Murder in the English Department (20 page)

‘The baby is lovely,' said Marjorie. ‘She has your eyes, Mrs Growsky. Lisa's eyes.'

‘You should see the rest of the family,' said Shirley proudly.

No, this is not a dream, Nan reminded herself. But it was harder to accept Marjorie Adams being here than Rose's visit two months before. It had been Lisa's idea to invite Marjorie. Nan understood that there was something about Marjorie's confidence, about her assumptions, that she would never possess. Marjorie had always accepted her right to be in the world, ever since she was a child. It was still a distinction of class. Marjorie could walk through any door. Nan always knocked.

‘How about the Fourth of July?' Shirley leaned across the burlwood table to Marjorie. ‘Can you join us?'

‘Why thank you,' said Marjorie, who looked genuinely interested. ‘My bail allows me to go as far as Hayward.'

‘Terrific,' said Lisa, showing only the slightest deference to Marjorie. Perhaps Lisa would have the friendship that Nan could never have. Her defences were younger, more flexible. ‘And I'll take you down to the rodeo the day after.'

‘We'll do fireworks in the backyard,' Shirley said. ‘And then a barbeque. Just hamburgers and hotdogs, I'm afraid …'

‘And Taco chips,' added Lisa.

‘When it's dark,' said Shirley, ‘we can see the skyworks from over by the Navy Base.'

Nan sat back on the old armchair and considered the scene before her. Here was Marjorie Adams in her turquoise jump suit, leaning back on Shirley's faded red brocade couch. Here was Marjorie Adams, whose father owned half of Baltimore, having a perfectly comfortable conversation with good old Shirley. They had taken to each other for several reasons, not the least of which was Marjorie's fondness for Shirley's cheese crumb cake.

Snobbery, thought Nan. Observing Marjorie now and remembering Rose's visit, Nan reckoned that she, herself, was the biggest snob about Hayward. Too bad Rose couldn't join them, but she was back in Baltimore again, still lobbying Mr Adams for the defence fund.

‘And you'll be here for the Fourth, won't you, Nan?' asked Shirley.

‘Sure will,' said Nan. ‘The Speak Out doesn't begin until the tenth.'

‘Do you have to, Nan? I liked the Himalayan scheme much better,' said Shirley. ‘You're still going through with this feminist extravaganza?' Shirley glanced apologetically at Marjorie.

‘Ah, Mom,' said Lisa, as she cut herself another large slice of cake. ‘It's not an “extravaganza”. It's a three-day conference about sexual harassment. People are coming from all over the country. It's a crucial forum for women who have been silent … the issues are crucial …'

‘It's going to get your aunt in a lot of trouble,' said Shirley.

‘What more trouble can I get into?' laughed Nan, a little too forcefully. ‘I realized it's too late for a low profile on campus now.'

Marjorie and Shirley exchanged worried glances. Abruptly Shirley got up and walked into the kitchen to reheat the kettle. ‘You could lose your job,' she called from the other room. ‘She's right,' said Marjorie. ‘Don't you think you've done enough—at least for a while—at least until you have the security of tenure?'

‘But if we don't have the Speak Out this summer, it'll be no good to you,' said Lisa. ‘Besides, your case is important to exposing the problem. And Nan's presence is important to exposing your case.'

Shirley carried the teapot back into the living room. She stood still, glaring at her sister. ‘This could be bad for you, Nannie.'

Lisa answered, ‘You don't know what you're talking about, Mom.'

‘Don't interrupt me, young lady,' said Shirley.

Nan winced.

‘When will you accept that you've done enough, Nan, honey?' Shirley asked soberly.

Nan had thought about this. It was the same question Matt asked again and again. She held up her cup for her sister to fill. Then she took a deep breath, as her friend Francie had instructed her (‘Breathe, Nan,' Francie would say. ‘Everything is easier when you breathe.'). Finally, Nan answered.

‘Why must you see me either as a martyr or a fool? What am I risking? What is one person's job compared to the safety of women to attend night classes, to visit male professors during office hours unmolested? to …'

‘You're on a soapbox, Nan,' Shirley said.

‘No, let me finish. Now, I don't know, any more, where they measure up lives. But if you balance that “propagandizing” as you call it with teaching English, it's easy to figure out which is more important.'

