by Hazel Holt
I glanced curiously in the direction she had indicated and saw a fair-haired man, in his early forties with heavy horn-rimmed glasses, manoeuvring a portion of hash brown into his mouth while absorbed in what appeared to be a learned journal.
‘Eighteenth-century studies,’ Linda said following my gaze. ‘Very nice.’
When we had finished our enormous breakfasts (‘Oh God, the calories in gorgeous fried egg!’ sighed Linda) we approached Dave Hunter and Linda said: ‘Hi!’
He looked up quickly at the sound of her voice and his face lit up with a smile. ‘Hi,’ he said, rising as best he could in the narrow confines of his booth.
‘Don’t get up,’ Linda said. ‘We just wanted to say hello. This is Sheila, Sheila Malory, who’s joining us this semester.’
We shook hands and Dave Hunter said: ‘I’ve heard a lot about you from Linda. And, of course, I’ve read your books. It was your study of Charlotte M. Yonge that first introduced me to The Daisy Chain, for which I will be for ever in your debt.’
I gave what I hoped was a deprecating smile and said how happy I was to be at Wilmot.
‘A bit nervous, though,’ I added. ‘It all sounds rather formidable.’
‘Oh, we’re a weird bunch,’ he said, ‘some of us weirder than others. But I’m sure everyone will be delighted to see you. Not just because you’re you if you see what I mean, but because we’re all so inward-looking, so involved with each other in the department, that a new face will be very welcome. It will give everyone something else to talk about besides freshman comp.!’
He turned to Linda and said, ‘Which reminds me, guess what Loring’s done now?’
She groaned. ‘Don’t tell me!’
‘He’s agitating for some awful new system of grading. He says that peer review and peer workshops should form part of the fundamental basis of the general evaluation of student work. Furthermore,’ he went on with a certain grim relish, ‘he feels that the individual instructors, while having a fair amount of independence in what they do in the classroom, should all adhere to the guidelines he has laid down in the suggested syllabus—to be drawn up by him, of course.’
‘Oh, God,’ Linda said, ‘I can’t bear it! He seems to think he’s God! What does Rob say?’
‘That it’s a very, very interesting idea,’ Dave said.
‘I might have known that our beloved Chair would be no use. Honestly, Dave, something’s got to be done to stop Loring in his tracks.’
Dave Hunter smiled affectionately at her vehemence. ‘Well, you can count me in for sure, you know that. We must rally the troops.’
‘Well, there’s you and me and Sara and Ted. Do you think that the O’Brien will be so upset at Loring’s empire-building that she’ll come in with us and bring the unspeakable Rick with her?’
‘Maybe. But don’t forget, she might need Loring’s backing for that highly expensive American Lit. conference she wants to impose on us.’
‘Hell, yes.’
Linda suddenly recollected my presence.
‘Sorry, Sheila—all this politicking must be very boring for you.’
‘On the contrary,’ I said, ‘it’s fascinating, like something out of a novel about academic life! Anyway, if I’m going to be here for a couple of months I really ought to know what’s going on in the department. I only wish I had a vote, or however it is you decide these things, so that I could help.’
‘The wretched thing is,’ Linda said bitterly, ‘that not only will we have to fight Loring’s rotten plan, but we’ll have to spend endless extra hours in tedious committee meetings. Anyway, we’d better be going. I want to show Sheila around before my first class. See you, Dave.’
As we went back to the car she said, ‘Dave really is a nice guy, always cheerful and helpful. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have him to sound off to! Poor Dave—his wife died in an automobile accident two years ago and left him with two small children. His mother’s moved in with him and they cope, but he must miss Elaine terribly.’
But, I thought, as Linda drove out of the main street and down towards the river and the campus, it seemed to me that he was beginning to get over his loss. Certainly, the way that he looked at Linda indicated to me, if not to her, that he felt for her considerably more than the respect and esteem that might be inspired by a mere colleague. I looked forward to trying out my theory on Anna.
Chapter Three
Wilmot is one of those small, private, rather prestigious colleges that are to be found in eastern America. Originally specializing in the sciences, because of the proximity of the great Pennsylvania steel works, it now has quite a flourishing humanities division.
