Murder in the English Department (5 page)

Nan wanted Marjorie Adams to understand; at this moment she needed her, more than any other student, to understand.

‘But that's changing,' said Marjorie. ‘I'm here. You're here. There will be more of us.'

Us. Nan smiled at the ‘us' and at the optimism. She had always liked Marjorie's optimism.

‘Actually,' said Marjorie, winding her watch, ‘I should be leaving if I'm going to keep my appointment with Professor Murchie.' Even in her eagerness to go, she looked excited by their discussion.

Nan nodded, too wound up to reply.

Marjorie gathered her papers together and said, ‘I do thank you for the response to my chapter.'

‘Yes,' said Nan briskly, trying to recover some face.

Marjorie zipped her slim leather briefcase and exited elegantly before Nan had sunk to the full depth of her confusion.

Chapter Four

THE TRACK WAS ALMOST
vacant
at seven a.m. However, the presence of three other joggers reassured her that indeed this running was an exercise in more than fear. Every day Nan questioned the value of jogging, especially during the first ten minutes, when she wasn't sure where she would find the steam to finish her three miles. Was this another of her endurance tests, her self-imposed penances? Her pace was slow. Even old men passed her by. But after the first four laps, she felt OK. Few runners lasted on the track as long as she did. Somewhere during the fifth lap, during the eleventh or twelfth minute, willpower gave over to internal force: she was driven along, flown above the ground. Oxygen repossessed her brain. She grew alert. She might organize her day or try to finish the sentences she had sat over for hours. Sometimes she worked through tensions from school or the family. Sometimes she fantasized. (The Distinguished Teaching Award. Tenure. A severe, but subtle put-down of Angus Murchie, Esq.) Such daydreams were the best part of jogging, like the fantasies she allowed herself before she fell asleep. But this morning the running was ‘a problem-solving session', as her earnest friend Francie, who practised feminist therapy, would say. The big problem was: What could she do on New Year's Eve? Whom would she offend?

Sweat dripped down her temples. Tears streamed from her eyes. She enjoyed these signs and always felt cleansed after a run, knowing she had done something productive. Shirley regarded jogging as one of Nan's loonier activities. (‘To spend all that time running around when you might be doing useful work, like housecleaning or washing your clothes or something that needed to be done, I just don't understand you, Nannie.') Both sisters were expert at cleaning, purging, always on the look out for some form of purity. Nan could feel the muscles in her back unknot and relax. It was a crisp, windy morning. She breathed in pine and cedar from the tall, swaying trees.

The New Year's dilemma felt less serious already. Would it be a smash-up evening of beer and dancing and dirty jokes with Shirley and Joe in Hayward? A quietly erotic time with Francie and her lesbian friends? A proper cocktail party at Matt's where she might make intellectual chat with her colleagues, score some career points and perhaps reward that sweet fellow Claude for his committed but discreet pursuit these past six months?

She could hear from behind her the slosh, slosh of tennis shoes in the damp earth. Damn, she thought, as a septuagenarian passed her by. She knew that running ‘wasn't about competition', as Francie would say. But this guy had overtaken her twice already.

This was her tenth lap, two more to go, and all of a sudden she realized that what she wanted most on New Year's Eve was to be alone. Alone with a quiet evening, an uncluttered evening to work. Well, why not? Why not offend everybody! She could have a nice dinner and then see in the New Year as she polished off the journal article on the connections in Doris Lessing's writing between feminism and African liberation. Of course she wouldn't tell her friends; no one would believe she was spending the evening in Wheeler Hall. She would have to devise a much cleverer alibi.

Red, sweaty and limber when she got home, she had settled everything except the alibi. Shirley would take it the hardest, would regard her absence as some kind of snobbery. Nan could taste the guilt rising in her gut already. But her bones were easy from the run; she tried to remember how relaxed she was. On the front of the fridge were taped half-a-dozen snapshots. The photograph nearest the handle was of Nan, Shirley and little Lisa. Lisa must have been ten or eleven, and already she looked more like her aunt. Actually, she didn't resemble anyone in the family, with that ocean of fair hair. Both Shirley and Nan beamed at the girl, like proud mothers. Lisa stood in the middle, linking and separating them, as always.

Nan prepared her breakfast. She liked the pure colours, the white and yellow of the soft-boiled egg, steaming with its top off; the black of the coffee made richer in the dark mug.

