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  Despite my quiet nature, I was not used to extracting confidences from people, and so for a while I assumed that it was a connection of this kind which had caused Marina to speak to me. I thought – foolishly I’m sure – that my lecture outburst had caused her to recognize me as a kindred spirit. She had seen past my nervous exterior to the potentially interesting friend beneath. She had wanted to extract that person. She had wanted to help me come out of my shell.

  Now I know the opposite is true. She hadn’t wanted that at all. Instead she had seen how much conviction I lacked, and recognized in it an opportunity.

  I was someone who, quietly, shared many of her opinions, but had no confidence to contradict her where they diverged. I would be there to bolster her brilliance, that was all, a sickly weed next to a burgeoning flower, and by feeding off my energy she would emerge more beautiful, more charismatic. Without allowing me to realize it, she would steal all of my secret characteristics, all my good arguments and ideas. She would scrape them away and use them for herself, leaving me as an empty, silent husk – someone with no voice and no personality.

  ***

  I stood there silently, studying her eyes and mouth and cheeks. There was another silence as she bent forward and pulled another eye pencil out of her pocket. I thought about the structure of bones under her face.

  Then: ‘I have a long time,’ I offered.

  She looked back at me in the mirror, squinting with suspicion. She rubbed the pencil along the insides of her under-eyes.

  ‘Well,’ she said suddenly. ‘It’s to do with Montgomery.’

  Her fingers continued to move around her face, rubbing the pencil along the tops of her eyelids, smeared the kohl with her fingertips. As she did so, she gave me the background.

  Marina had known Professor Montgomery for some time, she said, as a family acquaintance. Her father was an academic too, and they had entertained a rivalry since their university days. She had seen the professor at family parties and symposiums that her father hosted, and he had always seemed pleasant, in a small talk kind of way. Then, when she applied to Northam – originally for languages – she had been offered a scholarship to study the course with English literature. She guessed that the professor had had something to do with it, but that hadn’t put her off at the time. It would have been stupid to turn it down. The tuition fees had risen, and besides, ‘English is fine.’

  But when she arrived she had found the professor insufferable. He was strangely controlling – always asking her to see him in his study, always giving her extra assignments. She felt that he was overfamiliar in his manner, vain about his professional success (constantly name-dropping other academics), and even his arguments were heavy-handed and boring. There was too much historical speculation, she said, and not enough of genuine interest. Those were the exact words that she used: genuine interest. As she said them she reached across to grab a piece of towel from the dispenser behind me.

  A few weeks into term, she’d stopped going to English lectures altogether. She asked the board to switch to languages full-time. But the scholarship was contingent on her taking English as well, and so she had had to go to the professor directly to ask for permission. Having reviewed her attendance record, the professor was now waging a ‘petty’ war against her – neither allowing her to return to his course, nor to keep her scholarship only doing languages. Marina shook her head. It was just politics, she said, a way for him to exert power over her, and so to spite him, she was going to the lectures and seminars until she got her way. She said that she hated how nepotistic the place was, and how everyone in the humanities department pandered to the professor. She hated especially how one eminent academic – here she put her fingers in quotation marks – could have a monopoly like that in the twenty-first century.

  ‘Anyway, that’s the long and short of it,’ she said, making a grimace. ‘Unbelievably tedious.’

  I wasn’t sure whether that description was supposed to refer to the story, the people in it, or her take on the situation. Whichever it was, it didn’t apply to her. She was a fantastic speaker: vivacious and precise. I wondered where she had learned to speak like this, so confidently and unapologetically.

  ‘How many languages do you know?’ I asked, somewhat out of the blue.

  ‘Enough to get by.’

  ‘French?’

  No reply.

  ‘What about like … Russian, Chinese?’

  She nodded primly. I couldn’t tell whether or not she was lying. Either she was a self-effacing genius or a narcissistic fantasist – and whichever it was, I felt unable to ask more questions.

