by C F Dunn
“Professor Geoghegan,” I offered. “Yes, of course I will; I’ve met him before.” An uncomfortable burning sensation set up between my shoulder blades, becoming more intense as seconds passed. I looked behind me and Guy raised his cup in mock salute. I returned it with a scowl and turned my back on him.
Eckhart peered at me. “Are yo… you quite all right, Professor?”
Unsettled, I smiled weakly. “It’s the heat,” I explained. “I couldn’t sleep.”
He blinked. “The heat. Yes.” Although the temperature already neared eighty degrees, and delegates undid buttons and loosened ties, Eckhart perspired profusely into his velvet jacket. His jitters were catching and I found myself itching to escape. “I must let you get on,” I said as firmly and kindly as I could. “Let me know if I can help. Good luck, Professor.”
The overhead lights scorched, reducing the faces of the delegates, ranked row upon row to the back of the lecture theatre, to mere smudges. I should have been more nervous, but by the time I mounted the podium my mind was elsewhere. I introduced the conference, outlined the next few days’ proceedings, and gave my own thoughts on the subject matter. I barely heard the applause as I finished speaking, nor again as I introduced the next speaker with the impossible name. I left the platform aware that Guy’s slow ovation made a mockery of my attempt, and made straight for the door where Matthew waited. We slipped outside. He exuded an irresistible calm.
“You didn’t have to come, but I’m glad you’re here.”
“I couldn’t miss the opportunity of seeing my wife in her element; you’ve worked so hard for this. Well done; that will keep them thinking for some time yet. Do you have any evidence to support your supposition?”
I broke away from him, ready to be cross, but saw he joked. “The only evidence is from a primary source, Matthew, and I’m not ready to reveal him – yet.”
“Touché. Is Colin Eckhart aware of what you’ve done to his schedule of speakers? You seem edgy – are you all right?”
“As I’ll ever be. No, Colin doesn’t know and I daren’t tell him – he’s such a bundle of nerves, poor man. I wish I hadn’t agreed to do this. Guy’s making it very clear he’s not impressed.”
“You don’t have to prove anything to him. It’s your career; it’s important to you. Don’t give him the satisfaction of thinking he’s spooked you.” Easier said than done because no matter how hard I tried, Guy still made me feel like an inadequate undergraduate on the edge of her seat, even if I had earned my place here today. I drew a hand across my neck; it came away wet with perspiration.
“Try to look hot, Matthew, for goodness sake. It’s baking in here and you’re the only one who looks as if he can stand it.”
“This heat won’t last.” He loosened his collar and tie nonetheless before reaching into his pocket. “Here,” he said, taking my hand and pressing something into it. “Keep me close to you.”
I looked down: the brown nutmeg sat snugly in my palm and I couldn’t help but smile. “Thank you.”
His eyes met those of someone behind me. “Merhaba Aydin; o seni görmek güzel. Nasilsin?”
I looked around; Aydin had approached and stood quietly waiting for a break in our conversation. He gave a little bow of his head.
“Günaydin, Doktor efendim. Thank you; I am well. Good morning, Professor.” He smiled shyly. “Your introduction went well, I think. There was much… alkis.” He looked to Matthew for help.
“Applause.”
Aydin inclined his head in agreement.
“Thanks, so will yours. Are the others here? We’d better organize a time to meet to go through things one last time while we have the chance. Matthew…”
“I know, I’m in the way. I’ll meet you at home.” He briefly touched the cross hanging at my throat. “God bless; keep me close.”
I pressed the nutmeg against my heart. “I will.”
During the break for lunch, I herded my group into an empty room where at least the air conditioning seemed to be working. Instantly recognizable by his stack of gelled, bleached hair, Josh’s only concession to conformity was the suit he had recently purchased for the event. He took a slug of cola, trying to look nonchalant.
“You’ll be fine, Josh, but take off the paperclip chain; it’ll rattle if you get nervous.” I searched their faces for any glimmer of confidence. “Look, you’ll all be fine. You too, Hannah.”
