I'm Normally Perfect (re-upload)

Chapter Three

I would smile coquettishly, 'Now who is being flattering?'

'It's not flattery if it's the truth.'

When the kettle boiled she poured her cup, sat down and began marking papers, writing or reading while I got on with my work. When her tea had steeped long enough she removed the bag and placed it in the bin beside her desk then stirred in a bit of milk, held the tip of her spoon on the edge of the cup for a moment to allow the residual liquid to drain, replaced it on the napkin and had a sip. Then it was back to the task at hand. I quite looked forward to my vicarious tea each morning.

On Mondays she brought in flowers for a vase on her desk (roses of any hue except red, but also other types of flowers I didn't know the names of) and asked my opinion. I always complimented her choices. On Fridays—she came in later than usual, whilst I was at my morning tutorial. I found this horribly distracting, and knew she was equally hurt that she did not get to see me the last day of the week.

After lessons I would sit at my table and revise or read, occasionally glancing up at her, revelling in our companionable silence. Sometimes when I looked up she'd be watching me and would offer a tiny smile then return to her work. This would go on each day until 5.30 when she packed everything away and closed the curtains.

After she left for the day there was nothing special about staring at the back of draperies so I returned to my rooms then, and wrote about my day including what she had worn and the fabulous conversations we had. Usually she didn't say much to me, but the closer you are with someone the more comfortable you are with that person's silence.

The professor became the one constant in my life that I looked forward to, which was probably a first. Once I got to know most people they were all the same in that snowflake kind of way, each one had their own set of quirks, interests and peeves, but they were still snowflakes. They all instinctively obeyed certain rules and tried to live up to a pre-determined set of expectations and did not question those rules or expectations because everyone else was compelled similarly. No one had explained the rules to me; I was missing the part that was supposed to tell me how to fit in. Now I would say I had no social skills, but at the time I felt as though I was constructed out of a different substance entirely. It was too tiresome to adapt and I had no aspiration to be like everyone else and so opted not to participate, yet in my friendship with the professor there was an intimacy I had never experienced before; it grew from seeing the unguarded her, the version of her that was concealed when someone was in the room. She knew she did not have to hide her true self from me.

I was tempted to write about the professor in my weekly letters to Noni, but then decided against that in favour of keeping her a secret. Clandestine relationships were much more fun, anyway, and more contained. Once someone else had an opinion about your life, then in some small way it was no longer yours. Instead, I wrote letters about Lavinia to my imaginary friends back home.

25 October 1995

Dearest Siobhan,

A wonderful thing has occurred! I have made the acquaintance of the most charming woman I have yet had the pleasure of knowing. Her name is Lavinia Brookmyre and she teaches at a neighbouring college. We met under the most fortuitous of circumstances: I was on my way to an appointment with my advisor and, upon gaining the second landing of the stairwell, turned and found her stooping to gather several rather unwieldy books she had dropped. (I would later learn that she only just happened to be leaving a meeting with a don at my college and would not under normal circumstances have been in that building, so it was quite providential that I happened upon her at that moment.) 'Let me help you with those,' said I and retrieved two books that had tumbled down the stairs and landed just at my feet, as though they wanted me to pick them up and hand them to her. As I did so, I noticed that, possessing a pale complexion and the flaxen hair of a seraph (which she brushed from her face with the most divine gesture), she was quite the picture of delicate pulchritude.