The End of Men(55)
Painfully, the days alone at home without the regular grind of work remind me of maternity leave. Those endless months with no one to talk to but a baby. Theodore was born so early that all my prenatal class friends were still waddling around buying tiny cardigans and hats when I was pushing an actual baby around the kitchen in his pram, cajoling him to sleep.
Today, for the first time since the world fell apart, I’m going into work. UCL is opening, as are forty-nine other universities across the country, in an attempt to keep the education system functioning. The government says we need to ensure we have teachers, nurses, lawyers, engineers and all the other many professions that make up our society in the coming years. I don’t care as long as I still have something to do. My lovely boss, Margaret, called me yesterday and asked me to come in.
I make a cup of coffee from the dwindling jar in the kitchen. There won’t be any more coffee for a long, long time, so I ration it but today is a Big Day. Today deserves a cup of coffee. I haven’t left Crystal Palace since I returned from Devon, many weeks ago. The sight of other people, eye contact, noise, roads, the mere thought of it has been too much. It’s as if I’ve been flayed. I get the train from Crystal Palace to Victoria; there used to be four an hour, packed full of commuters reading their phones or the papers. Now, there is one every hour and a half, packed full of women with the occasional man sticking out like a blot of ink on a page.
On the train, I read a crime novel, the kind of unnerving yet easy-to-read fare that Anthony adored and I’d always avoided on the basis of enjoying books with happy endings. Our holiday reading tastes were split down embarrassingly heteronormative lines. Historical romance novels and women’s fiction for me. Crime and military history books for him. I tried to read a romance novel a few days ago, thinking it might help. I managed two paragraphs before I slammed it shut, repulsed by the cheery tone. Now, it’s comforting to read about mysteries, death, terror and the eventual resolution of justice. My brain’s capacity for reading about the good fortune of others, even if their happiness is fictional, is currently nonexistent.
The train arrives at Victoria just as my novel’s detective is making a breakthrough in the case. The tube has a thirty-minute wait, as it will have for months while the few remaining male, and female, drivers teach others to drive the trains. I trundle through London on a replacement bus, packed with people, all of whom look as ashen and distracted as I imagine I do.
The sight of my office in the UCL anthropology building brings me to tears. It’s a squat, square building but it’s a home away from home. It has been a constant in my life for over a decade. The corridors smell the same but are, predictably, emptier than they used to be.
“Well, look who the cat dragged in.” Margaret, my no-nonsense, reliable, kind boss is sitting at her desk, surrounded as always by teetering stacks of books.
“It’s nice to see you.” I sit down. It could be any other Monday. It’s as if nothing has changed.
“I’m not going to ask how you are, and please don’t ask me. I don’t think either of us can cope with that right now,” she says. There is a photo of Margaret, her husband, son and daughter sitting on the shelf behind her. I glance at it and then back to her resolute face. She has aged years in the few months since I saw her.
“Let’s stick to work. Nothing like some second-year biological anthropology classes to cheer the soul.”
“That’s the spirit.”
Some timetable wrangling quickly shows that I’m going to need to double my course load to cover my colleagues who have died. Margaret is determined to keep the Anthropology Department functioning as normally as possible.
“Now,” she says. “This project you mentioned in your e-mail.” She looks so stern I’m not sure if she’s going to tell me to forget about it. “It sounds essential, absolutely. A record of the story of the Plague, how it spread, how those involved at its epicenter have been affected and are coping, hearing from ordinary people to understand the cultural and societal impact.”
Margaret reels off a far more eloquent and concise description of my project than my grief-addled brain had managed to articulate in my e-mail. I scribble down what she says and nod approvingly as if to say, “Yes, that is exactly what I was thinking.”
“Get it into more complete shape and we’ll talk about publication. Maybe a book would be best? It certainly can’t be a journal article; it’s too important to be restricted to academic circles. Funding’s all over the shop at the moment, but we’re not in dire straits. There’s an emergency fund. We’ll make sure you have the money you need for any research and travel, within reason. I know you’ll be busy but try the course load I’ve given you, and just let me know when you need to travel and we’ll figure something out. If the teaching is too much, we’ll reduce your hours. The project should take priority.”
“Thank you. That means a lot.”
“We’ll have lunch at some point, catch up properly.” Margaret’s eyes become a bit glassy and I’m silently begging her not to cry. She’s like a headmistress or a captain or an army major. Her job is to be strong and calm in the face of chaos. If she’s cracking up, I don’t know what I’ll do.
“For now, let’s work,” I say quietly. “There’s plenty of time for that.”