A Splinter of Ice

A vignette drawn from real life, as remembered by David Wemyss (April 2012)

Room C28, Emmanuel College, Cambridge
17 November 2002

Helena was first in.

I chipped in.

She flushed.

Carole spoke for the first time that morning.

Critchley twitched.

This was important to me.

Helena moved it on.

Vikki liked that.

Vikki picked up the baton again.

The Mystery of the Capriccio Papers” in the New English Review of February 2012, and having discussed with its author Lucy Beckett how her piece referred back to a mysterious tutorial group that might – or might not – have really existed at an unknown British university ten years earlier, he tries here to imagine what such a tutorial could have been like, drawing on Miss Beckett’s work with her enthusiastic agreement.

To comment on this essay, please click here.

here.

If you have enjoyed this essay and want to read more by David Wemyss, please click here.