Epilogue
"Congratulations," Steve said, shaking Alicia's hand. "We all knew you'd make it, of course," he added with a rather wicked grin. "Doctor Alicia Graham! How does it feel to be so intellectual and so eminent?"
"Not much different than I felt before really," Alicia told him good-humouredly. It was true she didn't feel much different, but there are relatively few Afro-Caribbeans in academia and she considered that she ought to do some trailblazing.
"What next?" asked Gill.
"The University found itself with a gap in the staff of the department when Professor Harrington died unexpectedly," answered Alicia, "They offered me a post if I undertook to go back and finish the excavations at Linksness."
"You agreed?" asked Gill.
"Absolutely," replied Alicia. "You don't get many second chances of a post in academic life." She didn't add, 'especially when you're a woman and black', but she thought it.
"You don't get many second chances of anything in life, especially happiness," said Gill. "I should know."
"You seem happy enough now," Alicia observed.
"We are. Very," said Steve.
"Yes. I'm sorry I couldn't get to the wedding, but I couldn't change the date of the viva voce part of my degree. I wish I'd been able to make it."
"It was really rather a quiet affair," said Gill. "It was important to me that Steve and I should commit ourselves ..."
"First day of the rest of our lives, and all that," Steve added.
"... but all the usual trappings weren't that important."
"Did any of the others make it?" Alicia wanted to know.
"Well Frank had gone back to America, of course, but Alan came and so did Manjy and her fiancee. Her husband now."
"Talking of which," said Alicia, "Or should that be 'whom'? Here they are."
Manjy had come through the door with a tall man of Indian extraction aged about thirty. She was wearing a smart, dark blue cocktail dress. The skirt was knee length and it was the first time Gill had seen her wear anything other that 'T' shirt and jeans. Apart from her wedding three weeks before, when she had worn a Sari.
Manjy spotted them and headed in their direction, husband in tow.
"Hello Alicia," she said, shaking her hand "and congratulations."
"Thank you. This, I take it, is your husband."
"This is Pratap," Manjy said, and the tall man shooks hands with Alicia as well. "Pratap is a doctor in Nottingham," she said.
Alicia had often been at the receiving end of both deliberate and unintentional prejudice and was trying to be careful not cause offence. "Congratulations to you both as well. I hope you're going to be happy together." She wanted ask whether they had met before the wedding, but didn't like to.
"Neither of us like to upset families by rejecting our community totally, but I think we are fortunate," said Manjy. "We both have our careers but we both respect each other as well. I'm very fond of Pratap already."
"Last time I saw you, you were wearing a Sari," Gill remarked.
"And the time before that, you were wearing an ankle length dress," retorted Manjy.
"Touché," said Gill, laughing.
"You wear what's appropriate," said Manjy, more seriously. "I haven't abandoned my family or my culture. I'd still wear a Sari where it seems appropriate."
"And jeans when it's cold," said Pratap. "She only wears short skirts when the weather is warm, and that's nothing at all to do with me," he added.
They all laughed.
"You know that Alan got a job up in the Orkneys?" asked Steve.
"Yes," said Alicia, "I wrote a reference for him."
"I'd no idea that he'd taken up with one of the volunteers," said Gill. "You could have knocked me down with a proverbial when he told us."
"I think he'll be made available for part of the time next Summer," Alicia said, "and his wife - Carol she's called - will be free as well." In the silence that followed she added, "And what will you do now?"
"I've got my post-grad place at York," said Gill. Steve has a job with a transport firm up there. Motor engineering."
"I don't know how permanent that is," Steve commented. "You never know. I might go to University myself. It's never too late to learn, is it?"
"Well, I had better circulate a bit among the other guests. Can I leave you four to help yourself to food and a drink," said Alicia. "I'm making coffee shortly."
"I'm glad it's somebody else for a change," said Steve, and ducked to avoid Alicia's playful punch.
* * *
Somewhere else in the Midlands a nurse handed Juliana a little bundle and she smiled. Ian was there and her wheelchair was next to the bed.
"She's really a rather sweet little thing, isn't she," said the nurse to the doctor, indicating the baby. "You'd never know she had brain damage."
"The accident to the mother, possibly. Though there was no sign of any damage to her. I believe she was quite severely crushed," said the Malaysian doctor, thinking to herself that this soul must have quite a karmic debt from somewhere.
Mike Crowson – Former teacher, former Secretary of the Green Party in its early days - is an Occult and Esoteric Consultant, offering free and unconditional help for those in genuinely occult or psychic difficulties, based on some 40 years of study and research. He is a Mason, Rosicrucian and an Adept of the Western Mysteries, and can be found and contacted at: https://www.mikecrowson.co.uk
His books include:
Witchmoor Edge Series:
Witchmoor Edge
On Edge
Outside Edge
Over the Edge
Edgeways On
Female of the Species (Short Stories)
Occult Novels:
The Rings of Poseidon
Only the Darkness
Heat Stroke
The Flag and the Flower
The Riddle and the Key
Wytchmoor Peak
(and ‘Sealed Entrance’ coming shortly)
Parallel Loop (Short Stories)
The first three are available free as .pdf from obooko.
Non-Fiction:
Psychic Lifeline
(Recognizing and Managing Psychic & Occult Harm)
Poetry & Plays
What’s Left for Tomorrow (Poetry)
All This Homework’s Killing Me (Play)
The Poser in the Porsche (Play)
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