The Body Lies

by Jo Baker

  “You’ve done your homework.”

  “Two minutes on Google.”

  “You know what,” he said. And then he didn’t say anything else. He clattered around with mugs, stared into a cupboard. I could feel it coming—the impasse was now shifting.

  “What?”

  “Can we leave it a bit?”

  “Leave what?”

  “You job hunting for me.” He lifted down the tea-tin, rubbed at his nose, didn’t look at me. My phone screen dimmed and went black. Goodbye three bedrooms, goodbye tree house.

  “You thought I wouldn’t get the job.”

  “No,” he said. “You’re brilliant, of course you got it.”

  “So what then?”

  “It’s just—it’s bad timing.”

  “In what way?”

  “Wrong time of year.” He looked at me now. “They don’t much advertise teaching jobs in the autumn.”

  “Well then, you take care of Sammy till something good turns up. It can be your turn.”

  He acknowledged this with a tilt of his head, but: “If I left now, I’d be letting work down.”

  “They’ll reappoint; there are other teachers out there.”

  “Yeah, but there’s my A-level group; I can’t abandon them now. Half of them wouldn’t still be in school if it weren’t for me.”

  I understood, and I agreed. I’d always loved that sense of commitment in him, and you can’t love something about someone when it’s convenient, and then just dismiss it out of hand when it isn’t.

  And yet I said, “They’d manage.”

  “They shouldn’t have to.”

  I nodded. I squeezed his hand. He was right and I felt sick.

  We thrashed out a compromise. I’d start my job and he’d continue his; we’d keep on our flat down here; he’d be up north and we’d come down south as often as possible. We’d see each other every bank holiday, every half-term, every other weekend. No promises, at this stage, either way, that he’d pack in his job and move; or I’d pack in mine and move back.

  “Is that okay then? Are we agreed?”

  Without hesitation he said, “Yeah, yes; that’ll work.”

  * * *

  —

  Gill House stood stolid, foursquare, in its garden, like a child’s drawing; there were even pink roses round the door. We were renting it furnished, which made things a bit easier. We drove up together the first Friday in September, Mark and Sam and me, the car packed solid. The roses, when we moved in, were unkempt and overblown, and collapsed in showers around us so we trod petals through into the house, mushing them into the hall tiles.

  It really was, Mark said, the back of beyond: just past our house, the tarmac cracked and fell away and a gravel track ploughed up the hillside and faded to a footpath on the fell. From the front windows, there was a view of open fields, a derelict barn, pylons, woodland and sky; at night, the barn and the pylons were silhouetted by the orange glow of the town. Our nearest neighbours were down the lane, at a pungent steaming little farm, and a mile or so further down, where the lane met the main road from town, there was a village, with a little shop, and a pub, and a cosy-looking primary school. It was a world away from our old life; it all looked so comfortable, and safe.

  Mark stayed Friday and Saturday, and we made a game of it, getting organised and unpacked and exploring and improvising meals. We scattered our toast crumbs on the path, and sat on the doorstep to watch the birds. Then on Sunday morning, Mark drove back down to London. Sam and I stood in the lane to wave goodbye. The car dipped down the hill and round the bend and out of sight. And I felt it then, the first ripple of apprehension. Now it was just me and Sam and the empty countryside and undifferentiated time till Monday morning, and not a soul that I knew, not for hundreds of miles. No sounds but birdsong, and the wind, and cattle; our car engine fading out into the distance.

  I buckled Sam into the pushchair and we marched down to the village past the big houses and the nice cars; we found the footpath through the woods, to the river, stood on the bank and threw stones to see who could make the biggest splash. “Oh look, tractor. Can you hear the birdie singing?” He fell asleep in the pushchair on the way home, and I paced around the house, unsettled as a cat.

  That evening we did all the normal things, like tea and stories and bath. I told myself that this was what made a home, that doing all the normal everyday things here would make it all, eventually, normal, and everyday.

  After Sam was settled in bed, I made myself a cup of tea and sat on the doorstep. The sun was setting across the fields and the sky was silver-grey and pink. I managed to sit there for about a quarter of an hour, telling myself that it was beautiful, and that I could never have done this in London. But behind me swelled the empty spaces of the house, and in front of me loomed the great empty distances of fields and moorland, and I felt it in my marrow then, how isolated I had made us, how alone I was with my responsibilities. A bird cried, and it startled me; my heart hammered. I got up and went inside, and I locked the door behind me.

  The body lies. In the morning fingertips of sun find her; her skin is almost blue against the white, her spit is frozen into the snow.

  By day, the snow begins to thaw; her curls soften; her eyelashes gather drops of water.

  From time to time there are voices, down below, on the footpath. A dog clatters on the shilloe. Traffic passes on a distant road.

  The sun slips over the hill, the shadows stretch and the temperature plummets. The half-thawed snow crusts itself over with ice. Ice creeps over cold flesh. The body lies.

  MICHAELMAS

  I had my own office, with my name on the door. I was official. I didn’t quite believe in it myself.

