CHAPTER 6
Howard looked around the three of us as Abigail sat tight-lipped and furious.

“Are we agreed, Sam, ladies? Right. Ms Thorpe, you have made serious allegations against Dr Evans here, allegations that could have resulted in a prison sentence for her if they had been true, which clearly they are not. To support those falsehoods, you have attempted to misrepresent yourself in a truly grotesque way.

“Dr Evans would be fully within her rights to take a civil action against you for slander, and as I would be more than happy to stand as a witness on her behalf, and…yes? Yes, my two colleagues here also, I believe that your chances in court would be as that of the well-known infernal snowball.

“We have another matter to consider now, and that is whether we can allow you to continue as a student at this establishment after such disgusting dishonesty. Accordingly, I would strongly suggest you take legal advice before your own hearing ,and at the very least consult your student council.

“For the time being, you are suspended from access to the University, its grounds and buildings.”

“Yebbut, that fucking freak’s not even a proper woman!”

Harriet leant forward, just a little. “Mss Thorpe, if you are offering yourself up as a feminine role model, I am afraid I will go with Laura here”

Abigail was crying now. “But it’s not supposed to go this way! You’re all just sexists!”

I almost felt sorry for her at that point. Harriet, clearly, did not.

“We will be in touch when a date is available for your disciplinary hearing. Close the door as you leave”

She almost stumbled out of the office, in floods of tears. Harriet stared at me.

“You feel sorry for her, don’t you? Typical bloody soppy woman, no wonder we get trodden all over! Listen…I have spent my entire career striving for equal treatment, respect, all of that, and too many women are just like you, the slightest bit of emotion and they crumble. Cows like her use that, and they destroy everything the rest of us fight for, and girls like you are too bloody soft to stop them!”

She paused, opening and shutting her mouth almost like Abigail.

“Ye gods, you really are a woman, aren’t you?”

“A couple of small areas that need adjustment, but, yes, I always have been.”

“Well, less sympathy and more ‘let’s nail that bitch’, and you still haven’t told me where the shoes came from”
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Harriet insisted on taking me for a coffee, and I called Pete up to meet us at a little café in Above Bar. I spotted him on the pavement, and trotted out to help him with his chair into the place.

“You look absolutely gorgeous, love. Those are definitely Dave shoes. The hair suits you as well, really nice”

“Keep talking and you’ll get me into bed, young man”

“I was sort of hoping that might be the case! Who is this we’re meeting?”

“Harriet Smythe. She has all the letters and stuff, but she seems to prefer the high-powered admin stuff to what we lowly lecturers slave away at”

“How did it go n there?”

I snorted. “Tell you inside”

Harriet stood to offer him her hand. “So you are the magic bullet, eh?”

“Perhaps an unfortunate metaphor, but I take it as you meant it. Just don’t follow it with a comment about going down a bomb or finding our feet”

That was a moment that truly warmed me. I looked at my Pete as my healer, my rescuer from the living hell of Odd John, a hell so deep and dark I didn’t even know I was in it. With that little flurry of jokes, I realised that perhaps it was far from being one way traffic, that I was healing him as he did me. I also knew I loved him, but that was like the sunrise, it was there each day.

Some time later I realised they were still talking, and Harriet seemed to have thawed considerably in his presence. We worked through the rather unequal meeting of minds with young Abigail, and when I mentioned my side bet with Howard, Harriet brayed with laughter. “You utter bitch! I wish I had thought of that!”

She finished her coffee, and taking my hand pulled me off to the ladies’

“Well, you can hardly use the gents’ like that, can you, and you will need to get used to it”

Where exactly did she think I had been going since Hurricane Mum turned my life inside out? Never mind.

“Laura, are you familiar with Richard Thompson’s music?”

“Is he a popular singer or some such?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, I thought John had buggered off for good! He’s a folk singer”

“I don’t do folk…”

“Bear with me, Laura. Richard writes seriously deep lyrics, usually rather dark, and on one of his albums he wrote a song about a girl watching her friend go off out, and the tag line is ‘has he got a friend for me?’ ”

She looked straight at me then. “Well, has he?”

I realised she was deadly serious. There was a vulnerability there, behind the sharp suit and the perfect make up, hidden by the hard professional manner, and I saw the need within her. I was finding out that there are currents in people’s lives that don’t always show on the surface, and to have them confide in me was confirming my shiny new humanity.

“Yes, I am at least half serious. Watching you together almost hurts, he loves you so much and so obviously. For somebody with your…anatomy, you are so wholly female you make me realise what I have squandered over the years. So, when I see how totally John, that peculiar and profoundly irritating tit, has softly and silently vanished away, I seek my own boojum”

I did what women do, and hugged her, and we talked some more, and I resolved to speak quietly to Pete that night in bed.

A thought that had me trembling with joy. I kept it from Harriet.

We tottered back to the table, laughing, and Pete just looked puzzled.

“Girl talk, love. Let’s get back, we’ll be a little early, might have time to go down to the front for a wander”

We were indeed early, and there was a Landrover Discovery parked in the driveway.

“That’s Dad’s….”

I had a sudden suspicion, and with Pete on his crutches, I opened the front door of the house as silently as I could manage. I was right, and rather surprised.

My mother makes a LOT of noise when having sex.