Chapter 32
32
The library was quiet when I arrived, barely eight thirty. I went down to the lockers on the lower level to stow everything but my laptop and notes. Part of my ritual, leaving everything behind here, leaving nothing but my dissertation.
A long bulletin board ran along the wall outside the locker room, and this was the next part of the ritual: letting my eyes slide optimistically over the job postings there. Today, my eye caught on something unusual—a flyer with the British Library logo. The header said Apprenticeships . I stepped closer—this was not part of the ritual—and saw that it wasn’t just one posted flyer; there were five or six pushpinned to the wall. I tore one off and carried it to the locker with me.
I skimmed down the page. Full-time, full pay, full training. That had my attention. An apprenticeship is 23 months. It is an opportunity to learn, and we recognise that it may be a completely new working environment for you. We don’t expect you to have previous work experience in the sector or any formal qualifications.
Four possible apprenticeship tracks: customer service; business administration; accounting; and last, the most appealing, library, information, and archive services. It said you would learn to manage and care for the library’s extensive collection—170 million books, newspapers, items, artifacts—and share it with visitors to the library.
A dream, in other words. I imagined myself coming to work here every morning, taking my lunch breaks out on the plaza if it wasn’t raining. Part of the fabric of this place.
But for now, I stuffed the flyer into the locker with my book bag and closed it. Better to focus on what I could control: making my payments, finishing my dissertation. Part of the ritual was believing, every day, that it would be enough.
Callum had suggested King’s Cross as a mutually convenient meeting place, in his reply to my email. Getting my things from the locker, walking a block to the station, I took all the nerves vibrating through me and assigned them to my fear that he might not be able to help me, or even willing to. But the nerves that came from seeing Callum himself, from remembering his lips brushing over mine in Lisbon—those I could barely swallow down.
I was early, but Callum was already waiting, handsome in a soft button-down shirt, dark hair brushed back perfectly. Inside the glass dome of King’s Cross, the café was crowded, almost every table full, but he was unmissable.
He stood when I arrived, keeping the table between us— answering my silent question of whether we would kiss on the cheek in the old way.
“I really appreciate you meeting me,” I said. “And you’re early, too.”
He laughed and looked down at the table. “So are you.”
We queued for croissants and coffees, which Callum insisted on paying for. I let him. I hadn’t bought anything from a café since returning from Lisbon. That was a luxury now.
When we sat down, I felt the nerves surging again, tugging at my stomach. Better to stick to business. I pulled out the folder with all my notes and printed emails. “This is everything,” I said. “All my communications with the school. I have emails that confirm the fee and the agreement, class logs that show I taught every hour I was meant to.”
Callum’s eyes were down, scanning the papers. “I’d say they’re betting you’ll just give up. No company or organization behind you. American, no friends or connections here to get things moving.”
I grimaced. “Sounds about right.”
He looked up at me, those fine dark eyes under long lashes. “And yet here I am.” He pointed to the amount in the email. “This is the price you agreed on? That’s a good fee,” he said. “You must be good at your job.”
I shook my head. “Pretty easy to agree to an expensive fee when you have no intention of paying it.”
His lips lifted into a sympathetic smile. “I recognize that this is an important sum of money for you, Anna,” he said gently. “But with the time and effort and expense it would take to go through the court systems, it probably wouldn’t be worthwhile.”
I looked down at my cup. The white plastic lid, the beads of light brown coffee gathered on it. It was enough money to ruin the payment plan Queen Mary had begrudgingly agreed to, enough to derail my degree, send me home penniless, but not enough to trouble a court with. The system was working just as it was designed to.
I tried to say, “I’m sorry I wasted your time,” but it came out as just a whisper. I had no breath for speech, every inch of my body tensed to hold back tears.
Callum noticed—of course he did—right away. Looking around at the packed café, the tables crowding ours, he reached across the table. I thought for a moment he would take my hand. But he just grabbed the wax paper envelope with our croissants in it. Put it into a shoulder bag.
“Time for a walk,” he said.
The sign said St. Pancras Gardens , but it was clearly a very old cemetery. Grassy, dotted with thick trees, a handful of large, mossed-over tombs and memorials, and one small, weather-beaten stone church. Not overcrowded with headstones, like Highgate Cemetery had been when Theo had taken me there.
“No one will hear us in here,” Callum said with a sly smile.
I laughed, despite myself. “No, doesn’t look like a lively crowd.”
But it wasn’t actually very quiet. We were only a few minutes’ walk from King’s Cross. The ground tremored as we entered the cemetery, trains picking up speed on the tracks just behind the gardens, hidden by a tall stone wall.
