‘Sophie!’ A familiar voice stopped me in my tracks. ‘Sophie Rivers! How are you?’
It took me half a second to place the speaker, since she was so out of context. It was one of our administrators at William Murdock, one of the most reliable and teacher-friendly ones.
‘Kathryn! What are you doing here?’
‘Didn’t you hear the splash as I hit the water?’ she asked. ‘I’m just another rat hopping over the side.’
Yet another cup of coffee, and yet more William Murdock misery later, I left Kathryn to her administrative challenges and returned to the post-grad work-room. Jago was there, presenting his better profile as he used the pay phone. He might have been back in his own college staffroom, fending off importunate students.
‘Of course, her time is very much occupied … Original research … Very time-consuming, yes … The library, of course … No, of course not. Yes, I’ll pass on the message … Oh, of course.’ He replaced the phone, wrote down ‘Chris Groom’ in big letters on his pad and, absorbed in his task, shoved the paper under his files, oblivious to my presence. Now, how long would it take Jago to pass on whatever message Chris had charged him with? It wouldn’t surprise me if he ‘forgot’ altogether. A subtle bit of revenge, for my not fancying him, perhaps. What interested me was how long he’d maintain the absence of mind, and how much amusement I could derive from finally catching him out.
‘Morning,’ I called brightly from behind him. ‘Another lovely day.’ I busied myself in my drawer.
‘Yes, indeed. Sophie, someone was looking for you. Lola. The lovely Lola.’
She was actually quite lovely: a statuesque Ghanaian with a voice pitched right down there – a delight to listen to even if what she said belonged to another, more formal, age. She sported either what she dismissed as ‘just tribal stuff’ on warmer days, or the most elegant European couture when it was chilly. I wondered if today would find her in après-ski.
‘Any message?’ Or better still, messages.
‘Oh, that she’d try again after lunch. Which I was hoping you’d take with me today. Cricket permitting, that is?’ His voice dripped irony.
I supposed I had to award him marks for persistence or for thick skin. I wasn’t sure which. In any case, I would make certain he didn’t enjoy his lunch enough to repeat the offer.
‘So long as it’s funeral baked meats: did you see the overnight score?’ I arranged everything to my satisfaction and straightened to look at him.
‘I’m a baseball man,’ he said loftily.
I knew that Chris would never phone me at work without having something important to say, but I dearly wanted to play the point out as long as I could. If he ever did get round to mentioning it, damn it, I’d put a fiver in the next Oxfam tin I saw. I could always phone Chris anyway. But not yet. Here was Lola again, and it was clear she meant to speak to me now.
‘Me? Help you?’ I asked, getting up to adjust the vertical blind. We were in the small room I used for my tutorials, the sort of general purpose interview room I’d always craved at William Murdock, where some of my most sensitive counselling had had to take place in the ladies’ loo. Despite the privacy I was unnerved. I was just a student, a colleague. The fact I taught a little oral English didn’t put me on the staff. The students weren’t assessed on work in my class and, knowing it could have put me in a very difficult situation if I’d had to fail anyone, I wouldn’t have taken it on if they were.
‘Exactly. And as I said, it’s entirely confidential. What’s worrying me has actually nothing to do with me at all,’ Lola said. ‘But if it’s not my problem, it’s certainly not my job to broadcast it. I’m worried about one of my colleagues.’
‘Our colleagues.’
‘I could have talked to my tutor, but – you know,’ she smiled, ‘I always prefer to talk to a woman about other women. And when I tried to see Dr Pentowski, she was evidently busy.’
Everyone seemed to want to criticise Carla. Resisting the urge to ask how she manifested her busyness, I sat down again. ‘You must know I’ve no authority in this place. I’m a student, just as you are.’
‘Neither flesh nor fowl,’ she acknowledged, ‘nor good red herring. But probably a good teacher in your own college. Conscientious enough here. And those students in your English classes appreciate your efforts. At least, they say you’re kind; you don’t make them feel like this.’ She held her thumb and forefinger half an inch apart.
I waited.
‘I think one of my colleagues,’ she continued, ‘may be getting herself into trouble with the Law. Shoplifting.’
Oh God! African students shoplifting was surely a media myth! ‘Surely not,’ I said. ‘Not one of us!’
‘It’s not a matter of shoplifting fine clothes from big stores and smuggling them back to wherever. But shoplifting food. Food’s not a luxury item, Sophie. But stealing it might be a deportation offence.’
‘I can’t even speak to her about it – and I notice you haven’t given me her name – until there’s some sort of evidence,’ I said, fending off the moment I knew I would say, ‘Which I guess you have?’
‘I’m sure you could see for yourself this very lunchtime. I know the sandwiches in the canteen aren’t that wonderful but they’re cheap and possibly nutritious. So why does she sneak into the furthest corner and eat top-of-the-range Marks and Spencer? I mean, smoked salmon!’
‘Don’t some of the big stores donate end-dated food to the homeless?’
‘Is she homeless? If she is, don’t tell the Home Office! And this “end-dated” food?’
‘All food has a sell-by date stamped on the packaging.’
‘Of course. So you’ll check the packaging when she’s discarded it.’
‘I will. But not this lunchtime.’
‘Oh, the handsome Jago’s managed to win you over at last. We’ve been taking bets, one or two of us.’
