Blind Spot by Maggie Timlin
Photo by George Sharvashidze for Pexels
TW: Mentions of domestic abuse and suicide
Martina swapped the way her legs were crossed, from right on top of left, to left on top of right. She laid her hands on her lap and continued waiting. She looked at the overly large leather-covered desk, which was mostly empty. She noted that the chair on the other side was slightly taller than the one she was sitting on. On her left was a wall lined with books, and on her right a Chesterfield sofa. Behind her, wood panelling concealed several cupboards, a feature she remembered from her own time spent as a student in this room. The light creeping through the leaves outside the window had a quality which might have been described as languid. Martina stifled a yawn as her fingers strayed to the corner of her glasses in an unconscious movement.
The heavy door swung open and Professor Trevor Britten bustled into the room. Not at all like the tutors of her youth, Professor Britten was tall with the build of a sportsman in middle age. His greying hair was tucked behind his ears, his sideburns narrowed to a point near his moustache. His hairstyle had not changed since his college days. His fat thugs’ hands had red knuckles. He threw his leather briefcase on to a spot on the floor in front of a bust of Antinous. The beautiful youth seemed neither impressed nor unimpressed, his gaze remaining unchanged.
“Ms Gould was it?” Professor Britten extended a hand to Martina. She wondered if he would recognise her when he looked at her face. He didn’t. “Or may I call you Rebecca?”
“Professor Britten it’s…to meet you.” Martina made a noise in her throat, a half cough, part way though the sentence. The professor assumed she had meant to say it was nice to meet him. Britten raked Martina with a look. She could tell he was assessing whether or not he’d like to sleep with her. He had concluded he would not. She was no doubt too old and stringy looking. Martina was not surprised. She knew she would be too old; she was, after all, the same age as him. She folded herself back into the chair and waited for him to speak.
“How can I help you?” Britten asked.
“I met your wife, and she mentioned you might be interested in an organisation I represent.”
“You met Julia? Where? She doesn’t go out much these days.” The professor’s voice carried surprise.
“We met in the supermarket. We got chatting over an under-ripe avocado. She’s quite charming.”
“She certainly was, I mean is. Anyway, what is this organisation? You would like a donation I presume? You’ll excuse me, I’ve had a terrible thirst ever since breakfast.” As he spoke, the professor reached into his desk drawer, and brought out a glass and a bottle of gin. He rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand before pouring himself a large measure of the spirit.
“Care for a livener?” He offered.
“I can’t, I still have work to do this afternoon. To address your presumption, actually no, the Consisteran of Locusta are very specific about who they take donations from.”
“My money no good?” said the professor. “Consisteran, what is that? It sounds like a made-up word. Is it? Could it be the feminine version of confraternity? Oh God, are you some kind of feminist pressure group? This isn’t to do with pronouns, is it?” He took a bottle of tonic from the drawer. The lid snapped loudly as he turned it. A new bottle. It fizzed and threatened to escape the confines of the rigid plastic. The professor, a practiced hand, had turned it just enough so that the bubbles rose up and died down without a single drop falling onto the ancient leather of the desk. “Let me tell you something about pronouns…” he continued.
“I’ve no interest in hearing your opinions on pronouns, well-rehearsed and unoriginal as I’m sure they are,” said Martina, never once taking her eyes off the professor. “For your information the word ‘Consisteran’ has a long history, in quiet places. It’s not usually for fools like you.”
“Ms Gould, may I remind you, I am a professor here at…”
“I know precisely who you are and where I am right now. I do not need to be reminded. I also know you enjoy a challenge and I am surprised you’ve nothing to say about the second half of the organisation’s name.”
“Locusta, you said?”
Martina nodded with a tired calmness. “A name from antiquity, your own world. You don’t recognise it?”
“It’s Roman. A woman’s name. One of the Emperor Augustus’s concubines?” Britten spoke quickly as if trying to answer before anyone else.
Martina shook her head.
“I know I’ve heard the name. Don’t tell me. I want to remember it for myself.” His fingers itched towards his laptop. He stopped. “No, I’ll do it the old-fashioned way.” The professor got up and went to his bookshelf. “And while I do that, maybe you could tell me why you are here.” He ran his fingers across the spines of the books on his shelves with the same private joy of a child running sticks along railings.
“You don’t remember me, do you?” said Martina.
“We’ve met?”
“A long time ago. I went to the same college as you. This college in fact.”
