picture, however. Here, therefore, we have an image of Mr Dutta in flight but without the bags which are alleged to have flown with him, which suggests that the picture has been photo-shopped to some degree.
Though this is widely acknowledged, it hasn’t stopped the photograph from becoming the most famous image of this Olympic year.
‘The second photograph was taken from inside the Clipper craft by a tourist standing at the window of the saloon. Looking downriver, eastwards, he had been aiming to shoot the underside of Tower Bridge as the boat passed between its two central pillars, and this duly appears in the frame as a sort of ceiling. In the centre of the frame the familiar figure of Dinky Dutta re-appears, now seen from below. But it’s not just the angle which is different. You’ll notice the crucial change in the shape of his body. Though the limbs are still outstretched, as in the previous picture, they are now frozen, almost on the point of collpasing inwards, and his head is slumped forwards. Again, there are no bags to be seen, but even if they were in his hands at the moment when he levitated himself from his seat, by now they would have plummeted into the river.
‘From the top of the skull there is what looks like a plume of smoke, stretching up towards the steel plates which comprise the underside of the bridge. They look like Lego bricks, don’t they?
Unfortunately the content of this picture is far from childish or innocent. The “smoke” coming up from Mr Dutta’s head is really a spume of grey matter, issuing from the hole in his skull made by a bullet fired from a police marksman’s rifle. There is no way of telling whether there was any life left in him when this picture was taken, but here we are undoubtedly close to the moment of death.
‘In the final photograph of our triptych, taken by another tourist standing on Tower Bridge and looking north to the Tower of London, Mr Dutta’s bodily existence....is no more. Instead there is an arc of spray and debris, rising high towards the photographer on the bridge and the sky above her.
The instant dematerialisation of Dinky Dutta’s body has prompted some to say that this picture shows him ascending into heaven.
‘Attempting to exclude religious elements from the discourse would be futile. But this should not prevent us from subjecting such elements to rational observation. We know that this photo depicts the moment after Dinky Dutta’s body disintegrated in an explosion caused by the impact of gunfire on an unknown quantity of acetone peroxide. Though it is anything but scientifically verifiable – it is hardly, literally true, nonetheless we suggest that the idea of “ascension” is useful as a metaphor. For this was a violently disturbed young man, and yet he was no more disturbed than our violent society. And if it is the case, as some of his friends maintain, that Dinky Dutta may have found a sense of purpose in the last moments of his life, in his determination to prevent others from being caught up in the consequences of his own grave errors, then indeed he did rise to a higher level. Neither god nor devil, in the final seconds before death, this complex individual was given the chance to become a better human being. He took that chance, and so he lives on in our hearts as an example to us all.’
By this point, to anyone who cared to look, it would have been immediately apparent that Dr Peter Fercoughsey had vacated his seat at the back of the lecture theatre. Pete did his best to exit without anyone noticing, and in this endeavour he was largely successful. Nonetheless, during the week immediately following Professor’s Hume inauguration, a rumour went round that Pete Fercoughsey had slipped out to be sick. Some people even said they saw a pool of blood-red puke in the centre of University Square.
Epilogue: Is that my friend I see before me?
They have him in a hospital. Secure wing, nice grounds, twenty-five miles from London. Coming up the drive in a taxi, you might think you had been invited to Chequers.
To this hospital, and the inmate with whom he has been intimate since childhood, Pete has found it necessary to invite himself. Not quite an invite, it should be said. In actual fact he applied for a visit and the application was not refused, either by the visitee or his doctors. Furthermore, now that the application has not been knocked back, the visit has to happen now becaus
e in a few days’ time, Pete, Carol and the kids are off on a slow boat to China.
Pete had already written another application, y’see, for a professorhsip in the People’s Republic. He got it.
Visiting, but it’s a five-year visit. Very soon, with references checked and even a medical (passed), they’ll be out of here for long enough to come back different.
So going to see Tony, to find out whether he’s the same as ever - as Pete put it to Carol: it’s now or never.
Of course, before visiting a long-term resident of any state institution, you have to think about what gifts to take with you. Things to bring that the resident might want because for him they are unobtainable or in short supply; but, obviously, they should be things that the authorities will not have cause to confiscate.
Pete has guessed that Tony will have taken up smoking again. So he’s brought cartons of Lucky Strike, the brand that Tony smoked when they were in the band together. He would have brought him a Zippo, too, one of the old ones. But it seemed unlikely that the guards, nurses – whatever the hell they are, would let Tony soak cotton wool in lighter fluid to make a flame that doesn’t go out, whatever happens, until you tell it to. So no go on the Zippo. Instead, Pete went to Jermyn Street and bought a £500 smoking jacket: because it’s posh, like Tony partly is; because it’s warm and the plum colour is soft on the eyes – unlike the institutional lighting which Tony is sure to find uncomfortable; and because it folds around a man’s body and holds him, hugging Tony like Pete would partly like to do.
