“So you think I am hot?” he asked in an accusing tone – sounding more like he was asking if I really called his mum a hooker. Stupid Greg.
I stood there, flabbergasted and unable to take my eyes off him. Little shards of grey were creeping into his brown hair, his shirt was perfectly ironed, his jeans were so-so but he could carry them off with ease… so extraordinarily handsome, so shockingly self-confident. He was examining me, gauging my reaction. I guess if I had been sober the situation might have scared me. But I wasn’t sober and took a deep breath. “Yes, I do think you are hot.”
“So then why don’t you kiss me?”
“Probably around twenty per cent of the worlds’ population would agree that you are hot. It might get a bit disturbing if over a billion people started kissing you on the basis that they found you hot.”
“How do you come to this twenty per cent?”
I was trying to sound unfazed but – Jesus Jones! – NEVER give a random number to a mathematician…
“Eh?… It’s just a rough estimate.”
He looks disappointed by my absence of algorithmic calculations based upon sophisticated models of mathematical probability.
“It includes two per cent males,” I add.
He looks slightly disturbed. “Just bloody kiss me,” he says.
So I did.
As soon as I stepped forward he gripped my lower body and pressed himself against me. After only a minute or so he told me he had to go. He had to catch a plane, flying to Brussels. I didn’t ask what he would be doing there over the weekend, no need; Greg had told me earlier in the evening that he had a girlfriend in Brussels. I didn’t care. I had snogged the probably hottest almost-Prof in the School of Mathematics. Maybe even the hottest academic at the University of Edinburgh?… With a few drinks inside, that feels like an achievement, much more of an achievement than acquiring the desultory PhD that consumes my days.
My life really has come to this; in my mid-twenties I measure achievement in drunken snogs because, sober, I know I am destined to achieve nothing of any significance whatsoever in the science lab which drew me to Edinburgh. That is just a sentence being served. And inmates often turn to narcotic escape and ill-advised sex…
I walked back to the living room, joining the remaining guests. Towards the end of the party Greg was still there, fully integrated with the remaining few chemists and biologists; a surprisingly outgoing and socially skilful guy despite the buffoon socks.
“I snogged your PhD supervisor” I said, trying to sound nonchalant.
“You… you, you did what?”
“I snogged your boss.”
“That’s disturbing,” he said, smiling regretfully.
Logan pops his head into the office, while the autoclave makes a racket behind him. “Eh, I know it is not my business, but you are not going out with those two maths lecturers, right?”
“Noooo!” Lucy and I lie simultaneously and Logan sits down.
“How old is he?” Lucy asks.
“I don’t know, I guess about ten years older, maybe more…”
“So he will listen to a full cricket match on the radio, wearing his first set of orthopaedic shoes while you’re in the full bloom of life?!”
“I wouldn’t call this PhD experience the blooming part of my life. I can’t. There must be better to come, there just must… Please Lucy, come to the party?”
“Hm. One bottle of wine between the two of us before we leave. Deal?”
“Yip.”
“Poor guys,” Logan chips in.
He knows Lucy is a lightweight and will be somewhat tipsy before we even get there.
Lucy goes into the lab and I start to write a message to Alex and Chris, to say we are coming to the Oxford Alumni Party. I am distracted by an email just in from Mark: a new research idea. It has a paper attached, from a large research lab in Canada that did something similar to what I should apparently do now. I notice the Canadian group had at least six people working on the project and in our lab it would just be me. Plus, I only have a year left. I write: Hi Mark,
Thanks for the idea.
I am not going to do it. Period.
I have enough to do.
Best, Karin
After sending the message, my hands start to shake. Did I really just do that?
I am nervous but I can feel my chest bulge with confidence and pride. I know Mark is sitting in his office, with his email box open in front of him. It will only be a matter of minutes – perhaps seconds – till he reads it and storms in screaming. I take my cigarettes out of the drawer and hurry out. The moment I walk down the stairs I hear an office door slamming.
