“Got the right room this time?”
Hannah nodded, suppressing her puzzlement. Had he been outside for the whole tutorial?
“Yes, thanks. I don’t think I would have found it without your help.”
“All in a day’s work.” His voice was just as off-kilter as it had been before, high and reedy in comparison to his stocky, six-foot frame. It sounded as though it belonged to a much smaller, frailer man. “Where are you off to now, then?”
“Um…” Hannah hadn’t really thought about it. “I don’t know. The library I guess.” She glanced at the list of books Dr. Myers had handed her.
The porter nodded.
“This way, then.”
“Oh!” Hannah flushed, realizing that he intended to take her. “No, I mean, I know where it is. Honestly. You don’t need to walk me.”
“Can’t have the students getting lost on my watch,” the porter said, and Hannah found herself flushing again, her cheeks hot. She felt annoyed—angry at her own stupid embarrassment, but also at this porter for being so weird and patronizing, and for not taking the hint that she didn’t need his help. Was he really going to accompany her all the way to the library? Why?
“I don’t need you to walk me,” she said again, but the words sounded feeble and hollow, particularly as she had no choice but to follow him down the stairs from Dr. Myers’s room, there being no other exit.
In the end it seemed easier just to let him tag along however strange she felt, being escorted across the quad and through the cloisters by a fifty-something man in a porter’s uniform. When they got to the door of the library she said goodbye with some relief, silently vowing to leave by a different exit. Thank goodness there were several.
“Thank you. Honestly, you didn’t have to.”
“My pleasure,” the porter said. He put out a hand. “John Neville. You need anything at all, you just ask for me.”
“Okay,” Hannah said. She took his hand in spite of a twinge of reluctance. It was cold and soft and a little damp, like touching raw bread dough. “Thanks.”
He held her grip just a little too long. When at last he let go, she tried to walk with dignity into the library, rather than fleeing unceremoniously. But when she got up to the first floor she could not stop herself going to a window overlooking the cloisters to check if he was still there.
To her relief he was not—he was walking away, across the lawns, back to the Porters’ Lodge, and Hannah returned to the vaulted reading room with a sigh of relief.
For the next few hours, she was kept busy, tracking down books and navigating the library’s unfamiliar shelving system. But something about the encounter had shaken her, and as she sat down at the polished oak desk, the books piled up around her, it came back to her—the sensation of his cold, soft fingers on hers, and the sound of his reedy voice in her ears.
She was being silly. He was probably just a lonely middle-aged man with no talent for taking a graceful brush-off. But one thing was for sure: she had absolutely no intention of asking John Neville for help, ever again.
AFTER
“Decaf cappuccino and a brownie?” the server calls, and then, when there’s no response, “Half-fat decaf cappuccino with cinnamon, and a hazelnut brownie?”
“Oh.” Hannah shakes herself out of her reverie. “Yes, that’s me, thank you. Sorry. I wasn’t paying attention.”
The boy puts the coffee and brownie down on the table along with the receipt. Hannah picks up the cup and takes a sip. It’s good—the coffee at Cafeteria always is—but when she glances at the bill, she puts the cup down. Seven pounds forty. Was Cafeteria always so expensive? Maybe she shouldn’t have ordered that brownie. She isn’t even hungry.
Her phone rings, vibrating its way across the table with a suddenness that makes her jump. It’s probably another bloody reporter, calling from an unregistered number. Picking up the caller that morning was a mistake—she would never have done it if she’d been paying attention.
But when she digs the phone out of her bag, the caller ID gives her a jolt of surprise.
Emily Lippman.
She picks up.
“Em! This is unexpected.”
It is. She hasn’t heard from Emily for… maybe two years? It’s not that they haven’t kept in touch, exactly. They’ve been Facebook friends since uni, so Hannah knows about Emily’s flourishing academic career—she and Hugh are the only ones who really lived up to the promise of those early days. She’s read the impenetrable academic maths papers that Emily posts with a faux casual So… wrote a thing that belies the intense ambition Hannah remembers from Pelham. And for her part, Emily responds to Hannah’s infrequent posts with what seems like genuine affection. Let me know next time you’re down south! she wrote, last time Hannah posted a picture from Dodsworth.