Perfectly Correct (17 page)

‘Graduate students, women, display material. We’ll allocate you a stand,’ Louise said gravely. She ticked off the items on her pad and then handed him a leaflet. It was printed on defiant pink paper and headed OPEN DAY. The ‘O’ of open was drawn into the biological symbol meaning woman. The professor received it with care as if it might spontaneously combust.

‘Thank you,’ Louise said. She rose to leave.

‘And this woman who is vandalising our noticeboards,’ the professor ventured nervously. ‘Absolutely nothing to do with your group?’

Louise shook her head. ‘We are not vandals,’ she said.
‘The committee is a highly respected long-standing organisation. But perhaps we should ask: are your noticeboards offensive?’

The professor looked amazed. ‘How can they be?’ he asked. ‘They’re only pictures and posters. How can they be offensive?’

‘Do they show women in poses and postures which indicate that women are sexual objects? Are they thus implying that women are sexual rather than intellectual and spiritual beings? Do they imply that all women always welcome and invite sexual overture and thus justify rape? Do they create a climate in which women feel themselves judged on their bodies, not on their abilities?’

It was clear that none of these concepts had ever been put to Professor Edgeley before. ‘No, no,’ he said hastily. ‘Nothing like that. They’re just a bit of fun. They just brighten the place up a bit. Give the lads a bit of a laugh …’

Louise looked at him witheringly until he trailed off into silence. She smoothed her tight-fitting skirt over her slim hips. ‘Thank you for your time,’ she said sweetly, and left.

L
OUISE RANG
M
IRIAM
on Tuesday afternoon before the Fresh Start committee meeting to warn her that Josephine Fields had been sighted in the Sci/Ind department, attacking noticeboards. Miriam, who had a sobbing woman with three small children in her office, was not very interested. ‘Josie will do what she wants, I suppose,’ she said. She handed the woman a tissue from the box which stood permanently on her desk. ‘It can’t be too bad. See you tonight.’

But Miriam was over-optimistic. It was very bad indeed. Josie Fields arrived late at the meeting accompanied by one thin grey-haired nervous woman, one buxom smiling student, and one purple-haired, ring-encrusted punk rocker in black leather. ‘This is Sarah, Gilly, and Mo,’ Josie introduced them. ‘The sub-committee.’

‘Sub-committee?’ Naomi Petersen repeated at her slowest and most pedantic. ‘I don’t recall us establishing a sub-committee.’ She turned a smile of conscious charm on to the three newcomers. ‘It’s very good to see you here,’ she said. ‘All the same.’

‘We were going to set up a sub-committee of women working in Sci/Ind,’ Josie said stubbornly. ‘I already have. I’ve been over to the department several times this week and it’s even worse than I thought. There are very few
women students and the place is riddled with sexism and abuse. Sarah is a technician in the department, Gilly is a second-year student and Mo is a secretary. They’ve joined our campaign to re-educate the department. These are our proposals, I have made copies.’ She thumped a depressing weight of papers on the table and spread them out in an uninviting fan.

‘Hang on a minute,’ Miriam said.

‘Is this on the agenda at all?’ Naomi asked. ‘Or is it Any Other Business?’

‘This is here and now. This is urgent,’ Josie proclaimed. ‘We can’t possibly recruit women to the Sci/Ind department until they reform their working practices along the lines of our proposal. And I refuse to take part in any open day which attempts to recruit women into that environment.’

‘Louise has met with Professor Edgeley,’ Miriam said. ‘And he is prepared to co-operate with us. He recognises the problem.’

‘Edgeley!’ Josie gave a scornful snort of laughter. Mo and Gilly laughed with her and said ‘Edgeley!’ to each other like a well-trained Greek chorus.

‘The department is entirely run by the rugby team,’ Josie said. ‘All work, all postgraduate work and grants are dependent on your being able to play rugby for the university. The team coach is Dr Frost. I suppose you know nothing about this?’

Louise felt herself at a profound disadvantage. ‘I know that I was very embarrassed when Professor Edgeley asked me if I had been vandalising the noticeboards!’ she said sharply. ‘I suppose that was you?’

‘Me actually,’ Mo said. She had a small gold chain running from her left nostril to her left ear. Louise found herself staring at it, unable to look away. Mo was wearing very
white pancake make-up with very thick black lines around her eyes. Her purple hair stood up in sharp spikes. She had a thin leather jacket with a collar turned up around her studded ears, she had a tight black miniskirt worn over bicycling shorts, worn over purple tights. Louise forced herself to stop staring and found herself looking instead at Naomi Petersen. Naomi Petersen was looking at Mo as if she were an iced bun.

‘That’s very direct of you,’ she said, her low voice dropping even lower. ‘What made you do it?’

‘Her idea,’ Mo said, jerking her head towards Josie. Her voice had an authentic working-class south London twang which marked her at once as a girl who had been carefully reared in the nicer parts of Hove. She grinned at Josie, showing one carefully blackened tooth in a white smile. ‘Very cool.’