“I’m not nervous,” she said, and went back to surveying the library from the window. It was the only thing she had said since entering the room, holding herself separate from the others – aloof, almost.
“Well, I am.” Holly had the paper between her hands screwed into a tube, dark hair sticking damply to her neck.
“Yeah, we all are. It’s a rite of passage, isn’t it, Dr D? We’ll get through it.” Josh fingered his dark, three-day stubble and gave Holly a comforting hug. I closed my eyes and counted silently before opening them again to find my students watching me.
“Yes, we’ll all get through it.” I smiled as confidently as I could. “Let’s go.”
The air conditioning had been turned up as the temperature soared. I blanched in distaste when pungent glacial air struck us, as delegates, full coffee cups still in their hands, filtered into the conference room. I made my way to my reserved aisle seat in the front row. No sooner had I sat down than the Dean appeared at my elbow. Glistening jowls hung over his buttoned collar and, despite the refrigerated interior, plumes of sweat stained his shirt beneath his open blazer as he bent towards me. “A landmark event in your career, my dear Professor. I’m sure your paper will prove memorable.” I detected no warmth in his voice, nor did he wish me well. I watched him walk to his own seat directly in front of the podium, and wondered what it was that had made his seemingly benign remark sound like a threat. I heard my name announced. I didn’t dare look at the little group of students, whose page-pale faces were expressionless with nerves.
Touching my cross to my lips, and clasping the nutmeg in my hand, I rose to deliver what should have been the lecture of my life. Standing there under the spotlights, fingers of one hand grasping the edge of the lectern, the nutmeg in the palm of the other, if I had harboured any doubts about what I decided to do, I didn’t now. I hoped Grandpa would have understood I had no option – that the journal must remain concealed for as long as Matthew lived, and that for as long as I lived, I would ensure its anonymity.
So, instead of presenting the journal to the world and ensuring my place in it, the lecture I gave was short and to the point, the research sound, the concept interesting. It was not what I had spent my life pursuing, nor what Grandpa meant me to do. It would neither break new ground nor set the world alight, but it was safe and, from the platform of its mundane solidity, I could launch my students’ careers at the sacrifice of my own.
As I spoke, I became aware of the hues of my audience reacting like a shoal of fish to my pursuing words: changing direction, now silvered light, now wraithlike dark, with individuals breaking free in purples of disagreement, or bright blues as my thoughts chimed with their own. No longer victim to their emotions as I had been at the trial, I found myself able to read and respond to them, liberating me. Only one I couldn’t map: Guy sat next to Shotter, opaque and unresponsive and far from impressed.
My abrupt conclusion left the lecture hall stunned. Without delay, I introduced Josh, and watched as Shotter suffused with anger. I left the platform and took my seat, avoiding his eyes, with Eckhart stuttering incomprehensibly to one side. First Josh, then Holly, followed by Aydin – winning over the battle-hardened historians in front of them, who saw their young selves in the stumbled sentences and missed words, until the clarity of my students’ arguments won their respect.
I welcomed each back with a hug and saw in their faces, and heard in the applause, the only justification I needed. Then it was Hannah’s turn. I hadn’t seen her paper for a while now, and as the last speaker of the day, she would push the boundaries of tol
erance. Her short skirt wrinkling as she mounted the stage, polite boredom brewed along with hunger among the academics. Behind me, two middle-aged men maintained a running commentary in subdued tones. I threw a cautioning look in their direction and they shut up. I nodded to Hannah to begin.
The moment she looked at Guy for approval I guessed what he had done. From the second she opened her mouth I understood what had happened. And I could do nothing. Her argument was riveting; her argument was flawless; her argument was mine.
What bait had he laid, what enticements, what flattery? And what promises of fame and recognition did he make off my back, off my work? It had taken me months of painstaking research to complete the project in my second year at university, only for him to hand it to her on a plate.
