Read Online Come to Harm by Catriona McPherson - Free Book Online

“Waste of money. I can set you up no problem with a password. It’ll be nice. Sharing.”
    â€œBut—” said his mother.
    â€œIt’s two different computers, Mum,” said Malcolm. “We’ll all be safe as long as we wear our foil hats when we’re emailing.”
    Keiko snorted with laughter and turned to Murray, but his face was without expression, and his mother’s might as well have been carved from stone.
    â€œWell, thank you, Malcolm—for the yakitori,” she said, taking the tray.
    She glanced at her watch as she left them. Almost time to go to the university, where she would be at home, among friends. Where she would know what people meant when they spoke. Where people would be like her. Her heart lifted and even returning to her flat up all those stone stairs couldn’t lower it again.

eight
    Dr. Bryant read with his chin sunk on his chest, his lips pushed fo rwards and pressed together, making his ginger moustache bristle. From time to time he crunched his mouth up even more, working his glasses up his nose and scraping the moustache hairs against the undersides of his nostrils with a rasping sound.
    â€œThat all seems in perfect order,” he said at last, signing the last page. “Your customary efficiency in full swing.”
    Keiko stared at him. He had never met her before. Japanese efficiency, did he mean? He stared back. Was she only imagining a bloom of colour on his cheeks?
    â€œTell me a little about your proposal,” he said.
    Keiko nodded and cleared her throat. “The construction of knowledge in social groups,” she said.
    â€œA very well-researched area,” said Dr. Bryant.
    â€œIn general,” Keiko said. “But I’ve chosen a focus that’s relatively—”
    Dr. Bryant’s eyes had strayed to his computer screen and he was reading something there.
    â€œFood as modern folklore,” said Keiko.
    Dr. Bryant touched his mouse and his screen scrolled upwards. “Yes … yes …” he said. He clicked his mouse again.
    â€œI’m thinking about q-methodology perhaps for the profiling, or a Likert line, created stimuli for the feedback into the networks.”
    â€œGood, good.” Click, click .
    â€œAnd there will be useful insights from anthropology and sociology. From the literature, I mean.” She took a deep breath. She could always claim language problems. “And embroidery and some snowboarding.”
    â€œYes, I see,” said Dr. Bryant. “Well I’m very glad to hear someone giving proper consideration to a robust theoretical grounding right from the start.”
    â€œYes, I see,” echoed Keiko and, thanking him in such a soft voice that his attention was not hooked away from his screen by the smallest fraction, she let herself out.
    _____
    Charismatic teachers are really for undergraduates , she told herself. Or high school English teachers who lend their personal copies of Faulkner; even grade school teachers who take seven-year-olds to their first ballet .
    Her studies, her time here—the early blossoming of her career as she would no doubt call it in years to come—would be made up of her own careful probing scholarship, bounced off the other young minds, fresh bright minds, just beginning, like her own.
    What she should be doing was meeting her office mates. She checked the floor plan on the wall of the entrance atrium and set off into the dark halls and stairways. Already she could see the three of them sitting in armchairs, or maybe the two of them sitting in armchairs, listening, while Keiko stood on the rug by the fireplace and read a draft of a paper to them, and how they would put down their sherry glasses and stare at her as she finished, how one would whistle and one would clap and they would toast her and tell her to send it straight to the journal. And she would say she couldn’t have done it without their help, and someone