Girl Unknown

by Karen Perry

  ‘It’s love,’ he insisted.

  ‘Answer me this,’ I said. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? Why did I have to hear it from Caroline that not only were you dating my daughter but that you two have moved in together? We’ve known each other for twenty-six years, Chris. I would have thought the least you owed me was the decency to tell me to my face.’

  ‘You’re right,’ he said, trying to sound reasonable and accommodating. ‘I should have told you sooner.’

  ‘So why didn’t you?’

  A pause, as if he was trying to find the words. ‘This might sound crazy, but I was afraid that if I talked about it, the spell would be broken. The magic gone.’

  I couldn’t believe it. The guy was talking like he was in a Disney movie.

  ‘From the start, I knew she was special. That first evening, the way we talked, the way we seemed to connect, not just on a sexual level but –’

  ‘No,’ I said, cutting him off. ‘I can’t go there, I just can’t.’

  ‘Okay, fine. I understand that. But the connection we have, the bond, it’s so much deeper than anything I’ve ever experienced before. Even with Susannah –’

  ‘Does she know about this?’ I cut in. ‘Susannah? Have you told her?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Have you thought about how hurt she’ll be?’

  ‘Susannah has it in for me,’ he said, sounding aggrieved.

  ‘She’s going to hit the roof when she finds out,’ I went on.

  ‘You know what, David?’ he snapped, his tone changing. ‘Since Susannah and I split up, I’ve hardly heard from you. Barely a phone call to see if I’m okay. I could have been at home busily killing myself or losing myself in a bottle, and you’d have had no idea.’

  I shifted in my chair, the truth of what he was saying making me uncomfortable.

  ‘Zoë has been the one person to take an interest in my emotional wellbeing since this whole break-up happened. Not you, not Caroline. You ask me why I didn’t tell you earlier? Maybe if you’d been more interested in how I was, I might have confided in you.’

  ‘You’re right,’ I conceded. ‘I should have been there for you, and I’m sorry. But I still don’t think that’s a good enough reason to seduce my daughter.’

  ‘I wish she wasn’t your daughter, but the way we’ve connected, it feels real. It’s not some immature infatuation or midlife crisis. It feels like this is something …’ he struggled to find the right word ‘… inevitable.’

  I hated him then. He seemed so sure of himself. Here he was, one of my oldest friends, trying to conduct a conversation with me in reasonable tones and all the while he’d been sharing his bed with my daughter. My daughter fuelling his blood with desire. My daughter satisfying his flesh. It was too much. I told him I had a meeting, then hung up, dropping the receiver on to its cradle.

  Too distracted to continue reading, I went instead to the common room for a mid-morning coffee. I shouldn’t have been surprised to see McCormack on the couch in the corner – I saw him almost every other day – but I was. He had on a formal suit, not the casual garb he wore for the day-to-day grind of university work. The pinstripes and tie made him look more like a banker than an academic. I noticed his hair had recently been cut and he was freshly shaved. Engrossed in reading from a thick folder, he did not see me approach.

  ‘McCormack,’ I said. ‘You’re a little overdressed for the kind of scrutiny you’re giving those documents.’

  He smiled. ‘Dr Connolly,’ he said, examining his watch. ‘Aren’t you up before me?’

  ‘Up?’

  ‘Interview day. I’m just glancing over my presentation.’

  Two things startled me: interview day, and presentation. Neither made sense to me, but already I was sweating with panic.

  ‘I’ve chosen not to do a PowerPoint,’ McCormack said, ‘I hate the damn things.’

  ‘What are you talking about? The interviews are next week.’

  ‘They changed the date, and added that we should present. It was all in the letter.’

  ‘I never had any letter.’

  ‘Are you sure? They sent one out about two weeks ago.’

  How had this happened? Was it possible that I had received the letter and simply forgotten about it? Or had Caroline picked it up and failed to pass it on? My heart-rate doubled, and my mind began to race.

  ‘I’ve already seen two of the other candidates,’ McCormack said. ‘Barnes from London, and Gillis from Edinburgh. You’re on at twelve. Are you sure you didn’t get a letter?’

  I looked at my watch. It was eleven thirty. I excused myself and ran back to my office. I rang Alan, but the interviews had already started. I explained what had happened to his secretary, Mrs Boland, but she insisted the letters had gone out. ‘By registered post. They were all signed for.’

  I explained that I had not signed for anything, then listened to her rustling among paperwork for a minute or two before she identified what she was searching for.

  ‘Here we are,’ she said, then read out: ‘Signed for by C. Connolly.’

  Caroline. A warm rush of anger went through me.

  ‘Shall I tell the panel to expect you?’ Mrs Boland asked.

  I had little choice but to go ahead. ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘I’ll be right there.’

  It was too late to dash home for a change of clothes. I was wearing an old shirt, a worn pair of corduroys and a jacket that had seen better days. So much for first impressions. I combed my hair, took up my papers, and wondered what on earth I would make a presentation on. My mind went blank. I had to run up the two floors to get to the dean’s office, and when I walked into the room, out of breath, four serious individuals sat at the large oval table before me. Alan was the only one smiling. Acting as chair, he welcomed me and asked me to take a seat. I sat down and poured myself a glass of water. I drank it straight away, parched.

