The Wallis Memorial Theatre was an imposing building from both the outside and from behind the podium on the inside. In fact, Matt considered it much more imposing from the latter. He fiddled with the computer mouse as he watched students, who probably had no idea who Samuel Wallis even was, meandering in and finding seats. As usual there was a degree of chaos as the students typically chose to take seats on the aisle, leaving the small collection of curious public visitors and academic staff without anything better on their schedules than to squeeze past student knees and trip over student satchels. The air smelled of a blend of carpet, air-freshener, cigarette-breath, and the awful odour that attaches itself to winter jackets that haven’t aired out for a few weeks. Matt felt sick. But he would have to get past his nerves.
The problem wasn’t public speaking. Matt felt like he was unimportant, unknown. An anti-hero. His dream job would be Head of the History Department, but that belonged to Professor Pick, a man who hated Matt with every ounce of his squat body. He accused Matt of being lazy, young and having had everything handed to him on a silver platter. All this, merely because Matt was a private school boy. Professor Pick had apparently had it hard. Tough comprehensive school and all. Matt hoped his trip to New Zealand could give him the opportunity to prove himself to Pick.
As the last straggler came in, Matt flicked the projector on and checked the green light. A girl up in the back row wore an ugly purple woollen pullover, a distracting eyesore. Promising himself not to look that way again, Matt cleared his throat. The resulting croak filled the room when amplified through the radio-microphone. With an embarrassed grimace, Matt clicked the mouse and the first slide of his presentation appeared on the monitor in front of him and the cinema-sized screen behind him. Matt’s lips moved in the same way he had seen them do in the mirror for the past week. He delivered a coherent and logical lecture. He left the stage to a spattering of polite applause.
‘Can I have a word with you Dr. Cameron?’ Came the unmistakable two-cats-fighting-over-fish voice belonging to Matt’s head of department as he walked through the auditorium door.
Matt worked up his friendliest smile and turned to face him.
‘Yes Dr. Pick. What can I do for you?’
‘It’s about this trip of yours to New Zealand.’
Shit! How the hell does he know about New Zealand? Matthew racked his brain but could only come up with two people he had discussed it with. Julia and Rose. As far as the department was concerned he was just on leave. There was no way Julia or Rose told Dwight Pick anything about the trip. Certainly Julia hated him as much as Matt did. The jokes in the department were relentless. Dwight Pick, the right prick. No one liked the short balding bastard.
‘What about my trip?’
‘My understanding is that you’re going to New Zealand to do some work on a pseudo history theory. You know the department’s stand on issues like this.
‘Where do you get your information from, Dwight?’
‘That isn’t important, since your lack of denial confirms it’s true.’
‘I don’t have to justify what I do in my own time.’
‘Nothing you do during this journey of yours will escape my attention. If you step one foot out of line and embarrass this school, it’ll be your job. It doesn’t matter if you aren’t on the clock, your name is associated with me, and I won’t accept any foolish witch-hunts.’
‘I think you’re blowing this out of proportion.’
‘You have no idea what sort of trouble you’re delving into, do you? Be very, very careful what sort of ideas you play with. You’ve been warned.’
Matt watched, as with his final words, the right prick turned on his heels and shuffled off back towards their office block, his comb-over clinging to his head like six lonely strands of spaghetti on an upturned bowl in a cheap Italian restaurant.