Page 78 of Last Letter Home
Thirty-six
Briony had left her office door ajar mid-morning as a sign that she was open to see students, but the shuffling and giggling starting up outside didn’t sound like nervous undergraduates coming to discuss their essays. There came a knock and she watched in astonishment as the door was shoved wide and a vast arrangement of pink, blue and white flowers advanced into the room in a crackle of cellophane. The giant bouquet was carried by Les from the post room, and behind followed Debbie, who bore a packet smothered with special delivery stickers and a large grin on her face.
‘Flipping Norah,’ was all Briony could say.
‘Where shall I put them?’ Les groaned. ‘On the desk?’
Briony delved for the florist’s envelope, which she found on a prong amid some roses, and read the card inside. Then she dropped it in the bin.
‘Take them away,’ she told Les in her steeliest voice, but she held out her hand for the package from Debbie.
‘Yer jokin’, aincha?’ Les’ cropped head poked up over some lilies, his eyes black pools of disbelief, his habitual gum-chewing stilled by surprise.
‘I don’t want them, sorry. Give them to someone else, Les. Chuck them. I don’t care which.’
‘Really?’ Les’ eyes lit up with possibilities, and with difficulty he backed out of the room with his prize.
‘Is everything OK?’ Debbie looked concerned.
‘Absolutely fine,’ Briony said through gritted teeth. ‘I’m not a fan of the person who sent them, that’s all.’
Debbie’s eyes widened. She withdrew, respectfully closing the door. Briony hesitated a moment, then scrutinized the padded bag in her hands before tearing it open. As she imagined, it contained the letters that Greg had stolen from her the night before. She glanced through them quickly, judging that as far as she could tell they were all there, then pinched open the sheet of fresh cartridge paper that accompanied them.
Briony. A million apologies, but here they are, safely returned as promised. I’m looking forward to reading the photocopies and will be back in touch. I hope that you will forgive me. The flowers are but a small gesture of my immense shame. Yours in friendship, Greg.
‘Shame. Friendship,’ she hissed, scrumpling his letter into a ball. Having second thoughts, she smoothed it out and pushed it back in the padded bag with Paul’s letters in case she ever needed the evidence. At least he didn’t have copies of the entire collection, she thought with satisfaction as she stowed the package in her bag to take home.
She glanced at her watch and saw it was time for the appointment she’d made with Gordon Platt. She’d been feeling trepidation, but now Greg had made her angry. She steamed out, head high, hardly noticing several passers-by fall back as she marched across the corridor to Platt’s office. This was not the anxious wreck who’d been tried by Twitter. This was a Briony none of them had seen before.
‘Gordon, I’m sorry, but I must say no to the engagement opportunity.’
She stood squarely before him and Platt, who had been lounging in his seat, now sat up and appeared mildly annoyed. ‘Come on, Briony, you know we need to pull together here. We’re all overworked. Someone’s got to do it.’
‘Yes, but not me this time. It isn’t fair that I should. I’m supposed to have one day a week for research. I don’t know when I’ve last taken that. I’ve worked weekends most of this term.’
‘Very common. I do myself.’
‘I’m not going to start naming names, but there are several members of staff I can think of with lighter loads who you could ask. Why not try?’
Platt raised his palms and said, ‘I think we need to calm down a little.’
‘I am perfectly calm, I assure you.’
He rose from his chair and she saw that his cords were a sober navy today. Some important meeting, she supposed, as she watched him pace the room. Finally, he turned his head with the air of a sinister parrot and said in a petulant tone, ‘If that’s your answer, then I’ll find someone else, but don’t expect . . .’
His voice died away and he waved a hand, dismissing her.
‘Don’t expect what?’ she asked, remaining exactly where she was. ‘I assure you I’ll be working as hard as ever, and I hope to be rewarded for that when my case for promotion is heard.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of suggesting otherwise,’ he said mildly, ‘but I’m not the only person on the promotions committee you need to convince. Well, I’ll say no more.’ Then, more to himself than to her, ‘Perhaps Colin has some spare capacity. I wonder.’
She left the room, closing the door quietly with a smile. Colin Crawley, the department’s last-ditch Marxist, often managed to wriggle out of administrative duties. Like Macavity the cat, when you wanted him he was never there. Privately, she wished Platt luck, while feeling light-headed with triumph at her small victory. She tried to banish the thought that though she’d won this battle the dust clouds heralding the enemy troops could be seen on the horizon. The promotions committee was the week after next.
Thirty-seven
October 1943 was wearing its way to November and Paul could not remember when he’d last lain in a proper bed. Before Italy, before Sicily? Not since they’d left Egypt, he calculated, so over three months ago. This particular morning, thuds of shellfire had torn him from a sleep that left him unrefreshed, but though he struggled from his tent with protesting limbs, his rifle already in his hands, he realized that the noise came from far away and reveille hadn’t yet sounded so he’d sunk back inside again.
Gunfire again, nearer this time, and now the thin strains of the bugle and groaning and cursing men surfaced from their tents like the dead from their graves on Judgement Day, reacquainting themselves with their exhausted bodies, testing their weight on stiff legs, apparently astonished to find that they still lived and moved. Some limped off in the direction of the latrines, others to queue at the mobile kitchens for breakfast.
