Chapter Two Jonah
Chapter Two Jonah
My brother Elias was surprised – to put it mildly – when I emailed him to ask for help with my job application.
I’m happy to provide feedback on your draft, but I’m not sure why you’re asking me , he replied.
I don’t work in your field.
You’re a historian, I sent back.
That’s close enough.
And you’re clearly good at job applications.
This is your fifth fellowship now, right?
Still no closer to an actual permanent job, though.
Why not ask Dad?
Because he has no idea what the current job market is like and he refuses to learn.
This was true.
When my dad got his job, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, he had one (1) scholarly article on his CV.
I had tried to explain to him many times that the academic job market worked differently now, but his belief in Shut Up, It’s Not That Bad, You’re Just Not Trying Hard Enough was practically religious.
It wasn’t the only reason, though.
My dad might not appreciate what it was like, being on the modern academic job market, but he’d sat on a lot of hiring committees.
17 He could help me write a killer application.
But it would be one more thing that I had that Sadie didn’t.
18
And much as I wanted – needed – this job, and much as the thought of being in the same city as Fiona so I could finally be a halfway decent brother to her had made it feel like a divine sunbeam was shining down on me when I saw the job ad, I couldn’t do that to her.
I don’t want to fight anymore, I’d said, and I’d meant it.
It might already be too late, but in case it wasn’t, I didn’t want to be the kind of man my father was.
‘I’m going to be blunt with you,’ Elias said, when we Zoomed to discuss my application.
‘Do you even want this job?’
I blinked.
‘Of course I do. Fi—’
‘Forget Fi.’
‘What the fuck do you mean, forget Fi ?’
Elias sighed.
‘I didn’t mean it like that.
But a sob story isn’t going to get you this job, Jonah.
My sister’s piece of shit husband left her high and dry for his secret second family isn’t going to do anything for a hiring committee that want to know how your research will count towards their metrics and how much external income you have the capacity to bring in.
And the draft you sent me is, frankly, weak and unconvincing.
’
‘Thanks, Reviewer 2.’
‘If you want this job, you don’t need me to coddle you.
The job market doesn’t care about your feelings.
The job market is a gladiatorial arena.
’
I sighed.
‘I know.’
‘I know you know. How many jobs have you been shortlisted for?’
‘Three.’
‘Then you must be able to sell yourself better than this. So, answer the question: do you even want this job?’
I sighed again.
There was a feeling settling in the pit of my stomach, a complex concoction in which the two primary ingredients were guilt and exhaustion.
‘I’ve told you about Sadie before, right?
’
‘The name sounds familiar. Was she the girl in your PhD programme that Dad hated?’
‘It’s more complicated than that.
’
And I spilled the whole story.
The years of rivalry, punctuated by only a few ceasefires.
All the things I had that she didn’t.
The way her research specialisation – the one that Dad made a habit of dunking on, every chance he got – lurked there in the job ad, right after mine.
The promise we’d made, my hand in hers across the kitchen table.
I don’t want to fight anymore.
Elias was quiet for a long time when I was finished – so much so I thought the screen had frozen and I’d just been spilling my feelings to thin air.
But then, ‘She’s your Julia,’ he said.
‘Julia?’
‘You’re not the first Fisher to have a nemesis.
’
Elias ran a hand through his hair.
‘I lost a job to her, seven or eight years back. The same kind of job you’re going for: Level B, permanent, full-time.
At Lyons, actually.
’
I stared.
‘And I lost it because she got in my fucking head,’ he said, pointing at me through the screen.
‘Now it’s years later, and I’m still bouncing around the world on whatever fellowships I can find, no closer to any kind of security.
’
And if he hadn’t lost it, Elias would be living in Hobart.
Fiona would have someone.
Fishers might be terrible siblings, but at least she wouldn’t be alone.
I didn’t want to fight anymore.
But I had to.
I couldn’t let Sadie get in my head, not if I wanted to help Fi.
‘I know my claims in the application are under-evidenced,’ I said.
‘Do you have any suggestions for how I can beef them up?’
I submitted the application the day before the deadline.
Never wait until the last day , Elias had counselled me.
You know how shit university IT systems are; you never know when they’ll have an outage .
‘You get your app in?’ I dared to ask Sadie when she came into the kitchen as I was cooking dinner.
19 We hadn’t spoken more than ten words to each other since the job was listed, but something about hitting submit had given me hope that maybe – just maybe – we could return to the terms of the sixth ceasefire, if only for a little while.
‘Yes,’ she said shortly.
‘You?’
Well, that hope was short-lived.
‘Yes.’
She nodded – an acknowledgement, nothing more – then took her gardening gloves off the hook next to the kitchen door and slid her feet into her gumboots.
‘Good luck,’ I said.
‘I’m going to work in the veggie patch, not off to war.
’
‘No, I mean—’ She knew perfectly well what I meant, why was she leaving me to flail like this?
‘With your application.’
The pause she left before she spoke again was excruciatingly long.
‘You don’t mean that, Jonah.
’
The kitchen door snicked close behind her before I had the chance to reply.
Which was a good thing, really.
Because she was probably right.
There would be dozens – potentially hundreds – of scholars applying.
The competition would be vicious.
There were many, many people standing between me and this job.
But Sadie Shaw had a way of narrowing my focus, ensuring that the only thing I saw was her.
17 Don’t ask me about the cognitive dissonance this must require, because I can’t explain it.
18 Okay, sure, Sadie also didn’t have a brother in academia, but given a) Elias was yet to secure a permanent academic position despite years of trying, and b) she did have a terrifying sister, the scales on that one felt a bit better balanced.
19 As a general rule, the more I was trying to paper over my feelings, the more complicated recipes I attempted.
Consequently, that day I was making Beef Wellington.
For one.