Read Online The Find by Kathy Page - Free Book Online Page B

you’re being punished in a big way. Look, you’ve got him three times. You have a great profile for your work here. You have found something of enormous significance, in his field , which, because you are female, is unacceptable, but, if he has you, then maybe it can become his. But, you say no .’
    Their eyes met, pushed against each other. To explain to Sheila why she could not quite accept this account, why she could not dismiss a lingering sense of guilt, Anna would have had to say more, go deeper, further. She couldn’t.
    â€˜Didn’t you once work on flight? There’s a territorial element, for sure.
    â€˜How’s this?’ Sheila said. ‘I set up a meeting of the research and funding committees. We’ll approach the university, alert them to the problem and seek a solution. Meanwhile, it’s been a huge shock. Go home now, get some rest.’
    â€˜Sheila—’ Anna was on her feet, glaring into the other woman’s face, ‘How am I supposed to get on with my work?’
    â€˜Go home,’ Sheila told her. ‘I’ll call you.’
    Anna ran. She cut through a tangle of tracks and disused minor roads and then back a mile or so to the east. The ground was flat, but on either side rose the sheer walls of the meandering canyon, gouged out by glacial meltwater and then ever since blown and washed away at a rate of four millimetres a year, showed the ochre, rust and charcoal sediments of a vast alluvial flood plain and the remnants of a long-vanished sea; a landscape full of revelation. She was out of practice; her legs leaden, her chest tight but she slackened off and then, when she came back to the run, it was easier.
    Her breath found its rhythm; slowly, the biochemical consolation for her efforts trickled in, lifting her mood a little. Marsh, she reminded herself, who had discovered inter alia , some of the first North American pterosaurs, had dealt with wolves, buffalo stampedes, sandstorms; his team lived under a constant fear of Indian attack. Back then, you returned from fieldwork glad to be alive. Surely that put her problems in perspective.
    Though perhaps the human enemy was worse than the beastly one, and frank hostilities were different — preferable — to betrayal.
    Did Mike believe his own lies, or somehow forget that he was telling them? What did he say to himself about this?
    The sky lowered, overcast, its greys melding seamlessly with the mud and iron tints of the landscape below, and finally the rain came, smearing slippery, clayey dust over the road and forcing her to walk.
    â™¦ ♦ ♦
    Two days later, two weeks after the find itself, they convened in the boardroom, three abstract canvases behind them, and the blinds down against the late September sun: Sheila, Peter, Brian and Anna, at one end of the long polished table.
    From the university: a faxed letter, offering a version of events according to Mike: how he saw the larger of the specimens first, and Anna had acknowledged (as he was sure any committee would agree) that he was better qualified and equipped to deal with a find of this kind and magnitude, and had given him her blessing to lead the excavation. But perhaps she had mixed feelings, because later that evening he’d become concerned because of her reluctance to hand over two small parts of the specimen which he had extracted. He felt her response was extreme, as had been her behaviour ever since. He was more convinced than ever that the university must insist on complete control of the find.
    From the museum, the draft of a letter saying that they did not accept this account, would like to resolve; but if not, would take the matter further by making the funding bodies aware of the dispute and its origins.
    â€˜It has to be said, all this is going to make a lot of ripples and cause bad feeling,’ Pete said. ‘Are you ready for that?’
    â€˜I have to ask— where are you coming from when you