David Lodge - Small World by Author's Note Page B

conferees drinking as fast as they could to get themselves into an appropriate mood for the banquet. Persse squeezed his way through the crush to Angelica.
    “You told me your thesis was about the influence of Shakespeare on T. S. Eliot,” she said.
    “So it is,” he replied. “I turned it round on the spur of the moment, just to take that Dempsey down a peg or two.”
    “Well, it’s a more interesting idea, actually.”
    “I seem to have let myself in for the job of writing it up, now,” said Persse. “I like your dress, Angelica.”
    “I thought it was the most medieval thing I had with me,” she said, a gleam in her dark eyes. “Though I can’t guarantee that it will actually rustle to my knees.”
    The allusion pierced him with a thrill of desire, instantly shattering his “firm purpose of amendment”. He knew that nothing could prevent him from keeping watch in Angelica’s room that evening.
    Persse did not intend to sit next to Angelica at dinner, for he thought it would be more in the spirit of her romantic scenario that he should view her from afar. But he didn’t want Robin Dempsey sitting next to her either, and detained him in the bar with earnest questions about structuralist linguistics while the others went off to the refectory.
    “It’s quite simple, really,” said Dempsey impatiently. “According to Saussure, it’s not the relation of words to things that allows them to signify, but their relations with each other, in short, the differences between them. Cat signifies cat because it sounds different from cot or fat .”
    “And the same goes for Durex and Farex and Exlax?” Persse enquired.
    “It’s not the first example that springs to mind,” said Dempsey, a certain suspicion in his close-set little eyes, “but yes.”
    “I think you reckon without the variation in regional accents,” said Persse.
    “Look, I haven’t got time to explain it now,” said Dempsey Irritably, moving towards the door. “The bell has gone for dinner”
    Persse found himself an inconspicuous place in the dining-hall, half-hidden from Angelica’s view by a pillar. It was no great sacrifice to be on the margins of this particular feast. The mead tasted like tepid sugar-water, the medieval fare consisted of fried chicken and jacket potatoes eaten without the convenience of knives and forks, and the wenches were the usual Martineau Hall waitresses who had been bribed or bullied into wearing long dresses with plunging necklines. “Don’t look at me, sir,” the yellow-haired lady begged Persse as she served him his drumsticks. “If this is ‘ow they dressed in the middle ages, well, all I can say is, they must ‘ave got some very nasty chest colds.” Presiding over the festivities from a platform at one end of the dining-room were a pair of entertainers from Ye Merrie Olde Round Table, one dressed up as a king, the other as a jester. The king had a piano accordion and the jester a set of drums, both provided with microphone and amplifier. While the meal was being served, they entertained the diners with jokes about chambers and thrones, sang bawdy ballads, and encouraged the diners to pelt each other with bread rolls. It was a rule of the court that anyone wishing to leave the room was required to bow or curtsey to the king, and when anyone did so the jester blew into an instrument that made a loud farting noise. Persse slipped out of the room while the medievalist from Aberystwyth was being humiliated in this fashion. Angelica, sitting between Felix Skinner and Philip Swallow on the far side of the room, flashed him a quick smile, and fluttered her fingers. She had not touched the food on her plate.
    Persse stole away from Martineau Hall, towards Lucas Hall, drawing in deep breaths of the cool night air, and gazing at the ruffled reflection of the moon in the artificial lake. The strains of a new song which the king and jester had just started, their hoarse and strident voices powerfully amplified,