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  I couldn’t say much to that. I tepidly responded with a counter-question.

  ‘But overall, it’s not quite …’

  The corner of her mouth lifted. ‘What?’

  ‘You’re not going to drop out.’

  ‘No. I’ve thought about it … No.’

  She looked around then, grabbed an ashtray from the table next to us and drew a packet of cigarettes from her bag, then put one in her mouth. I looked at the way it balanced there while she lit it. I thought about the passage of the smoke drifting past her lips, down her throat and into her lungs.

  Then she looked up and saw me staring at her.

  ‘Would you like one?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh.’ I looked down at my hands. ‘No thanks, I don’t smoke.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  Later on Marina would often chastise me for being ‘repressed’ – but I always knew she enjoyed the fact that I wasn’t like her. Even that gesture of refusing the cigarette had seemed to satisfy her, like I’d confirmed a judgement that she held against me. Where Marina was fun, I was reserved. Where she was cavalier, I was cautious. Where she was given to making grand statements, I offered a mumbling appraisal of both sides before ultimately agreeing with her. I think that’s how it looked, at least.

  Smoke continued to drift around us, gradually travelling outwards to the surrounding tables where families were sat with their prams and soft drinks. A group of young women on the adjacent table were tucking into a roast. When Marina saw them, she lounged sideways and dangled her arm over the back of the chair. I sat with my hands in the middle of my lap, one foot pressed hard on top of the other under the table.

  About five minutes into our conversation, the waiter came over and asked if Marina would put out her cigarette. It was clear from the first few words what he was going to say, but she only stared at him innocently, and continued to smoke until he’d finished giving a full explanation. There were people eating nearby, he said (his eyebrows raised, his hands rubbing anxiously against one another) – yes, there were people eating nearby and her smoke was unpleasant for them. He was awfully sorry, really he was, but would she mind … would she mind just while they had their meals? Otherwise there were tables further away.

  Marina held his gaze. She sucked for a few seconds, raised her fingers to the stalk and finally plucked it from her mouth.

  ‘Of course,’ she said, exhaling a long plume.

  Then she stubbed it in the ashtray in front of him.

  It was like something from a film. I started to laugh quietly, discreetly, in a way that I hoped would show Marina I found her funny without offending the waiter.

  It didn’t work. When I looked up I saw that the waiter was glaring at me. His look was so hostile – so accusing – that my apologetic reflexes kicked in and unthinkingly I blurted: ‘I’m sorry.’

  He shook his head and walked away.

  Marina laughed at that.

  ‘What did you do that for?’ she said.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘It doesn’t say no smoking.’

  ‘Oh. Yeah. Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t apologize,’ she said. ‘Definitely don’t apologize for me.’

  Over the next few weeks we began to see each other more and more. We met for breaks outside the library, where I would stand with her as she smoked and talked, usually about the other people in our class. We sat together in seminars. We sat together in lectures. Then we started to cut lectures and just go to seminars instead. Then we started to skip the PhD-taught seminars – going to just one a week, the one led by the professor – and discussed the set books on our own.

  Marina had some pretty weird ideas about literature. She thought that everything had a central meaning, and that you could pinpoint the ‘message’ of a novel or a play according to the intentions of the main character. Helpfully, she said, quite often the main character was a stand-in for the author. Thus King Lear was ‘about Shakespeare’s fear of early-onset dementia’; Anna Karenina was about ‘Tolstoy’s commitment issues’ etc. I never quite knew what she was on about, or whether she was actually joking, but she was entertaining to listen to nonetheless.

  After the library Marina would often come to my room. Initially I lamented that I hadn’t put up posters or photos to make my life look interesting. But she seemed to like the fact that I was so anonymous, like a blank slate that she could draw all over. We would drink two or three bottles of wine there throughout the afternoon, and then head out to a party at one of her second year friends’ houses.