“I have it in mind there was a female character in Juvenal called Locusta.” The professor put a book down on the desk with a woody thump. “I’m sorry, I’m almost certain I didn’t attend with a Rebecca. I think you must be mistaken.”
“That’s just the name I gave to your assistant. My real name is Martina.”
“Martina! My goodness!” A light of recognition flicked on in the professor’s eyes. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me immediately. I can see it now, of course I can. Martina. It’s been years.”
“Decades even.”
“You were always so clever. At least as clever as me, if not more so, at times.” He paused to allow himself a small chuckle at the thought, but Martina’s face did not change expression at all. “Why on earth didn’t you continue your studies?”
“I had to earn my own way when the grant payments stopped.”
The professor shook his head as he started flicking through Juvenal. “Of course, of course,” he said, dismissing an injustice that had pained Martina for years with a few throwaway words. “But why are you here? What’s this organisation all about? She is in Juvenal isn’t she? The wife who ran off with a gladiator.”
Martina leant forward again and fixed her gaze on the text in the book as the pages flipped past. “Eppia.” Her voice was quiet.
“What?”
“The wife’s name was Eppia, not Locusta. Eppia is in Satire Six.”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like a drink, Martina? I’ve had an awful thirst ever since breakfast, have I said that already? My head is rather fuzzy today, which is odd. I didn’t have much to drink last night. It was practically a dry night. I’ve been looking forward to my postprandial glass of something cheerful all day.” Professor Britten sat back and took a long draft of his gin and tonic. He grimaced as the bitter quinine hit the insides of his cheeks and made them tingle.
“I remember you now, very clearly.” He smiled and although the corners of his mouth rose, his eyes remained unchanged. “We were always sharing work. I helped you out on more than one assignment, as I recall.”
“I thought that might be how you remember it,” said Martina.
“So, what are you doing now? Are you married?”
“I’m not married, no. I am in middle management, in a company in the city. An unfulfilling job but one that leaves me enough time to cultivate outside interests.”
“Which are?” Britten shot the question as if he was conducting an interview.
“Other than my work with the Consisteran, I have an interest in water polo.” Martina replied in a tone which did not invite further comment. “I understand from the news that you were of help to the government last year.”
“That’s right. Someone in my position can occasionally be of use. When they need to draw information from a wider field. The pay isn’t good but the perks are quite impressive.” Britten paused as he slurped at his drink again. “Of course what’s most important is the chance to make a difference. How about a Vestal Virgin? Was Locusta a Vestal Virgin?”
Martina shook her head “Not a virgin, not a whore.”
“So, is that what your visit is about? Your group would like some influence in the government? That’s not strictly the way things are done. There are, of course, work-arounds. It could be managed as long as…” He raised his eyebrows and sat back in his chair.
“…as long as there’s money in it for you,” Martina finished.
Britten shuffled about in his seat, shocked. “I wouldn’t put it quite so bluntly.”
“Anyway, that’s not really something the Consisteran are interested in. It’s more concerned with women’s quality of life.”
“Well that’s nothing to do with me, Women’s Studies is in the new building across the quad and left at the gatehouse.”
“You have influence over the quality of at least one woman’s life.”
Britten leapt forward in his seat and slammed the book shut with a loud thump. Martina thought it might be a well-rehearsed movement, intended to frighten undergraduates. Britten asked, “Is this about my wife? What has she said?”
“Not much.” Martina stood up and drifted over to the bookshelf herself. For a moment, as the sun caught her, she had all the beauty of a Burne-Jones painting. Britten was distracted as she continued talking. “I remember Julia as well from my time in university. She was in the year below us. She was so bright. We all knew there was just something special about her writing. She had such a quick wit and a kind nature. She was the type of person that even a dyed-in-the-wool cynic like me couldn’t hate. There has been quite a change in her since then. Her light has dimmed.”
“She has had a troubled few years.”
“She was on that list, wasn’t she, for the most promising new writers of the year? I think I still have the magazine article somewhere.”
“It’s been a long time since she was stable,” Britten mumbled, almost to himself.
“When she told me her married name, I could have cried right there in the fruit and veg aisle of the supermarket. I asked her ‘did nobody warn you about him?’”
“What about me?” Britten blasted, “Why should any woman need warning about me? I have a good career, a bit of family money. If anything, I should have been warned about her. She’s weak, she needs help with everything.” Britten’s snarling face became a devil’s mask as he talked about his wife. Martina seemed not to notice. She continued to drift around the room. She came to rest by the sofa. On the table next to it, prominently displayed, was a glossy picture-filled book with Britten’s name embossed in gold on the cover. Martina ran her finger across the bumpy surface of the letters and frowned.
