A Population of One

by Constance Beresford-Howe

  “Hullo.”

  “Hi, there; is that you, Miss Doyle? Bill Trueblood here. Sherri gave me your number — I hope you don’t mind my calling so early —”

  (Early! It’s ten after nine. And wouldn’t you know her name would be Sherri.)

  “No, no; not at all. And please call me Willy.”

  “Well, I just got back from California last night — I’m down here at Cartier now, getting through some mail and things.… I wonder if by any chance you’d like to have a bite of lunch with me. Nobody else in the department seems to have been around to look after you, so I thought you might like a chat about this and that.”

  “Oh yes, I’d like that very much. It’s terribly nice of you to think of it.”

  “Well, suppose we meet at L’Escargot on St. Dominique Street. Can you find your way there all right? If we got there at a quarter after twelve, we’d beat all those stockbrokers to a good table — the place gets madly crowded later on.”

  “Sure, that will be fine. A quarter after. I’ll be there.”

  (Will I not.)

  “Great; see you then.”

  He hangs up. I sit down and try to control an exploding sensation under the ribs. Lunch at L’Escargot! And with a good-looking man! Yah to you, Madame Guillotine. But what the hell will I wear? Yesterday, in a burst of efficiency that seemed admirable at the time, I packed off every single respectable garment I own to the cleaner, in order to be ready for the opening of term. The one wearable item left is the denim dress I have on, which at the moment is covered with soapy splashes. The predicament is silly but serious. If I go down to wash and dry it in the machines downstairs, I might rouse the beast in Louis-Philippe, who tends to hang around down there in a hopeful sort of way. I’ll just have to wash and dry the thing here, somehow. If I hang it outside, it should be wearable by the time I have to leave.

  So I give the dress a good wash, wring it out tight, and hang it over the balcony railing in the sun. It’s a glorious blue day, bright without being really hot, and all the leaves on the trees are twinkling in a light breeze.

  The rest of the morning (after a final, perfunctory swipe at the bathroom) is devoted to trimming nails, shaping eyebrows, shaving legs and armpits, and applying a complicated makeup base guaranteed to conceal freckles. What an enormous amount of maintenance a woman needs. It would be intolerable if it weren’t so much fun. At a quarter to twelve I bring the dress in (grand, it’s nearly dry), and spread it on the ironing board. Only then do I discover that some carefree passing bird has ornamented the bosom with a large white splash.

  Desperately I try to sponge it out, but the stuff is like cement, and all my efforts to erase it only seem to make the stain worse. The struggle seems to last ages, till I’m half in giggles, half in wars. Finally (it’s getting late), I simply put the dress on with a large blotch over one breast, like a target. All I can do is pull on white gloves to distract attention, and clasp my large white bag over the stained patch. It will be all right. No one will notice. I hope.

  Trueblood is already at a tiny corner table when I arrive; he waves to me cheerfully and rises to pull out my chair. The dress problem has made me just a little late — the right kind of late — the little restaurant is full, and he’s been waiting just long enough to be really pleased to see me.

  “Now, Willy,” he says, his full brown eyes warm with good will, “how about something to drink? A nice cool gin-and-tonic maybe?”

  I hunch over the table, clutching my bag close. “Well, the truth is I don’t drink, and people hate that so much I can’t face them and always ask for sherry. But would you mind if I skipped it this time? I actually loathe sherry. But please go ahead and have whatever you like.”

  He laughs and pats my arm. “No, let’s just jump right into a shrimp cocktail, how would that be?”

  A stout old woman in a black apron and bedroom slippers comes by to take our order. She appears to approve highly of Bill in his clean seersucker jacket and white shirt, and smiles at his jokes proffered in limping French. She has a lamentable set of plastic teeth, poor soul.