  I say ‘friends’. The truth is that I never had meaningful conversations with any of them, and from what I recall Marina rarely spoke to them either. We’d spend a lot of time at parties at the fringes of conversation, smoking by ourselves, nudging each other, exchanging subtle looks. She didn’t really engage with other people – not fully. Even when she was at the centre of a big group, Marina seemed to be separate, superior, floating above everyone else – like a performer in a play. And, like a haughty actress, she regularly grew impatient with her fans.

  ‘Who’s that?’ I asked once, having seen her ignore a wave from a guy in Henry’s house.

  ‘Ugh, Robin,’ she said. ‘Henry’s housemate. He’s a dick. I can’t be bothered to do the stop-and-chat.’

  Hearing her rebuff other people like this could have made me paranoid, but in fact, predictably, it had the opposite effect. It made me pleased. It struck me that for all her online popularity, for all her apparent charm and attractiveness, I was the only person who she ever really wanted to hang around with on a regular basis. When she was not with me, she was alone.

  I liked that about her.

  ***

  The librarian gives me an odd look. I have been in here for too long. Perhaps I am acting strangely, perhaps my face looks strained, perhaps I am making peculiar subconscious noises. Or maybe she knows. Maybe she recognizes me.

  I pick at the skin between my fingers, watch the dry flakes break off and scatter onto the desk. It is already starting to get dark outside. I can see the tree swaying outside, the branches swooping forward to tap against the glass. They look and sound like fingers. I turn back to the desk. I flip over the newspaper so that the picture is hidden.

  I don’t want to see her anymore. I don’t want to be near her.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Early November

  i.

  One day Marina decided that we would go to the beach. It was at this point early November – the sky was grey, a thick seasonal mist had settled over the campus, and the temperature was dipping to zero. I couldn’t imagine that a seaside outing was going to be especially pleasant. But true to form I didn’t bring this up, and my opinion wouldn’t have mattered. Marina said that she wanted to see the sea. She said that she was going to hire a car so that we could drive there.

  I thought this was a lavish investment, considering we could just take the train, but I kept my mouth shut.

  ‘I know it seems unnecessary,’ said Marina, ‘but I like to drive.’

  Marina was like that: if she wanted to do something a certain way, then she would do it irrespective of the practicalities or cost. I learned not to ask questions about her spending.

  We went to a hire shop. The man behind the desk wore a name badge which said on it ‘Graham’. He called us both ‘Madam’ – this was very funny – and asked Marina which model she would like to take out.

  Marina surveyed the selection of cars. After a while she settled for a convertible.

  ‘Oh?’ said Graham with surprise. Then he composed himself: ‘Certainly, Madam.’

  Once we were strapped in, Marina turned up the music to ‘very loud’ and careered off down the road. The soundtrack of choice was early noughties R&B – she particularly liked Kelis and Khia – and I felt that there was a strange disconnect between the sinuous country roads, so English and so wholesome, and the thumping American lyrics coming out of the speakers. Marina seemed to enjoy this. When we reached a r
ed traffic light, I remember her winding down the window and mouthing to the male driver next to us: ‘Lick it now, lick it good.’ He turned and tipped his flat cap at us.

  Soon the clouds lifted and, against expectation, cool sunshine appeared in short misty bursts. Marina took this as sufficient encouragement to put the roof down, so roughly half an hour into our journey she swung the wheel and pulled into a layby. I remember her tiny green eyes darting to the rear-view mirror, her hands sliding over the plastic of the gearstick, a slim finger pushing the button below the radio control. The roof lifted up, tilted forwards and began to roll back.

  ‘So you’re from Walford,’ she said, as a fresh bout of wind blasted us across the cheeks. ‘What’s that like?’

  It was the first time she’d asked me anything about my background and I struggled to find an answer. What was Walford like? My small, provincial town with the river running through the centre, with its functional concrete bridges, with its dusty Victorian buildings and neon supermarkets, with its tragic pubs? I thought of tweed and suede, rubber wellingtons. I thought of my mother’s voice, reproachfully correcting me: ‘Actually, Walford museum has the oldest cauldron collection in England.’ And I paused to think of something clever to say – some witty riff on this, some funny description to impress her – but there was really no way to spruce up Walford.

