AFTER
“I can’t get over it,” Emily says again.
They are sitting on Emily’s sofa, drinking white wine （lemonade, in Hannah’s case） and after half an hour of slightly awkward small talk, the years are beginning to peel back. It must be more than five years since Hannah has seen Emily in person, but she’s still the same—sharply impatient, cracking jokes, fiercely ambitious under the self-deprecating veneer （Oh that? I think only two people read it, and one was me）， and rolling her eyes at this year’s intake of students. They’ve talked about Emily’s research, November’s work （What exactly is an influencer? Emily had asked. It sounds like a physics experiment）， and Hannah’s pregnancy.
Hannah has filled Emily in on Ryan, and Hugh, and told her how much Will hates his job as an accountant. Emily doesn’t say it, but there’s a very strong current of he’s wasting an Oxford education in her replies.
Now, though, she sits back, nursing her glass, and looks from Hannah to November, shaking her head.
“Can’t get over what?” Hannah asks, laughing.
“I just—the two of you. Side by side on the couch. It’s messing with my head—like something out of The X-Files. On the one hand you’re pushing thirty and pregnant, and on the other…” She turns to November, half-apologetic. “I mean I guess you get told this a lot, but you really look like April.”
“I know,” November says. “It’s one of the reasons I don’t go by Clarke-Cliveden professionally.”
“Yup, I get that,” Emily says. She leans forward, refilling her glass. “I get my fair share of weirdos just from my small role in what happened. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be a Clarke-Cliveden. Or you, Han,” she adds apologetically. “I can’t believe the way the college washed its hands of you. Of all of us, actually, but especially you. They just let you drop out.”
“I know, that’s what Hugh said,” Hannah says, remembering. “He reckoned these days it would be all compulsory post-trauma counseling and CBT, but back then, how did he put it? Chin up, and we’ll go easy on you in the exams.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Emily says dryly. “There’s no way I deserved a first, and I’m pretty sure Hugh wouldn’t even have passed if it wasn’t for April. I mean, I don’t want to make it sound like a silver lining, because a cloud that shit doesn’t have any kind of lining, but he spent his entire time at Pelham scraping through. I don’t honestly think he really belonged there.”
“You think?” Hannah is surprised, though perhaps she shouldn’t be. She thinks back to Hugh’s perpetually worried expression, his frequent complaints about the workload, and the way, the night of April’s death, he had confided his worries about the exams and his desperate fear of letting his parents down. At the time she had thought that was just Hugh, and medicine—an anxious high achiever taking a grueling course. Now, though, she wonders. Maybe Hugh was struggling. The thought makes her feel disloyal. “They wouldn’t have let him in if that were true,” she says now. “I mean, what’s that exam called, the one they do for medicine? The BMAT. It’s supposed to be really hard. Will told me once that Hugh aced it. He was practically guaranteed a place, his marks were so high.”
Emily opens her mouth, but before she can reply, a buzzer goes off in the kitchen.
“Ah, that’s the tagine. I’ve made chickpea tagine, is that okay? I wasn’t sure if you were veggie or anything,” she says to November, “so I played it safe.”
“I actually am vegetarian,” November says with a smile. “So that sounds delicious.”
As Emily disappears into the little kitchen to check on the food, Hannah rises and looks around the room. It’s sparsely decorated—no photos, no mementos of Emily’s travels or pictures of her family. Only books and a couple of antique maps on the wall. It’s a room that is hard to read—a little like Emily herself. Reserved. Austere. A little severe, perhaps.
“What are you hoping to find?”
The voice comes from behind her and she swings round, to see Emily standing there, hands on hips.
“How do you mean?” Hannah asks. For a minute she’s unsure whether Emily means here in Oxford, or here in her house. Was she accusing Hannah of snooping? “What am I hoping to find in Oxford? Or just generally?”
“At Pelham, I suppose I meant. But yes, generally. Are you looking for something specific?”