Living As a Moon

by Owen Marshall

  The posture was demeaning, and my back painful. I stood up, closed the window, moved to the path where I checked for injury by a variety of small movements. The light went on in the copying room, and at the same time a voice, Alan Scadding’s, said, ‘All sorts of stuff in here.’ He stood at the door, leaning in slightly as if the floor of reprographics had just been washed and he didn’t wish to mar the surface. ‘Rather untidy, I’m afraid.’ His companion was large, assured and wearing an expensive suit. He barely glanced within.

  It had to be Dr Blundeleir, arrived and having an informal tour of the department. Perhaps it was his condescension, perhaps it was my sense of ignominy, though unobserved, perhaps just that Scadding was his companion, but I took an immediate dislike to Blundeleir. Blunderer I christened him as I walked into the dark, holding my left hand with fingers extended. Some intestinal snail slime remained, and I didn’t wish to use my clean handkerchief to remove it. ‘What do you bet he’ll be a complete arsehole,’ I said in a challenge to the ducks beneath the willows.

  I met Dr Blunderer at a staff meeting the next day. Scadding, as acting HOD and director of programmes, extolled his virtues, and so did Blunderer in his reply to the welcome. It was a pity none of the mallards had taken on my challenge. There were thirteen colleagues present, and I counted those that I would save from drowning if there were any danger to myself. Four, only four, and two of those were women to whom I was sexually attracted. I began to think quite seriously of Chicago. There was a song wasn’t there. Frank Sinatra, was it? I sought the tune in my head while Blunderer entertained us with a detailed account of his speciality — architectural design and ethnicity. ‘I seem to remember something of yours on decay,’ said Blunderer, when it was my turn to be personally introduced.

  ‘You seem to remember correctly.’

  ‘Demographic, of course, not dental.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. Blunderer continued to wait, perhaps in expectation of a compliment for his wit, or my reference to some work of his own.

  ‘Toynbee is not now fashionable, I know,’ he said finally, ‘but I find in all large cities common patterns of development that are markedly organic.’

  Blunderer is formed like a macrocarpa tree stump, with no discernible neck and a wrestler’s chest so hirsute that he seems to wear a wolverine waistcoat. His family in Pennsylvania is very wealthy, having been providers of army uniforms and accoutrements since the time of the War of Independence, and although he laughs readily and shows teeth as dazzling as a sabre, I thought him contemptuous of the small scale of our lives. He often mentioned the historical significance of some of his forebears; he and his wife fly business class to Sydney to see the Russian ballet; they’re active at city art auctions.

  Blunderer was initially a visiting fellow, but before the end of his stay he was offered a longer term appointment, and became my office neighbour. He finessed the art of boring conversation to a level that was life threatening. His entry into the common room caused me to experience an uneasy sense of oxygen deficit, and if long in his company I would feel a growing compulsion to cry out — not obscenity at Blunderer, not words at all, but a sort of wailing, atavistic appeal for release. The noise that one hears occasionally in the dead of night from agonised beasts in a zoo. Usually I was able to contain it; once, however, I was overcome in a staff meeting during a particularly long discourse from Blunderer on the comparative merits of mean and median marks in course moderation. I managed to simulate a cramp attack, but the outburst was a jolt for colleagues, several of whom had been asleep.

  There was also a tête-à-tête, reluctant on my part, in the tutors’ room where I had gone to consult past copies of periodicals stored there. Blunderer came in for the same purpose, and hemmed me between stacks of Our Physical World and Statistical Oceanography. For thirty-three minutes he expounded on the influence of Islamic mosaic motifs on western architecture as a result of immigration. Because of Blunderer’s chest capacity he has a particularly sonorous voice, as if speaking from a cavern. I tried to concentrate on the pinstripes of his superb suit and the broader, colourful slashes on his equally fine tie. Blunderer dresses as a tycoon. I had an increasing sense of claustrophobia, both physical and psychological, and manoeuvred past him, excusing myself with the recollection of an appointment. ‘Not at all. I’m happy to share my work with you any time. Feel free to ask me again, Donal,’ he said. ‘I’ve felt at times some constraint between us,’ he added. ‘I hope that we get to know each other better.’