“Anyway Trevor, you still haven’t solved the question of Locusta.”
“Locusta, now I think about it, I believe she was a real figure. An historical person rather than a fictional one,” Britten said with ill grace.
“You’re getting closer.”
“Was she married to one of the emperors?” He grunted as he pushed his chair back and struggled up. His cheeks were red and he chewed on his moustache as he stamped back to his bookshelves.
“You’ve never bothered much about the women in history, have you?” said Martina. “You tend to concentrate on men’s histories. That’s a bit of a blind spot for you.”
“What was the name of the Vestal Virgin Elagabalus married?” Britten pulled down two books and put them on his desk. Then he stopped for a moment and put his hand to his eyes.
“She isn’t a Vestal Virgin. I’ve already told you that. Are you alright, Trevor?”
“I just found it hard to focus my eyes for a moment. Old friend or not, I would prefer it if you called me ‘Professor’. I worked hard to earn that title and I’d like it to be used.”
He slumped into his chair.
“I will not be calling you ‘Professor’.” Martina’s voice had never moved from its calm register, but now a mocking edge crept in. “We were never friends at university. I remember how hard you worked as an undergraduate. Precisely as hard as finding someone else to think and write for you. You found me, didn’t you?”
Britten said nothing; just stared at her.
“I thought you were so kind, paying attention to someone like me, someone so different from you. I remember you encouraging me to tell you all about my life. The council estate, the sound the lift made just before it broke down, how the stairwells smelled the day after a big match. I thought you wanted to understand something apart from your own privileged lifestyle…”
“Now I object to the use of the word ‘privileged’,” Britten interrupted, “all too often it is used to…” but what it was used to do remained a mystery. Martina raised her voice only slightly and carried on.
“It must have been like an animal in a zoo suddenly learning to talk, then going around telling the zookeepers how hard it was to live in a cage. I remember you were always so fascinated at how often I wore the same clothes. It never occurred to you that they were the only clothes I had. Or maybe it did, because you knew who to ask when you needed someone to write an essay for you. I was cheap too, I’ll admit it. A thousand pounds for a final dissertation. What a mug. I should have held out for more.”
“You should be very careful, Martina” said Britten, a small fleck of spit appearing at the side of his mouth, his cheeks flushed even redder.
“I was getting sick of you by then. I did an awful job on it. The arguments were sloppy and nonsensical, there were only three sources cited in the whole thing, one of which was the dictionary. I was waiting for you to come back and complain but you didn’t. It took me years to realise that you probably never even read it before you handed it in. If I had put my name on it, I would barely have scraped a third. I know that for sure, so how come you got a 2:1 like me? It wasn’t good enough for that mark. I can only imagine what family influence your Daddy had to pull to get you that final mark. I don’t think you’ve changed much since those days. I have no doubt that the hardest day of work you did at each stage of your career was finding someone else to leech off. That’s why you don’t know who Locusta is. That’s why you’ve never bothered to learn more about your subject, other than the bare essentials. You just became a professor and sat in this office like an incubus sucking power from your students, your colleagues, even your own wife. She is a shadow of who she once was.”
“Well Martina, you and I have very different recollections of the same events. As I remember it was you who followed me around begging for attention. You begged to be of use to me. But all of that is of no matter because you’ve just slandered me. I could have you up in court for it. Which is precisely what I will do.”
“That would be an interesting trial,” Martina said, “but I’m not particularly worried about that. You would know why I am not if you could tell me who Locusta was.” She moved to his side of the desk so swiftly that it made Britten jump.
“What have you got there?” Martina, with her hands clasped behind her back, examined the spines of the books he had just pulled down. “Historia Augusta and Cassius Dio.” Her long neck made Britten think of a vulture as she brought her face closer to the books on his desk. She looked up at him and took off her glasses. “You’ll find Locusta’s name in one of those but it’s not Aquilla Severa. That’s the name of the Vestal Virgin Elagabalus married. How do you hide your ignorance from even the dullest undergraduates?”
Britten snatched at the books. “If it’s not Elagabalus, is she earlier? Why don’t you just tell me why you are here and then leave. I won’t come after you for slander. I’m feeling too tired.” He slumped further down into his chair.
“No,” Martina said, towering over him. “You have to guess. You have to display the most basic knowledge, which any of your third years would possess.”
Britten grabbed at the larger of the two books. “She must be in Cassius Dio then, this Locusta bitch.” He flicked to the back to look at the index and then rubbed his eyes. “I can’t focus.”
