‘He must have lost his mind,’ you said, trying to sound chipper, but I could tell that it was taking every fibre of your being to stop yourself flinging our bowls at the wall and watching the food slowly trace a furious, misunderstood path down the paintwork.
‘He’s actually quite good,’ I said.
‘Rufus?’
‘No, Garrett.’
‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous.’
‘Maurice, you haven’t even read him,’ I pointed out. ‘You don’t know.’
‘I didn’t go down on the Titanic either but I know that it wouldn’t have been a pleasant experience,’ you said, shaking your head. ‘Fucking Rufus. Did you hear what he got? The advance, I mean.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘He didn’t mention it.’
‘It probably wasn’t very much.’
It was, actually. He’d been offered one hundred thousand pounds for the story collection and a novel to follow. But I chose not to tell you that.
‘Well, good luck to him, I suppose,’ you said, after a lengthy pause filled with a barely concealed frenzy of anger.
I sighed. A pleasant evening together had disintegrated yet again. I wasn’t sorry that I’d brought it up but I wanted to let it go now. Looking back, I wonder if I wanted to hurt you by telling you Garrett’s news. You had hurt me, after all. You had hurt me physically. Perhaps I wanted revenge. For even if you’d played it cool and pretended that whatever happened with my students held little meaning to you, I knew that you would brood over it for weeks.
‘Something else happened today,’ I said after a prolonged silence, ready to tell you the second piece of news. ‘One of my students got thrown off the course.’
‘Really?’ you said, sitting up straight now. ‘Who?’
‘Do you remember Maja Drazkowski?’
You frowned. ‘Which one is she?’
‘When you came to talk to the students, she was the one who looked like she’d rather fuck you than listen to you speak.’
‘You’ll have to narrow it down.’
‘Oh, shut up,’ I said, laughing.
‘Yes, I remember her,’ you admitted. ‘What happened? Why did she get cut?’
‘Plagiarism,’ I replied.
‘You’re kidding!’
‘No.’
‘Who did she plagiarize?’
‘No one I’d ever heard of, to be honest. A story that had been published in the New Yorker three or four years ago.’
You stood up, gathering the bowls and plates, and began carrying them over to the sink to rinse them off before putting them in the dishwasher. When I rose to help, you placed a hand on my shoulder and told me to stay where I was, that I’d had a busy day and should relax.
‘How was she caught out?’ you asked.
‘The tutor who was marking my group recognized it. Apparently, he’s quite a fan of the New Yorker and keeps all his back issues. She was called in this morning, presented with the evidence, and the stupid girl said it was nothing more than a coincidence.’
‘A five-thousand-word coincidence?’ you asked, laughing.
‘Well, exactly. That was never going to fly. Anyway, she gave up that defence quickly enough. Within a couple of minutes the tears were flowing and she was telling us how she felt she didn’t belong on the course, that she couldn’t compete with the others. I could have written something, of course, she told us, but it wouldn’t have been good enough and I refuse to give in sub-standard work. I just refuse.’
‘But she’s happy to give in someone else’s work?’ you said.
‘That’s what I said! And then she just started crying again. Anyway, the whole thing went on for an hour and became rather tedious, and when we reached the point where she started telling us how her uncle used to make her sit on his lap when she was a little girl and she wondered whether this was what led to such behaviour on her part—’
‘Oh, for God’s sake.’
‘I know. We told her that our only concern was her academic work and that she had lost our trust.’
‘So you kicked her out?’
‘Well, we told her that we would be referring the matter to the dean of students, but that she couldn’t attend any more classes until the situation was resolved. Then she threw a fit and told us that she wanted to drop out, effective immediately, that I was the worst teacher in the world and that if she’d written Fear, she would have eaten it page by page rather than let anyone read it. Aren’t you embarrassed by it? she asked me. All that clichéd writing, the one-dimensional characters, the trite resolution. I’d be mortified if I’d written it. And I couldn’t help myself. I said that maybe she would one day, since she had such little scruple about stealing other people’s stories.’
‘Ha!’
‘Yes, that shut her up. She flounced out then and later this afternoon I got an email from my department head saying she’d formally resigned from the course and I was to inform the other students.’
‘Well, it sounds like she got what she deserved,’ you said. ‘Plagiarism is the greatest crime any writer can commit. But you shouldn’t blame yourself for any of this.’
‘Blame myself?’ I asked, turning to you as you loaded the dishwasher. ‘Why on earth would I blame myself?’
‘You shouldn’t,’ you replied. ‘That’s what I’m saying. It’s not your fault.’
‘No, I get that,’ I said. ‘But if I were to blame myself, in error, I mean, what would I be blaming myself for?’
‘I don’t know,’ you said. ‘Perhaps she felt you were putting her under too much pressure? Or felt that she couldn’t write in the environment that you’d created? She’d be an idiot to think any of that, of course. Which is why I’m saying don’t blame yourself.’
‘But I don’t,’ I said in frustration. ‘At least I didn’t until you suggested that I shouldn’t.’
‘Good,’ you said, coming over and kissing me on the forehead. ‘Then we’re in agreement. Now, I think I’m going to take a walk, if you don’t mind. That stew was a little heavy, don’t you think? And I need to think about tomorrow’s work. I’m reaching a crucial stage in my novel and need to arrange my thoughts clearly in my head.’
And before I could say anything, or offer to accompany you, you’d taken your coat from the hook and were gone.
Blame myself? I thought. Why the fuck would I blame myself?
Three days later, I was shopping in Market Place when it started to rain and I took shelter in the Sir Garnet pub. I don’t usually sit in bars on my own in the middle of the afternoon but I had the new Anne Tyler in my bag and thought I might just settle down with a glass of wine and relax for a while. I’d finished my drink, the rain had stopped, and I was trying to decide whether I should order another or leave when a familiar face walked past the window, noticed me sitting inside and waved. I waved back and a moment later the door opened and in he came.
It was my crush. Nicholas Bray.
‘Hello, Edith,’ he said, smiling at me, and I liked the dimples that appeared in his cheeks. ‘Is this how you spend your afternoons when you’re not teaching? Drinking alone?’