She looks at the red-canister alarm on her bedside table and imagines the disappointment vying with relief on her mother’s face when she drops out. On the days when her mother still functions, she works as a nurse. The first thing she does when she gets home, after she’s checked for messages from Inspector Hare, is read the obituaries in the evening paper, to see which former patients have died. “That didn’t take long,” she says. She’ll say the same when Imo quits.
An idea about the timetable clash tomorrow comes to her, something her mum – the old version of Mum – might suggest. She fires off a text to Tegan, asking her to collect the handouts from the Business Studies talk. Lies back on her pillow, feeling lighter in her chest. Things will work out. Her first problem solved on her own. She’s a student now, not a school kid.
Ten minutes later she’s still awake. Her throat hurts and coughing threatens no matter how she turns her body.
There’s a knock at the door. She freezes. Tegan come to tell her off for texting her at this hour?
“Imo, it’s me.” Amber’s voice. “I need painkillers.”
Imo unlocks the door and Amber stumbles in, doubled over. She falls on Imo’s bed and clutches the pillow to her stomach. Her short, bleached hair has crinkled, no doubt suffering the dual effects of bed head and natural wave. She wears fluffy grey slippers and a tartan dressing gown. Without the make-up and weird quilt coat she wore yesterday, she looks younger, vulnerable. Imo lets out a gasp; she reminds her of Sophia.
“What is it?” Amber asks.
“I might have a paracetamol in my purse.” Imo recovers and reaches for her bag, feeling light-headed at the comparison she’s made.
“I’m allergic to those. There’s an all-night petrol garage outside campus.” Amber sits up, wrapping the edges of the Groovy Chick duvet over her legs. “They’ll sell ibuprofen. Our taxi will be here in three minutes.”
Imo suppresses a sigh, no desire to go out in the night and irked that Amber has given her no choice. But Amber’s anguished face makes her feel guilty, especially as Amber stayed with her when she was throwing up the night before.
“Let’s wait here for the driver’s text.” Amber curls up. “I can’t stand for long.”
After the taxi arrives, it takes them an age to get outside. Amber stops several times on the stairs to hug her belly. Imo pictures the meter ticking.
The driver, a young guy with thick, black curls, pulls a face when she tells him their destination, no doubt disappointed at the meagre fare. They travel in silence, Imo shivering in her jacket and jeans. She should have put on a sweatshirt. The faint smell of alcohol in the back of the taxi makes her nauseous and she looks out of the window to settle her stomach. The campus is deserted. A few lights on in the other halls, but no one out walking – or staggering – and no other cars. Eerily quiet. Imo imagines someone watching them drive past, someone lurking outside the flats waiting for their chance. She thinks of Sophia running for her life through dark streets.
Even out on the main road, they are alone. When they reach the floodlit forecourt of the filling station she notices Amber’s grey face, screwed up in a wince of pain. She tells her to wait in the taxi while she gets the tablets.
“Three packets, please,” Amber says softly. “I’ll pay you back.”
But when Imo gets to the counter, the woman won’t sell her three boxes of ibuprofen. “Maximum of two per customer. It’s the law.”
Back in the taxi, Amber takes the tablets and swallows four down without water. “People should be allowed to buy as much medication as they need, for whatever reason. If I want to commit suicide, it’s my business.”
Imo stares at her and feels colour draw from her cheeks.
Amber doesn’t seem to notice. She folds her arms, a cold gleam in her eyes, not doubled over any more. “I won’t, though. Not today. Suicides are determined people. You would be surprised. When it comes to it, most of us find we don’t have the guts.”
Imo’s chest palpitates against the seatbelt.
But Amber’s mood switches and the cloud passes. She seems restored within seconds of taking the medication. Leans forward to ask the driver his name. “Do you give a discount for frequent travellers? We’re interested in finding a reliable firm.”
The driver warms to the theme. “You call me, Hamid Cars. I’ll look after you. Better than Uber, better than College, or A Cabs.” He rubs his hand through his thick hair. “The thing with College Cars is they’re a rip-off. Five pounds for this, five pounds for that.”