“No, you probably can’t. You are looking awfully red too. That’s one of the first symptoms.”
“Symptoms? What are you talking about? Why are you here? Who is Locusta?”
Martina finally smiled and sat back down. She reached over and turned the pages of Cassius Dio with an arm of her glasses, a strange movement which unnerved Britten. She flicked through it, almost without looking at it. Once she had got to the right page, she jabbed the arm of her glasses at a paragraph.
“Locusta was a first century poisoner. She is supposed to have provided the poison that killed Claudius and his son Britannicus. She outlasted Claudius, thrived under Nero but his successor Galba called her scum. He had her put to death. In all honesty she was mentioned in Juvenal. I thought you had her straight away, in the very first book you got down, but no, you got it wrong again. It’s funny because in a way Locusta isn’t actually important. What is important is what she represents. You men have your secret societies which barely date back 300 years. Ours date all the way back to pagan times.”
“This Consisteran of Locusta dates back to the reign of Emperor Claudius?” Britten tried to scoff but spluttered instead. “Don’t be ridiculous. No organisation could have existed that long.”
“Why not? The Catholic Church is only a few decades younger than us.” Martina regretted the flippant tone in which she had said that. Not that it really mattered now.
“The Catholic Church has power and money and it has changed over time,” Britten said, sitting up a little. “The church of St Paul is wildly different from the church of the current pope.”
“The Consisteran has changed as well. It has a certain type of power and those who have joined its ranks have often been grateful. It is now very rich.”
Britten pulled himself all the way up in his seat and said in his stern voice, “You are telling me there is a secret society run by women, named after a female Roman poisoner, that has existed for over two millennia, and the world is only finding out about it now?”
“Who said anything about the world?” Martina folded her hands on her lap, wrapped around her glasses, as a nun might.
Britten licked his lips. They looked dry. “You don’t think I’m going to keep this to myself, do you?”
“Dry as a hare, blind as a bat, red as a beet, mad as a hen.” Martina voiced the words like a childhood prayer.
“What sort of nonsense doggerel is that?”
“That is the reason that I am here, Trevor.”
“Finally,” sighed Trevor. “You’re getting to the point. Will you hurry up. Something odd is happening with my eyes.”
“Now I don’t know enough about botany to be sure,” Martina said, studying her nails, “but I would guess it was unusual for Linnaeus, with his ingenious binomial system, to give a plant a female derivation for both parts of its name. But he did when he named deadly nightshade.”
“Deadly…?” Trevor rose but found his hands couldn’t grip the arms of the chair very well. His right hand slipped, and he collapsed back down hitting his elbow hard. He grunted as he tried to reach the phone.
“Don’t waste your energy. I unplugged it earlier. Now may I continue?” Martina used the edge of her glasses to flick Trevor’s mobile phone just out of reach across the desk. “Atropa belladonna, Atropos. That’s a name you recognise, I hope.”
“Yes,” said Trevor faintly. “The cutter.” He was very red by this point and was struggling to breath.
“You’re right. She is the third of the three Fates, the one who cuts the thread of your life when your time is up. Belladonna was named after the venetian ladies who put it in their eyes to make themselves more beautiful.”
“Call an ambulance,” said Trevor.
“I won’t be doing that.”
“You poisoned my drink.” Trevor sucked in a painful lung of air. “The gin, or the tonic, or the glass. Why? Why would you do this to me?” His voice was all puzzlement.
“Now you’ve slandered me. When I met your wife, she mentioned that you write her letters. Afterwards. Every single time.
“After what?” Trevor attempted the shadow of a sly look.
For a moment Martina’s voice rose in anger. “After you hit her Trevor, after you beat her to within an inch of her life, after you made her think it was always her fault.” Martina breathed deeply and stretched her neck. She resumed in her calmer voice. “She kept one. Julia kept the latest one of your letters. She has gone to the hospital this time. Even though you told her not to, Trevor. You told her to heal at home, like before, and not be a bother to the doctors. I told her to go. I told her the doctors want to be bothered by people who can’t see out of one eye, who can’t take a deep breath without pain. Julia finally saw that it was time. So, she did it. I didn’t poison you; Julia did.”
Trevor made an odd movement in his chair, like he had tried to cross his legs but missed. He groaned.
“The Consisteran provided her with the necessary tools, the poison, you understand. She was the one who put it in your morning coffee. She gave you a lower dose of deadly nightshade so you didn’t keel over then and there at home. So she wouldn’t have to deal with you.”
