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Chapter Fourteen
All we to-night are dreaming,— To smile and sigh, to love and change:
Oh, in our heart’s recesses, We dress in fancies quite as strange
WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED, ‘The Fancy Ball’
And then they were free. Not for long – they had the summer off, and then they would repeat all the miseries they’d just endured, with twice the agony, during their fourth-year exams. But September felt so far away. It was only May, and the whole summer lay before them. It felt now as if they had all the time in the world to do nothing but be happy, if they could just remember how.
Every three years University College held a commemoration ball. These balls were the pinnacle of Oxford social life; they were a chance for colleges to show off their lovely grounds and prodigious wine cellars, for the richer colleges to flaunt their endowments, and for the poorer colleges to try to claw their way up the ladder of prestige. Balls let colleges fling all their excess wealth that they didn’t, for some reason, allocate to students in need at a grand occasion for their wealthy alumni, the financial justification being that wealth attracted wealth, and there was no better way to solicit donations for hall renovations than showing the old boys a good time. And what a very good time it was. Colleges competed each year to break records for sheer indulgence and spectacle. The wine flowed all night, the music never stopped, and those who danced into the early hours could expect breakfast brought round on silver trays when the sun came up.
Letty insisted they all purchase tickets. ‘It’s exactly what we need. We deserve some indulgence after that nightmare. You’ll come with me to London, Victoire, we’ll go to be fitted for gowns—’ ‘Absolutely not,’ said Victoire. ‘Why? We have the money. And you’d look dazzling in emerald, or perhaps a white silk—’ ‘Those tailors are not going to dress me,’ said Victoire. ‘And the only way they’ll let me into the shop is if I pretend to be your maid.’ Letty was shaken, but only for a moment. Robin saw her hastily rearrange her features into a forced smile. Letty was relieved to be back in Victoire’s good graces, he knew, and she’d do anything to stay there. ‘That’s all right, you can make do with one of mine. You’re a bit taller, but I can let out the hem. And I’ve got so much jewellery to lend you – I can write back to Brighton and see if they’ll send me some of Mama’s old things. She had all these lovely pins – I’d love to see what I can do with your hair—’ ‘I don’t think you understand,’ Victoire said, quietly but firmly. ‘I really don’t want—’ ‘Please, darling, it’ll be no fun without you. I’ll buy your ticket.’ ‘Oh,’ said Victoire, ‘please, I don’t want to owe you—’ ‘You can buy ours,’ said Ramy.
Letty rolled her eyes at him. ‘Buy your own.’ ‘Dunno, Letty. Three pounds? That’s quite pricey.’ ‘Work one of the silver shifts,’ Letty said. ‘They’re only for an hour.’ ‘Birdie doesn’t like crowded spaces,’ said Ramy. ‘I don’t,’ Robin said gamely. ‘Get too nervous. Can’t breathe.’ ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Letty scoffed. ‘Balls are wonderful. You’ve never seen anything like it. Lincoln brought me as his date to one at Balliol – oh, the whole place was transformed. I saw stage acts that you can’t even see in London. And they’re only once every three years; we won’t be undergraduates next time. I’d give anything to feel that way again.’ They cast each other helpless looks. The dead brother settled the conversation. Letty knew it, and was not afraid to invoke him.
So Robin and Ramy signed up to work the ball. University College had devised a labour-for-entry scheme for students too poor to afford the ticket price, and Babel students were particularly lucky here, for instead of catering drinks or taking coats, they could work what were called ‘silver shifts’. This
did not take much work other than periodically checking that the bars commissioned to enhance the decorations, lights, and music hadn’t been removed or slipped out of their temporary installations, but the colleges did not seem to know this, and Babel had no good reason to inform them.
On the day of the ball, Robin and Ramy shoved their frock coats and waistcoats into canvas bags and walked past the ticket lines curling around the corner to the kitchen entrance at the back of the college.
