The only problem was getting that face time.
Except it was no problem at all. This is what I realized that Thursday morning.
What was to stop me from simply turning up at his lab in Oxford and taking him to lunch? Why would he refuse? I could go that very day. It was only an hour or so on the train. Worst-case scenario: it would be a short, wasted journey. But I’d still get out of London for a few hours, which was worth the ticket price in itself. I could spend the day appreciating the amazing architecture and go for a drink in that pub where J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis used to drink.
The idea of the day spread out before me like an astonishing picnic blanket. I felt bright and refreshed and ready to go. Except I couldn’t go, of course; it was still technically the middle of the night – despite strong evidence to the contrary leaking through the curtains. This country was insane in June. How was anyone supposed to sleep through the night when the sun only set for a few hours? I guessed this must be yet another way in which modern life was at odds with the natural world, since our ancestors had evolved at the equator and wouldn’t be equipped to deal with these ridiculous seasonal variations. I made a mental note to ask Professor Caborn about it later.
Beck was still sleeping like he’d been anaesthetized. I got up, went through to the living area and sat in my underwear checking the train times. The earliest was at 5.14, which would get me into Oxford at 6.20, but that was obviously crazy. I did like the idea of wandering around Oxford in the early hours: the old buildings would be that bit more impressive when they were deserted; I could imagine it was the 1500s – but then I’d have to wait six hours to take Professor Caborn to lunch. Unless I intercepted him on his way in to work and took him for breakfast instead? No, that seemed a riskier strategy; he probably breakfasted at home. Plus Beck would worry if he woke up and I’d disappeared, even if I left a note.
Having thought about this, I decided it would be better if I didn’t mention any of my plan to Beck. I was aware – dimly aware – that he might not understand the logic of it. Much better to tell him after the fact, when things had already been brought to a satisfactory conclusion. This meant I’d have to leave the flat after he did, and the first train I could realistically make was the 10.22 out of Paddington. But this was perfect. It would get me into Oxford at 11.18. Then I’d have plenty of time to get my bearings, track down Professor Caborn, and take him to lunch.
I couldn’t read, which was how I would usually have passed the dead hours of the morning. I couldn’t concentrate on anything for very long. I was too eager to get the day under way.
I made coffee, showered, dressed myself in tracksuit bottoms and a hoodie, intending to change later – I didn’t plan to meet Professor Caborn in my loungewear – then went downstairs for a cigarette. The morning was bright and already warming up. It would have been a good morning to walk a dog or go for a run – I felt a desperate need to be out and about – but I didn’t trust my lungs to cope with anything more strenuous than a flight of stairs, and I didn’t know anyone in west London with a dog that I could borrow. Instead, I decided to walk to the twenty-four-hour Nisa on Uxbridge Road, where I bought bacon, eggs and more cigarettes. I then zigzagged home down the empty back streets.
It wasn’t yet six o’clock when I got back to the flat. I killed some time looking at maps of Oxford and researching the layout of the psychology department, then checked my emails, just to make sure Professor Caborn hadn’t got back in touch in the past twelve hours. He hadn’t. As always my inbox was mostly junk; someone out there was convinced that Abigail Williams was in fact a man – a man both pitiably endowed and with chronic erectile dysfunction. But buried in there was also another email from Miranda Frost.
To: abbywilliams1847@hotmail.co.uk
From: miranda@mirandafrostpoetry.co.uk
Date: Wed, Jun 5 2013, 9:00 PM
Subject: A modest proposal
Miss Williams,
I have a proposition. With some regret, I have agreed to spend the coming autumn ‘teaching’ poetry in the States. The decision, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate, was purely a financial one.
To dispense with all irrelevant details, I am looking for someone to live in my house and feed my two cats. Perhaps you would like to be that someone?
Why you? Good question. The truth, I suppose, is that the idea amused me. But there is no reason this arrangement shouldn’t be mutually beneficial.
My house is rather nice. It has a garden with a view and is a very peaceful place to write. If you would like a break from the horrors of modern urban living, I’m sure it would suit you. (You could have some uninterrupted time to work on that painfully honest, semi-autobiographical novel that is no doubt languishing in a drawer somewhere.)
The position would be for fifteen consecutive weeks and comes with no pay.
Think it over.
MF
I read this quickly, digested it, and sent my one-line reply: I’ll think about it.
If I chose to interpret her latent, passive-aggressive sarcasm as a double-bluff – which I did – then it seemed Miranda Frost was suddenly taking an inordinate amount of interest in my writing; in my life in general. It was as if she were setting herself up as some kind of eccentric benefactress. Or maybe she just liked me? This was a slightly unsettling notion. Was it a compliment if a sociopath took a shine to you? Probably not, but I decided to shelve this thought and crack on with breakfast.
I was sort of on autopilot as I worked, my mind darting back and forth between several more important matters, like a skittish rabbit in a meadow, and consequently I didn’t realize that I’d dispensed all twelve rashers of bacon onto the grillpan until it was too late and they were already cooking. In hindsight, I was impressed that I’d managed to get twelve rashers of bacon onto our grillpan; they were tessellated in a perfect rectangle, like a finished jigsaw. Yet when Beck came through from the hallway, he looked with a degree of suspicion at the generous plate I presented to him.
‘Er, what’s this?’ He was still sleepy, so I was willing to forgive the pure idiocy of the question; in a way, it was quite endearing.
‘It’s breakfast,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t sleep and it’s a beautiful morning, so I went to the shops. Surprise!’
‘Yes, it is . . .’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘You couldn’t sleep so you decided to cook breakfast?’
‘Yes: bacon and eggs.’ I gestured to the plate with my spare hand. ‘Mostly bacon, actually. It was buy one get one free. Do you think you can manage seven rashers? I don’t think I can handle more than five.’
‘Er, yeah, okay. I mean that’s a lot of meat to digest on a Thursday morning, but I’ll give it a go.’
‘That’s the spirit. I’m fairly sure the British Empire was built on bacon and eggs for breakfast.’
‘Oh. I thought it was built on conquest and the ruthless exploitation of indigenous populations and their resources.’
I laughed. It was a very girlish laugh. ‘Yes, that too. But you can’t brutalize the world on an empty stomach. Captain Cook, Sir Francis Drake, Lord Nelson’ – I was plucking names out of the air – ‘they were all bacon-’n’-eggs men. Especially on a Thursday. Historical fact.’
‘I’ll take your word for it.’ Beck pointed at the plate. ‘But this is less breakfast and more food art.’
I shrugged. I had plated the food like a cartwheel, with a pool of scrambled egg at the hub and symmetrical spokes of bacon fanning out in an extravagant circle. There was a single leaf of parsley crowning the axle and seven blobs of ketchup marking the circumference, as if it were an unfinished dot-to-dot picture.
‘I couldn’t just heap up seven rashers of bacon in a tower,’ I explained. ‘It would have looked ridiculous. Do you want coffee, too? I’ve just made a fresh pot. It speeds up the metabolism, so it will help you digest your food.’