world. The characters in Shakespeare’s comedies escape from civilization into the green world of the Athenian forest, or the Forest of Arden, or the Welsh mountains. The forest is a place for metamorphoses, for playing out the impulses of the subconscious. If I could metamorphose, what would I choose to be?
I float on my blanket next to the big patch of blue-violet flowers I have discovered for this purpose (must pick one and ask a Walsh what they are) and squint up against the glistening emerald ceiling overhead.
I am a squirrel. Dashing around with inexhaustible energy, gathering a fat hoard of publications. Books like brazil nuts, articles like hazelnuts, reviews like sunflower seeds. A nice, nourishing portfolio to keep me alive.
Or maybe I should be a bird. One that builds its nest out of the twigs and grass it collects all day long. I’m trying to build my nest, aren’t I?
A bed of moss. Dark green, heavy moss. Soft, for something warm and furry to lie on. Rest on. Sleep.
A plot of land. Just…a measure of earth. Heavy. Just heavy and still. And little gray-furred creatures would burrow into me and I would hold them safe, and we would sleep.
I should go to bed without checking my email again, but of course I can’t. There is an email from Debbie Crocker, my friend and co-editor in England, and because I feel guilty, I decide to call her. Debbie’s day is structured by the feat of combining a full-time job in the English department at Bristol University, marriage and motherhood, and since it is now late afternoon in England, she is probably at home.
This is the second English voice I have heard today. Familiar, of course, this one, with its hard Mancunian consonants, and something in my chest tightens. I do miss my friends, but I can’t afford to miss them.
“Hey—hello! Dave!” she shouts up the stairs. “It’s Scarlett O’Hara!”
“I thought I’d let you shout at me for slacking on the collection. I’m sorry, Deb, but right now—”
“Well, yes, I certainly hope you are sorry—new job, new town, new house, that’s no reason to stop working on Our Book ten hours a day, now, is it?”
“Thanks,” I breathe, grinning. “I’ll get back on it as soon as I have an afternoon, okay?”
“I’ve told them to expect the manuscript by April.”
“April? We can easily manage sooner than that!”
“Fine, then we’ll finish it sooner. But if we don’t, we don’t. You have more important things on your plate now.”
“Debbie—”
She cuts me short. “So, Ardrossan…what’s it like? Private, eh? Plummy and posh?”
“Private, yes. I know you disapprove of that, but that’s how it works over here.”
“Does that mean you get all the snooty youngsters with a sense of entitlement as big as mummy’s hair and daddy’s bank account?”
“Entitlement is always a problem. But it isn’t just rich kids. If you’re poor and bright, you’re more likely to get a good deal at a top private place; if you’re a poor kid who can hit a ball really well, you’re more likely to get it at a top public place.” I simplify the matter to make it comprehensible to a foreigner.
“And the colleagues? Friendly?”
“Well, I…I can’t really say yet.”
“But you still think it was the right decision.”
I know what she’s driving at, so I get a beer from the fridge, sit down on the back porch in the rays of the setting sun, and watch the light and the wind play with the leaves of the poplars.
“To be honest, today was a little rough. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t the right decision, though.”
“Do you want to tell me what happened?”
“No, it’s—my office is next to this weird old fogey’s. One of those unhinged people you walk past quickly in the street, or try not to sit next to on the subway. Not just unhinged, but aggressive. And of course I can’t really ask anyone, ‘Hey, who’s the crazy loon in the office next to mine’? What if he’s the revered emeritus who has been allowed to keep an office in recognition of his services to the department? I’m trying not to step into more cow pats than absolutely necessary.”
“Yes, by all means stay out of the cow pats. But the fogey isn’t important, is he?”
“Nah, shouldn’t think so. Just aggravating.”
“Oh, Anna…” She sighs.
“Oh, Anna what?”
“Only, the American tenure system sounds so brutal to us, that’s all. If you’d stayed and accepted the job at Portsmouth, you’d be happily publishing away now, free to apply elsewhere