University College had outdone itself. It exhausted the eye; there was too much to take in at once – oysters on enormous pyramids of ice; long tables bearing all kinds of sweet cakes, biscuits, and tarts; champagne flutes going round on precariously balanced plates; and floating fairy lights that pulsed through an array of colours. Stages had been erected overnight in every quad of the college, upon which a variety of harpists, players, and pianists performed. An opera singer, it was rumoured, had been brought in from Italy to perform in hall; every now and then, Robin thought he could hear her higher notes piercing through the din. Acrobats cavorted on the green, twisting up and down long silken sheets and spinning silver rings around their wrists and ankles. They were dressed in vaguely foreign garb. Robin scrutinized their faces, wondering where they were from. It was the oddest thing: their eyes and lips were made up in an exaggeratedly Oriental fashion, yet beneath the paint they seemed as if they could have been plucked off the streets of London. ‘So much for Anglican principles,’ Ramy said. ‘This is a proper bacchanalia.’ ‘You think they’ll run out of oysters?’ Robin asked. He’d never tried them before; they apparently upset Professor Lovell’s stomach, so Mrs Piper never bought them. The gloopy meat and shiny shells looked both disgusting and very enticing. ‘I just want to know how they taste.’ ‘I’ll go and grab one for you,’ said Ramy. ‘Those lights are about to slip, by the way, you should – there you go.’ Ramy disappeared into the crowd. Robin sat atop his ladder and pretended to work. Privately, he was grateful for the job. It was humiliating to wear servant’s blacks while his fellow students danced around him, yes, but it was at least a gentler way to ease into the frenzy of the night. He liked being hidden safely in the corner with something to do with his hands; this
way the ball was not quite so overwhelming. And he truly liked discovering what ingenious silver match-pairs Babel had provided for the ball. One, certainly devised by Professor Lovell, paired the Chinese four-word idiom with the English translation ‘a hundred plants and thousand flowers’. The connotation of the Chinese original, which invoked rich, dazzling, and myriad colours, made the roses redder, the blooming violets larger and more vibrant. ‘No oysters,’ said Ramy. ‘But I brought you some of these truffle things, I don’t know what they are exactly but people kept snagging them off plates.’ He passed a chocolate truffle up the ladder and popped the other one in his mouth. ‘Oh – ugh. Never mind. Don’t eat that.’ ‘I wonder what it is?’ Robin held the truffle up to his eyes. ‘Is this pale mushy part supposed to be cheese?’ ‘I shudder to think what else it could be,’ said Ramy. * ‘You know,’ said Robin, ‘there’s a Chinese character, xiǎn,which can mean “rare, fresh, and tasty”. But it can also mean “meagre and scanty”.’ Ramy spat the truffle into a napkin. ‘Your point?’ ‘Sometimes rare and expensive things are worse.’ ‘Don’t tell the English that, it’ll shatter their entire sense of taste.’ Ramy glanced out over the crowd. ‘Oh, look who’s arrived.’ Letty pushed her way through the throng towards them, tugging Victoire along behind her. ‘You’re – goodness.’ Robin hurried down the ladder. ‘You’re incredible.’ He meant it. Victoire and Letty were unrecognizable. He’d grown so used to seeing them in shirts and trousers that he forgot sometimes they were women at all. Tonight, he recalled, they were creatures of a different dimension. Letty wore a dress of a pale, floaty blue material that matched her eyes. Her sleeves were quite enormous – she looked as if she could have concealed an entire leg of mutton up there – but that appeared to be the fashion of the year, for colourful, billowing sleeves filled the college grounds. Letty was in fact quite pretty, Robin realized; he’d only never noticed it before – under the soft fairy lights, her arched eyebrows and her sharply angled jaw did not look cold and austere, but regal and elegant. ‘How’d you get your hair like that?’ Ramy demanded.
Pale, bouncy ringlets framed Letty’s face, defying gravity. ‘Why, curl papers.’ ‘You mean witchcraft,’ said Ramy. ‘That’s not natural.’ Letty snorted. ‘You need to meet more women.’
‘Where at, Oxford lecture halls?’ She laughed.