‘All right,' Shirley said, exasperated.

‘I'm sorry,' said Nan, ‘about my high horse tone …'

Shirley smiled her familiar, affectionate smile, ‘You always did know your own mind, Nannie.'

‘Speaking of which,' Nan said, ‘I should get back to Berkeley, back to work. Including your new thesis chapter, Marjorie.'

‘Now there's a great topic for a journal article,' Marjorie pulled an exaggerated poker face, ‘“Innovative Functions of the Thesis Adviser”.'

‘Hmmm,' smiled Nan. Perhaps there was still hope for Marjorie's sense of humour. Perhaps some day. Clearly it was doing her good hanging around Lisa. ‘When the bad jokes start flying,' said Nan, ‘I know it's time to leave.'

‘Ahhh, Nan,' said Lisa, ‘I wanted to take you both on a walk down Crow Canyon. Remember our New Year's walk? I was telling Marjorie about it last week. Remember?'

How could she ever forget that New Year's walk, Nan wondered. The hangover, the hope that Murchie's death had been a nightmare, the prayers that Lisa would recover.

‘No,' said Nan. ‘I haven't forgotten.'

‘All right,' teased Lisa. ‘Rest your old bones. And I'll drive Marjorie back to Berkeley later.'

‘OK,' agreed Nan.

It was more than OK. She had a lot to think about, a lot to discuss with Isadora, who was the other woman who had not failed her in all of this.

Chapter Twenty-One

THREE MONTHS LATER,
instead
of going back to school, they were driving into the sunrise, just Nan and Isadora. The back seat was so loaded with suitcases and camping gear that Nan could only see out the side mirror. Dangerous. She would stop somewhere—maybe Reno—and rearrange the pile, put more of it on the front seat next to her. The early start was worth it. She would be through the Sacramento Valley before the heat of the day, which could be blistering in late September. Eerie, driving in the pre-dawn light, like trailing through ghost territory. She switched on the radio for company.

‘Feminists are hailing it as a victory for women,' said the hearty disc jockey voice. ‘Last week, at a landmark case in Oakland, Marjorie Adams was acquitted of the murder of a professor at Cal's English Department.'

Nan turned up the volume. ‘Judge Marie Wong ruled that rape is an act of such physical violence that it warrants substantial use of force in self-defence. This morning, we have pre-taped interviews with the defendant, Marjorie Adams, and with Lisa Growsky, a member of her Defence Committee. We failed to reach Nan Weaver, the woman originally charged with the murder. Apparently she left town after Adams's acquittal. Professor Weaver is unavailable …'

‘Professor Weaver is unavailable,' mused Nan. Is this the notice they would put in Wheeler Hall to mark her six-month ‘leave of absence'? She sighed with relief. Six months free from courtrooms and classrooms and office hours and tenure rumours. Six months to visit friends around the country and to finish her long article about sexual harassment. Nan was enjoying this article more than she had enjoyed the writing of anything in a long time. Television programmes and radio interviews were all very well. But some of these broadcasters never used verbs. And Nan came from a generation who believed in literacy. This was not the kind of article which would win her tenure; she could hardly care any more.

‘Professor Weaver is unavailable.' Nan doubted that Professor Weaver would ever be available again at Berkeley.

‘Wake up Jake …' Ian and Sylvia singing an old favourite. Good station, thought Nan, as she watched the tulle fog rising from the flat farmland on either side of Interstate 80.

Matt had warned her
not
to take the leave.

‘You're crazy, Nan, to go now,' he told her two nights before at the Pogo Cafe. ‘The department's sympathy is with you. You could get tenure, just by being inconspicuous for a few months.'

‘Do I really want to work in a department where half of my colleagues fear or despise me?'

‘The English Department is part of the real world,' said Matt, looking over his shoulder and trying to catch Knut's attention. ‘You're just complaining about the state of misogyny in the real world.'

Matt knew Nan was determined; he didn't push the argument. Besides, most of his attention was absorbed by domestic bliss. Knut had moved in with him during the last month.

Back to Ian and Sylvia.
Nan tried to sing along with the familiar words, but the argument kept running through her head. She didn't need Matt to play Devil's Advocate. She could argue both sides herself.