  “Madame Le Gros is a terrific character,” he tells me later. “Belgian. Went through all sorts of horrors in a couple of wars. She’s been married five times — did you see all those wedding rings? She gets rid of the men but keeps the gold, the crafty old dear. Does all the cooking here herself — it’s great, too — and yet this is about the cheapest place in town for a decent lunch. Um — would you like to put that bag of yours down somewhere? … I’m afraid it’s rather crowded for you there –”

  “No, no; perfectly all right, thanks; just fine. Did you see anybody today at the college? It’s been completely deserted all this month; not a soul around. I was beginning to think I must have dreamed them all.”

  He raises his eyebrows slightly at this flight of fancy. “Well, I saw Archie for a few minutes, and he was solid enough, God knows.”

  “Who’s Archie?”

  “Dr. Clarke to his many enemies.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’m afraid you may have … er … picked up a rather poor impression of our beloved chairman, that day you had your interview. But the old boy was just having a bad day, that’s all. He’s sixty, you know. Arthritis bothers him a lot. So does the cussedness of things in general. There are some wheelers and dealers in the department, too — but no: I swore I wouldn’t gossip. Anyhow, you wouldn’t believe how completely charming Archie can be.”

  “Well, I can make the effort.”

  “Generally speaking, we all get on together pretty well in the department. I think you’ll like Molly Pratt, specially if you have any Women’s Lib leanings; she’s down on us male chauvinists like a gorilla, but more for fun than for blood, if you see what I mean in all that mess of metaphor.”

  “Um. She’s very attractive. Is she married?”

  “Was. Her divorce just recently went through. I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if she has another go at it, with someone in the department you didn’t meet, called Harry Innis. He’s our eighteenth-century man. American. Bit of a radical. He — well, you’ll see for yourself. Sure you wouldn’t like to get rid of that bag? — makes it a bit hard to cut your steak, doesn’t it? All right then … no, it isn’t bad, is it?”

  “Tell me more about the department. Are there other women besides Molly?”

  “Oh, yes. There’s little Ruth Pinsky, nice kid who looks after the Basic and Remedial courses —”

  “Not Remedial English! Oh, Lord.”

  “My dear, you don’t know our student body. A lot of it is the tired, poor, and huddled masses that can’t get in anywhere else. Big contingent every year fresh from Hong Kong and other exotic parts. We even had to hire Ruthie a couple of extra assistants for this year. Then there’s our Chaucer expert, Emma O’Brien. She’s called Fat Emma, and richly does she deserve it.”

  I am enjoying all this so much that I push my dessert around the plate to make it last longer.

  “And what are the students like generally? Active or passive?”

  “They’re quite fun, really, most of them. Not nearly as militant here as they are in some places, thank God. We’ve had almost no trouble, in fact. You know, occupying the building in sleeping bags, and peeing in the Principal’s wastebasket — that sort of thing. Maybe it’s going out of style now. But I think one reason we’ve been so free of it is good old Archie. He simply puts the fear of God up them. On top of that, he manages to be popular, though you may find that hard to credit. Don’t ask me how he does it. Except that he can be funny as hell, you know. They had one confrontation last year, big demonstration against exams, and somehow or other he broke them up so much laughing they just went home, and that was it.”

  “Really?” By this time I’m so interested that I forget to hide the bosom of my dress, and finish up the last of the crème caramel with my bag comfortably in my lap.

  “Now then, monsieur, you’re not going to sit there all day, are you? — I’ve got other
customers waiting; you see that great queue?” There is Madame being severe to the old man at the next table. Meekly he leaves half his coffee and goes while she pours us a second cup. I can’t help being pleased with this miscarriage of justice.

  “If there’s anything I can do for you, Willy, these first weeks, I’ll be very glad to help,” Bill says, as we eventually surrender our table to a pair of famished-looking women shoppers.

  “Thanks. I don’t think there’s anything just now — but I may be tempted to bother you some time.… It’s a bit hard to pry Sherri loose from the phone, I find.”

  We move out into the sunny day and he dons a pair of impressive dark glasses. When I drop one of the white gloves, he returns it with a gallant little bow that is amusing without being ridiculous. “It’s been great fun seeing you, Willy. I suppose you’ll be around the office building next week. There’s generally plenty to do before classes begin — book-ordering and all that torture.”

