The Englishman

chapter 32

MY GUILTY CONSCIENCE ABOUT SELENA, dormant while I was grieving over the affair I cannot have with Giles, prods me into action when I come home from work on Tuesday and give way to the O’Neals’ Toyota Land Cruiser driving through the gate, followed by Pop and Howie in the truck. I stand holding the gate and just catch sight of a brown and gold furry bundle on the truck bed. A bolt of anguished recognition courses through my body. I stare, and the truck’s outline blurs as tears run down my face.

I was so proud of myself for not blubbing over Giles and the mess at college. But my feline acquaintance is a loss that pushes me over the edge.

“I saw they shot the bobcat.”

With Karen alone at home, I make my move. She is preparing supper but assures me, as usual, that I am not in her way. She sits me down with a mug of tea and a cookie and goes on peeling potatoes.

“Hmm? Oh, yes! It’s been around for a few weeks, and Pop finally got it.”

Any further comment, any protest or question, would make me sound so much like a greenhorn from the city that I give it up.

“Do you know that you make me feel very young every time I come here?”

She laughs. “Would you care to explain that, please?”

“Well, you’re so…motherly, I feel like a kid coming home from school. A drink, a cookie, and then I’ll go up to my room and do my homework.”

Her face darkens. “Maybe you’d like to give that daughter of mine a hint about how to appreciate what she’s given.”

But I’m not here to talk about Jules the Grouch.

“So the O’Neals were here?” Floating my balloon gently in the breeze.

“Yes, the men are on work detail at the church. They’re overhauling the yard.”

“How is Lorna holding up? There’s talk of her losing her job for talking to the press.”

“Do you know, I think she’s satisfied.” Karen rests her potato and knife on the table. “She is the most self-righteous woman I have ever met—no competition! And God forgive me, but I envy her. No self-doubts! No second-guessing!”

“How long have you known them?”

“Quite a while. Pop and Howie struck up a friendship at church with Lorna’s husband, Bill. The girls are close enough in age to play together, so that’s convenient. You can imagine that Lorna isn’t really my type, nor Shirley’s, but we make an effort. Keeping quiet is all it needs, really.” Karen pulls a face at me, embarrassed at speaking ill of someone who evidently considers her a friend.

“And Selena is the eldest?”

“Yes, Selena, Sidney, Stephen, Stacy, and Susanna.”

“Karen, will you tell me your honest opinion of Selena without asking me why I want to know?”

Karen looks up without betraying any sign of surprise.

“You mean apart from the fact that she is pregnant?”

All I can do is stare at her. When I try to speak, I produce nothing but an incoherent stutter, and it is not a show of amazement. I am truly stunned.

Karen shrugs. “I’m as sure as I can be, just going through the stages again myself.”

“But, Karen, she—”

“And she stole two of my pregnancy tests.”

“What?”

“I always kept some in the bathroom cupboard, to be able to check…how I’m doing. Well, one time, in summer, the four girls were playing family and came up to us to ask if ‘this’ was a thermometer. I was mortified! But Selena knew where I stored them afterward. When I went to get one this time, I noticed that two were missing.”

“And it can’t have been the twins again?”

“No, because I moved them into the top drawer of the bathroom cupboard. Even I can’t reach without a footstool. I don’t think I told anyone about it except Lorna and Selena that time, so I’m pretty certain she took them. And look at her! You see her more often than I do, did you not notice anything?”

“Of course I did. I saw things, but I didn’t add them up, because I’m a stupid academic who has never been pregnant. Her friend told me she was vomiting a lot, but she—the friend—took it for bulimia!”

“Well…not too far off the mark.”

“Bulimia and morning sickness? Hardly the same thing!”

“No, what I mean is that Selena was anorexic when she was a teenager.”

“Oh, come on! Nobody can be that screwed up!”

“Lorna O’Neal’s eldest daughter?” Karen throws me a speaking glance and goes on peeling. “I’m so used to seeing her all skin and bone that I couldn’t even say since when she has been looking normal. Not all that long, two years, maybe?”

“In other words, she was ill when she started college?”

“Oh, yes. Lorna never talked about it to me, never even seemed to notice it, but I thought at the time Selena isn’t stable enough for college, never mind her good grades. And she wasn’t. She missed one semester, I think after her second or third year, to go on a rest cure. Since then she has recovered her weight a little.”

“So that’s why she looks so pasty. Her behavior at college—I can’t really tell you, I’m sorry! But something must be done!”

Karen remains silent, while my mind is whirling.

“I guess I know what you mean,” she finally says, “but I can’t agree with you there.”

“But she can’t go on concealing all this! She may do herself a serious injury! In fact—”

“Oh, I thought you meant, terminate the pregnancy.”

“Well, no. Selena would never agree to that.”

For the first time Karen shows evidence of curiosity. “Do you know who the father is?”

“I’m afraid I do.”





On Friday Tim turns up at my office door.

“I need minding,” he says, a little reproachfully.

