11. The Core Principles of Magnetism
Briar wakes with post-nap panic to discover that they’ve missed dinner.
At home their mum always wakes them, but here nobody cares if Briar eats at appropriate intervals.
They’re slumping downstairs to find food, sweaty and confused, when Tate appears, a vision in comparison to Briar’s dishevelment.
He’s moisturised and glowing, exuding the energy of the recently showered, wearing all black: wide-leg trousers with a high, tailored waist and a silky shirt unbuttoned halfway to his navel.
He’s got silver rings on every finger, and his earring today is a tiny skull, garnet eyes flashing in its sockets.
Briar checks the door to the common room instinctively, tensed for trouble.
This is not the sort of outfit that can fly remotely under the radar, and Tate doesn’t seem to care at all.
‘Hi,’ he says. ‘Do you want to come to a party?’
Briar’s pride says no, but they know it’s counterintuitive. You can’t sulk when nobody includes you and then choose more sulking over potential fun when they do. They swallow it down. ‘Yep.’
‘Stunning.’
They stumble back upstairs and get changed quickly - black jeans, black tank, short-sleeved black cotton shirt left hanging open - and when they rejoin Tate in the lobby he smiles approvingly.
‘We match.’
The Eden Dame walks out of her office when they’re halfway out of the door and clears her throat.
She’s a greying, middle-aged butch obsessed with her sausage dog; Briar has barely spoken to her, but she smiles at them perfunctorily in the hallways sometimes.
Her name is a mystery. The scholars call her ma’am, which she visibly hates.
‘Do up some buttons, Adams, for the love of God,’ she says, her heart not fully in it.
‘You’re lucky you’re not in my house or I’d have to do something about this.
’ What she’d actually be able to do about it is unclear; Briar assumes some code of conduct must prevent scholars from using the Work on their own Dames, but can’t help but think that an honour system in a place like this is flawed from the outset.
Tate just waggles his fingers at her and smiles like he hasn’t heard a word she’s said, and then scarpers with Briar in tow.
Briar remembers what Daniel said about Tate - a violent breakdown - and can’t quite reconcile the affable guy in satin with this version of events.
You don’t know him, Briar reminds themself. You don’t know any of them.
It’s a muggy evening of the sort that makes you feel like you never stepped outside, the sky above a dark ceiling, the temperature warm and even. Briar still doesn’t feel quite awake as they approach the edge of campus, and an unfamiliar building.
It’s a cottage. It looks like accommodation built for faculty to live on site like some of the other teacher’s quarters, but it’s on the wrong side of the grounds, and there’s no gold plaque hammered into the ground by the gate that proclaims STAFF ONLY.
‘Whose house is this?’ Briar asks, and Tate’s nose wrinkles, making his glasses jump.
‘Um, it’s not really anyone’s house. It’s called the Study, it belongs to Mons. They don’t sleep here, but it’s a sort of . . . club house.’
Briar had been following Tate through the open gate; they stop abruptly, exactly on the line that divides general grounds from cottage garden.
‘Mons?’
‘You have to be specifically invited,’ Tate says, sounding apologetic, ‘and they invited us, and it seems like a trap, but Hadley thought it would be a good idea to go . . . If they’re pretending they don’t know it’s us messing with them, we should also pretend it isn’t, you know?’
‘I wasn’t invited.’
‘Well, no, but you’re taking West’s place, and if it all goes south just pretend you’re here fixing a toilet or something. West’s too ill to come.’
‘Is his leg bothering him?’
‘Mmm.’ Tate touches Briar’s arm lightly. ‘Come on. You can always leave.’
Inside, the house is eclectically furnished and hazy with smoke.
Freed from the obligations of everyday practicalities, the large living room is arranged more like an upscale pub, four tables surrounded by comfortable wingback chairs and a fully stocked bar at one end.
There are twin suits of armour hefting pikes on either side of the large, open archway that leads into a formal dining room beyond.
It’s packed with people; to the right, they’re drinking in the cool glow of the kitchen, and directly ahead they’re leaning over the bannisters of the steep stairs.
Somebody’s put up incongruously tacky multi coloured string lights, and they flash hopefully at intervals.
The guests are wearing a mix of formal clothes and sports kit: polos and linens, suits, rugby shirts and chinos.
A boy on the sofa has a younger, uniformed girl on his knee.
