Then there was the paper itself. Yes, the introduction had been good, epic even for an academic paper. It had entered a brave new world of engaging language, enticing non-academics to read further, getting people excited. It had got him excited anyway. But the rest of Alex’s (Laurel’s?) essay had needed work, needed honing, needed further exploration and a widening of scope. The conclusion had needed work, needed expansion and tightening. Nate had written and rewritten and edited and revised and rewritten the essay over and over.
But he had never touched that introduction.
‘Dr Daley.’ A soft voice interrupted his staring into space thinking about nothing. ‘Do you want a cup of tea or anything?’ The girl with the spider eyelashes asked him. It seems it’s Dr Daley again now. Good.
‘No thanks,’ he replied, with a tight smile.
He hated living in Robin’s house, with these students.
He wanted Laurel’s warm sofa, the smell of her shampoo in the morning, coffee from her cafetiere, her arms around him.
But she didn’t want to talk to him, and he couldn’t blame her. Actually, screw that, he could blame her. If Laurel actually cared about him, she would at least give him the opportunity to explain. Explain that it was all Alex, that he had never known she’d written anything, never known what Alex had said to her that fateful day in the university pub.
He understood why she was acting like she was, but if only she would let him explain.
Nate was sunken and hollow. He’d invested everything into this relationship with Laurel, and it was falling apart around him.
Then things started to happen.
The Chair of the Ethics Committee from the university called, expressing their ‘extreme discomfort’ at such allegations being levied against one of their most prestigious and celebrated staff members. The Ethics Committee representative made it eminently clear that his job was on the line. The career that he had worked so hard for, for so long, was at danger of becoming lost in the smoke, and all because of Alex. Nate accepted the emergency ethics meeting set for next week.
The second was a stroppy text from Lucia.
He ignored it.
Then, Owen called. He’d heard from Alex that there had been an argument, that Nate had been ‘unreasonable’ and ‘wouldn’t listen’ and ‘was making a huge mistake’.
‘Is that what he said? That I got him fired?’ Nate shouted down the phone. He was full of rage.
‘Yeah, well, he’s suspended because of something you did. They’re having a disciplinary meeting to look into it. Something about ethical violation?’ Owen sighed. ‘What the fuck did you do?’
‘What didIdo? Why do you immediately think that it was my fault? Didn’t you think that Alex phoning you was his clumsy-ass attempt to get out ahead of it?’ Nate snapped. ‘He’s the one who has put my relationship, not to mention my entire career, in danger, without me even knowing about it!’
‘But what is it?’ Owen said, shuffling the phone. He could hear two sets of breaths. Jess was there as well.
‘You want to know what he did?’ Nate took one of the student’s cans of Fosters from the fridge and snapped it open. ‘I’ll tell you.’
They were appalled. There was no other word for it.
‘But how do the BAS know?’ Jess asked, distorted down the phone.
‘It all happened at the fucking funding meeting, Jess,’ Nate said, running a hand through his hair. ‘You know what academics are like, massive gossips. It must have spread like wildfire.’
There was silence at the end of the phone.
‘What?’ he prompted them.
‘So, really, Alex didn’t contribute anything to that paper, did he? There was Laurel’s introduction, and then you did the grunt work in polishing her ideas, as presented by Alex.’ Jess put it succinctly.
‘Not just polishing,’ he commented.
‘Well, there we are then, you essentially collaborated with Laurel, not Alex,’ Jess said. ‘How did none of us see that Alex wasn’t clever enough to come up with those imaginative ideas? Anyway,’ she hesitated, ‘what has Laurel said?’
Nate deflated.
‘She won’t talk to me. She thinks I was involved. She thinks I knew.’
The hole in his chest ached.