I know it’s him, but I don’t turn round. I am too far down the stairs, he hasn’t seen me, I think. I sit between the chemical containers and smoke a cigarette, overhearing Felix’s colleague, Simon, telling a girl on the other side of the container about every aspect of his single-ball genitals. I listen to this bizarre monologue for a while, to distract myself from what might happen upon my return. He will just shout at you. It’s just words… just words… just words…
Slowly I walk back upstairs and open the door of Lab 262. Lucy is standing at the bench, looking neutral, paralysed, silent – while Mark is red-faced and bellowing at her. He sees me come in and shoots a fiery glare at me, but he keeps his focus on Lucy. This is very unusual. Lucy is not a target. She is not the kind of person to attack or be attacked. Except for her, all Lab 262 inmates – even Barry – retort in some way when Mark verbally assaults us. It might be a weak retort issued purely for form’s sake, but at least we respond. Lucy does not. She stands as if nailed to the ground and swallows every sentence quietly, keeping her large green eyes on Mark. She looks extraordinarily sad. It is touching and horrible and surely unnerving for Mark. I hurry to the freezer in the small side room, take some random samples out and pretend to work. The rant continues for another minute or so and then he closes on me. I know I am next. He ticks his keys on the bench next to where I am working. “You have enough to do?” he asks with a quite calm voice, but shaking his head.
“I have,” I say, as firmly as I can.
“Fine,” he states, and storms out of the lab.
Wow!
The new PhD student, Linn, comes out of the office into the lab as soon as the heavy lab door falls close. “What was that all about?” she asks.
“I haven’t got a clue,” Lucy says shrugging her shoulders.
Nodding at me, she adds, “He was asking where you were and when he couldn’t see you he shouted at me instead.”
“Yeah, I sent him an email… then I hurried out before ‘Mark the Molotov cocktail’ could fly in.”
“What did you write?” Linn asks, very curious.
“I objected to another new research idea he proposed, by writing ‘I am not going to do it. Period.’”
“Could you please let me know next time when you are planning on sending such a thing? So we can all pack up and leave… for a week,” Lucy says, sounding bruised and disgruntled.
“Or we deploy your email replies to Mark to bully project students we dislike,” Linn suggests. “We all make our escape and leave them behind!”
She is smiling; it’s not a serious suggestion but it is seriously dismissive of Mark. Now here is a girl who has learned the ropes fast. “That’s the spirit!” I say.
“I need a drink,” Lucy says, in a defeated voice.
“It’s three o’clock.”
“Who cares! You’re coming!”
“Of course.”
Divide and rule is, of course, the modus operandi of all tin-pot thugs since time out of mind. But Mark is on a hiding to nothing. Lucy and I will huddle in the trenches together. She will stop blaming me for Mark’s attack – she already did the moment I agreed to help her flush down the frustration at a bar. And I will despise him unto death for picking on Lucy.
© Springer International Publishing AG 2017
Karin BodewitsYou Must Be Ve
ry Intelligent10.1007/978-3-319-59321-0_32
Chapter 32
Karin Bodewits1
(1)Munich, Germany
Karin Bodewits
Email: [email protected]
The Oxford University Alumni Party is taking place in the Dynamic Earth Museum, on the edge of the Old Town, close to Holyrood Palace. The doorman smiles kindly while opening the glass door. I am struck by his confident and serene style. He doesn’t look like a man who would ever receive an invitation to the Oxford University Alumni Party, but he does look like a middle aged guy who has made peace with a tough life.
The corridor leading to the reception room is blocked by a group of people who all seem to know each other from their time at Oxford, or at least from the annual Alumni parties in Edinburgh. There is a table next to the door with small, half-filled glasses of champagne – “welcome drinks.”
“I hope that’s not all they have!” I whisper to Lucy much louder than intended.
“I guess they do refills?” Lucy doesn’t bother trying to whisper.
It is seven in the evening and Lucy is midnight drunk.
