Chapter Two #3
Two weeks after my interview with Professor Diana Cornish, Sid and I took a predawn flight to Edinburgh and white-knuckled the drive north to St. Andrews under sheets of rain that slicked the roads and drenched the countryside, glazing it inky green.
Mum was better, back at home, though frail and still upset about my talking to St. Andrews. She’d thought Yale was a done
deal and that it was best for me. I tried to reassure her that her illness had nothing to do with my decision to interview
more widely, but she switched tack, accusing me of wanting to stay in the UK because of Sid.
Never, ever make a life decision based on a man, Anya. Promise me you won’t! If there’s one thing I’ve learned from what your
father did to us . . .
I was tired of hearing that. It made me sad and angry that my father had treated her so badly, but I resented her assumption
that I was destined to repeat her mistakes, and that Sid might not be a good man. For now, I decided not to tell her about
the trip to Scotland. I didn’t want her more agitated than she already was.
As we reached St. Andrews, the rain stopped. We parked and entered the town through the old medieval gate. It was a small,
stolid place, predominantly low buildings built from gray sandstone, hewn into rough rectangular blocks, some tinged with
variants of the color of rust, and every sill, corner, and carving weather worn and time softened so there wasn’t a sharp
edge to be seen, yet there was also the sense that this place could never be cowed by its wild location.
In place of Oxford’s multiple, ethereal spires, St. Andrews had just four, and they were stark in silhouette against an unforgiving
sky that had hardened from slate to granite as we’d traveled north. If any of Oxford’s marshy air had lingered in our lungs,
the north wind scoured it out in moments, with harsh gusts of fresh, salty air that we could taste.
Like the simplest line drawing of an arrowhead, three main roads led from one end of town to the other, converging on the headland, funneling visitors toward the remains of an extensive medieval holy complex, as they had done for centuries.
We took a meandering dogleg path, weaving through alleyways that connected those roads, some no wider than a person. These
spaces between the streets, at the backs of houses, shops, and pubs, all of them accessible only on foot, felt like the true
heart of the place. They were full of life, developed haphazardly over time. Behind thick walls and through open gates and
doorways we caught glimpses of gardens, greenhouses, buildings that extended back in unexpected ways, courtyards with communal
washing lines, staircases crawling up the rear of buildings, balconies, picture windows, secretive and private exits and entrances.
It felt as if the way people lived back there might not have changed much for centuries.
But all roads led to the headland in the end, and it was spectacular. The sea was wild and loud, the wind stiff. Waves rushed
from horizon to shore and broke violently over rocky outcrops and the harbor wall. We stood on the cliff top beneath the old
walls of the cathedral complex and its ruins. The remaining structures were skeletal, but the spires and towers still stood
proud and tall. Shipping must have used them to navigate for centuries. A sign informed us that St. Andrews had once been
the “Jerusalem of the North,” and I could believe it. The grandeur of the place hadn’t been chastened by ruination.
“Imagine the storms they must get up here,” Sid said. “It’s like we’re standing at the edge of the world.”
He wasn’t wrong. By comparison Oxford suddenly felt far too precious a place, far too self-absorbed. The idea of St. Andrews’s
potential and its possibilities began to grow in me. It was a smaller town, but you could be a bigger person here, with a
wider mind, I thought.
We drank coffee and ate pancakes and bacon at a café just yards from cathedral ruins. A sign in the window boasted that Prince William used to meet up there with his girlfriend, Kate. We emerged in time to make the short walk to South Court, where the Institute of Manuscript Studies was based.
The entrance was via a short, low tunnel that cut through a building fronting South Street. Sid wished me luck and left me
there. To settle my nerves, I focused on the sound of my footsteps, which scraped and echoed as I walked through the tunnel.
It opened out onto a small, enclosed courtyard, no bigger than half a tennis court. Part paved and part cobbled, it was surrounded
by white-rendered buildings whose windows overlooked the small space blankly. A gnarled tree grew in one corner of the yard
on a patch of earth, its canopy wide and low enough to make a man stoop; a smattering of yellowed leaves had fallen below
it.
I climbed a set of stone steps. The Institute was marked by a discreet plaque, and I pushed the buzzer beside it. Diana Cornish
opened the door almost immediately.
“You made it!” she said. “Welcome! Come in!”
The interior was gorgeous. Medieval-scale rooms with uneven, lime-washed walls, floors made from wide planks of oak or flagstone,
an ancient fireplace that had pride of place. Everything was beautifully restored and simply decorated to showcase the building’s
age, simplicity, and quirkiness.
Cornish indicated the foot of a narrow staircase that disappeared behind a wall. “We each have an office upstairs,” she said.
“They have lovely views, which I’ll show you later, but first come and meet everyone. We’re so excited you’re here.”
She led me toward the back of the building, which opened out into a surprise: a large, tall-ceilinged extension, with two walls and the ceiling made from glass.
It was stunning. A large oval table that could seat at least ten occupied one end of the room, where it was widest; the other end tapered to a cozy nook where a woodstove was lit, a small sofa and two chairs gathered around it, upholstered in jewel-like colors.
Three women were sitting around the fire.
They rose to their feet, and I recognized them from their headshots on the website.
