And now this—the news that April may have been pregnant… it feels like the last straw. Something she can’t ignore, can’t push away.
She shuts her eyes. The image of Neville, the gaunt, frail old man in the BBC news clip, floats up before her eyes, with his hunted, pleading expression…
She opens them again.
“Fine.” The word that comes out of her lips is short, clipped, almost strangled, spoken in spite of herself.
Then she turns, clatters down the stairs, shoves a fiver onto the payment desk, and leaves without waiting for change, with the nice owner looking after her in surprise.
“Are you okay, pet?” she hears as the door slams shut after her, and she wants to say yes. She wants to say, I’m fine, it’s nothing, everything’s going to be okay.
But none of it’s true.
BEFORE
“You’re coming? You’re definitely coming?”
It was the opening night of April’s play, and for the first time since they had met, almost eight months earlier, Hannah was seeing what April looked like when she was really and truly nervous. She was pacing around the room, vibrating with a tense energy and muttering lines under her breath, cursing when she missed her own cues.
“Hannah!” she barked now, when Hannah didn’t answer immediately. “I said, do you promise you’re coming?”
“Yes!” Hannah said, exasperated, and then she felt mean, and added, more gently, “Yes, April, I promise. I said so, didn’t I?”
“I know, but everyone’s so wrapped up in bloody prelims. I’m worried they’ll all be revising. I practically had to force Hugh to say he’d come. I can’t think of anything worse than looking out over an empty auditorium on the first night.”
“It won’t be empty. I’ll be there—and Emily said she’s definitely coming too.” Was Will? She didn’t know, and couldn’t quite think how to ask. Something had not been right with April and Will for a while, but it had become increasingly impossible for Hannah to find out what. She was too afraid of what April might tell her—or of giving something away herself. “I’m sure the other cast members will bring friends. Someone even put a flyer up in the bar—I’m sure you’ll have loads of people. What time are you supposed to be there?”
“Six,” April said, and then looked at her phone. “Shit. I need to leave now. The makeup takes ages. Swear you’ll be there, yes?”
“Yes, I’ll be there. Front row. I swear. Now go!”
After April had left, Hannah rang Emily.
“Em? I hope you’ve remembered about tonight. She’s having kittens.”
“Tonight?” Hannah could feel Emily struggling to remember.
“Yes, tonight. April’s play, remember? At the Burton Taylor.”
“Shit.” There was a pause. Hannah could hear Emily clicking stuff on her computer diary. “I’ve got an exam tomorrow.”
It was the last fortnight of term, and they were deep into end-of-year exams, the first ones that really counted.
“Em, you have to come. She’ll lose it. She’s already incredibly nervous about playing to an empty house. If we’re not there—”
“I told her I’d come, and I’ll come. But I’ll have to leave on time.”
“No worries, I’ll have to get back too. I’ve got to revise.”
It went without saying at this point. Only the lucky few whose prelims were already over weren’t burning the midnight oil and cursing their carefree, Michaelmas-term selves for not taking better notes.
“How does April do it?” Emily said. “I mean, I know she doesn’t go to the lectures, and I haven’t seen her in the dining hall for about three weeks. She’s been rehearsing nonstop and now they’re playing every evening this week, aren’t they? Is she doing any work?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Hannah said. She had wondered the same thing, as April came in night after night at 11 p.m., wired and full of nervous jubilation. “I think she’s barely sleeping. I got up to go to the loo at four a.m. the other night and she was still there, typing away at something.”
“Fucking hell,” Emily said. “Well, whatever she’s on, I want some. At this point I can hardly remember my own name.”
“Me too. I’ve only got one paper left, but it’s the worst.” Hannah thought of the Anglo-Saxon translations lying on her desk, scored over and over with her attempts at remembering the complicated grammatical declensions. She could barely do a passable translation with a copy of A Guide to Old English sitting in her lap. How she was going to manage in a closed-book exam was anyone’s guess.