Dreaming Of The Bones

How had she changed, he wondered. Would he even recognize her?

Then the side door of the house opened and set his fears to rest, for her face was as familiar as his own. She came out to him, her plimsolled feet crunching on the gravel, and took his hand as easily as if they had parted on good terms only yesterday. “Duncan. Thanks so much for coming.” She tilted her head to one side, considering him as she kept hold of his hand. “I’d swear you haven’t changed a bit.”

Finding his tongue with an effort, Kincaid said, “Nor have you, Vic. You look wonderful.” She looked tired, he thought, and too thin, perhaps even a little unwell. A network of tiny lines had begun forming round her eyes, and the creases between her nose and the outer corners of her mouth stood out sharply. But her hair, though it fell now to her shoulders rather than the small of her back, was still flax fair, and if she wore more somber colors than the pastels he remembered, they gave her a dignity which suited her.

“It has been a long time,” she said, smiling, and he realized he’d been staring.

“Sorry. It’s just… I don’t quite know what to say and I think I’m making an utter fool of myself. Is there an etiquette manual for this sort of situation?” In the moment’s silence following his words, birdsong swelled from tree and thicket, a raucous chorus, and a coal tit whizzed past his head, scolding.

Vic laughed. “We could always invent one. Why don’t I start by inviting you in. Your car should be all right with the top down, at least for a bit.”

Kincaid remembered suddenly that his acquisition of the Midget had caused one of their final conflicts, but Vic had glanced at the car without any sign of recognition. He’d opened his mouth to offer to park it elsewhere when he saw a black-and-white flash and felt the hair stir on the top of his head as the coal tit flew another kamikaze run.

“Come on,” Vic said, turning towards the house. “You’d better dive for cover while you can.” Over her shoulder she added, “It’s such a lovely day, I’ve set lunch out in the garden. I hope you don’t mind.”

He followed her into the house and through a sitting room, where he had a fleeting impression of pale gold walls and faded chintzes, and of a grouping of silver-framed portraits on a side table; then she led him out through French doors onto a stone-flagged terrace. The garden sloped away from the house, and beyond the low wall at its end he could see a meadow, then a curving line of trees that looked as though it marked the course of a river.

“Grantchester gets its name from ‘Granta,’ the old name for the Cam,” Vic said, pointing towards the river.

“The garden’s lovely.” Dandelions and wild onions sprang up in the shaggy lawn, but there were recent signs of prep work in the beds, and against the low wall stood the garden’s crowning glory—an immense old crab apple tree, covered with bright pink blossoms.

Vic gave him the sideways glance he remembered as she gestured towards one of the chairs she’d pulled up to an ironwork table. “Here, sit down. That’s a bit generous of you. My friend Nathan says the garden’s a disgrace, but I’m not a real gardener. I just like to come out and dig in the dirt on nice days—it’s my alternative to tranquilizers.”

“I seem to remember that you couldn’t keep alive a potted plant. Or cook,” he added as he examined the lunch she’d laid out on the table—cheese, cold salads, olives, wholemeal bread, and a bottle of white wine.

Vic shrugged. “People change. And I still can’t cook,” she said with a flash of a smile, “even if I had the time. But I can shop, and I’ve learned to make the most of that.” She filled their glasses, then raised hers in salute. “Here’s to progress. And old friends.”

Friends? Kincaid thought. They had been lovers, adversaries, flatmates—but never that. Perhaps it was not too late. He lifted his glass and drank. When he had filled his plate and tasted the potato salad, he ventured, “You haven’t told me anything about yourself, about your life. The photos …” He nodded towards the sitting room doors. The man had been thin and bearded, the boy fair and sturdy. He stole a glance at Vic’s left hand, saw the faint pale mark circling her fourth finger.

She looked away as she drank some of her wine, then concentrated on a piece of bread as she buttered it. “I’m Victoria McClellan now. Doctor McClellan. I’m a fellow at All Saints’, and I’m a Faculty teaching officer, specializing in twentieth-century poets. That gives me more time to pursue my own work.”

“Faculty?” Kincaid said a bit vaguely. “Poets?”

“The University English Faculty. You do remember my Ph.D. thesis on the effect of the Great War on English poetry?” Vic said with the first hint of sharpness he’d heard. “The one I was struggling with when we were married?”

Kincaid made an effort to redeem himself. “That’s what you wanted, then. I’m glad for you.” Seeing that Vic still looked annoyed, he blundered on. “But I’d have thought two jobs would have meant more work, not less. You’re saying you work for the University and for your college, right? Wouldn’t you be better off to do one or the other?”

Vic gave him a pitying look. “That’s not the way it works. Being a college fellow is a bit like indentured servitude. They pay your salary and they call the shots—they can stick you with a backbreaking load of supervisions and you have no recourse. But if you’re hired by a University Faculty, well, that gives you some clout—at a certain point you can tell your college to go stuff itself. Politely, of course,” she added with a gleam of returning good humor.

“And that’s what you’ve done?” Kincaid asked. “Politely, of course.”

Vic took a sip of her wine and settled back in her chair, looking suddenly tired. “It’s not quite that simple. But yes, I suppose you could say that.”

When she didn’t pursue the topic further, Kincaid ventured, “And your husband? Is he a lecturer as well?” He kept his voice lightly even, a friendly inquiry one might make to an acquaintance.

“Ian’s at Trinity. Political science. But he’s away on sabbatical just now, writing a book about the division of the Georgian states.” Vic put down her bread and met Kincaid’s eyes. “I don’t know why I’m beating about the bush. The thing is, he’s writing this book about Russia from the south of France, and he just happened to take one of his graduate students with him. Female. In the note he left me he said he thought he must be having his midlife crisis.” She gave him a tight smile. “He asked me to be patient.”

At least, Kincaid thought, he left you a note. He said, “I’m sorry. It must be difficult for you.”

Vic drank again and picked at a bit of salad. “It’s Kit, really. Most days he’s furious with Ian. Occasionally he’s