  “Yes; I’ll see you around. And thanks so much for the nice lunch.”

  (And thanks more particularly for those brown eyes, and for being in general one of the most attractive people ever.… What a pity I haven’t had the wit to steer the conversation around to himself. How old is he, I wonder. Rather younger than … but it’s hard to tell. He must be married, of course. Men as pleasing as that always, always are. But it would be a help to know for sure. Wonder how I could find out without seeming to care?) I ponder these angles happily all the way home.

  THERE WILL BE A MEETING OF THE DEPARTMENT

  OF ENGLISH AT 10 A.M. ON MONDAY SEPTEMBER 6TH

  IN THE COMMITTEE ROOM.

  A. BENSON-CLARKE, CHAIRMAN.

  This terse notice appearing in my pigeonhole might be a love letter for the powerful thrill it causes to travel through my imagination. Here it is at last, I think with delight. I belong. I am a member of a decision-making body. I am part of an institution, a group of scholars. I am involved with the forms, processes, and ideals of higher education. Like the “W. Doyle, Ph.D.” on my office door, these are supremely satisfactory words, and I hug them all weekend long, like a child with a new doll.

  When Monday finally puts in an appearance, it is teeming with heavy autumn rain, and unseasonably cold. It always rains on the first day of school, as every youngster knows. But today sparks of mineral glitter in the wet sidewalks, and leaves are plastered like gold stars on the black roads. The wind itself smells piquantly of stone and mould and smoke. I walk fast, enjoying the cool rain on my cheeks, and jump cheerfully over the bright twist of running water in the gutters.

  “Good morning, Willy Doyle,” says a voice on the stairs, and I turn to find the neat, small figure of Molly Pratt climbing up behind me. She looks charming in a hooded raincape that comes down to her heels. “On your way to the meeting? Come along with us, then. It’s way up at the top of the house. Have you met Harry Innis yet? Willy’s going to teach the novel course, Harry.”

  The thick-set young man behind her pauses on the landing to shift a damp shopping bag and offer a handshake so hearty it makes me blink. His lips are very red in a face that looks oddly narrow across the eyes, like soft fruit that has been severely squeezed. He has energetic blue eyes and a beautifully tended little beard at curious odds with the faded blue jeans that hang in tatters over his boots.

  “Hi there,” he says cheerfully. “Welcome to Thornfield Hall. I always think it’s perfect that here at Cartier we hold our meetings in the attic. What’s the good word, Billy Boy?”

  This last is addressed to Bill Trueblood, now emerging from his office with several books insecurely gripped under one arm. He smiles at me and attaches himself to the group on the side farthest from Innis, in order (I suspect) to avoid answering his question — if it was a question. Up another flight of stairs cumbersome wooden armchairs wait for us around a big oak table no one has recently troubled to polish. The uncarpeted floor smells of dust. Rain darkens the pair of high-set dormer windows, and Innis snaps on a sputtering fluorescent bar overhead that turns all our countenances pale blue.

  A large woman with a baby’s tight and silky skin manœuvres herself through the doorway and sinks massively into a chair. Fat Emma, without a doubt. A nervous-looking girl in horn-rims slips into an inconspicuous place beside a couple of unisex young people in trousers and long hair. They must be Ruth Pinsky and her assistants. And finally, preceded by the trumpet-blast of a prodigious nose-blow, comes Chairman Clarke, moving at an old man’s shuffle behind a large blue handkerchief. To my surprise, and even faint alarm, he makes straight for me.

  “Miss Doyle, I hope you’ve been introduced to everyone? Have you been looking after her, Molly? — good, I knew you would. Please let me know, Miss Doyle, if there’s any help I can give you at all.… Come and see me any time. We all want to help you fit in and be happy here.”

