29 Seconds Read online

  A delivery van was idling by the porch, the driver on the doorstep handing over a package to a slim, middle-aged woman in a spotless white apron.

  ‘Domestic staff?’ Marie said out of the corner of her mouth.

  ‘Well, it’s not Mrs Lovelock, that’s for sure.’

  The driver went back to his van and pulled away in a crunch of gravel. The woman in the apron held the door open, smiling and gesturing to Sarah and Marie to come in.

  Sarah had to stop herself from staring when she walked into the kitchen they’d been taken to. It was the size of the whole downstairs of her little semi-detached put together. Broad oak beams in the ceiling, black granite worktops, creamy-white marble floor. She felt a pang of jealousy.

  There was a low murmur of chat over soft jazz music, small groups of people standing in threes and fours, holding drinks and canapés. It seemed to Sarah that everyone looked around when she and Marie walked in, then they all returned to what they were doing a half-second later. Sarah moved over to a long table where a white-jacketed caterer was pouring glasses of champagne. She picked up two glasses and handed one to her friend.

  Lovelock was holding court. He stood with his back to the Aga, a large glass of red wine in hand, talking and gesturing expansively to a rapt audience of colleagues from the faculty. Despite the chatter in the room, Lovelock’s booming baritone was clearly audible above the hubbub. Talking about his book, as usual.

  ‘And so I just said to the BBC chaps, well, it’s entirely your choice.’ He shrugged and raised an eyebrow at his audience, their faces turned towards him like flowers towards the sun. ‘Either the BBC shifts its transmission dates to tie in with the publication of my book, or I shift the whole show to Channel 4. Simple as that.’

  There was a polite ripple of laughter from his audience.

  Sarah recognised the dean of the faculty, Jonathan Clifton, standing in another corner of the kitchen talking to Lovelock’s wife, Caroline. A slim woman in her late forties, she had sculpted cheekbones and thin lips, perfect blonde hair falling to her shoulders. She was a good ten years younger than Lovelock.

  Sarah had heard mention of Caroline Lovelock but had never spoken to her before. She was his second wife, she knew that much, and had worked with Lovelock as departmental secretary in his last job at Edinburgh University. The departmental gossip was that she spent her days overseeing a cohort of domestic staff – cleaner, cook, gardener, handyman – to keep everything in perfect order for the master of the house.

  Sarah wondered idly whether he’d behaved with her the same way he behaved with most of his female colleagues. And she had ended up marrying him. Jesus. To Sarah they looked like an odd match: she was an attractive woman and he was clearly punching way above his weight to have landed her. Either way, she had left her husband when they first got together, and Lovelock had left his wife and young daughter. But that was years ago.

  Caroline’s eyes roved over the room, stopping momentarily as she looked at her husband addressing his crowd in the corner, then moving on. Sarah smiled and gave her a little wave, but got a blank stare in return. She wondered if Mrs Lovelock had any inkling of what her husband was like now. Did she realise? Perhaps she knew better than any of them.

  Sarah checked her watch. It was only just gone eight o’clock.

  ‘Two hours,’ she whispered. ‘Then we’re out of here.’

  ‘Stick to the Rules,’ Marie whispered back.

  ‘You too,’ Sarah replied.

  6

  Sarah stood in a corner of the sitting room, at the edge of two or three conversations, watching groups of people as they made polite conversation and picked at buffet food from fine china plates. Swooping, incomprehensible jazz music played on the stereo. Colourful tropical fish swam in a long tank set against one wall. With Marie gone to join the queue for the bathroom, it suddenly felt to Sarah that none of this was real, that she had stumbled through the looking glass into an alternative reality – a place where she didn’t belong and didn’t know the rules.

  But all of these people were like her once, she reasoned to herself. All of them had been on the outside looking in, waiting for the tap on the shoulder that meant someone thought they were good enough, smart enough, tough enough to move onwards and upwards. Once it had been their time. Soon it would be her time. She just had to be patient, that was all. She had to play the game. She sipped her drink, smiling politely at anyone who caught her eye.

