As they got closer to Cambridge, though, Elspeth’s chatter had died away. Perhaps she was concentrating on the unfamiliar roads but Misty sensed it was more than that. Her mother, the most down-to-earth, suffer-no-fools person she knew, was daunted. Was it just that Misty was flying the nest? That tonight Elspeth would drive back by herself to a house from which her eldest child was missing? Or was it just the thought of Cambridge and everything that came with it?
Misty was excited, not daunted. When they arrived, she was the one who announced herself to the porters and collected her room key, whilst her mum waited in the car, fretting about a parking ticket and who knew what else. With a temporary college permit in the windscreen, Elspeth agreed to come inside for just long enough to see Misty’s room and have a cup of tea. They’d picked up some supplies at a petrol station on the A14: milk, bread, teabags, a tub of margarine and two tins of ham. Misty put the kettle on and opened the cupboards. One had some breakfast cereal and a bottle of red wine in it but the others were empty. There was one carton of milk in the fridge. So, either Misty was the second to arrive, or else the others were even more cavalier about sustenance than Miss Muesli and herself.
She had the two mugs of tea in her hands when the kitchen door swung open towards her.
‘Oh. Hello. I thought I heard someone else. I’ve been waiting all day. I’m Alexandra Penrith.’
The girl was half a head taller than Misty, slim, with lustrous dark curls and the poshest accent Misty had ever heard. She stuck out her hand in a rather formal way, but her smile was broad and genuine.
Misty shrugged, glancing down at the mugs she was holding and they both giggled. Alexandra dropped her hand and turned to hold the door open instead.
‘I’m Misty Jardine. My mum’s just leaving,’ said Misty. ‘I mean, once she’s had this.’ She nodded down at the tea. ‘What room number are you?’
‘Six. And you?’
‘Two.’
‘Great. Come and find me when you’re ready. I’ll be unpacking and accosting random strangers.’
You could arrive on Friday or Saturday. It turned out that only three girls from the corridor of eight were there the first night. The third looked around fourteen, whispered that she was called Emma and was studying maths and locked herself in her room. Misty and Alexandra – who said she preferred to be called Alex – chatted awkwardly in Alex’s room. She’d brought actual furniture – a desk with elaborate carving that looked Indian to Misty’s untrained eye and a pair of woven cane chairs, laden with sari-silk cushions. The bed itself looked the same as Misty’s, but it was piled with more of the jewel-coloured cushions and swathed in an intricately embroidered throw.
‘Wow, this is incredible,’ said Misty, forgetting to try to be cool.
‘Well, I just couldn’t tolerate the awful stuff here, so Daddy arranged with the porters to stash it in storage. It’s so important to be able to express yourself, isn’t it? They don’t know about the picture hooks yet –’ she gestured towards a couple of frames hanging above the bed; Misty definitely remembered there being something in the information leaflet about it being expressly forbidden to attach anything other than Blu-Tack to the wall ‘– but I’m sure I can talk them round.’
Misty thought of the two posters waiting to go up in her own room. One was Morrissey, the other a cute Labrador puppy. Both were a bit tatty having been up in her room at home. Would they count as self-expression in Alex’s book?
They missed the canteen – which Alex informed her was called the buttery – which was on reduced opening hours because it wasn’t yet officially term time.
‘Well, we could get something in town?’ suggested Alex, as they stood in a drizzly quad in front of the locked buttery door, clutching the mimeographed maps of college they had been given on arrival.
Misty had £22 in her purse. It had to last her until she sorted out a bank account and her grant came through. College food would go on a college bill that she could pay off at the end of term. She might not have got her head round the terminology but she was straight on that much. She thought of the tinned ham and loaf of bread in the cupboard. It wasn’t appealing, but she wouldn’t starve. Would Alex despise her if she suggested a ham sandwich?
‘Are you okay?’
Before she could answer, they were interrupted by a cough behind them.
‘Is the buttery closed, then?’
They turned to see another girl. Like Alex, she was wearing stonewashed jeans, pearl studs in her ears and a blazer-type jacket. Misty couldn’t decide whether to feel insecure, but settled on mildly amused.
‘I’m Karen Cooper. I just arrived today.’
‘First year?’ asked Alex, and, when Karen nodded, she added, ‘Us too. We’re just going to get something to eat, actually. There’s a nice little bistro place not far away. I don’t want to seem bossy, but my family live here, so I know my way around.’
‘Sounds good.’ Karen nodded. ‘Let’s go.’
They both turned to Misty, and she hesitated for a moment, thinking of the tinned ham and the £22. She’d have to go and see the grant office first thing tomorrow. She wasn’t about to skulk back to her room with her tail between her legs.
‘Okay,’ she agreed, ‘let’s go.’
*
The skies were threatening rain and Alex led the way purposefully. Karen, who had long legs and a graceful stride, kept up easily, but Misty found herself distracted at every turn. There was so much to look at as they hurried through streets lined with medieval colleges that looked like castles, and passed rosy pub windows and clothes shops that Misty had heard of but never seen on any high street she visited.
‘Your parents are academics then?’ Karen addressed her question to Alex, but didn’t wait for a response. ‘Didn’t you want to go away to university? Why not Oxford?’
Misty’s ears pricked. Getting away had been her dream for as long as she could remember, but then she’d never really thought about people who lived in places like this already – who didn’t need to escape to them.
Side-on, in the street light, she could see that Alex made a face, but wasn’t sure exactly what her expression meant.
‘It’s a bit complicated,’ she said, eventually. ‘My mum would say I need looking after. I would say she does.’ She gave a hollow laugh. ‘You two have waved your parents on their merry way, haven’t you? I’d swap places with either of you if I could.’
Misty felt taken aback, as if Alex could read her mind. Only a moment ago she’d been thinking about how Alex’s life seemed impossibly charmed. But it didn’t appear that Alex felt that way.
‘We’re here anyway,’ Alex announced. ‘Not the best restaurant in Cambridge. But one of the closest. And just in time.’ She stuck her hand out, and, sure enough, there were fat raindrops starting to plop from the sky. They hurried through the doorway.
Once they were seated at a generous table by the window, a waiter brought menus and Alex announced, ‘We’ll have a bottle of house champagne.’ Panicked, Misty gave a small cough. Splashing out on a ‘cheap’ meal was one thing; this she hadn’t bargained for.
‘Please don’t worry, darlings.’ Alex lowered her voice. ‘My dad’s always in here; he’s got an account. This is my treat – or should I say his.’ There