Wordlessly, he hands the drink to her and sits down in the chair opposite. She sips from it, glad that the stink of alcohol already emanating from her will be masked soon by the peaty liquor. Talisker, maybe, or Laphroaig. It’s delicious, the glow of it warming her from within.
He sips, clears his throat. Here it comes, some comment about last week, a warning maybe, another reproach.
‘I hope you don’t mind this extra work – I probably shouldn’t be asking you to do it,’ he says. It’s as if none of it has happened.
‘But last week . . .’
He puts up his hand. Clearly nothing to discuss.
‘I don’t mind the extra work at all,’ she says. ‘I’m learning from it all the time.’
‘I’m beginning to wonder what I did without you. Your assistance is invaluable.’
‘Don’t you have anyone else who can help you?’ She knows she’s fishing, but she can’t help it.
‘Not as good as you,’ he says with a smile.
She smiles back. ‘You said there was something else?’
‘Yes, I’ve got this talk next Saturday in Cambridge. It’s going to be a lot of preparation – they’ve begged me to do it as a favour, as one of their speakers can’t get a visa to come over.’
‘That’s a bit shit.’
‘Totally shit.’
She flushes at his repetition of the swear word – she shouldn’t have said it. Too casual. Too familiar. ‘Terrible, I mean.’
‘No, shit is exactly the word.’ He smiles, a moment of complicity between them, the air shifting closer. ‘It’s a travesty. He’s a Nigerian professor, highly respected in the field. It’s outrageous that it can’t be sorted in time. It may be possible still, but the organisers don’t want to risk leaving a gap. He’s meant to be a keynote speaker.’ He stops, wanders over to the window and looks out at the big horse chestnut tree in the garden behind. Lucy stays quiet, not sure whether he’s finished speaking or if there’s more to come. ‘So I need to prepare a keynote speech, which is great in principle. It needs to be good, though.’
‘It’ll be brilliant.’
‘It will be if you help me.’
‘I’d love to help you, professor.’
‘Please, call me Edgar,’ he says.
26
Lucy has the work finished by the middle of the following week, and she emails through her summaries to the professor – Edgar – heart in mouth. Objectively, she knows what she’s done is good, but she’s still anxious, keen to impress. Keen to get inside his head, at least a little. She checks and rechecks her emails for the next couple of hours, twitching every time a notification comes up, before finally she receives a reply.
Good job. Thanks. Do you want to come with me? You might find it interesting.
Does she want to come? She almost laughs at the question. It’s a no-brainer.
Yes, please. Let me know the details and I’ll be there.
This time, his reply doesn’t take so long.
Great. I’m driving, so come to the house at 8am on Saturday morning. See you then.
He includes his address and she googles it. Not far, just up the Woodstock Road. She won’t even have to get up that early.
Lucy rolls her eyes at her optimism on Saturday morning, having had the worst night’s sleep she’s had since she started the masters. She’d been on the cusp of sleep for hours, blurred figures crawling in and out and over her as she hovered on the edge of consciousness. It’s a relief to get up finally, blast herself with a hot shower, the water easing the tension in her neck and shoulders as she shaved her legs, her armpits. After a moment’s hesitation, her bikini line, too. Not for any reason, of course. It needed doing. That’s all.
It’s going to be fine. There’s nothing to worry about. All she’s doing is sitting in a car with a man for a few hours, listening to some papers about penal policy and the criminal justice system. She knows it’ll be fascinating – she enjoyed the articles she summarised, found lots of useful information for her own research.
She’s not fooling herself with this reassurance. There’s more to it than that. She wants to impress, entice, draw Edgar into her. She might have started out wanting his expertise, but now she wants a whole lot more from him, rumours or not.