  Her mobile vibrated in her pocket. The display showed Home. She hit the green icon and put the phone to her ear.

  ‘Hello?’

  The sound at the other end was muffled, indistinct against the buzz of conversation and music in the room. She put her drink down and pushed a finger into her other ear, catching the eye of a man across the room as she did so. His expression seemed to say How dare you be so vulgar as to take a phone call at the great Professor Lovelock’s party, the social event of the season? She ignored him, but still could barely hear over the noise of conversation. She headed for the wide patio doors.

  Out on the patio, the night air was cool and sharp against her cheeks after the heat of the room. The lawn was long and wide and strung with Chinese lanterns down both sides, illuminating it with a soft glow. She moved away from the house and strained to hear the voice of the caller.

  ‘Hello?’ she said again.

  ‘Mummy?’ Grace’s voice.

  ‘Yes. Are you OK, Gracie?’

  ‘We’re having popcorn.’

  Sarah moved across the patio to be nearer one of the tall outdoor gas heaters, feeling it warm her face. She seemed to have the space to herself.

  ‘That’s nice,’ she said. ‘What flavour popcorn are you having?’

  The line went muffled again and she heard raised voices. Harry and Grace, both shouting. After a moment, her dad came on.

  ‘Sorry about that, Sarah, Harry wanted to say goodnight. Hang on a second.’

  More shouting and then her son’s tiny, high voice came on the line.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello, Harry. What are you up to?’

  ‘Mummy?’

  ‘Yes, darling?’

  A pause, more muffled noise in the background, and then: ‘Grace pinched me.’

  ‘Oh dear, well I’m sure she didn’t mean it, darling. Are you going to have a story with –’

  ‘Night!’ he said.

  ‘Night, Harry. Love you.’ But he was already gone – he had never been one for long phone conversations. Her dad’s voice came back on the line.

  ‘How’s it going, love? Everything OK? Are you still with Marie?’

  She had never told her dad about the trouble she’d had at work with Lovelock. He knew about Nick, about their marriage problems, but she had compartmentalised the work part of her life. Partly because she wanted him to still be proud of her, proud of his clever daughter, and she was worried that Lovelock’s behaviour would somehow besmirch that. Partly because she didn’t want to bother him with it. Since Sarah’s mother had died nine years previously, she didn’t want him to worry. He did that enough already.

  ‘It’s fine, Dad. It’s . . . nice. Marie’s just nipped to the loo but we’re going to grab a taxi back together later.’

  ‘As long as you’re all right.’

  ‘Listen, Dad, I should probably go and do a bit more mingling, show my face. Kiss the kids goodnight for me.’

  They said their goodbyes and she hung up. She put the phone in her pocket and was about to go back inside when she heard a familiar voice behind her, loud and deep and already blurring at the edges with alcohol.

  ‘Hello, Sarah. I’m so glad you could come.’

  7

  It was him. Standing between her and the house, blocking her path.

  She looked past him, praying Marie had reappeared. But her colleague was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Oh, hello, Alan.’

  ‘You seem to be without a drink, Sarah. This cannot be allowed at my party under an
y circumstances.’ He held out a large crystal tumbler, ice clinking against the glass. ‘Gin and tonic, isn’t it?’

  ‘I probably shouldn’t, I’ve already had a couple and I had a –’

  ‘Nonsense,’ he said, proffering the glass again and giving her a wolfish grin. He was slurring his words slightly. ‘It’s my party, and I insist. Anyway, I made it specially for you.’

  ‘OK. Thanks.’

  ‘Cheers,’ he said, taking a step towards her, raising his own crystal tumbler of whisky and touching it to hers, before swallowing half of it in one gulp.

  ‘Cheers,’ Sarah said.

  ‘Aren’t you going to drink? You can’t toast without drinking.’ His lips curled upwards again. ‘Not in my house, anyway.’

  Sarah raised the glass to her lips and took a sip. It seemed OK. Maybe the strongest G & T she’d ever tasted – probably half gin and half tonic – but otherwise OK.

  Lovelock leaned closer.

