The Bursar's Wife (10 page)

“It’s Lucy, the taxi driver says she’s drunk.”

Sylvia, not bothering to correct him as to my occupation, pushed past me on the doorstep barely giving me a glance. She was in a pink and grey suit that even I could tell she hadn’t bought at Marks & Spencer. I followed her down to the car where she rapped hard on the window. Lucy jerked awake, looking confused. Sylvia opened the door and Lucy all but fell out onto the drive. Sylvia helped her up and Lucy leant over the open car door, facing me. She was a sight – pale and sick with mascara-streaked cheeks and blonde fringe plastered to her forehead.

“You silly girl,” Sylvia hissed into her ear. “I came to pick you up from the party, what happened?” Lucy looked at me imploringly with bloodshot eyes.

“She went a bit heavy on the gin. I happened to be in the same pub,” I said. Sylvia had questions in her eyes, questions I wasn’t about to answer. I was struck by the similarity of expression in the two – not just a genetic likeness but a shared anxiety. We helped Lucy up the steps. Elliot had disappeared from the open door. At the threshold Sylvia said, as if I was somehow connected with Lucy’s condition, “Thanks, I’ll take things from here.” I watched them go into the house, Sylvia in her designer suit and Lucy in her gown. Elliot came back to the door. He held out his hand. It had money in it.

“I hope this covers the fare and there’s something for your trouble.” I stood there, dork-like, and noticed a sweaty imprint of my ear on the glossy black door. Sylvia and Lucy were walking up a wide staircase. “Is it not enough?” Elliot was asking. I took the money; I wasn’t sure what else to do. Tell him that as a matter of fact I was spying on his daughter on behalf of his wife, who didn’t want him to know about it? It sounded like they had enough troubles as it was.

“It’s very generous,” I said, because that was what he was expecting me to say. When he closed the door I wiped my ear print off the glossy door with the sleeve of my corduroy jacket.

On the way home I parked on Chesterton Road and walked onto the pedestrian bridge that leads to Jesus Green. I liked to look at the weir and the rushing water at night; it appeared a lot more dramatic than during daylight. When it got too cold I walked back to the car and passed two homeless guys shuffling along wrapped in layers of smelly blankets. I stopped them and gave them Elliot Booker’s twenty quid.

I WOKE SATURDAY TO THE SOUND OF KNOCKING. I CHECKED
the old analogue alarm clock by the bed (Olivia had taken her snazzy digital one with her) to see that it was the tail end of the morning. A pile of books sat on Olivia’s side, books left by her for me to read. They were all from her book group days, either prize winners or best sellers. I’d tried them – not very enthusiastically given their association with her book club – getting to page twenty or thirty before putting them down unfinished. I’d mentioned this difficulty at finishing books to my writer and porter friend Kamal. I wished I hadn’t. He’d asked me for the titles and shaken his head when I listed them. He said they were too self-consciously clever and stylish, the very thing that seemed to enthral people who gave out prizes. Kamal says that they are written from the head, not from the heart, and are generally produced by English language graduates for other English graduates to read. He urged me to read people I’d never heard of and never remembered. I took his withering generalisations to be a sign of his bitterness at being unacknowledged as a writer. He himself churned out short stories about ordinary people struggling in difficult situations, most of them based on his experiences as a hospital porter.

The knocking wouldn’t go away so I went downstairs to put a stop to it. It was John, his Cambridge University Estates van parked on the verge outside the house. That would have the neighbours tutting; they hated people parking on the verges. And on a Saturday.

“George, mate. You wanted me to look at your fence.”

“Come in, it’s brass monkeys out there.” He stepped into the hall, all two hundred pounds of him, and I shut the cold out behind him.

“You want to get dressed, matey,” he said.

“You’ve seen me in my underwear, for fuck’s sake, you can handle pyjamas.” We played in the same five-a-side football team.

“It’s about context. Besides you’re wasting the best part of the day.”

I shook my head and made for the stairs. “Help yourself to the garden, I’ll make myself decent.”

Fifteen minutes later I was in the kitchen pouring coffee and John came in with an open notepad and pencil, which he stuck behind his ear.

“Milk and three sugars, matey.” I had to root around for the sugar.

“So what do you think?” I asked.

