‘Stuff?’
‘Yeah – dog stuff.’
‘Do you want me to come with you?’
‘No, it’s OK.’ Terri jumped down from the ledge, the dog following her like a shadow, and set off purposefully, an adverb I had never seen her utilize before. She’d even removed her Ray-Bans. Perhaps there was still an all-American girl lurking under that Lamian carapace, a cheerful, resourceful college kid (a babysitting, prom-queen type). One who didn’t seem to need me any more.
Could I really be replaced so easily, I wondered as I left the toilets and wandered out into the corridor. And by a dog at that? Perhaps that was the answer to my problem with Bob – I could get him a dog as a substitute for me. And a dog would surely treat him better than I did. It might not cook, but it wouldn’t judge.
I was so caught up in this idea – I’d got as far as picturing Bob in the company of a cheerful Border terrier that could do simple household tasks – that I failed to notice Maggie Mackenzie barrelling along through the Murk again and collided with her full on. I was winded but she appeared unmoved.
‘Miss Andrews,’ she said stiffly, ‘I will extend my deadline for you as you are so incompetent. You have until ten o’clock on the day after tomorrow.’
My brain felt so addled that I could barely work out what that meant.
‘If your George Eliot essay doesn’t appear at the allotted time I shall have to inform the Dean that you are no longer eligible to sit your degree.’
The Students’ union was full of excited people talking about occupation and subversion and storming the library. Not Andrea and Kevin, however, who were sullenly enduring each other’s company and having a protracted argument about some arcane Edrakonian law. Andrea was wearing a cheesecloth smock and agonizing over whether to eat a salt and vinegar crisp.
A scuffle broke out in the bar between a bunch of rugby players and some Revolutionary Communist Group cadres and Kevin said angrily, ‘They’re all so pathetic. Slogans and jargon, that’s all it is. In Edrakonia when people believe in things they’re willing to sacrifice their lives. They have real weapons – the rapier, the poniard, the Toledo. Weapons forged from finest steel, decorated with bronze and chased with gold and silver. The stiletto, the glaive, the falchion, the bombard, the falconet –’
I made my excuses. I finally found Olivia in the cafeteria queue, trying to juggle a tray of food with the unwieldy body of Proteus and a newfangled McLaren buggy, striped in blue and white and folded up like an umbrella. I offered to take the tray and she said, ‘Thanks,’ and handed me Proteus instead. He had an angry red teething rash on his cheeks and one small boxer’s fist jammed in his mouth as if he was trying to eat himself.
‘You haven’t seen Kara, have you?’ Olivia asked. ‘Only she asked me to hold him for a minute and that was ages ago.’
‘No, sorry.’
She was loading up her tray with cartons of milk and assorted Kellogg’s Variety Packs. ‘Do you think he can eat these?’ she asked me. ‘They don’t have any baby food in the union .’
We found a space at the corner of a table. Olivia sat Proteus on her knee and we tried pushing spoonfuls of cereal in his mouth, an idea which he seemed to find alarming and exciting at the same time. Every time the spoon approached him he opened his mouth like a giant baby bird and then went into a kind of delirious spasm, throwing his arms and legs out and squawking at the novelty of it all. Occasionally he spat out Ricicles or Coco Pops like grapeshot. ‘I’m sure it’s time he was weaned anyway,’ Olivia said, rather sheepishly.
‘Is that what we’re doing?’ I really did know nothing.
‘Roger wants me to have the baby,’ Olivia said.
‘The baby?’ I repeated, confused. I had forgotten she was pregnant and for a moment thought she was talking about Proteus.
‘He says I can move in with him and Sheila.’ She shook her head in amazement. ‘Can you imagine?’
I couldn’t. ‘Does Sheila know?’
‘No. It doesn’t matter anyway,’ she said flatly. ‘I’m going to have an abortion.’
‘Are you sure? I mean, you’re really good with babies.’
‘I think it’s wrong to bring babies into this awful world,’ she said sadly. ‘I mean, all you would want would be for them to be happy and that’s the one thing that people aren’t, isn’t it? I couldn’t bear the idea of knowing that my child was unhappy. Or that when they’re old – a helpless old man, or a little old lady – you wouldn’t be there to look after them because you’d be dead by then.’ I wished I could think of something cheerful to say in response to this rather tragic outburst but at that moment Proteus gave a fractious cry and we both stared at him as if he might hold a key to some mystery, but he had jammed his fist back in his mouth and looked on the verge of tears.