It was Victoire, however, who’d truly been transformed. She glowed against the deep emerald fabric of her gown. Her sleeves, too, ballooned outwards, but on her they seemed rather adorable, like a protective ring of clouds. Her hair was twisted into an elegant knot at the top of her head, fastened with two coral pins, and a string of the same coral beads shone like constellations around her neck. She was lovely. She knew it, too; as she took in Robin’s expression a smile bloomed over her face. ‘I’ve done a good job, haven’t I?’ Letty surveyed Victoire with pride.
‘And to think she didn’t want to come.’
‘She looks like starlight,’ said Robin.
Victoire blushed. ‘Hello, there.’ Colin Thornhill strode up to them. He seemed quite drunk; there was a dazed, unfocused look in his eyes. ‘I see even Babblers have
deigned to come.’ ‘Hello, Colin,’ Robin said warily. ‘Good party, isn’t it? The opera girl was a little pitchy, but perhaps it was only the acoustics in the chapel – it’s really not a proper performance venue, you need a bigger space so the sound doesn’t get lost.’ Without looking at her, Colin held his wineglass out in front of Victoire’s face. ‘Get rid of this and get me a burgundy, will you?’ Victoire blinked at him, astonished. ‘Get your own.’ ‘What, aren’t you working this thing?’ ‘She’s a student,’ Ramy snapped. ‘You’ve met her before.’ ‘Have I?’ Colin really was very drunk; he kept swaying on his feet, and his pale cheeks had turned a deep ruddy colour. The glass hung so precariously from his fingertips that Robin was afraid it would shatter. ‘Well.
They all look the same to me.’ ‘The waiters are in black, and they’ve got trays,’ Victoire said patiently.
Robin was amazed at her restraint; he would have slapped the glass from Colin’s hand. ‘Though I think you might try some water.’
Colin narrowed his eyes at Victoire, as if trying to see her in better detail. Robin tensed, but Colin only laughed, murmured something under his * breath that sounded like the words ‘She looks like a Tregear,’and walked
off. ‘Ass,’ Ramy muttered. ‘Do I look like I’m serving staff?’ Victoire asked anxiously. ‘And what’s a Tregear?’ ‘Never mind,’ Robin said quickly. ‘Just – ignore Colin, he’s an idiot.” ‘And you look ethereal,’ Letty assured her. ‘We’ve all just got to relax, everyone – here.’ She extended her arm to Ramy. ‘Your shift’s done now,
isn’t it? Dance with me.’ He laughed. ‘Absolutely not.’ ‘Come on.’ She seized his hands and tugged him towards the dancing crowd. ‘This waltz isn’t hard, I’ll teach you the steps—’ ‘No, really, stop.’ Ramy extricated his hands from hers.
Letty crossed her arms. ‘Well, it’s no fun just sitting here.’ ‘We’re sitting here because we’re already barely tolerated, and because as long as we don’t move too quickly or speak too loudly, we can blend into the background or at least pretend to be serving staff. That’s how this works, Letty. A brown man at an Oxford ball is a fun curiosity as long as he keeps to himself and manages not to offend anyone, but if I dance with you, then
someone’s going to hit me, or worse.’
She huffed. ‘Don’t be dramatic.’ ‘I’m only being prudent, dear.’ One of the Sharp brothers drifted by just then and extended his hand to Letty. It seemed a rather rude and perfunctory gesture, but Letty took it without comment and left, tossing Ramy a nasty look over her shoulder as she sauntered off. ‘Good for her,’ Ramy muttered. ‘And good riddance.’ Robin turned to Victoire. ‘You’re feeling all right?’ ‘I don’t know.’ She looked very nervous. ‘I feel – I don’t know, exposed.
Put on display. I told Letty they’d think I was staff—’ ‘Don’t mind Colin,’ said Robin. ‘He’s a prat.’ She looked unconvinced. ‘Aren’t they all like Colin, though?’
