After Isabella

by Rosie Fiore

  ‘Climate?’

  ‘In higher education. In humanities. In the university.’

  ‘It’s cooking!’ Craig said with uncommon enthusiasm. ‘We’ve had a bit of a shift in application and enrolment…’ By ‘shift’, Esther assumed he meant ‘reduction’. ‘… but I feel really bullish. If we create an irresistible offering, and we prove to students that if they graduate with us, they’ll have enhanced—’

  ‘If you say employability, I may have to scream,’ said Esther drily.

  ‘Well, that’s what it’s all about.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘In the current climate, if we want to keep our jobs, it is,’ he said flatly, and she saw he wasn’t being quite as affable and twinkly as before.

  ‘Really? Do you think it’s that bad?’

  ‘The days of the dusty ivory tower, where we all sit around day-dreaming and having deep thoughts about art and literature, are over. We have to move with the times.’

  ‘Like sharks,’ said Esther.

  ‘Sharks?’

  ‘Move or die.’

  She got home that evening feeling weary, sticky and grimy in the oppressive summer heat. It was a Friday, and Lucie had gone to a friend’s house for a sleepover and movie evening. Michael had drinks after work and would be coming round later. Esther was too hot and uncomfortable to eat anything, so she had a quick, cool shower and put on a loose cotton shift dress. She poured herself a glass of cold white wine and went out to water the garden, which was wilting.

  It was mercifully quiet, and she could hear the birds singing and the distant hum of traffic. The garden was ragged and neglected. She would have to do some work on it over the weekend. How Laura would have frowned to see the weeds and unkempt lawn. It was in quiet moments like this that Esther allowed herself to fantasize about what might have been – how Laura might have sat on the back veranda telling her what to do, pointing out which plants needed cutting back and which needed moving to a sunnier spot. How she might have told Laura about her concerns about work, and what her mother would have said. It was Laura who had given Esther her love for teaching and her faith in the value of education. Laura had had a clear-eyed and definite view about the vistas that were opened up to young people through reading and discussion. Esther could just imagine Laura’s sardonic expression on hearing about the principal’s PowerPoint presentations full of visions and mission statements and marketing objectives. ‘Good grief,’ she’d have said, ‘just teach them. Get them to read everything, get them to question everything. They’ll be fine.’

  Esther attached the sprinkler head to the hosepipe and put it into a flower bed, turning it on and watching rainbows forming in the droplets. A moment of peace. The pain didn’t go away, and her anger at Laura came and went, but for the moment she just missed her, and wished things had turned out differently.

  Her phone, which she had left on the patio table, beeped with a message. Maybe Michael had got bored at the drinks event and was coming over early. She scooped it up and opened the message without looking at who it had come from.

  ‘Scrawny female,’ it said. ‘No one would want to fuck you.’

  Later that evening, she logged on to her computer. Her email inbox instantly filled with Twitter notifications. She had been mentioned in twenty or so tweets. Each one came from a different account and each account had an anonymous egg as its avatar, a gibberish name, no followers and no previous tweets. The tweets were much the same as the phone messages – invariably insulting and usually obscene. As soon as she blocked and reported a tweet, another few accounts would spring up, hydra-like, spewing more of the same ugly invective.

  The messages and tweets trickled in throughout the weekend. Vile as they were, none of them contained threats of violence or rape, so as there was no direct risk to her safety, Esther knew that the police would be unlikely to do anything. The phone messages came from three or four different numbers, but she didn’t try to ring any of them to see if someone would answer. As each one arrived, she read it, then closed the messages folder on her phone. She wished she could delete them all, but she knew that she would need them as evidence. She also didn’t tell anyone, not even Michael, that they were still coming. She knew if she told him, he would stop her from doing what she knew she had to do.

  On Monday morning, she left home very early and went into town. A Google search had given her the location of the offices, and she stationed herself across the road, opposite the entrance, from 8 a.m.