Taxi paid off, Pete goes in through an imposing front door. But the reception area is inescapably naff. While the big house was never as elevated as Brideshead, since becoming a mental hospital in the late 1940s (first intake: the mad dogs of war), it has been brought down by successive levels of welfare state intervention. More-or-less well intentioned; each one tackier than the last.
Buzz, ping, whrrr, click, bleep, bleep, bleep.
Details checked, body scanned, ID issued, doors opening. ‘Welcome to the Wing, Dr Fercoughsey’
– just ‘the Wing’, that’s all that needs saying.
‘Please come this way.’
The invitation is real enough; but it’s a make-believe world that Pete is invited to enter (even more contrived than the one outside, but it’s a close call, you might say). As directed, he goes into a room made to look like a sitting room in yer average three-bedroom home, and sits down on a sofa that sports just one or two cigarette burns (not so many that you would absolutely have to notice them). quite nice, really – the décor. Somebody’s made a bit of an effort. Meanwhile Pete’s escort (young woman, crisp uniform, physically confident) moves away from the sofa to take her seat at an occasional table discreetly positioned near the (barred) window, exactly where such a table would stand if this really was the room it purports to be. Don’t mind me, her body language seems to say, I’m just like your nearly-grown-up-daughter at the back of the room, doing her homework or something very much like it. Pete begins to wonder whether this is also the location for conjugal visits. It’s a big enough settee, he thinks. Does the chaperone stay on for that, too? His mind moves swifly on to something else.
Enter Tony. Small steps, each one taken deliberately.
Pete notices immediately that Tony’s nails are far too long. There is an attendant at his side. The upturned fingers of this retainer’s right hand are underneath Tony’s elbow, gently guiding him with the lightest touch. But close enough to grab hold and seize control, should anything untoward occur.
Now Tony’s making a bee-line for the sofa: he’s clearly been here before. Yet his face is a picture of concentration. One small step for Tony, leads to another small step for Tony. Then he turns and lowers himself and his jogging bottoms onto the cushion; every movement necessitating his full attention.
So this is my friend, Pete thinks.
Correction: so this is what the drugs have done to my friend, thinks Pete.
Further correction: so this is what my friend has become, thinks Pete, given his condition and the regime required to treat it.
‘Nice to see you, Pete’, says Tony. His voice, no doubt about that, but the vowels are more rounded.
‘Good of you to come.’ This second clause only after a pause of Pinteresque proportions. Probably not because Tony is distancing himself from what he is saying, or drawing attention to the conventions of language. More likely it just takes him longer to make the transition from thought to speech.
But Pete’s the one who really can’t think of anything to say. Even the formalities have run out on him. There may be thousands of thoughts crowding into his mind, or none at all; but, in any event, nothing much comes out of his mouth.
He gets the cigarettes out of the bag (same old satchel), and Tony says, ‘Thanks, Pete. Good choice.’ Doesn’t open them, though. Pete brings out the smoking jacket, unfolds it to show Tony, then throws it over Tony’s shoulders. Very Continental.
‘Lovely’, says Tony. He cocks his head to one side so that he can feel the soft velvet on his right cheek. At the same time, he raises his left eyebrow and looks straight at Pete, in an echo of the quizzical look they used to share.
To this day, Pete always likes to think it was really there, that look on Tony’s face, if only for an instant. But it could have been a reflex action on Tony’s part (on the part of someone who is like Tony but not entirely); or Pete might have imagined it.
Who knows?
Still no great shakes on the conversation front.
Pete, that is. Instead, his right hand reaches out for Tony’s left; and finds it; and finds that it isn’t rejected. What a relief, Prufrock, not to be rejected! Pete’s shoulders relax a little. He tenses up again when the thought crosses his mind that he ought to come back one day and get Tony out of all this. But no one could expect him to do it now, could they? Doing it ‘one day’ would have to mean some day, well into the future, wouldn’t it?
Pete doesn’t speak but when he looks up at Tony, his eyes are pleading for more time,: ‘You don’t want me to try and spring you now, do you, Tony?’, they seem to say.
Tony’s expression suggests he's not keen on going anywhere. Looking back at his unchanging, placid face, Pete feels he can afford to relax. Save it for after China, mate, he tells himself. Safe to shelve the idea for now.
From behind, the chaperone sees the backs of their heads tilting towards each other at exactly the same angle, as if reflected in a mirror. Bookends with no books in between.
And so these two men, close to being old men now, sit on the sofa holding hands like teenagers. As Morecambe and Wise would have if Eric's heart attack hadn't killed him.
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