Lisa was just one step in the tango between Nan and Shirley. Their tension seemed to crystallize long ago, just after Shirley's wedding. Once she had found her own man, Shirley was eager to help mate her sister. And when Nan finally ‘landed' Charles Woodward, Shirley seemed distant, uncomfortable about their status and income. But her clearest reaction, which irritated Nan immeasurably, was sisterly relief that Nan's life was finally coming together. Nan hated the unspoken words between them. She tried to tell Shirley why she loved teaching—the ideas, the books, the life of school. She confided her frustrations with Charles, the boredom and staleness of their marriage. But Shirley said she'd get used to that. She called Nan ‘restless', said, ‘Even as a kid you were never settled.' At times Nan wondered if she had inherited every ounce of drive in the family. And, of course, when she finally had the courage to divorce Charles, Shirley was utterly bewildered. She saw the painful fear in Nan's eyes and couldn't understand why she was doing this to herself. During the last ten years, Shirley hadn't probed far into her sister's ‘private matters'. Nan never discussed her current celibacy. As long as Nan was happy, Shirley said, that's all that mattered.

Likewise, Nan pretended to accept Shirley's family life. Sometimes she tried to imagine what Shirley did now that the kids were grown. Nan knew that she, herself, was the oddball, that Shirley had made the more commonly sensible choice for women of their class and generation. So she tried to support her sister. On Sunday mornings, before she phoned Shirley, Nan wrote a list of things to ask, things to tell, because the conversation so often sagged between them.

Nan washed out her egg cup, then the coffee mug. One of each. She would burst at the unfairness of having to do everybody else's dishes—and laundry and housekeeping.

Still, Amy had teased her last night that she was just as motherly as Shirley, just as protective of her students as Shirley was of the family. ‘Too protective,' Amy had warned. ‘You've got to learn to cover your own ass.'

The phone rang. It was Amy. Odd how Amy often called when she was on Nan's mind. Her friend phoned at unpredictable hours, whenever she had a moment from court or was bogged down in her research. The reasons were equally unpredictable.

‘I called to apologise,' announced Amy.

‘For what?' Nan asked.

‘For criticizing you about the Sexual Harassment Campaign after the movie last night.'

‘Yes,' said Nan quietly. She had been hurt when her old friend called her foolish. It was as though Amy were ganging up with Matt.

‘And to say I'm angry with you,' Amy continued.

‘Come again?' said Nan.

‘Why didn't you tell me about Professor Eastman until last night? Like twelve years ago?'

‘You remember the quarter I dropped a class,' said Nan, ‘when I had mononucleosis?'

‘How could I forget, the indestructible Weaver! I couldn't believe it. But you did look awful that term.'

‘I thought I had some disease,' Nan went on, ‘some moral disease, to have a respected man like that come on to me.'

‘Sorry,' said Amy, ‘I wasn't meaning to blame you.'

‘For a while,' Nan spoke quietly, ‘it really shook my foundations about fairness, about safety. It showed me how tricky surviving at the Holy University could be.'

‘But Nan Weaver,' exclaimed Amy, losing patience. ‘It's been so many years. Why haven't you
ever
brought it up? And all this politicking you do on sexual harassment.'

‘I find it hard to believe myself. I guess I thought I had told you. I thought you understood why I first got involved in this issue. At the time I thought everyone knew about me. I thought I wore it on my sleeve.'

‘Yeah,' said Amy, her voice easier now. ‘Francie said she felt that way after she got raped.'

Damn, Nan thought, how detached could she get, to hold this away from Amy, her best friend, for so long.

‘So I just called to say,' Amy began.

Nan could imagine Amy checking her watch.

‘That I understand this political campaign better,' Amy was finishing. ‘But I still wish you'd wait until after tenure.'

‘Thanks, Amy. We have a lot to talk about.'

‘Yeah. Sometime soon. Gotta rush. Gotta be out at the jail by nine o'clock to pick up a client.'

‘Right,' said Nan. ‘Thanks for calling.'

Nan found herself staring out at the Bay. She couldn't go to work just yet. She made another cup of coffee. Maybe if she told Shirley about Eastman and some of her other experiences, maybe Shirley would understand her ‘crazy politics'. How could she still be so ashamed? Sometimes she tried to dismiss it as insignificant. Compared to the daily violence against women—rape, mutilation, murder—what was one pass? But Eastman's assault had shaken her equilibrium profoundly. What a hypocrite she was, ranting away about women protecting themselves and not acknowledging what had happened to her. Had anything like this ever happened to Shirley? Why had she never asked?