‘The women of the department have been continually offended by sexist and pornographic material,’ Josie said smoothly.

‘Well, not exactly offended,’ the older woman said. ‘It’s not very nice, some of it. But you get used to it, and they don’t mean any harm.’

‘I make all the pin-up girls little paper bikinis,’ Gilly, the blonde student, said with a giggle. ‘Just for fun, you know. And sometimes I paint moustaches on them.’

‘They’ve all done what they can,’ Josie said. ‘But they need our support.’

Miriam looked at the twelve-item agenda before her. ‘Can we get through the usual business first?’ she asked. ‘Quite quickly? And then really get to work on this?’

‘You mean ghettoise it into a problem to be dealt with separately?’ Josie demanded, pouncing like a cat. ‘No, I don’t think we can.’

Miriam glanced around the table for support. Naomi Petersen was smiling steadily at Mo, who stared back at her through black-fringed eyes, unsmiling but fascinated. Louise was looking down at the table top in silent depression.

‘Oh, very well,’ Miriam said. She looked at the older woman, the lab assistant: Sarah. ‘What changes would
you
like to see in the department?’

‘Quota entry,’ Josie interrupted helpfully. ‘Fifty per cent women, twenty-five per cent of them mature students. No qualifications demanded, just proof of interest.’

Sarah cleared her throat. ‘Then I could get in as a student,’ she said. ‘I’ve got no A levels, but I’ve always wanted to take my BSc.’

‘Quota entry to postgraduate work,’ Gilly said. She gave a guilty giggle. ‘It’s the only chance I’ll get. Quota pass rates for women at all exams.’

‘We want the place run as a commune,’ Mo said. ‘Equal power for secretaries, students and lecturers. No second-class citizens.’

Naomi Petersen, whose own department was run like an outpost of the Third Reich, rested her perfectly shaped chin on her elegant hand and breathed: ‘How interesting.’

Josie shot her a brief suspicious look.

‘I don’t think we can do this,’ Miriam said worriedly. ‘Look, let’s work on these long-term goals and suggestions after open day. I don’t feel we can demand quotas. You can’t really open university degree courses to people with no qualifications at all. There
has
to be a minimum educational standard. And open day is next weekend. Let’s aim at recruiting more women into Science and Industry at our open day and have an on-going project aimed at the departments and looking at the whole notion of quota entry.’

‘I think the time is ripe for radical action,’ Josie announced. She tweaked one of the chains on Mo’s jacket to get her attention away from Naomi Petersen, who was now sitting back in her chair and smiling at Mo under her long curled eyelashes. ‘Radical. Isn’t that right, Mo?’

‘Radical,’ Mo assented, but she did not look away from Naomi.

‘It would be good to see some changes,’ Sarah said. ‘I wouldn’t want the professor to be upset but if they would leave the place a little tidier it would make things much easier in the labs.’

‘Quota pass rates,’ Gilly insisted firmly. Science courses were examined yearly and anyone awarded less than thirty per cent was expelled in their second year. Gilly could see that her days in the bath with the rugby team were numbered. ‘It should be a matter of principle,’ she said. ‘I expect the support of the sisterhood.’

‘If they just rinsed the test-tubes and flasks as soon as they had used them then they wouldn’t stain,’ Sarah continued.

‘We can’t make demands like this,’ Miriam said wearily. ‘We’ll jeopardise the whole open day if we start trying to interfere in a specific department’s work. We can try to re-educate them and we can bring pressure to bear, but our main function is to recruit women students and get them into education.’

Josie abruptly lost her temper. ‘All you think about is propping up the system!’ she shouted at Miriam; but she was looking at Naomi Petersen, who had leaned forward to whisper something to Mo. Mo’s black-rimmed eyes had widened at the suggestion. ‘Either we are a radical group committed to major change or we are in support of the system! You can’t be both!’

‘Open day …’ Miriam started.

‘Bugger open day!’ Josie shouted. She pushed her chair back. ‘I’m resigning from this committee on the grounds that it is not politically correct.’ She flashed a disdainful look at Louise, who had the minutes pad before her and a depressingly blank page. ‘I want it minuted that this committee is not politically correct. I am here founding my own committee – Creative Anarchy Group for Equality – CAGE – and I am announcing our first meeting, next door, now.’

She marched towards the door. ‘Josie!’ Miriam implored. ‘What about consensus among sisters, you know …’

‘You don’t want consensus, you want conservatism,’ Josie said cruelly. ‘Who’s coming with me?’

Wendy Williams got to her feet and went to the door, the three women from Sci/Ind followed, and so did a couple of other women from the end of the table.

