while it becomes very distracting. Might as well have the next word.
When I knock, all activity in the room comes to a halt.
“Sir? Professor Corvin? It’s Anna Lieberman. Your next door neighbor? May I have a quick word with you, sir?”
There is more silence, and then a cough, which I decide to interpret as a permission to open the door and peek in.
“Get out! You have no right! No one has the right to—”
Quickly I beat my retreat, more stumped than ever by the choleric fossil ensconced next door. Literally. I couldn’t see much, but he seems to have built himself a small fortress out of boxes and piles of books, with a corner of an air mattress and a sleeping bag visible behind it. A kettle, mugs and plate on a stack of old journals, and a row of instant soups.
“Hi, Tessa! All set for the next semester?” I stick my head into Tessa’s office, where she and her colleague Mel are quietly chatting. “Listen, I just tried to speak to Corvin, but…nothin’ doin’. Does he sleep in his office now?”
They look at each other and shrug. “Like, overnight, you mean?”
“Yes, he seems to have a sleeping bag in there and a kettle and cup noodles.”
Mel whistles and makes a circling movement with her finger next to her temple. “Not that I haven’t pulled the odd all-nighter in here,” she admits. “But I’m not Methuselah.”
“Hmm. And Selena? Have you seen her today?”
This is a far more loaded question, and I get a sense that this had been the subject of their conversation.
“Why?” Mel asks.
“Why? As in, ‘Sooner or later I may or may not answer your question’?”
Tessa hastily jumps in. “No, we haven’t. But we both enrolled in your class on Paradise Lost, so she should be there tomorrow, if you want to speak to her.”
“I do want to speak to her. If you see her, please ask her to come and see me. It’s urgent.”
The little impromptu birthday celebration for Ma Mayfield is embedded in the semester opening finger-food-and-wine-with-classical-music, and I gather from Yvonne that the idea is simply to claim everyone’s attention at some point, sing “Happy Birthday” and hand over our present. Dean Ortega was informed of this plan and indicated that she would also say a few words, but on the whole the occasion is to be kept low-key and informal.
“No one will want to make a song and dance about anything today, what with…the news,” Yvonne says, a little piqued, on our way across to Rossan House.
“Did Louise speak to you?”
“She did.”
“About the file?”
“She didn’t catch your name, but she had Giles Cleveland’s card, and—well, you’re not all that difficult to describe, Anna.”
“Giles found the file among the jumble in my office. He had heard of the incident, but he didn’t know the file was in the folder till I told him that Nick was called Eagleson before he married. I couldn’t tell you, Yvonne, I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right. All for the best, probably. You felt you had to be loyal to Giles.”
“Of course, and I am, but why…what’s your point, Yvonne?” I stutter.
Now I get a long, significant stare over the blue rim of her eyeglasses.
“Well, if there’s no point to be gotten, maybe there’s no point to be made,” she says with a shrug. “After all, it’s none of my business what you and he were doing driving round Shaftsboro together at Christmas, when you told you me you were flying home.”
“Look, I can—” But I can’t explain.
Yvonne, seeing my mortification, relents and quickly touches my arm.
“Don’t worry about me. But take care, honey.”
To begin my second semester at Ardrossan with a clean(ish) slate, I follow Elizabeth Mayfield to her office after the lunchtime gathering and ask her for ten minutes of her time. She was more touched by the crystal bottle than she cared to show, and I apologize for what I am about to tell her.
“It can’t be worse than having a colleague arrested for rape, can it? Go on.”
So once again I relate my version of Selena’s story, omitting only the razor blade with pubic hair in it and the scene involving Giles, Hornberger, myself, and awkwardly placed pantyhose.
“There is a great deal of hearsay and surmise in all this, Anna.”
“I know. That is why I didn’t come to see you sooner. And I want to make clear that I am not reporting anyone. Technically, she has committed acts of vandalism, but—”