Alchemy

by Maureen Duffy

  I have to get back on the case again, stop this retrospective show filling my head with its private view of old horny, porny images. I have to answer Wessex’s offer of a place. Galton will pay, he says, so nothing should hold me back apart from this lethargy of ancient lust. To work, Jade. Decide where you’re going to put yourself, in English or in history. Ranee or Daniel. Maybe Daniel would be safer. Remember you’re looking – for what? Something to strengthen Galton’s case if he insists on going to tribunal. He wants revenge, his name cleared, damages I suppose, not, surely, reinstatement.

  I email my acceptance and put myself down for the history department. Only a week to go and I’m legitimate. I can swan up to the gates any time and flash my credentials. The phone rings suddenly. Someone’s offering me a surprise job, rescuing their house sale from nasty hidden conditions, rights of way they’d forgotten about, a whiff of subsidence that will keep me out of mischief for a few days until Galton’s little problem claims me back. Then there are the Gaos I’ve been neglecting shamefully and the Crusader gathering dust on the ground floor, her engine oil coagulating until she seizes up on me. I get into my leather gear and go downstairs. As I kick her into life I feel that old pathetic fallacy: the promise of spring even in the Waterloo Cut, growing stronger as I head south where forsythia and almond are beginning to make the best of suburban gardens.

  ‘– If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?’ as the man said.

  Two days later an instruction pack thuds through my letter box with more details of courses, staff, a plan of the buildings, an acknowledgement of the fee, the registration procedure, rules, no smoking, no games, no jogging, circumspect clothing, no sunbathing or even semi-nudity, and finally the pass code to the gates. ‘We have suffered in the past from unauthorised intruders who have particularly alarmed female students and staff to the point where we have been forced to install security systems and identity cards. Never lend your card to anyone else or allow it to be copied. The system will recognise not only your identity number but the photograph which we have asked you to supply three copies of.’ And Galton thought it was all because of him. The nearer I get to Wessex the thinner his case seems. Maybe they had reason to see him as a real threat to their legal duty of care with his flaky ideas and weird arrogance.

  I pick out student parking on the plan. How long will it take me to find out all I need? A month? More? I’ll have to accept Galton’s retainer if I’m to keep the bread on the table. That’ll make him happy. He’ll think again that he’s got me. Then he’ll be so surprised if I just turn and walk away, saying what I’ve seen of the background isn’t enough to justify a demanding letter, let alone go to tribunal with.

  Riding the M3 on the first morning I feel a kind of apprehension as if I’m really a student again, a green fresher who doesn’t know the drill, as if I’m up for inspection, not Wessex. And then, when I swipe my card, I’ve keyed in the number, and I hear a click of recognition from the gates that give to my push against them, apprehension is replaced with a kind of exhilaration. I’ve done it. I’m in. I consult the map again and push the Crusader towards the parking bay for cycles and motorcycles. ‘No cycling in the grounds.’

  Arrowed signs direct me to registration. I chain up the Crusader and padlock my helmet in the pannier, smelling faintly of chicken noodles and spring rolls, along with my leathers and boots. I don’t want to frighten the horses. Not yet. I join a stream of carefully dishevelled yet somehow fresh-skinned young women and men, suddenly feeling old. What did we call mature students in my day: the wrinklies?

  At registration my credentials are all checked again and under the heading: History on the notice board I find a timetable for interviews by the head of department and the name that’s now mine, L. J. Cowell, Lucy, down for 10.30. So I shall soon meet Daniel, who was so keen to have me as you might say. I consult the plan in the registration pack and head off to the history department.

  I both see and hear at once that Daniel Davidson is a handsome cafe-au-lait Afro-American as he gets up from his chair behind his desk, stretches out his hand to shake mine and says the ritual, ‘Welcome to Wessex, Ms Cowell. We hope you’ll be very happy among us and be able to take full advantage of all we have to offer.’

  I shake his hand which is dry and slightly scaly to the touch. ‘I’m sure I shall, Dr Davidson.’

  ‘Now tell me more about your project. Are you sure it would not sit better in an English discipline?’