  ‘Dull,’ I said.

  Marina laughed. ‘What’s the school in Walford – there’s that posh one.’

  ‘Wolsingham.’

  ‘Yes! Wolsingham Girls! Is that where you went?’

  I dug my fingers into my seatbelt. I didn’t want to tell her about the homeschooling. And I worried that if I told her where I’d really gone to school afterwards Marina might know someone who would tell her that I had. So I said: ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘So wait, hang on, you must know the Dukes?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘What do you mean mm? They would have been … Like the year above you, maybe two years above. You must know Matilda.’

  ‘Oh. Yeah. I know of her.’

  I had heard of Matilda Duke. Her family owned a large estate nearby – somewhere west of Durham – and in the early noughties the BBC had made a documentary about how her father, Bart, made money to maintain it. Bart was posh and swore a lot, which was considered hilarious, and I knew that he was thought of as a ‘prize guest’ on the Walford dinner party circuit. But I knew little about Matilda. She was at another school, so I’d never met her. I doubt she would have spoken to me anyway.

  ‘She’s actually surprisingly nice,’ Marina was saying. ‘I mean, her voice is annoying but once you get past that she has some great anecdotal material. She’s always been pretty … experimental.’

  Marina went on to talk about how she knew the Dukes through her stepmother – they were related in some obscure way – and then went on to dissect Matilda’s personality without pausing for a response from me. I let go of my seatbelt, relaxed my shoulders.

  ‘She’s not actually as quote unquote wild as people think she is. She has few inhibitions in some ways but seems pretty prudish when you hear her talking about other people …’

  Five minutes later she had come full circle and was talking about Matilda’s voice again.

  ‘It sounds like she’s eating a peach,’ Marina said. ‘Uverrything she shaysh is like she’s trying to keep the shaliva in her mouth.’ She turned and pointed at me, waiting for me to pick up the impression.

  ‘It would almost be Sean Connery,’ I said. ‘Except there’s too much plum in there. It’s more like …’

  ‘You don’t have to be posh to be privileged.’

  ‘Joanna Lumley,’ I said.

  ‘Very good … Hey, I wonder if she’s still doing those adverts.’

  I settled back into my seat. The conversation was over: I had dodged the bullet. And I was right to relax: Marina never asked about Walford again.

  We reached the beach and found a parking spot at the top of the hill. It was a tight space, so I got out while Marina parked. Then she climbed out and, without putting the roof back on, pressed a button on the keys to lock the car. The lights flashed twice: beep beep.

  I stared at her. ‘Aren’t you …?’

  She turned to me defiantly.

  ‘Aren’t I what?’

  ‘Aren’t you worried someone might … I don’t know, steal it?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘The car. We should probably put the roof up.’ I paused. ‘Shouldn’t we?’

  Marina waved her hand dismissively – a swift, sharp movement, like she was swatting a fly.

  ‘Eva, this isn’t Walford,’ she said sarcastically. ‘Crime levels aren’t nearly as high here.’

  Not for the first time, I felt ashamed of my provincial background; of my unworldliness, of my ultra-cautious temperament. I was so neurotic. Also I was freezing from the journey. I pulled the collar of my coat tighter around my chin.

  ‘OK,’ I said.

  Marina laughed. ‘Come on,’ she tugged my arm. ‘It’s going to be fun.’

  It was fun. We drank beer and made sandcastles. We bought a disposable barbecue and piled it with meat, and bananas stuffed with chunks of Mars bar. I dug my toes into the wet sand, and through mouthfuls of charred chicken leg, asked Marina questions about her life before Northam. She spoke about feeling deprived of a ‘Generic Family Experience’, because her parents were divorced; because her mother had died when she was young. She spoke about her father experimenting with Buddhist philosophy, about how his investments had somehow benefited from the financial crash, about the ‘laughable’ attempts at poetry she had published in her teens. I pulled my coat fiercely around my neck. I drank a lot of beer. Marina drank a lot too, and I didn’t try to stop her.

