NOVELIST

Queens University, Belfast

(8/12/1987)

It’s mid-afternoon. A few minutes past the agreed time. The room overlooks the Quad from the second floor.

Four people are present. 

Two are seated on slim walnut chairs, facing each other across a short run of polished wooden floor. Their knees are less than two feet from each other. A young man, Sean, and Sylvie, an older woman. Their eyes are closed. Their hands rest in their laps. The woman appears sunken in her chair.

Two younger women, Bernie and Kim, kneel on cushions at their side, just a few inches from each of them. The cushions have been lifted from the two upholstered armchairs positioned around a small table in the centre of the room.

The kneeling women each rest a flat palm on the nearest thigh of their counterpart. Their gaze on them is intense. Broken only when they briefly glance at each other.

The two figures in the chairs have not spoken or moved for a while now. 

Noise floats up and into the otherwise silent room. Through the room’s large window. Students walking across the enclosed grounds, their exchanges free of weight or permanence. The approach and retreat of passing cars. Through the closed and locked door thirty feet behind them. Corridor footsteps. Other doors opening and closing.  

Inside, the air is suspended. Fixed. Confronting and rejecting time’s passing. Bookshelves run the length of one wall. Narrow but thick bands of dust run along the front of their painted black surfaces. Serrations penetrating the otherwise solid line of it suggest books once displayed there.

The older seated woman moves slightly. A small tilt of her chin, perhaps? The taller of the two kneeling women shuffles a few inches forward, her face now just below hers.

“Sylvie?”, she says. “Sylvie, can you hear me?” Undistracted, the other kneeling woman intensifies her focus on the seated young man. He has still not moved. “Sylvie, it’s me. Kim. Can you hear me?”

Something shifts further—a small rise in the seated woman’s shoulders? She swallows. Her lips part slightly. Then, a deep full intake of breath. 

The room falls back under Time’s sway.

Kim removes her palm from Sylvie’s thigh, and moves it up to the sleeve of her cardigan. Her touch remains light. “We’re still here. All of us. Sylvie, can you hear me?”

The old woman is returning to them. Her breathing, still laboured, is regular now. In then out. Her eyelids flicker.

The seated man has still not moved.

“Kim?” 

Sylvie’s eyes open, then immediately narrow. The mood in the room is muted; the day has been overcast, dusk is approaching. The room itself is unlit. There’s no glare or brightness. 

Her expression suggests a puzzle is being solved.

She raises one of her arms, still bent at the elbow. Holds it in position. Straightens her index finger, as if pointing. “Wait… just let me…it’s clearing.” Her arm remains raised. “There.”

And then she turns. Pivots on her seat, to look down at the woman positioned just below her. “It’s done, Kim. He was right”. Her words come slowly. Quietly. “They were both right.”

The younger kneeling woman smiles briefly. Her eyes roll up, just once, but otherwise remain on the seated man. They moisten. ”Sean. Come on. It’s done. You can come back now. Please?”

Kim reaches out again, but this time to the young woman. Her gesture prompts a gathered tear to roll down her companion’s face. “He’s not moving, Kim. There’s…there’s something wrong. There must be. Her voice rises. Urgent now. “Tell him to wake up.” She leans forward. “Sean!” Then turns. “Sylvie?”

The older woman reacts as her name is called. Slowly, calmly, quietly still, a smile spreads across her face. “Bernie.” She pauses to clear her throat. “It’s all… just give him time. This will have been, well. Quite some experience for him. He’ll be back. Don’t rush things.”

As if in response, a shudder runs through the young man’s torso. Bernie leaps up. Holds him upright. Clings to him, as much in fear of her cramped and numb legs betraying her, as of his potential lack of balance.

Kim rises too, wincing at her own discomfort, and guides Sylvie to one of the softer chairs. 

The older woman’s eyes scan the empty bookshelves above her head. Her smile extends. Evolves into something more intentional.

Moments later, though, all eyes are back on Sean. Bernie nurses his head against her, between hip and rib.

The women will decide what to do. What needs to be done. 

Kim crosses back to the couple. Between them, taking Kim’s lead, she and Bernie half lift, half guide their silent, unresponsive companion into the chair next to Sylvie.

Sylvie reaches over and places her hand on Sean’s shoulder.

“It’s all you now, young man. Come back to us. Bernie needs you, and we’ve much to discuss.”

A while later, his eyes open, and their conversation begins.

It’s evening.

Outside, the lights of the Quad do their best to pierce the thickened air of the Belfast night. 

There’s a hint of rain coming as Sean and Bernie walk back to their car, holding each other close. They pause as Bernie looks back and up to the tutorial room just as they reach a turn in the gravel path. 

The blocked-in shapes of two women can be seen standing at the window of the still unlit room.

© Graham Bullen, July 2025