“A climbing frame for rectangular children.”
A porter had been posted sentry by the door, as if the dean were worried we might storm the building. (A pregnant girl and her skinny friend rushing past him and demanding that Professor Coleman be allowed to keep his job.) After a while, he went inside and came out with a chair. I was determined to refuse it, although I could feel the downwards pull and stretch of things inside me. But the man set it beside the door and sat on it himself, tilting it back, waiting for the show to begin. He stretched out his legs and rolled a cigarette, lighting it in the cup of his hand even though there was no wind, and smoking it with the lit end tucked under his fingers.
You came out of the building smiling, with bravado, I suppose.
“So,” I said when no one spoke. “What happened?”
Louise read your face faster than I did. “Have you considered adoption, Ingrid?” she said with a laugh.
“Just shut up,” you said. “I’m not even sure why you’re here.”
“I’m here to look after Ingrid’s best interests.” She folded her arms across her chest.
“Stop bickering,” I said, “and tell me what happened.”
“Listen.” You took me by the elbow as if to lead me away. “Fuck Louise, fuck the dean. In fact, fuck the lot of them.” You put your arm around me. “My next book will sell. I know it.”
I stepped away. “But surely you apologised.”
“It’s a bit late for that.”
“They can’t throw you out. Don’t you have tenure or something?”
“They haven’t thrown him out,” Louise said, still leaning against the wall. “I think he’s saying he’s resigned.”
“Not exactly,” you said.
“Why?” The muscles of my stomach contracted and hardened painlessly. Braxton Hicks contractions, you told me later. “Why would you do that?”
“I wasn’t really given an option. The dean blabbered on about avoiding a scandal in the papers and an imminent visit by the university funding committee, blah, blah, blah.”
“Perhaps he’s behind on the payments for his modern art collection,” Louise said.
“But you can get another job, can’t you?” My hand was on my stomach, as hard as a rock. “At a different university.”
“I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of letting him recommend me. He can fuck his job and any other up his arse.”
The porter dragged on his cigarette, listening and watching, a smirk on his face.
“No, Gil, tell me you didn’t.”
“Come on,” you said, taking my arm again. “It’ll be fine.”
“I’m going to speak to him,” I said, pulling away. “You need that job—we need that job.”
The porter jumped up as I approached and threw his cigarette on the ground to open the door for me. He gave a little nod of the head as I passed, perhaps with some respect for the angry pregnant woman.
I walked straight past the dean’s secretary sitting behind her desk. Despite my size I was too quick for her, and I was in the dean’s office before she’d even stood up.
He was older than I’d expected. I’d seen him from a distance of course, from the high seats at the rear of the main lecture theatre when he gave us a five-minute pep talk at the beginning of each year about not letting the university down, or our parents, or, most important of all, ourselves.
“Miss Torgensen,” he said, as if it were he who’d requested a meeting. “Please, take a seat.” He indicated the chair in front of the desk he was sitting at. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised that he knew my name.
“I’d rather stand, thank you,” I said, although my knees were shaking.
“May I offer my congratulations on your expected arrival?” He nodded at my bump. “When is the little bundle of joy, as they say, due to arrive?”
“The week after next,” I said.
I was pleased to see a brief expression of shock pass across his face before he composed himself. “My goodness.” He came around to hold out the chair. “Then please do sit. I wouldn’t want anything to start in my office.”
I remained standing, and he let go of the chair and went back to his own.