  ‘Sarah, it’s so lovely that you could make it. Glad I caught you, actually. I’d like to talk to you about Monday.’

  Monday. Promotions committee.

  ‘Sure,’ she said, trying to stay calm as her stomach did somersaults. This is it, she thought. This is where he gives me the good news. ‘Here? Now?’

  He looked around.

  ‘There’s no time like the present.’

  ‘OK,’ she said, taking another small sip of her drink. Damn, but there was a lot of gin in there.

  ‘Why don’t we have a seat?’ He indicated an ornate stone bench at the edge of the patio, flanked by two winter shrubs in upturned chimney pots. He sat down on the bench and patted the spot next to him. Sarah hesitated and then sat at the other end, perching on the edge of the weathered stone seat.

  ‘Is Marie not here?’

  Sarah felt the cold of the stone bench through her trousers and shivered involuntarily.

  ‘She just went to the ladies. Should be back down in a minute.’

  ‘So: are you looking forward to Monday?’

  Sarah looked at him, searching his face for clues as to how she should react to this. On Monday, he and four of the other senior professors from the department would sit down and make final decisions on who would be put forward to the dean for promotion this year. The five professors – all of whom were here at the party tonight – would shut the door and work through a lavish lunch, into the early afternoon, discussing and voting on each application. Then they would call in all the candidates one by one to give them the news. This year six staff were up for promotion to the next rung of the academic ladder. One to full professor, another to assistant professor, two to senior lecturer and two more – Sarah included – looking to move up to a permanent lecturer’s position from their current temporary contracts.

  Folklore in the department was that they gave out the bad news first – mid-afternoon – and saved the good news for the end of the day. Lovelock’s secretary would fire off the six emails inviting each hopeful member of staff to a fifteen-minute ‘outcome meeting’, one after the other.

  Sarah forced a smile, and shrugged.

  ‘I suppose I’d really just like it to be over with, if I’m honest.’

  ‘Promotion is a momentous step. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘It means one putting one’s faith in a colleague – and trusting that faith won’t be misplaced. What I mean is, you’ve really got to want it.’

  ‘I do want it. More than anything. I know I have lots to offer the department and the students.’

  ‘You need to be able to make sacrifices.’

  ‘I understand that. Completely.’

  ‘Marvellous.’ He smiled, leaning closer. ‘That’s what I wanted to hear.’

  She wondered, for the thousandth time, how the voting might go at the promotions committee. Five middle-aged men deciding each application according to a majority decision. Giles Parkin was one of Lovelock’s close friends and would vote with him, whatever happened, Roger Halliwell was super ambitious and so wrapped up in himself he barely even registered junior members of staff. He would do whatever he perceived might yield him some small advantage, either now or in the future. The fourth member was Quentin Overton-Gifford, one of the cleverest people Sarah had ever met but also one of the most arrogant. His obnoxiousness was legendary and he was particularly fond of telling administrative staff how they were merely low-level functionaries feeding off the university’s scholarly body. He was also of the firm opinion that women were not – and never could be – the intellectual equals of men. Lastly there was Henry Devereux, a decent guy who Sarah knew to be fair and reasonable – and happy to disagree with Lovelock. But even if he did, there was no hope of Devereux getting a majority.

  Departmental folklore said that no one had ever carried a majority against Lovelock’s wishes. If she had his backing, she was home and dry. But he wasn’t about to give her anymore clues now, it seemed: the work conversation appeared to be over. Abruptly, Sarah realised that he was staring at her chest.

  ‘You have a very nice house,’ she said, just to be saying something.

  ‘Let me give you a guided tour. We’ve had the upstairs completely remodelled, the master bedroom is really quite –’

  He stopped in mid-flow, distracted by a noise. Footsteps clicking on the stone patio.

  Someone was behind them.

  Sarah turned and saw a woman in a black jacket and jeans, her blazing eyes fixed on Lovelock.

  ‘There you are,’ the woman said. ‘Finally I fucking found you.’

  ‘Hello, Gillian,’ he replied coolly. ‘What a surprise.’