The intense heat of the afternoon couldn’t compete with the rage on which I had to keep a lid for the rest of her lecture. My lecture. I didn’t wait for the announcements at the end of the day. No sooner had Hannah finished to wide acclaim than I made for the door, only to find the Dean waiting for me outside. His fingers pinched my arm, his eyes wintry.
“I’ll not have my college made a laughing stock by parading complete unknowns. Don’t think I’ll forget this. You’re not irreplaceable.” With the sound of people pushing their way through the door, he let go of me, pulling his blazer taut, buttoning it as he walked away, smiling as if nothing untoward had happened. I launched daggers at his retreating back, wondering what he planned.
“You’ve got balls pulling that stunt.”
I forgot the Dean in an instant. I whirled around. “What the heck were you doing giving Hannah my work?”
Guy tucked a leather portfolio under his arm, looking unruffled. “And I thought that you would be pleased that one of your students had a break.”
“Not off my research. You had no right, Guy, and you haven’t done her any favours. You know I can’t pass her MA now.”
His calm infuriated me. I wanted to thump him. He inspected his nails. “No, you can’t.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Shading his eyes, he squinted at someone on the other side of the concourse. “All’s fair in love and war, Emma; you should know that by now. In love. And war.” He slung his jacket over his other arm. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have people to see.”
Impotence fuelling my temper, I raged across campus to my car, reversed at speed and sped down the drive and onto the back roads home. I took the road across the bridge, slowing enough to cross it safely before giving the car its head, feeling it surge with all the unrestrained power beneath its bonnet.
Matthew appeared at the door as I drew up. “How did it go?”
“Malodorous skunk,” I threw over my shoulder as I tore off my shirt. He looked taken aback. “Not you – Guy. I’ll explain later.” I ran up the stairs, undoing my skirt as I went, slipping off my shoes and diving into the shower as he appeared behind me with my discarded shirt in his hand.
“What happened?”
I let the water quell my temper before I could tell him without using expletives as conjunctions. I then repeated Shotter’s threat, word by word. Matthew handed me a dry towel as I stepped from the shower.
“Did he indeed. That was most brazen of him. He might just regret saying that.”
I stopped towelling my hair. “Well, if you do decide to do anything, just let me take a pot-shot first. Hannah aside, the others were brilliant. I doubt I could have done what they did at this stage of their careers. It’s downright intimidating facing an audience of crabby historians at the best of times. Shotter should be celebrating their success, not trying to bury them.” I hunted for my hairbrush. “I’ll bury him; just give me a pickaxe and shovel…” I ceased ranting. He hadn’t said anything and seemed distracted. “What are you thinking?”
His eyes – azure in the strong afternoon light – refocused. “Mmm? Nothing. Your hair’s wet. And you’ll need to dress if you’re going to poleaxe anybody with any dignity.”
I went into our bedroom. “Pickaxe,” I said, pulling on clothes and looking around for my ring. “Not poleaxe. Does much the same job, I suppose.”
“Indeed,” he murmured, “it does.” He didn’t elaborate, but from his distant expression, I guessed he drew on personal experience.
The study felt cooler on this side of the house where the sun only penetrated first thing in the morning, but it was still hot. No birds sang. Distant voices crossed the courtyard to the Stable and a door slammed. The loudest sounds were insects in their lazy dance on the torpid evening air. Behind the house, suspended above remote mountains, the sun exhausted the last of the day, and the land, saturated by heat, waited.
We waited, and it seemed to me that it must be all part of the game Guy played: he made all the moves while we waited. Always one step ahead of us and we waited; he knew where he wanted to go while we waited to find out.
Impatient, I huffed, “What are we waiting for?”
At his desk, Matthew powered down the laptop. “Would you like to go for a walk?”
“It’s too hot.” I batted an inquisitive mosquito out of the window. “And I don’t want to get bitten to death.” The sash slid shut with an indelicate thump. I wanted to shout, rant, explode.
