Naomi Alderman - The Lessons

‘Did I tell you what happened when we went to the cinema two weeks ago? And we were all wearing jeans? Except Sophie came in a proper flowery dress and Laura went, “Did your mum make that?” and Sophie went, “Yes”? Hannah and me were going, “Leave her alone,” and she did in the end, but —’ Nicola rolled her eyes — ‘she’s just so horrible, Mark!’

‘What a bitch,’ said Mark, ‘she’ll come to a bad end, you mark my words. Now what about your family, how’s everyone?’

As Nicola began to explain how Eloise was the most annoying person ever, while Leo was still a pet and her parents were … I watched Mark’s face. He was rapt, even his habitual tic-like flicking of his hair or fiddling with a cigarette had all but vanished. Nicola bloomed visibly under this attention. Her neck grew longer, her back straighter. As Mark asked in fine-grained detail about her family, her schoolfriends, her work, she was half-child half-adult with him, sometimes flirtatiously playing with her hair or touching his arm, at other moments becoming over-conscious of her actions and backing away. When he stood up and walked around the room her eyes followed him. When he walked into the kitchen to fetch tea and cake she followed him half in a daze.

Franny, observing all this from the far end of the room, looked up from her book as they walked out and said, ‘I hope he knows a dog is for life, not just for Christmas.’

‘Franny!’ said Jess.

Franny rolled her eyes and went back to her book.

‘What’s this?’ said Nicola.

I walked into the kitchen and saw that she was examining the gold and glass music box. Mark had left it carelessly on one of the shelves, apparently hoping that it might walk away of its own volition. It had become a little sticky and looked less than its glittering self.

‘Oh, that?’ said Mark. ‘Just a music box. See, there’s a key underneath you turn to make it play.’

‘It’s amazing,’ said Nicola, lifting it up to wind the key. ‘So pretty!’

She opened the lid and the twinkling notes spilled out.

‘Do you like it?’

‘It’s beautiful,’ said Nicola.

‘Then it’s yours,’ he said. ‘Take it.’

‘Oh no, I can’t.’ She ran her fingers along the gold rim of the lid, touched the curved legs where the claws held the golden balls. ‘I can’t.’

‘Of course you can. I don’t want it. You can have it.’

She looked at him, thoughtful, with the earnestness of a teenager.

‘No,’ she said, ‘I’ll just enjoy it while I’m here.’

‘Then you must come more often!’ said Mark, and spun her a little waltz around the room as the box played to its end.

In the late afternoon, just as it was getting dark, we started to get ready. Dinner jackets and white shirts. Mark left his bow tie undone, starting, he said, as he meant to go on. We drank champagne on the landing while the girls rustled and giggled in Emmanuella’s room.

‘I hope you’re not trying to peek!’ called Franny, already two glasses of wine down, ‘because I’m totally naked in here.’

‘Oh,’ said Jess, ‘Franny, don’t tease them. She’s lying.’

‘S’true, s’true,’ said Franny, ‘totally naked except for my bowler hat.’

And at last they stepped out. Jess in her indigo high-necked dress, Emmanuella in her caramel silk, Franny in her dark red velvet and finally Nicola, who had brought her dress in several black rubbish bags taped together, with the hanger hooks poking out of the top. She looked older, perhaps as much as five years older now. Her smattering of acne was covered with make-up, her hair pinned back in a pleat. Her dress was a sea-green confection, 1950s-style, with a nipped-in waist and layers of petticoats under the skirt so that it swung like a bell when she walked.

‘My God,’ said Mark, ‘Nic, what fabulous tits!’

‘That’s my sister, mate,’ said Simon, half-joking.

‘Oh, sorry,’ said Mark. ‘I mean, “Nicola, what magnificent breasts.” ’

And we went to the ball.

Ostensibly, the ball’s ‘theme’ was Christmas. Laser images of trees, stars and angels were projected on to the ancient walls and mottled drifts of fake snow were piled in the corners of the quads. But, in a cheerful exuberance of mixed messages, there was also a mariachi band in Front Quad and a stall selling tortillas. In Garden Quad a string quartet was gamely performing next to a troupe of wandering jugglers, while in Chapel Quad students in full evening dress were jumping up and down to a techno beat on a plywood dance floor.

‘Look! Look!’ said Nicola, leafing through her glossy programme, ‘they’ve got a hypnotist and a graphologist and a fortune-teller and a masseur and an ABBA tribute band!’

She jumped up and down in excitement, careless of her high heels, and Mark joined in, the two of them holding hands and jumping in circles. In the corner of the quad, a young man was already vomiting, but the night had barely begun.

We walked through Front Quad, where the mariachis were playing a set the programme called ‘Latin rhythms’.

‘Come on,’ said Mark. ‘Come and dance.’

Nicola blushed and stared at him, as if uncertain whether he could really mean it.

‘Come on,’ he said again, tugging at her hand. ‘It doesn’t matter if you’re rubbish. I’m a fantastic dancer.’

She raised her eyebrows and grinned.

‘I’m not rubbish. I bet you’re more rubbish than me.’

‘Oh, is that so?’

Holding hands, they raced to the edge of the dance floor, where Mark placed Nicola facing us, resting his head momentarily on her shoulder to give us a broad wink. She, seeing our faces, looked round to find him gurning and half-pushed him off.

He slipped his arm around her waist, pressed his stomach against the small of her back and began to sway gently. She giggled and reached her arm down as if to pull his away, but his fingers caught hers and, rolling her eyes and laughing, she too began to circle her hips loosely. He nudged her forward and she spun lightly, away from him and then back, their hands together at her waist, a smile on her lips, a frown of concentration at his brow. He spun her away again and then, as he pulled her back, caught her other hand and arranged her into a ballroom stance, her hand resting on his shoulder. He whispered something into her ear and then they were moving slowly towards the centre of the dance floor. His hips were swaying and he pulled her closer and she laughed sweetly and leaned in to him. He was a good dancer, it was clear; he encouraged her, nudged her into position, moved her without bullying. Two couples passed in front of them and when they parted again I saw that her eyes were closed, her head on his chest.

Simon, I noticed, was watching them with a frown.

‘D’you fancy a dance, Si?’ said Franny.

He looked thoughtfully at the dance floor and then at Franny.

‘Maybe later,’ he said. ‘Anyone want some punch?’

We shook our heads.

‘Back in a minute, then.’

After he had moved away, Franny said quietly, ‘We are utterly sure Nicola knows Mark’s gay, aren’t we?’

‘You were there,’ said Jess. ‘She knows.’

‘Then I suppose,’ said Franny, ‘we just wonder whether Mark knows.’

And she moved off, following Simon.

By the candyfloss stand in Garden Quad, my shoulder was shaken by a man whose face I had to take a moment to resolve into recognition.

‘James!’ he said. ‘How the hell are you? Well? This is my girlfriend, Denise. Denise, this is James Stieff — fucking awesome physicist, top bloke.’

It was Kendall. He looked so much happier than when I had last seen him that he seemed entirely changed. Gone was the pallid, sickly air. Gone was the tea-scent. He seemed to have grown as well, put another inch or two on to himself, or perhaps it was simply that he stood more firmly. His girlfriend was lusciously plump and beautiful, poured into her dress to the point of appetizing overflow.