Fantastic characters

Extract 1 from chapter 1

I’m Iris Tate, Professor of Moral Philosophy. I’ve published extensively in the academic field, but this kind of thing is new to me. I’ve been told I should start with a bit about myself. Typically, narrators writing in the first person find an excuse to examine themselves in a mirror and reveal what they see. Usually someone good-looking. If it’s a male author writing as female, she may regard her naked body for a bit too.

I present a cheerful exterior. In my previous post in the Business School, some of my colleagues called me Chip. I’m not sure if it was short for chipper or due to my toothy chipmunk smile. I’d love Chip to catch on here, but it doesn’t count if you suggest it yourself. All the philosophy in the world doesn’t protect you from the need to belong. I was looking for my tribe. A bit late in the day at fifty you might think, but a lot’s changed in the last year.

One should reveal character, maybe by saving a cat or something. I’ve done a few of those personality questionnaires­­ – are you introvert, extrovert, etc. I’m always bang in the middle. I seek balance. Someone told me it’s because I’m a Libra, but I don’t believe in any of that nonsense. I believe in reason and ethics.

How do we judge ourselves, anyway? Many like to identify themselves with some kind of label. But as the philosopher Wittgenstein said, words, categories, identities – they’re artificially created boxes. They’re frames on meaning. We exist in a boundless universe of everything, and we put a frame around this or that piece of it and call it a table, justice, bisexual, etc. We then juggle these boxes around, hoping we can make sense of them. But they could never add up neatly. This is if I understand Wittgenstein correctly. If I don’t, I’m in good company. Even his mentor was accused of misunderstanding what Wittgenstein was trying to say. That’s the trouble with using language to explain the trouble with language. I’d welcome a phenomenologist’s view on this. ‘It is what it is,’ they’d probably say, and what would Wittgenstein make of that?

Suffice to say, I am first and foremost a professor of moral philosophy. You’ll know me through my work. Although, if you’re hoping this book will be full of philosophical ruminations you’ll be disappointed, because things start to happen. Things happen all the time of course, but the inciting incident, as they call it, occurred when I encountered the dilemma.

Extract 2: meeting colleagues

I looked around at my new colleagues and wondered if any of them would become friends. Certainly not Karl, the self-important man at the front with the receding hair and suit, who nodded at everything the Dean said. The only familiar faces were my new boss, Jenna, Dean of Arts and Humanities, who stood at the podium, addressing the staff; and Percy, Head of English, sat at the end of my row. I’d met them during my interview but had been too keen to please to take in much about either of them at the time. I considered them now. Percy’s haughty profile spoke of self-assurance and integrity, and the knitted V of his brows indicated a simmering resentment elicited by everything Jenna said.

Jenna herself was immaculate. Perfect make-up, glossy hair and colour-coordinated to a degree that indicated either a strong aesthetic sense or an excessive concern with outward appearances. Image over substance, I decided, after listening to her a little longer.

On a PowerPoint slide were the criteria every programme had to meet. Jenna sped through the list. ‘Interdisciplinarity, critical thinking, sustainable development goals, decolonisation.’ She paused at the last item on the list which was spelled out in bold capitals: ENTERTAINING.

‘We need to move with the times, and away from old-fashioned notions of education. We must entertain.’

Percy snorted, and I detected a mutter from the colleague sitting next to him – a portly, crumpled man, who, like Percy, had an exasperated air.

‘Next item on the agenda is trigger warnings,’ Jenna continued. ‘These should be provided for any sensitive or distressing content.’

‘Do I need trigger warnings for my music?’ asked a solemn-looking woman.

Several staff sniggered.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Georgina,’ Jenna said, then hesitated. She turned to Karl, who inclined his head. ‘Actually yes, best to be on the safe side.’

SECTION CUT

…. I listened to the conversation going on with Percy and his colleagues in front of me, waiting for a chance to join in.

‘Trigger warnings!’ Percy sniffed.

‘You’d think there’d be a clue in the title of my module – Genocide in the Twentieth Century.’ It was the man who’d been sat next to Percy. From his accent and expansive shrug, I guessed he was French.

I laughed and he turned round, pleased to have found an appreciative audience.

‘Hi,’ I said. ‘I’m Iris.’

‘Ah. The hotshot from the Business School.’ The tone was jocular, but his eyes glinted. ‘Marcel.’ He nodded at his name badge.

‘I’m GG,’ said the woman who’d asked about trigger warnings. ‘I teach music.’ She looked sweet. Petite and compact, with unruly hair and soulful, brown eyes.

Extract 3

… continues from conversation in pub as they all get drunker.

‘You dish it out, but you can’t take it,’ Percy responded. He pulled out a paper from his bag and brandished it in our faces.

‘Why men are predatory,’ he read. ‘It doesn’t say, why are some men predatory. No, the headline assumes we’re all the same. We wouldn’t be allowed to make such generalisations about you women.’

‘You’re not allowed to say, “you women”,’ Marcel wagged a finger.

‘Have you noticed in films these days, the man never gets the woman?’ he continued. ‘She wonders off to do something interesting, and he’s left looking like a twerp.’

‘Do you watch romcoms?’ I asked, surprised.

‘Kate enjoys them,’ he said. ‘My point is, every man on TV these days is either an idiot or controlling. Let me tell you, women can be controlling.’ He shot us a meaningful look.

‘Kate?’ GG looked incredulous.

‘What goes on behind your net curtains, Percy?’ Marcel topped up his glass.

