But posting on Facebook is a false kind of intimacy, and in real life they haven’t seen or spoken to each other for a long time—not since Ryan’s wedding. In fact, she wasn’t even sure Emily had this number, though she remembers passing it round last time she swapped.
“Well, I saw the news,” Emily says now. Her disconcerting directness at least hasn’t changed, and that realization gives Hannah a reassuring feeling of familiarity. “You okay?”
“Yes,” Hannah says, with more certainty than she feels. “I mean it was a shock—but yes.”
“And I heard from Hugh that you’re pregnant. Congratulations!”
“Thanks.” The news that Emily is still in touch with Hugh is somehow a surprise. She’s never thought of them as firm friends. “I didn’t know you kept up with Hugh.”
“Just occasionally. He came down to an alumni carol service last year. Seems like he visits Oxford quite regularly—he said you and Will never come?”
“No, well, I mean, Edinburgh to Oxford is a long way,” Hannah says, though she knows the excuse must sound feeble, particularly since Hugh also lives in Edinburgh. “It’s a trek.”
“Yeah,” Emily says, but not like she’s fooled. You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out why Hannah might not want to return to Pelham.
“Did you go to the Gaudy last year?” Hannah asks, more to divert the conversation than because she really wants to know. Personally she can’t think of anything worse than hanging around with their former classmates, reminiscing about the “best years of their lives.” What would she say? The truth? That April haunts her like an unquiet ghost? That her short time at Pelham ended in a long nightmare she’s spent the rest of her life trying to wake up from?
“No,” Emily is saying. “Hugh did, I think, but I’m not really into the whole reunion thing. But I have been back to dine a couple of times. Not often, I find the whole alumni deal unbearably smug most of the time. But I thought since I was back in Oxford I should show willing. You know, work the old network a bit.”
“Oh…” Memory comes back to Hannah, something Will said last year. “I forgot you weren’t in London anymore. You’re a fellow at Balliol College, is that right? Is that a step up from Pelham?”
“Yes, practically come full circle.” Emily’s voice is dry. “As for a step up… I don’t know. Balliol would probably try to say so, but as far as I can see, the only difference is the wine cellar at Balliol is better.”
“What’s it like? Being back?”
“Um… weird, to be honest. At first, anyway.”
She stops. There is a long silence. Hannah is just trying to think what to say when Emily finally speaks, her voice quieter than before.
“Han, are you really okay?”
For a moment Hannah can’t reply. She closes her eyes, pushes her glasses up her forehead, and digs her fingers into the bony hollows on either side of the bridge of her nose.
“Yes,” she says at last. “And no. I mean, no, I’m not okay really. But I’m not not okay. Does that make sense?”
“Yes,” Emily says. She sounds sad. “Because I feel the same.” There is another silence between them, and for a moment Hannah has the strangest impression that no time has passed at all—that the two of them are back at Oxford, phoning room-to-room, and for a sharp, piercing moment she wishes it were true—that she could run down the corridor and tell Emily she’s going to the JCR, and does she want a coffee. Then Emily speaks again, her voice stronger this time. “Oh, hey, I meant to ask—has a reporter called Geraint Williams been trying to get in touch with you?”
The name gives Hannah an odd prickle, coming so close on the heels of the email. She nods, forgetting Emily can’t see her, and then says, “Yes. I mean—he emailed me. But I didn’t reply. I didn’t even really read it. How come?”
“I don’t know. He’s been after me to talk to him. I said no, of course, but… I don’t know. He’s a friend of Ryan’s, apparently.”
“Of Ryan’s?” It’s a shock. Hannah’s not sure why, except that Ryan, out of all of them, is the person she feels most guilty about abandoning after college.
“From his days at the Herald. He said it was Ryan who got him interested in the case. Have you seen him?”
“Geraint?”
“No, Ryan.” Emily sounds impatient.