Honey(6)

“He said that his wife didn’t know that we went to Poland together, and if he names me on the research she’ll…He said he wanted to protect me.”

“From what?”

“He said if his wife finds out, he doesn’t know what she’ll do. She might go to the university.”

“So?”

“So, I get what he was saying, she could tell everyone that we’d been having an affair?” Nina’s voice is struggling. “I didn’t want people to lose respect for me, for the rest of my work. He said he’s seen it happen before.”

“Fuck that, he was protecting himself. You know that, right?”

“I know, but he was also…kind of right.”

“This is so fucked.” Yrsa can’t keep her voice straight. “And now what, you’re just leaving?”

“I don’t know what to do.” Nina won’t look at her.

“You report him, that’s what you do.”

“I’ve tried. I…I told Skye everything and she made me report it, abuse of power.”

“Okay, and?”

“When they got in touch with me. When they asked me what happened, I just didn’t know what to say.”

Yrsa is struggling with Nina. “You say the relationship was not consensual, that he’s your supervisor, that he used you, and is now using your work uncredited.”

“But it wasn’t nonconsensual.”

“Nina, he’s what, like twenty years older than you? He fucks you, lies about being in love with you, and steals your work.”

“The supervisor you slept with was older than you?”

“Yeah, but that was different?”

“Why?”

“I pursued him. I wasn’t doing a PhD, plus he was hot and like…from Australia.”

“But I kissed Richard—Erick—first. I knew what I was doing.”

“And I’m sure he knew what he was doing. Maybe he’s done it before.”

“No, it’s not like that.” Nina’s wild eyes again. “It was love. I know it was. He said he was sure that I was the one, that he’d just met me at the wrong time.” The tears resurge.

Yrsa wants to slap the silliness out of her. “Nina, I’m sorry, but he doesn’t love you. They always say they’re going to leave their wives.”

“I think he was just scared, you know, because of his kids.”

“Yeah. I’m sure he was terrified. I’m guessing you never went through with the complaint?”

“I couldn’t do that to him. He’s not a predator.”

“So now you’re just going to what—leave?” Yrsa looks at the boxes.

“I can finish my research from home. And my mum needs me, so it’s—”

“This is a joke.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have texted you. I was just having a panic. I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing.”

“I don’t think you are doing the right thing.”

“It’s impossible, it’s all impossible.” This time, when Nina cries, Yrsa moves closer to her friend.

She looks at the box in front of her. There’s a frying pan, some knickers, a plant on its side spilling soil. She looks to the window; a milky light has settled in the courtyard.

“You don’t have to leave,” she says.

“I know.”

“So don’t.”



* * *





It’s one of the worst things that’s happened in recent times. Her ?13 box of sushi, left in Nina’s room. Yrsa doesn’t know how long she’s been sitting in the park. The afternoon’s turned cold with the cloudless blue. At least she had a granola bar in her bag.

“Yrsa. Yrsa. Yoo-hoo.”

Why can she not just mourn the terrible awful thing that’s happened and eat her snack in peace? Why must the world be filled with such pathologically annoying people as Dr. Barnett—approaching now—waving like a woman about to go overboard.

“Oh it’s good to have caught up with you.” She’s puffing, despite only having crossed the park. “Do you mind?” She sits without waiting for a reply.

Yrsa hates sharing benches with people, especially doctors by the name of Barnett. On the college staff the woman heads up, among other things, outreach, and always has large acrylic earrings clanging about her face.

“How are you? Beautiful day, isn’t it? Aren’t those blossoms gorgeous, out of season, mind. How’s the PhD going?”

Yrsa bites into her granola bar. “Good.”

“Remind me, what’s the title again?”

“How Afropessimism is shaping black women’s discourses on their liberation.”

“Gosh, yes.”

Yrsa crunches on an almond.

Dr. Barnett smooths down her orange culottes. “Well, anyway, yes it’s really such chance that I’ve just bumped into you as I was just talking with Finn, you know Finn,” (she does not know Finn), “at Corpus who’s working on a new project? He wanted to pass it by some good eyes and I was telling him that I know just the girl and look at that—you appear!”

Dr. Barnett’s perpetual optimism is so, deeply, draining.