  I made an attempt to explain the lost letter, how I had only just found out that the interview was to take place that day. Alan was sympathetic while the others looked askance, their eyes on my attire. Either way, I’d opened the interview on the back foot with apologies and excuses. It was not the start I had hoped for.

  They asked about my publications, which conferences I had attended recently, if I would consider creating a symposium at UCD for combatants and veterans. Alan smiled his encouragement, but the others were tougher. The external examiner asked about enrolment, post-application conversions for our graduate programmes, possible interdisciplinary degrees that could be developed, and PhD completions.

  I offered some platitudes about a personal-development programme for doctoral students and a mentoring scheme I hoped to initiate. It was bread and butter to me – until the extern asked his next question. ‘That’s all very good,’ he said. ‘But what about the actual retention of your students?’

  All I could think of then was Niki. How she had walked out on me. My star student. He must have found out. Alan would have had to divulge the unfortunate fact of her departure and with it the reasons.

  When it was time for my presentation, I rehashed the last paper I had written on the relationship between Roger Casement’s humanitarian work for the British Crown and his role as an Irish nationalist. Suffice it to say, I did justice neither to the research nor to the subject matter. The questions were routine, until Professor Mary Sinnott took up the reins. She asked about my doctoral work, and brought me back to Belfast. I talked about the Irish Battalion in the First World War, the so-called South Irish Horse, how I had developed my dissertation into my first book.

  ‘And your media profile, Dr Connolly, how does it impact on your contribution to university life?’ she asked.

  I faltered. This is so unfair, I thought. I should have had time to prepare, just like everyone else. The radio interview came back to me, with a flush of shame and irritation. The letter of reprimand was no doubt still being drafted. I waffled, and stuttered, but ultimately re-focused my efforts. I wanted that profess
orship, after all. I talked about the media’s relationship with history through the years – the chasm between ethical reporting and sensational press. A vagrant image of Chris and Zoë entered my mind. My own daughter, living with him. Sleeping with him.

  ‘The position of professor is not just another rung on the ladder,’ the dean said. ‘It is a position of leadership. We’re looking for someone with the necessary charisma and sang-froid not to be rattled in situations of intense or unpredictable pressure.’

  He could not have disguised his disapproval more thinly. I told him I had learned a great deal about pressure in the previous academic year, and how, all things considered, I was learning to use it to my advantage. But that was not true. Look at me now, I thought, struggling to answer these questions, my life falling apart around me. Zoë – taken from me by my best friend.

  I thought of Linda, her last lecture, her Angel of History: ‘From Paradise a storm is brewing, and this storm has so much violence that it catches in the angel’s wings and the angel cannot close those wings. The storm grows in intensity, picks up and propels this celestial being into the future.’

  Alan ended the interview by asking me what history meant to me – what was history?

  A line from Ambrose Bierce came to me: ‘History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.’

  I said something else.

  At home, I asked Caroline about the letter. She was adamant she had not received it.

  ‘You might not have noticed actually signing for it,’ I suggested. ‘You could have been distracted by something else.’

  ‘I’m telling you, David, I never signed for it.’

  ‘It was your signature,’ I insisted.

  We rowed, and she accused me of not believing her, of not trusting her.

  But I couldn’t let it go, my temper flaring. ‘Well, what did happen? If you didn’t sign for it, who did?’

  I asked Robbie and Holly, who both denied any knowledge of the letter.

  ‘It must have been Zoë,’ Caroline said, and I turned away from her, enraged.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ I muttered. ‘Everything is her fault, according to you. Why on earth would she sign your name?’

  ‘Because that’s what she’s like, David. You know it, and I do too. She’s capricious, destructive, cruel.’

  We rowed some more, but it was pointless. Whoever’s fault it was, the damage had been done.

  I waited for an email, a letter, a phone call, but there was nothing.

  In the meantime, my mood plummeted. I felt loneliness come over me – as if, until then, I hadn’t realized how important my mother’s presence in my life had been. She had been taken from me, and so had Zoë. It was a desperate week, one in which the hope for promotion did not diminish but, if anything, heightened. As if the professional advancement could somehow counteract the losses I had suffered personally. To say I was unsettled when Alan finally called me into his office is probably something of an understatement.

  ‘I wanted to follow up with you on your interview,’ he said. ‘An official communiqué will follow, but I’m sorry to say that this time you have been unsuccessful.’

  I sat down. The energy seeped out of me. The extra committee work, the substitute teaching, the journalism and research, all for naught. I couldn’t help thinking it had been a colossal waste of time.

  For Alan to talk to me like that was professional courtesy. But, with the bitter taste of defeat in my mouth, I explained to him how surprised I was about the interview date change, and that I had not received official notice. He told me rather matter-of-factly that these things happen all the time, that the letter had been sent, and that all of the other candidates had appeared, and, besides, he insisted firmly, I had not missed the interview.

