Chapter 2 #2
About ten different retorts shot through my head, but they’d have pissed off Zoe as well.
Thankfully, Ashton beat me to the punch.
He tutted and shot his friend a look of reproach.
‘Don’t be rude, Vic. Her name is Mabel.’ With a blithe smile, he turned to me.
‘It means “lovable”, doesn’t it? Pretty name. ’
‘I’m not the one who chose it,’ I replied matter-of-factly.
A nudge from Zoe made me add, ‘But on behalf of my parents, thank you very much.’ Possibly I wasn’t hiding my cynicism as well as I thought, because Zoe’s fingers dug deeper into my side.
My coat gave me a bit of cushioning, but I bit my lip to hold back any further remarks.
Ashton was still smiling. ‘So, lovable Mabel. In case you missed the introductions last week: this is Victor, Norah and’—he turned and jerked his head at Cliff, who was still staring fixedly at the book, as though the letters might jump out and rescue him—‘Blake.’
For a few dogged seconds, my brain wouldn’t budge.
Sometimes, when you hear something totally unexpected, your mind acts momentarily like it didn’t even notice.
I only realised I’d been holding my breath once the five bogus letters had sunk to the bottom of my sea of thoughts. I exhaled a bit too loudly.
‘Blake.’ The name skidded off my tongue, floundering. Half a question, audibly bewildered, and instantly I wished I could take it back.
Slowly he raised his head to look at me.
He made no response, but his eyes told me more than I wanted to know.
In them I saw pure indifference: only the taut muscles in his jaw betrayed the tension he was feeling.
He looked angry. Angry because I was forcing him to join the conversation, because I had made it obvious – if only to him – that we’d already met.
Or perhaps he was simply angry with himself for allowing it.
He probably regretted not immediately throwing me out on my arse.
Thank God he hadn’t been reckless enough to tell me his real name.
Where would the elites of this world be if they showed the slightest spark of interest or decency towards people like me?
And why was I even surprised? He did tell me he was an excellent liar.
I felt the back of my neck grow hot, a single-minded spreading warmth. It dug the burning tips of its fingers into my cheeks, warped the corners of my mouth and etched itself into my vocal cords. ‘Another pretty name. It means “honest”, doesn’t it?’ I said, keeping my tone friendly.
He arched his eyebrows, but otherwise his expression did not change. ‘“Dark”, actually.’
The sound of his voice made me flinch a little. It was deep, a little rough, and – worst of all – familiar. Maybe part of me had been hoping he had a surly twin brother.
‘Ah,’ I said, drawing out the syllable. ‘My mistake.’ The smile I’d plastered on my face was becoming increasingly painful, as was the piercing gaze he had fixed on me. A mute, stay quiet.
I had more to say but choked it back. It was true: it was my mistake. My mistake to think even for a split second that someone I met at a party like that could be anything but a lying bastard.
Ashton had been following our exchange closely, and now he tilted his head. ‘Would you like to join us?’
Zoe’s mouth flipped into a sickle moon, lighting up her whole face. Apparently, she hadn’t noticed that his friends seemed less enthusiastic about the prospect of spending their free time with us.
I wished I still had a coffee to throw at them, wipe the looks of resentment and irritation off their smug faces. Instead, I laid my hand protectively on Zoe’s arm. ‘We’ve got plans.’
Zoe sighed. ‘Come on, you know I don’t really need to be there. Anyway, I’m sure Davie would love to have you all to himself for half an hour.’
My cheeks grew hot. ‘He’s your friend too, Zoe.’
She shook off my hand, glaring at me stubbornly. ‘Yep, so say hi for me. I’ll see you later, Mabel.’
I hadn’t even opened my mouth to reply before she was walking away from me.
Ashton shifted readily aside to make room for her on the step.
Suddenly I felt an urge to reach out and stop her.
A hint of foreboding, the tip of an unfathomable fear darting through my mind.
I did nothing. Just gripped the strap of my bag until I felt the leather flex.
As she sat down I turned to go, and for a moment my eye caught Cliff’s. No, Blake’s. The colour of his irises seemed even blacker than before, although it was much brighter out here than in the little library.
At that moment, I was struck by the thought that certain things seem darker in the light of day than they do by night. And that I still very much wanted to throw coffee in their faces. Especially his.
I turned on my heel without a word and left.