‘I’ll just be a moment,’ Naomi said quietly to Miriam, and took Mo to one side into the corner of the room and spoke to her rapidly and softly. As the others watched, Mo stretched out the palm of her hand and Naomi took a silver ball-point pen and lightly wrote her telephone number on the delicate skin of Mo’s wrist. The two women paused for a moment, looking at the spidery blue numbers and the underlying tracery of matching blue veins.

‘I hope I don’t poison you,’ Naomi murmured.

‘Come on, Mo!’ Josie said sharply and marched out of the room and down the corridor. They could hear her opening doors, interrupting meetings all the way down, until a bang of a door announced that she had found an empty room. Louise and Miriam were left alone. Naomi strolled back to her place and sat down, looking at them with serene anticipation. There was a little silence.

‘Correspondence,’ Miriam said wearily.

‘We can’t,’ Louise reminded her. ‘We’re inquorate. And it’s open day next Saturday and nothing planned and nothing ready, no members on our committee and only you and me to do it.’

For a moment Miriam drooped. It had been a long and exhausting day. Then she pushed her hair back from her face and gave Louise her old familiar grin. ‘Well then, let’s go to the pub,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing left to do at all but get pissed.’

Toby sat at home with Rose’s large box on his desk before him. He had not been tempted to waylay Louise on her way to her women’s meeting, nor to cook her and Miriam dinner. Indeed, he felt a deep sense of irritation and grievance with both women though he could not have explained why.

He was also lacking signally in desire. He thought sulkily that Rose Pankhurst was an old witch who had put a spell on him. Ever since he had seen her through Louise’s kitchen window, grimacing at their embrace, he had felt not a glimmer of sexuality. Not even the bright-faced adoring undergraduates stimulated him to a frisson of interest. He felt cold. He felt boring. He felt old.

There had been something about Rose Pankhurst’s bright button eyes that had put him off, put him off very deeply. Louise had been in his arms, he had felt her easy sudden response. Miriam had been packing upstairs, it was a stolen embrace, like any one that they had snatched over the years of deception. Sweetest of all because of the quick clandestine desire of it. He had pushed Louise’s questing hand from the flies of his trousers because he wanted to enjoy desire, not to be racked by it. But he continued to caress her, enjoying
the speeding of her breath and the flush in her face. The picture of Louise aching with unassuagable desire was one of the most attractive sights of their love affair. He adored teasing her into arousal and then watching her struggling to hide it. So with one hand firmly restraining her from touching him, he had allowed his other hand to wander down her cheek, over her breast and down to the soft warmth of her crutch. And then he had seen Rose’s bright critical beam and he had felt his erection vanish and his desire wilt.

She had looked at him as if he were some kind of ordinary cheating husband. She had looked at him with disdain as if he were some horrid travelling salesman who had enticed his secretary into the back seat of his company car. She had looked at him as if he were not a caring, sensual free-thinking new man. She had looked straight through him, as if he were one of an old tedious type and not worthy of her attention, not a new man at all.

Rage would have been better, Toby thought sulkily. Outrage, shock, even exposure would have left him with the moral high ground of being able to expose Rose as a prying old fool who had seen a fraternal hug and leaped to smutty and incorrect conclusions. Miriam would have believed him, Louise would have backed him up. Rose would have looked foolish and he would have been generous, forgiving, and kind.

Instead Rose’s sharp black eyes had scanned him, had seen his hand straying to the welcoming heat of Louise’s crutch while his other hand restrained her from touching the swelling in his trousers. Sitting in his study, before the box of cuttings, Toby felt himself grow warm and knew he was actually blushing at the memory. It was the pushing of Louise’s hand away which had unmanned him before Rose.
It was such a shy rejection, like an old-fashioned girl in the darkness of a cinema. It was the gesture of a tease. Rose had caught Toby out – not in adultery, which he could have brazened through – but in coyness. Rose had seen Toby protect his own feelings and risk Louise’s discomfort. Rose had seen Toby behave selfishly, egoistically, nastily. Toby could not rid himself of that picture. Rose’s view of Toby had entered into his image of himself like a rush of cold water. It turned him off like a tap.

He pulled the box towards him. He had employed a second-year undergraduate to sort the pieces of newsprint into distinct piles. She had bound them with elastic bands and labelled them in her careful schoolgirl script. Toby read the labels. ‘Recipes – puddings. Recipes – savouries. Cartoons and sketches. Book reviews. Suffragette attacks. Housekeeping hints. Court cases. Countryside news. Public meetings. Travel notes.’

He had not told Alison the student of his particular interest. His innate discretion warned him to tell her nothing. He said merely that the papers had come into his possession and he wanted them collated as research material. He had hinted that this tedious exercise of reading and sorting was the very bones and basis of research which would undoubtedly help her in her degree, and would prepare her for postgraduate work. Alison, who would willingly have sorted a dozen boxes just for the privilege of sitting on the floor of his room, even when he was not there, had knelt before Toby’s cardboard box and respectfully sorted his clippings into these asinine categories.