As promised, we shared a bottle of wine before heading out to the party. Alas, Lucy drank the lion’s share. We had left the lab one and a half hours earlier, bought the wine on the way to Lucy’s flat, changed into fancy clothes, downed the wine and walked to the pub beside the Museum to meet up with Alex and Chris so that we could arrive together. At no point did we eat a morsel.
“If you are going to snog this Alex all evening I’m going home!” Lucy had warned me before entering the pub.
“Don’t worry, Lucy. I don’t think the Oxford University Alumni Party is the sort of place where one does that.”
Alex and Chris were both sitting at the bar, with a glass of spirits. Alex made eye contact with me instantly and I felt myself blushing. Have I regressed ten years?!
“Hi,” he said, smiling warmly.
“Hi ladies,” said Chris more excitedly.
“I bet they learned that during a soft-skills seminar,” Lucy whispered in my ear, not very subtly.
“Double Vodka, girls?” Chris asked. How charming… And how appealing… except that Lucy is already incapable of negotiating road traffic…
“Make it a single,” I said.
We chit-chatted about working at the School of Chemistry, but we avoided talking about Mark. Afterwards, we crossed the street with me keeping a wary eye out for Lucy amid the traffic.
We wade through this remarkably crowded museum corridor, grab a welcome drink and walk through a high door and into a white, sterile and way-too-bright reception room. Even though the room is full of interacting people, there is barely any noise. It’s almost ghostly, as if the rocks of Arthur’s Seat, which loom massively in the large windows, are absorbing all sound.
But there is simply no sound. This is an occasion during which you are expected not to talk at all, or only in the softest and most self-conscious tone – like you do in a church. The people around us look stiff, most unparty-like.
The place vividly calls to mind one of the posh restaurants Daniel’s parents had taken me to a few years before. It too had a memorably white glare and was eerily quiet. No prices were displayed or mentioned. I guess money was no object to their target market but I couldn’t help wondering what an evening like this – wherein you seem to bite your lip as much as the food – would cost. All three dishes on the menu had sounded alien to me, and deeply unappealing. I had finally picked the safest bet, a fish grilled in a layer of mud. I had dutifully toiled through the meal. By the time I had finished it I felt like a two-year-old after an open-mouthed full-face dive in the sandbox. In the car on the way home I had tried my best to get rid of the grains of sand between my teeth while Daniel’s family discussed how wonderful the restaurant had been. It was one of those evenings when I was happy to be a misfit in Daniel’s family.
Tonight is just as posh, with Alex and Chris both wearing smart suits. Both of them are soon inveigled into sotto voce conversations with old friends. I am standing with Lucy, whose alcohol intake is alarmingly obvious in her posture.
“I need to go to the loo, please behave, okay?” I say.
“Of course,” she says and laughs loudly as if this is the most ridiculous request ever.
The noise of her laughter bulldozes through the silence of the room. Numerous eyes turn to us, less than approvingly, as if laughter at a party suggested a dubious presence. Yikes, what a bunch of stiffs!
“They’re all watching you now,” I say to Lucy, and head to the bathroom.
On my return I notice the time on the huge design clock in the middle of the room; nearly eight but my stomach says it’s late evening – it hasn’t seen food since eleven this morning. My body starts to send out alarm signals: disorientation, sweating and cramps in my belly. I know too well that I’m suffering from low blood sugar – it happens often these days – and it kicks in sharp with no warning at all. A few weeks ago I felt a murderous rage towards a waiter at a bar when my sugar level dropped. It had taken him over ten minutes to bring me a packet of crisps – hardly a capital crime. Vlad had joked nervously with the waiter, “If I were you, I would bring it to her now. Otherwise I’m afraid she will do something ugly to either you or me.”
I know I need something to eat very quickly or I will keel over from the dizziness.
I scan the room for Lucy. I was only away for two minutes but inevitably she has been captured, by a handsome young guy. I might have taken him home without question, but Lucy looks utterly bored.