  8

  She was a little younger than Sarah, maybe thirty, with dark bags under her eyes and her brown hair scraped back in a ponytail. Her face was twisted with anger. Ignoring Lovelock, the woman turned and walked towards the house. She opened the patio doors, swinging them wide open so the hubbub of conversation and music spilled out onto the patio. Some of the conversation died as the guests saw her.

  She beckoned them closer.

  ‘Come on, I want you to hear this.’ She pushed a hand into her handbag. For a moment, Sarah thought she was going to pull out a weapon of some kind and she shrank back into the stone bench. But instead she produced a folded sheet of paper. She held it out and addressed the group of partygoers.

  ‘Your wonderful colleague here, Alan Lovelock, had the university get rid of me when I complained about him. After he spent a year harassing me, stalking me and finally sexually assaulting me on five separate occasions. He refused to promote me unless I slept with him. And now,’ she opened up the folded paper and flourished it, ‘having tried and failed to fuck me, he’s fucked my career instead.’

  A murmur went through the crowd. Sarah felt like she wanted to be somewhere, anywhere, else. Lovelock said nothing.

  ‘I couldn’t work out why I couldn’t get another post,’ the woman continued. ‘Most places I didn’t even get an interview, even though I was qualified. It didn’t make sense. But then I managed to get hold of a copy of the reference you gave me, Alan,’ she turned toward him, ‘and it all started to fit together.’

  Lovelock shook his head, slowly.

  ‘You’re embarrassing yourself, Gillian.’

  ‘You warned everyone off, didn’t you, you bastard? Everywhere I’ve tried to get a job – at Edinburgh, Belfast, even bloody Harvard. All run by your little cosy club of bloody crusty old men who’ve known each other for decades. You’ve given the same shit reference to all of them.’ She unfolded the paper. ‘But guess what? The last place, their fucking useless HR department accidentally copied me into an email with your reference attached. It really is quite a read, isn’t it?’

  ‘I have an obligation to the truth. Anything less would be to do a disservice to colleagues at other universities.’

  ‘The truth, is it?’ She dropped her eyes to the paper and began to read. ‘Unreliable, unstable, prone to outbursts of anger and
highly critical of colleagues. Abrasive, not a team player. Corrosive effect on team dynamics within the department. Tendency to make wild and unsubstantiated allegations about colleagues.’

  ‘I’m really sorry that things haven’t worked out career-wise, for you, Gilly,’ Lovelock said. ‘Really, I am.’

  ‘It’s all bullshit though, isn’t it? Complete and utter bullshit, from the first word to the last. You warned them all off.’

  Sarah stared at the woman, wondering if she was looking at her own future, her own destiny, brought to life. There was even a physical similarity, she realised: the new arrival was about the same height as Sarah, same long dark hair, slim figure, similar age.

  I suppose Lovelock has a type. A particular look that he goes for. But this is not me. It is a warning, but it is not me.

  Lovelock gave the woman a calm, sympathetic smile.

  ‘You’re drunk, Gilly.’

  ‘Of course I’m fucking drunk,’ she spat back at him. ‘It’s the only way I can get through the days.’

  She seemed to notice Sarah for the first time.

  ‘Are you his latest?’ The woman gestured towards Sarah, turning to face her. ‘Has he tried to get you into bed yet? Because if he hasn’t yet, he will. Believe me.’

  Party guests who had spilled out onto the patio watched in silence, their eyes moving from Lovelock to the woman, like rubberneckers hoping to see blood at a road accident. Marie appeared, squeezing her way through the crowd.

  Sarah hesitated, feeling the eyes of the department on her. The eyes of the man who was going to promote her on Monday. It didn’t seem like the right time for the truth.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘No, he hasn’t. Nothing like that.’

  ‘He hasn’t tried to shag you yet?’ She looked Sarah up and down. ‘You’re just his type.’

  Sarah shook her head quickly, feeling herself blush.

  ‘No.’

  The woman stared at her for a moment, her eyes narrowing.

  ‘If he hasn’t yet, he will do soon. In case you didn’t know, he’s a repeat offender.’