  There was another lull in the conversation. I stood there awkwardly and began to run imaginary sentences through my head.

  Suddenly Marina said: ‘What are you doing this evening?’

  The question had come out of nowhere. It was unclear whether it was a leading conversation or a piece of small talk.

  ‘Nothing,’ I managed.

  ‘There’s a house party down the road I’m going to.’

  A prickle of anticipation shot through me.

  ‘Maybe you should come,’ she added.

  The conversation was too perfect, surreally perfect, and it made me, for a moment, feel detached from myself. It was like I was watching a film of my life rather than participating in it. I tried to act accordingly: keep my face stable, not too eager.

  ‘Sure.’

  I passed my phone across to her. My hand was shaking slightly. As she bent her head forward, I looked at her roots. Natural blonde. I studied the small translucent curls along the top of her crown, admired the way they framed her forehead.

  She said would add me on Facebook and message the details later. Then she smiled, drew her bag over her shoulder and left.

  I remember clearly how I felt once she had gone. Everything seemed to be in sharper focus. I looked at myself in the mirror again and this time my appearance had changed: my features were more pronounced, my face slimmer. My eyes had an interesting bright spark in them.

  I walked back to my room dopily, registering details I hadn’t seen before – the way the grey clouds sloped into the horizon beyond the buildings. The way the silver willows curved into the lake, the way their thin branches dragged in the water. It was a beautiful campus, in its own way, I decided. The buildings had all been painted an unimaginative shade of brown, yes – and, yes, they were boringly arranged: a long rigid line of rectangles, like a queue for something that would never arrive. Demolition, for example. It was not exactly inspiring, and yet looking at it then I thought it had a pleasing symmetry and simplicity. Perhaps Northam offered a new opportunity after all. Perhaps I was on the cusp of something exciting.

  In my room I looked at the small damp bed, the desk beside it. The clock read 3.51. I suspected that the party would start at around nine, which meant I should arrive at around ten, and that meant I now had a maximum of five hours to compose myself. I would just peek at Facebook, I told myself, and then shower and decide what to wear.

  I lifted the lid of my laptop. Just a few minutes.

  Two minutes later I looked at the clock and saw that it was now eight in the evening. I refreshed my Facebook page. There was still no message from Marina; no friend request, nothing. I paused.

  I wondered whether she had forgotten, whether she had even been sincere in the first place. Maybe it was for the best, I reasoned. What kind of person invites someone to a party after meeting them in a toilet anyway? My mother would have a field day.

  At the thought of my mother, I felt a wave of rebellious energy. I bit the bullet and sent Marina a friend request.

  The minutes ticked by. I waited for her to accept. Nothing.

  So I began to draft an accompanying message. Even in the first sentence I was aware of how weird I sounded: ‘I’m Eva, the girl from the toilet earlier …’ – it was difficult for me to carry on past that. Everything I wrote either sounded too eager and blunt: ‘so is there a party going on tonight???
’, or falsely casual: ‘what’s the deal with the …’ I typed them out over and over again, deleting, redrafting and then eventually settling for the first thing I had written. I added in extra details, such as where I was living, where we could meet and what I could bring. I cringed at how long it was but forced myself to hit send anyway.

  Ten minutes crawled by and no response came.

  Now it was quarter to ten. I walked to the campus corner shop and bought a bottle of wine. It was one of those cheap bottles with a screw cap, a label depicting a pastel cartoon of some berries, and garish Italian font scrawled all over it in an unsuccessful attempt to make it look drinkable. I thought about guzzling it down right there in the middle of the pavement, just to get it over with. But before I could wrench off the lid, my phone vibrated in my pocket. Marina’s name flashed across the screen.

  yeah there now

  58 st clements

  Was that supposed to be an invitation?

  I hovered in the lamplight. I thought about going back to my room. Then I thought: fuck it. I unscrewed the cap of the wine, took a large swig, and began walking towards St Clements before I had time to think about turning around.

