“I’m not adopting a system of hats,” I just-short-of-yelled. “I don’t even have a hat.” Well, technically I did haveahat, but it had a vulva on it so wasn’t really appropriate for a professional Zoom call.
“So”—Alex was holding up one finger thoughtfully—“in this joke, the imaginary patient says, ‘Doctor, Doctor.’ Then is it the doctor or the patient who says the next bit?”
“Obviously, it’s the patient who’s broken their arm in three places.”
“Well, one doesn’t like to assume,” Alex replied. “Doctors have ailments too.Medice, cura te ipsumand all that.”
“Nobody is curating anybody’s ipsums. The patient says, ‘I’ve broken my arm in three places—’”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.” Rhys Jones Bowen had finally managed to connect. “Very dedicated of you to be coming into work anyway.”
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, it is.”
“Sorry I’m late, chaps, chapesses, and chapnonbinary people,” Rhys Jones Bowen continued. “I had a bugger of a time getting on the Wi-Fi. Forgot the password, you see.”
“Would you not just connect automatically?” I asked, ill-advisedly.
Rhys Jones Bowen shook his head. “Oh no, Luc. As social media and data security manager”—Rhys Jones Bowen’s suite of responsibilities had expanded after GDPR came in—“it’s important for me to set an example.”
Since the pandemic, we’d had a lot of Zoom meetings. Honestly, this one was going better than most. We were also, by my count, reaching the point where Dr. Fairclough would consider herself to have exceeded her allocation of time spent interacting with human beings before noon.
Dr. Fairclough’s face appeared in the centre of the screen, pushing the rest of us into a little sidebar. “I consider myself,” she said,“to have exceeded my allocation of time spent interacting with human beings before noon. Therefore, I shall convey the information I have convened this meeting to convey, we will briefly discuss it, and we will conclude. Any questions?”
“What’s that on the wall behind you?” asked Alex.
If someone had said that to me, I’d have assumed they were talking about a monster or a spider and whipped around to look. Dr. Fairclough, though, wasn’t scared of monsters, and her only problem with spiders was that arachnids fell outside her field of study. “It’s a print of a VW Beetle,” she explained. “I am currently engaged in a romantic and sexual relationship. We have had a slight miscommunication about my interests.” She paused again, for about a third of a second. “Does anyone have any questions pertinent to the format of the meeting?”
To my intense relief, nobody had any questions pertinent to the format of the meeting. Or any questions they had mistakenly decided were pertinent to the format of the meeting.
“Good,” said Dr. Fairclough. “Our patron is dead.”
In hindsight, it was not my finest work moment to respond to this news with, “What? The Earl of Spunkwhistle?”
“Spitalhamstead,” Barbara Clench corrected me, either out of respect for the dead or because—as she’d told us in several long email chains—she found the Spunkwhistle thing both childish and inappropriate.
Alex’s face reflected its usual confusion. “Gosh. It seems like a lot of earls are dying recently. I hope there hasn’t been a revolution.”
“I think if there was a revolution,” I said, as diplomatically as I could, “you would be among the first to know.”
“Jolly kind of you, Luc. Still, it’s a deuced queer thing because I was at an earl’s funeral only the other day. Friend of the family. Excellent fellow, absolute riot.” He paused, frowning. “I mean, not so much now, obviously.”
“Can we focus on one earl at a time, please?” asked Barbara Clench.
And, somehow, my status as third-least professional person in the room was dragging me back on Team Barbara. “When did this actually happen?”
“Last Friday,” said Alex. “Lovely ceremony. Very tasteful.”
I just about managed not to face-palm on camera. “No, when did the earl die?”
“About two weeks ago,” replied Alex and Dr. Fairclough simultaneously. “But,” Dr. Fairclough went on, “I’ve only recently been informed. The estate has shown a shocking lack of regard for our research into and reintroduction of ecologically vital strains of coleoptera.”
Something was nagging at me. “Alex,” I asked. “This earl friend of yours…”
“Hilary?” Alex volunteered. “Yes?”
“Where was he earl of again?”
“Spitalhamstead, I think. Though one knows such a lot of earls these days, it’s a little hard to keep track.”
