The Glass Ceiling

by Anabel Donald

  ‘Driscoll—’

  ‘If Elspeth Driscoll was deeply upset by the death of her dog, I can hardly imagine that Grace was responsible. It is not like her.’

  ‘What about Melanie Slater?’

  ‘A good, solid, ambitious Beta Query Plus. Narrow. Very – female.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Kinder, Kirche, Küche.’ She saw my blankness, and translated. ‘Children, God, the home. A German tag. Have you no German?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I beg your pardon.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Can you imagine her doing any of this?’

  ‘If a man asked her to. If she thought it would benefit her children.’

  ‘Did you think her so female, even back then? She belonged to a feminist group, after all.’

  ‘Only by accident. She is a hero-worshipper. At that time she was very young, and she worshipped Grace. And the young man she fell in love with also worshipped Grace, so they both served the cause.’

  ‘Who was that?’

  ‘I cannot remember his name. I never saw him, although during their Finals term I heard a great deal about him.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘A most unfortunate business. I suggest you ask Grace to enlighten you.’

  ‘I don’t think Grace will enlighten me about anything. She’s being unhelpful.’

  ‘That’s not like her,’ she said thoughtfully.

  ‘I don’t mean she’s been difficult. She’s been charming. Just – bland. And uncommunicative.’

  ‘Really. Well. Unfortunately, any information I may have pertaining to their Finals term is confidential. The most I can tell you is that all four of the Vestal Virgins were involved, in one way or another.’ She looked pointedly at me. I was supposed to understand something, or do something, I could see. But what?

  Keep asking, I supposed. ‘Even Elspeth Driscoll?’

  ‘Very much so.’

  I thought for a few moments while Dame Janet watched me. ‘This young man. Was his name Edward Webb?’ An outside chance, but the only possibility I knew.

  ‘I cannot remember his name,’ she repeated.

  ‘But you heard a lot about him. He was up at Oxford too?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And involved with girls you were responsible for?’

  ‘As I have told you.’

  ‘So you probably had dealings with his college?’

  There was a glint in her eye. I was getting warmer. ‘Incessantly,’ she said.

  ‘Can you remember his college?’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘Which was it?’

  ‘Balliol.’

  ‘And who was responsible for him there? Who did you deal with?’

  ‘You mean to ask for the name of his Moral Tutor,’ she prompted gently.

  ‘Can you remember the name of his Moral Tutor?’

  ‘Charles Kinross,’ she said. ‘Once a fine mathematician, they tell me.’

  ‘An Alpha Plus?’ I said, trying for an Oxford tone.

  I’d missed it.

  ‘Not a classification I recognize,’ she said frostily. ‘An Alpha is absolute. But, yes, Charles was certainly an Alpha.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘In his mid-eighties, and failing.’

  ‘Is he completely out of it?’

  ‘Intermittently. Better before the pubs open.’

  Another pause, as if she was waiting for a Gamma undergraduate to haul herself from the shallows of ignorance to the rocks of certainty. Or perhaps they didn’t let the Gammas into St Scholastica’s.

  I tried. ‘Dame Janet, do you think it would be worth my while, considering what I need to know, to pursue this avenue of enquiry?’

  She smiled. ‘I have always wondered how one pursues an avenue. Surely by its very nature an avenue is static?’

  And surely, by her very nature, this woman was a mischievous tease. No wonder she liked Grace so much. Or did she like her? She’d certainly made more effort to give me information once I’d told her Grace didn’t want me to know. Competitive, that was the feeling between them. Probably a common emotion in a place where they seemed to spend their time sorting and grading each other’s brains like eggs.

  ‘Am I on the right lines?’ I persisted.

  ‘Another unilluminating metaphor. I have frequently—’

  I didn’t wait to hear what she had frequently. I interrupted. ‘Do you think it would help me to understand what’s going on with my client if I saw Mr Kinross?’

  ‘129A Norham Gardens. Don’t take him to the pub, and don’t mention fairma.’

