Today's Reading
CHAPTER ONE
There is a flat roof in northwest London that can't be seen from the road, or from the windows of neighboring houses, because it's on top of a tall block of flats on a quiet residential street. On this roof is a garden of rare and unusual plants: tropical and arid, prostrate and fastigiate, exotic and exclusive, the needs of each catered for with meticulous care. It's an oasis and a sanctuary in an unkind and unforgiving city. Only one person has access to the garden, via a hatch in their kitchen ceiling. They've never invited a friend to join them up there for a drink, because they don't have any friends, or family. They are alone, and for this, they are grateful. That person is Eustacia Amelia Rose, Professor of Botany.
Field of expertise: botanical toxicology. In layman's terms, the study of poisonous plants. That person is me.
I'm not one for exaggeration or self-aggrandizement. I'm pretty unremarkable in many ways: neither tall and slim, nor short and overweight. I keep my hair neat in the old-fashioned way—precisely parted with Brylcreem and a tortoiseshell comb—and I take care of my clothes, washing them in the bathroom sink and ironing them on the kitchen table. The cuffs are frayed, the linings are torn, and there are holes in my pockets, but there is no one to see this damage. No one to comment on the greasy stains on my collar or the earthy smell of my trousers, and for this, I'm also grateful.
I like to think I have the faded air of a learned university lecturer, which was indeed once my profession. There's a deep crease between my eyebrows formed by years of concentration, and my large nose is permanently dented at the bridge by my steel-rimmed glasses. I have neither smile nor laughter lines, and there's a natural droop to the corners of my mouth that I suppose some might find unattractive, but my lips are soft and are often pursed in thought.
I'm forty-four years old. I would say my appearance belies my age. I look much older. Sometimes I feel befuddled by the outside world and dread interruption—a cold call from an internet provider, say, or a letter from HMRC. When I'm left to myself, however, my mind is clear and intelligent and focused. It has to be.
Every morning, I put on my protective overalls—slightly too short, so they catch uncomfortably at the crotch—climb the ladder and go through the hatch in my kitchen ceiling. I then begin the long list of daily tasks, carrying them out with extreme diligence. My routine never wavers. I execute each action following the exact scientific method because, if I don't, there's a viable risk of death.
Over the years, I've learned that the nature of my work requires solitude. I could never forgive myself if somebody got hurt. Better to carry the risk myself and save others from harm. This is the reason I've never employed an assistant or a secretary, and why I've always refused the requests for internships from students who attend the university where I once worked. In the past, I perked up flagging lectures by likening myself to a bomb-disposal expert. One slip and 'boom,' it would all be over. Not straightaway, mind. Not like in an explosion where I would die instantly, my limbs torn from my torso and flung across the sand. No. My death would take time, sometimes as long as two weeks, but it would come. There's no doubt about that.
It must be said that I've not always been grateful to be alone. I hadn't planned this life of solitude. At the university, I'd interacted with people on a daily basis. Students, other lecturers, staff. It hadn't been easy. I'd struggled with eye contact, been confused by humor, and was often left exhausted after tutorials. But I'd been prepared to suffer these discomforts for the prize of unlimited access to the lab and greenhouses, and the prestige of the university's name that gave weight to my publications.
It must also be said that I'd not intended to remain single. Once upon a time, there had been someone with whom I thought I would share my life. An attractive, intelligent, witty acquaintance, who'd accepted my peculiarities—perhaps even loved me for them—but, in the end, chose someone else. I try not to dwell on this. What's the expression? 'Tis better to have loved and lost... Better to have experienced that doubt, that ache, that misery... As I said, I try not to dwell on it, but that can take great effort. Better to find other outlets, other distractions.
My father was a keen astronomer. He'd positioned his telescope at his study window, permanently trained on the sky, and would spend hours at night against the eyepiece, murmuring to himself, lost in another world. I'd always been envious of this tool he used to remove himself from his surroundings, to detach himself from the mundane reality of his life. Sometimes, when I was a child, and if Mars or Saturn was particularly bright, he would wake me in the middle of the night and take me, half-asleep, to look through the eyepiece. And I would gaze at the distant points of light, full of wonder. Then we would go to the long table in our Oxford kitchen for an astronomy lesson that would end with a live demonstration of a sunrise.
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