Martina leaned down into her bag and pulled out a pair of vivid blue surgical gloves. She pulled them over her sinewy hands, knuckles bulging against the latex. The sight of these gloves, more than anything else, caused a reaction in the academic. He shuffled on his chair but he could barely move, too weak to gain purchase on the slippery leather.
“I’m not here to kill you Trevor. I’m here to tidy up after you die, to make it look like a suicide. I even have this note, in your own handwriting.” She drew a piece of paper from her bag and held it up for Trevor to see.
“It’s one of your own. Honestly Trevor, to hurt your wife so badly and so regularly is one thing, but to make her read this drivel afterwards. I’m not sure which is the greater crime.”
Trevor reached out weakly for the paper, but Martina held it out of reach and carried on. “You probably won’t be able to read it. I’ve heard it’s like looking at the world through a sheer white curtain, towards the end. So, allow me.” Martina stood up and walked around the room as she read. ‘Darling, I’m sorry. I know each time I do this, when I lose my temper, I make you love me less, but I find it hard sometimes, as you well know. If you cannot control the way you speak to me, I don’t know how I can be expected to control myself. You make me venerable to making mistakes, and they always are mistakes. I never wake up thinking I will hurt you today.’ At this point, Trevor, you continued onto a new page, and then another and I think a fourth. Your poor wife. I learned to mimic your handwriting; do you remember? When I wrote your dissertation for you, back in the stone ages, before computers. So, I continued writing on the back of that sheet. It’s a bit more succinct in style than your drivel but I’m not sure the police will notice. I’ve written ‘As I can’t stop making mistakes, I have decided to put an end to myself instead. This poison is meant to be painless so don’t worry about me suffering. I hope you find a happiness which I could never give you in my life.’”
The professor made a weak noise like a snarl. “They’ll know that wasn’t me.”
“They won’t care. No one here will miss you. Your work is pedestrian and unimaginative. The department has a battery of younger professors who could take your place in a twinkling. Your wife won’t live in terror anymore. In three months, you’ll be nearly completely forgotten.”
Trevor grunted and tried to speak but Martina ignored the attempt.
“Of course, this story has the advantage of being romantic. An expert in Roman history poisoning himself to death using the same plant which killed at least one Roman emperor. People will want to believe it. You’ll get a double page spread in at least one of the daily newspapers. They will want to believe that you felt awful for beating your wife. In your death you will have achieved a sort of redemption from being the scum that you are now.”
“They’ll catch Julia.” His voice was little more than a whisper.
“Probably not. If they don’t think its suicide, they’ll assume I did it. That’s the other reason I’m here. I’ll put a dose of belladonna into your glass and then swill it out. The coffee cups at your home are already in the dishwasher.”
Trevor managed to slur: “They’ll catch you.”
“They’ll be looking for Rebecca Gould. They won’t find me.”
Trevor leaned his head as far back as he could and released a deep sigh. He let his eyelids droop until they were open just a slit. Martina moved around the room with steady efficiency. She wiped down everything she had touched. She methodically cleaned the door handle and books on the desk and then plugged the phone back in. She took a small glass bottle from her bag and poured the liquid from it into Trevor’s glass and then poured it out into a sink which was concealed in a cupboard in the corner of the office. Martina made sure to follow it with a long blast of hot water and some liquid soap just in case anyone thought to check the drains. For some time, Trevor’s expanded irises had continued to move and jerk, following Martina around the room. Eventually, though, even this movement ceased.
Once Martina was sure everything was finished, she took off the gloves, stuffed them back into her bag, then walked to the door. She looked back into the room for a moment. When she opened the door, using her handkerchief on the handle, she caught the eye of the pretty undergraduate who was sitting at the desk in place of a secretary. “He seems to have drifted off to sleep,” Martina said to her. The undergraduate looked unsurprised. She nodded and replaced her earbud, to carry on listening to a true crime podcast.
As the dappled afternoon sunlight rolled lazily across the room, it bathed Professor Trevor Britten, giving him a quality of beauty that he had always lacked in life. The light tinkled rainbows from his cut glass tumbler, slowly illuminating a single, near perfect fingerprint on the glossy cover of the professor’s latest coffee table book.
Maggie Timlin
Maggie Timlin (she/her) is now based in West Sussex. She studied History and Archaeology in the depths of rural Wales. She achieved a lifetime ambition when she became the person who sold the tickets at the Hampton Court Maze. Maggie now has two children and far too many books to read.