  ***

  Someone is watching me.

  He is sat a few tables away, beside the bookcase marked T-V. It is dusky over there, there is not much light. But I can still see his eyes staring out at me from the darkness.

  At first I wasn’t entirely sure that it was me that he was watching. I thought that I was imagining it, or perhaps that he was looking at the clock behind me – but now it has become impossible to think otherwise. Every time I look up, his eyes burn into mine. I can feel them settle on me again when I look down. Now he is actually grinning: a slash of yellow teeth, like a slice of lemon. I can see him getting up. He packs his books into a satchel. He begins walking towards me. I feel panic. My hands grab at the stack of newspapers and clasp them into to my chest.

  ‘Hello,’ he says, approaching my desk. ‘Are you all right?’

  His voice is calm and low, with the hint of an accent.

  ‘Oi, I asked you a question. Are you all right?’

  Slowly I nod.

  ‘You look familiar,’ he says. ‘Have we met?’

  A beat goes by – then: no, I tell him. No we don’t know each other.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he says again.

  No. I’ve never seen him in my life.

  ‘Well, are you from around here?’

  I say nothing.

  ‘You’re not, I can tell.’

  I say nothing.

  ‘Maybe you want to see the local sights. We can go for a drink if you want.’

  Silence.

  ‘Does that sound nice? Do you maybe fancy going for a drink? Or a coffee?’

  No, I tell him.

  ‘We could go to the pub. I know a nice place around the corner.’

  No, I’m fine.

  He makes a face, like I’ve confused or upset him. ‘Why were you staring at me if you weren’t interested?’

  I look back at the screen. I wasn’t staring at him.

  ‘Yes you were. Sat over here giving me the eyes.’

  I continue to stare at the screen. The black screensaver descends, the cursor flickers. I hold the mouse and wait for him to go away. He hovers for a few minutes, puts his hands into the pockets of his squeaky leather jacket. I feel a sudden, dreadful certainty he is going to touch me.

  But he doesn’t.

  Instead he sighs, shakes his head, murmurs something and turns away. I hear him walking in the direction of the exit. I wait a long time before turning to look after him.

  When I see that he is gone, I pull my sleeves over my knuckles, straighten my neck. I pull my skirt down so that the fabric is no longer rucked up beneath my upper thighs.

  Upper thighs. My breathing tightens. I squeeze my eyes shut and try not to think about it.

  vi.

  Henry was about six foot four, with slim, quick features and a head of sharp blonde hair. He wore an expensive long coat, which moved like a blade of grass. I watched it sway gently in the breeze as he leaned against the doorway, frowning at me.

  After the long walk to the house party, guided by limited 3G (signal is patchy in the Northam area), I had perched my empty bottle on the garden wall and knocked at the door. Henry had opened it.

  He was a composed drunk, but an irritable one, and in any case he was drunk. He looked me over, tightened his jaw. I was struck by its sharp angle. Everything about him was elegant.

  Eventually he said: ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello – I’m with Marina,’ I stuttered. The wine slurred my words. I wished I could make them sound less apologetic.

  Henry didn’t respond to this information at first. He looked pensive, as though he were trying to place the name. Then his eyes bloomed into large, black orchids and he nodded.

  ‘Oh right, hi – Henry.’ He gestured towards himself. ‘She’s just over here … She’s in the …’ He turned his back, and his coat flapped up to expose a glimpse of silky paisley shirt as he walked away.

  ‘I’m E—’ I began.

  But before I could finish my sentence I was being swept into the hallway. Cigarette smoke drifted into my nostrils and eyes; strobe lights flashed wildly from the room next door; a strange kind of music thudded into my ears along with the ceaseless chatter of the people around me. I swirled through them into the house party.