  ‘To be honest with you I’m not sure. But then, presumably I can switch if we both feel it would be better environed elsewhere, from the point of view of the research of course.’ I smile, in what I hope is a disarming way, though I may just look like a crocodile about to snap shut.

  ‘So.’ He puts the tips of his fingers together and leans back in his chair like a professional, imperturbable psychiatrist about to hear some startling revelation. ‘Your subject “cross-dressing and the Jacobean stage” isn’t new. Do you not think the ground has been well gone over in the past? There’s Spinks for instance. You will realise I felt I had to do a little research on my own account, get up to speed if I am to mindfully oversee your thesis.’

  ‘Yes but Spinks writes from an exclusively male viewpoint. I feel that the female perspective has been both overshadowed and neglected.’

  ‘As is so often sadly the case. As too with any black perspective.’

  ‘Of course. The two so often go side by side if not quite hand in hand.’

  ‘That would be good to see would it not? Eve and the Hamitic people in union. It brings us of course to the vexed question: ‘Of what colour was Adam?’

  I don’t quite get the ‘of course’ but decide to play along with his train of thought even though we seem in one short leap to have got a long way from Shakespeare’s boy-girls. Maybe this is some trick question that determines whether you’re in or out.

  ‘Well the latest theory says that Eve came out of Africa so presumably Adam did too.’ I’d like to add ‘otherwise we’d have to wonder what Mrs Noah had been up to,’ but bite my tongue. Something tells me this bit of flippancy wouldn’t go down well, and the next minute I’m sure.

  ‘Ah, but we don’t have truck with the latest theories at Wessex. We rely on The Word. Such pseudo-scientific theorising can be very dangerous, especially to young minds.’

  I hear the capital letters round The Word. Tread very softly, Jade.

  ‘Unless,’ Davidson goes on, ‘you locate the Garden of Eden and therefore the act of creation in Africa. After all The Word is not specific about its location and the old land of the chosen people may be seen as the extreme north of Africa rather than the south of Asia. Egypt where the people were enslaved was, is, Africa.’

  Count the angels on the point of a pin. My heart which had been quite cold towards Dr Alastair Galton and his supposed woes, is warming up fast. If this is history as taught at Wessex I can see why he would have been unable to resist sticking a needle into this hot-air balloon and watching the whole thing collapse. And if this is history as taught at Wessex what must the theology department be like?

  ‘Indeed,’ I nod. ‘Then there is no necessary contradiction between the two.’

  ‘When in doubt go back to The Word. You will always find the correct answer. It may take a little teasing out by our finite human minds but it is surely there. However we seem to have strayed somewhat from your thesis into deeper waters. I think we have arrived at the point of a mutual trial. I like what I hear of your thinking, Ms Cowell. We must talk some more soon.’

  I am being dismissed. I stand up. ‘Thank you so much for your time, Dr Davidson. I’m sure we shall get on just fine together.’ I reach for the hand again that now seems to have a distinct feel of the mummy about it.

  Maybe I’ve made the wrong choice of supervisor. The dean had suggested that I saw both Davidson and Raval when I arrived and I’ve jumped the gun and gone for the prophet Daniel. But I can always change my mind though Davidson with his promisingly
whacky, yet at the same time potentially frightening, ideas seems just where I need to be. Why do I feel this gulp of apprehension? As if I wasn’t going home at the end of the day. As if something stifling might settle on me and hug me to death.

  The students are milling about the corridors like any other kids of their age, even those who seem slightly older than usual, like me. Hard to tell in the ubiquitous jeans, trainers and baggy or fitting tops who’s meant to be ‘mature’. It’s a warm spring day and I can see through the long windows, students sitting on the grass in groups, gossiping and swigging from water or soft-drink bottles. Don’t let your imagination run wild, Jade. All may indeed be as nice as Apple-pie Molders who is presumably shut in familiarly with her boss, the dean, or juggling with the computer in her office, not mingling with the plebs.

  My wanderings have brought me to the octagonal chapel. I try the door but it’s locked. No question then of popping in for a quiet word with whomever. Then I realise there’s a CCTV monitor above the door and wonder what holy gesture I can make for its benefit. Somehow I feel genuflexion or crossing myself would be a bad mistake. I settle my face into an expression of disappointment and turn away sighing.

