Coming here

Coming here was a terrible mistake, I want to run away, I want to scuttle back home to London - home, yes, that's my home, not this little tatty little box. Do I dare ? Why not ? I haven't really started yet. I haven't met any students, or taken any of the University's money. They'll easily find someone else to do the job - there are a lots of excellent writers around who would jump at it. Why not just leave, tomorrow morning early ? I see myself creeping out of the house before it's light, like a thief, loading my things into the car, shutting the boot lid softly, softly, so as not to alert anybody, leaving a note for Jasper Richmond on the table in the living-room with the house keys. "Sorry, it was a terrible mistake, all my fault, I should never have applied for the post, please forgive me.' And then pulling the door shut on this Scandinavian rabbit hutch and driving away along the empty service road, scarves of mist round the throats of the street lamps, slowing down at the exit barrier to give a wave to the security man yawning in his brightly-lit glazed sentry box. He nods back, suspects nothing, raises the barrier to let me out, like Checkpoint Charlie in a cold war spy film, and I'm free! Down the avenue, on to the main road, on to the M5, the M42, the M40, London, Bloomfield Crescent, home
except that 58 Bloomfield Crescent has been rented for the next three months to an American art historian on sabbatical and his wife who arrive next Friday. Never mind, send them a fax, ? Sorry, all off, change of plan, house not available after all.'Could they sue me? There's no legal contract, but perhaps our correspondence would count as one... Oh, what's the point in pursuing this futile line of speculation when we all know (by 'we' I mean my neurotic self and my more rational observing , recording self) we know, don't we, that this is just a fantasy? And that the real reason I won't run away tomorrow morning is not because of possible litigation by my American Tenants (or for that matter by the University of Gloucester, who could undoubtedly sue me for breach of contract, thought I very much doubt if they would bother) but because I haven't got the courage to do it. Because I couldn't bear the guilt, the shame, the ignominy, of knowing that everybody I know knew that I had funked it, panicked, run away . Imagine to having to ring up Paul and Lucy to tell them, and hearing the disappointment in their voices even as they tried to be supportive of their mad mother. Imagine seeing the ill-concealed smirks and smiles of people at literary parties, as they whispered to each other over their their glasses of white wine. 'That's Helen Reed, did you know she went to be a writer in Residence at Gloucester University and ran away on the first day of the semester because she couldn't face it either,' And they might add, ' not that I blame her, I'm sure I couldn't face it either,' but nevertheless they would despise me and I would despise myself.
It was a nice fantasy while it lasted, though. I even chose the tape I would play in the car on the M5, the Vivaldi wind concerti, with their sprightly, cheerful allegro
From the book "Thinks" by David Lodge