No, she wouldn't be too hard on herself. She tried with Shirley. She tried more than Shirley did. Why was it always Nan who had to cope with her schizophrenic feelings in Hayward: Why didn't Shirley come to Berkeley for a visit? Sometimes her sister seemed too busy for her, what with supervising the bake sale at All Saints, driving what's-her-name to the prenatal clinic, organizing the fireworks stand for the Boy Scouts. Couldn't Shirley let go of the damn Boy Scouts now that Tom and Bob were married? No, she would never release the strings which bound her forever as a mummy in Southern Alameda County.

Nan thought about the last Fourth of July, how she had dashed out to see the family before going backpacking in Yosemite. It was such a classic visit. She had waited an hour for Shirley outside the Boy Scout fireworks stand. An hour under the morning sun, standing in the empty lot, leaning against the dusty station wagon, one foot crunching straw, one foot fiddling in the mud rut, making notes in a new novel she had promised to review and hoping like hell that the sun wouldn't get much hotter.

There she stood, surrounded by the Big O Tire Dealer, the Quick Stop 7-11, Elizabeth's Coiffures and the A & W Rootbeer stand, which had been here on Lorenzo Boulevard since they were kids. Shirley had explained how this site was ideal for fireworks sales, right on the road to the K Mart. So many people drove by. So Nan tried to look inconspicuous, as if everyone in Hayward reviewed novels while loitering in empty lots. She glanced away when Mrs Wilson dropped off her son from their sleek yellow Coup de Ville. Mrs Wilson, who had once been Elaine Mendosa, Head Yell Leader, likewise chose not to notice Nan. Then Larry Connors arrived. Larry Connors, on whom she had the most enormous crush in the twelfth grade, but who loved Shirley instead. In his misery at Shirley's early marriage, Larry got himself hooked to a girl from Castro Valley. Nan managed to ignore the reunion by feigning fascination with the Winnebago waiting for a check-up at the Big O Tire Dealer.

When Shirley finally emerged from the fireworks stand she was apologizing for the delay and beaming about their record-breaking profits. Enough for a new tent and backpack for the kids. She spoke as if backpacking should be reserved for kids. Nan counted that she had read seventy, no seventy-five, pages during the past hour.

After the fireworks, she and Shirley went off for their favourite lunch at Burger King. The adolescent, racially integrated staff all wore brown uniforms set off with orange and white stripes. They behaved like apprentice flight attendants, smiling generously, regardless of whether you ordered a Whopper with Cheese or a small Diet Pepsi. Across the street, Nan watched teenagers piling into old Soaper's Restaurant, where she and Shirley used to stop for milkshakes when they were cruising the strip after football games. Did kids still cruise the strip?

One of the Burger King flight attendants had walked directly toward them, a sweet young woman whose little brown cap didn't look at all silly atop her cascading hair. A kid whose skirt was too short because she had grown an inch during the last month.

‘Lisa honey,' said Shirley, ‘can you take the bus home tonight? We need the car to pick up more fireworks at the Red Devil shack.'

‘Sure Mom,' said the daughter, stewardess, niece, soon-to-be-woman. ‘So what will it be for two? Lunch is my treat.'

After Nan finished drying
the
three breakfast dishes, she checked her watch. She would have to get moving if she were going to use this Christmas vacation to the fullest. She walked into the bathroom, took off her robe and examined herself in the long mirror. Fairly decent shape for an almost fifty-year-old woman. Her breasts were small, but firm. Nothing really sagged. But maybe that was because she wasn't wearing her glasses.

Nan remembered she was supposed to phone Lisa for the test results. By now Nan believed that the illness was psychological. Lisa's paleness was probably the same kind of anaemia she herself had suffered on leaving Kelly Hill thirty years ago. Nan had phoned a good feminist therapist, a friend of Francie's, to see if she could take Lisa. She would suggest therapy discreetly, after these test results proved inconclusive. Lisa would be willing to try it. Yes, she was much more daring than Nan's cautious self of thirty years ago.

Nan ran a comb through her hair as she dialled the Growsky's familiar number. No one answered for the first couple of rings. Probably a good sign; maybe they were off shopping in Southland Mall, near the hospital. Just as she was hanging up, she heard a low, strained ‘Hello.'

‘What's up, sweets?' Nan asked her sister.

‘Oh, Nan,' said Shirley. That was all she said. A muffled noise, a hand over the receiver, another muffled noise. Then Shirley came on again. ‘Oh, Nan, Nannie.'

‘What is it?' she demanded. ‘The tests, tell me how Lisa's tests went.' She was trying to sound solid, confident.