Matricide at St. Martha's Read Online Free PDF

descriptions.’
    Sandra tugged Amiss’s sleeve again and drew him away. ‘Sorry. Bridget’s pretty steamed up. She’s feeling a lot of anger about the way you got the job. It not being properly advertised and all.’
    ‘Wasn’t it?’ Amiss distinctly remembered being instructed by the Bursar to pretend he’d answered an ad in the Guardian .
    ‘Yeah, well, you see, Bridget feels – and of course she’s right – that as equal opportunities employers we should be advertising in the women’s press and journals representing marginalized people. Like, there’s lots of folks can’t afford to read the Guardian . OK?’
    Amiss thought of three answers and rejected all of them. He fell back on the weak smile which served him so well. ‘Who’s here tonight in addition to the Fellows?’ he asked.
    ‘Well, there’s the guest speaker. Though she’s a Fellow too – the new Schoolmistress Fellow. It’s her first day.’
    ‘Speaker? Do you mean there’s an after-dinner speech?’
    ‘Yeah, well, it’s more of a lecture really. We do this on the first Thursday of every month – come back in here afterwards with the students and hear a visitor talk.’
    ‘On what?’ Amiss felt swamped in despair; the thought of having to sit through a lecture was always enough to bring him close to tears.
    ‘Maybe old architecture or one of those subjects that the Mistress’s friends are interested in. I’m afraid they’re completely irrelevant to our agenda. Bridget’s going to have that stopped. We’ve got someone coming in next time to talk about dictionaries.’
    ‘Ah. She’s a lexicographer?’
    ‘Sorry?’
    ‘Someone who defines words.’
    ‘Sort of, I guess. She runs a course at St Barbara’s Access College called “Freeing ourselves from Patriarchal Wordwebs.” ’
    ‘Like what?’
    Sandra looked at him in a puzzled fashion. ‘Well, you know, like any of them. Websters, Oxford , all those paternalistic ones.’
    ‘Sorry, Sandra. What’s the alternative?’
    ‘Why there are lots. Haven’t you got Mary Daly’s Wickedary , or even The Dictionary of Bias-Free Usage ?’
    ‘I can see I’ve got a lot to learn.’ Amiss wished Jack was to hand with some more gin, but she was out of reach on the other side of the room, booming at a pot-bellied cleric.
    ‘We’ll help. It’s all very exciting here at the moment. Bridget is so inspirational. She makes you so aware. She’s so brilliant and so principled.’ Sandra looked at her watch. ‘Oh, it’s nearly time. We’ll be going in in half a minute.’
    ‘You’re very precise.’
    ‘Well, it’s the Mistress. You can set your watch by her.’
    For an academic, thought Amiss, and an advanced feminist one at that, Sandra had a surprisingly pedestrian turn of phrase. He speculated on how someone of her limited ability could tackle a genius like George Eliot and remembered that large numbers of people were paid for a living to write about those who were their intellectual and possibly moral superiors. And, of course, if possible, tear them to shreds.
    ‘ Ave !’ said a cheery voice as the crowd began to move out of the common room. The greeting turned out to belong to the pink-cheeked Schoolmistress Fellow, Primrose Partridge.
    ‘I’m so excited,’ she said, as they set off together, Sandra having scuttled off to attach herself to Bridget’s coat-tails. ‘It’s my first day here. I’ve got a whole three months. I’ve really been looking forward to the intellectual challenge.’
    ‘Do you know St Martha’s?’
    ‘Oh yes. I’m an Old Girl. When I was a student here I used to look up at those dons at high table and wonder if I’d ever be among them. I thought how wonderful it would be to have all that challenging conversation. Shake up the old brain cells and all that.’
    ‘You haven’t been back since?’
    ‘No. Always meant to. But you know the way it is. Tempus fugit and all that.’
    ‘Where do you teach?’
    ‘A Yorkshire girls’