‘I don't want to give up teaching,' she said.

‘There are other places to teach,' she answered herself.

‘But I turned forty-eight two months ago. I'm almost half-a-century old and I'm still not settled.'

‘Maybe that's OK. Maybe knowing what you
don't
want is just as good as knowing what you
do
want.'

‘But security is hard to come by nowadays.'

‘I can get other teaching jobs. Maybe they won't have as much prestige as Berkeley. Chances are they won't have as much sexism.'

‘Don't fool yourself. There are pigs under every rock.'

The morning was growing lighter, into the quiet pale preceding full dawn. Nan watched Highway 80 stretch straight ahead through miles and miles of pasture. She savoured the names of the towns through which she would be driving—Roseville, Nevada City, Sparks, Winnemucca. The Golden West.

Sunrise. Joe and Shirley always got up at dawn. Joe showering for his early shift at the shipyard and Shirley frying his eggs. Nan had been right about the fallout shelter. Joe and Shirley would always take her in, no matter what. ‘I don't know anything about this murder, Nan,' he had said, ‘but I know that if you did it, you must have had good reasons. And let me tell you that a thing like that really takes balls.'

Nan suspected Joe had been a little disappointed when he learned she hadn't murdered Murchie. But he handled it generously, with the coming-out party.

‘I woke up this morning …' Nan tuned back to the radio, ‘and you were on my mind.' A familiar Sylvia Fricker song. Yes, Nan would stay with this station until static descended.

Neither Joe nor Shirley was
keen
about Lisa's involvement in the Marjorie Adams Defence Committee. However, they were so overwhelmed by Lisa's apparent recovery, they kept quiet. Recovery, please let it last, thought Nan. Shirley thought Lisa should concentrate more on school, but timid around her daughter's new temper, left the arguing to Nan.

‘Marjorie's a terrific friend,' Lisa had told her. ‘She studies all the time.'

‘But don't you think the case will be distracting for you?' asked Nan.

‘You know better than to ask that,' said Lisa.

Lisa seemed different now—stronger and more independent, even from Nan. All of them were different for having survived these nine months. They were closer. In a funny way, Marjorie had brought them together.

And maybe Shirley found it easier to let go of Lisa now that there was a baby nearby. Delighted with the extending family, she sat with yards of soft wool on her lap as she watched over Debbie's child and knitted. Since the first baby had proved such a success, Lynda was now pregnant. This grandmotherhood was not what Nan had wanted for her sister. But Amy reminded her that she didn't have the screen rights on Shirley's life.

Sun was beginning to show
over the golden hills. Nan loved autumn best, these days of Indian Summer, these last long nights before the end of Daylight Saving; the spring green baked away by the hot summer sun, the clean smell of dry dust. Where else could you live where every year the hills turned to gold?

She would come back to California, if not to Berkeley. After a rest. For a while, Nan would just drive east, into other sunrises. Maybe she would discover she really was ‘the shortest professor west of the Rockies'. Maybe she would relax.

‘So, Isadora,' said Nan, ‘where should we stop for coffee? And how about waffles? Blueberry waffles smothered in butter?'

Acknowledgments

I believe that fiction emerges from an imaginative collectivity of writers and readers. Many people have encouraged or prodded or stimulated me in the writing of this book. I want to thank all of them and to acknowledge a few who have been especially helpful.

For their continuing inspiration and criticism over the years, I owe much to women from my writing groups: Jana Harris, Susan Griffin, Zoe Fairbairns, Mary Mackey, Kim Chernin, Eve Pell, Susan Feldman and Myrna Kostash.

For their technical advice on the manuscript, I thank Peggy Webb, Marlene Griffith, Julia Bader, Mary Dunlap, Jill Lippit, Ron Zuckerman, Ellen Reier, Joyce Lindenbaum, Deborah Johnson, Barbara Rosenblum, Helen Longino and Debbie Cogan. Any mistakes in the book are, of course, solely mine.

For their fine work in the editing and publishing stages of the novel, I am very grateful to Stephanie Dowrick of The Women's Press, London; Hope Dellon of St Martin's Press, New York, and to my agents Charlotte Sheedy and Leslie Gardner.

Finally, I thank my family for their love.