  It was getting late, and we were both quite drunk, when Marina slid off her coat and said that she was going to swim. She started to take off her other clothes. Then she ran into the sea. I didn’t join her because it was freezing, plus I felt a little self-conscious about a birthmark on my upper thigh. But I watched her, and I noticed everything. Marina’s skin was smooth and pale. Her underwear had a zigzag stripe. I studied her as she sprinted into the surf.

  I remember, now, sensing a slow spread of anxiety as her silhouette charged into the high grey waves. The long slow curls sweeping across her back. Her small, fragile shoulders flinching as the cold water smacked against her stomach. The waves rising and falling, crashing onto her head, flattening her hair dark against her scalp. She seemed so vulnerable. She disguised it well – she did not scream – but I could see that she was fragile out there.

  Later she emerged from the water, wrapped a towel around herself and sat beside me on the sand. ‘Pussy,’ she said. ‘It’s not even that cold.’

  In the moonlight, the tiny golden hairs on her stomach stood straight, and there were goose pimples along her arms. She was shivering.

  When we returned to the car it was raining. The seats were soaked through. The gearstick was slick with black raindrops.

  ‘Fuck,’ said Marina, expressionlessly. ‘That’s a shame.’

  I said nothing.

  We laid our coats over the seats and got inside. As soon as we sat down I could feel damp seep through to my underwear and so to distract myself, I smoked a spliff with the window slightly open. We drove home in a drunk daze. Marina was actually better at driving when drunk, or maybe it just seemed that way because I felt more relaxed. I really did. I was cold and wet and shivering, but I was also unusually happy.

  Marina looked at me sceptically.

  ‘You’re quiet,’ she said. There was a note of accusation in her voice.

  I told her my clothes were wet – that I was cold.

  ‘You can shower at my house,’ said Marina. ‘I’ll lend you some clothes.’

  The following morning Marina returned the car, alone, and I forgot to ask about Graham and the rain damage. I still don’t know how much she had to pay for
it.

  ii.

  There were a lot of things I forgot to ask Marina, now I think about it. The questions I did put to her were always beside the point somehow – too vague or too specific to elucidate what she was ever really thinking. I wish I’d fastened onto some of the other leads instead. I wish I’d asked where she was on certain days; how certain things made her feel. But there’s no use in regretting all that. I don’t know how much I can trust of what she told me anyway.

  The conversational pattern of our friendship was this: I asked her questions about herself; she asked me questions about grand ideas. I’d say: ‘What was your mother like?’ and she’d reply, e.g.: ‘Do you think that life is a simulation?’ I got the impression that she only ever asked me questions so that she could answer them herself. If I gave a response that she disagreed with, which was rare, she’d brush it off and complain that I didn’t understand. She’d say that I didn’t ‘speak her language’.

  Marina was opinionated. Her thoughts were hard-boiled, polished facts with no room for negotiation. I, on the other hand, had only a clutch of half-baked conclusions. I understood ideas, but I had no clue about how to settle on one at any given time – how you might say that something was more true than something else and actually mean it. My thoughts lay in my head in a series of unconnected fragments – like shattered glass – and I couldn’t piece them together to see what the original construction had looked like.

  Sometimes I pretended this disconnect didn’t matter, but I knew it did. I didn’t want relativism. I wanted to find a definitive interpretation for everything.

  When it came to writing my own essays, my conclusions would always say something admiring about the ‘unreadability of the text’, as though being confusing were a badge of literary merit. I would explain various theories and then wind up making a non-committal comment like: ‘Milton holds up a mirror to the reader’. I knew this was probably a cop out, the verbal equivalent of knowingly tapping the side of my nose – but expressing my ignorance was the closest I could come to saying something true.