This Is a Dreadful Sentence Read online

  Penny Freedman studied Classics at Oxford before teaching English and Drama in schools and universities. She has a PhD in Shakespeare Studies and lives with her husband in Stratford-upon-Avon, where she lectures on Shakespeare and indulges her passion for the theatre. She has two grown-up daughters.

  THIS IS A

  DREADFUL SENTENCE

  PENNY FREEDMAN

  Copyright © 2013 Penny Freedman

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

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  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

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  Matador® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

  This book is dedicated to all my former

  students, who taught me as much as I

  taught them.

  Contents

  Foreword

  1 WEDNESDAY: Conditional Clauses

  2 THURSDAY: Investigation Day One

  3 THURSDAY: Unreal Conditions

  4 FRIDAY: Investigation Day Two

  5 FRIDAY: Relative Clauses

  6 SATURDAY: Investigation Day Three

  7 SATURDAY: First Person Plural

  8 SUNDAY: Investigation Day Four

  9 MONDAY: Present Indicative

  10 TUESDAY: Investigation Day Six

  11 TUESDAY: Comparative Forms

  12 WEDNESDAY: Investigation Day Seven

  13 WEDNESDAY: Semantic Fields

  14 THURSDAY: Investigation Day Eight

  15 THURSDAY: Negative Sentences

  16 FRIDAY: Investigation Day Nine

  17 SATURDAY: Future Perfect

  18 SATURDAY: Investigation Day Ten

  19 SUNDAY: Second Person Plural

  20 MONDAY: Investigation Day Twelve

  21 MONDAY: Present Tense

  22 Tuesday: Investigation Day Thirteen

  23 TUESDAY: Concessive Clauses

  24 WEDNESDAY: Investigation Day Fourteen

  25 THURSDAY: Imperfect Tense

  26 THURSDAY: Investigation Day Fifteen

  27 FRIDAY: Present Progressive

  28 SATURDAY: Investigation Day Seventeen

  29 SATURDAY: Third Person Plural

  30 MONDAY: Investigation Day Nineteen

  31 MONDAY: Finite Clause

  Foreword

  I lived very happily for thirty years in the city which was the inspiration for Marlbury and I have many good friends there. I would not want anyone to think that Gina’s jaundiced view of the city is mine. The characters who appear in these pages bear no relation to any of that city’s inhabitants, and the places of learning have only the most superficial resemblance to prototypes there.

  This is a dreadful sentence.

  All’s Well That Ends Well, Act 3 scene 2

  1

  WEDNESDAY: Conditional Clauses

  ‘If I had known England was so cold, I would not have come’

  ‘Excellent!’

  If I had known England was so cold, I would not have come.

  My pen squeaks on the whiteboard as I write; it’s running out of juice.

  ‘Farid?’

  ‘If you had a better coat, you would not be cold’

  Laughter.

  ‘Very good’

  If you had a better coat, you would not be cold.

  ‘Valery?’

  ‘If I had not got drunk last night, I would work better now’

  More laughter.

  If I had not got drunk last night, I would work better now.

  ‘Spoken from the heart, Valery?’

  A silence. Valery shrugs. Now I look at him, he does look a touch grey, his hair unkempt, his clothes if not slept in, certainly not fresh off a hanger. Not your business, Gina. You’ve done your mothering, remember?

  Four thirty in the afternoon and we’re doing conditionals – the perennial if. Their English is pretty good but conditionals still catch them out, as they do foreigners in general. Listen to The Today Programme or The World at One any time and you’ll hear foreign diplomats and politicians speaking quite beautiful English, until they launch into hypotheticals and then everything goes pear-shaped. What they need to bear in mind is that tenses in English are not so much about time as about probability and uncertainty, actuality and unreality. I don’t tell my students this: this linguistic philosophising would freak them out – as it may you, I realise. Do stay with me, though. You will need to follow some of this if you’re going to keep up with my story, and the story is a good one: it has international criminals and fiendish plots as well as love, lust, revenge – and English grammar. What more can you ask for?