  I thought again of what might have happened to the letter, Caroline’s accusations creeping into my head. Had Zoë signed for it, then secreted it in her room, shredding it before she left? Laughing at me. Making a fool of me yet again. Her cruelty echoed and added to how Linda had left me in the dark all those years ago – some inexplicable disdain had been handed down from one generation to the next.

  ‘David, I know it has been a difficult time for you.’ The line between mentor and manager was sometimes a blurred one with Alan. He invited you into his confidence, but I was never sure whether it was for professional motives or personal altruism. It occurred to me that maybe he didn’t know the difference. ‘My condolences again for the passing of your mother.’

  I thanked him.

  ‘This business with your new-found daughter, it must be taxing, not to mention distracting.’

  ‘It’s not entirely pertinent to whether I got the job or not. You know that,’ I said, noticing the deep grooves of age on his forehead.

  ‘The panel was very impressed with your showing.’

  I felt like saying, ‘It doesn’t matter. I wasn’t good enough. No need to sugar-coat the truth.’

  ‘It’s also beholden on me to tell you that they have selected Dr McCormack for the position of professor.’

  Anyone but him.

  ‘We realize that you’ll be disappointed, but for the moment, can I say that your research outputs are strong, teaching and learning are also strong …’

  ‘Why didn’t I get it?’ I asked, although I had a good idea of the answer – I was playing along with this charade of feedback. ‘You can be honest with me.’

  Alan was back at the window. A flock of seagulls swooped by. Behind them, I could see the two red and white Pigeon House chimney stacks at Poolbeg.

  ‘We’re relying on anyone hoping to gain the professorial grade to secure a minimum of external funding each year …’

  ‘McCormack is bringing in more than I am?’

  ‘In a word, yes. I want this to be an ongoing conversation. We don’t have to hash out the whys and wherefores right now.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘David, it’s not the time for those questions, or for disclosing actual figures.’

  ‘You know I’ve been in talks with the Royal Historical Society, who are in the process of securing commercial funding …’

  ‘How is Caroline? How are the kids?’ He hadn’t disguised his desire to sidetrack me.

  I lied: ‘They’re all good, Alan. Tip-top.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ he said, sounding utterly unconvinced. ‘Perhaps you should get away. Take a break.’

  ‘I took a week off after the radio interview.’

  ‘I mean a holiday,’ Alan said, trying to sound upbeat, the words scraping across his throat in a husky cough. ‘A proper one. Abroad.’

  Was the department trying to sideline me, to get me out of the way? ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea,’ I said.

  ‘I have a place in France,’ Alan said. ‘A villa on Île de Ré, not far from La Rochelle. Small but comfortable – a winding road that brings you down to a very quaint village. It’s a place of tranquillity.’

  ‘It sounds idyllic but –’

  ‘There’s enough room for you to bring the family … It’s really rather lovely.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you, Alan, really, but I couldn’t …’

  He suggested July. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘just consider it.’

  There was no point in returning to my office, no point even in remaining on campus. As I packed my bag and locked the door to my office, I thought that, for the first time in my life, the university seemed hostile to me. For years I had been stitched up in the cocoon of academic life, blanketed by the security of tenure, but now, as I walked through the corridors with their tiled floors and characterless breeze-block walls, I felt the hardness of every surface, the smugness of the cliques in their cosy coffee groups. It was like a giant country club that had just refused me membership. What had once seemed a friendly, liberal environment now seemed elitist, unforgiving, archaic.

  I had no intention of
going home. The thought of hanging around an empty house waiting for Caroline to get back so I could give her my bad news just filled me with despair. Instead I cycled into the Dublin Mountains and the Blue Light, where I sat with a pint of Guinness and gazed out over the city, bathed as it was in a great burst of sunshine that had arrived without warning on that May day.

  I was exhausted, and on edge. I felt the torpor of my mother’s death in my limbs. Everything was falling apart. The university had rejected me. My wife was barely speaking to me. I had lost the knack of communicating with my children. And now there was that other daughter – a grandchild my mother had never known – who, despite my best efforts, I had somehow managed to push away.

  I drank another pint, and decided about France. Alan was right. I needed to get away. I needed to sort things out, and gain some perspective. I finished my drink and free-wheeled home to tell Caroline, but as soon as I came into the hallway and rested my bike against the stairs, I knew all was not well. I heard her through the open kitchen door. She was crying.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked, and she looked up from where she sat at the counter, a glass of wine in front of her, tissues scattered on the counter.

  The skin around her nose and upper lip was red, as if she had been crying for some time. A lurching feeling came over me. The children. She must have seen the panic in my eye: ‘No, it’s not that. They’re fine.’

  My heartbeat calmed a little. I approached her nervously. Whatever it was, I wasn’t sure I had the energy for it. Already I was assailed by the feeling that I was somehow at the root of her misery.

  ‘It’s everything else,’ she said.

  Just saying those three words seemed to threaten what little composure she had summoned. She took a deep sip of wine. ‘I’m forty-one years old,’ she said quietly, ‘and on the surface of it, my life is just fine. I’m married with two wonderful children, a comfortable home, friends. So why do I feel utterly useless? Completely expendable?’