She was getting off the train when she saw Ryan up ahead of her on the platform and half ran, shoving her way ruthlessly through the crowd of students, to try to catch up with him. It wasn’t easy—she was wearing a rucksack and dragging a suitcase, but she caught him at the ticket barrier, where he was rummaging in his wallet.
“Ryan! How was your holiday?”
“Ey up, Hannah Jones!” Ryan said with a broad grin, and he turned and gave her a bear hug. “How’re you, pet?”
“I’m good. How are you?”
“Pretty sweet, yeah. Had a good holiday, but I’m chuffed to be back.”
“I bet you missed Emily?”
“Missed the sex anyway,” Ryan said, with a grin that dared her to react. Hannah rolled her eyes.
“You know full well if you actually were the sexist pig you pretend to be, Emily wouldn’t touch you with a barge pole.”
“She’s like all clever women,” Ryan said, yanking his bag through the turnstile. “Secretly wants a caveman to throw her over his shoulder.”
Hannah shook her head, refusing to rise to the bait.
They shared a taxi back to Pelham, swapping gossip and catching up as it wound its way slowly through the crowded streets.
“Fucking collections,” Ryan groaned when she asked him about his revision. “Yeah, I’ve revised. I’d like to pretend I didn’t, but we can’t all have a rich daddy to donate a library wing if we flunk out.”
“It’s all an act,” Hannah said, a little nettled on April’s behalf. “You know that, right? All that party girl, I don’t care schtick. She actually works pretty hard, and she’s bloody clever.”
“It in’t just her, though, is it? It’s all of them. All them private-school types getting the shock of their lives as they realize we can’t all be top of the class. I mean, look at me and Will, we’re mates, sure. But only one of us is going to come out at the head of the list. And we both want it to be us. Everyone at Pelham does. And for some of them it’ll be the first time they don’t.”
Hannah nodded soberly. It was true—Pelham wasn’t the most rabidly academic of the Oxford colleges, but it certainly leaned that way, rather than towards the sporting, drinking culture of some of the others. On a scale from work hard to play hard, Pelham definitely prized the first more. But nor was it the most meritocratic of the colleges. As Ryan had pointed out, it had a high intake of private-school students, higher than the already high Oxford average. Taken together, the two made for a weirdly febrile atmosphere that combined academic privilege with a panicked realization that no one here was getting a leg up—there were no kindly teachers to help with cramming or hint at which papers to revise. Here there were no extra classes, no mummy or daddy to organize after-school tutors and emergency summer school. You were on your own—sink or swim. And Hannah had no idea which camp she would be in.
* * *
“HANNAAAAAH!”
The shriek set Hannah’s ears ringing as she opened the door to the set, and someone barreled across the living room to fling her arms around her, almost knocking her off-balance with her heavy rucksack.
“April!” Hannah set down her case, laughing, and hugged April back. “How are you? Sorry your Christmas was a bit pants.”
“Pants is not the word. It was a big steaming pile of crap,” April said, throwing herself back on the sofa. “If it wasn’t for my sister, I’m not sure I’d bother to go back next vac.”
“You have a sister?” Hannah was surprised. She wasn’t sure why—April had never explicitly said she was an only child, but somehow Hannah had just assumed that was the case.
“Yeah, she’s eleven and a little brat, but I wouldn’t leave a dog alone with my parents at Christmas. Oh, by the way”—she threw out a hand at a small gift bag sitting on the table in front of the sofa—“I got you something.”
“For me? April, you shouldn’t have.”
“Well, I did, so suck it up.”
Surprised, Hannah wriggled her rucksack off each shoulder and made her way over to the armchair in front of the fireplace. The bag was small, white, and made of stiff card with handles of thick black grosgrain ribbon, and inside was a miniature parcel done up in holly-green paper. Carefully she took it out, unpicked the tape, and drew out the little jewel-bright box inside.
“Chantecaille,” Hannah read out. It wasn’t a brand she knew, but she could tell from the packaging and the feel of it in her hand that that was probably because it was far too expensive for the makeup counter at Superdrug. “Is it nail varnish?”