The Englishman (6 page)

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 if you wanted to, or not if you didn’t want to. And you could be dating Rafie Molina. Don’t shout.”

I don’t shout, but I rumble.

“Rafie and I didn’t click. Ask him. And I couldn’t stay because if I’d stayed in your funny little country any longer, I’d pretty much have had to stay there forever! Have you heard about that job at Leicester?”

“The permanent, full-time position you should have applied for and didn’t? Oliver Hobart-Kelly got it.”

“Okay. He’s done heaps of stuff. And he’s got a double-barreled name. I couldn’t compete with that.”

“Whatever lets you sleep, dear. Right, let’s see—” I hear her typing into her computer keyboard. “Ardrossan. University. English. Staff.”

“Faculty. But, Debbie, don’t—please—”

“Right, faculty. Let’s see whether I know any of the lucky sods who are going to work with you…”

I hold my breath.

“Hm…Joseph J. Banks—I know the name, he edited
The Cambridge Guide to African-American Poetry
. Nancy Benning, Timothy R. Blundell, Erin Gallagher, Mary-Kay Chang, no, I don’t know any of these people. Giles Cleveland—hang on, isn’t that—yes, Giles Cleveland. He wrote that biography of Raleigh, didn’t he? Dave read it during the holidays. Dave?” she shouts upstairs. “Dave, remember you were reading that biography of Sir Walter Raleigh when we were in Devon—the author is one of Anna’s new colleagues!”

“He is?” The line crackles. “Hello, Anna, you’re on speaker! Well done on the job!”

“Thanks, Dave!”

“Wanna phone!” a muffled young voice cries in the background.

“Jonah, Daddy will be on the phone for five minutes—see if you can build that tower all the way up to the doorknob, all right? Listen, this Cleveland fellow is really good! Tracy Evans told me he’s been shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial prize for this one, the biography on Raleigh; the prize-giving ceremony in Edinburgh is at the end of the month. Have you read the book?”

“No.”

“You should. He’s probably a git, though. These people always are. Have you met him yet?”

“Don’t prejudice her against her new colleagues, darling!”

“I met him today. Um…”

“What’s that sigh, Anna? He
is
a git, am I right?”

“Yes, actually—he is! He made me feel like an utter incompetent!” Talking to friends about my day is almost counter-productive, because I suddenly realize how shaken I still am.

“See?” Dave is triumphant. “He’s brilliant but a bastard. Brilliant people in the Arts and Humanities invariably are. Brilliant people in the Sciences are invariably very nice. Sense of humor, good-looking—”

“Modest,” Debbie cuts in wryly. “Go away. I want to talk to Anna woman to woman about this.”

“Bye, Anna, all the best!
Yes
, Jonah, I’m
coming!”

Another click in the line, and Debbie settles into her interrogation.

“So tell me again. Cleveland was horrid to you? Why? He could be useful.”

“Thanks, Debbie, I know! Dave is probably right and he’s just an arrogant ass. Maybe he expected me to gush about his wonderful book and was peeved because I didn’t.”

“Attractive, though. Judging by the photo. Anna?”

“Yes, I’m here. Oh, well, all right, he’s not unattractive. But soooo…English.”

“Since when has that been a problem for you?”

“
Frightfully
English, don’t you know, in
that
way. Oxbridge.
Lethally
polite! I hate that smooth English politeness! If he thinks that’s going to camouflage the fact that he’s an arrogant, stiff-necked, condescending git, he has another think coming!”

“It’s early days yet. Perhaps he just had a headache, or a quarrel with his wife.”

“Well, I hope whatever it was, she won’t sleep with him for a month!”

“Talking of sleeping—are you?”

“Sleeping with anyone? Now look here, young Deborah…”

“Sleeping!” she protests. “Sleeping, eating!”

“I’m going to hang up if you don’t stop that.”

“All right—give me a number out of ten on your scale of well-being, and I’ll stop. Promise.”

Something started today. My office is a mess, and I hope Elizabeth Mayfield won’t decide I’m some sort of
shlub
who should never have been hired, and I’m worried about how I’ll get on with my students and my colleagues. But there is something else, something instinctive, feral—something primeval to do with the roots of the trees among which I lay earlier. Those roots, thick as a man’s arms, intertwined with the earth in which they rest.

“A wobbly seven and a half.”

“Seven and a half is good. I’ll stop worrying about you for a bit, if you’re a seven and a half.”

