“Hey, leave her out of it,” April said, standing up and facing Ryan. “She had nothing to do with it so pick on someone your own size.”
“That’d be you, would it?” Ryan said, with a kind of snarling laugh. He gestured at the disparity between them—April probably no more than five foot four, and eight stone soaking wet, Ryan over six foot and built like the rugby player he was. “Well, you’ve got balls, at least.”
“Two more than you have,” April retorted. They stood for a moment, glaring at each other, a kind of palpable tension crackling in the air between them so strong that Hannah felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. “Wanker.”
“Bitch.”
“Hey, hey,” said a voice from the corridor, and they both swung round to see Emily standing in the doorway, hands on hips. “What’s with the rampant misogyny, Coates?”
“Rampant misogyny my arse,” Ryan snapped. “She just made me flush an eighth of weed.”
“Yeah, I made him,” April said sarcastically. “With the power of my miiind, woooh!” She made wavy ghost fingers in front of Ryan’s face, and he slapped her hand away irritably. “I knocked on the door while he was having a spliff and the idiot was so scared he flushed his entire stash.”
“Nice move, Coates.” Emily raised one eyebrow. “With cool like that, maybe better not take up drug smuggling.”
“Both of you can go shove something painful where the sun don’t shine,” Ryan growled. “And you”—he stabbed a finger at Will—“don’t stand there like you don’t know she isn’t a complete pain in the arse. That’s the best part of fifty quid I’m down. And some of us actually have to work for our cash instead of milking the stock market for unearned money off the backs of the workers.”
“Oh, well now we’re getting down it, Mr. Capitalism Is Robbery,” April said. “Fifty quid, is that the real problem? It’s all the same with you socialist types, isn’t it—money’s a construct and debt is a tool to subjugate the proletariat, until someone owes you a tenner, at which point you never stop harping on about it. Look, here we go.” She pulled out her purse and began riffling through the notes. “Twenty, forty, sixty—here you are—fifty quid for the stupid weed plus a little extra for your trouble. Buy yourself something pretty, sweetheart.”
She held out the cash. Ryan stood there glaring, a vein visibly pulsing in his temple and the muscles in his jaw working. His expression flickered between fury and something else—something Hannah couldn’t quite pin down. Not humiliation, he didn’t look humiliated. More like a strong desire to slap April’s face.
But then he seemed to make up his mind. He reached out and took the money, with a little comedic bow and a mocking tug of his forelock.
“Why thank you, milady. Your ’umble servant, I’m sure, and a pleasure to be rogered by you any day of the week.”
Hannah let out a breath and exchanged a glance with Emily. It felt like a crisis had been averted, though she wasn’t completely sure what or how. Would Ryan really have punched April in front of all of them, including Will? It didn’t seem likely, but there had been something in the air between them, something electric and powerful and very dangerous.
“I say,” said another voice from behind her, this one mild and hesitant. “What’s been happening here? Smells like a bonfire.”
Hannah turned to see Hugh standing in the doorway, blinking owlishly through his glasses. As she watched, he blew his fringe up out of his eyes and gave a rather fatuous grin.
“Been indulging in a spot of the old Mary Jane?”
“Jesus Christ,” Ryan muttered under his breath. “Where the fuck have I ended up, some kind of P. G. Wodehouse novel?”
“Hello, Hugh,” April said. She stalked across the room to kiss Hugh on either cheek. “Thank you for the Christmas present.”
Christmas present? Hannah was disconcerted somehow. She hadn’t thought Hugh and April were close enough for that. She flicked a look at Will to see what he made of the odd remark, but he was picking up tobacco from where it had spilled across the desk, and didn’t seem to have heard. Hugh said something to April in return, his voice sounding a little uncomfortable, but too low for Hannah to make out, and April laughed, not entirely kindly.
“Look, why did you come up here?” Ryan said now. “It wasn’t just to make me flush my stash like a fucking dickhead, was it?”
“No,” April said coolly. “Hannah and I are going to the bar. Are you coming?”
Hannah had expected Ryan to give April the brush-off, but instead, somewhat to her surprise, he nodded.
“All right. I need a pint. And you—” He pointed a finger at April. “Fifty quid or no fifty quid, you’re buying. Got it?”
“Got it,” April said. She linked arms with Ryan and gave him a little squeeze, and then said in her plummy fake professor voice, “You love me really, Mr. Coates, you know you do.”
“I do fucking not,” Ryan said. But the edge was gone from his voice, and when April dug him in the ribs, he tickled her back, making her laugh and squeal and writhe away, and then chased her all the way down the stairs and across the quad, the rest of them following in their wake.
“Assault!” April shrieked as they rounded the corner of the library. “Bad touch!”
“Oh my God,” Will groaned as the two disappeared through the dark shapes of the rose garden. “I swear, she’ll be the death of me. She’ll kill me, Hannah. She really will.”
“But you love her,” Hannah said lightly. “Don’t you?”
Afterwards she wondered if it was her imagination, the way Will paused and then looked away before answering, not meeting her eyes.
“I do,” he said at last, and then gave a laugh. “Of course I do. You know what they say—can’t live with her, can’t live without her. Right?”
“Right,” Hannah echoed. Hugh and Emily had outpaced them, and she and Will were alone in the winter-clipped rose garden, and the college was silent and empty in the way only a sprawling building full of several hundred students and dons could sometimes inexplicably be. “Of course you do.”
AFTER
It’s closer to fifteen minutes later that Hannah climbs the stairs, sweating profusely, to the waiting room at the midwifery clinic, clutching her maternity notes in one hand and her bag in the other. Her face is scarlet and her heart is hammering. How could she have forgotten the appointment?
As she enters, a doorway on the far side of the waiting room opens and a woman’s head pops out.
“Are you Hannah de Chasting?”
“Yes! I’m so sorry.” She is trying not to pant too obviously.
“It’s fine, come on through.”
Hannah follows her into the little office and sits on the hard plastic chair, shrugging off her coat for what she already knows is coming. She feels a bead of sweat run down the hollow of her spine and squirms against the chair back to stop the tickle.
“Got your notes?” the midwife asks.
Hannah nods and passes over the folder.
“And your sample?”
“Oh God.” Hannah puts her hand to her forehead. “I’m so sorry—in all the kerfuffle I totally forgot—”
“It’s okay, you can do one after. So we are…” She looks at a calendar by her desk. “Twenty-two plus four, is that right? Okay. Let’s get you up on the couch and we’ll measure the bump.”
Nodding again, Hannah moves across to the couch and lies down, trying not to ruck up the giant roll of toilet paper stretched across the slippery cover. Her dress is stretchy jersey, and lying like this she can see the still faintly surprising bulge of her stomach, smooth and round beneath the fabric. The midwife takes out a tape measure and measures from her ribs to her pubic bone, then she slips a stethoscope up under Hannah’s dress with a deft movement and listens for a moment before nodding and writing some figures down on Hannah’s notes.