‘Hello, there.’ A red-haired boy in a purple waistcoat swooped upon them. It was Vincy Woolcombe – the least awful of Pendennis’s friends, Robin recalled. Robin opened his mouth to greet him, but Woolcombe’s eyes slid over him completely; he was solely focused on Victoire. ‘You’re in our college, aren’t you?’ Victoire glanced around for a moment before realizing Woolcombe was indeed addressing her. ‘Yes, I—’ ‘You’re Victoire?’ he asked. ‘Victoire Desgraves?’ ‘Yes,’ she said, standing up a bit straighter. ‘How did you know my name?’ ‘Well, there are only two of you in your year,’ said Woolcombe. ‘Woman translators. You must be brilliant to be at Babel. Of course we know your names.’ Victoire’s mouth was slightly open, but she said nothing; she seemed unable to determine whether Woolcombe was about to make fun of her or not. ‘J’ai entendu dire que tu venais de Paris.’ Woolcombe dipped his head in a slight bow. ‘Les parisiennes sont les plus belles.’ Victoire smiled, surprised. ‘Ton français est assez bon.’ Robin watched this exchange, impressed. Perhaps Woolcombe was not so terrible after all – perhaps he was only a prat in association with Pendennis. He, too, wondered briefly if Woolcombe was having fun at Victoire’s expense, but there were no leering friends in sight; no one was glancing surreptitiously over their shoulders and pretending not to laugh. ‘Summers in Marseilles,’ said Woolcombe. ‘My mother is of French extraction; she insisted I learn. Would you say it’s passable?’ ‘You exaggerate the vowels a bit,’ Victoire said earnestly, ‘but otherwise, not bad.’ Woolcombe, to his credit, did not seem offended at this correction. ‘I’m glad to hear it. Would you like to dance?’ Victoire lifted her hand, hesitated, then glanced at Robin and Ramy as if
asking their thoughts. ‘Go,’ Ramy said. ‘Enjoy.’ She took Woolcombe’s hand, and he spun her away.
That left Robin alone with Ramy. Their shifts were ended; the bells had rung for eleven several minutes ago. They both pulled on their dress coats – identical black garments they’d purchased at the last moment from Ede &
Ravenscroft – but continued lingering in the safety of the back wall. Robin had made a perfunctory attempt to enter the fray, but quickly retreated in horror – everyone he was vaguely familiar with stood in tight conversational clusters and either ignored him completely as he approached, which made him feel oafish and awkward, or asked him about working at Babel, since that was apparently all they knew about him. Except whenever this happened, he was assaulted with a dozen questions on every side, all having to do with China and the Orient and silver-working. Once he’d escaped back to the cool quiet of the wall, he was so frightened and exhausted that he couldn’t bear doing it again.
Ramy, ever loyal, stayed at his side. They watched the proceedings in silence for a bit. Robin snatched a glass of claret from a passing waiter and downed it faster than he should have, just to dull his fear of the noise and the crowd.
At last, Ramy asked, ‘Well, are you going to ask anyone to dance?’ ‘I don’t know how,’ said Robin. He peered out at the throng, but all the girls in their bright balloon sleeves looked one and the same to him. ‘To dance? Or to ask?’ ‘Well – both. But certainly the latter. It seems you need to know them socially before it’s appropriate.’ ‘Oh, you’re handsome enough,’ said Ramy. ‘And you’re a Babbler. I’m sure one of them would say yes.’ Robin’s mind was spinning with claret, or else he wouldn’t have managed what he said next. ‘Why won’t you dance with Letty?’
‘I’m not looking to start a row.’ ‘No, really.’ ‘Please, Birdie.’ Ramy sighed. ‘You know how it is.’ ‘She wants you,’ Robin said. He’d only just realized this, and now that he said it out loud, it seemed so obvious that he felt stupid for not seeing it
earlier. ‘Very badly. So why—’ ‘Don’t you know why?’ Their eyes met. Robin felt a prickle at the back of his neck. The space between them felt very charged, like the moment between lightning and thunder, and Robin had no idea what was going on or what would happen next, only that it all felt very strange and terrifying, like teetering over the edge of a windy, roaring cliff.