  I didn’t recognize the last word but I knew from her ‘r’ that it was French and from her tone that it was a joke, and since I didn’t know what it was there was no danger that I would mention it. I did, however, recognize a hint when I heard one. ‘Thank you very much for your time,’ I said. ‘Just one more question, if you don’t mind. In English Literature, what is your area of specialization?’

  ‘My field?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Middle English.’

  ‘So why are you reading John Grisham?’

  She laughed. ‘For the gratuitous sex. I always think the best sex is gratuitous, don’t you?’

  I laughed too. I couldn’t help it, though I knew she was manipulating me. ‘Try Sidney Sheldon,’ I said.

  As I left, she was scribbling in a notepad. It could have been Sheldon’s name.

  It could have been mine. It could have been anything.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Norham Gardens was just round the corner from St Scholastica’s, the porter told me, and he gave me directions. On the way, I stopped at a BT booth and called Alan Protheroe’s office. It was ten past ten; Alan wouldn’t be in yet. I hoped. When Jacqui answered I asked for him all the same. ‘Sorry, Alex,’ she said in her high breathy voice, ‘he’s not in yet.’

  ‘Damn,’ I said.

  ‘Can I help?’ she offered with the air of one who, from long experience, expected the answer no.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, pleased. ‘How?’

  ‘Have you got his diary in the office?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s on his desk.’

  Pause,

  ‘Could you get it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Pause.

  ‘Why don’t you?’ I suggested, feeling the minutes ticking away on my chargecard, and worrying about when the Oxford pubs opened.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘I tell you what. I’ll transfer the call through to his office, and I can talk to you from his desk.’

  ‘Jacqui—’ I shouted, but it was too late, she’d cut me off. Telephone systems weren’t her strong point. Tits were.

  I waited long enough for even Jacqui to have worked out that she’d cocked up irretrievably, and replaced the receivers to clear the line. Then I redialled.

  Engaged tone. I hadn’t waited long enough. Perhaps I should drop in to a showing of the director’s cut of Blade Runner. Or marry and raise a family and ring back on my golden wedding.

  I sang ‘Hotel California’ to myself, all the verses, twice through. Then I redialled.

  ‘Alex? Is that you?’

  ‘Hi, Jacqui.’

  ‘So sorry. I must have cut you off.’

  ‘Never mind.’

  ‘I’m at Alan’s desk now.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘But I took the diary through to my desk. I’ll reroute your call.’

  ‘Jacqui!’ I shouted, really loudly this time.

  ‘Yes?’ Puzzled little voice.

  ‘I’m in a phone booth, and in a hurry. Just walk through and fetch the diary, OK? In case you cut me off again. OK?’

  ‘OK,’ she said. Silence. More silence. Perhaps she’d lost her way. No, I heard Marilyn Monroe-type breathing. She was back. ‘I’ve got it,’ she said.

  ‘Brilliant,’ I said. ‘I’ve got to catch Alan today or tomorrow, and th
e only windows I have are at lunchtime. Is he free for lunch today?’

  Pause.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  Oh, shit. ‘Tomorrow would he better,’ I said. ‘Is he free for lunch tomorrow?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Barty O’Neill. Quaglino’s. Lunch one o’clock.’

  ‘Thanks, Jacqui,’ I said. ‘I’ll be back to you.’

  ‘Shall I tell him you rang?’

  ‘Don’t bother.’

  I was safe enough there. She’d forget I’d called in five minutes.

  129A Norham Gardens, was a depressed-looking converted coach house in the overgrown garden of an overgrown Victorian villa. I couldn’t find a bell, so I knocked at the door, and it swung open, revealing a small hallway entirely crammed with the tea-chests removal men use for packing. Was he moving out? ‘Hello?’ I called. ‘Hello, Mr Kinross? Are you there? Is anyone there?’

  ‘Come in, if you must,’ quavered an old voice. ‘Whoever you are,’ it added.

  I squeezed between the tea-chests and followed the hall through a sharp right turn into a smallish square room which, judging from the cooker, sink and fridge, was intended to be the kitchen, but which also held a table covered in computer print-out sheets and papers, obviously in use as a desk, and a camp-bed, on which an old man was lying dressed in plaid pyjamas and covered with a greying sheet and some stained blankets. He looked dirty and helpless and like a charity poster, and the room was indescribably filthy: used dishes covered with mouldering food overflowed the sink and were creeping across the parts of the floor not already littered with empty bottles. I did my best not to identify individual components of the almost tangible smell.