  He arrived at work at about ten to nine. She saw his tall, gangly frame hurrying up the pavement towards his office, head bowed, leather satchel over his shoulder. For a moment, she regarded him dispassionately. How had she thought, even for an instant, that he was attractive? There was something pinched and nasty in his face, just as there had been that night she’d glimpsed him in the street after the amateur dramatics quiz.

  She crossed the road quickly and stood in front of him, just as he turned to walk into the office building.

  ‘Phil,’ she said, trying to make her voice as firm and authoritative as she knew how.

  A kaleidoscope of expressions crossed his face. She couldn’t hope to read them all, but she thought she saw shock, guilt and triumph. Equally quickly, he wiped his features clean and smiled at her with bland politeness.

  ‘Hello,’ he said carefully. ‘What a surprise.’

  ‘It’s not a coincidence.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘You have five minutes to talk, I trust?’

  He made a show of glancing at his watch. ‘Not really…’

  ‘I wasn’t actually asking,’ she said. ‘There’s a little independent coffee shop a block or so away. As you have a Starbucks opposite your building and a Costa downstairs, I’m guessing your coworkers don’t go to that one. Let’s go there, shall we?’

  She didn’t look to see that he was following, just turned and walked towards the coffee shop.

  His curiosity must have got the better of him, because he did follow. She went into the coffee shop, snatched a bottle of water out of the cooler and took it to a table to justify their presence there. She sat down, her back to the wall, and regarded him as he settled himself opposite her.

  ‘You’ve been leaving me messages and sending me tweets,’ she said, without preamble.

  ‘I… what? No.’ Despite his protestations, she could see she had him on the back foot.

  ‘At first I had no idea who it was. I remembered our encounter and I wondered if it might be you, but there was no way to prove anything. Then in the message you sent on Friday, you referred to me as a “female”. There’s something dismissive and hateful about calling a woman a female, and I remembered you’d done it in the nasty email you sent when I cancelled our dinner.’

  ‘You’re crazy,’ he said coldly. ‘I always thought you were unbalanced. Menopausal.’

  ‘Now, now, Phil,’ she said coolly. ‘Don’t add insult to injury, as it were. I have a record of all the numbers you used to send messages, and I’ve reported all your tweets to Twitter, so they’ll have a record too. I’m sure the police will enjoy tracing where the messages were sent from. I’m guessing you were sitting all alone in your sad little flat, or at work, when you sent them? They’re very good at pinpointing locations these days. Within a few yards, I believe.’

  She had absolutely no way of knowing whether or not this was true, but she was banking on the fact that Phil wouldn’t know either. ‘And I bet you haven’t had the chance to get rid of those SIM cards either. They may well still be at your home. Shall I ring the police now?’ She put her hand in her bag to take out her phone.

  ‘It wasn’t me,’ he said cravenly. ‘It was Gillian.’

  ‘Who?’ She was momentarily stumped, and then she remembered Phil’s colleague, whom she’d met that first night after the Tate. The woman had taken a dislike to her there and then and, she recalled, had said some nasty things to Phil after the fact, which he’d then relayed to her in his email. ‘Gillian?
Why?’

  ‘I was very cut up about you,’ he admitted, looking down at his long, bony hands, which were resting on the table. ‘You were the first woman I had been with after my wife died, and when it didn’t work out, well…’

  ‘Well what?’

  ‘I was quite bitter. Quite… put off women.’

  ‘And Gillian offered you a shoulder to cry on.’

  ‘She was very supportive.’

  ‘Did she have an ulterior motive perhaps?’

  ‘Like what?’ Phil looked baffled.

  ‘Wanting you for herself?’

  Phil looked at Esther as if she was mad. ‘But she’s not my type at all. She’s much too old, and she’s very… hefty.’ The way he said it, so dismissively, made Esther realize that he didn’t see Gillian as a woman at all. If she knew how he viewed her, it was unsurprising she was bitter and vengeful.

  ‘So…?’