The first bench we came to, Callum handed me my croissant from his bag. “You eat, and I’ll talk.”
I hadn’t eaten all morning; I was too hungry and resigned to argue. I sat.
“I looked up this school you taught at, did a little digging around. It’s a charity, actually.”
“A charity?”
“Well, not-for-profit. It has tax-free status. It means they have to stay in good standing with the government, keep their paperwork in order, balance the books.”
“That’s good news?”
“Even if your claim isn’t so compelling, a place that operates like this—reneging on contracts, dodging people—they might have other reasons to not want anyone poking around. Board of directors probably wouldn’t love that.” He was pacing in front of the bench, looking every bit the lawyer.
Following where he led, I said, “They were so smooth, so good at lying to me. Who knows what shady shit they have to hide.”
“Exactly my thinking.”
“You want to shift the math, so it’s easier for them to pay me than to deal with the fallout. Will that really work?” I asked, taking a buttery bite of pastry. Maybe it was this shred of hope, but I’d forgotten how good a croissant could taste.
“We’ll need a letter, laying it all out, threatening legal action. Something that will ruffle feathers. I’m not qualified yet, of course, but last summer I interned with a high-profile firm that handles a lot of contract stuff. If I put together a good letter, and if I can show them the evidence behind it”—he tapped the folder of emails in his hand—“I think the senior partner might put it on his letterhead, send it for us. As a favor.”
“You really think he’d do that for me?”
Callum laughed. “I think he’d do it for me.” And then, with a charming, sheepish smile, “He’s my uncle, Mum’s side.”
“Ah, nepotism,” I said, laughing, too. “Never thought I might benefit from it.”
“I think it’s worth a try.”
“I appreciate you trying,” I said. “Really, thank you.” They were such banal, overused words—the same I’d said to the barista at the station. But what else could I say? His help meant more because I was so desperate, but it also meant more because his help was the only help I wanted. I wanted it to mean something. For us.
But there was no hope of that now. He’d had a front-row seat to every mistake I’d made in the last six months, and then the resulting explosion, and here I was, dragging him into the cleanup. I stood up to go.
“I’m sure you’re busy,” I said. “Thanks for making the time.”
“No, don’t go,” Callum said. “I wanted to show you something.” He indicated the path ahead of us.
“Sure,” I said, unable to disguise my smile. “Lead on.” Like I needed an excuse to stay near him, stand near him.
We shouldered our bags and walked again, following the path. “I’ve got a good lawyer joke for you,” I said, forcing a light tone. “Have you heard the one about the girl who’s going to be charged with fraud?”
Callum shook his head. “I did hear,” he said. “I’m sorry. Have you received any notices or anything?”
“No, but it’s not like I left them a forwarding address. Do you think— I’m worried it could ruin my chances of getting a visa to stay. Or they might revoke my student one.”
“Whatever happens, it’ll take months to get going,” he said. “I wouldn’t make it the first of your worries right now. It sounds like you already have plenty.”
“Wouldn’t they need to prove I’d done them some harm?”
Callum looked over at me, his thick brows rising slightly. “Do you think you didn’t?”
“What?”
“Do you think you didn’t harm anyone.”
“I think I mostly hurt myself,” I said honestly. “The Wilders have better things to worry about. They probably have a house on every continent. I’m barely a bug on their windshield.”
“You can still hurt them, even if they have more money than God. They’re still people. They trusted you.”
“I know that. But at the time, it just—” I paused to try to sort the experience into words. “It didn’t really feel like I could touch them. The Wilders, or any of you. It felt like a fantasyland. Like stepping into the pages of a book, or a scene from a movie.”
“Well, it wasn’t like that. Everyone at the party was really upset. And, you know”—he hesitated—“upset I hadn’t told them the truth about you myself.”
I’d forgotten it, in the chaos—trying to defend me against Faye, Callum had revealed that he knew I was pretending, wearing her clothes. That he’d known since Saint-Tropez.
“I’m sorry, I know it’s really unfair,” I said, putting my hand on his arm, slowing his steps. “First you having to lie for me, then defend my lies. Will they get over it, do you think? Will you stay friends?”
He sighed. “We go back a long way. We’ll be okay. They just don’t get why I helped you keep the secret, all that time.”
“Why—” I began, then stopped, momentarily losing my nerve. “Why did you?”
He smiled but didn’t look over at me. His elegant profile, next to me, as indecipherable as ever. “I didn’t want to stand in your way,” he said. He seemed to be choosing his words carefully. “And I think, a little, I wanted to see you do it. Release all that hurt and history you had, everything holding you back. This was the wrong way to do it, of course, but,” he laughed lightly, “I was still sort of rooting for you.”