“I need food,” I say, pulling on her arm and cursorily acknowledging the dude.
“Okay.”
“I will bring her back to you later,” I say to Mr. Gorgeous.
“Oh, please don’t. He is boring!” Lucy says way too loud with her back towards him.
“She’s not coming back, I’m afraid,” I say.
“Got that,” Mr. Gorgeous says.
I push her to the single table at the back of the room, next to a door leading to a kitchen; it has canapés…
“You think we can eat that?” Lucy asks and looks to me, only to see that I am already snacking.
“Why not?”
“Looks like it is for the waitress to pick up and take round the room.”
“Possibly. But she’ll live, and I feel like I won’t.”
I shove pastry after pastry down my throat. Ladylike, it is not. Lucy starts to eat too, but in a much more gentile style. I don’t even taste the food, I just cram it in like fuel – which, right now, it is for me.
After we finish at least a quarter of the food on the table, Chris approaches us.
“Are you girls okay?” he enquires, looking concerned at the plate we just sort of raped.
“Just getting the most out of the entrance fee you paid for us!” I smile.
He’s brought the louche common girls into the inner sanctum, but he can’t suppress a smile. “I see.”
“Is there really nothing more to drink than the tiny glasses of champagne at the entrance?” Lucy asks in a tone suggesting Chris go and remedy the drinks deficit right now.
She is holding a piece of bread with cheese in one hand, and toast with caviar in the other. She looks like Lady Muck gone right.
“I’m not sure,” Chris says.
He seems to realise he has brought us to what we think of as the dullest party ever. “Are you not thirsty?” Lucy blurts out.
“I’ll find a waiter and see if we can get something more to drink.”
He goes off to forage for alcohol and I say, “Let’s get away from here, before we get dirty looks for eating all this food.”
Just as Chris is returning with two fresh glasses of champagne, a female voice fills the room, demanding everyone’s attention. When we all obediently line up in front of her she informs us – in Wikipediot style – about the history of the Oxford University and how excellently it is performing in international university rankings.
>
The whole rankings thing pushes my buttons these days: I don’t believe in any sort of rankings anymore, not since the start of my PhD – it’s all bare-faced whitewashing, marketing drivel and damnable statistics. Like Oxford, the University of Edinburgh is ranking incredibly high internationally; even the chemistry department is doing well. Often as not, it means zip.
Lucy signals towards the back of the room. Two waiters are engaged in a frantic discussion about a half-eaten plate of food. I try to suppress my laughter but it escapes as a loud snorting noise. Again, Lucy and I are the focus of attention for a few seconds.
The lady holding forth with the microphone tells us how much Oxford University relies on donations from the alumni network. For half an hour she explains very precisely all the possible ways in which we can donate money to Oxford University. She closes with the assurance that she will still be here until the end of the party, which is in half an hour or so, should anyone have any question regarding the fascinating subject of funding for Oxford University. And she wishes us a lovely evening.
“It’s finishing in half an hour?” Lucy is incredulous.
“Apparently so,” I say.
“But we have been here less than an hour! What did they pay for our tickets?”
“Don’t know. Twenty pounds? It’s a very hardnosed fundraiser, and bloody far from the leisurely cognac-drinking romantic time I wanted!”
Lucy pauses for thought, then smiles, “Good we ate all the snacks!”
Slowly, the people spread over the room again and have quiet, superficial chats. Alex is standing far away from us and, for the third time this evening, is being approached by a particular middle aged female with reddish hair. The lady is gesturing wildly, obviously telling him something that excites her. I am too far away to overhear what she is saying and I cannot discern if Alex is greatly enjoying the conversation or is supremely bored by it. I wonder how he feels being so attractive to so many different women spanning generations? Maybe it’s like sharing a bed with one girl one day and her mother the next? I’m not actually sure if he shares his bed with middle aged women. Somehow I suspect he does.
You Must Be Very Intelligent Page 29