  At that first departmental meeting, my legs crossed and hands folded on my knee, I looked round for my colleagues in Creative Writing, both poets, both men, whom I had met at the interview. No sign of them, but the rest of the English Department had turned out in force. I smiled awkwardly as Professor Scaife—a man of luncheon-meat complexion and fine fair hair—introduced me, the new appointment, to the gathering.

  “…wonderful first novel,” he was saying, which was a relief because I’d been worried that he might have read it. “We expect great things of her.”

  I caught eyes with a young Asian woman in a leather skirt and raddled black chenille sweater, and stretched my smile still further; my gaze bumped along and snagged on various other faces, a crumpled-looking chap in jeans and linen shirt who gave me a nod and smile; a ginger-frizzed woman in a green tartan trouser suit; she grimaced at me almost as nervously as I grimaced at her. I realised that Scaife had finished one of those elaborate sentences of his, and was now waiting for me to say something, and so I said, “No pressure then.”

  Which wasn’t particularly funny, but still people laughed, and the meeting moved on, and on. I tried to follow but the discussion was thick with unfamiliar acronyms and references to events and circumstances of which I had no knowledge, and I found myself gazing out at the sunshine, and thinking of Sammy in the nursery, stacking blocks, or running a car along the floor. I hurt with missing him. I hoped he wasn’t missing me.

  We had to carry spare chairs from our offices because there weren’t enough in the meeting room. I ended up wrestling my chair along the corridor with the tartan-trouser-suited woman, who was in the office next to me, and whose name plate revealed her to be Kate Speirs, Professor of Romantic Studies, which sounded pretty racy, I said, and she looked at me blankly and I had to explain what I meant, and she said “Oh, yes, I see. Funny,” and then, “You do know that it means the aesthetic movement, don’t you?”

  I resolved not to try and be funny with her again. “Are the meetings always that long?”

  The leather-skirt woman was lugging a chair past by this point, accompanied by the crumpled guy; he’d brought his desk chair, wh
eeling it casually along with one hand. I liked his thinking.

  “Two and a half hours is actually pretty slick,” the guy said. “I’ve known them to go on for four.”

  “How’s anyone got the time for that?”

  “Well exactly. I’m Patrick Maloney,” he said, offering me his hand, and I shook it. He smiled, which made him look all the more crumpled. “This is Mina.”

  She put down her chair to shake hands too. Her nails were painted dark iridescent blue, and her eyes were lined with liquid eyeliner. She had a sharp undercut, the razed hair beneath dyed turquoise. She was maybe late twenties, early thirties; he was knocking on forty. I glanced from one to the other, decided that they were a couple, that it was a biggish age gap, but not queasily big, and that it was none of my business anyway, and that I was going to like them.

  “You finding your feet okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Did they stick you with the teacher-training course?” asked Mina.

  “My God,” I said. “The reading list!”

  The reading list ran to twelve pages. That was as far as I’d got—to notice how long the reading list was, and feel a bit sick, and not actually go on to hunt down any books or articles.

  “I did the course a coupla years ago,” Mina said. “If you want to crib my notes any time, I’m just down the corridor.”

  “I hope you’re not advocating plagiarism, Dr. Banerjee?” Patrick asked.

  “Just survival.”

  And she gave him a look, and hefted up her chair, and he grinned and swung his around on its wheels, and they went on.

  * * *

  —

  It was sunny so I sat down on the steps in the main square to work. Classes started next week; I’d been appointed to teach students how to write novels. It felt rather like asking someone who’d once crash-landed a light aircraft to train people as commercial airline pilots. I’d didn’t feel I could draw on my own scant and shaky experience, so I’d scavenged together a stack of books about writing books, and was chewing my way through them.

  There was a steady stream of people through the square. Some stayed to sun themselves, study or stare at smartphones on the steps. I read and made notes. Vape and cigarette smoke spooled up into the air.

  Forty or so pages of E. M. Forster in, I took off my glasses and rubbed my eyes. When I glanced round I caught someone looking at me. A young man; a student. I got an impression of a broad, strong-featured face, dark complexion and hair; there was something odd about his eyes. He smiled at me. I raised my eyebrows at him, returned to my book.

  I thought he was still looking at me, but with my reading glasses on I couldn’t be sure. I felt itchy. I found myself turning pages without taking anything in. I slapped the book shut, yanked my specs off and glowered at him. He seemed to consider this an invitation: he got to his feet and ambled over. He was tall, easy in himself. He was dressed like a homeless guy—wrecked T-shirt, jeans falling off him—but when he hunkered down beside me, I could see none of it had come cheap. His beanie had a little North Face label on the edge, and his battered jacket was from All Saints—I spotted their sinister little logo on the breast pocket. Everything about him had the air of being artfully distressed. His eyes were unusually pale, a silvery greyish blue, and difficult to read.

  “Hard at work,” he ventured, with a nod to my books. There was a haze of stubble at his jaw. He shifted from his hunkers to sit down.

  “Uh. Yeah.”

  “What you reading?” He touched the book, tilted it upwards, so that it flopped back towards my chest. He took a sidelong look at the spine. “Aspects of the Novel. Oh you’re doing the MA. Mamet’s more my guy.”

