CHAPTER 22 APRIL/MAY                                              A dialogue is a conversation between a p-individual and an m-individual in which communicational messages or p-m-grams are exchanged in alternating contrapuntal sequence to explanate a plan or i-schemata held by one of the individuals with the aim of achieving a symbiosis of action termed here an p-m-account.                   The abstract was pinned on a noticeboard by the coffee machine and Allan read it with a growing sense of disbelief.          ‘Having trouble sleeping nights?’ Silvester was at his elbow, getting himself a cup of coffee.          ‘Is this a joke?’          ‘No Sir. That's genuine Olafsen shit,’ Silvester said. ‘Guaranteed to cure your insomnia.’          ‘You won't be going then.’          Silvester laughed. ‘I can think of better ways to spend a couple of hours. But if you want a laugh I recommend a visit. It's something else. Sherman likes to think he's an academic. He has seminars every other week. Some poor junior gets slaughtered regularly. You'll probably be asked to give one some time. It counts towards departmental management points.’          ‘Who goes.’          ‘Sherman. He's always there and other people who can't think of an excuse quickly enough.’          Allan loved the word 'explanate'. He photocopied the abstract to send to Rosa. He thought he might go to see what was going on.          It was all in the best tradition of academic ostentation. Members of staff draped themselves over chromium and leather chairs in an overheated room and looked bored. The speaker managed to say the word 'paradigm' three times and referred five times to 'McCarthy's Circumscription'. Only once did he stumble and call it 'circumcision' by mistake. He showed overhead transparencies covered in squiggly symbols written in an illegible scribble. Several times he spotted errors in the overheads and ad-libbed corrections which were also wrong, but he scribbled them over the other writing so that no one could see what he had written before or after. Olafsen sat through this miasma nodding his head in approval. When one brave member of the audience dared to ask a question Olafsen interrupted saying, ‘I don't think that's relevant.’ But Allan had actually followed most of it and one thing was crystal clear. Olafsen's team were getting nowhere. Their approach was one that he and Rosa had abandoned at a very early stage. Some of the problems that the speaker identified and attempted to solve were not actually problems at all but side-effects generated by the horrible notation. The temptation to stand up and put them all right was very strong indeed but he folded his arms across his chest and said nothing.          *      *      *      *      *          At night staring at the ceiling he thought about Liz McKechnie. He fantasized about taking her to the mountains and making love in a tent and tried to think of excuses to call her but could think of none. Anyway, he knew that it had to be her choice. If she wanted to meet again she would call and he could not force himself upon her. But she didn't call. Perhaps, he thought, she was safer without him and that thought was some comfort.