Abruptly Ramy stood. ‘There’s trouble over there.’ Across the quad, Letty and Victoire stood backs against the wall, surrounded on all sides by a pack of leering boys. Pendennis and Woolcombe were among them. Victoire was hugging her arms across her chest, Letty saying something very quickly that they couldn’t make out. ‘Better have a look,’ said Ramy. ‘Right.’ Robin followed him through the crowd. ‘It’s not funny,’ Letty was snarling. Her cheeks were blotchy with rage.
She held both her fists up like a boxer might; they trembled as she spoke. ‘We’re not showgirls, you can’t just—’ ‘But we’re so curious,’ said Pendennis, drawling and drunk. ‘Are they really different colours? We’d like to see – you’re wearing such low-cuts, it tantalizes the imagination—’ He reached an arm towards her shoulder. Letty drew her hand back and smacked him full across the face. Pendennis recoiled. His face was transformed, beastly with fury. He took a step towards Letty, and for a moment it seemed as if he really might hit her back. Letty flinched away.
Robin rushed up between them. ‘Leave,’ he told Victoire and Letty. They darted towards Ramy, who took their hands and pulled them towards the
back gate.
Pendennis turned on Robin.
Robin had no idea what would happen next. Pendennis was taller, a bit heavier, and likely stronger, but he was swaying on his feet, his gaze unfocused. If this became a fight, it would be a clumsy, undignified one. No one would be seriously hurt. He might even land Pendennis on the ground and skirt away before Pendennis got his wits about him. But the college had strict rules against brawling, there were quite a lot of witnesses, and Robin did not want to know how he would fare against Pendennis’s word before a disciplinary board. ‘We can fight,’ Robin breathed. ‘If that’s what you want. But you’re holding a glass of Madeira, and do you really want to spend the night with red all down your front?’ Pendennis’s eyes dipped to his wineglass, then back up to Robin. ‘Chink,’ he said in a very ugly voice. ‘You’re just a dressed-up Chinkee, you know that, Swift?’
Robin’s fists tightened. ‘And are you going to let a Chinkee ruin your ball?’ Pendennis sneered, but it was clear the danger had passed. As long as Robin swallowed his pride, as long as he told himself it was only words Pendennis had hurled his way, words that meant nothing at all, he could simply turn and follow Ramy, Victoire, and Letty out of the college unscathed.
Outside, the cool night breeze was welcome relief against their reddened, overheated faces. ‘What happened?’ Robin asked. ‘What were they saying?’ ‘It’s nothing,’ Victoire said. She was shivering violently; Robin pulled off his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. ‘It’s not nothing,’ snapped Letty. ‘That bastard Thornhill started going on about the different colours of our – our – you know, for biological reasons, and then Pendennis decided we ought to show them—’ ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Victoire. ‘Let’s just walk.’ ‘I’ll kill him,’ Robin swore. ‘I’m going back in, I’m going to kill him—’ ‘Please don’t.’ Victoire seized his arm. ‘Don’t make this worse, please.’
‘This is your fault,’ Ramy told Letty. ‘Mine? How—’ ‘None of us wanted to come. Victoire told you it’d end badly, and still you forced us out here—’ ‘Forced?’ Letty gave a sharp laugh. ‘You seemed to be having a nice enough time, with your chocolates and truffles—’ ‘Yes, until Pendennis and his lot tried to violate our Victoire—’ ‘They had a go at me too, you know.’ This was a bizarre line of argument, and Robin was not sure why Letty made it at all, but she said it with vehemence. Her voice went up by several octaves. ‘It wasn’t just because she’s—’ ‘Stop!’ Victoire shouted. Tears streamed down her face. ‘Stop it, it’s no one’s fault, we just – I should have known better. We shouldn’t have come.’ ‘I’m sorry,’ Letty said in a very small voice. ‘Victoire, love, I didn’t . . .’ ‘It’s fine.’ Victoire shook her head. ‘There’s no reason why you’d – never mind.’ She took a shaky breath. ‘Let’s just be out of here, can we, please? I want to go home.’