  Mary-Ann Molders told me the chapel was always open. Why should she lie about that? I’ve nearly reached the end of the corridor when I hear voices behind me: faint voices. A group of students streams past, nodding and smiling at each other. ‘Brother! Sister!’ are all the words I can make out. Perhaps that’s all they’re saying. I don’t need to look behind me to know they’ve come from the chapel and now I remember Molders telling me that it’s locked during, what was the word she used? Not services. Gatherings. That’s what they call them.

  I remember my nana, Linda’s mother, singing a hymn from her childhood at the Band of Hope on Sunday afternoons in Gateshead: ‘Let’s all gather at the river.’ Then there was the miracle of the loaves and fishes in the Bible, that I studied in RI, a soft option for GCE as it was then, the fragments gathered up into baskets enough to feed another multitude. Then there was something about two or three gathered together in my name. There are plenty of precedents even I can think of for ‘Gatherings’.

  The theologs, for that’s what they must be, are ahead of me now as I deliberately dawdle. They said a polite ‘excuse me’ as they went past with lowered eyes like nuns are supposed to do. Inseparable from the other students in their uniform clothes; mixed colours, shapes and heights.

  The chapel doors must be soundproofed since I hadn’t heard a murmur from inside. Or perhaps the entire service, if you could use the word at all, was conducted in silence, just meditation like Quakers and Buddhists.

  Suddenly I’ve had enough of my own pretence and the subtly oppressive atmosphere of the place, as if the very buildings are waiting for something only they can foresee. Was it always like this when the well-behaved Anglican girl teachers in training were here, I wonder, as I make my way out to the parking lot, get into my kit, release the Crusader and wheel her towards the gates. Then I’m astride, kicking her into life, feeling her throb under me. I gun the engine and roar off up the road, not caring if the CCTV picks me up as I feel the power of what, I’m sure, the denizens of Wessex would see as my devil’s machine. I laugh out loud inside the mask of my helmet at the access of freedom and the simple joy of speed.

  My phone is ringing as I climb the stairs. It’s Galton of course, wanting to know how I got on.

  ‘I signed up with Daniel Davidson, history.’

  ‘I hope you weren’t swayed by any notions of political correctness.’

  ‘You mean because he’s brownish?’ The guy is irritating me already.

  ‘Exactly.’

  I resist the impulse to point out that the alternative is probably brownish too.

  ‘If you have so little faith in my judgement, Dr Galton I suggest I abandon your case.’ I’m tired of having to use this kind of blackmail on him but there comes a point where however much he’s paying me it can’t compensate for his smug interference or faintly veiled suggestions that I’m incompetent. I smell the misogynist in him. I want to ask if he’s married but I’m pretty sure what the answer is. What woman would put up with his patronising manner unless she was desperate for a home and children and didn’t care what price she had to pay. She could always divorce him later.

  ‘So what comes next, Ms Green?’

  ‘I spend some days there. Suss the place out. See what I can dig up. Whether anyone’s prepared to be a witness for you. Meanwhile I’m preparing a brief and looking into the exact procedure for bringing a case before the relevant tribunal.’ I want to add: ‘Is that enough for you? Do you feel you’re getting your money’s worth?’ but I don’t. I’m mindful of the quarter’s looming rent day and the interest on the bank loan. The way we live now, hand to mouth as my parents would see it, with the kind of debts and insecurity that would have terrified them.

  ‘That all sounds excellent. So I can take it we have a contract?’

  I can’t hold out any longer. It would be unrealistic since I’m taking so much of the guy’s dosh. ‘I’ll draw up a letter of agreement for us both to sign.’ This is how girls must have felt in Amyntas’ time when they were married off by contract to boost the family fortunes, to men they had to learn to love or rub along with, at least.

  Suddenly I’m tired, too tired to turn out for the Gaos. I ring. Mary says the nephew will be glad of the money. I slip down to the corner for a mushroom pizza, open a bottle of red and settle myself with the memorial. I feel I’ve lost sight of Amyntas in the excitement of Wessex. Maybe he’s got something to tell me, a clue I can tease out, that will lift my spirits and set me back on the scent.