  ‘Are you Meals on Wheels?’ he barked irritably.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Are you Mr Kinross?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m Dr Kinross, but you can call me Charles. If you buy me a drink.’

  ‘I’m not going to buy you a drink,’ I said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Dame Janet Wilson warned me not to. If I wanted any information.’

  ‘And do you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What about?’ he said, heaving his heavy torso from the bed, swinging his spindly legs around and settling the blankets round him in a cocoon. Upright, he looked like Mr Pickwick, with a chubby rubicund face and a fringe of long white hair around a gleaming pink scalp. He was very old indeed. Even the stubble on his unshaven face looked soft, like a baby’s hair.

  ‘Information from over twenty years ago, about an undergraduate. You were his Moral Tutor.’

  ‘What was his name?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know?’ He lay down again and turned his back to me. ‘Why don’t you go away and check your facts?’

  ‘His name is part of the information I want. Dame Janet either couldn’t, or wouldn’t, tell me. But we’re talking about the Finals term of 1971. This boy was involved with several girls from St Scholastica’s, in some trouble which Dame Janet won’t tell me about, She says it’s confidential.’

  ‘1971? That is a long time ago. Why do you suppose I’d tell you what Janet won’t?’

  ‘She implied you would.’

  ‘I’m not responsible for Janet’s implications.’

  ‘I know.’ His back was still stubbornly turned to me. It wasn’t easy interrogating a pink egg fringed with white fluff. Perhaps I should just get a rubber stamp and mark it Alpha.

  ‘I don’t want to talk to you,’ he said. ‘Go away.’

  He was so childlike, I’d try treating him as a child. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I don’t expect you can remember, anyway.’

  ‘Don’t have to,’ he said triumphantly. ‘I don’t have to, because I never could remember anything except maths, so I wrote it down. It’s all there.’ He wagged a plump pink hand behind him in the direction of the hall.

  ‘In the tea-chests?’

  ‘Yes. I haven’t unpacked them, but the movers cleared my rooms at Balliol. Including the filing cabinets. But I’m not going to look if you’re not going to buy me a drink, so there.’

  ‘Can I look?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Go away.’

  ‘This could be very important.’

  ‘Not to me.’

  ‘I bet you don’t even know which of the tea-chests it’ll be in,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, I do. The one in the hall marked Blue Filing Cabinet. So there.’

  ‘I’ll buy you a drink.’

  ‘Too late,’ he said. ‘Unless . . . no sort of mathematician, are you?’

  Not in his terms, I wasn’t. I didn’t think an A grade at GCSE would qualify me. ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Pity. I need some help on fairma. I’m nearly there, you know. Got plenty of data. But I can only concentrate for short periods of time.’

  I was no mathematician, but I knew a girl who said she was. I looked at my watch. Ten forty-five. Nick just might be back from her Arabella Trigg shopping assignment. ‘Can I use your phone?’ I said.

  ‘No. Phones are expensive. Go away.’

  ‘It wouldn’t cost you anything. I’d use my charge-card. I’m looking for someone who’ll help you with – fairma.’ I wished I knew what the hell we were talking about. I hoped Nick would.

  He turned round and sat up. His pyjama jacket fell open to reveal a chest covered with wiry grey hair ‘Really?’ he said, as eager as a Christmas-morning child. ‘Cross your heart?’

  ‘Cross my heart.’

  ‘Go on, then. Telephone. Now.’

  I dialled. Nick answered. ‘Alex Tenner’s office.’

  ‘Nick. Alex here. I need you with me, as soon as possible. Take fifty pounds from the petty cash; top drawer, my desk. Go to Paddington, get the next fast train to Oxford, then take a taxi to 129A Norham Gardens.’ I spelt it.

  ‘OK,’ said Nick. ‘D’you want to hear about Arabella Trigg?’

