Naomi Alderman - The Lessons

‘S’not “loves”, it’s love ,’ said Jess. Her arms were folded on the table, her head laid on them. Until she spoke, I’d assumed she was asleep. ‘Can’t have more than one love, thass not how it works.’

‘You’ve clearly been going to entirely the wrong parties, my darling,’ he said.

‘Mmmmm …’ she said. ‘I don’ think …’ She lapsed into silence.

Mark walked around the table to Jess and rubbed her back gently between the shoulder blades.

‘C’mon, darling, time for bed. James, why don’t you take her upstairs?’

I stroked the side of Jess’s face, where the freckles met the hairline, by her ear.

‘Jess,’ I said, ‘Jess, it’s time for bed now.’

She turned a smiling face to me and kissed me squarely on the lips. There was no reaction from the others. I felt a strange sensation, a combination of delight and concern. Mark had made up a bed for us both, apparently anticipating that we would only want one. We did only want one, but this was a new development, so new that I was a little surprised Jess had told Mark. Were we together now, decidedly together? What did that mean?

I supported her up the stairs to our room. She lay on the bed and was instantly asleep. I covered her with a blanket and sat by her for a minute or two.

She muttered something. I leaned closer.

‘What’s that?’

She sighed and said again, ‘You’re so beautiful.’

She rolled over and wrapped her arm across my leg. I sat perfectly still and after a few minutes her breathing became steady and even.

Downstairs, the party was winding to its conclusion. Emmanuella was lying on the sofa in the yellow salon, her dress bunched up around her thighs. Mark was on the floor by her side, singing a French song, a children’s lullaby, softly.

Simon was sitting in the large red leather armchair, feet up on the coffee table, puffing thoughtfully at a cigar.

‘Had to carry Franny up to bed,’ he said. ‘Completely overcome by the alcohol. Of course, it hasno effect onme, nonewhassoever.’

Mark smiled, then broke off singing to say, ‘He did carry her, you know. Quite astonishing.’

‘Always happy to help a lady. ’Cept if she’s being sick. I remember once, she spewed up so much that …’

Emmanuella sat up abruptly.

‘If it has reached the time for the vomit tales, I also must go to bed.’

‘Quite right,’ said Mark, ‘quite right. No sort of stories for a lady.’

‘I wonder, James,’ said Emmanuella, ‘whether you would be kind and escort me to bed?’ She exchanged a look with Mark, a look I could not quite understand. A meeting of eyes, like the sealing of an agreement.

She took my arm. Her perfume had mellowed over the evening, combining with the wine to become an amber glowing scent, rich and honey-dropped. I found myself wondering, without intending to do so, whether she smelled like this inside her clothes. Whether it was perfume at all, or just the warm brown scent of her skin.

She led me slowly to her room on the first floor. I went to leave her at the door but she tugged on my arm and said, ‘No, no, I will fall without you. Take me to the bed.’

There were fresh flowers in her room, jugs of white roses. Above the bed was a crucifix, the blood painted a wet red but the face serene. I looked away from it and noticed a small holdall by the bed and a book on the nightstand. She had known already that she would be staying, then. How much thought had gone into this apparently artless afternoon?

Emmanuella sat down on the bed, took off her boots and stretched her stockinged toes. The counterpane was very smooth and white. She patted it, inviting me to sit by her. I sat down. She rested her head on my shoulder and ran her arm around my waist. I could feel the outline of her breast against my side.

‘Do you like me?’ she said, so low that I had to incline my head towards her to catch the words.

‘I … yes. Yes, I like you,’ I said.

She snuggled closer.

‘I like you too. You are very handsome,’ she said.

She raised her head, brought it close to mine and, very softly, breathed into my ear. A thrill of pleasure went through me. I risked a mistake and moved my hand across her legs, squeezing her knee gently. She sighed.

‘Mark has told me so many good things about you,’ she said.

Mark. Was it possible that this had been planned ? Had he guessed I liked her? Had he told her?

Emmanuella bit my earlobe very gently. The sensation was exhilarating.

‘Close the door,’ she whispered.

I stood up, walked to the door. Outside in the corridor the light was still on. To my surprise, at the far end of the passage, I could see the door to Simon’s room half ajar. Inside, Mark and Simon were sprawled on the gigantic four-poster bed, giggling. I looked back to Emmanuella. Her eyes were half-closed, her head nodding forwards. Is it to my credit or discredit that this alone convinced me?

I walked back into the room, leaving the door open. I brushed the hair out of her eyes and pushed her back gently on to the bed. She sighed happily. I leaned forward and whispered, ‘Time for you to sleep.’

She nodded, and wrapped her arms around the pillow, clutching it like a child with a teddy bear.

Out in the corridor I closed the door and stood for a moment, resting my back on it. It was then that I saw Mark at the other end of the passage. He pushed open the door to Simon’s room, carrying something in his hand. Simon lay sprawled still on the bed, his shirt open to the waist. Mark turned, saw me watching him and winked, then went into Simon’s room and closed the door behind him.

Upstairs Jess was still asleep, snoring softly. I sat on the sofa and looked out of the window at the dark garden shifting in the wind. I wondered what I would do with this invitation — at once sensible and ludicrous. If I took it, then what? I would have a group of friends ready-made, a way out of the misery of college life. I had longed, since arriving in Oxford, to move away — my whole trajectory seemed to me an attempt to run away from the place, to take up residence somewhere smaller.

And if I did not take it, then what? Back to college, and to struggle, and to the life I had hated so much last term. And what could I say to Jess to make her understand? ‘I think perhaps he invited us all here, and plied us with alcohol, to give me the chance to sleep with Emmanuella if I wanted’? She would go on with this life and I would have to return to mine. No. It was this that drove me, in the end. Not a running-to, but a running-from. I did not want to end like Kendall, bolting from an exam hall, with nowhere to go.

I saw Kendall a few days later in Chapel Quad. He was lying on a bench by the ivy-covered wall, his head resting on his rucksack. I thought he was asleep, but as I walked past he lifted his head and called to me.

‘Stieff!’ he said. ‘Off to Boycott?’

‘Yup,’ I said. It was my ten-minute slot with the tutor to receive the results of my collections. I could not delay.

‘Good luck,’ he said. ‘Hope it goes well. I suppose …’ He frowned. ‘I might not see you again.’

I stared at him, puzzled.

‘I’m … er, well, I’m leaving Oxford. Talked it through with Boycott. It’s all for the best, probably. It only gets harder from here and, you know, if it hasn’t been good so far …’

I was aware of the seconds ticking by. Dr Boycott would be caustic if I was late. Nonetheless.

‘But where are you going?’

He wrinkled his nose. ‘Manchester. My UCCA reserve. Jumped to take me when I called.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Um.’ I did not know what to say. It was as if Kendall had told me he had been diagnosed with a chronic and painful disease. I do not defend this; this is how we thought.