The Ecliptic (15 page)

‘But it won’t be the same,’ I said.

‘She’ll be missed, of course. But you’ll get used to it.’

‘No, sir, I mean this whole place is going to change. For everyone.’

‘I don’t follow.’

‘You’re putting a cap on how long we can be here. If our sponsors die, that’s it, time’s up. Doesn’t matter if we’re finished or not, doesn’t matter if
we’re still struggling. It’s going to change the way we work. You might as well start putting clocks up on the walls.’

He looked at me, his good eye half on the rain. ‘I said I wouldn’t discuss specifics.’ He rose quickly, carrying his cup. ‘Come on, Naz.’ The dog stayed where she
was.

‘Word gets around this place, you know.’

‘MacKinney’s case is an anomaly. That’s all I can tell you.’ He slapped the side of his shoe with his cane. ‘Nazar, come on now. Breakfast.’ The dog followed.
‘Please make an appointment next time,’ he told me.

Customarily, a notice was pinned to the bulletin board outside the mess hall to announce a resident’s departure. The provost would often include a quote to inflect the
notice with a degree of sentiment (something like, ‘His high endeavours are an inward light that makes the path before him always bright’) but some guests left without any such
kindnesses.

The four of us paid no attention to arrivals, but departures were a different matter. It could be depressing to watch guests leaving while our own work remained unfinished. So we took a
particular interest in the provost’s notices when they sprang up, because they kept us attuned to the prospect (however distant) of our own departures. We imagined how our announcements might
be worded when the time finally came:

We held these dreamed-up notices in our minds, tinkered with the phrasing daily, sharing them in moments of self-doubt. Like our
jetons
, they were gestures to the future. They kept us
striving, grafting, exploring, when no end was in sight. We worked hard every day to ensure that the truth would reflect our fantasies by the time we came to leave. So finding MacKinney’s
actual notice on the bulletin board that morning felt like sabotage.

A few of the short-termers were huddled around it, in discussion. I nudged them aside to get a closer look. I read it four times, stunned by the phrasing of it at first, then nauseated by it. I
thought of the provost in his study, winding the paper into his typewriter, arching his fingers to punch out every last untruthful letter. There was no mention of Mac’s sponsor, no hint of
anything irregular.

‘Is it Matthew Arnold?’ said Gluck, behind me.

‘What?’

‘The quote. I think it’s Matthew Arnold.’

‘Great. That makes everything so much better. Excuse me—’ I pushed past him.

‘It’s going to be strange for you,’ he said as I went by. ‘You’re the only woman left. There’s Gülcan, I suppose, but she doesn’t really count. And
Nazar.’ He tried to grab my arm, or I thought he did—I swung round to glare at him, but he was only reaching inside his sleeve for a handkerchief. ‘What’s the matter?’
he said, wiping his nose.

‘Gülcan’s been here longer than most of us. Watch your tone.’

‘Yes, of course. I didn’t mean any disrespect.’

‘Then you should try speaking less.’

He blenched, mopping his brow.

Everything was normal about the mess hall except for the fact that MacKinney was not there. Our table by the window was empty. The foil was still wrapped around the milk jug spout. The cutlery
lay unmoved. Ender was preparing the juices near the serving pass. I asked if he had seen her but he stroked his moustache and shook his head. ‘I don’t think she has come yet. See,
nobody touches the muesli.’

I went back out to the landing. Gluck was still there, studying the provost’s note. He did not apologise for his earlier remark. ‘I’ve been thinking more about this quote. Not
Matthew Arnold. I think it’s part of an old villanelle, but I can’t recall the author. I’ll look it up for you.’

‘Don’t bother,’ I said.

‘It’s no trouble.’

‘If you really want to help me, tear it down.’ I could not stand the thought of Quickman and Pettifer discovering the news on a bulletin board—no warning, no context. The shock
of it would play hell with Tif’s old heart. And the more I was forced to stare at it, the more it had the look of some crass letter of eviction.

‘I can’t,’ said Gluck. ‘That wouldn’t be right.’

‘Then get out of the way.’

I ripped the message from the board and hurried off along the corridor.

‘But how will I check the quote!’ Gluck called after me. ‘I haven’t written it down!’

Mac’s door was either stuck or locked when I got to her room. At first, she did not respond to my knocking, but soon her voice came through, muffled by the oak: ‘Who is
it?’

‘It’s Knell. Open up.’

‘I’m sleeping. Come back tomorrow.’

‘You’ll be gone by then. Let me in.’ I slid the provost’s notice under the door and waited.

Footsteps approached. I heard the locks turn and the door hinged back. MacKinney peered out at me. Without her glasses, her face seemed flatter, older, and there was an abraded quality to the
skin about her eyes and cheeks, a dull red tension. There was a cigarette fuming in her mouth, and the ashy scent of it was wondrous. It belonged to faraway places: the front steps of buildings in
Paddington, the grandstand at Kempton, the snug at The State Bar, my parents’ bedroom—everywhere I had known in my life beyond Portmantle. She blew the smoke brazenly through the
doorway. ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she said. ‘Did I save any for Quickman, right? Well, let’s just see how well he behaves today.’ She moved her hair to
show a couple more tucked behind her ears on each side. ‘He’s going to wet himself.’

‘How long’ve you been sitting on those?’