  ‘Not now. This is urgent. Tell me later And bring any mail or telephone messages with you.’

  ‘OK,’ she said, ‘on my way,’ and rang off. Good for her. Very few people understand that ‘urgent’ can mean seconds.

  ‘He’s coming, isn’t he?’ said Kinross, lumbering out of bed. ‘I must get dressed. How soon will he be here?’

  ‘Not for an hour and a half at least,’ I said, not correcting his assumption that Nick was a man in case sexism was another bat in his over-populated belfry.

  ‘Never mind, never mind,’ he said, moving about the confined and filthy space, crashing into things. ‘That’ll give you time to clear the upstairs bedrooms. And you might do something by way of cleaning in here. He might find it off-putting. We don’t want to put him off, do we?’

  ‘Why should I clear the bedrooms?’

  ‘We have to have somewhere to sleep, girl. Can’t sleep in here. This is the study.’

  ‘Will he have to stay?’

  ‘Of course. This may take some time.’

  What had I committed Nick to? His last statement had a sinisterly permanent, Oates-stepping-out-into-the-Arctic-waste flavour. I backed as far as I could into the hall, to avoid his bumping into me. ‘How long have you been working on fairma?’

  ‘Exclusively, only ten years now. I’ve been toying with it since – oh, 1925, I suppose.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  While I waited for Nick, I went to the nearest shop and spent nearly fifteen pounds on cleaning materials, including two sets of rubber gloves and ten ultra-strong rubbish bags. I’d been reluctant to leave Kinross, unchaperoned during my shopping expedition – the pubs were open, after all – but he’d seemed engrossed in putting his notes in order in anticipation of Nick’s arrival, and I’d risked it.

  When I got back I cleaned the bathroom first, so he could have a bath, which he was surprisingly eager to do. ‘Mustn’t make a bad impression,’ he said. ‘I have rather let myself go. Do the kitchen next, there’s a good girl. Throw away anything you like. Don’t touch the table, that’s all.’ I did touch the t
able, of course; I had to search out the decaying Chinese food he’d scattered among the stacks of computer print-outs. I identified spare ribs in barbecue sauce and sweet and sour pork, but the rest, fortunately, remained a mystery. I tried to leave the papers in the same disorder as I found them. Then I spent an hour on the rest of the kitchen and did the best I could. A proper job would have taken a day.

  I was putting the last of the four over-filled rubbish bags outside the front door when he came downstairs, spruce in a pin-stripe suit of ancient cut and a white shirt, apparently fresh from the laundry, ironed in fierce creases. Only the faint yellowing around the creases suggested that the shirt might have been waiting in its laundry packet since 1925. He was carrying two ties, still crackling in the cleaners’ cellophane.‘Which do you think?’ he asked, holding them up for me to see.

  One was dark blue with maroon stripes. One was dark blue with emblems on it. I pointed to the emblemed one. ‘That,’ I said.

  ‘I think you’re right,’ he said. ‘It was my first instinct, too, but then I thought perhaps it was swanking a little. Bloody useless bunch of people, for the most part, anyway. Don’t expect your chap thinks much of them. Academic societies give me a pain. Like the tie, though.’

  I didn’t ask. I was finding Oxford a place where it was safest not to.

  ‘D’you suppose he’d like lunch at the Elizabeth? What day is it? Shut on Monday, the Elizabeth. Good enough restaurant, superb wine list. Always take visiting firemen to the Elizabeth.’

  I wasn’t letting him within a hundred miles of a superb wine list. ‘Won’t you want to get straight down to work?’ I said weakly. I was beginning to feel guilty about his hopes. It wasn’t my fault he’d decided Nick was the Leipzig Professor of Advanced Terra Fairma, or whatever he called it. I’d only said she was a mathematician. That was all I’d said.

  But I hoped to hell she really was.

  She arrived just after one. I watched her coming through the garden, baseball cap peak front, and my guilt ran riot. She looked like what she was, a gauche part-Asian street kid.

  I went to meet her. ‘This old guy’s a half-dotty mathematician. He’s got information I need and I think he’ll give it to us if you play along with him about some maths he’s working on. I said you could probably do it.’