  ‘I was just starting to get over it, and then I saw you on television. Showing off. Making yourself the centre of attention, as usual.’

  His take on that was so deranged and irrational, it wasn’t even worth questioning. She just sat silently and waited for him to continue.

  ‘I was off work that day, off sick with a cold. I wouldn’t usually be sitting on the sofa at five o’clock, watching Channel 5. It was almost like a sign, seeing you. And you looked… I don’t know. Like I remembered you. But sad.’

  ‘My mother died,’ she heard herself saying. She wasn’t sure why she felt the need to tell him that.

  ‘So I tried to ring you, but it kept going to message. And then I started remembering what it was like to touch you, and how I hadn’t got to do it again, and I started to drink. I opened a bottle of wine.’

  He was bad with alcohol. She remembered that. He was fit, and couldn’t hold his drink, and didn’t seem to know when to stop.

  ‘I kept trying to get you, and finally, quite late, you answered the phone, and then I couldn’t speak. It was too much, hearing you speak. Then you turned the phone off again, and all I could do was listen to your voice in the outgoing message.’

  ‘You whispered my name,’ she said.

  ‘Did I? I don’t remember.’

  ‘But you didn’t stop there. You came and parked outside my house.’

  ‘I’d done it before,’ he said, as if in some way this made it better. ‘But I always seemed to miss you coming and going. And then I did see you, with that man…’

  She nodded. She wasn’t going to say Michael’s name to him, or give him any more information or ammunition.

  ‘That man… touching you.’ She was disturbed to see that his hands were actually shaking. ‘I left then, and I went to see Gillian and told her what I’d seen.’

  ‘And she comforted you.’

  ‘She was very nice. And she said you were obviously someone of loose morals, and you probably needed to be taught a lesson. She had a collection of these pay-as-you-go SIM cards at her flat, the kind you get in a bundle when you buy a new phone. “Text her,” she said, “Tell her what you think of her.”’

  ‘Slut.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s what you texted. What you thought. That because I’m in a relationship with someone that isn’t you, I’m a slut? You need help, Phil, honestly.’

  His face twisted into a grimace. She couldn’t quite work out what it was. Was he angry? Laughing at her? But then, to her horror, she saw he was crying.

  ‘I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t. But I was so hurt and lonely and Gillian kept telling me I deserved better than you.’

  ‘You don’t know anything about me. We met a few times, that’s all,’ said Esther. ‘We had sex once. This has nothing to do with me and everything to do with your own unhappiness.’

  ‘I know.’ He sobbed. ‘I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.’

  ‘I have a record of every message. And I’ve recorded this conversation,’ she said, holding up her phone so he could see the blinking red light on the screen. ‘You’ve admitted it was you. If you ever contact me again, I’m going to the police. If I see you anywhere near my house, I’ll have you arrested so fast, you won’t know what hit you.’

  She clicked the voice recorder off, pocketed her phone and dropped a pound coin on the table to pay for the unopened bottle of water.

  ‘Goodbye, Phil,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry your life isn’t what you want it to be.’

  He nodded, staring down at the table, and let out a long, shuddering sigh. And then, in the moment before she turned and walked away from him, he looked up and stared her full in the face. His mouth was twisted in a grin, a ghastly parody of a cheeky smile.

  ‘You may think you’re queen bee and in command, but you’re still just a scrawny slut no one would want to fuck,’ he said, coldly and clearly.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The Dickens story was a fake. Someone had been kind enough to pop into Esther’s office and leave a copy of the Metro newspaper on her desk, open at the appropriate page. It had been an elaborate hoax, by a conman who had spent months creating a counterfeit document. He might have got away with it, but an eagle-eyed Dickens specialist in York had spotted a discrepancy in spelling, which meant it was highly unlikely to be a real Dickens story. The academics had called in a forensics expert, who found that while the paper was of the correct age, the ink was modern and had been painstakingly aged. The article took the time to name-check some of the academics who had been taken in by the story, and Esther saw her own name staring up at her from the page. She sat down at her desk and sighed. Naturally, anyone who had fallen for the deception would look like a gullible fool who didn’t know their subject, and the newspaper was quick to see this and rub it in. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t actually said she believed the story was authentic. There was no point in saying that what she’d said had been taken out of context and cunningly edited. Given the choice, she would never have made a statement at all, but she hadn’t been given a choice. The university PR machine had been quick to put her on the front page of the website when the story was glamorous and high-profile, but she was certain that they would be very quiet now. She was highly unlikely to get the support of the principal if anyone started asking questions.