  I could have said, in fact I probably should have said, I’m not “doing” the MA; I’m teaching it. But I just watched as he took a cigarette packet out of his jacket pocket, picked out a cigarette for himself then offered the pack to me. It was hard work not to scuttle off. I made myself look at him. He was almost ugly, but not quite, and even if he was it didn’t matter. I noticed a scar through one heavy eyebrow; I scuffed at the scarred underside of my chin.

  “I don’t smoke.” My voice was dry. I cleared my throat.

  “Wanna start?” He shook the open packet cheekily.

  “No.” I cleared my throat again. “Just, I’ve given up once already.”

  He played with the neat little paper cylinder. The smell of it, dry and papery. I felt a pang of loss, for being twenty-something and still immortal.

  “It’s tough, I know,” he said, “cos actually, funny story, I—”

  “I’m sorry,” I cut across him. “I’ve got so much work here.”

  “Term hasn’t even started.”

  “I—have to get this finished. Sorry.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Okay. No worries. See you around.”

  And he got up and walked away. I watched him go, watched him stop to speak to a girl; he waited while she rummaged and fiddled and clicked and offered up a flame and a smile to him. Her long dark hair slid down her back like a piece of brown silk. They sat down together on the steps, she a slip of a thing beside him, the two of them chatting. Which, you know, is something people do. Normal people. And part of the point of university.

  He was only being—friendly. Wanting to make a connection. He wasn’t to know how easily I bristle.

  I had to do better. Be nicer. Didn’t I.

  * * *

  —

  “Ah, hello there. Could I possibly have a quick word?”

  “No problem.” Though Professor Scaife’s words were rarely quick.

  His most recent book, which I’d scanned in the library, was Bodies/Politics: Textuality and Sexuality in the 21st Century Novel. I’d only had time to read the opening essay (“Penetrating the Body Politic: Ian McEwan’s Saturday”), but it did strike me as odd that someone with such a heightened critical awareness of fictional bodies should seem so blissfully unaware of the actual real-world effects of his own. His presence seemed to tentacle its way into every available space, so that one shrank and sidled and crammed oneself into corners to avoid it.

  There was no sidling past today. I tried a step back, but he moved into the space I’d left, so that I was cornered in a doorway and found myself contemplating his pinkish-purple complexion at close range. I turned to look instead at the track-worn carpet.

  “In my office?” he said, standing between me and his office.

  I peered ineffectually past him, and he moved aside a little, and gestured for me to pass, so I did, getting a whiff of coffee and last night’s wine. He followed me down the corridor, reached past me to open the office door and then, rather than going in, stood there, splayed like a starfish, holding it open.

  “Do have a seat.”

  I had to slide past him again. He sat in at his desk, picked at the computer keys with his long fingers. I perched on one of his seminar chairs. His office was twice the size of mine. He had space for a coffee table, with his own kettle and mugs, as well as a reformed smoker’s ashtray filled with paper clips, drawing pins and treasury tags. He didn’t offer me a coffee.

  “You know we’re very glad to have you here,” he said, curled like a C in his swivel chair, staring at his screen.

  “Thank you.”

  “New blood, just what we needed. You’re considered something of a godsend.”

  “I’m very happy to hear it—”

  “But, unfortunately—”

  Unfortunately?

  “Yes…?”

  They were glad to have me here, I had been considered something of a godsend, but now they’d realised their mistake. If I’d be so good as to pack my things and…

  “Well yes, unfortunately we have hit a bit of a snafu…” he said, blinking his narrow pink-rimmed eyes at me now. “Simon Peters, you remember
him from the interview? One of our poets? Well, he’s been signed off for four months…”

  “Signed off?”

  “By his doctor.”

  “For four months? What’s wrong with him?” I was trying to remember which one of the two panel members Simon was—the one who looked like a whippet and dressed like a mod, or the one who had more of the air of a Shetland pony about him: short, stocky; glowering out from under unkempt hair.

  “I’m afraid that’s confidential.”

  “Of course.”

  “But you see it does leave us in a bit of a pickle.”

  “Mmm?”

  “Well, to put it simply, Simon ran the undergraduate lecture strand. And now he’s off sick, he can’t…” He made a face, as though it pained him to ask, but was at a loss as to what to do otherwise…

  “You want me to do it?”

  “Well, that would be wonderful. That would be such a help.”

  “But I…” am drastically inexperienced, have no idea what I am doing “…don’t know.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you could do it standing on your head. They’re only first-years; they don’t know a thing: they’ll just be impressed to have a novelist in the room. You really are a godsend.” He reached over and patted my arm, like he was applying a sticky label to me.

  “If I talk it over with Simon; see what he used to do with them…That might help.”

  “I’m afraid that he can’t be contacted on work matters, not while he’s on sick leave.”

  I bit my cheek, nodded.

  “You just do your own thing; have a bit of fun with it. Look,” he said, off my embattled frown; he leaned in, elbows on knees, hands dangling, long fingers intermeshing. “The fact is, I hate to give you more to do; you’re just finding your feet, and all that, I understand, I really do; but I’m going to have to ask you to be a bit—flexible, particularly while Simon is unwell. Things will settle down when he’s back.”