There was something in that glimpse of Marina that made me think that she would understand this position. I felt that she was set apart from others – that she didn’t live according to their customs. She, like me, could perhaps manipulate her face to seem interested in conversations that she didn’t really care about. She, like me, perhaps made hilariously sarcastic asides that other people didn’t pick up on. I was interested in seeing whether she lived up to this expectation and – if so – what her real thoughts and ideas were. So that’s why I looked out for her in those first few weeks of term. That’s why I made a note of her Facebook page, added it to my bookmarks, checked it every day.
In the initial seminars and lectures, I also kept an eye out for Marina. I would shuffle into the theatre, waiting for others to pass, eagerly noting whenever someone blonde or slight or vaguely short walked by. But it was never her. On a second glance I’d notice that they were in fact too tall, or their legs too stumpy; otherwise I’d glimpse a notebook and see a different name scrawled on the front. Soon I began to assume that ‘Marina’ had decided not to come to Northam after all. She must have received another offer from somewhere else at the last minute – or she’d been added to the group by mistake.
The days sloped by. I went to lectures and then retreated to my room. I looked at what other people were doing online and felt depressed about my state of isolation. Nothing, it seemed, was going to make me happy, to subdue that swell of anxiety – the suspicion that I was wasting my potential.
ii.
It was a Wednesday when it happened, that much I remember. I was feeling groggy that day, having spent the previous evening at a fresher’s event, and then in my room with some random guy whose name I have thankfully forgotten. At around two in the afternoon – unable to bear the stale smell of salt-sweat any longer – I decided to go to a lecture. I showered, dressed, left my building, crossed the campus, and then sat down in the corner of the theatre. The lecture itself was uninteresting. I sat through it passively; looking at the clock; glancing at my phone under the desk; scribbling notes for show.
When it had finished I walked down towards the exit. I was about to leave when I heard the voice of the professor: ‘That’s not quite how it works, Marina.’
Slowly I turned my head.
A girl of about five foot six was stood at the lectern. Her back was turned, but I could see that she had long blonde hair, slightly curled at the ends. Her head was cocked to the side. Now it shook vehemently.
‘I’m sorry, I know how it sounds,’ the professor continued, ‘but my hands are tied.’
‘Hands tied how?’
‘This isn’t suitable for discussion now.’
‘Hands tied how?’ she said again.
He lifted his head and looked cautiously around. His glasses tilted up from the end of his nose.
‘If you’ve already transferred to a different subject,’ he said, ‘then you can’t transfer back. That’s all there is to it, I can’t help you.’
I looked at the professor closely for a moment. He was a man of about sixty, with a protruding stomach and a sweaty flat face like a coin. Usually he wore an ironic expression – raised brow, curled lip, a smug glint in his eye. Yet his features seemed to have lost their composure. His mouth moved with sudden jerks, his eyebrows twitched; below them his eyes looked hollow and unfocused. He seemed unnerved by the girl in front of him – the girl whose face I couldn’t see, whose words I couldn’t quite hear.
I edged forwards, pretending to pack files into my bag.
‘You can help me. Of course you can. You’re the course convenor.’
‘No. It’s not that simple.’
‘Why?’
‘I shouldn’t have to explain.’
‘You’re a lecturer. It’s your job to explain. And anyway,’ she shrugged slightly, ‘I deserve an explanation. You of all people know that.’
The professor laughed in a forced, shallow manner: lightly at the back of his throat. The sound echoed around the room. I watched him push a hand through patchy hair, embarrassed and smiling. Then he glanced around again and caught my eye. At that moment his expression shifted: his features stabilized, became authoritative, patient, ironic.
‘Well I’ve said all that I can tell you,’ the professor’s voice was now resonant and calm. ‘Which is, that if you have any concerns then they should be sent to me in an email, copying in the head of department.’
Marina began to object, but before she could trap him in further conversation he cut her off, muttering darkly about pressing engagements. He gathered his papers together and lifted his overcoat onto his back. Then he smiled tersely at her, at me, and shuffled out the door.
Marina bent down to pick up her satchel from the floor and swung it over her shoulder. Then she sighed theatrically and turned around – and I saw her face for the first time.
It was slimmer than I’d expected, with high cheekbones and a slightly pointed chin. Those sharp shapes, mixed with her snub little nose, gave her an almost goblin-like appearance, and yet they were balanced out by a smattering of freckles and a full, bow-like mouth. Now, even though she was frowning – her brow furrowed, her mouth knitted into a downwards curve – the expression was childish somehow. There was an air of innocence, of mischief about her.
As she walked past me, she looked right into my face and her frown deepened.
Her eyes were green, I noticed, with small flecks of gold in them.
Alone in the lecture hall I reflected on the confrontation I’d just seen. Marina’s blunt manner amazed me. At school, those who engaged in backchat with the teachers were mostly layabouts without much wit, whose interjections consistently fell short of the mark. I’d often felt a prudish satisfaction watching their snark dissolve into humiliated silence: the corners of their mouths drooping, their eyes turning to the table.
With Marina it wasn’t like that. She seemed not only to be tolerated but respected by the professor. His reaction had not been reproachful or even impatient, but nervous. It was as though he suspected that she had the power to publicly humiliate him in some way. He had solicited her approval even while he was rebuking her.
iii.
I thought about this as I walked down the corridor until I realized I was in front of the pinboard. I looked up at the timetable showing the times and places of all the seminars, scanned them quickly. I wondered how many clashed with my commitments. Might I be able to turn up to some of them, just to see if she was there? Then I thought: that is impractical. She’d said she wasn’t on the English course. There was no reason to think that she’d be attending any of the other seminars.
A better bet would be to find her outside of lectures: in the library for example. I went to the library, but she wasn’t there. Not in the open downstairs area. Not in the creepy silent room. Not on the nooks of the upper floor by the archives. She wasn’t in the café, nor the dining area, nor the bar. She wasn’t in the campus shop.
On my way back to my room, I took a detour to the other side of campus, towards the bougie accommodation. Two girls were sat on a bench, and I overheard one of them complaining to her friend about having sunburned the ‘rooves’ of her feet while on holiday in St-Tropez.
‘Rosa,’ the other girl said, ‘Is rooves actually a word?’
‘Obviously it’s a word. It’s the tops of houses.’
‘Or