  That Christmas we were merry again as we had been my first year in my lady’s service. All was as before. The country gentry came to pay their respects. There was feasting and dancing in which I led out my lady. The peasants came again with their play of St George and the Turkish Knight and sang us wassail. Dr Gilbert went as before to his own people in Devon so there was none to disturb my peace, and now I knew the customs of the great house I was able to avoid those occasions which might bring danger. Besides I sat so easily now in my role as Amyntas that I could scarcely believe I had been born Amaryllis. The young lords and the Lady Anne were away, the earl being still in disgrace at Sir John Harington his house in Exton with his uncle Sidney, back for the while from his duties in Flushing. All seemed as if such a simple life might last for ever as my lady and I tended the sick, I continued with the electricals and with stocking of the dispensary and laboratory with all remedies we might need.

  From time to time I sent my results of electrical experiments to Dr Gilbard, still on my father’s behalf and he wrote back when his duties allowed him, glad that my father was eager to pursue those matters he no longer had time for as one of her majesty’s physicians.

  If my lady was weary of this life she did not show it but seemed entirely content. Little did I know that the hourglass was almost run out and such days would never come again. Then came more evil news from her castle of Cardiff that had us hurrying to furnish horses and carriages for the long journey on foul ways and in foul weather. No sooner had she set out than the wind changed to the northeast bringing such bitter frost and snow as none remembered before. I had no time to grieve for my lady’s absence for I was kept busy ministering to the whole house where almost everyone was sick, with none but a boy, Robin, to help me, for Dr Gilbert could not stir from Devon. Robin was willing enough yet he knew little more than to stir the fire or the pot when bidden.

  When the weather grew kinder I rode into Salisbury for the ingredients to make antimony which in small doses may be efficacious against rheum and flux. In the market I bought a broadsheet with an account of the splendid audience at court which her majesty had granted to the new ambassador from Venice, the first that had come to our country in all the queen’s reign, she being then at Richmond and dressed for the occasion as rich as any empress in the history of th
e world for, as the paper told it, she was arrayed in silver and white taffeta trimmed with gold, an imperial crown on her head and her person studded all with gems, as rubies, diamonds and great pearls the size and smoothness of small birds’ eggs, which jewels threw back the light from a thousand candles. The paper also told how she had reproached their ambassador for his tardiness in paying his respects, saying that it could not be her sex that had fathered this discourtesy: ‘For my sex cannot diminish my prestige, nor offend those who treat me as other princes are treated.’ And by this I understood her to say that it was not the sex that made a prince but the prince who might honour her sex and that we might all be what we will if we have the skill and strength to command the world.

  This I sent on also in my next packet of letters to Cardiff as I waited for news of how the countess did in this bleak weather and if her spirits held up as well as her majesty’s. Yet the next news that came to me told a different story in a letter from my lady’s sister at Richmond. The queen’s cousin, the Countess of Nottingham, had been struck down by the continuing bad weather and the queen who had loved her and leant upon her, could not be consoled. Ill humours let in sickness in their turn. Had I been present in such a case I would have tried to lift the spirits with physic, as syrup of fumitory or viper’s bugloss yet it was said that her majesty would take none. She was feverish and could not sleep but lay upon her cushions in deepest melancholy. Her heart, she said, was sad and heavy.

  Now she began to refuse food, yet even so her coronation ring by which she held herself wedded to her people had to be sawn off for it had grown into the flesh, betokening perhaps a dropsy as her father King Harry died of, some said. My lady’s sister wrote that all at court were in fear that she could not live and some were eagerly making court to King James of Scotland as if she were already cold, and hastening north. When I took myself again to an alehouse in Salisbury city I saw nothing but long faces, men sitting silent or speaking in whispers of what might come upon us if the queen did not rally. Yet we knew she was mortal and must die like all mankind since the world began. Then I wrote quickly to my lady and sent word with a groom on our fastest horse in case the news of the queen’s decline had not come to Cardiff.