I could hear someone laughing loudly. A slim almond-shaped fingernail tapped the butt of the cigarette, and sprinkles of ash fell from the sky.
It was her, I was sure of it.
I bent forward, squinting, and saw a trickle of wavy blonde hair spill across the sill. A head turned, and took a drag from the cigarette. It could feasibly be her, I reasoned, noting the outline of her side profile, comparing it to my mental copy of her profile picture. But she moved too quickly to draw any solid conclusions. Her features blurred together, made her look anonymous.
Abruptly the window snapped shut and the cigarette fell from the sill. It danced through the air down all four floors and landed near me on the concrete. I stared at the blunted end. There was a gentle smudge of lipstick along the butt.
For a second, I thought about picking it up. Then I became aware of a stilted silence nearby.
Turning, I saw that the two girls on the bench had stopped their conversation and were staring at me. Their faces registered a certain amusement, as well as a certain distaste. I realized suddenly how weird I looked. Sheepishly I emerged from the lamp- post and walked past them silently, expressionlessly, without even glancing in their direction.
The next day I walked past that window, and the day after that, but the blinds were drawn.
I didn’t see anyone there again.
***
I dreamed of Northam again last night. The open window. The gentle night breeze. Marina smiling down at me. Her mouth forming the words, her neck snapping back in a fit of laughter.
The dreams are always silent. I don’t hear her laughter. I don’t hear her say the words. But I always know exactly what she is saying. I know how her voice sounds saying it. And I know exactly what her laughter sounds like: the notes quickly rising to a shriek.
I look cautiously around, check that no one is watching. Then I flip the newspaper, curling my shoulders inwards and craning my neck down to peer at her face. I look at her snub chin, the almonds of her eyes, ripe berry of her mouth. I see there is a lock of hair in her face. I reach my hand out. I attempt to brush it away with the tip of my finger.
iv.
The following week I turned up five minutes early to the professor’s lecture. I hovered at the end of the corridor – the one leading to the theatre – and scanned the crowd waiting outside. I couldn’t see her at first, it was so busy and loud – all the faces blurred into one another – and so I edged forward, past the bent knees and bulging rucksacks and forearms crossed over folders. I avoided eye contact with those I vaguely knew, pulling my hair over my face.
Soon there was a commotion behind me: the professor.
He bustled through the group of students, papers waving theatrically in his hand, a murmuring of ‘excuse me’ as he pushed his way forward. Then, at the door, he wavered. I watched him intently. There was a strained look on his face, a kind of suppressed smirk. He looked as though he might have been rehearsing a line in his head. But he said nothing, only glanced sideways briefly, then straightened his shoulders and walked into the lecture hall.
My eyes tracked across in the direction of his glance. She was sat against the wall, reading a book. I noticed she was wearing the same style of dress as the week before, but a deeper shade of blue. Her hair was in a low, neat bun at the nape of her neck and her face was knotted into a little frown. She flipped over a page in the novel and raised an ironic eyebrow.
At that moment the crowd began to trickle into the lecture hall, and she stood up. I watched the dark blue fabric lift and drop as her legs unfolded and straightened. She began to move towards the theatre with them, and I followed where she was going, keeping a good distance behind. There was a spare seat next to her. Avoiding eye contact, I shuffled in and sat down.
Around us I heard the familiar hum of student voices – those awkward few minutes before the start of a lecture which are never quite long enough to make conversation. I stared at my hands. I wondered how to introduce myself. I wondered what I could say that would sound natural. I had never been good at introductory conversations: the ‘hello’ itself was fine, but the segue into small talk always felt stilted. I was terrified of the inevitable silences that would follow and so would pre-emptively fill them with vacuous babble – babble that I found impossible to sustain, so my sentences trailed out, and I would end up awkwardly cutting myself off … Anyway, I kept my mouth shut.
The lecture began. I paid attention this time, partly because the title irritated me: ‘Female novelists in the nineteenth century.’ That categorization was annoying. I had never been a fan of what-was-called women’s fiction, in the same way that I’d never been a fan of what-were-called women’s magazines. I liked the idea instead that literature transcended the boundaries of gender, and thought that to lump together the work of (in this instance) Gaskell and Eliot into a ‘women’s literature’ category was to strip them of a creative freedom that male novelists were automatically afforded. That said, I mostly read men.
There was also a particular reason – a particular detail – which jolted me to pay attention that day. It was a sound bite I happened to pick up on in the first five minutes. After introducing the topic of the lecture, the professor said: ‘Now, who exactly, made up the readership of lady novelists during this period?’
Not female novelists, as the lecture title indicated, or even women novelists, as I might have found acceptable – but lady novelists. Nice ladies. Polite genteel women who behaved themselves. Every time he casually dropped it in, I felt my face flush and my throat constrict in anger.
Now he peered over at the students in the front row, and tapped the pen against the lectern. I resisted the urge to charge to the front of the lecture hall, grab the pen and shove it up his nose.
‘A particularly interesting detail,’ he continued, ‘in fact I should say, a particularly controversial detail featured in the writings of both lady novelists is the—’
Someone cut in: ‘Women.’
The interruption jolted me alert. I felt a prickle of panic at the nape of my neck. The professor stopped speaking.
‘Pardon?’
I looked around. A hundred eyes were now staring towards my row, wide circles of panic and irritation. I thought for a moment that Marina had spoken, but when I turned towards her, I saw that she was looking back at me.
I realized, with horror, that the voice had been mine.
The room spun. To steady myself I turned my eyes away from Marina and looked forwards. The professor had stopped talking. He was squinting in my direction through his glasses. His eyes flicked from me to Marina, seemingly attempting to establish who, exactly, had interrupted him.
He cleared his throat.
‘Pardon?’ he said.
In my periphery I saw Marina fix her gaze upon me. My lower lip felt numb. What the hell was I going to say now? Why had I put myself in this situation? I brought my hands together under the table, laced my fingers so tightly that my knuckles ached.
Suddenly another voice piped up. I recognized a cool, affirmative tone.
‘They’re not lady novelists,’ Marina corrected confidently. ‘They’re women.’
The professor rolled his eyes.
‘Marina, if you have an issue, please send an