  ‘We’ll be hunky dory,’ I said. I hadn’t used the expression for twenty years. It was perhaps an unconscious reaction to the formality of his own language.

  ‘Hunky dory?’

  ‘Right as rain. Good as gold,’ I said, setting off down the corridor. It occurred to me that alliteration plays a considerable part in the formation of our idioms.

  Blunderer was exceedingly noisy within his room, exclaiming often and apparently ramming the furniture together. I thought at first he was fornicating with students, or suffered from epilepsy, but after some Sherlockian deduction decided it was no more than endemic clumsiness. Perhaps after the spacious ease of his Pennsylvanian family home he found it difficult to contain himself within the cell provided for him by the university.

  Not long afterwards there was the slight contretemps with Ms Flowerday. She was crouched on the blue vinyl chair in my study as I tactfully showed my disappointment with the lack of intellectual rigour in her most recent thesis work, especially a tendency to unsubstantiated generalisations concerning the maintenance of psychological distance in Japanese commuter trains. ‘I’m sick of it,’ she said.

  ‘Sick of it?’

  ‘I’ve gone off it,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t connect with anything essential to my life any more.’

  This is the type of graduate student that sits before one these days. People who go off things instead of buckling down to the sacrifice and grim drudgery of scholarship. ‘I read Dr Blundeleir’s book on Cambodian settlement patterns as interpreted through changing religious architecture,’ she said, ‘and I’ve decided to do something similar for Myanmar.’

  ‘A year’s work on the societal effects of public transport, and now you want to jettison all that and switch to Myanmar. There is a procedure involved in changing a PhD topic, you realise.’ I retained a smile, I’m sure, a soft voice and reassuring tilt of the head. ‘Quite a serious decision at this stage, quite a business administratively.’

  ‘I’ve seen Prof Scadding and Dr Blundeleir,’ said Ms Flowerday doggedly. Her eyes never dropped from mine. ‘They say that in the long run it’s what best for me, something I can feel a real commitment to. They said to talk to you about it and then come back.’

  ‘They mean well, I’m sure.’ Almost certainly Ms Flowerday knew my opinion of Scadding and Blunderer, and their similar regard for me, but nothing was said of that. ‘I agree that you must do what challenges you academically.’

  Ms Flowerday had a blue plastic watch strap and small zips at the leg ends of her jeans. Her eyebrows were plucked into high, thin arches. She still believed that success and fulfilment in life came from following a dream. ‘Let’s look at the sequence to make the switch as advantageously as possible,’ I said. Nothing was to be gained by showing chagrin, or revealing to her that Professor Scadding was an opinionated, self-serving careerist, and Blunderer more so, and corrupted by wealth. I imagined Ms Flowerday on her research trips to Myanmar: her perspiring moon face and fixed hazel gaze, her digital camera clasped for protection like a cross, and her heavy sneakers, each with a spray of excessive shoelace, taking a good grip of terra firma. ‘I wish you well, Adrienne,’ I said. ‘I’ve enjoyed seeing your work develop over the year.’

  ‘I’m expecting Dr Blundeleir will be my supervisor if I change direction,’ she said.

  Blunderer’s wife is very beautiful, outgoing and intelligent: quite wasted on such a man it seemed to me then. She wears clothes of exquisite material and cut, and
moves as gracefully in them as if clad in a sari. I met her only at occasional university functions, as Blunderer never invited me to their home, as he did other colleagues. All because he discovered I was responsible for the corruption of his name that even other staff used on occasion, and because I banged on the office wall a couple of times after the constant noise from his room distracted me from my work. I rather hoped Blunderer would be adolescent enough to bang back, but he forbore. He came to my door and with restrained civility asked me not to knock on the wall again. ‘If there is an issue, Donal,’ he said, ‘have the maturity to come and discuss it with me.’

  ‘It’s just the bloody din,’ I said.

