Chapter 23
The next weeks go by in a blur. Work, research for the professor, more homework of her own. He asks her to complete a number of tasks for him – a paper that he needs to write, a presentation he’s giving online. Checking his references for a paper he’s submitting to an academic journal.
He makes his latest request at the end of their usual Thursday seminar. He doesn’t ask for volunteers anymore, nor even ask her to wait. She’s there, hovering, knowing that soon enough he’ll turn the beam of his attention to her and she’ll light up like a beacon.
‘It’s a lot of work,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry to spring it on you last minute.’
‘I’m happy to do it,’ she says. She means it, too.
He hands over the work, his gaze lingering on her, their fingers meeting.
She tries not to show the electric jolt she feels – it’s the first time they’ve ever touched, and her hand is burning.
Her cheeks, too. She turns away in a hurry, goes straight to her room to get on with the work.
It is immediately clear that this task will be harder than most. The data is badly presented, the pages out of any logical order.
Lucy’s usually good with numbers, but tonight she’s getting a headache, the black print dancing on the page before her.
Even when it turns midnight, she’s still got pages left to go through.
She puts on her kettle to make some coffee for the final push, sitting on her bed for a moment as she waits for it to boil.
When she wakes, it’s after six in the morning.
There’s no way she can finish it now.
Even as she hands over her rushed notes to the professor later that morning, she knows she’s broken something, the invisible chain of trust that was building between them. She’s let him down.
‘I’m surprised,’ he says. ‘Clearly I’ve been asking too much of you.’ His voice is light, tight, an edge to it she hasn’t heard before.
‘I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened.’
‘I expected too much,’ he says. ‘I forget you’re only an MSc student.’
She’s winded by the blow.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says again. ‘Please give me a second chance. I’m up to it.’
He ponders for a moment, shakes his head. ‘This work is too important. I can’t risk giving it to someone who doesn’t take it seriously.’
She stands in his office, mute. It’s raining outside, the sky iron-grey, the clouds dark, ominous. ‘I can do better.’
‘I hope so.’
Back in her room, the weekend stretches before her, dull, empty, no one to talk to, nothing to do. She picks up her phone, scrolls down to see who she could call.
Friends from school?
She doesn’t talk to any of them now.
From uni?
There was no time for friends back then.
Between studying and her work in the pub, not to mention the long commute back to her family home every morning and night.
She was barely on nodding terms with her fellow undergraduates, even after three years.
And, of course, there were those long months online during the pandemic.
Other postgrads at college?
She leans back on her bed with a laugh, a barking sound that could be a sob. She’s not going to cry, though.
There is one option. She scrolls back up, presses call. The phone rings out for a long time, twenty rings at least before it’s picked up.
‘Who’s this?’ A gruff voice.
‘Me. Lucy.’
‘Lucy? I haven’t seen you in a long time.’
‘That’s because I’m away at college, Dad. You remember.’
‘College? Oh yes, college. Not good enough for you at home, was it? You had bigger ideas. Has it all gone wrong for you, then? I told you it would.’
She places the phone down on the bed beside her, swallows hard.
It’s after six – she should have checked the time first. She should have thought about how many tins of Stella he’d have drunk by now – it is Friday, after all.
His voice keeps talking through the phone; even without the speaker turned on, she can make out the swear words, the rise of abuse before it falls into the self-pitying whine she knows so well.
Pushing the phone off the bed, she climbs under her duvet and pulls it up around her ears, but it’s many hours before she sleeps.
The week passes. Dull, grey, monotonous. She passes the professor a couple of times in the quad but he doesn’t look up, doesn’t acknowledge her. It’s like she’s dying inside, the withering of the dream she’s had for so long.
She could kick herself. It’s all her fault. The only thing stopping her from packing up her bags and fleeing the place immediately is the presentation she’s due to make at the end of the week. She spends every hour in the library – it’s going to be the best piece of work she’s ever done.
At last it’s the day of the seminar, a Friday morning this time. As usual, no one acknowledges her, though Lucy barely lifts her head to register their lack of interest. She’s too focused on her notes to care. She needs to be pitch-perfect. It’s her last chance – if she hasn’t blown it already.
Her turn at last. They’ve sat through a lacklustre monologue about young offender institutions from the mature student Jessica – no new insights, banal in the extreme.
Lucy glanced over at the professor a couple of times to try and read his reaction.
Nothing. A flat tone when he asks her to come up.
She looks down the table at the indifferent faces, a sneer on Jessica’s face, boredom on Alexandra’s, something close to aversion on Ben’s.
The professor is looking at his notebook with concentration, his brows furrowed.
It’s like someone’s switched off the light, the room dim.
She takes a deep breath, and she begins.
When she’s about halfway through, the atmosphere changes, a crackle in the air.
Ben is looking up at her, Jessica too. There’s even grudging respect on Alexandra’s face.
Lucy is talking about the effect of prison sentences on women offenders’ families.
An emotive subject, and she’s talking from the heart.
When she relates the account of a pair of siblings who were separated and forced into care when their mum was sent down for dealing, Jessica winces in sympathy.
By the end, they’re all leaning forward, nodding at the conclusions that she’s drawn.
As she finishes, there’s a smattering of applause. More than the usual, muted response – she’s pulled it off. She can feel it deep inside her. At last, she dares to glance in the professor’s direction. She must, surely, have made an impression.
He’s looking at his phone.