We drove through the centre of town and across a handsome suspension bridge over the River Allen and there, along the banks of the river, were these imposing Victorian mansions.
‘Built, of course,’ Linda explained, ‘by the great steel barons at the turn of the century, trying to rival those enormous houses that wealthy New Yorkers built on the banks of the Hudson, I guess. Some of them house the various departments, some are fraternity and sorority houses.’
‘Goodness, yes,’ I exclaimed. ‘Sigma Chi and all that—just like all those college movies!’
We passed an imposing building constructed on classical lines with a great many pillars and architraves, which Linda told me was the library, and (looking sadly out of place in all this architectural splendour) a modern functional block, which was the administration centre.
Linda drew up outside a large Gothic edifice covered with creeper that was just turning colour and slid triumphantly into the one remaining parking space.
‘Here we are,’ she said, ‘this is Brook Hall, where the English Department is.’
Inside, to my surprise (since I had imagined dark gloomy panelling to match the exterior), everything was bright and airy with lots of glass and light wood. Linda’s office was a large room, lined with bookshelves, with (to me at least) several unusual features.
‘Goodness!’ I said. ‘You’ve got a coffee machine, a refrigerator and a microwave! Talk about civilization!’
‘Sure, and look—I’ve rearranged things so that I can reach them all without moving from my desk! Dump some of those papers on the floor and sit down.’
I added a pile of papers from one of the chairs to a larger pile on the floor, sat down and looked about me. The room was crammed with books, files, toppling piles of journals and a large computer enthroned like a monarch on the desk. My eyes wandered around the bookshelves and spotted, with satisfaction, several of my own works.
Linda was sorting through some letters, ripping open envelopes and tossing the contents to one side to join the general confusion on her desk. She gave a cry of triumph.
‘Great! That article I need for the Review has come at last! It should have gone to the printer last week ...’
In addition to all her other activities, Linda is the Assistant Editor of The Wilmot Literary Review. The Editor is the Chair of the English Department (‘a very, very honorary position,’ Linda says bitterly), and although she is forever threatening to give it up, it remains her cherished nurseling and takes up any spare time she may have.
‘Now all I need,’ she said, tossing the article into a folder labelled late late late, ‘is that review from Ross Morgan. He’s on my blacklist from now on. Such a pity, really ...’
‘He seemed such a nice young man!’
I finished the sentence for her—it’s a favourite phrase and has become one of the many jokes we have accumulated over the years.
‘Honestly, Linda,’ I expostulated, ‘how many years have you been editing this thing? I’d have thought you’d have learnt by now, there are no nice young reviewers. Speaking as a reviewer myself, I can tell you we’re an unreliable lot, always putting off until tomorrow what should have been in last week.’
There was a tap at the door and a young woman came in. She was tall with fair, curly hair and a cheerful suntanned face enlivened by part
icularly brilliant blue eyes. ‘Hi! Am I too early?’
Linda looked up.
‘No, that’s fine. Sheila, this is my good friend Sara, Sara Heisick, our mediaevalist, also very sound on the unspeakableness of the Loring creature and the uselessness of Rob Huron. She’s going to show you around and look after you until lunchtime, when I’m free. OK?’
Sara gave me an exhaustive tour of the campus. We peered into the various classrooms, did a quick whizz round the library (‘I’ll bring you back for a closer look when our librarian, Liz Jenkins, is here’), had a nice browse in the college bookshop (which also sold T-shirts, sweaters, baseball caps and—amazingly—children’s bibs, all emblazoned with the Wilmot name and logo), and drove along the river to look at the fraternity and sorority houses.
‘What’s that very handsome building there?’ I asked, pointing to a large mansion in the classical style that stood a little way back from the river on a slight eminence.
‘That’s the Whittier Institute,’ Sara replied. ‘It’s not part of the college, just adjacent. As you can see this used to be a very exclusive estate of mansions that the college bought up one by one to extend its original campus. But the old Whittier mansion was left by Henry Whittier—he was the steel magnate, I guess you know—in trust to house his art collection. So it sits up there surrounded by what are now Wilmot administrative buildings, but pretty aloof in every sort of way!’
