The Strange Case of Professor Joe Fox: eminent teacher of applied paleoethnology at the University of Liverpool

By Cesare Bartoccioni

Liverpool. May 1970. The students' occupation of the University has now ended, and an expert librarian is summoned to restore the order amongst tomes and papers. What he discovers, though, will precipitate him in a gloomy and sombre journey up to the darkest bottom of the black human nature. The songs by The Beatles and the great expectations mirrored in the new experiments in design act as counterpoint against a social situation on the edge of abyss, amid widespread unemployment and the loss of identity of an entire generation. And, all over, looms the long shadow of a strange professor, elusive and sinister, until the final revelation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Youcanprint
• Release date: Aug 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9791221428452

Book preview

Preface

The events and characters here depicted are just the product of the author’s imagination. Any reference to people really existed or existing or to facts which really happened is purely coincidental.

The descriptions of the city of Liverpool and of its social and economic situation, such as the cost of living and its cultural ferments, are related to the historical moment in which the novel is set. The author has based himself on researches of original documentations, archives of British newspapers, and deductive inferences.

The quotations of The Beatles musical band’s songs and the references to its members are a homage by the author to the mythical ‘Fab Four’.

The Beatles’ songs which parts are transcribed into the text are obviously property of the same band. Some of the characters’ names in this novel are, them too, inspired to their lyrics.

The articles of the Liverpool Echo reported in this novel have never appeared on the Liverpool Echo.

As long as I know, there has never been any teacher named Joe Fox in the roles of the University of Liverpool. For good measure, anyway, the author relieves the University of Liverpool of any responsibility related to the actions or behaviours which might in any magnitude be connected to such fictional character.

Enjoy the reading.

Cesare

There's nothing you can do that can't be done

Nothing you can sing that can't be sung

Nothing you can make that can't be made

No one you can save that can't be saved

There's nothing you can know that isn't known

Nothing you can see that isn't shown

There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be

(The Beatles, All You Need Is Love)

PROLOGUE

May 1970

Let it go.

The rector was turning his back on me, the tubby hands crossed behind the charcoal grey fabric coat which was struggling to contain his massive bulk, the nape of the neck fringed by sparse ash-blond hair divided from the bald head by thick and deep wrinkles. The faltering tenor voice, uttered in a huffy snort, seemed to be directed not to me, but to the glass wall of the austere presidency office to which he was directing his sight and from which, in a single glance, one could contemplate the sublime stillness of Abercromby Square and, beyond the line of the garden, the apex of the Catholic Cathedral, the ‘Pope’s Launch Pad’, as it had promptly been rebaptised by the locals, completed just three years before.

I beg your pardon?

The rector took a deep breath, relaxing his exhalation in a single annoyed puff. Firmly maintaining his posture, he turned his head halfway to the right, as if to point out to me that that would have been the maximum care he was inclined to grant me that day. The half-closed eyelid let barely shine through the grey steel of the iris.

I’m telling you to forget about it and instead to dedicate yourself to the work you’ve been summoned here for.

I moved myself uneasily in the uncomfortable Victorian armchair.

With all due respect, rector, it’s exactly for this I’m here. My duty is to put the archives back in order after the occupation of…

Now listen to me…

The rector had abandoned the posture maintained until that moment right next to the glass wall and now he was looming in all of his chubby size in front of my armchair, looking at me with a smirk of commiseration. With the window completely obscured by his swollen belly protruding forward, the one panorama left for me to admire was now that living monument to the uncontrolled ingestion of gallons and gallons of bottom-grade lager, as after all was confirmed by the heavy alcoholic breath which, together with his cumbersome figure, was impending on me.

Unfortunately for me, the rector bent down, supporting himself with the hands on my seat’s armrests, drawing his visage close to mine with a conspirator-like wink.

I was about to faint.

Now listen to me well, Father McKenzie… The students’ occupation has just ended. We have overcome it. We’re getting back to normality. We need a professional to help us going back to work from where we had left. Research above all, research! That’s what distinguishes us. Do you know that we, in this University, have had six, I say six, Nobel prize winners? You know that, don’t you?

Well, of course I do, but…

Six! And, amongst them, the first one from our beloved Country!

Rector, I don’t see what it has to do with…

It has, it has…

The rector lifted himself up, with my great relief, pulling back and starting to pace in the office. I could catch my breath, literally.