“Well, you’ve got a long garden there, and it’s difficult to get to some of the fence what with the brambles, but you’re talking nearly three grand. And that’s me doing a price.”

“Fuck off,” I said.

He laughed. “I’m sorry, mate, but that’s almost at cost.” He sipped his coffee, frowning at the heat. He was a softie in a big body who you didn’t want steaming towards you Sunday afternoon on AstroTurf in his shorts. “I tell you what, mate, since you helped me out with my… problem, I’ll do you a favour.” He blushed furiously. I went to the sink to spare him. A year ago he’d come up to me after five-a-side and asked me to look for his eighteen-year-old son, missing for five days. I’d found him easily enough – he’d taken himself to London to find a gay community he could feel normal in. If I’d been worried about John’s reaction to the news I needn’t have, he’d just been pleased that the boy was alright. “The main thing is, is he happy?” he’d asked. I’d told him I thought so. “Then please tell him it’s OK with me.” John’s wife was less understanding of her son’s homosexuality, threatening to “kill the little shirt-lifter” if he showed his face in Cambridge again.

“Tell him that his mother needs more time,” John had told me at the door, since his wife wouldn’t let me in the house. I’d also charged him ‘at cost’ when I discovered he was working weekends just to pay me.

John put his mug down on the Formica table; blushes receded. “I tell you what, I can do you a favour. We’re doing a re-fencing job at one of the colleges. Most of the stuff we’re taking off is sound, just not high enough to keep the wildlife out. It may be that I could see some of the panels coming your way, double them up to make it high enough. Call it recycling. Then you’d just be paying labour.”

“Great, so that leaves two grand to find,” I said. He laughed and this time his stomach heaved up and down in sympathy.

“So which college is it that needs protection from wildlife?” The idea of the university providing my fence held a certain satisfaction.

He named a college on the outskirts of Cambridge. “We’re replacing most of the perimeter; they’ve got foxes and muntjacs scavenging the rubbish there, even the plastic and paper they leave out for recycling. It’s all over the lawns in the morning.”

“Muntjacs?”

“Yes. They’re small deer. You see them around Cambridge, even in the centre…”

But I was thinking about recycling. Paper. I thought of the letter in Elliot Booker’s hand, perhaps the cause of his argument with Sylvia.

“Do you know what days they collect recycling at the colleges then?”

“Don’t know, mate, it depends on the college.” He frowned and then his face lit up. “Is it for a case you’re working on?”

I shrugged noncommittally.

“I could find out for you. Which college is it?”

* * *

I parked outside Sandra’s house in King’s Hedges and tapped the horn, looking to the windows just a few metres from the road. Jason appeared at an upstairs window and Sandra came out the front door with Ashley in tow. She was in a big fluffy bathrobe and matching slippers. She walked down the short path to the car with him. I wound the window down and let out the heat. Sandra had a smirk on her face.

“Good night last night?” she asked. I hoped she hadn’t somehow found out about my ‘date’ with Nina and come to gloat.

“Educational,” I said. Ashley whined about being cold. She told him to go inside. Jason called him from the front door. Sandra watched him run to Jason and then turned back to me. She looked warm and inviting, like a downy duvet you want to curl up in.

“Not as educational as mine, I bet.” It sounded like maybe I wasn’t going to get a ribbing.

“Why don’t you get in.” She went round to the passenger side and I held five fingers up to Jason at the front door. Sandra filled the car with a freshly bathed smell. She looked round the car.

“You ought to clean this out, George. It’s filthy.” I took notice of the rubbish-covered dash, empty cans on the floor.

“Its cheaper than installing an alarm. You had something to tell me?”

“I’ve got one of those telephone headsets, right, so sometimes when I’m working I can do the ironing, or shop online, or it just frees my hands for sound effects.” I raised my eyebrows as a warning of too much information about to be imparted. She saw it and smiled.

“Anyway, I was on the Internet last night and I did a search on Quintin Boyd, you know, just out of interest.”

“Yeah, I already did that,” I said impatiently. “He’s a bigwig corporate lawyer.” She turned to me and shook her head, patting my knee in mock concern.

“Poor thing. Did you not get your oats last night?” Bloody hell, how did she find out this stuff? I declined the invitation to confess. She dropped the act. “You won’t need me to tell you what he’s doing next Sunday then?” she asked. I sighed.