The first couple of days passed in a confused blur of impressions of people and places, but gradually I began to find my way about the college and even to recognize some of the people who greeted me. I gave my first classes and they seemed to go down well—at least the students listened attentively, though that might have been just good manners (they were all very courteous) except that they did ask a lot of quite pertinent questions, so I was reasonably encouraged.
At Rob Huron’s party I had met the rest of the English Department. Apart from Sara Heisek and Dave Hunter, both of whom greeted me like an old friend, I also took an immediate liking to Ted Stern (a marvellous little Thurber-like man with a refreshingly sardonic sense of humour) and his wife Susan (large and comfortable, with a cosy manner and a sweet smile which I suspected masked an incisive mind and sound common sense). As Linda had explained, he was partly retired but still taught a few classes in modern literature; she worked several days a week in the library. Sara introduced me to Nora O’Brien, one of those small, formidable women, neat looking and full of energy, who always make me feel like some slow-moving plesiosaur. She looked very Irish, with flaming red hair, and had, I was sure, a fierce temper to go with it. However, she greeted me in a friendly fashion, questioned me briskly about my knowledge of modern American literature, refrained from commenting on the lacunae revealed, and said that she would be interested to hear my views on the early women’s suffrage movement in Britain. While I was still recovering from that she introduced her cousin, Rick Johnson, who had been hovering at her elbow throughout the conversation, and left us to confront each other.
I eyed him nervously. ‘So you teach film,’ I said, adding inadequately, ‘How interesting.’
Taking this feeble comment for encouragement, he launched into a long disquisition on the importance of the moving image in interpersonal communication, or some such thing—after the first few minutes I was hopelessly lost in a wilderness of jargon and could only smile in what I hoped was an encouraging manner and interject, ‘Really!’ or, ‘Goodness!’ at intervals. My interlocutor appeared to be quite happy with this response and would, I imagine, have continued in full flow for the rest of the evening had not Rob Huron, who had greeted me briefly and formally as I arrived, come up and said that he wanted to have a really good talk about the theory of the teaching of writing in British universities.
I regarded the Chair of the English Department with some alarm, having no idea what such a theory might be and, indeed, not at all sure that anyone had ever formulated one. Fortunately, like Rick Johnson, he didn’t really require anything from me but a seemingly attentive ear while he expounded his own theories. He was a tall, heavily built man, almost completely bald, with a weak mouth and a flaccid handshake. I decided that I didn’t particularly care for him and could see why Linda and Sara were so scornful of his ability to control the worst excesses of the Loring and O’Briens of his department.
I collected my wandering thoughts and tried to pay attention.
‘If language is the medium through which we motivate and negotiate actions, then through language we construct and understand our world. Writing, then, is the means by which we understand and control language ...’
My thoughts drifted away again and my eyes strayed round the room. A man had just come in. He was tall and thin with fine, regular features, delicately modelled, indeed a genuine classical profile, with brown curly hair and the most beautiful hands. He moved like a dancer, lithely and with grace. I wondered who he was. Linda had never mentioned anyone as stunning as this!
Rob Huron was asking a question.
‘... Don’t you agree?’
‘Oh,’ I said hastily, ‘most certainly I do. Absolutely.’
I willed Linda to come and rescue me, and like an answer to prayer she came up and said that the Vice-Provost would like a few words and took me away.
Remembering just in time that he was pronounced Pro-vost, I murmured a few civilities and then Linda led me in the direction of the drink. Eschewing a glass of dark brown sweet sherry, which is what Mrs Huron (large and upholstered in navy and white-patterned chiffon) seemed to think ‘all you British’ liked to drink, I gratefully accepted a large vodka and tonic and drew Linda to one side.
‘Who is that fabulous-looking man?’
‘Fabulous? Where?’
I nodded in the direction of the newcomer.
‘Him?’ Linda said. ‘Oh, that’s Loring.’
I gazed at her in astonishment.