Giulia Orlando wore an elegant shift dress and boots. She couldn’t have been more than thirty. Beneath high cheekbones, her
smile was fluid and generous. I knew from her bio that she’d studied in Rome before completing a PhD in Paris. She spoke Spanish,
Dutch, French, and Italian as well as reading Latin and Old English. She was a reader in paleography, her specialty manuscripts
from the fourteenth century. Our research interests were closely aligned. She took my hand between hers and shook it warmly.
“So good to meet you,” she said. I heard a trace of an Italian accent.
The handshake from Karen Lynch was more reserved. She was in her forties, a slender, fit-looking woman with a steady, blue-eyed
gaze. Her hair was a furious shade of red, closely cropped. She wore dark jeans and a loose-knit sweater over a striped top.
“A pleasure to meet you.” Her accent was softly Scottish.
“I loved your paper on female mystics,” I said. It was one of the few publications by members of this institute I’d been able
to track down, a work of exhaustive research and meticulous conclusions but extremely readable.
She studied me for a second, then thanked me. I got the feeling that whatever Diana Cornish might have told them about me,
Karen Lynch would be making up her own mind.
Sarabeth Schilders had pure white hair, pinned into a fraying bun. The frames of her glasses were thick and stylish. She pulled
me in for an unexpected hug, enfolding me briefly in the colorful, drapey jacket she wore, then releasing me only partly,
to clutch me by my upper arms.
“Welcome to St. Andrews, Dr. Brown. Your PhD is one of the most remarkable pieces of work I’ve ever read. It’s a privilege
to have you here.”
I felt embarrassed, that niggle of shame about my natural advantage making itself felt. “Thank you. Please, call me Anya.”
“Why don’t we let Anya sit down before we pepper her with questions,” Diana said.
I sat. They were all smiling at me, apart from Karen, but I got the feeling she didn’t smile much.
“Tell us about this exceptional memory of yours,” Sarabeth said. “I envy it.” I wasn’t surprised she knew. I’d mentioned it
in some of my interviews, to mitigate the guilt.
“I have an eidetic memory. I can remember everything I see, in detail.”
“Isn’t it unusual for an eidetic memory to last into adulthood?”
“Very.”
“You’re a lucky woman, then,” Giulia said.
“It’s definitely part luck, but also part nurture. My mother believed that if she actively encouraged me to use my memory,
it might last into adulthood, and thanks to her, it has.”
“That was very clever of her,” Sarabeth said. “How did she do it?”
“She taught me a bunch of techniques for cultivating memory, mnemonics and such, but she also exposed me to a wealth of visual
stimuli when I was a child and encouraged me to talk about what I saw. Even when I was very little, I remember looking at
images and illustrations in books with her. She’d ask me simple questions, like what the best and worst bits of each picture
were and why I thought so. It got me into the habit of taking my time to look at things carefully, and it’s helped me to retain
my recall.”
“Can you remember everything?” Giulia asked. “Sounds, too?”
I shook my head. “Just what I see.”
“These images your mother showed you, what were they of?” Diana asked.
“Paintings, drawings, sculpture, architecture, textiles. She took me to museums when we could afford it, or we got books out
of the library. She worked as a book restorer, so we’d also look at illustrations in the books she was working on and designs
on their bindings.”
“She trained you well,” Diana said.
“She did and I don’t take it for granted.”
“So, your mother essentially loaded up your brain with visual references and you applied this library of images to Folio 9
and were able to make connections that others couldn’t because they were focused on decoding the language without the visual
context,” Karen said.
“Exactly. Folio 9 had been looked at by a linguist and a few paleographers, and they couldn’t crack it, but Professor Trevelyan
and I wondered if the images in it could give us the key to its contents.”
“And so it came to pass,” Karen said.
I flinched at the tone in her voice, because it sounded as if it held an edge of sarcasm, but when I looked at her there was
no trace of it in her expression. She was smiling kindly, and I relaxed.
“Well, thank goodness you and Professor Trevelyan got your heads together on it,” Diana said.
“Have you applied this to any other manuscripts?” Giulia asked. “I wonder how many might benefit.”
“Not yet,” I said. “But I’ve wondered, too.”
We talked for an hour or more, unpicking my work on Folio 9. They were generous with their praise, asked intelligent questions,
and I relaxed as the interview passed. By the end, I felt like I’d found my people.
The rest of the day passed in a whirlwind. They treated Sid and me to lunch. Giulia and her husband, Paul, showed us where
we might live. It was an old fisherman’s cottage, two stories and in the middle of a terrace. It was being gutted for a total
renovation. We put on hard hats and trod carefully on the exposed joists and over the dirt floor, where archaeologists had
dug an exploration pit before okaying the build. From its narrow garden and back windows, it had a partial view of the cathedral
ruins. From the front, even over the metal hoardings erected around it, sunshine poured through the salt-crusted windows,
and the view of the ocean was spectacular.
Giulia showed me the plans for the finished building while Paul and Sid stood outside, arms folded, chatting. It seemed like they were getting along nicely, and I liked Giulia, too.
“The cottage will look mostly the same from the front,” she said. “But the roof will be raised and the attic made into an
extra room.”
I thought it was going to be perfect.