  ‘What din?’

  ‘The noise from your office,’ I said. ‘Continual banging and so on. It becomes distracting.’

  ‘What banging? These partitions are very thin. You know that. I don’t dance; I don’t sing; I don’t have a radio on. Goodness knows what it is you’re on about. I have a chair on wheels that allows me to move from the computer table to my desk, that’s all. What is it with you.’ Blunderer filled all of my doorway, and the whiteness of his teeth contrasted with the dark expanse of his eyes. He increased the volume and reasonable tone of his voice a little, conscious that it could be heard down the corridor. ‘All I ask in institutional life,’ he said, ‘is professional respect and toleration among colleagues. Not too much to ask, even of you?’ and after a supercilious glance at mismatched oddments in my cubicle, he padded, bear like, the few paces back to his own room.

  A few days later I had an email from Dr Walley in Chicago, concerning my application for the fellowship there. He said he knew Robin Blundeleir was teaching with me now, and that a brief testimonial from him would enhance my application considerably. Although Blunderer had never taught at Chicago, Walley said previous colleagues there held him in high regard, both for his scholarship and personal judgement. What ironies our own life provides for us. The deciding factor in making the application had been my desire to avoid Blunderer’s presence, and yet I needed his support to achieve that end. Pride prevented me making any such request. I confess to pinning a dead mouse to his door. I’d found it behind the assignment drop box in the department office. It was flattened on one side, and seemed to have dried out quite without decomposition.

  It’s interesting the way a new personality in an established group is sometimes assimilated with very little effect on the whole, and at other times becomes a catalyst for a substantial realignment. Blunderer was deferential to nobody, but shared Alan Scadding’s enthusiasm for change. Refreshment was the word of the moment. The academic programme needed refreshment, as did teaching practices, student assessment procedures and allocation of staff responsibilities. Blunderer’s considerable weight and overseas reputation was thrown behind the acting HOD and refreshment swept all before it, like a Coca-Cola ad. I was becoming seen as a reactionary, a man out of touch with the prevailing culture.

  Everything changed, however, between Blunderer and me, after I saved his life. The ambulance people made that grand assertion. It was a Thursday evening, a little after nine, and as I locked my room I saw light shining through the glass panel above Blunderer’s door. I’d heard nothing through the wall over the last half-hour or so, and Blunderer wasn’t one for working late. The corridor lights were out and I saw from a rim of yellow that his door was slightly ajar. Normally I would have walked on, but mewling sounds came from within, and when I knocked on the door it opened enough for me to see Blunderer sitting on the floor of his office with his back supported by the computer desk, and the contents of his case scattered before him. He had two expressions on a single face: one piteous, the other beyond his control.

  Blunderer had suffered a terrible stroke. Odd that it had occurred with far less noise than his everyday and irritating movements. Such a heavy man that I had difficulty even pulling him far enough from the table so that he could lie face up on the carpet. ‘You’ll be okay,’ I said. How fatuous are our comments in such circumstances. There was an umbrella in a plastic pouch hanging behind the door. I put it under Blunderer’s head, which made his breathing less forced. ‘Just take it easy. You’ll be fine,’ I said as I punched the emergency numbers.

  It didn’t seem right to be so obviously looking down on Blunderer, so I sat on the carpet beside him, tried not to let my face register alarm at the disarray of his: one side given way as if the strings of puppetry had collapsed. Blunderer made no attempt to talk, no movement except that the fingers of his good hand moved on the carpet as if to test its quality. ‘They’ll be here in a jiffy,’ I said. ‘No need to worry.’ Blunderer was dying perhaps, and I was telling him it was of no concern.

  They weren’t there in a jiffy, of course, and there was great need to worry, but eventually I heard the siren and went to the main entrance to let the medics in. I do think that I showed a flash of foresight by taking care that Blunderer’s door didn’t snib shut behind me.