I couldn’t resist touching him again, feeling for his body next to mine on the path. Reaching out with my elbow, I gave him a playful nudge. “Well, thanks,” I said. “It’s nice to have someone on my team. Especially now the whole of North London hates me.”
“They don’t all hate you. They’re just done.” He paused, directing me down a side path. “Tess told me you wrote her a nice letter.”
“I did. I couldn’t really explain, but I tried to, and apologized.”
He nodded. “She’s applied to a master’s program. Maybe she’ll even do a PhD, if she likes it. She told me it was you who inspired her.”
“What? That’s amazing,” I said, grinning hugely. “Will she be back at UCL?”
“No, down at King’s.”
“Oh, wow,” I laughed. The two universities had a fierce rivalry. Once, having drinks with Andre at the UCL student union, I’d heard a team of rugby players sing the UCL fight song, including a hilariously crude section taunting King’s. “I really hope it goes well for her,” I said.
“It’s funny, that’s what she said about you.”
I shrugged sadly. “I’m trying to be different, and better, and do things the right way now. But that’s all I can do. I can’t undo it.”
“I know,” he said. His voice had softened. “I know it’s done. We don’t have to keep talking about it. I just had to know—I had to know how you felt about it.”
“I’m paying for my crimes, don’t worry about that,” I said with a grim smile. “I live on my friend’s roommates’ tiger-print couch.” I gestured back up the path, where we’d come from. “That croissant back there was lunch. For dinner, I’ll be bartending, and if I’m lucky, I’ll get a shift meal. I’ll run between the library and my jobs, trying to make tuition, even though I probably can’t, since I got fired from my tutoring company. I just keep going.”
“And where is it you’re going?” he said. “If our little letter works?”
It was a question I could answer easily. My rosary, an invocation I said every morning when I woke on the couch. “I’m going to get my degree, and then get the two-year work visa. Another two years, to do it right this time. As myself.” I’d spent my first year here diving into dead ends, trying all the wrong ways to shake off the past. These next years would be something different.
I was focused on Callum, not watching where we were going, so it surprised me when he said, “Here, this is what I wanted to show you.”
To the side of the path ahead was a huge old tree, partially buried, the earth rising up around the trunk. But no, it wasn’t earth. They were headstones. Dozens and dozens of them: small and curved, worn perfectly smooth, lightly mossed. They radiated out from the thick trunk, green ivy twisting over the tops, tree roots climbing between and around them. The roots looked like long fingers, clasping the graves close, so they wouldn’t escape.
Callum put his hand on my lower back, nudged me toward the small black sign in front. Hardy Tree, 1860 s .
The sign said that Thomas Hardy, the famous Victorian author, had worked for an architect before he wrote books—an architect tasked with exhuming over ten thousand graves here, to make way for the train tracks. A task he happily handed off to his junior employee, who gathered a fraction of the misplaced gravestones around a small, young ash tree.
I left my bag and my coffee cup on the bench next to the sign and moved closer to the tree. I had never really liked Hardy’s work. But this tree, these graves, there was something deeply, darkly poetic about them.
“You said you liked it,” Callum said. “Seeing the seams of London, the spots where the different eras of the city clash together.”
I looked back; he was still standing by the bench, watching me. How had he remembered that? We’d been talking about Highgate Cemetery, the day after Theo first showed me around it. It felt like a hundred years had passed, between that cemetery and this one.
“It’s beautiful,” I said, waving him up to stand beside me. I could still feel his hand on the small of my back, warm through my shirt.
“Some people find it very creepy.”
“All the other girls you bring here?” I teased, turning to look up at him next to me, watching the way the diffuse, leafy light shifted over his cheekbones when he smiled. “I don’t think it’s creepy. There’s something nice about it.”
“Nice?”
“Yes.” Nicest of all to be standing here with Callum, the person who always seemed to understand me, even if we didn’t always get along. The person I could say this to. “A grave can be a lonely thing.” I waved at the stones, crowded together. “This isn’t lonely.”
He was looking at me, not the headstones. “No, I guess it’s not. And not too quiet, either.” He nodded at the stone wall, hiding another train rattling north from King’s Cross. “I think I’d hate it, if it was too quiet.”
It was a silly thing, of course—to imagine it might matter, when you’re dead, how noisy the trains are. But I felt that silly thing in my bones, too.
“I brought my mom’s ashes with me. To London.” I hesitated. “She used to— She always wanted to travel. I brought her with me.”
“Of course,” Callum said. Simply, kindly.
I looked down at my hands in front of me. And at Callum’s, hanging at his sides. “I brought her with me to Lisbon when we went. And Saint-Tropez, too. I thought she would be proud of me. That I was finally living the kind of life my parents wanted for me.”
