Read Online The Bookman's Tale by Berry Fleming - Free Book Online Page B

unconscious (or not unconscious?) attraction to the “dropout.”
    Anyway, off again to the West Coast, taking Donna with him this time, and during the week he was away Tuckwell got the job, phoning me in his exuberance. They had just called him with the news: formal papers in the mail, sign, two witnesses, notary, return one copy, send photocopy of the dissertation registered mail as soon as confirmed.
    Then he and Meg to Washington to find accomodations, finding something—McLean, I believe—taking it on a three-year lease for occupancy immediately after his appearance before the Board; back to the University and coming to my office, both of them, to thank me for my help, I trying to explain I had done nothing, but getting a bottle out of a bottom drawer and pouring us all a congratulatory glass. In another week he had turned in his dissertation, packed up and left; I stopped by their apartment as they were phoning for a taxi. When I offered to shake hands with Meg she flung her arms round my neck and kissed me on the mouth. I remember the feel of her lips.
    Sarah-Wesley said, “You loved the woman yourself, you rascal,” the Doctor lifting his hand in a gesture that might have been a mild denial or just a signal he hadn’t finished yet, Ray mumbling something trivial while his thoughts adjusted not so much to the doctor’s being in love with Meg, obvious enough, but to the possibility the doctor and “colleague” were one and the same—the mate with elastic strides tailored to fit the movement of the deck like a circus performer on his bouncing wire, ignoring the passengers as usual (as if it were Rule One in his Service Manual), taking the companionway up to the bridge two steps at a time, the cat trailing like a dinghy. In love with Meg at the time and thought he still was, the idea giving Ray a shock of recognition like passing someone on the street who reminds you of someone else, of yourself indeed, yourself distorted in the Fun-House mirror; of himself being in love with Claudia once and thinking he still was, her voice coming through her letters, “They mowed the wheat below us yesterday, what a glorious smell!”—The Doctor clarifying his lifted hand with, “That’s not quite all of it.”
    (T HE D OCTOR’S C OLLEAGUE’S T ALE—CONCL .)
    The baby was born, a boy, in McLean a week after they settled in, the move itself, new friends, new surroundings and all that helping to bring it on I’d say, let the gynecologists smile. Everything fine, except certification hadn’t come through; he had taken the two five-hour finals and the two-hour oral, handed in his dissertation and was ready to come up any day at X’s notification for the final public oral. After another week he wrote X a polite note: he didn’t want to seem impatient, he knew such things took time, but the people down there had asked him again and it was a little embarrassing. They had taken him on the strength of it and were getting a little uneasy.
    When he got no answer in ten days he told Meg he was going up there and try to hurry it up. She suggested phoning Dr. X; “So much easier, honey. And cheaper!” He said, Seeing his face was as important as hearing his voice; nevertheless he phoned.
    But Dr. X was “not in the office this morning.” “Is this Paula?”
    â€œYes it is, Dr. Tuckwell.”
    â€œPaula, please ask him to call me tonight after six,” looking down at their new number and giving it to her. She said she was sorry but they didn’t expect him back until Monday, he was on the West Coast. “Well, ask him to call me as soon as he gets back. Important, Paula.”
    But he didn’t call, and when Tuckwell reached him on the phone Monday afternoon he said only, Such things took time you know, tell those people down there to keep their pants on. “There’s possibly one little snag,