  In place of linguistic analysis on this Wednesday afternoon in Seminar Room 5, I am simply drilling my students in the conditional forms, like Skinner’s rats. I move on round the table. My class has segregated itself along gender lines, as do most classes of students, eastern or western, Islamic or not. And after the first week they sit in the same places every time. It’s a comfort thing. There are thirteen students in the class and I usually make a fourteenth round the long table that has been created by pushing small tables together. Today there are only thirteen of us, though - Ceren, the Turkish girl, is off sick. I’m not sitting down. I’m on my feet at the whiteboard writing up their sentences with a black board-writer which is rapidly running out of ink. I think it’s best that I don’t sit down. There is a surprising fear of the number thirteen in some cultures – triskaidekaphobia, as we linguists like to call it – and not just the ooh it’s Friday the thirteenth frisson. In Japan, hotels have no room thirteen and no thirteenth floor in high-rise blocks. So I’m staying on my feet, though it won’t actually do any good: today will prove to be unlucky for at least one of us, anyway – as unlucky as it’s possible to be.

  Later on in this story, I shall be asked by the police to draw a sketch of our positions round this table in this seminar room, so I see no reason why you shouldn’t see it now. I’ve indicated where Turkish Ceren usually sits, but her chair is empty today.

  So, as I move on round the table, it’s Ahmet’s turn. He is ready with his example, smiling cheerfully.

  ‘If my father was a rich man, I wouldn’t need to work.’

  ‘If my father was - or what would be more correct, Ahmet?’

  Denis, the Frenchman, offers a clue.

  ‘If I were a reech man da da da da da dum….’

  ‘Thank you, Denis, for that musical contribution. Yes. If I were. OK, Ahmet? The last remnant of the English subjunctive. You will hear people say If I was, but in this class, we aim for - what?

  ‘Perfection,’ they carol dutifully.

  ‘Exactly.’

  If my father were a rich man, I wouldn’t need to work.

  ‘Asil?’

  ‘If I drove more slowly, I didn’t crash the car.’

  Patience, Gina.

  Asil gazes at me. He is forty or so, a col
lege teacher. He has done a stint of teaching in one of Turkey’s remoter mountain regions and now he is being rewarded with a government-sponsored couple of years in the UK, doing an M.Phil at the University College of Marlbury. My job is to get his English good enough for him to write a dissertation on Turkey’s claim to membership of the E.U. Affable and willing, he has, as we say in the trade, plateaued as far as English Language is concerned. He is one of half a dozen, all sent to us by the Turkish government, three of whom are in this class. Ahmet, his friend, is rather brighter than Asil, but then there is Ekrem. Ekrem was a mystery to us all initially - surly, idle, stupid - until we realised that he is the spy in the group – there to keep an eye on the others. And he is not enjoying it. He is bored by the work, and being known to be a spy must hamper his social life somewhat, I imagine.

  We unpick Asil’s sentence, discourse on the difference between If I drove and If I had driven and reach an acceptable version.

  If I had driven more carefully, I would not have crashed the car.

  Asil beams uncomprehending approval and I turn to Ekrem for his sentence. He is a bit younger than the other Turks – middle thirties, I suppose – but he is already running to seed. His belly bulges over the belt of his trousers and his heavy face is jowly and dark with stubble. He speaks without expression:

  ‘If` I want, I can have.’

  Something in the air, the merest stillness of breath. More than irritation, I think; we are used to this kind of thing from Ekrem, after all. What then? Plough on.

  ‘That’s not an unreal condition, is it, Ekrem? I asked for examples of unreal conditions. Yours is an open condition. If you say If I want, you might want something or you might not. We don’t know.’