‘I have to watch romcoms for a start.’

Marcel snorted with laughter, nearly spilling the rest of the wine.

‘My round,’ I jumped up and headed to the bar, staggering a little. The pub was filling up. It was just round the corner from the campus, and I waved at a couple of my ex-colleagues from the Business School who’d just come in. They nodded back but didn’t bother coming over. I’d upset a few people when I’d left, although I didn’t flatter myself it was because of my charming personality. I was just the goose who’d laid the golden egg for a while. Now though, I was amongst my own kind. I looked over at my little group fondly – Marcel gesticulating, GG looking solemn, Percy finger wagging. 

I returned to the table with another bottle of red. ‘What are we talking about?’ 

‘How Emily fucked over my wife,’ Percy said.

I regretted asking. 

‘I told Kate, it’s her own fault.’

‘That’s nice,’ GG said.

‘Psychology’s fault then, their obsession with self-esteem.’ Percy helped himself to more wine. ‘I said, if you psychologists would focus on self-respect rather than self-esteem in your research, we may not have bred ourselves a generation of narcissists.’

‘Pah!’ said Marcel in agreement, or possibly dissent. 

‘It’s all about identity politics. It’s a distraction, isn’t it?’ Percy glared round the table; his brows knitted majestically. ‘I can’t tell you how bored I am with the endless navel-gazing of what does it mean to be a man, or what it means to be British.’ 

‘What does it mean to be a citizen of this planet and utterly beholden to it? That’s what I want to talk about,’ I said.

‘Is that going in your talk, professor?’ GG asked. 

‘It certainly is!’ I glugged my wine. ‘Every time there’s a legitimate complaint against the powers that be – they’ve rigged the rules in their favour, undeclared business interests, trashed the environment, they just press the patriotism card and suddenly it’s all about nationhood.’

Marcel downed his wine and poured another. ‘You English, you think you’re some big shot country, but you’re nothing since you left Europe.’ 

GG leaned towards me. ‘On the second bottle, Marcel remembers he’s French and hates the English.’ 

‘In France, law has changed so business must address society and the environment,’ Marcel declared.

‘Has it?’ I leaned forward, interested.

‘Only in France, have they banned planned obsolescence—’

‘It’s capitalism.’ Percy cut him off, mid-rant. ‘You can’t just ban it.’

‘What’s that?’ GG asked. 

‘They design products to fail because it makes them more money.’ Marcel put his glass down to have both hands free to wave around. ‘France has right to repair. They must show how and make parts available even if it isn’t profitable.’ He glared at me. ‘Did you teach that in the Business School?’

‘Marcel also hates the Business School,’ GG said.

‘I’ll tell you what’s going in my lectures now,’ I said, slurring a little. ‘Ubuntu.’

‘Don’t tell me you’re ticking the decoloniality box now,’ Percy said.

I was triggered. ‘How dare you imply it’s a box!’ I put my glass down and jabbed a finger at him. ‘I tell you Percy, I looked up to you and not just because you’re tall, but that you can think it’s about ticking a box?’

Marcel leaned back and gave me the floor with a wave. It was my turn on the soap box now.

‘For years, I’ve reeled off Greek male shite and told myself it was moral philosophy,’ I cried. ‘Plato spread the idea that we’re better than nature, that the real perfection lies beyond this world and next thing you know we’re blind to the complex web we’re a tiny part of.’ I glared round at them.

‘Blind!’ I thundered and they jumped.

Marcel laid protective hand on GG and Percy’s arms. ‘Give her space.’

‘And I know people who are climate anxious…’

Percy opened his mouth to speak. I stared at him, and he took a sip of wine instead.

‘And they say things like ‘I’ll get myself a small holding and guard it with guns,’ because we’ve been literally taught to think that way. Our individualistic, self-interested consumer society is all about me first. And I tell you, we’re all fucked. But Ubuntu…’

I steepled my hands under my chin and looked at them in turn.

‘Tell us about Ubuntu, Chip,’ Marcel encouraged.

‘Ubuntu is about survival.’ I checked to see if they understood. ‘Ubuntu is the truth that our survival depends upon our community’s survival. We’ll need farmers and dentists and engineers—’

‘Musicians?’ asked GG.

I hesitated for a moment, then allowed it.

‘Yes.’

She looked pleased.

‘Ubuntu says “I am because you are”. It says, “one finger cannot pluck a seed.”’

‘Hazard at one o’clock,’ said Percy, looking towards the door.

We turned to look. Karl had entered the pub and was looking round.

We turned back round quickly. 

Marcel slurred into my ear. ‘You’d better watch Karl.’

‘Why?’

‘He’s worried you’ll take his place as next in line to the throne.’ 

‘I’ve no aspirations of that sort,’ I protested. 

‘And that’s why we like you.’ He slapped my back. 

‘I’m going to use my English superpower of extreme politeness and confound him with kindness,’ I declared.

‘It won’t work,’ Percy said.

Marcel topped up his and GG’s glass and waved the bottle in the air.

‘No more for me,’ said Percy. ‘Kate will wonder where I’ve got to.’ 

GG turned to me. ‘Are you married?’

Her question caught me off guard. I hesitated. They looked at me with interest.

‘Don’t you know?’ Marcel asked.

‘I think yes. Consider the bowed down, oppressed look,’ Percy said.

‘Let’s put it this way, there’s no one at home waiting anxiously for my return.’ I hailed Karl as he walked past. 

‘Hi Karl.’ My greeting was overly hearty.