He pulls up at their hall of residence. “That’s eight pounds fifty, please,” he says.
Still shaking from what Amber said, Imo struggles to get the money out of her purse. Amber goes back to her room, promising to refund her for the tablets. She doesn’t mention the taxi fare.
Back in bed, Imo doesn’t sleep. Suicide has always been one of the what-if explanations her family considered. For the rest of the night, it’s firmly lodged as a certainty.
Chapter 9
Imogen
The academic block is modern, built in red brick in the last twenty years. Most of the buildings are at least five storeys high. Imo gives silent thanks that she knows the languages department lecture theatre is on the ground floor.
Dozens of students saunter towards the buildings, chatting noisily in small groups, not an anxious face among them. In the distance she thinks she sees Amber, arms linked with a girl who looks like a Goth. Imo’s thoughts rush at the sight of her loose black clothing, reminiscent of the graduation gown in the photo that flooded social media. Something positive her family could do in the first few days, but now Imo hates the image.
Sunshine has brushed aside the gloomy start that greeted her when she left the flat. The beech trees beside the path cast big shadows over the beds of marigolds. Autumn now. How soon will the leaves shrivel and spin unanchored through the air, heading downwards? Falling. Bile rises to Imo’s throat at an unwelcome memory of the mortuary, but she forces it down.
Hood up, earphones in, she walks on, pretending to listen to music. Missed one lecture already and missing another now. Tegan hasn’t replied to her text, so probably won’t take notes in Business Studies.
A few girls dot around the middle of the lecture theatre and a line of lads sprawls at the back. There’s a brief pause in their conversation as Imo enters. She goes to the far end of the front row next to the wall. If the lecturer stands where the computer is, she’ll be out of his eyeshot. As she switches off her phone, a text from Tegan flashes up: Yeah no probs. Imo smiles to herself; Business lecture notes sorted.
The trace of the smile lingers when the Goth girl she thought she saw with Amber sits on the other end of her row. The girl doesn’t smile back. Imo puts in her silent earphones again. To think she’s wasted her best face on a crow.
Confident, laughing voices fill up the seats behind her. The crow shuffles towards Imo to let more girls into their row. Imo’s relieved when she takes a place three seats away. But peeved too: why doesn’t she want to sit with her?
Eventually a woman appears at the computer. Slim and wrinkled. Long, lank hair but no hint of grey. Red kilt, orange tights, flat brown ankle boots. She launches into German. Imo loses the thread after: My name is Dr Wyatt.
The lecturer switches to English. “I want you to come up here one at a time and introduce yourselves. Two minutes max and don’t tell us what you got in your A levels. No one cares. Who’s going first?”
One of the lads from the back row strides to the front. His German is fluent. Two minutes, three minutes, four. Imo thinks his grammar is dodgy, but he’s using vocabulary she doesn’t know.
By the end of the lesson, Imo’s decided she loves this boy, David. Because he talked so long and also insists on asking the subsequent speakers questions, there isn’t time for Imo’s row to present.
Dr Wyatt puts a reading list on the screen. “These are the links to the articles you need to study for next time.”
; Imo’s copying them down when the crow girl leans across. “They’re on the intranet. You don’t need to do that.” Imo puts down her pen, feeling stupid.
“Right,” Dr Wyatt says. “You’re free to get to all those freshers’ parties that my lecture has inconvenienced. Can I have the register back?”
The students look at each other. Some edge up the central aisle towards the door.
“No one leaves until I get the register.”
They look back at the rows, searching, until crow girl points at Imo. The register is lying next to her pencil case. Only six names on it. It was passed to her and she didn’t notice. Red-faced, hand trembling, she signs her name and gives it to the row behind. Crow girl gives a sympathetic smile but can’t hide the sneer in her eyes.
Chapter 10
Phoenix
He’s wearing lilac. The trousers are denim and the tunic is heavy-duty cotton. Not as tall as her, but solid, box-shaped. Bull-necked. He fills the doorway and doesn’t invite her in.
