And much as I wanted –needed– this job, and much as the thought of being in the same city as Fiona so I could finally be a halfway decent brother to her had made it feel like a divine sunbeam was shining down on me when I saw the job ad, I couldn’t do that to her.
I don’t want to fight anymore,I’d said, and I’d meant it. It might already be too late, but in case it wasn’t, I didn’t want to be the kind of man my father was.
‘I’m going to be blunt with you,’ Elias said, when we Zoomed to discuss my application. ‘Do you even want this job?’
I blinked. ‘Of course I do. Fi—’
‘Forget Fi.’
‘What the fuck do you mean,forget Fi?’
Elias sighed. ‘I didn’t mean it like that. But a sob story isn’t going to get you this job, Jonah.My sister’s piece of shit husband left her high and dry for his secret second familyisn’t going to do anything for a hiring committee that want to know how your research will count towards their metrics and how much external income you have the capacity to bring in. And the draft you sent me is, frankly, weak and unconvincing.’
‘Thanks, Reviewer 2.’
‘If you want this job, you don’t need me to coddle you. The job market doesn’t care about your feelings. The job market is a gladiatorial arena.’
I sighed. ‘I know.’
‘I know you know. How many jobs have you been shortlisted for?’
‘Three.’
‘Then you must be able to sell yourself better than this. So, answer the question: do you even want this job?’
I sighed again. There was a feeling settling in the pit of my stomach, a complex concoction in which the two primary ingredients were guilt and exhaustion. ‘I’ve told you about Sadie before, right?’
‘The name sounds familiar. Was she the girl in your PhD programme that Dad hated?’
‘It’s more complicated than that.’
And I spilled the whole story. The years of rivalry, punctuated by only a few ceasefires. All the things I had that she didn’t. The way her research specialisation – the one that Dad made a habit of dunking on, every chance he got – lurked there in the job ad, right after mine.
The promise we’d made, my hand in hers across the kitchen table.I don’t want to fight anymore.
Elias was quiet for a long time when I was finished – so much so I thought the screen had frozen and I’d just been spilling my feelings to thin air.
But then, ‘She’s your Julia,’ he said.
‘Julia?’
‘You’re not the first Fisher to have a nemesis.’
Elias ran a hand through his hair. ‘I lost a job to her, seven or eight years back. The same kind of job you’re going for: Level B, permanent, full-time. At Lyons, actually.’
I stared.
‘And I lost it because she got in my fucking head,’ he said, pointing at me through the screen. ‘Now it’s years later, and I’m still bouncing around the world on whatever fellowships I can find, no closer to any kind of security.’
And if he hadn’t lost it, Elias would be living in Hobart. Fiona would have someone. Fishers might be terrible siblings, but at least she wouldn’t be alone.
I didn’t want to fight anymore.
But I had to. I couldn’t let Sadie get in my head, not if I wanted to help Fi.
‘I know my claims in the application are under-evidenced,’ I said. ‘Do you have any suggestions for how I can beef them up?’
I submitted the application the day before the deadline.Never wait until the last day, Elias had counselled me.You know how shit university IT systems are; you never know when they’ll have an outage.
