Got it!

It so happened – it had to happen so – that my mobile phone went dead, and the internet at the hotel was down, and for a moment I thought I was completely isolated, until I realized that there still existed such antediluvian things as stationary telephones, so I called home and told my husband I was alive. In the morning I decided that the only reasonable thing to do was to go to London (not to look at the queen, but maybe visit the V&A or some other favourite place). My flight was in the evening, and there seemed no point staying in Cambridge. I checked out and went back to my room to get the luggage when the phone – stationary – rang. I was so sure it was my husband that I am afraid I answered in a rather intimate tone, but it was Morag who wondered whether I had any news. I explained that the committee was to meet later that day and asked if she had time to meet me for a cup of coffee. Instead, we arranged to have lunch at noon, and I said I was going out for a walk. “No, you are not!” said my wonderful friend resolutely. “You are going to sit right by the phone and wait”. I said that no one had enquired where I was staying. I didn’t tell her, but I was not going to sit and wait by the phone, I’d go crazy. Instead, I left my luggage at the reception, and as I was going through the front door the lady at the reception called after me. Someone was on the phone. Head of Faculty.

Well, if you have applied for a job and gone through purgatory, and someone is calling you a quarter to nine in the morning it is unlikely he is calling to tell you that you have not got the job. So it was enough to hear the voice. For a second I wondered how the h-l did he know where I was staying, which was of course elementary, my dear Watson. While he was leisurely wishing me good morning and asking about how I was, I kept mumbling: “Come on, say it, say it!” And he did. Thunder and lightning! “I am calling to offer you a chair”. What do you reply? An offer you cannot refuse. I assume I said that I was happy to accept it, but I don’t quite remember. I was grinning like a Cheshire cheese. I wanted to hug the receptionist. I had to tell someone, and my mobile was dead. Once again I remembered the stone-age communication means and called my husband from a phone in the lobby. “Got it”. I have no memory of his answer. I ran over to the faculty, still grinning and not quite believing that it had happened, therefore not yet panicking about all the consequences. I realized that when Morag called me she knew already. Bless the country where committees meet at eight in the morning.