  “Thank you,” I say, trying politely to conceal my surprise. Can this be the gnashing ogre I remember so well? His smile is cordial; it even has a mischievous twinkle of flirtation in it. His eyes are bleary with a heavy cold, but for all their pouched and wrinkled lids, they are a bright periwinkle blue. Most astonishing of all, he bestows a cosy simultaneous little squeeze on my arm and Molly’s before making his way to the head of the table.

  “You no doubt observe,” he says to the group at large, “that I have punctually contracted my Registration Cold. It will be followed in due course by my Founder’s Day Cold and my Spring Convocation Cold. You see how the academic life lends ritual and meaning even to the illiterate virus.”

  An obliging laugh goes round the table, but I catch a wry glance exchanged between Molly and Harry Innis, who have taken seats together across from me. I note that Innis has meticulously laid out before him a filing folder bursting with papers, a pair of ball-point pens and a large scratch pad — considerably more equipment than Sherri has, who now slouches in, yawning, and flips open her shorthand pad.

  She proceeds to read out in a thin monotone a summary of the last meeting, and I understand so little of it she might as well be reciting the Koran. Harry Innis is already scribbling away busily. I wonder uneasily if I should be writing things down, too. But what things? And I have forgotten to bring a pen.

  Earnestly I pin my attention to the first item on the agenda. It has to do with fire regulations in the main building. The students, it appears, routinely ignore the No Smoking signs, and there is talk of discontent in the Fire Department. Pinsky’s little army, all smoking, shuffle booted feet. A very long and unprofitable argument develops over ways and means to deal with this problem. Everyone seems to have an astonishing amount to say, but no one comes up with a solution. Under cover of the table edge I look at my watch and am unprepared to discover that a whole hour has been consumed in this debate. Eventually it is agreed that bigger No Smoking signs ought to be posted up — if funds for the same can be extracted from the Maintenance Department.

  We then move on to the next item. This concerns elaborate arrangements for the entering class of students — I’m alarmed to learn there are close to seven hundred of these — to write something next week called The Initial Essay. It will provide a means of identifying which students need the Remedial English course. Students will assemble in the gym on the basement floor of the main building, where seven hundred hired chair-and-table sets will await them. All of us must be on duty to give out paper and so on; and afterward each of us will receive a large batch of essays to be read and graded at top speed. I do some laboured mental arithmetic. Is it possible I will have to deal with something like seventy-five essays? Ruth Pinsky lays all these unattractive prospects before us in a shy and diffident voice. But I soon perceive she has the situation well in hand; in fact most of the organization has already been done. She promises to put a memo in our pigeonholes tomorrow. Bill Trueblood sighs. She is a very capable girl.

  By now it is close to noon, and my thoughts are beginning to wander to food. Bill has for some time been elaborating a curly drawing of
a clipper ship on a bit of blotter, and Emma is sunk in her chair like a pillow, apparently dozing.

  “Mr. Chairman, I’d like to call to your attention a major bit of business left over from last session.” I notice now for the first time the New York twang in Harry’s voice. “The question of student representation, you remember, was discussed at length last spring, but a vote was postponed. I propose that vote be taken now.”

  With this a palpable tension flashes into the air, almost as if he had produced some kind of threat. Emma’s eyes snap open. Ruth frowns. Molly spreads out fine-fingered hands in front of her and studies them with close attention. Clarke rubs his eyes wearily and blows a loud toot into the blue handkerchief.

  “With your permission, I’d like to put this in the form of a motion,” Innis goes on.

  “If you must,” mutters Clarke.

  “I move, then, that this department adopt the policy of student parity, to take effect at all subsequent meetings on this level.”

  “I second the motion,” says Molly in a clear voice.

  “I’ve been out of the academic world too long,” I whisper, leaning near Bill. “What’s student parity?”

  “Equal numbers of students and staff at all meetings.”

  “Oh.” I would add more, but he shakes his head.

  “You remember that the Students’ Council presented a petition for parity last year, signed by eighty per cent of the student body. We debated the question at length last spring … I have the transcripts of tapes made then, if anybody wants to consult them. I think we’re ready for the question now.” Innis looks around the table with a confident smile.