‘Home?’ Ramy stopped walking. ‘What do you mean, home? It’s a night for celebration.’ ‘Are you mad? I’m going to bed.’ Victoire picked at the skirt of her gown, muddied now, at the bottom. ‘And I’m getting out of this, I’m getting rid of these stupid sleeves—’ ‘No, you’re not.’ Ramy gave her a gentle tug towards High Street. ‘You got dressed up for a ball. You deserve a ball. So let’s have one.’
Ramy’s plan, he revealed, was for them to spend the night on Babel’s roof – just the four of them, a basket of sweets (the kitchens were very easy to steal * from if you looked like staff), and the telescope under a clear night sky.But when they turned the corner on the green, they saw lights and moving silhouettes through the windows of the first floor. Someone was in there. ‘Wait—’ Letty began, but Ramy jumped lightly up the steps and pushed the door open.
Fairy lights bobbed all around the lobby, which was crowded with students and graduate fellows. Robin recognized Cathy O’Nell, Vimal Srinivasan, and Ilse Dejima among them. Some danced, some chatted with wineglasses in hands, and some stood with heads bent over worktables dragged down from the eighth floor, watching intently as a graduate fellow etched an engraving into a silver bar. Something went poof, and the room filled with the scent of roses. Everyone cheered.
Finally someone noticed them. ‘Third years!’ Vimal cried, waving them in. ‘What took you so long?’ ‘We were at the college,’ said Ramy. ‘We didn’t know there was a private party.’ ‘You should have invited them,’ said a dark-haired German girl whose name Robin thought might be Minna. She danced in place as she spoke, and her head kept bobbing heavily to the left. ‘So cruel of you, to let them go to that horror show.’ ‘One does not appreciate heaven until one has known hell,’ said Vimal. ‘Revelations. Or Mark. Or something like that.’ ‘That’s not in the Bible,’ said Minna. ‘Well,’ Vimal said dismissively, ‘I wouldn’t know.’ ‘That was cruel of you,’ said Letty. ‘Make haste,’ Vimal called over his shoulder. ‘Give the girl some wine.’
Glasses were handed round; port was poured. Soon Robin was very pleasantly drunk, head buzzing, limbs floating. He leaned against the shelves, slightly out of breath from waltzing with Victoire, and basked in the marvellousness of it all. Vimal was now on the table, dancing a vigorous jig with Minna. On the opposite table, Matthew Houndslow, winner of that year’s most prestigious postgraduate fellowship, was inscribing a silver bar with a match-pair that caused bright spheres of pink and purple light to bob
around the room. ‘Ibasho,’ said Ilse Dejima.
Robin turned to her. She’d never spoken to him before; he wasn’t sure if she’d meant to address him. But there was no one else around. ‘Pardon?’ ‘Ibasho,’ she repeated, swaying. Her arms floated in front of her, either dancing or conducting the music, he couldn’t tell which. For that matter, he couldn’t tell where the music was coming from at all. ‘It doesn’t translate well into English. It means “whereabouts”. A place where one feels like home, where they feel like themselves.’ She wrote out the kanji characters for him in the air – – and he recognized their Chinese equivalents. The character for a residence. The characters for a place.
In the months to come, whenever he thought back on this night, he could only grasp a handful of clear memories – after three glasses of port, it all turned into a pleasant haze. Vaguely he remembered dancing to some frantic Celtic tune on tables pushed together, then playing some kind of language game that mostly involved a lot of shouting and rapid rhyming, and laughing so hard his sides hurt. He remembered Ramy sitting with Victoire in a corner, doing silly impersonations of the professors until her tears were dry, and then until they were both crying from laughter. ‘I despise women,’ intoned Ramy in Professor Craft’s severe monotone. ‘They’re flighty, easily distracted, and in general unsuited for the sort of rigorous study that an academic life demands.’ He remembered English phrases rising unbidden to his mind as he watched the revels; phrases from songs and poems that he wasn’t quite sure on the meaning of, but which looked and sounded right – and perhaps that was just what poetry was? Meaning through sound? Through spelling? He couldn’t remember whether he merely thought it, or if he asked it out loud to
everyone he came across, but he found himself consumed with the question *‘What is the light fantastic?’ And he remembered sitting on the stairs deep into the night with Letty, who wept furiously into his shoulder. ‘I wish he would see me,’ she kept repeating through her hiccups. ‘Why won’t he see me?’ And though Robin could think of any number of reasons – because Ramy was a brown man in England and Letty the daughter of an admiral; because Ramy did not want to be shot in the street; or because Ramy simply did not love her like she loved him, and she’d badly mistaken his general kindness and ostentatious verve for special attention, because Letty was the kind of girl who was used to, and had come to always expect, special attention – he knew better than to tell her the truth. What Letty wanted then was not honest counsel, but someone to comfort and love her and give her, if not the attention she craved, then some facsimile of it. So he let her sob against him, soaking the front of his shirt in tears, and rubbed circles in her back as he murmured mindlessly that he didn’t understand – was Ramy a fool? What wasn’t to love about her? She was gorgeous, gorgeous, she made Aphrodite herself jealous – indeed, he intoned, she ought to feel lucky she hadn’t been turned into a mayfly already.
