The Senior Common Room at St Anselm's: V. The Promise

Rain had settled over St Anselm's with the quiet determination of weather that had nowhere else to be.

Inside the Senior Common Room, however, the atmosphere was considerably warmer.

Mr Blottisham was buttering a crumpet.

"I've always admired promises," he announced.

Professor Quillibrace looked up from the latest essay.

"Have you?"

"Oh yes."

"They're wonderfully economical."

"In what sense?"

"They cost nothing."

Miss Stray looked amused.

"Sometimes they cost rather a lot."

Blottisham paused with the butter knife in mid-air.

"I hadn't considered that."

Quillibrace folded the paper.

"Our anonymous author suggests that promises are another invisible machine."

Blottisham sighed.

"I suppose they aren't really about butter either."

"No."

"They're about the future."

Blottisham looked doubtful.

"I've made promises in the present."

"Precisely."

"So how can they be about the future?"

The Professor smiled.

"An excellent question."

"I was rather hoping it wasn't."

Quillibrace continued.

"When you tell someone, 'I'll meet you tomorrow at two,' what has changed?"

Blottisham answered confidently.

"My diary."

"Physically?"

"No."

"The air has vibrated."

"Yes."

"A sentence has been spoken."

"Indeed."

"And yet..."

He stopped.

"And yet my afternoon has somehow become occupied before it has happened."

Miss Stray nodded.

"The future has acquired structure."

Blottisham frowned.

"I don't see how tomorrow can have structure."

"It doesn't."

"Then what does?"

"Our expectations."

There was a brief silence.

Blottisham looked unconvinced.

"So a promise..."

"...doesn't change tomorrow."

"No."

"It changes today?"

"In preparation for tomorrow."

Blottisham took a thoughtful bite of crumpet.

"I say..."

"Yes?"

"I've been making future arrangements without appreciating the mechanics."

"Most of us have."

Quillibrace picked up the essay.

"It contains a sentence I particularly enjoyed."

"'A promise organises the future.'"

Blottisham nodded slowly.

"I rather like that."

"It explains why broken promises are so troublesome."

"Because people are disappointed?"

"More than that."

Miss Stray spoke quietly.

"They have already begun living inside the future they expected."

Blottisham looked at her.

"Oh."

"If I promise to collect you from the station..."

"You stop looking for other ways home."

"If I promise to write..."

"You wait."

"If I promise to come..."

"You prepare."

He sat back.

"So when the promise fails..."

"...it isn't only the event that disappears."

"The preparations become homeless."

The room became unexpectedly still.

Quillibrace looked at Miss Stray with quiet approval.

"That is beautifully put."

Blottisham repeated the phrase softly.

"'Preparations become homeless.'"

"I've never thought about it that way."

The Professor nodded.

"Trust allows us to inhabit the future before we reach it."

"And promises are how we furnish it."

Blottisham looked delighted.

"I understood that one immediately."

"I'm pleased."

"I've furnished several futures."

Miss Stray laughed.

"I imagine you have."

After a moment Blottisham asked,

"Then why do apologies matter?"

Quillibrace raised an eyebrow.

"What do you think?"

"They don't alter what happened."

"No."

"They don't make yesterday reappear."

"No."

"So why do we care?"

Miss Stray answered before the Professor could.

"Because they repair the future."

Blottisham looked puzzled.

"I thought they were about the past."

"They begin there."

"But they are really saying something else."

"And what is that?"

"'You may trust my promises again.'"

Another silence settled over the room.

Even Blottisham seemed reluctant to disturb it.

Eventually he said,

"I've always imagined that civilisation depended mostly upon bridges."

"And roads."

"And governments."

Quillibrace nodded.

"They all help."

"But perhaps..."

"Yes?"

"...it also depends upon millions of people quietly doing what they said they would do."

The Professor smiled.

"I suspect that is closer to the truth."

Blottisham looked towards the old grandfather clock in the corner.

"I've just realised something."

"What is it?"

"A promise is rather odd."

"In what way?"

"It asks tomorrow to behave as though today has already happened."

Quillibrace laughed.

"My dear Blottisham..."

"Yes?"

"I believe you have accidentally described the entire institution."

Miss Stray looked into the fire.

"Perhaps that is why promises feel so human."

"How so?"

"Only creatures who can imagine tomorrow..."

"...can begin living in it today."

For a long while no one spoke.

The rain continued softly against the windows.

At last Blottisham reached for another crumpet.

"I do hope," he said thoughtfully,

"that whoever invented promises remembered to keep the first one."

Quillibrace smiled over the rim of his teacup.

"I rather suspect, Mr Blottisham..."

"Yes?"

"...that civilisation has been trying ever since."