“Look, I’ve never been there.” November is speaking fast now, trying to get her point across. “To Oxford, I mean. I never saw where April lived, and where she died. And honestly—that bothered me. It bothered me then, and it bothers me now. You could bring me down to Oxford and tell Myers the truth—that Neville’s death stirred up some ghosts for me, and I want to lay them to rest by seeing where April lived. I don’t think the college authorities would refuse that.”
“No…” Hannah says slowly. “No, I don’t suppose they would.” The more she thinks about it, the more it feels like a good plan. There’s safety in numbers, and November will be able to ask questions that Hannah can’t.
“We should make sure he’s still there,” November is saying. “What’s his full name?”
“Horatio.” It feels strange on Hannah’s tongue, oddly intimate. She remembers April’s words, the night of Dr. Myers’s party, Horatio’s asked me and a couple of girls to go for a drink in town… It seems scarcely believable now, such a clear crossing of lines.
November taps at her phone, and then holds it out for Hannah to see.
“That’s him, right?”
“That’s him,” Hannah says. It’s the Pelham College English faculty page, first entry, Professor Horatio Myers, Senior Dean of Arts. A little older, a little grayer, but surprisingly unchanged—much less so than Neville, the hollowed-out ghost of a man staring out from the BBC website. Myers, by contrast, looks sleek, well-fed, like someone who has lived very comfortably in the intervening years.
“We’re just coming up to Stockbridge Mews, Ms. Rain” comes a voice from the front of the car, over the intercom, and Hannah jumps. November presses a button.
“Thank you, Arthur.”
She turns to Hannah.
“It was so lovely to meet you, Hannah. This will probably sound stupid, but I feel—I feel a lot closer to April than I have in years.”
Hannah nods. It doesn’t sound stupid, because she feels the same way.
“Are you sure?” she says. “About coming to Oxford, I mean? Because you don’t have to. If you feel like you have to look after me, then don’t. I’ll be with Emily. Or I can ask Will.”
“I’m coming because I want to,” November says. The car slides to a halt, and Hannah picks up her bag.
“Well, thank you. And thank you for the lift.”
“It was nothing. Take care of yourself, Hannah.”
“I will,” Hannah says. She climbs out, and watches the car draw away, November’s silhouette getting smaller and smaller in the rear window. And for a moment, she looks so like April that it almost breaks Hannah’s heart.
AFTER
“You have got to be kidding me.” Will’s expression, when Hannah tells him over supper what she is planning, is a mixture of frustration, shock, and confusion. “Why on earth are you going back there? And why now? Right when you should be resting up?”
He jerks his head towards the pharmacy bag Hannah left sitting on the arm of the sofa while they ate supper.
“The doctor was really clear—she said there’s no need for me to cut down on work or anything,” Hannah says again, patiently. They have been through this already—it was the first thing she told Will when she walked through the door and found him pacing the living room, googling high blood pressure in pregnancy on his phone. “It’s a really low dose; they give it to pregnant women all the time. I specifically asked her if I should reduce my hours and she said no need, this is not a big deal, just to make sure I had a chair and to take plenty of breaks. I mean, this is a break. That’s the whole point.”
“And as for November—” Will says, as if she hasn’t spoken. “Does she understand what you went through—does she have any idea what she’s asking?”
“She’s not asking for anything. It was my idea to go to Oxford, not hers. And you’d like her, Will,” Hannah says. She takes Will’s hand, feeling the tendons and the fine bones, rubbing her fingers across his knuckles. She picks it up and kisses the back. “You really would. She’s like—” She stops, trying to think how to put it. “She’s like April—but—I don’t know. Kinder, maybe. And she does understand, because she’s been through something very similar herself.”
“Was she dragged through the courts?” Will says angrily. “Was she doorstepped every day for months?”