He closed the notebook in which he had been writing and put down his pen. “One of the worst parts of battle used to be the anticipation of it.”
I folded my arms. “I suppose that does put things into perspective.”
He came and stood behind me by the window, curving his arms around my middle. “On the eve of battle, while we waited to engage the enemy, a peculiar stillness would overcome the camp. Some men sang, others prayed – many would have gone to the local ale house or played dice if they could have got away with it. One man I knew carved a new animal for his children before each battle. They were barely bigger than my thumb, detailed, and each with a character of its own. He whittled away until we were called to arms. He kept them in a little leather bag with a letter, and concealed it in his buff coat against his heart.” I pressed against his chest, my back resonating with his voice when he spoke. “I think he poured himself into the toy so that it bore his hope and love for his family in case he didn’t return.”
“Did he live to give them to his children?”
He dropped his arms and I felt their absence. “No.”
It wasn’t what I’d hoped to hear, but then happy endings were the preserve of stories, not real life.
“What did you do?”
“I wrote poetry.”
I conjured an incongruous image of men on the eve of battle quietly engaged in pastimes more readily associated with peace. “I still hate waiting,” I moaned, and then capitulated and took the hint. “Oh, all right then, I’ll find something to do.”
The diaries spanned the floor in chronological order, recording a lifetime of discovery. Like Nathaniel, Grandpa used a series of abbreviations throughout his work. He loved riddles and puzzles and could complete the Times crossword faster than anybody I had ever known. A mind like a pin, Nanna would say; sharp and bright. Some were self-evident: initials for people he knew – students, other academics – and acronyms for institutions or organizations. I tussled with PK, until the penny finally dropped and I found myself laughing as I remembered his own pet name for me – Pipkin – because I was little and his beloved granddaughter. Many were familiar, some I had to work out, but several abbreviated references remained ambiguous and I struggled to place them within a context in which they would make any sense. By the 80s, he noted one student in particular – Vir – who cropped up increasingly. A potentially brilliant mind, he wrote, but currently flawed by ego.
By the middle of the decade, Vir had fulfilled all early expectation, and worked towards a doctorate. Grandpa returned to the Old Manor to continue his research, taking the young man with him and delegating assignments, much as Guy had done with me. Curiosity tingled. I recalled Mrs Seaton mentioning a student accompanying him, although she
hadn’t remembered his name.
The lantern clock struck the hour with a clear note. I stood up and let the blood flow back into my legs before flopping back to the floor.
My name cropped up time and again. I checked the date – late 80s – I would have been nearly ten. I mentally toured my childhood, pinning dates, events, names to each reference he made to me. “Took PK to Ely”, to Peterborough, to Tickencote. I remembered every trip we made. “PK fascinated by…” this or that. “PK transcribed…” such and such. Had I? I didn’t recall. “PK finished reading Woolrych’s ‘Commonwealth to Protectorate’.” I remembered that. “Shows insight…” “Intuitive understanding…” Reference after reference – sometimes as a single word, sometimes noted in a margin as if late at night and, more often as not, as comments strung between tutorial notes or criticism of another academic. A pattern developed as I read through the months until, with a jolt, I worked out what I read: a syllabus. Step by step, my grandfather had been training me – grooming me – for my future career. I sat back on my heels, not sure how I felt about that. Was that all I had been to him – a project, just another student to be initiated into the rites and rituals of a historian? Not special at all?
“Was that it, Grandpa?” I asked the ether.
I was alone and my question remained unanswered. I licked gluey chocolate thoughtfully, not tasting it, and the heat did it no favours. I went to the kitchen and returned with toast. The room had become insufferably stuffy and riding the tall sashes into their frames barely moved the air at all. Haze-hung, the distant trees glowed with the dying sun, and Siren-like, the diaries beckoned. I read on.
Vir and I continued to figure large until one day, apparently, we met.
I was no more than eleven. Grandpa would have retired by then but he still played an active role in college life.