  He ignores me, gazes at the ceiling, drums his fingers on the table. Part of the problem, I know, is that he needs a cigarette. He suffers after an hour without a nicotine fix. We all sit and consider his horrid little sentence. I look round the table to where the women sit. Irina, to my left, is looking across at Ekrem with an inscrutable expression. I grasp the nettle.

  ‘Irina, can you turn Ekrem’s sentence into an unreal condition?’

  Irina qualified as a doctor in Russia but is here, I learnt recently, at her parents’ expense, to escape the attentions of an ex-husband turned stalker. I can’t help admiring her. She’s got nothing going for her in the looks department, but it doesn’t seem to bother her. She’s got the build of a shot-putter, nondescript features and the kind of dead white skin that seems never to have seen the light of day, but I applaud her decision to dye her flimsy hair an improbable shade of red and to team it today with red lipstick, a pink polo-neck and a purple padded gilet which threatens to turn her into the Michelin man. She has impact; she refuses to be defeated by the genetic chance that made her to be ignored. She’s built up that physique, working out on the rowing machine at the gym; she’s turned her flat, mousey hair into an orange halo; she has no truck with the mantra that dark colours make you look slimmer, but selects from a rainbow palette. She will be noticed. And she seems to be perfectly comfortable with herself, at ease in her skin. She also has a great voice: if you couldn’t see her, you would say it was sexy. We all laughed incredulously when we first heard that her ex-husband was obsessed with her, but I think she may be great in bed. She shifts now and puts up a protesting hand. Her voice is richly guttural, emphatic on the breathy aspirates of he, as she says,

  ‘He makes no sense anyway. He must say what he wants.’

  ‘Yes, Ekrem. Want can’t stand alone, can it? It needs an object.’

  He lowers his gaze from the ceiling, glances at me, then at Irina, then along the row of women who face him, a basilisk stare. Then he raises his arms in an expansive gesture of dismissal which encompasses conditional sentences, the English Language, this room and all its occupants. I call up reinforcements.

  ‘Any suggestions about what Ekrem might want?’

  The women remain frozen under his gaze but the men oblige.

  ‘Money’

  ‘Success’

  ‘Fame’

  ‘Love’

  ‘Sex’

  Laughter from the Y-chromosome team. Among the Xteam, I see Christiane Becker regarding them with the strangest of looks. Mingled astonishment and contempt, I would say, with a touch of – something else. I hastily go for the money option and get Laurent, the silent Swiss, to produce a sentence before moving on.

  If I wanted money, I could have it.

  ‘Good, Laurent. And Denis? What have you got for us?’

  ‘If I had a gun, I would kill you’

  ‘OK. Nothing personal, I assume?’

  Denis smirks. He is tall for a Frenchman and broadshouldered in his perfectly cut English tweed jacket. He has what I think of as continental hair: it is thick and wavy and will turn a distinguished grey. It doesn’t trickle apologetically from his scalp in the way of so many Englishmen’s hair, announcing that it’s only there temporarily and baldness will not be far behind. His beauty is marred only by a smugness in the set of his mouth – a hovering half-smile that is beginning to irritate me after six months of it.

  If I had a gun, I would kill you.

  ‘Desirée?’

  Desirée and Denis form the bridge between the male and female halves of the class. They are in fact an item, though I’m not sure that they’ll last. Denis de Longueville is seriously aristocratic (I learnt this from Desirée) while she, I guess, is not his class. She is immaculate, though: chicly suited, hair and maquillage just so at all times, a shaming contrast to my vaguely ethnic scruffiness. The dress code in this room is unusually flexible, actually: the Turks wear grey suits – government issue possibly; the two Iranians (Electronics students – studying how to blow us all up, we teachers joke nervously) are stylish in dark shirts and leather jackets; Laurent the Swiss and Valery the Russian wear standard student jeans and sweatshirts; Denis wears English tweeds. On the distaff side, German Christiane is in jeans and a Fair Isle jumper; Yukiko wears black trousers and a cashmere sweater in pale pink; Irina wears the pink polo-neck and padded gilet. If Ceren were here she would, no doubt, be wearing her usual East-West fusion outfit of jeans and sweater with a patterned cotton scarf round her shoulders. To complete the picture for you, I am in a long skirt, suede boots, a black sweater and a turquoise blue Indian scarf.

