‘Congratulations. Move in with one of them.’
It went on like that for a long time. Alongtime. We were lucky it was the middle of the day and most of our new housemates were on campus, because if they’d overheard us, they definitely would have asked us both to leave.
Eventually, though, we reached the only possible stalemate for two people as stubborn as we were.
‘It’s a big house,’ Sadie said. ‘Will you agree to stay out of my way?’
I took her proffered hand. ‘If you’ll agree to stay out of mine.’
She’d changed over the years, her style evolving, more freckles covering her face, but her handshake was just as secure as ever.
My breath caught in my throat.
I found myself hoping, in a way that was deeply,deeplyemotionally unhealthy, that instead of staying out of my way, she would throw herself into it. That she would break that third ceasefire with me, over and over again.
‘You can let go of my hand now, Jonah,’ Sadie said tersely. ‘You’re not going to intimidate me by trying to crush my bones to dust.’9
Ceasefire #4 – Graduation (postgrad)Four years ago
Sadie had moved into the share house because she was starting her own PhD and wanted to be close to campus. I’d started mine a solid eighteen months before her, but when I went part-time for a bit and then intermitted for a year so I could take up a prestigious but time-consuming (and soul-destroying) research assistance gig,10she caught up to me fairly quickly.
That meant two things:
1) We were competingconstantly: for internal grant funding, teaching work, marking work, opportunities for research collaboration – literally everything.
2) Once again (inevitably, really) we graduated in the same ceremony.
‘Fisher, I know we tried this last time and it went terribly,’ Sadie said as we stood in front of the long mirror in the robing room beforehand, volunteers fussing around us and all the other graduands, making sure the satin linings of our doctoral hoods were draped appropriately, ‘but can we be cool today?’
‘You mean I have to scrap my plans to stand up when they read your name and announce that I have an objection like I’m Mr Briggs at Jane and Rochester’s wedding?’ I replied. ‘Oh no.’
Sadie rolled her eyes. ‘If you could stop your dad from declaring the existence of an impediment, that might be nice.’
She was being sarcastic, but her worries weren’t entirely unjustified. My dad had made it very clear he had no respect whatsoeverfor Sadie’s research area, which was popular fiction. I dreaded it whenever he turned up to her sessions in the Higher Degree Research seminar series almost as much as when he turned up to mine. Professor Christian Fisher was the undisputed king of the passive-aggressive, long-winded, wire-barbedthis is more of a comment than a question.
‘If it’s any consolation, he’s got other people to be a dick to today,’ I said. ‘My siblings flew in for the ceremony. He’ll be too busy bullying my brother Elias for not having a permanent academic job yet, and my sister Fiona for spoiling his three-kids-three-PhDs clean sweep.’
Sadie looked at me strangely.
‘What?’
‘So youdoadmit your dad’s a dick.’
‘Of course I admit my dad’s a dick. I have eyes. Ears. The memory of growing up in his house.’
‘Yet all the times he’s come at me,’ Sadie said, ‘you haven’t said a fucking word.’
‘And make it look like you need some knight in shining armour to fight your battles for you? Of course I haven’t said a fucking word.’
Sadie made a facial expression I couldn’t quite read – a raising of the eyebrows, a quirk of the lips – but said nothing.
‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘you hold your own against him perfectly well, Shaw. You don’t need my help.’
I put my PhD bonnet on. It pushed the frames of my glasses uncomfortably into my ears. ‘Is your sister going to object when they read outmyname?’
‘Chess promised she’d be on her best behaviour.’
‘So a fifty-fifty chance, then?’