“I thought I’d better come and say hello as we’re flatmates.” Phoenix wishes she’d asked Amber to do the introductions. “I’m Phoenix.” It comes out as an apology. “What’s your name?” She tries putting a won’t-take-no-for-an-answer tone into her question.
It sort of works. He mutters something, growls it really. Riku?
She smiles and tries out the basic Thai she picked up when her family did a season in Bangkok years ago, but he tilts his head to the side in apparent bafflement. She tries hello in Mandarin and Japanese. Nothing. He must be from somewhere she’s never heard of. Depressing, as she thought she knew the world pretty well. From the doorway she sees a small rucksack and a sketchpad. Something familiar hanging on the wall gives her hope for common ground, and she nearly breaks her cover story, but his unsmiling face stops her in time.
“Well, nice to meet you, Riku,” she says backing away. She intended to invite him to the Freshers’ Fair. But even with her best linguistic gymnastics, she doubts she’d make him understand and he’d probably decline anyway.
On the way to her room, she scoops up the post from the doormat. Pizza delivery leaflets, taxi fliers and electoral registration letters for previous occupants. She cleared one heap of junk mail yesterday. No one else bothered and the pile was already spreading along the hallway. Another domestic duty that’s going to fall to her.
In need of a friendly face, she knocks on Imo’s door. Hears movement inside but has to knock again before Imo appears, red-eyed.
“I can’t get onto the intranet and I’ve got a German assignment to do by tomorrow. Why is it always me?” Imo blinks hard, suppressing tears.
“They can’t have set you work in Freshers’ Week. It’s bound to be optional.”
“There’s nothing optional about Dr Wyatt.” She goes back to the bed and picks up her laptop. “I’m going to get kicked off the course in the first week.”
“Do you want me to try?” Phoenix takes the laptop, but no matter which icon she presses, a no server message appears on the screen. “I don’t think it’s your fault. The uni’s system is down.”
“Great,” Imo says, swallowing a sob. There are dark circles under her eyes, and her cheeks and chin are a plague of acne.
“Have you eaten?” Phoenix offers her mother’s preferred salve to tearful children. “Come with us to the Freshers’ Fair. You can get free snacks there. The intranet might be up by the time you get back.”
Imo makes a big sigh and wipes her eyes on her sweatshirt cuff. “I’ll come along, but I’m not joining anything.”
They get a shock when they call on Amber. Turquoise kimono and red bobbed wig. Her make-up is a tone lighter than usual and her lipstick matches her hair. Perhaps she’s hoping for a Geisha Girl Society.
Imo whips out her phone. “Let me take a photo.”
“The car’s in the main car park,” Tegan says, coming out of her room and checking her handbag for her keys. She sees Amber’s wig. “You look like an Edam cheese.”
Amber scowls and suggests they walk as the fair is in the other direction and it’s a beautiful afternoon.
“Is your ankle better?” Phoenix asks.
“Fine thanks.” She flexes her foot.
Phoenix smiles. Wasn’t it supposed to be her knee that was hurting?
The walk turns out to be a good idea. Crowds of freshers head the same way. The mood suits the sunny weather.
“Where are you from, Tegan?” Amber asks. She looks at her flatmate while they walk, as if she’s making a supreme effort to listen to the answer. The uncharitable part of Phoenix can’t help thinking it’s an act.
“Cardiff.”
Phoenix has been to Cardiff but doesn’t say. She was christened at Mermaid Quay in the tent by a local vicar. The baptism is supposed to bring the whole family health and happiness. She stiffens as she walks. Tell that to Cloud.
“Where’s your home town?” Amber asks, turning her intense expression on Phoenix.
She shrugs. “Born in Shrewsbury.” The planned two-week stopover stretched to six when Cloud went into labour early en route from Carlisle to Gloucester. “My parents work all over.”
“Cloud’s Coffee. I remember your parents’ amazing van,” Imo says. She looks at Tegan. “What do your parents do?”
“My mother shops.”
Amber and Imo laugh, but Phoenix isn’t sure Tegan meant it as a joke. Her face doesn’t move.
“And your dad?” Imo asks.