  ‘Desirée?’

  ‘If I were a man, I would be happier’

  ‘Ah! Wouldn’t we all!’

  If I were a man, I would be happier.

  ‘Christiane?’

  Christiane looks at me with her clear blue eyes behind studious little spectacles. Her normally calm face is more animated than usual.

  ‘There is a line in Shakespeare – Much Ado About Nothing. I think Beatrice says, “If I would be a man, I would eat his heart in the market-place”.’

  I am shamed as ever by how much Germans know about Shakespeare. When did I last bandy Schiller quotes with anyone? Fortunately, I know this quote.

  ‘Actually, it’s an old construction she uses, Christiane. She says, O that I were a man – in other words, if only I were a man.’

  ‘OK. If only I were a man, I would eat his heart in the market-place.’

  If only I were a man, I would eat his heart in the market-place.

  ‘Very good. And Yukiko?’

  ‘If I were in Japan, I would soon be enjoying the cherry blossom.’

  ‘Oh, Yukiko. That’s why you’re wearing the pink sweater.’

  If I were in Japan, I would soon be enjoying the cherry blossom.

  I stand back from the board and we gaze solemnly at the sentences. So sad, unreal conditions, life’s if onlys.

  If I had known England was so cold, I would not have come.

  If you had a better coat, you would not be cold.

  If I had not got drunk last night, I would work better now.

  If my father were a rich man, I wouldn’t need to work.

  If I had driven more carefully, I wo
uld not have crashed the car.

  If I wanted money, I could have it.

  If I had a gun, I would kill you.

  If I were a man, I would be happier.

  If only I were a man, I would eat his heart in the market-place.

  If I were in Japan, I would soon be enjoying the cherry blossom.

  ‘Look,’ I say, ‘how sad we are. Atash didn’t know how cold England was, and he didn’t buy a good coat, and now he’s here, freezing. Valery got drunk and now he’s regretting it. Ahmet’s not a millionaire’s son, so he has to keep working. Asil drove too fast and crashed his car. Ekrem hasn’t got lots of money. Nobody, I hope, will give Denis a gun. Desirée and Christiane aren’t going to turn into men, and poor Yukiko won’t see the cherry blossom this year. It’s a good thing it’s the end of the lesson or we’d all have to kill ourselves. Home time. Have a good evening. I’ll see you all tomorrow as usual.’

  But one of them at least was going to have a very bad evening and I wouldn’t see them all tomorrow. And nothing would ever be quite usual again.

  2

  THURSDAY: Investigation Day One

  The call came just after nine a.m. The desk sergeant who took it could hear the sounds of someone throwing up in the background. The voice on the recording was shaky, breathy when Detective Chief Inspector David Scott listened to it. He could smell the man’s sweat.

  ‘An accident … or something. We haven’t … we can’t – open up far. It’s a mess. It’s a bloody mess … and I don’t think I can …’

  ‘Where are you speaking from, sir?’

  ‘The library … the college … Marlbury College, the library – Social Science library. They called me in, see…’

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘In the library. They rang. They rang through. I’d only just come on duty.’

  ‘Your name, sir. Can you give me your name?’

  ‘White. Tom White. Thomas.’

  ‘Right, Mr White. Now just keep as calm as you can and tell us what’s happened.’

  ‘Between the bookshelves. Stacks they call them. You can move them … move them together with a handle affair. Saves space, you see – you can get more books in. Blood. They saw blood, coming from underneath. I moved them apart – just a bit – and it fell out. I haven’t looked close like, but he must be dead. Poor devil must be dead.’