  What struck me first was not the noise or the smell but the number of people. The corridor was littered with people, people people people. They were leaning against bannisters, slouching on the ground beneath the window with cigarettes in their drooping hands, jiggling beer bottles while shuffling awkwardly to the music, or dancing madly before suddenly steeling themselves and leaning flat against the wallpaper. I scuttled past – trying to keep Henry in my sights as he sliced ahead of me at an impatient clip – and caught fragments of their conversations. ‘So Heidegger, I think actually, let’s be honest, when it comes down to it, is maybe not that wrong?’

  ‘Not sure about that mate.’

  ‘No – not crime. It’s grime and punishment. It’s an event I’m running.’

  Oh right, I thought, squinting through them for Henry’s figure, so it’s this kind of party. The kind of party where you stood out unless you were wearing pyjama bottoms and some sort of naff glitter on your face; where everyone pretended not to know each other; where everyone talked about politics in a knowing, strident fashion. The sort of party where you could, potentially, disagree with someone without offending them.

  I walked past the sitting room, through the hall, past the bathroom, past the coat hooks, down the corridor. When I finally reached the kitchen at the end of it I realized two things: 1) I had now lost Henry. 2) I badly needed a drink.

  Drink, as it turned out, was not in short supply. Half-empty bottles were strewn around the counter; screw-top spirits sat on the shelves; cups full of strange, ugly scented liquid tilted precariously on the edges of tables. A suspicious queue for the loo suggested that it was another kind of hit that everyone here was after, so I suspected none of the alcohol would be missed.

  Still, I couldn’t quite bring myself to steal anything. I somehow felt self-conscious, and – despite the wine fog– weirdly out of place. I knew this was ridiculous. I knew that I looked more stupid and awkward just hovering there, not talking to anyone or drinking anything – but it felt wrong to swan into someone’s house and take their stuff. I couldn’t just swipe something. What if someone saw? I wanted people to like me. I wanted Marina to like me.

  A figure walked past in a long black sequinned jacket, a single black feather dangling from one of his ears. ‘Yeah no I think she’s in my seminar,’ I heard him say. ‘Nice girl. Bit easy though.’

  There was the safety issue too, I thought. Even in the nightclubs in my hometown, I had always made sure to push a thumb over the lip of my bottle in case it was spiked. Now, in this unfamiliar company, I didn’t
want to risk my chances. No – I needed to get away from them. All these people. I needed air.

  I went through a kitchen side door which led to the outside. It was very dark. I felt the notoriously cold Northam wind pinch at my cheeks, and immediately began to feel better.

  I walked around pretending to be looking for something, and eventually wandered to the corner of the courtyard, where wicker chairs were spread out along the lawn and thin people in colourful clothes smoked and talked. They flicked their ash into a water feature and propped their feet on garish plastic toadstools. I took it all in. The garden was surprisingly big, I thought, for a student house. I guessed that it housed around four. I wondered where the residents were.

  That was when I heard the familiar sharp voice, now slightly nasal: ‘Henry, it’s not true. And it’s not even your opinion, it’s some shit you’ve memorized from The Spectator.’

  Marina was lying on the grass a few metres away, one leg spread loosely over the other. She was holding a cigarette between a pinched thumb and forefinger. Her hair fanned out over the shoes of the girl sat behind her – a girl who wore a turquoise velvet jumpsuit, who was staring mutely at the garden wall.

  Henry was rolling a cigarette between graceful long fingers. At this slight from Marina he frowned.

  ‘Er no, Vanity Fair,’ he corrected. ‘Not that the source is the point. The point is the argument. It’s about the way that women bear life – men don’t feel the responsibility that women do. They have the freedom to be funny, because the shelf life on sperm is endless. They aren’t reminded of the heavy burden of … life all the time.’

  Marina snorted. ‘Even for you that’s terrible.’

  ‘Even for me?’

  ‘Doubtless you’re a prime example of the superior male comedian.’

  ‘Doubtless.’

  ‘With your endless sperm and liberated mind.’

  ‘You said it, not me.’