  I helped the two ambulance officers carry Blunderer on the stretcher down the stairs, and then through the quad to the vehicle. He was very heavy, seeming even more so because inert. His hands were carefully crossed on the blue rug, and on the left wrist was his quite beautiful gold watch that caught for a moment the flashing lights. A tortoiseshell cat came bounding out of the dark, leapt briefly into the ambulance as we loaded Blunderer, and then fled again. The most unusual happening of the night, but apart from a snort of surprise from one of the medics, we paid no heed to it.

  As Blunderer and I disliked each other, I thought it hypocritical to travel in the ambulance with him, despite an invitation. Also it could be seen as deliberate emphasis on the service I’d done him. When the ambulance had gone I went back to Blunderer’s office, gathered up his papers, a packet of green tissues, two whiteboard pens, a muesli bar and a pair of manicure scissors. I took the case home with me, admired the rich suppleness of the leather and the gleaming brass of the catches. There was an embossed green and gold emblem in one corner that I took to be the trademark of his family firm.

  I visited Blunderer in hospital two days later, and already there were signs of improvement, although he couldn’t speak. Some people make excellent recoveries, the doctor said: so much depends on where the damage is and how much the brain can reroute. Blunderer filled up the hospital bed, and already had impressive beginnings of a dark beard to match the thatch that showed at the base of his throat. His wife was there. She was embarrassingly effusive in her thanks: tears in her eyes, and the light touch of her fingers on my arm. ‘You saved Robin’s life,’ she said. ‘The doctors said time was so very important.’ Poor Blunderer, so superior only a few days before, and then felled, considered under obligation to an enemy. ‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘I’m thankful I happened to be there.’

  ‘Yes, you saved his life,’ she said tremulously.

  ‘I’ve brought his case from his room,’ I said. It’s difficult to dislike a person who is so much in your debt. Difficult to refuse a heroic role offered by a woman as beautiful as Blunderer’s wife.

  Blunderer’s recovery was quite rapid, and surprisingly complete. He was back at work within eight months. His general health and his fierce determination were given credit by the doctors, as well as the location of the failure within the brain. The interesting thing is that he recovered a better person, and I don’t know the clinical explanation for that. At a stroke, you might say, his vanity and self-obsession were wiped away: replaced by consideration and humour.

  Blunderer and I often now walk at lunchtime through the trees and over the lawns to the staff club, where we have a pasta salad, and Blunderer will buy a bottle of Central Otago pinot noir. He’s lost a good deal of weight as well as much prejudice and pretentiousness. We talk about our work, our lives, our colleagues, the tedious and incremental creep of administrative trivia upon our time. Blunderer is not anchored by the need of a salary, and is considering resigning to travel, research and write full time.

  Blunderer has
told me that he has recommended me to succeed the retiring editor of Geography Today, a prestigious academic journal published in New York. Scadding’s promotion to associate professor closely followed his success in having an extended article published in its pages two years ago. Blunderer and I were in a window alcove of the staff club, having hot chocolate after a tedious departmental meeting. Outside were four cherry trees, and with each gust of wind the pink-tinged blossom whirled in panic before the buildings and the sky, like a shoal of coral fish before a predator.

  ‘I wouldn’t have a dog’s show,’ I told Blunderer. ‘I haven’t published enough. I haven’t been invited to enough conferences, given sufficient papers. My area of specialisation isn’t fashionable at the moment.’

  ‘I think you’re ideal,’ said Blunderer. ‘I’m on the board there. Between you and me, I provide a substantial cash donation each year, which allows them to continue the full-colour format that’s so important to them.’

  ‘It would be blatant cronyism,’ I told him. I imagined the stimulating intellectual challenge arising from editorial control of such a highly respected, well-funded publication.

  ‘You could do it from here — right here.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be morally dubious?’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Blunderer as the wind ruffled the cherry trees and petals whirled into the sky. ‘It’s patronage, not corruption. Much of the world’s best art and scholarship has been achieved because individuals with power and resources made personal choices when giving support.’ Odd how the new Blunderer, the post-stroke Blunderer, is far more succinct and persuasive in argument. ‘Leave it to me,’ said Blunderer.