“Just stop it. I’m fine.”

Chapter 5

A
S
F
AR
A
S
M
Y
S
ENIOR
C
OLLEAGUES
at Ardrossan are concerned, England has prepared me well. Take your time, have patience, and trust in yourself. Sooner or later you will connect with people. Tenured folk have no reason to notice untenured folk, unless a) they are bullies looking for victims, b) they are politicians looking for allies—
“a” and “b” often go together—
or, c) they want to bed them. The rule of thumb is simple: be suspicious of anyone who goes out of his or her way to compliment you. Academics are busy, competitive, and neurotic. That doesn’t mean they can’t be nice. But it does mean that if they show more than common courtesy to a newbie, they probably have ulterior motives.

The only colleague who goes out of his way to notice me is Tim Blundell.

“So, how are the old nerves?” he asks when he runs into me in the great hall on the day before classes start. Tim was on my search committee, and we instantly clicked when I came down for my interview last February.

“Is it a good idea to ask me that?”

“Probably not.” He grins and propels me into a quiet corner of the cafeteria. “It’s just that I haven’t forgotten what it was like. Mind you, if you think this is stressful, wait till you have your tenure review coming up.”

“It can’t be worse than this.”

“It can—if only because you’re five years older than you are now, and you know that all your dear friends from grad school will be laughing like hyenas when they hear that you’re teaching at a community college in Wyoming.”

“How you cheer me, Professor Blundell.”

He seems delighted, and a little surprised, that I am taking his snarks in good humor. Tim has the look of an intellectual baby, with a high, very convex forehead, round blue eyes and a pug nose, and it gives him an utterly deceptive air of innocence. In fact, his caustic treatment is doing a great deal to steady the old nerves.

“A word of advice,” he goes on, his manner changing abruptly from camp to astringently professional, “but we never had this conversation, and I would swear on the Bible that we didn’t!”

“Understood.”

“You hate New York and couldn’t wait to move to the South. That includes hating NYU and looking forward to teaching at a much smaller college. Remember:
We. Are. Faaa-mi-ly!”

“Got ya.”

“You are aware of the fact that a British Ph.D, lacking the coursework and the teaching requirements of an American Ph.D, is by definition inferior—”

“That depends on—”

“—which is why you completed optional graduate courses in Britain and took on teaching jobs to be able to compete with your American contemporaries.”

“Well, I did!”

“I know you did!” He rolls his eyes in ostentatious despair. “But you have to remind them of that, like, every ten minutes. And third: you didn’t just come here to kill time till you get offered a place at an Ivy.”

“I don’t even want a job at an Ivy!” I blurt out, conscious the next second of the fact that I have been manipulated into exposing myself.

“You’re not all that New Yorkerish,” Tim observes unemotionally. “That’s good. Sweet, modest, and polite; that’s what they like in a woman around here.” He checks the size of my breasts underneath the tailored jacket and blouse I am wearing. “Pretty, in a
gamine
sort of way. Seems conservative. Young-looking, but very professional in manner and attire. Should fit in just fine.”

I glower at him, open-mouthed, suddenly uncertain how to take him, and my evil angel overpowers me.

“You gotta be fuckin’ kiddin’ me with that speech, mister!”

This convulses him in cackling laughter so infectious that it smoothes my ruffled feathers.

“Correction:
Can
be New Yorkerish if provoked!—Hey, Erin!” he calls out to a woman standing in line for coffee. “Look who I found!”

Erin Gallagher, who was very attentive toward me during my day on campus in February, comes to sit with us and tells me, without any sign of bashfulness, that she went out and got pregnant with her first and only child a week after she received the letter announcing that she had been given tenure. Her little girl is now two years old and has been in college daycare since she was able to sit up. Everything about Erin, from her serviceable chestnut-colored bob to her sensible slacks and shirt to her no-nonsense flats, suggests a woman who has no time to waste.

“You are going to waste
so
much time waiting for people to get things done for you,” she predicts. “Be prepared for that, and get yourself into a
zen
place. Do you have a PC yet? An
office?”

“I have both, but no phone, and my office is full of stuff. Maintenance brought me a huge trash cart, but Mrs. Forster hasn’t been able to tell me whether I can chuck everything away. Some of it is old essays.” Since Tim and Erin are both dumbly staring at me, I add, “I’m in E-four-twenty-nine, next to this…elderly gentleman. Bushy white hair, a little—um—mad?”