Escapement

Escapement

November 1965

University of Birmingham

‘I’ M INCREDIBLY

DRUNK.’

Eddie leans against the doorway of Bridie’s office, cheeks flushed, hat askew, bow tie pointing north and south.

He’s resting the weight of his whole body against the door frame as though he wouldn’t be able to support his own weight without the help of the wall.

Bridie tries to suppress her smile. She extends her legs under her desk and pushes the chair opposite out towards him. With the door open, the sounds of the party down the corridor in the common room are louder; someone is playing an accordion, along with the record player. There would be clinking of glasses, but they are drinking out of the common room’s communal mugs. And they’re chipped enough already, so toasts are off the table.

Pushing himself off the door frame and making his way over to the chair, Eddie looks like a puppet whose strings have been cut, all loose and ungoverned. Whatever thing is usually controlling him has left him to decide his own

movements. And they are wobbly ones. He flops down into the chair opposite her.

‘I’m so drunk I’ve forgotten what we’re celebrating,’ Eddie says, resting his elbow on his thigh and then his head on his hand in a balancing act that looks precarious but which also makes Eddie look as though he is incredibly interested in whatever Bridie will say next.

‘We had a lot of wine left over from the October conference,’ Bridie says. ‘And if we don’t use it, we won’t get any new wine for the Christmas party.’

‘Isn’t academia a scam!’ he says.

‘I’ve always thought so.’

‘I imagined it differently,’ he says.

‘The party?’

‘Being here.’

Even his smile is wonky tonight, as though the wine has sent every part of him off on an angle, like a house falling down a cliff. Crumbling into the sea.

‘So why aren’t you at the party?’ he says, a heavy hand flailing in the general direction of the common room, where a roar of cheers suggests that the dartboard has been brought out. ‘Why are you here, in your office?’ He gestures messily to the Eiffel Tower mug Bridie has been drinking her wine from. And the wine bottle she took from the common room at the start of the party.

She turns her locket from back to front on its shining chain and she does not give an answer.

Beside the wine bottle is an empty mug covered in quotes by Edgar Allan Poe. Eddie reaches for it and begins to fill it. ‘This wine is a lovely colour,’ he says. ‘Like a duck’s beak.’

When he has finished pouring, he swirls the wine in the mug and sniffs. ‘Excellent bouquet.’

‘Oh yes,’ Bridie agrees, nose over her own mug. ‘Hair lacquer and lemon.’

‘That’s exactly it.’ Eddie takes a big swig. ‘Warm,’ he says, swallowing. ‘Lovely stuff.’

It is only on speaking to Eddie now that Bridie realizes that she too is slightly tipsy.

‘Birdie, I was wondering,’ he says, and she hopes he will not ask again why she is alone, why she can’t bear to be around her husband when he is merry and showing off and soaking in the adoration of the lower-level academics who see him as their ticket to rise. The right co-authored paper, the right name drop at the right interview and Alistair Bennett can help them become the next Alistair Bennett. She cannot bear to see Alistair’s eyes shiny, cheeks flushed with self-importance. And she cannot bear to be asked again the ages of her children, for she has none, but the men in the department presume that she must have at least

two or three by now, especially given the doughiness of her physique, which is always inexpertly hidden behind long cardigans and mismatched scarves. She cannot bear to be asked about her schooling by the few females in the department who don’t know what else to ask her, stumped as they are to be presented with a woman with no discernible ambition.

‘Yes?’ Bridie asks Eddie. Ready for it all.

‘Can I have a biscuit?’ he asks. ‘I think I might be sick if I don’t eat something.’

She slides over her tin and pops the lid off for him.

He takes a jam-centre biscuit and puts the whole thing

in his mouth. It makes his cheek bulge like a greedy parrot. She starts laughing and he starts laughing. And because he’s laughing so much, he can’t chew the biscuit and has to slide the saliva-covered thing out of his mouth.

There is another roar of laughter and cheers from down the corridor. He places the slimy biscuit on the table. ‘Come on,’ Bridie says, standing and taking her navy wool coat from the back of her chair and throwing it to him.

It is November now, but he isn’t wearing anything over his short-sleeved shirt and bow tie.

‘Where are we going?’ he asks as they make their way out of the English department and into the stinging November night. Campus is empty. The lights are off in the library that looms large to their right, looking haunted in the darkness.

‘I think you need some air,’ Bridie says.

‘And why am I wearing your coat?’ he asks, linking his arm through hers, slightly drowned in navy wool.

‘It’s freezing,’ she says.

‘Then you should wear it,’ he says, the words slurring together. ‘I can’t let you shiver while I wear your coat.’

‘I’m fine,’ Bridie says. ‘I’ve got my fat to keep me warm.’

Eddie stops still and turns to face Bridie, looking at her like a dog hearing a language it doesn’t understand.

Bridie can’t take the intensity of his gaze, so she turns and begins walking towards the clock tower that rises above them. There is a moment of quiet, and then she hears his footsteps behind her. It really is freezing; she folds her arms across herself. Her thin cardigan is doing little to keep her warm and her fingers are starting to feel rigid with the cold.

When they reach the base of Old Joe, Eddie has caught her up.

‘Some people say,’ she says to him, aware that he is close by her side, ‘that if you walk underneath Old Joe before your exams, you’ll have bad luck.’

‘That’s not too rich for my blood,’ Eddie says, and they walk towards the arches.

Hope is a dangerous thing in the hands of the lonely. Hope certainly shouldn’t be left in Bridie’s hands, she realizes, as she and Eddie find themselves alone in the dark archway beneath the old clock tower, where nobody could see them, even if they were looking. Though nobody is looking for Bridie or Eddie tonight.

She fails to suppress a shiver and he takes off the coat he has borrowed and drapes it with such care around her shoulders that she could cry, just from the kindness of it. In the half-darkness, she is aware that they are far too close to one another. She can feel the warmth of him.

‘Birdie,’ he asks. Why is this sweet man so gentle? He is careful with her, as though she is something precious.

‘Yes, Eddie.’

‘Why did you have that mug there?’

‘The mug?’ She’s stalling.

‘The Edgar Allan Poe mug.’

She’s caught. It is too cold and she is too tipsy for the lie. And so she simply says, ‘Because I hoped you’d come looking for me.’

‘Ah,’ he says, ‘ The Raven

.’ And then he smiles. ‘It is always the birds with you,’ and then he takes a step back, as though he has realized how close they are to one another. As though

he

is the one who is married. As though it is his responsibility, and not hers, to make sure that she does not break her vow.