“We’re here.” Tegan ignores the question and jogs up the steps to take the Great Hall door from a boy who’s holding it open.
Last time Phoenix was here, it was kitted out with display boards and smiling lecturers on an open day, eager to hook potential students. They mostly spoke to her parents. Today there’s no one over thirty years old in the room and it’s laid out with brightly decorated stalls and tables. Freshers throng inside the entrance, not knowing where to start.
Taking charge of their group, Amber leads them to the row of stalls on the far left. “It looks like these are political societies,” she says. “We can walk down and back up the other side. No loitering by the Tories.” She glances at Tegan, who narrows her eyes.
Amber strikes up a conversation with a punk girl from a campaigning charity. They look set to put the world to rights for several minutes so the others move on. Imo seems to be hunching her shoulders, looking around surreptitiously.
Amber meets them at the Conservation Volunteers stand and sees Tegan browsing the literature. “You’re not going to join, are you? I can’t imagine you in wellies.”
“Why not,” Tegan says. “Someone’s got to protect nature from land-grabbing scumbags. And I like the idea of hacking down deadwood and pulling up unwanted growth.”
The other girls exchange a glance, wondering what deadwood Tegan has in mind.
As they pass the languages aisle, Phoenix stops to say: “Hello, how are you?” in Bulgarian to a pretty woman in national costume. It’s the limit to what she learnt after their season in Plovdiv, but it earns her a biscuit that tastes like a pretzel. She follows the others to the performing arts area. Imo declares that she’ll have enough on with her coursework and doesn’t sign up for any groups. Phoenix and Tegan leave their names with the Bhangra society and help themselves to onion bhajis.
They can’t drag Amber away from the Drama Society stall even though other people are waiting to speak to the stallholder.
Something prickles along Phoenix’s spine, the sensation that someone’s watching her. She scans the room. A tall figure in a black hoodie stands with a group of students, waiting to sign up for the Film Society. His brooding body language is oddly familiar. It’s the man from Ivor’s kitchen in Flat 7. He’s probably harmless – a mature student, uncomfortable among the kids – but she feels sweat begin to seep through her T-shirt. He glances over at them again and she realizes it must be Imo that’s caught his attention. He’s a man after all.
Imo and Tegan wander on and sh
e catches them up. When she looks back over her shoulder, she can’t see the man. She breathes with relief.
When she inadvertently makes eye contact with the boy on the chess stall, she feels obliged to go over. “I used to play a bit with my uncle,” she tells him. “Quite enjoyed it.”
The boy gives a tight smile. “We have three levels of membership: beginners, recreational and tournament. But to be on the tournament team, you must, must practise.”
“How many hours a week do you play?” Tegan asks, taking his leaflet from Phoenix.
“A minimum of fifteen hours a week.”
“Babe magnet,” Tegan mutters sarcastically as they walk away. When Tegan sees the Society for Deaf Students, she points at Amber who’s finally left the Drama stall. “Get her to practise the sign language she says she learnt in a day.” There’s a smirk on her face as she carries on down the aisle.
But, when Amber reaches Phoenix and Imo, she stops dead. The little colour visible under her pale make-up fades. For a moment her features are frozen and she stares ahead of her, as if she has seen a ghost. Phoenix moves closer, ready to catch her if she faints. Is it a melodrama brought on by being caught out in a lie?
Amber’s shiny eyes dart the length of the stalls and she tugs the fringe of her wig, her chest rising and falling. “I’ll wait outside,” she gasps.
Before Phoenix can reassure her that they don’t really expect her to know British Sign Language, she’s started weaving through the crowds towards the exit.
“Do you think we should go after her?” Imo asks.
Phoenix has had enough of Amber’s crises and wants to see the rest of the fair. “If she chooses to flounce out, that’s up to her.”
“I know but …” Imo tails off.
Tegan comes back to them. “What’s he looking at?” she says through gritted teeth. Phoenix follows her gaze. Across the room by a staircase, Riku, their new flatmate, is staring at the exit.
“He must have the hots for Amber. She went out that way,” Imo suggests.
The Roommates Page 4