This made Letty giggle, which stopped her crying somewhat, and that was good; that meant he’d done his job.
He had the oddest feeling of disappearing as he spoke, of fading into the background of a painting depicting a story which must have been old as history. And perhaps it was the drink, but he was fascinated by the way he seemed to drift outside himself, to watch from the awning as her hiccupping sobs and his murmurs mingled, floated, and became puffs of condensation against the cold stained-glass windows.
They were all very drunk by the time the party broke up – except for Ramy, who was drunk anyway on exhaustion and laughter – which was the only reason it seemed a good idea to wander through the cemetery behind St Giles, taking the long way round north, to where the girls lived. Ramy murmured a quiet du’a, and they traipsed through the gate. At first it seemed a great adventure as they stumbled against each other, laughing, as they picked their way around the tombstones. But then the air seemed to change very quickly. The warmth of the streetlamps dimmed; the tombstone shadows stretched long, shifting, as if belying some presence that did not want them
there. Robin felt a sudden, chilling dread. It was not illegal to walk through the cemetery, but suddenly it seemed a horrific violation to trespass these
grounds in their state.
Ramy had felt it too. ‘Let’s hurry.’ Robin nodded. They began weaving faster among the tombstones. ‘Shouldn’t be out here after Maghrib,’ Ramy muttered. ‘Should have listened to my mother—’ ‘Hold on,’ said Victoire. ‘Letty’s still – Letty?’ They turned around. Letty had fallen behind several rows back. She stood before a tombstone. ‘Look.’ She pointed, her eyes wide. ‘It’s her.’
‘Her who?’ asked Ramy.
But Letty only stood there, staring.
They doubled back to join her before the weathered stone. Eveline Brooke, it read. Dearly beloved daughter, scholar. 1813–1834. ‘Eveline,’ said Robin. ‘Is that—’ ‘Evie,’ said Letty. ‘The girl with the desk. The girl with all the match- pairs on the ledger. She’s dead. All this time. She’s been dead for five years.’ Suddenly the night air felt icy. The lingering warmth of port had evaporated with their laughter; now they were sober, cold, and very scared.
Victoire pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders. ‘What do you think happened to her?’ ‘Probably just something mundane.’ Ramy made a valiant effort to dispel the gloom. ‘Probably she fell sick, or had an accident, or overexhausted herself. Could be she went skating without a scarf. Could be she got so wrapped up in her research she forgot to eat.’ But Robin suspected Evie Brooke’s death was about more than some mundane bout of illness. Anthony’s disappearance had left hardly a trace on the department. Professor Playfair seemed by now to have forgotten he’d ever existed; he’d not uttered a word about Anthony since the day he’d announced his death. Yet he’d kept Evie’s work desk undisturbed for five years and counting.
Eveline Brooke had been someone special. And something awful had happened here. ‘Suppose we go home,’ Victoire whispered after a while.
They must have been in the graveyard for quite some time. The dark sky was slowly giving way to pale light, the chill condensing into morning dew.
The ball was over. The last night of term had ended, had given way to endless summer. Wordlessly, they took each other’s hands and walked home.