A group by the bar are playing some sort of drinking game that involves throwing ping-pong balls at a very shrivelled, badly taxidermised heron perched open-beaked on a plinth.
Tate laughs at the expression on Briar’s face and then pushes through the crowd; he grabs Briar’s hand out of necessity, and Briar feels sweaty and stupid, wondering if their palms are like sandpaper from all the heavy lifting they’ve been doing recently.
‘Have you seen Watson?’ Tate says to a guy built like two rugby players glued together; he shakes his head, then pinkens a bit and takes a big glug of his drink. Briar can’t tell if he’s harbouring a crush or if he’s embarrassed to have been seen talking to Tate at all. Could be both, around here.
They find Hadley in the games room at the back of the house.
It’s a conservatory mostly taken up by a billiards table, expensive speakers thumping on a side table, the glass doors constantly opening and closing as people step outside into the garden to join the al fresco contingent there.
Briar isn’t sure why they’re bothering - it’s clear that quite a few people have been smoking various substances inside the house.
‘Close the fucking door,’ somebody yells, and Briar recognises tall, raven-haired Belcourt in a branded black polo, his mouth still sore and crusty. ‘Noise complaints, Smith! We said low key. I swear to fucking God, if we actually get shut down I’ll kill you.’
Hadley is in the corner with another girl.
She’s also blonde, but somehow they’re polar opposites.
Hadley is skinny and raw-boned, this other girl is well-built and soft around the edges; Hadley’s hair is bleached bone white, and her friend has natural, honey-coloured beach waves pulled up into two ponytails like spaniel’s ears.
She gives off the robust air of somebody who’d be good at drinking games and contact sports.
‘Hi,’ Hadley’s friend says immediately, before Tate can start introductions. She offers a hand to be shaken, and Briar hesitates for a second before taking it. She has a very strong grip. ‘I’m Sophie Derbyshire, I’m Watson’s roommate.’
‘Briar Jones,’ says Briar. ‘I work here.’
‘I know, isn’t it funny?’ says Sophie. Briar doesn’t really know what to say to this. ‘Adams, this is your problem now.’ She gives Hadley a loud kiss on the forehead, slaps her gently on the cheek a couple of times and then leaves.
Briar wonders what the problem is and then registers the sheer size of Hadley’s pupils.
‘Oh dear,’ says Tate. ‘Hads, are we having a fun one?’
‘Yep,’ says Hadley. She’s wearing leather shorts and a black top with uneven, raw-hemmed cutouts, wide stripes of skin on display, so pale Briar can see the blue map of her veins. Her eye make-up takes up approximately half of her face. ‘Yep, yep, yep.’
Tate takes her firmly by the arm, linking their elbows like he’s going to promenade her through a park. ‘You’ve convinced me. I’m like . . . extremely convinced.’
‘I’ll get her some water,’ Briar says. It takes a bit of shoving to get back to the kitchen, and once Briar’s in, they notice a boy standing by the sink with a glass of rosé in his hand.
He’s wearing a blue-and-pink pinstriped Ralph Lauren dress shirt with the logo far too big, cuffs open and trailing, a white undershirt just visible where he hasn’t done up his collar.
Brown curls, full, pouty lips, red cheeks like a drunken cherub; he’s absolutely not Briar’s type, but now that they’ve seen him, they can’t stop looking.
It’s convenient that he’s standing by the sink.
That means it’s only natural to make an approach.
Briar finds a clean-ish glass, rinses it and fills it, taking their time, letting the water spill over the edges and run over their fingers.
The boy is holding court with a small group of scholars, more than half of them girls, an impressive ratio at a party like this where they’re in short supply; he’s talking about the college he’s applying to at Oxford, carding a hand through his hair as he does, lazy and self-satisfied in a way that should be annoying.
Briar watches his hand as he musses his curls, fixes them, musses them again.
‘That’s so interesting,’ one of the girls says. Her eyes are following that hand, too.
Briar turns off the tap but doesn’t move, trying to make out the initials on the guy’s signet ring.
A. L. Alexander? Arthur? Andrew? Alexander seems right.
He’s going to try out for rowing. He’s going to start a company with his dad when he leaves school.
Briar inches closer. He’s got a dog. The dog is a red golden retriever called Nero.
He’s got a picture on his phone. Briar loves the picture.
Everyone does, but Briar thinks maybe they love it the most.