“Sure!” November says. She looks concerned, and they stand for a minute, Hannah resting one hand against the golden stone of the outer wall, trying to steady herself. You can do this, he won’t be in there.
“Okay,” she says at last. And she is. Because the picture in her head is not of Neville as he was then—tall and broad and terrifying—but of the man in the article, the frail elderly man in his prison uniform. She feels her breathing steady. “Okay, I’m ready.”
“Are you sure?” November asks, a little anxiously now. “Because we really don’t have to. We can bow out—send our apologies. I can say I couldn’t face it. People will understand.”
“No, I’m fine. I want to do this.”
“Okay,” November says. She puts out a hand towards the big metal handle of the inner door. “Sure?”
“Sure.”
As she nods, November pushes on the centuries-old door—and it opens. And together they duck through, and then, for the first time in more than ten years, Hannah is inside Pelham College.
It hasn’t changed either. That’s the first thing she thinks. It hasn’t changed at all. There’s the Porters’ Lodge to the right, under the arch. There’s a kind of sick reflexive lurch in her stomach as she remembers all the times she scurried past, head down, panic choking her in case he was there. But now she forces herself to stop and look, really look. Two elderly men are standing behind the counter, white shirts straining over ample stomachs, but Neville is just a ghost in her imagination, and she doesn’t know either of them.
November leads the way into the Porters’ Lodge and steps up to the counter.
“Hi, we’re here for a tour? My name is November Rain, this is Hannah de Chastaigne. We’re here to look around the college and then we’re meeting with Dr. Myers.”
“November Rain?” the older of the two men says thoughtfully, running his finger down what looks like some kind of appointments ledger, then he nods. “Gotcha. I think Dr. Myers wanted to show you around himself. Let me give him a tinkle.”
November shoots Hannah a look, and Hannah bites her lip. This isn’t what they had discussed. Emily had simply said that the Master was happy for them to have a tour; there had been no discussion of who would be showing them around, and somehow Hannah had imagined someone neutral, unknown to them both, someone who didn’t know their history and their connection to Pelham—but of course this makes sense.
The porter is speaking on the phone, nodding and yes-ing by turns. Then he puts the receiver down and turns back to them.
“He’s coming down. Park yourselves in a corner—or maybe you’d prefer to wait on the bench outside?”
November looks at Hannah with a raised eyebrow, then answers for them both.
“I think we’d rather wait outside. Soak up the last of the sun.”
“Right you are,” the porter says cheerfully, and they let themselves out.
Outside, November looks even more rattled than Hannah feels.
“Yikes. Is this okay?”
“I think so…” Hannah says slowly. “I mean… I can’t think what difference it makes? It’s going to be hard to discuss anything in front of him, but then that would probably have been the case whoever showed us round. We could hardly have stood there going Oh yes, look, this is where Dr. Myers might have done it.”
“Yeees…” November says. She is beginning to look calmer, less alarmed. “Yes. You’re right. Yes, it’ll be fine, won’t it? It’s just a tour.”
“It’s just a tour.”
“Well, well, well.”
The voice comes from behind them, and at the sound of it Hannah’s adrenaline spikes so hard it feels like a jolt of electricity pulsing through her.
“Hannah Jones.”
She shuts her eyes, counts to three. Her heart is pounding. Think of the baby. She thinks of the baby. She thinks of April. She thinks of the blood pressure tablet she swallowed this morning with her breakfast orange juice.
She takes a deep breath, opens her eyes, and turns.
He is there. Dr. Horatio Myers. A little older, a little grayer around the temples, but still the same Byronic wind-swept hair, the same slightly self-conscious tweed jacket, like someone playing the part of an academic.
“Dr. Myers,” she says.
“How very lovely to see you here, Hannah.” His tone is perfect, she realizes, as he takes one of her hands in his, pressing it between his palms. It’s welcoming, but also grave, and an acknowledgment that this isn’t just any alumnus coming back for auld lang syne, but something rather different, rather more painful. “Although, it is in fact Professor Myers these days,” he adds, taking away a little from his air of solicitude.