  Sighing, she booted up her computer and, sure enough, there were two emails from journalists asking her to comment on the fact that she had declared the document authentic. There was also a ‘sympathetic’ email from a colleague from Loughborough. ‘It was a gamble to say something one way or the other. Sorry you bet on the wrong side,’ it said. She deleted the email in a fit of pique. She hadn’t ‘bet’; she’d been bullied. Well, never again.

  She wanted to stay in her office and hide, but she had to lecture to a vast crowd of first-year students and then attend a meeting with the other humanities departmental heads. She detested lecturing the first years – it was always an enormous group, often as many as five or six hundred, and very few of them were genuinely interested in the subject. It was just a module to them. It wasn’t so much lecturing as speaking blindly into a cloud of indifference, pouring her words into a room full of slouched bodies, their phones held loosely in one hand, thumbs incessantly scrolling.

  She gathered her notes and the memory stick that held her PowerPoint presentation and set off for the lecture theatre. She was usually early for lectures, but the emails had delayed her and she got there at one minute past the allotted start time. The lecture theatre was full, and there was an expectant buzz in the room. The students all went quiet as she came in. This in itself was unusual. Normally she had to use a sharp, teacher’s voice to call them to attention. ‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said. ‘We’ll begin straight away.’

  She walked over to the lectern, preparing to plug the memory stick into the PC. She heard a titter pass through the room and looked round. Someone had uploaded a picture to the computer and projected it onto the screen. It was a portrait of Dickens, one of the famous Herbert Watkins photographs. The picture was repr
oduced twice, but some wag had Photoshopped a dress onto the right-hand image and coloured Dickens’ lips a lurid pink. ‘Spot the fake’ said the caption. The students couldn’t contain themselves, and they all burst into delighted laughter as they watched Esther stare at it.

  ‘Yes, yes, very witty,’ she said, plugging in her memory stick and bringing up her own PowerPoint slide as quickly as she could. ‘I think I can spot the real Dickens in this case.’

  It took an age for the students to settle down, and she knew she would struggle to hold their attention. She was speaking on the character of Doctor Manette in A Tale of Two Cities. It was one of her favourite lectures, and she usually valued the input from students. It was a book which captured the imagination of many, and she liked to open the floor to questions and get a sense of their views. Today, however, she would not. She would keep talking, no matter what, allowing no time for queries or interjections. She wasn’t fielding a series of wise-cracking comments from a bunch of spotty kids who had left school ten minutes ago. She ploughed through the lecture, barely pausing for breath, expanding on some points to fill the time and staring at the computer screen rather than making eye contact with any of the students. When she reached the last slide and glanced at her watch, she was profoundly relieved to see that it was the end of the period. She immediately gave the students their reading assignment for the next class and exited hurriedly without saying goodbye.

  The departmental heads meeting was little better. She sensed the ripple that went through the room as she came in and took her place at the table. No one said anything, but she could feel their eyes on her. Aristotle had been right, of course. We like tragedies because they arouse pity and fear. Pity for the victim and fear for ourselves, because we can envision ourselves in that situation. Well, let them enjoy her tragedy, she thought fiercely. It could have happened to any of them.

  ‘Hi there,’ said Craig softly, slipping into the seat next to her. ‘How are you doing?’ he breathed into her ear, his voice honeyed and soft. ‘Bad luck,’ he whispered. ‘Such bad luck.’