Zoe’s laughter was ringing in my ears, quickening my steps until the sound was lost amid the hubbub of the other students.
The university fanned out before me, but the further I walked, the more I had the creeping feeling that I was leaving its centre behind.
* * *
The editorial office of the Blue News was tucked away in a corner at the far end of Trinity College, nearly a ten-minute walk from the main entrance.
Davie’s usual joke, whenever he was grumbling about another rejected grant application, was that the location of the office was a metaphor for how little the university appreciated its student newspaper.
Still, when the door swung open to my knock, I remembered immediately how much I liked the room’s seclusion. It was roughly twenty square metres in size, with four work stations crammed between filing cabinets, archive racks and trolleys stacked with long-overdue library books.
In summer, the windows were thick with wisteria, but by now its tendrils had lost their blossoms, and the noonday light fell serenely across the carpet.
Specks of dust danced in the narrow bands of sunshine, which seemed to be everywhere.
Davie was by the open window, standing in a patch of light.
Eyes closed, head back. The breeze had brought out the gooseflesh on his bare arms. The old radio on his desk was playing, tinnily blaring a song by The Smiths.
‘You know you can air out the room every once in a while, even when you don’t have visitors, right?’ I shut the door behind me with a teasing grin and walked towards him.
Davie turned. The sun shimmered on his brown skin and the depths of his dark eyes. ‘I just spend my whole life trying to make you feel special, Mabel.’
‘Right back at you. Hence the fancy sandwiches from Nero’s.’
I set down the paper bags on Davie’s desk.
Positioned directly in front of the draughty window, it was the reason for his semi-constant cold.
Unlike everybody else on the editorial staff, Davie spent the most time in this room.
He was the only one with a key to the building and a permanent desk, the one who spent hours cooking up ideas for new articles and proofreading the layout of the upcoming edition for the twentieth time.
Davie insisted there was no editor-in-chief at the Blue News: they aimed to be a democratic, everybody’s equal type of publication.
But ever since I’d heard the others calling him ‘Commander’, I hadn’t given that much credence.
‘My hero.’ Davie shut the window and collapsed into his chair.
I sat down on a chair on the other side of the desk. He always put the chairs out when we were meeting for lunch. Over the past few months, it had become one of my favourite rituals.
We had met at the Cambridge v. Oxford Boat Race.
One of the biggest events of the year, it took its celebration of the long-standing rivalry between the two elite universities to the point of absurdity.
I hadn’t been able to muster up much enthusiasm at the idea of travelling all the way into London for it, but Zoe declared that you couldn’t call yourself a proper Cambridge student until you’d experienced it for yourself.
After two hours spent shivering on the freezing cold banks of the Thames, waiting for the boats to pass by, I still didn’t get it.
‘Does it make me a bad person if I want one of them to fall in?’ someone next to me asked as the long rowing boats finally shot past, to an eruption of cheers and whoops around us.
‘Depends,’ I said, with a glance at the camera he was pointing towards the water. ‘Is that for personal or professional reasons?’
He sighed deeply. ‘Sadly, I don’t think the answer will make me any more endearing.’
He was wrong about that.
‘Where’s Zoe?’ asked Davie now, unwrapping his avocado sandwich from its greaseproof paper.
Immediately my smile faltered. My eyes flitted to the bag containing Zoe’s veggie wrap, which I had reflexively placed in front of the chair next to me. ‘She got held up,’ I said, doing my best to sound guileless. ‘She told me to say hi.’
Feigning guilelessness never worked on Davie. Journalistic instinct, he called it. I called it being an exhaustingly good judge of character. He arched his eyebrows, lowering the sandwich. ‘Did you two fall out?’
I picked some watercress out of my sandwich. ‘No. She just got waylaid by one of those arrogant pricks from Trinity College.’
Davie cradled his chin in his hand, his interest piqued. The sandwich evidently forgotten. Typical Davie: no matter how hungry he was, when he was on the trail of a good story, everything else went by the wayside. ‘And you don’t think much of him?’
‘Dunno really. I haven’t spoken to him much.
’ Anything else would be a lie. I couldn’t say what kind of person Ashton was.
Lurking underneath that marble facade might be a kind-hearted man of unexpected depth.
I wanted to believe that, for Zoe’s sake.
But the truth was, I could sense something wasn’t right about him. He put me on edge.
‘Then why are you concerned?’ Davie asked.