Callum looked down at me. “What kind of life do you want?” he said.
Unbidden, I saw again the library apprenticeship flyer I’d pulled from the bulletin board. Shyly, studying Callum’s face for a reaction, I said, “They’re hiring at the library. I really love it there.” I shook my head. “But I mean, it’s the British Library. I’m not even British.”
“Don’t be stupid, Anna,” Callum said, a little roughly. “They’d be crazy not to want you. It’s not some stuffy old academic library. It’s for tourists and travelers and students and kids.” He frowned at me, a very disappointed-teacher look. “Just don’t blow your interview by trying to be just like their other candidates. Trying to blend in. It’s a waste.”
“Do you think I should lead with being an undercover car mechanic?” I said, waiting, wanting to see his lips twitch up into that irresistible smile.
He did smile, but he was shaking his head, refusing to let me shrug it off. “Tell them you’re the kind of person who loves helping students do their best work, who’s used to working hard, putting in long hours. The kind of person who’ll stay with a friend and his broken-down car and pay for oysters she didn’t order. Who’ll stand in front of this creepy overgrown grave-tree and find it beautiful.” He ducked his head, making sure to catch my eyes, making sure I was listening and understanding. “Tell them the truth. Tell them you belong there.”
“Okay.” I nodded. “Okay. I will.”
In Highgate, I’d told myself that Callum was too hard on me, too judgmental. I’d read so much into every look, every word between us. But hearing him say these things, I knew I’d been reading it wrong all along. Really, I just cared too much what he thought of me. His had been the only judgment that mattered to me.
We stood there for a moment, very still, and then the bells in the church tower began to play their familiar tune. Westminster Quarters, the melody all clock towers played all over London. I turned toward it slightly, listening to see how much it would play: half the tune, so half past the hour. I should head back to King’s Cross if I wanted to make it to the new job I’d picked up. It wasn’t much, just marking assignments in an after-school program, but I could go right from there to my bartending shift every evening. No time for dinner or a break, but, changing trains at Victoria, I got to hear a mustachioed old man sing soul-rattling opera arias, busking on the stairs to the Circle and District line platform. A microdose of London magic, just enough to remind me what the hustle was for.
“I guess you have to get going,” Callum said, following my eyes to the clock tower. “I’ll get the legal letter together today and send it to my uncle. I’ll let you know when there’s anything to know.”
“I’m very grateful,” I said. “It’s a lot of work. Thank you.” I forced myself to look into his eyes. “I wasn’t even sure you’d answer my email. I know I don’t deserve all this help.”
I’d made a soft sort of peace with my fall from grace, my lowered life. Most days I could tell myself I hadn’t lost anything truly worth having. Standing here, with Callum, that felt untrue. But could he tell?
Probably this was the last time I’d see him; nothing more to discuss in person. And so, even though it wasn’t our custom, I leaned in quickly for a real hug—American style, tight, no phony air-kisses. His arms on my back felt warm, and I wanted to disappear into him. To keep my body pressed here against his, keep his breath in my hair. But then, too soon, there was cool cemetery air between us again. A breeze from the train tracks shuffled through us, through the ash tree, and I thanked him again. Then I turned, shouldered my bag, reached out for the empty coffee cup I’d left on the bench.
Callum put his arm out, catching my hand as I stretched for the cup. He said nothing, but used the hand to tug me closer, until I stood in front of him, close, face-to-face. I could smell the sweetness of the coffee on his breath.
He held my hand, looking down at it between us, like he was mustering courage. I wanted him to put his fingers on my chin, tip my face up to his, kiss me again, like he had in Lisbon. Pull me closer, close the inches between our bodies.
Finally, he said, as if he’d been trying to find the right words, “Anna, if you need a loan, you know I’d be glad to do that.”
He was watching for my reaction. Probably to see if I was offended, which I wasn’t. I was sick. I was sinking into the ground. Here I stood, thinking he might want me, but all he felt for me was pity.
He seemed to take my crushed silence as a positive sign. “It’d just be until we see if the letter works,” he said, nodding encouragingly. “So you can make your payments.”
I extracted my hand from his. “Thank you,” I said. “It’s very kind. But I can’t do that.”
“It’s just a loan,” he said quietly. “Just money.”
I wanted so much more from him than that.
I shook my head and stepped back. “I know what everyone says about me. That I’m a scammer. A grifter.” I tried to smile. “Saying no is the only thing that makes that not true. I need it to be not true.” I had grifted, but it wasn’t for money. It was simpler, the thing I’d needed since the day my mother died. A place to be loved.