‘Ages,’ she said, dragging, exhaling. ‘I was waiting for a special occasion, but there’s not much point in that now, is there? They’re a bit stale.’ She bent
to pick up the notice, scanned it for an instant, then stepped aside, holding the door open. ‘I wish he hadn’t mentioned the title of the play. I’m still undecided. What do you
think of it?
All Things at Once.
’

‘It’s fine.’

‘No, really—be honest.’ She locked us in.

‘I said it was fine.’

Her room was shadowed and airless. The curtains were shut, the bed unmade. Her wardrobe was gutted and her suitcase packed. On the bureau, her typewriter was stowed in its brown leather box with
the label:
PROPERTY OF PORTMANTLE
. ‘Oh, I get it,’ she said. ‘You’re mad at me for not being mad.’ She perched tiredly on the foot of the bed.
‘Well, I thought it was quite sweet, what he wrote about me.’

‘Even if it isn’t true.’

‘There are some true bits. And what did you expect? A ten-page explanation?’ She drew on her cigarette, rubbing her fingertips. ‘At least he’s sending me off with some
poetry.
I quarrel not with destiny.
Rather poignant, I’d say.’

I could not understand her cheerfulness. ‘We can fight this, you know. The four of us.’

‘Oh, sure. A few cartons of
ayran
to the face ought to do it. You go for Ender, I’ll take out the provost. Q and Tif can dig our foxholes.’

‘I’m serious.’

She laughed and wagged her hand dismissively. As she got up, a line of ash fell onto the front of her gown and she just smudged it into the fabric. ‘It’s funny to think I’m not
going to be MacKinney any longer. I’ve been sorting out her last will and testament. Would you like your inheritance now, or do you want to wait until I’m out of here?’

‘I’m not letting you talk that way. You might’ve given up on this place but I don’t have to be happy about it.’

She ignored me. At the bureau, she dumped her cigarette in a cup and reorganised a stack of books, choosing one from near the bottom. ‘No, I think I’d better give it to you now . . .
Chances are, you’ve read it, but you definitely won’t have this edition—it’s as rare as they come.’

It was a clothbound copy of
Captains Courageous
by Rudyard Kipling
.
The fading blue cover was wrapped in polythene. ‘Sadly for you, I inscribed it,’ she said.
‘That might knock a few quid off the value when you come to sell it.’ On the inside cover, she had written:

I felt the urge to cry. It rose through my whole body, starting at my toes. ‘I can’t accept this,’ I said.

‘Just say thank you. That’s all you have to do. And think of me when you look at it.’

‘There has to be a way out of this mess.’

She came towards me, shaking her head. ‘I’m afraid our time is up, old girl. It’s really happening.’

‘We just need to lean on the provost, that’s all, put the pressure on.’

‘Accept it, Knell. I’ve been expelled.’ She tried to make me smile with this, but I could not. The provost’s note was in her hand, and she pushed it into mine, closing my
fist over it. ‘Look, do you know how many plays I’ve written in my life? Thirty-six. Know how many of those were actually any good? One.
One!
If I had a market stall, I’d
be in penury by now. But it’s amazing how far one decent effort can carry you, if you let it—it’s taken me further than I had any right to go. I’m tired of retracing my own
footsteps for a hint of who I used to be. It’s undignified.’

She released my hand and went back to the bed, neatening the covers. ‘Fact is, I just can’t stick around here any more, pretending that number thirty-seven is going to magically
surpass what I’ve achieved before, because, deep down, I know it won’t. How could it? I’ve already written the best play I’ll ever write. I was twenty-three years old and
utterly miserable when I wrote it, but that was easily my brightest moment. You never saw it, did you? I wish you had—that production was the most exciting thing I’ve ever been involved
in.’ She stopped for a moment, tightening the cord on her gown. ‘It wasn’t even about anything, not really. Just a family going about their days. A few flawed people in a
household, making mistakes with each other. No grand ideas, just ordinary life. My childhood, I suppose. It was quite a special thing. But that’s the problem, isn’t it? Once your best
story’s told, it can’t be told again. It makes you, then it ruins you.’

The bedclothes were now smooth as a tabletop. She started on the pillows, plumping them, one at a time. ‘Well, at least now I can stop trying to be original. And I can see my girls again.
That’ll be nice. I’ve neglected them horribly.’

‘You weren’t meant to be a housewife, Mac,’ I said.

‘Maybe not. But if I had thirty-six children instead, I’d be a whole lot happier.’ She dropped her gown and hooked it on the bedpost. The skin about her clavicle was freckled
and pinched, but her body was so slender under her nightdress, and she stood there with the easy poise of a much younger woman, confident of her beauty, or at least oblivious to it. ‘Go and
put that thing back on the board, would you? If you’re worried about Q and Tif, don’t be. It’s better they think I’m going off with a finished play—for their own
sake.’ She went into her bathroom and I heard the taps running.

‘Then why aren’t you giving a reading?’

‘I don’t want to humiliate myself,’ she called.

‘You could just do a few scenes. I could play Willa. Q could be Christopher.’ The idea made me uncomfortable, but I would have done anything for MacKinney at that time. And I thought
it would give the four of us a chance to spend her final day rehearsing together, instead of being stuck alone in our lodgings, contending with our projects. ‘You deserve a proper send-off
like the others. I’m not letting you leave without one.’