‘How kind of him to make me the object of gossip!’ Her sentence patterns were catching, weren’t they? ‘I’ve been trying to let his poor ego down gently, Lola. But I’m afraid this lunchtime he’ll have to have it straight between the eyes.’
‘He won’t enjoy that experience. Are you sure it’s wise to confront him tactlessly?’
‘Any other man would have taken the hint days ago. I shall simply tell him I’m in a relationship.’
‘Pistols at dawn! When he wants something, that sort of man, he usually makes sure he gets it.’
‘Not from this woman he won’t.’
‘I fear he might find it even more exciting to see off a rival.’
‘But he won’t see him off. No, Lola, ten minutes with a broken heart, and he’ll be after you.’
‘No,’ she said seriously, ‘I’m too tall. A man like that likes to be able to look down at the top of his companion’s head.’
‘So he wouldn’t fancy me if I were taller! Lola, you’ve destroyed me. More to the point,’ I added, ‘what are we going to do about this colleague of ours?’
‘You could really insult Jago by standing him up?’ She laughed. ‘OK, I’ll try to see myself whether the sandwiches are fresh. And if the freshly squeezed orange juice lives up to its name.’
‘If it does, if the sandwiches are fresh, does that prove anything anyway?’
‘The woman does not wear tights in this weather because she can’t afford them, and she chooses the most expensive way of feeding herself?’
I pulled a face. ‘Lots of people don’t get their priorities right. Tell me, how good is her English? Would she realise if she were paying over the odds?’
She squinted at the colloquialism: I was amazed she didn’t know it.
‘Paying too much for something she could get much cheaper.’
She seemed to be registering it for future use. ‘Who can say?’ she asked at last. ‘She’s in one of your groups. But since my sense of honour forbids me to reveal her identity until I have some evidence, I can scarcely ask you how well she’s doing! Oh, Sophie, how complicated we make our lives: me by not telling you this woman’s name, you by not telling Jago where to put his lust.’ Before I could respond, she added, her face serious, ‘But it occurs to me how close the name Jago is to Iago. Take care, Sophie, take care.’
Jago was waiting, jacket ready to button, when I got back to the work-room.
‘I’ve got to be back by one thirty,’ he said. ‘I want to talk to Pentowski about her Ph.D. paper. There may be something in there I can use.’
Despise her and pick her brains. Fair enough, I suppose. That was the lot of all teachers, wasn’t it?
He set off at a brisk pace through the car park. Maybe he hoped I’d have to scuttle to keep up with him, but he was no Chris and I’d enlivened the last few mornings with the intensive Canadian Airforce exercises which had for years kept me fit. So, if not step for step, I could still keep up with him, without so much as a pant. Fortunately he didn’t test whether I had enough breath for conversation, though I was sure, after seeing him run yesterday, he wouldn’t be stretched by such a trivial thing as a fast walk.
I remembered the pub from my teens: the Queen’s Head or something. Now it had a fancy new name – the Chalk and Talk – and fancy new décor. The menu matched, but my mouth refused to water. I had no evidence to substantiate my suspicion that every enticing item was cooked elsewhere, frozen, and merely reheated by the high-hatted chef, but my taste buds insisted it was so.
‘Mineral water,’ I said firmly when Jago asked me what I wanted.
‘Oh, surely you could make it a spritzer.’
I shook my head. ‘I like wine and I like water but I prefer to keep them separate. I also prefer to be credited with knowing my own mind.’ I looked him straight in the eye. ‘So when I say I’m buying myself a tuna salad, it means I don’t want you to try to buy it – or anything else – for me.’
If he’d dared mention moods or times of the month, he’d have had the water in his face. And I think, from his expression, he knew it.
We sat warily opposite each other at a table I chose: it was too big to permit the accidental rubbing of knees.
‘If I’m eking out my existence by teaching,’ I began, ‘how are you keeping body and financial soul together? After all, we’re the only full-time UK students on the M.Ed. course. All the others do the course part time over a longer period so they can still work.’
‘Yes, it’s the overseas – oh, I mean, the international – students who have money, these days, isn’t it?’
If he hoped to lure me into a digression castigating new politically correct terms, he was to be disappointed.
‘So how do you survive?’ When he didn’t answer, I said gaily, ‘Oh, I suppose you’re one of those lucky people with a partner back home to support them. What does your wife do? Is she a teacher too?’
He flushed, but the arrival of our salads prevented him from snarling. ‘Alison works for a building society, actually,’ he said.
I thought about cheap mortgages and other benefits Alison might bring. ‘How do your children cope with Daddy having to do homework?’ Apart from probably having to sit in total silence, that is.
‘They – I – Alison—’ He looked at my hand, and made a valiant effort. ‘You’re not married yourself?’
I thought I’d scored enough points to be able to let him off now. I shook my head, smiling. ‘But I’m in a very strong relationship. With a professional sportsman.’ I hoped the term would conjure precisely the sort of thick-necked, bone-skulled sportsman Mike wasn’t, and hoped Mike would forgive me.
But Jago had a quicker mind than I’d credited him with. ‘Ah! The Australian interest. The cricket at midnight.’ His smile might have conceded sexual defeat. Then he turned the subject swiftly to how he used to run for his county. No, he hadn’t quite given me up; but whenever had I fancied someone simply because of an athletic body?
I realised, as I set off for my class, he hadn’t passed on Chris’s message. And I hadn’t remembered to phone. I must be as off form as the England team.