‘You’re right,’ she says. ‘I’m not at the university. I wish I was. The truth is that I had a bit of a falling out with my parents a month or so ago. I was at uni in Manchester, but I dropped out of my course – I wasn’t enjoying it, I don’t think it was really what I wanted to do – and they weren’t happy about it. It got to the point where I just needed to get away, so I came here – I always liked Oxford, and I thought I’d be able to get a job. I still might … I haven’t been looking very hard.’ She stops for breath, marvelling at how easily the words have come, without her even having to formulate a story in her head beforehand. Adam has straightened up on the bed, his dark brown eyes serious and sympathetic.
‘This falling out with your parents, is it bad?’ he asks.
Lydia weighs up the possibilities. She doesn’t want to be seen as a martyr, complete with a complicated family feud that she might well have to keep enhancing and adding to as the weeks go by. ‘Not really,’ she says carefully. ‘They understood that I needed some space. They expect that I’ll go back to studying eventually, and I’m sure I will. I think they think of this as more of a gap year.’
Adam nods, relieved; this is safer ground. ‘I don’t know why you didn’t just tell me in the first place,’ he says a little aggrievedly. ‘Did you think I only talk to Oxford girls?’
‘No, of course not,’ she says hurriedly. ‘But, you know, when we met … in the lecture theatre … it seemed the obvious thing to say. I know I shouldn’t really have been at that lecture, but I’m … I’m interested in literature.’ Again, Adam appears to accept this, half-truth as it is, without thinking it too strange. He visibly relaxes, obviously relieved at having solved the puzzle, and for the first time he shoots her a warm and genuine smile.
‘Well, I like a woman of mystery anyway,’ he says flirtatiously. ‘Look, I’m due at a tutorial in half an hour, so I’m going to have to go. But do you want to meet up tomorrow? I’m having a few people round for drinks in my room in the evening, about nine probably – nothing major, but if you want to come it would be good to see you. Again.’
‘Will—’ she begins, and then cuts herself short. She had been going to ask whether Isobel would be there, but realises it is none of her business. ‘Will you give me your number?’ she covers up. ‘Then perhaps I can call you tomorrow and we’ll see.’
‘Sure.’ She watches him cross to her dressing table and jot down the number on the edge of her notebook. From behind, he looks tall and imposing, a grown man already, and it makes her feel young and, briefly, inadequate. She shakes the thought off, going to join him.
‘Just one thing,’ she says, putting her hand hesitantly on the sleeve of his coat. ‘If I do come along tomorrow, I’d rather that nobody else knows my situation. I’d rather they thought I was at the university. It makes things easier,’ she finishes lamely. She knows it sounds foolish, and can’t really understand her reluctance herself for one lie to be replaced with another. Adam looks as if he might argue, then he nods.
‘OK,’ he says. ‘It’ll be our secret.’ The words please him, it seems. He’s standing very close to her, so close that his citrus-spiked aftershave prickles her nose. Very lightly, he puts one hand on the small of her back and the other to her cheek, two fleeting caresses that leave the parts he has touched tingling. Only two or three times before has she been this close to being kissed. On every occasion, the moment itself proved a letdown, a damp squib instead of an exploding rocket. She moves away from Adam and holds the door open for him. She won’t risk the disappointment again.
‘See you tomorrow,’ she says. ‘Maybe.’ He nods and brushes her arm briefly as he leaves. From her vantage point in the attic room, she watches him as he steps out on to the street, strolls down it with his hands in his pockets and then, restlessly, as if he can’t keep all his jolting and jumping nerves still, breaks into a brisk jog. She stays at the window until he has become little more than a bobbing shape on the horizon. Turning back into the room, she starts to remove the heads of the scarlet roses carefully one by one, discarding the dripping stems.
The next night Lydia stands in the porter’s lodge at Lincoln College, shivering in her thin coat. It’s raining again, and she has been sheltering in the lodge for almost quarter of an hour. When she arrived, she sent Adam a text message: ‘By the entrance to your college. I don’t know where your room is – come down and meet me if you like.’ She knows she should have called him, but when it came to it, she couldn’t face the possibility of hearing his voice turn distant and unfriendly, regretting the invitation. Cursing herself, she hugs her arms around her chest, shifting from foot to foot. This is ridiculous, but she can’t face turning round and going back out into the cold, hailing a taxi and spending another night alone with Sandra’s television blaring downstairs.
Suddenly she hears a commotion across the quad. Peering into the dark, she can just make out a figure running towards her, feet pounding wetly on stone. Part of her already knows, but it’s only when he passes under a solitary floodlight that she sees it is Adam. He runs into the lodge and envelops her in a sudden hug, crushing her against him. He’s brought the smell of the rain with him – damp grass and the faint, musty scent of earth. In the fuzzy half-light of the lodge, Lydia looks into his eyes and feels dizzy.
‘Sorry,’ he gasps, panting from his exertions. ‘I had some music on and didn’t hear my phone, I only just got your text. Have you been waiting ages?’
‘Not at all,’ she lies, smiling radiantly. ‘Am I late?’
‘Not at all,’ he says in turn. ‘Come with me.’
They run back across the quad together in the dark, hand in hand, her unreliable high heels slipping and sliding along the rain-washed stone. By the time they reach the other side her hair is soaked and plastered to her scalp. Laughing, she wrings it out as she hurries up the staircase after Adam. They climb several flights of stairs, each one winding closer and tighter than the last. He has an attic room too, she thinks, and feels stupidly pleased at the note of similarity. When they near the door she hears the music thumping behind it, and the shouts and screeches of laughter tumbling over each other from what sounds like a dozen or more voices. She freezes; she isn’t used to this. She had vaguely imagined a select group of Oxford students, sitting sedately around a bottle of wine and talking about literature, but this sounds more like a lunatic asylum. Adam sees her apprehension and grins, steering her towards the door.
‘Don’t worry, no one’s that pissed yet,’ he says. His words have the opposite effect of their calming intention on Lydia, who finds it hard to envisage the carnage that could come later. Numbly she allows herself to be shepherded through the door and into the bedroom. People are draped over the bed and chairs, lounging on the floor and perched on the windowsill. A couple are smoking a joint out of the window, deep in animated conversation. Others are bellowing along to the thrash metal track that is blaring from the stereo, so absorbed in it that they don’t even turn round. A couple of girls shout Adam’s name drunkenly, beaming red-lipsticked smiles and raising their arms to the air in delight. She recognises one of them as Carla, the Latin-looking girl in the club. As they approach Carla points at her and smiles again, her dark eyes half closing in recognition.
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