G Malliet - Death at the Alma Mater

They sat on a bench that was screened by a trellis, the vines trained into the shape of a heart. The Garden itself was in the design of a French Parterre, with low plantings divided by gravel footpaths and the whole surrounded by walls cloaked in English ivy. The large Garden was overlooked by a first-floor gallery over a cloister walk, with the gallery leading to the dining hall.

"It's just a feeling I have, James." The aristocratic, nasal tones of Lady Bassett were unmistakable. "It would be better if we left. I'll just claim a mysterious virus-you know the kind of thing. We can make it right with the Master at a later date."

"Perhaps you're right, India," His answering voice, low and soothing, also carried clearly to where Portia stood.

"Do you mean it?"

"If it makes you happy, of course I mean it. I'll have a word with the Master. It's just a bit awkward, that's all."

"I'll tell you what's jolly well awkward is Lexy's being here. I think it's one of her blasted games, James, I really do. She so loves creating a scene. Don't you remember?"

He shifted. Something in her tone seemed to have affected him. He sat for a long moment, looking at her, then took her hand in his.

"Let's talk about it in the morning," he said, his worry clear in his voice. "If you still want to go then, we'll leave."

He stood suddenly. Portia, afraid of discovery, shrank back and started to slip away. Just then, she saw something flash in the shadows of the cloister walk, the shape of a woman in a dress of gold lame-a most unsuitable costume for undercover observation (and surely a bit of overkill, even for dinner in Hall).

Portia also had the sense that someone else was watching this little tableau of spies and espied. She felt rather than saw a shadow draw back from a window in the library overlooking the Garden, a window which stood open to the summer breeze. A lack of privacy was always a feature of college life. Making her escape, Portia nearly collided with someone as she turned a corner, heading for the main stairs.

"I'm looking for Lexy," the man said, exactly as if everyone in the world would know whom he meant, as much of the world would. Fully taking in Portia's appearance, he smiled appreciatively. "But you'll do," he said. He was a broad-shouldered, dark-haired man of muscular build. His broad smile displayed perfect white teeth, and he spoke perfect English with an overlay of accent from the Southern Hemisphere. He announced that he was Geraldo Valentiano, as if this, too, were a name she would recognize.

"I haven't seen her," Portia lied, without quite knowing why. It had almost certainly been Lexy in the gold lame-what were the chances another woman would be wandering the college in a similar dress?

"She's probably mooning about the college somewhere. She told me she always did that when she was upset, even twenty years ago."

"Upset?" asked Portia.

"You don't want to know. She's been moody since we got here, and it's looking like it's only going to get worse. Now she's disappeared immediately after dinner, and I've half a mind to leave her and go back up to London. If she had been a proper wife to James none of this would have happened, anyway. Are you free?"

Portia, not knowing if he meant free as in available, or free as in no charge, felt that one answer would suffice for both.

"No," she said, brushing past him and up the stairs. Good heavens, she thought, letting herself into her flat. Much more of this and I will have a thoroughly jaded view of men. She thought with more than a little longing of St. Just, her eyes lingering on the most recent bouquet of flowers he'd brought her, which stood in a vase on a table in her front hall. A single petal had fallen on the table. She wondered if he were still at work so late.

She looked up at the sky, spotted a bright star, and wished upon it. But her prayer wouldn't be answered just yet.

The next day with its full schedule of lectures and tours passed without incident, and Saturday evening arrived. Sebastian and Saffron were in her room in St. Mike's, where they had just made love, and they lay rather self-consciously folded in one another's arms. They had seen magazine ads, mostly for perfume, of how this pose of sybaritic abandon was supposed to look: glistening, tangled limbs and tousled curls; heads thrown back to gaze into one another's eyes in spellbound, satiated adoration. But because Sebastian did not adore, only Saffron held her head at this awkward angle. And it was much too cold in her room for abandoned limbs.

"Time to go," he said.

"I know," she replied, too quickly. Her voice, which she had tried to train since meeting Sebastian into the self-confident bray of the upper classes, usually betrayed her, this time breaking in the middle of the two short syllables like a schoolboy's. She cleared her throat and aimed for a lower register.

"I have work to do," she added firmly but unconvincingly. He was making moves to get out of bed. Think of something to ask, quickly.

"How's it going with the parents? Have you seen them today?"

"Yes. It was ghastly. Bloody Lexy being here is causing no end of strain. I've even wondered…"

"Wondered?" she asked, treading gently, gently. It wasn't like Seb to "share," as the American students would say. These few sentences were as gold to her. She didn't want to rush at him, make him clam up.

"I told you. I've wondered if she has some vague hope of getting back together with my stepfather."

"There's a cracked idea." Saffron gave a gentle snort of contempt, to mask her guilty realization of how similar were their situations, hers and Lexy's. The Americans would probably tell them both it was time to "let go and move on," and they'd be right. How easy it was to spout brainless platitudes.

"Isn't it just? I really don't think James would be that mad, but you never know… he's such a stick; I never understood what my mother sees in him, really… I wish she'd go away… stay away from them. If anyone hurt India, I swear… "

Saffron, thrilled at these disjointed disclosures, wisely kept quiet, but she was thinking, not for the first time, that Sebastian could be a bit of a mummy's boy. He'd do whatever it took to make his mother happy and keep her that way. The thought of James leaving his mother to reunite with the gorgeous Lexy-she could see it made Sebastian livid.

"Maybe you could have a word?" she suggested tentatively.

Sebastian, no longer listening, swung his legs over the side of the bed and reached for his rucksack. He had brought his kit with him to save time. He always did that. She knew how much rowing meant to him-she was reconciled to the fact he wanted that Blue more than he wanted anything, certainly more than he wanted her-but couldn't he at least pretend reluctance to leave? Maybe it was time, fretted Saffron, to start a slimming regime. She had put on a couple of pounds lately… The words of a Tracy Chapman song went through her head, as they often did when she thought of Seb:

Maybe if I told you the right words

At the right time you'd be mine.

"Couldn't you…" she began. Don't say it.

Sebastian began pulling on his rowing shorts and shirt. He reached for his warm-up top.

"Couldn't I what?" His back was to her, which made it easier. Whatever you do, Don't Say It.

"Couldn't you stay, just a bit? This once?" Oh, fuck. She knew better than this. She had no mind left when it came to Seb. Fuck fuck fuck it. Keep your face still and flat. Don't let him see.

He turned. He wasn't angry, as she'd feared. It was worse. From the condescending, pitying smirk on his face, Saffron had her confirmation that those were not the right words. Those were precisely all the wrong words, lined up in the wrong order, and said in the wrong tone of voice. And definitely at the wrong time. Full points.