“What? I’m sorry—oh, gosh, Tim! Your tenure committee! How could I forget! When will they meet?”

“They are meeting. Have been, for twenty-one minutes and fifty-four seconds…twenty-two minutes. Can I sit down for a moment?” He does, like a poor sinner waiting for his verdict.

“Come on, let’s walk.”

“I can’t leave the building!”

“Of course you can leave the building. You think they’re going to call you in and ask you to explain note thirty-four in chapter three?”

“Why? What’s wrong with it?” He stares at me, alarmed.

“Oh, Tim. Come on, walkies.”

Tenure review makes defensive second-guessers of us all. And sots, if we are at all that way inclined. When I stand up to take my coat off the hook, I smell alcohol on Tim’s breath, but I stifled every comment I was tempted to make in recent weeks, so I stifle this one, too. I steer him eastward on my cycle path and then left into the forest.

“You cycle along here, in the dark, alone? Are you mad?” For the moment he is distracted from his plight.

“Do you think it’s too dangerous?”

“There are several frat houses along the edge of campus, and I wouldn’t like to imagine you involved in the scenes of debauchery that take place here on drunken summer nights.”

“Oh, you can’t scandalize me with a frat party. I have Sodom directly behind my cottage.” I tell him about the pickers’ camp, and this cheers him up no end.

“You mean they’ve built a camp site, all amenities provided, so that these kids can pick fruit during the day and have weed-filled orgies during the night? That’s not very God-fearing!”

“I know, but apparently they don’t care what a bunch of kids get up to in the woods, as long as they are legal and, well, legal. The pickers have almost all gone for the winter, so there’re only a few Poles left to help on the farm.”

“Been presented with any more condoms lately?” he asks, coughing discreetly. “What was all that about, anyway?”

I tell him about Logan, and that amuses him even more than the pickers’ camp.

“And Giles knew about this?”

“Yes, I…he advised me on how to deal with Logan.”

Tim gazes straight ahead at the path. “See, I told you he’s a nice guy.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Then why don’t you kiss him already!”

I almost trip over my own feet. “What?”

Tim is embarrassed, but he is even more annoyed than he is embarrassed. “What about Giles?” he asks ruthlessly.

Panic. “What about Giles?”

“I want you to keep Giles here in Ardrossan! Don’t you get it? Why do you think I’ve been throwing the two of you together?”

All I can do is shake my head in disbelief.

“I—I don’t even—know where to—throwing us together?”

“Of course.”

“What do you mean, of course?”

Tim digs his hands into his coat pockets.

“I’m worried that now he’s divorced he’ll go back to England!”

“Tim, are you—do you love Giles?”

“Of course I love Giles! But I’m not in love with him, if that’s what you mean, you silly girl. But I don’t want to work in this place without him!”

That makes two of us.

“It’s a cunning plan, Tim, but like all such plans, completely bonkers. Apart from the tiny detail that I’d be risking my reputation and my chances of renewal if I started having affairs with tenured colleagues!”

“Don’t be stupid.” Tim kicks a stone out of his way. “Nobody would care. A bit of gossip, a few snide remarks—but aren’t you getting those anyway? It’s not like you’re writing your dissertation with him or anything.”

“It’s. Not. That. Simple!” I am so bowled over by his nonchalance that I stop in the middle of the path to shout at him.

Tim frowns at my vehemence, then he grins.

“So you have thought about it.”

“What? No! I’m just—look who’s talking, anyway! You’re hiding in a closet sealed off like a panic room, but you’re telling me an affair with Giles wouldn’t hurt my tenure prospects? Hypocrite!”

“That’s different.”

“I’ll say! Will you come out when you have tenure?”

I expect a rebuff for this diversion, but he pushes his fists into his coat jackets and turns to walk back on the path.

“Maybe. C’mon, I’m getting cold. Martin…is holding a shotgun to my chest.”

“Tired of playing hide-and-seek, is he?”

“He wants us to move in together officially, or he’ll throw me out. Out of his apartment and out of his life.”

“I don’t blame him. Well, how much do you like Martin, on a scale from one to ten?”

Tim throws me a disgusted glance, then he sighs.

“It’s not that. I hate all that labeling.”

“Bullshit. Everyone is labeled everywhere all the time. You don’t have the guts to try to be happy, that’s all.”

“Oh, yeah? Tell me, Dr. Freud, how happy are you on a scale from one to ten?”

I acknowledge this hit with a shrug and a nod, but I cannot answer him. Instead, I slip my arm into his and lean against him as we walk.

“A hot cup of tea would make me happy now.”

We have just sat down in the Eatery when Sam Ruffin and Terry Nyman appear and indicate by surreptitious thumbs-up that the department committee has approved Tim’s application for tenure. Now the chair, the Dean, and the Provost have to do the same.

“Mental note,” I murmur into my mug. “Must mail order for his-and-his bath towels. When’s the house-warming party, Timothy, darling?”