It has, dear McKenzie. The good name of our public institution compels us to put things back in order, and to do that quickly. It’s for this you are here.

On the ‘you’ the rector had turned all of a sudden, pointing the index finger of his right hand against me. After a short pause, he continued.

You are here to reorganise the current archives. Period. You are not here to dig out the old works, finished or unfinished or forgotten as they might be, which would only make us waste our time.

Forgive me, rector, but my work as a researcher…

Librarian, Father McKenzie, librarian. The index finger was now pointing upwards, as if to impart a lesson on what was to be my role.

Well, OK, librarian. In fact, thus is written on the contract…

Exactly. It’s precisely thus that’s written. The rector’s lips stretched out to a sarcastic sneer.

Anyhow... if, in my line of work, I chance upon interesting documents, it’s my  duty to point that out and, rather, deepen the research.

No, my dear librarian, no. Leave the research to those who are here for that. You just do what you are paid for, is that clear?

We remained silent for a long while. The rector’s tone allowed no replies. But I was not going to give up. What I had found was burning issue. I attempted a new approach.

What does NLS mean?

The rector had a slight raising of eyebrows, almost imperceptible. But he managed to dominate himself.

Never heard.

Many of the papers I have found display that acronym in their heading. But I couldn’t link it to any other document from the University. I was asking myself... I left the sentence half-said, on purpose, waiting for a reaction.

You’re asking yourself too many things, Father McKenzie. Things without importance. I’m saying this to you again, and I’m saying it for the last time: think about your work, if you don’t want to lose it. The rector stiffened himself in an almost martial manner. And close the door when you go out.

It was a dismissal, and not even a very British one…

I stood up, I bowed briefly and started walking towards the exit.

The rector’s voice stopped my hand in mid-air, at two sharp inches from the handle.

One last thing, Father.

I turned my head halfway, to the left.

Those files. Put them back where they were. As devoid of importance as they may be, all the documents in the archives are property of the University. They can’t be disposed of, in any way, without authorisation. It’s the custom. You understand me, don’t you?

My hand covered the two inches of distance to the handle. I opened the door.

Of course.

I began taking the threshold. Then, as if in an afterthought, I stopped. I wanted to return to the fray.

Joe. It’s strange, isn’t it?

What is it you say? The raising of eyebrows was now totally evident.

The name of the author of those researches.

Well? The rector had already recovered a certain impassibility.

Well… the names I’m accustomed to since when I’ve been working here are always very highfalutin... Richard, Charles, Ronald… James at the least… Running into a modest ‘Joe’ in the role of the University teachers caused me... say... a vague disorientation.

What are you talking about, Father? And it’s you telling me of disorientation? The rector started chuckling with rhythmic starts at the belly. You, whose name is Ben?

Sam.

Sam, Ben… you see, who knows how many are there in your Kansas.

Ahem... actually I’m from Kentucky.

Bah… Kansas, Kentucky… it’s province anyway.

Well, rector, in fact I’m from Louisville, whose population, without offense, goes well beyond the one of this beautiful city…

Father McKenzie, please allow me… The rector squinted his eyes, this time raising the eyebrows in an emphatic and purposeful way, without offence… even if you came from New York, for us it would be province anyway.

I was about to answer back, but a peremptory gesture with the open palm of the right hand of my standoffish interlocutor cut me short.

I see you have got few ideas, albeit confused. Heed me. Go back to your, and I underline ‘your’, work.

I breathed in and out slowly, passing the doorstep.

Father McKenzie… The rector hadn’t, apparently, finished yet. I turned, looking at him in the eyes.

The rector smiled, in an affected way which was meant to be affable, but which wound up being as counterfeit as a three-pound banknote.

Have you heard that last song from that local quartet?

Quartet? Ah… of course...

Let it be? Only someone like the rector could call them ‘a quartet’.

That’s it. His smile stretched. A good advice, isn’t it?

I nodded a goodbye with my head. I closed the door and started along the corridor.

‘Let it be’, certainly, for sure! A good advice, it went without saying. But that song was a bit more complicated than a guy like the rector could interpret it. ‘There will be an answer’, it said too... And, that answer, I was going to find.

1. THE DOCK

Wearing the face

That she keeps

In a jar by the door

(The Beatles, Eleanor Rigby)

The effusions from the Mersey couldn’t be defined as precisely pleasant, that morning, but I needed a quiet place to go for a stroll and focus my mind on what I had found in the premises