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‘For someone who doesn’t believe in clairvoyance you’re expecting a lot of mind-reading from Ruth. She’s an academic. She needs evidence. Go and tell her that you love her.’
A nurse comes over and tells Cathbad not to overexcite himself. She looks reproachfully at Nelson.
‘Just tell my friend,’ says Cathbad, lying back on his pillows, ‘to shout out what’s in his heart.’
‘Shout it out,’ says the nurse. ‘But don’t do it here, if you don’t mind.’
It seems to Ruth that, all day, she has had one unwelcome visitor after another. First Colin Bland, asking if she’s decided about the dean’s job. Then Shona in a cloud of perfume and curiosity, followed by various members of her department asking for references because they’re applying for other jobs. Finally, David appears with a brochure for Uppsala.
‘I’m just going out for some air,’ says Ruth. Her head is pounding.
‘I’ll come with you,’ says David.
They walk round the lake. The windsurfers are there again but the air is still and they keep capsizing, with shouts of laughter. Across the water a group of volunteers are hammering in a huge sign above the stage. It reads, ‘Save UNNArch’.
‘Do you think we will?’ asks Ruth. ‘Save it, I mean?’
‘I doubt it,’ says David. ‘They’ll close us down and this whole university will crumble.’
Ruth looks at the square modern buildings, softened by ivy and by multicoloured posters for concerts and protests. Someone has crowned the statue of Elizabeth Fry with a flower wreath. Ruth thinks of the sukebind inCold Comfort Farm. Over the past few years Ruth has seen many nasty things in many different woodsheds. Perhaps it’s time to leave? But, then, one of the windsurfers finally gets her balance and she skims across the water, red sail taut, body braced in an impossible arc. Ruth realises that she loves this place. She doesn’t want to go anywhere.
David, who has been looking over towards the stage, says, in a tone of great annoyance, ‘What’shedoing here?’
Ruth looks and sees a familiar dark shape moving across the car park. There’s impatience in every line and sinew. Nelson approaches the volunteers. Ruth can’t hear what he says but, suddenly, she sees Nelson raise the megaphone to his lips.
‘RUTH,’ he shouts, his voice echoing around the campus. ‘I LOVE YOU. DON’T LEAVE ME.’
‘Oh my God,’ says Ruth.
‘He’s trespassing,’ says David. ‘I’ll get the security guards.’
But Ruth is already running away from him. Following the path around the lake. Towards Nelson.
Chapter 39
It’s August. The marshes are pink with sea lavender and Ruth is packing up to leave the cottage. She’s alone, apart from Flint, who is watching her from the top of one of the kitchen cabinets. Kate has gone out with Isla for the day and Ruth is glad she isn’t around to see the empty rooms, the rolled-up carpets, the marks on the walls where their pictures used to hang. The sitting room is full of boxes. Most of them seem to say ‘Books’. ‘Why don’t you recycle some of them?’ Nelson said yesterday. ‘I’d rather recycle you,’ said Ruth, only half-joking.
Ruth and Nelson are moving to Old Hunstanton. Ruth thought Nelson was joking when he announced that he’d found a place in Norfolk that he actually liked but, when she saw the square, white house, she had understood. She thought that she, Nelson, Kate and Flint could be happy there. It was nothing like the cottage or the cul-de-sac and that was its saving grace. It was itself, self-sufficient, facing the sea, sheltered by old trees. But the school bus stopped only a few hundred metres away and Ruth could be at the university in thirty minutes. That day, standing in the windswept garden, looking out towards the sea and the sand, Ruth had felt a frisson of excitement. Her life was changing and change was good.
But, today, she feels very different. How can she leave her cottage, the home she bought when she was still with Peter? The place where she first brought her kittens, Flint and dear departed Sparky. The threshold she stepped over, holding her new-born baby in her arms, wondering how on earth she was going to manage on her own. Cathbad had been with her that day, she remembers, just as he had been an unconventional but reassuring birthing partner. On Kate’s bedroom door, Ruth has recorded her height over the years. The last line shows that she is now almost as tall as her mother. Will future archaeologists puzzle over these marks, wondering if they represent some sort of twenty-first-century religious ritual? The cottage is the only home Kate has ever known, apart from the Cambridge years. How can Ruth tear them both away?
But Kate is keen on the new house. Her bedroom will be bigger and she will be nearer her friends. There will be a spare room for George when he comes to stay. Nelson is talking about getting a kayak.
It turns out that Michelle didn’t want to come back to Nelson; she wanted to come back to Norfolk. She missed her house and her friends. She wanted to be nearer her daughters and to take up her old managerial role at the hairdressing salon. So now Michelle and George are back living in the cul-de-sac. Nelson and Michelle are sharing custody of Bruno and his living arrangements are far more complicated than any concerning the children.
UNNArch has been saved. The rally was an unexpected success, partly because both Tony Robinson and Mary Beard turned up, and the board decided that they didn’t want the bad publicity of closing such a popular department. Ruth’s profile was further raised by giving evidence in the Emily Pickering inquest. No one wants to cross Dr Ruth Galloway, now Dean of Humanities. David Brown was offered the post of head of department but has decided to return to Sweden.
Ruth will miss teaching but she’s excited about the possibilities of her new job. She’ll be able to travel, write more books, shape policy at UNN. One thing she has learnt, over the last few months, is how much she loves the ramshackle, plate-glass university. She will turn it into a centre of excellence.
Flint meows loudly from on high and Ruth sees Zoe approaching. Her heart sinks. Leaving the cottage means leaving the sister she has only just found. Zoe has been understanding, she has even said that she’s glad Ruth and Nelson ‘have finally sorted things out’. But Ruth prepares herself for emotional scenes as she opens the back door.
‘Is Flint stuck?’ says Zoe, looking at the cat wedged between ceiling and cabinet.
‘No, he’s sulking,’ says Ruth. ‘But I think he’ll like the new place. Nelson says it’s probably full of mice. Nobody’s lived there for years.’
‘Are you all packed then?’ says Zoe.
‘Pretty much,’ says Ruth. ‘The moving van comes tomorrow.’