“OK, spit it out.” She looked past me and waved. I turned to see Jason holding Ashley up at the front window, who was grinning and waving. I waved too and turned back to Sandra expectantly. She was determined to milk it, and was checking her moisturiser-covered face in the sun visor mirror.

“This better be worth it,” I said. She flicked up the visor.

“He’s the keynote speaker at the alumni lunch, whatever that is?” she said.

“It’s where graduates who’ve made something of themselves get together and pat each other on the back. What alumni lunch?”

She smiled at me before delivering her payload. “The one Morley College is having next Sunday of course. He graduated eighteen years ago, got a first class honours, whatever that is, in Economics and Law.”

“It means he’s a clever bastard. Let me tell you what I learned.”

I told her about my adventures last night, omitting the part about my date with Nina.

“What were you doing in that pub? It’s a young person’s pick-up joint on a Friday night.”

“Wasn’t my choice,” I said, giving her a don’t-ask-me-more stare. I threw her a distraction. “What about the fact that Lucy told me she’s a virgin?” She took the bait.

“If I meet her I could tell you either way. If she was pissed she could have been lying, but usually the lie is the other way round. If she isn’t actually fucking Quintin then perhaps they have a Lewinsky-Clinton type of relationship. Or, he could be grooming her for something down the line.”

“Sounds a bit cynical, even for you. And hang on a minute, when I assumed they were having sex you called me an arsehole. When you do it, despite evidence that they’re not, it’s suddenly perfectly logical. How does that work?” She flashed me her smile.

“Privilege of being female, George. There aren’t many of them.”

I didn’t tell her that I thought the idea of Quintin spending time grooming Lucy when he had an endless stream of attractive young women silly; I’d learnt to choose my battles with Sandra very carefully.

I TOOK JASON TO THE PIG AND WHISTLE IN NEWNHAM: LOG
fire, club sandwich lunch, no children. I updated him on last night’s shenanigans, omitting the part about Nina going off with a tattooed man. He shook his head either in disbelief or respect, I couldn’t tell.

“Lucy Booker ripped to the tits, who’d have thought it.”

“Tell me what you got yesterday then,” I asked. He took out a notebook and flipped it open. The smell of other people’s lunch was making my mouth water.

“OK. Got the 3:45 to Kings Cross, travelling first class—”

“You travelled first class?”

“Yeah, boss. I bought a first class ticket when I went in. I figured a guy like Quintin Boyd doesn’t travel with the proles, right, and if he did I could still travel second class. Either way I was covered, right?” I gave him a nod to acknowledge his reasoning and he went back to his notes.

“He spent a long time on his BlackBerry, emailing and stuff. I couldn’t see what he was doing though ’cause I was sat the other side of the aisle. Then he took out some papers, but I couldn’t see them. He picked up one of the papers, I’d say a letter from the way it was folded in three, and he made two phone calls.” Jason sipped from his beer.

“Have you ever thought of becoming a detective?” I said jokingly.

“Yes I have,” he said, dead serious, which took me aback. He took another drink and looked down at his notebook.

“Didn’t catch who the first call was to ’cause the woman opposite decided it would be a good time to phone her husband and have a loud conversation about who would pick up the dry cleaning. Anyway, he gave them a reference number from the letter and was asking them about margins of error.”

“Margins of error?” A waitress walked towards us with two steaming plates but passed us for another table.

“Yep. He kept asking them how accurate the result was but he was very cagey on the phone, so I didn’t get to know the result of what. Anyway, he seemed happy enough at what they said. Maybe it was the STD clinic.” He ripped out a sheet from his notebook. “Here’s the reference number.”

“You said he made a second call,” I said, tucking the piece of paper into my own notebook and looking longingly at the door to the kitchen.

“Yeah, boss. To someone called Judith.”

“Judith?”

“Yeah, Judith. He told her – she wasn’t a girlfriend, the way he was talking to her – he told her that he’d got the result and it confirmed what he’d always suspected from day one. Then he asked her if she’d sorted the other thing.” Jason looked at his notes. “Then he listened for a bit and said,” – and here he put on a drawling American accent – “‘You’re asking me what I’m going to do, Judith? Why, I’ve already done it.’ Then he laughed and hung up.”