“Good morning, Steven. It’s so terrible.” Mary Pick did not ironize or shave inflections in times of trouble. “John will be in in just a moment. You don’t need anything?”
He listened to her withdrawing heels on the polished hallway floor and was actually comforted.
The dean received guests in the sort of elegant room that went with his job. As he sat in it, waiting, Brookman meditated on the footsteps of the woman who had addressed him, a woman he liked and admired, a woman much observed and speculated upon at the college.
She was a very attractive blue-eyed brunette, English in congenial and unthreatening ways. As had become virtually required, she had an occupation in addition to being the dean’s wife; with a certificate in art history from the Courtauld, she held a position at an auction house that took her twice a week to New York. This allowed some college folk to refer to her as a gallery strumpet. Because she was so fine and reticent she had become the object of fantasies. People, particularly people who disliked John Spofford, hoped she had a lover, likely in New York. Egotists, mostly male, dreamed. Mrs. Spofford was used to lingering glances — even to the rare boozy attack of footsie — at dinner parties. She coped without effort. In their dorms, her student admirers waggled and blazed. What secrets had she?
One of her secrets was that every Sunday she walked a mile and a half, in every weather, in an ankle-length raincoat and with a scarf tied under her chin, to St. Blaise’s, a ruinous church where a Mass was said at eight in the morning in Latin by a tiny, eighty-something Irish priest. Occasionally she helped an elderly Ecuadorian cleaning woman tidy the retired priest’s back-garden apartment. Both the priest and the old lady would stand at some sort of attention when Mrs. Spofford arrived, and she had given up trying to put them at ease. Once the priest had started to rise from his chair at her presence, and she had discouraged his doing it so commandingly that he had almost died sitting there. Mrs. Spofford was sometimes useful at Mass because he often forgot the responses and she had them handy.
Dean Spofford looked up from the pile of college-printed documents he had been signing. Handouts. Condolences. The kinds of palliative statements he was so good at. He stared at Brookman.
“I know what you’re going through,” the dean said, touching Brookman’s knee. “I know that sounds stupid,” he added.
Brookman, humiliated at the sound of the words, closed his eyes and shook his head.
The dean straightened himself in his chair. “Sorry, Steve. Really.”
“It’s all right, man. What is there to say? It’s hard to imagine.”
For a moment Brookman thought he might really go to pieces, cry on the bastard’s shoulder. A practiced shoulder, no doubt, often cried on by innocence, misfortune, bereavement, remorse. It made him, on second consideration, regret that Mary Spofford had espied him there. He liked and admired her so much and dreaded what she must have been thinking. For a moment he silently observed the dean’s discomfort. Would he let me cry on his wife’s shoulder? He would have loved to cry there.
“So I’ve spent the last forty-eight hours wondering what our reaction should be,” Spofford said.
There were limits. Brookman brought himself under control.
“Whose reaction? Reaction to what? To my killing Maud Stack?”
“Nobody thinks you killed Maud Stack, Steve, but I can tell you what they do think. They think you encouraged and seduced her, taking advantage of your age, experience and position at the college. Abused your responsibility to her and your duty as her professor.”
“Give me a break. You never slept with a student? You didn’t know about me and Maud Stack? You don’t know, as we speak, about other liaisons in this place?”
“Caused in her as a result of that exploitation an emotional state that led to her involvement in a fatal accident. And that your encouragement and seduction was widely known in spite of your being a parent in this community and long married to our friend and colleague Ellie. And people think that those in a position to intervene, to say a word, lay a hand on your cuff and advise you — nay, tell you — to cut it out, did nothing. Knew and did nothing. That’s what people think.”
Brookman said nothing.
“Your request for a leave is denied. Nor will your contract be renewed. As for your questions: I have never slept with one of my students. I emphasize that this speaks only for my discretion. I did know about you and the late Maud Stack. I know about the liaisons of which you speak. I know and the trustees know and even His Dimness the President knows, and I’m going to pay for it. He’s going to pay for it too.”
“Sorry,” Brookman said.
“It’s all right, Steve. I should have seen it coming. It’s an age of transition, isn’t it? The old arrangements fall before the new arrangements. That which was unspeakable may thrive and is blessed. That which was tolerated is an abomination. We’ve been living it. The fine old shit don’t float. Now me — I’ll never get a billet like this — that I enjoy so much — again.”
The front door opened and closed, and the dean looked through the curtained window to see his wife greeting two young women on the street outside.
“Will they really sack you, John? Over this?”
“Yeah. Not just this, I suppose. But yes, they really will.”
“I really am sorry,” Brookman said.
“Sure. But enough about me — let’s talk about you. You have a month to quietly vacate. If you want to haggle over details, get a lawyer.”
Brookman started to stand up.
“Hear me out. Will Ellie leave if you do? Because naturally she can stay, no problem.”
“I’m pretty sure she’ll go with me. I hope she does.”
“Too bad, because it’s unlikely she’ll find a setup like this anytime soon either. I’ll do what I can to see that the college gives her all the recommendations she needs. People may not be as helpful to you because they see you as an outdoors writer. Rather than an educator.”
“Yes,” Brookman said. It was awful about Spofford and even more awful about Mary Pick because of the horrors that had occurred in her life and the comfort she had found at the college. He appreciated Spofford’s not mentioning it. It was all he could do not to apologize again.
On his way to the department office to give notice that he would not be conducting his class next semester, he passed her, chatting with her two companions. He felt as if there on the street he might actually lose his composure.
32
AFTER THE WEEKEND Stack decided it was time to lay Maud beside her mother. Another spell of warm winter weather had settled on the region. Monday was the warmest December day in seventy years. He took the train out to Nassau County, to the Church of the Holy Redeemer, where his wife’s ashes reposed. He had left a voicemail message with McCallum and Jenkins the day before, letting them know about his intention. He called McCallum again before setting out and this time reached the man himself.
“We may have run into a snag,” McCallum said.
“What snag? You have everything ready, don’t you?”
“We have everything ready on our side. I expected to hear from the bishop’s office, but judging from their call today I don’t know if they’ve made a decision.”
“I want to do this today. If I don’t get it done…” He left the statement unfinished. “I want to get it done.”
“I’d wait until we heard from them.”
“Are you in today?”
“Yeah, I’m in,” McCallum said. “But I’d wait.”
“I’ll be over,” Stack told him.
He took a taxi from the station to the funeral parlor. At the front entrance he found he had to ring for admittance. There was no one inside except James McCallum, funereally dapper, at his desk in the front office. The lingering scent of lilies, he supposed, must be constant. He sat down in one of the chairs intended for mourning clients and took out his checkbook. The undertaker had an itemized bill ready for him, and Stack wrote the check for the full amount.