Birdie

Birdie

19 September 1965

B RIDIE SHAKES HIS

hand, and because she isn’t sure what to do next, she offers him a cup of tea. Nobody stays for tea. Not her husband or his fellow professors, not the girls from the assistants’ office, not the students. She has offered and been politely declined so many times that she doesn’t remember the last time she cleaned the ‘guest mug’ that sits upturned on the tray beside her forbidden electric kettle.

As the kettle begins to boil, she opens her window to let out the steam. Beyond the hedge, they can see students milling to and from their lectures.

‘I like it,’ he says.

‘The kettle?’

‘Your name.’

‘Oh, thank you. Birdie

would be more interesting, though, wouldn’t it?’ she asks, blowing the dust out of the guest mug.

He thinks about this. ‘No. I like it as it is. There is something of the bluebird about you.’

She keeps her back to him so he cannot see how much this has made her smile. ‘Are you the new Semiotics lecturer?’

‘No, sorry. I’m a final-year PhD student. I’ve just transferred here from Lancaster, I’m one of …’

‘Professor Leech’s students. Yes, there are five of you coming over, aren’t there?’

‘Actually, it’s just me. The others submitted early to save moving. I think Professor Leech might be a little disappointed.’

He takes the cup of tea, offering his thanks, and Bridie slides the biscuit tin between them. As they sit in pleasant silence for a moment, Eddie selects a Digestive biscuit and dips it in his tea. It immediately crumbles and begins to sink. He tries to fish it out with his fingers, with little success, which makes him giggle.

‘Did I ask how I can help you?’ Bridie asks, handing him a teaspoon so he can scoop out the wayward biscuit.

‘I’m looking for the key to the postgraduate office,’ he says, and he nods to a carrier bag full of textbooks and lever-arch files that have pierced holes in the bag and are protruding shiny corners. ‘I don’t really know where I’m going,’ he says.

This is not her job. And yet.

‘I’ll show you,’ she says, and she pulls open the key drawer to take out the master key.

‘Oh, that’s too kind,’ he says.

As they make their way down the corridor, mugs of tea in hand, he asks, ‘Would you mind if I call you Birdie?’

In he comes, though she did not invite him in.