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“Who’s a bitch?” The voice came from the doorway to the hall, and Hannah and April both turned sharply.
“Emily!” April said. She put a hand over her heart. “Jesus, don’t do that to me! You gave me a heart attack.”
“Sorry. Are you coming, Han? I was calling your mobile, but you weren’t picking up.”
“Oh, shoot, sorry. It didn’t ring. I must have run out of credit again. Are you sure you’re not coming?” she said to April, but more to show willing than anything else. April never came to formal hall. She claimed it was because she thought it was stuffy and pretentious—both of which were true, though Hannah had a weakness for the ceremony of it all, the Hogwarts theatricality of the rows of black-gowned students, the polished oak benches, the glimmering little lamps dotted all around, the Latin grace. But Hannah suspected it was something else. Something to do with April’s odd relationship with food—the way she would eat six McDonald’s cheeseburgers in a row while out in Oxford on a Saturday night, but then skip lunch every day for a week.
In formal hall there was no escape from the full, waiter-serviced three courses of it all. No possibility of taking a side salad, or scooping your still-laden plate into an anonymous pile at the hatch. You had to order a full meal and then sit there, waiting while everyone else finished, until the staff came to clear.
“I’d rather drink bin juice,” April said now, but amiably, and Hannah shrugged.
“Okay, suit yourself,” she said, and followed Emily from the room.
Ryan was waiting for them at the foot of the stairs, and together they made their way across the quad in the gloaming. It was November already, and the nights were drawing in. All around them were the crisp autumn air and the lights shining out through the chapel’s stained glass.
“So who was the bitch?” Emily asked again, and Hannah rolled her eyes.
“Oh, Sue. April thinks she’s holding a grudge. You know—over the glitter.”
“God, I’m not surprised. If she tries any of that shit with me, I will end her,” Emily said. She looked surprisingly furious. “It’s not funny, it’s actually pathetic. I heard about it from my scout, you know. They talk to each other. Sue spent hours hoovering up glitter and getting it out of her hair. If I was her, I’d have reported April to the Master.”
“I think she did get a telling-off,” Hannah said cautiously. She hitched up her gown, which was sliding off one shoulder. She felt uncomfortable, as if she were bitching about April behind her back. “I’m not sure from who, but someone came to speak to her.”
“Yeah, but did anything happen? I’m willing to bet good money the answer is no.”
“I wasn’t there, but the impression I got was that there would be consequences if it happened again,” Hannah said. But she knew it sounded weak.
“I expect Daddy made a few calls and it magically got dropped,” Ryan said sarcastically. “Will’s a sound bloke, but I don’t know what he sees in her, I really don’t.”
Hannah bit her lip. She couldn’t blame Ryan for his annoyance—he was still smarting from the business with the phone call—but April’s family wealth had been a bone of contention even before that: the extent of the family holdings, the donation her father had made to the Pelham College gym. And it wasn’t just Ryan. April Clarke-Cliveden? Hannah had heard someone say as she passed them in the cloisters on her way to a tutorial. That It Girl? Oh, she’s thick as two short planks—she wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her dad’s money. He’s like, one rung down from Warren Buffett or something.
The odd thing was that April herself did nothing to dispel the rumors; in fact she seemed to revel in them. Her Instagram feed was a slew of designer clothes, boys in tuxedos, and shots of herself drinking champagne from the bottle and pouting at the camera. She seemed to take a pride in the notion that she did little or no work and yet still got good marks, and Hannah had heard her mention her unconditional offer and poor exam results more than once, as if daring people to put two and two together.
But it wasn’t true, that was the thing. April wasn’t an airhead, not at all. She liked clothes and parties, that much was true, but what her carefully curated Instagram feed failed to show was the hard work behind the scenes. Hannah had lost count of the number of times April had staggered home at midnight, ripped off her heels, and then pulled an all-nighter on some assignment due the next day. Hannah had proofread a few of those essays over breakfast as a favor to April. She had gone in trepidatiously the first time, expecting a load of plagiarized points, ramblingly regurgitated, but to her astonishment the essay was good—even brilliant in parts. Hannah was no historian, but she could recognize good writing—and these papers were much better than anything completed after half a dozen Cosmopolitans had a right to be. They deserved the marks April was getting, maybe even more.
It wasn’t just the essays either. A couple of weeks ago Hannah had walked in on April rehearsing for her part in a play she was supposed to be performing with the drama club before Christmas, and she had stood in the doorway, completely transfixed, goose bumps running up and down her spine. April wasn’t just some wannabe starlet. Maybe It Girl was right, though. Whatever it was, she had it.
“You know,” she began to Ryan—but as she said the words, they passed the Porters’ Lodge, and Hannah remembered something. “Oh, I’m really sorry—I’m expecting a letter from my mum. Can you hang on for two ticks while I check?”
“Don’t be long!” Emily said, and Hannah nodded and ran up the steps.
Inside it was warm and stuffy, with a strong smell of something that might have been damp cloth or an oddly musty kind of BO. She made her way over to the rows of pigeonholes and peered inside her own. Nothing, apart from a library slip reminding her about an overdue loan. Which was really odd; her mother’s letter was a pretty regular Friday occurrence. Had it gotten misfiled? It wouldn’t be the first time.
She was just peering into the pigeonholes above and below her own when she heard a reedy voice behind her.
“Looking for something?”
She turned, with a jump, to see the porter standing there—the one she had met on her visit to Dr. Myers’s office. He had come out from behind the desk and was standing next to her, just slightly too close for Hannah’s comfort. She took a step back.
“No, I mean—I was expecting a letter. My mum writes to me every week. But I don’t know if it’s here.”
“Just arrived. I was about to put it in your pigeonhole.” He held it out towards her, between two fingers, and Hannah reached for it, but to her surprise he jerked his hand back, holding the letter just above her head, with what seemed to be meant as a jovial expression.
Hannah frowned, and he held it out to her again; and again, when she reached for it, he pulled his hand back.
This time Hannah folded her arms, looking at him, refusing to reach for the letter. Her heart was quickening in a very uncomfortable way. There was nothing she could put her finger on, but this whole interaction felt so deeply off-balance, so odd and unprofessional, that she just didn’t know how to proceed. It reminded her unsettlingly of that moment on the first day, when he had dangled the keys and then held on to them for just a beat too long.
“Can I have my letter?” she said at last, and was irritated to find that her voice wobbled a little on the final word. She glanced out the window. Emily was standing there, glaring at her. As Hannah met her eyes Emily held up her watch, pointing at the dial.