‘You never said he looked like a Greek god!’ I said.
‘He thinks he looks like a Greek god,’ Linda said sourly. ‘Handsome is as handsome does, and believe you me ...’
She took a large gulp of her Scotch and scowled over the rim of her glass at the subject of our conversation. As if he had caught her eye, Loring came towards us and extending his hand to me said, ‘I’m Carl Loring. You must be Sheila Malory. Welcome to Wilmot.’
In some confusion I shook his hand and said, ‘Thank you. It’s lovely to be here.’
‘I had hoped to see you before, to welcome you to the department, but I had to go to New York for a few days—the premiere of the new Cherry Orchard—quite the most important version since Komisayjevsky’s seminal production in the twenties, I’m sure you agree.’
‘Of course,’ I said, keenly aware of Linda seething beside me, ‘you teach drama, don’t you?’
He gave me what he probably imagined was a boyish smile and said, ‘When I can snatch time from all the administrative chores that we poor academics are burdened with.’
‘The students all seem very enthusiastic,’ I said, ‘at least the ones I’ve met so far.’
He smiled patronizingly at me and said: ‘Communication, discussion, feedback, that is what teaching is really about, don’t you think? I only wish I could find more time for informal group sessions with the students, but, what with departmental matters—there is so much that needs urgent reorganization’—here he shot a spiteful look at Linda—‘and, of course, I have a crushing teaching load, and with research and writing—right this minute I have a publisher crying out for the update of my Stanislavsky bibliography. Well, you can see how thinly one has to spread oneself!’
‘Oh, absolutely,’ I said. ‘Do you manage to get over to England sometimes?’
‘I’ve been asked to give a few workshops for the RSC at Stratford and at the National,’ he said. I could see what Linda and Anna meant about his ‘preening’. ‘And of course I have a great many dear friends in the English theatre. London is a second home to me. Almost the most ci
vilized place in the world, don’t you feel?’
‘Actually, I rather loathe London nowadays,’ I said, ‘and I only go up there when I have to.’
He gave me a pitying smile. ‘Ah, you live in the provinces. How interesting.’
‘I live in Taviscombe, which is a small seaside town in the West Country,’ I said formally.
‘Sheila is a great friend of Will Maxwell.’ Linda dropped the name neatly into the conversation. ‘You know, the dramatist. And of Oliver Stevens, the film and television director who won that Emmy award last year. They live in Taviscombe, too.’
Carl Loring gave me a tight little smile and said: ‘And of course there is your work, too—quite a little intellectual community!’
‘You could say that,’ I replied.
He smiled again. ‘Well, now,’ he said, ‘if you have any problems here at Wilmot, don’t hesitate to come to me. My door is always open and, however busy I am, I can always find time to lend a helping hand!’
As if to emphasize this fact he stretched out one of his exquisite hands towards me. For a moment I thought that it was some sort of dramatic gesture, then realizing that he was bringing, as it were, the audience to an end, I shook the proffered hand and he turned away.
Linda barely waited until he was out of earshot before she exploded. ‘Ha! Welcome you to Wilmot! Any little problems! Jesus H. Christ, that man is a total, unmitigated creep! Who does he think he is? God? It isn’t even as if he’s Assistant Chair—that’s Dave, by the way—I mean, Goddammit, he’s only been here five minutes ...’
To distract her I said, ‘Who is that marvellous girl who’s just come in?’
She looked towards the door where two young women were standing. One, the smaller of the two, with light brown hair, was dressed in a full-skirted cotton frock in a curiously old-fashioned style that made her look mouse-like and dowdy.
Mind you, almost anyone would have looked dowdy next to the girl who stood beside her. She was tall and slim, with short very blonde hair. The elegant cream suit, which set off her suntan to perfection, was beautifully cut and obviously very expensive, as were her matching cream shoes with immensely high heels. Her long golden-brown fingers were tipped with scarlet and embellished with a large number of what were obviously real diamonds. She looked so fantastic that one couldn’t think of her as another woman, but only as some glamorous creature who had stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine, someone to be admired as a work of art.