Murder in the English Department Read Online Free Page B

Nan, whether in accusation or apology she couldn’t tell.
    â€˜He doesn’t mean any offence,’ whispered Bob.
    Nan was staring past Joe, concentrating on a pattern in the flowered wallpaper, as if her glasses were binoculars to a freer world. She turned back to Lisa who sat silent and angry, with tears streaming down her face.
    â€˜If you ask me,’ Joe said in a lower voice, ‘Lisa could just as well go to the junior college like Lynda and Debbie done.’ He smiled benignly at Debbie, the bearer of his imminent grandchild.
    â€˜Perhaps now isn’t the best time to discuss it,’ suggested Shirley. ‘Being that it’s Christmas and we haven’t seen Nan for a month. Tell us about that trip you made, to Kansas, wasn’t it, to lecture to those professors.’
    â€˜Yes,’ Nan said, trying to sound interesting. ‘Yes, I talked about Virginia Woolf as a forerunner in feminist criticism, showing her influence on …’ The Berkeley idiom reflexively returned when she discussed her work. ‘I mean, she was an important woman writer who …’
    â€˜Oh, yes,’ Shirley nodded, just holding back a yawn. The others searched around the table for the last scraps of dessert. Joe was eating a creamed onion with his fingers.
    â€˜Well now,’ Nan interrupted herself, ‘How about opening the presents?’
    â€˜You all go in and I’ll start the coffee,’ said Shirley. She looked relieved that the celebration was back in gear.
    Before Shirley returned with the percolator and the tray of coffee cups, Joe had managed a grope along Nan’s back to determine if she were wearing a bra. An old trick of his. This treatment occurred every holiday, but usually toward the end of the evening. No use lecturing about the finer points of sexual harassment, Nan knew, so she slid to the other end of the couch.
    Shirley poured coffee and then sat down deliberately on the cushion between her husband and her sister.
    Everyone’s generosity was unqualified. Nylon shirts and polyester slacks and orlon sweaters—all wash ’n’ wear in the latest Sears colours. They honoured Nan’s strange aversion to synthetic fibres. She received a cotton tablecloth, a silk scarf, a wool muffler and a flannel nightie. Chastened, Nan thought how lucky she was to have a family tolerant of her eccentricities. Shirley regarded wash ’n’ wear as unequivocal progress—one less thing to iron. But if Nan wanted to iron, well, that was her business.
    Only two protests were made that afternoon, both by Shirley. Her first objection was to the big ring she received from Joe.
    â€˜Aw, it’s only a zircon, hon,’ he said lying with his legs across Shirley’s lap. He picked up his Alka Seltzer and drank deeply. Before Shirley could protest further he added, ‘Just wait ’till I make foreman; it’ll be a real diamond then.’
    â€˜But Joe, we can’t afford …’ she began.
    â€˜Now don’t tell me what we can’t afford,’ he said. ‘I’m the one who brings home the money. I’m the one who’ll do the affording.’
    Shirley was also taken aback by the silk blouse that Nan had given Lisa. She asked if it wasn’t a little too old for the girl. The girl didn’t think so. In fact the present brought a smile to Lisa’s face for the first time since dinner.
    Throughout the evening, Nan kept stealing glances at Lisa. On the whole she looked OK. A little pale perhaps. But everyone turned grey around the gills at Christmas. Lisa would be just fine when they checked those tests at Memorial Hospital tomorrow. Nan was almost convinced that this ‘mysterious illness’ was a reaction to commuting between Hayward and Berkeley, a kind of cultural carsickness. Once Lisa had moved from home, Nan tried to reassure herself, she would get better. Yes, she insisted, Lisa would be all