Third Time Lucky

by Croft, Pippa

  ‘You don’t need to worry about Valentina. I’ve seen her.’

  My pulse rate rises. ‘And? What did you do?’

  ‘Something that will make sure she won’t be a problem,’ he says with a grim smile.

  ‘How can you be so sure? Alexander, what have you done?’ I ask, all sorts of scenarios racing through my mind.

  ‘I haven’t done anything.’

  ‘Then what have you said to her?’

  ‘All you need to know is that she won’t ever share that video or her so-called story. So now,’ he says, touching my cheek, ‘you can relax.’

  I let out a sigh, hoping that whatever he’s done or said to Valentina is a ‘belt and braces’ job. He can’t know the truth, or he’d surely be devastated as well as angry. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever relax again, not after the past term.’

  ‘I could think of a way of helping you.’

  ‘Really?’

  I close my eyes, hoping that – between Letty and Alexander – Valentina is gone for good, and try to surrender myself to the delicious feeling of him teasing my panties down my thighs.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Standing by the bus stop in the High, I pretend to check my phone as if I hadn’t a care in the world. Actually, I shouldn’t have a care because my exams are over, yet I’ve spent the past few days half expecting to see Alexander and Valentina trending on Twitter – and being pissed at myself for thinking such crazy thoughts. As for Alexander, he’s remained infuriatingly silent about his encounter with Valentina and my few hints have met with a change of subject. So I’ve had no choice but to accept his explanation for now. Letty has also sent me a couple of encouraging texts, telling me to ‘brace up’ and stop worrying.

  Today, I’m absolutely determined not to think about her because it’s Immy’s final exam and a bunch of us are back at the Examination Schools, waiting for her to come out. Trashing was banned years ago, but that doesn’t stop people trying to celebrate in the street or the university ‘police’ trying to catch them in the act. However, there’s no way we’re going to be put off and, with Alexander’s help, I’ve planned Operation Drench Immy with military precision.

  Three friends, Oscar, Chun and Isla, are feigning interest in various storefronts while Alexander scans a bus timetable, not, I might add, that he’s been on an Oxford bus for a very long time, if ever.

  ‘Where is she?’ I ask.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says.

  ‘Well, everyone else is out by now. I hope she hasn’t rushed out before the end. She was totally freaking out before this Statistics paper. She hates Stats.’

  ‘Stop worrying. She’ll be out in a minute. Look, isn’t that her?’ He points towards the steps of the Schools, where a hunched dark-haired girl trudges down the steps, her cap in her hand.

  ‘Oh, yes. Poor Immy, she looks worn out.’

  Alexander untwists the wire on the champagne bottle in his backpack. ‘Get ready because once we’ve done this, we’re going to have to run. There are a couple of bulldogs over there and I don’t want to be hauled up before the proctors or end up in one of the tabloids as an example of a dissolute Oxbridge toff.’

  ‘But you are a dissolute Oxbridge toff.’

  He rolls his eyes as we both pretend to read the bus timetable while keeping a discreet eye on the two bowler-hatted men berating a bunch of guys who have covered their friend in baked beans.

  ‘Hey there, is this a covert mission or can anyone join in?’

  ‘Scott!’

  Alexander transfers his attention from the timetable to us. ‘It’s Operation Drench Immy,’ I say.

  ‘I guessed as much. I checked the exam schedules. Permission to join the mission, captain?’

  Alexander smiles. ‘Lauren’s in charge of this one.’

  ‘If you follow orders to the letter, you can join the mission,’ I say.

  Scott gives me a discreet salute.

  Immy has stopped at the bottom of the steps. She wipes her forehead with the back of her arm and glances around her.

  ‘She’s wondering where we are … Shouldn’t we go over there now?’ I say.

  Alexander shakes his head. ‘Too risky. Wait for it … It’ll be easier to make a getaway from this side of the street.’

  ‘There’s a bulldog on this side too, outside the liquor store. What if he spots us?’ Scott says.

  ‘He won’t. Trust me.’

  After looking around her a few times, Immy steps into a gap in the traffic and walks towards us. The bulldog seems to have vanished.

  ‘He’s gone inside the wine merchant’s,’ Alexander says.

  ‘Let’s go for it.’ I make a ‘one, two, three’ signal with my fingers to Oscar, Chun and Isla.

  Alexander eases out the cork while Immy hurries across the street, dodges an open-top bus and skips on to the pavement.

  ‘Surprise!’ I leap out from the bus stop.

  ‘What the –? Arghhh!’

  She shrieks as the cork flies out of the bottle and fizz fills the air like a fountain.

  ‘Oh my God! Arghhh!’

  Alexander empties the contents over her.

  ‘You idiots! I’m soaked,’ Immy shrieks delightedly. ‘And Scott! OMG!’

  I laugh. ‘You’d have been devastated if we hadn’t been here.’

  Even Alexander smiles and hands the bottle to Immy. Scott kisses her and then I see something rare: Immy actually blushes.

  ‘Congratulations on surviving,’ he says, then Alexander curses.

  ‘Shit. The bulldogs have spotted us. Back to college, now!’

  The bulldogs hover on the kerb opposite, desperately trying to find a gap in the traffic, but we’re already off.

  We race up the High Street, dripping with champagne, and dart into a narrow lane that leads back to Wyckham. When we finally slow down to catch our breath, Immy heaves a huge sigh of relief.

  ‘Someone pinch me and tell me it’s really over. That was the most horrible week of my life and I never ever want to do it again.’

  We all laugh and Isla hands over a bouquet of flowers.

  ‘There’s more fizz back at college. Everyone’s waiting to party. Why did you have to be the last one to finish?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s been vile. I don’t know how I haven’t run out of the exam room screaming some mornings, and I’ve probably got a third but I don’t care. It’s over and now I am going to get totally wasted. Will you be joining us, Scott?’

  He laughs. ‘Much as I’d love to, I have plans for this evening. But I think I can squeeze in a quick one.’ He winks.

  Later that evening, Immy and I walk back to college together. Alexander insisted on treating a group of us to dinner but has now gone to meet a colleague for a drink. We had planned to go on to a club but after her marathon exam session, Immy’s almost dead on her feet so I said I’d walk back with her.

  Wyckham looks serene and majestic, its towering gatehouse silhouetted against the indigo velvet of the sky. The knot in my stomach returns and tightens. I still haven’t told Alexander about the job interview and the longer I leave it, the harder it seems. Why ruin these final few idyllic days together? I can tell him after the ball on Saturday.

  ‘It was a shame Scott had to go out to dinner with Lia this evening,’ I say.

  ‘Story of my life,’ says Immy as we enter the Lodge. ‘But all may not be lost. Can you wait here while I check my pidge? I’ve been hoping to get a spare ticket for the ball from one of the committee, and she said she’d leave it here for me this evening if she’d managed to wangle one.’

  A few moments later she walks out, waving a white envelope. ‘Yes! I got it.’

  ‘Great! So who’s going to be your partner?’

  ‘Remember that rower from Jocasta’s Boat Race party that I bumped into at Eights Week? Well, he called again last week and said now he’d finished his master’s, would I like to hook up?’

  ‘I thought you weren’t interested?’

 
‘Well, he did offer to pay for the ticket and it’d be fun to have a partner for the ball, so I thought, why not? He may turn out to be better in the sack when he’s not knackered and plastered too. Shall we go and have a nightcap in my room? I’ve still got half a bottle of Moët from earlier.’

  We walk into the Front Quad, where the sky is still twilit, a renewed spring in Immy’s step.

  ‘Oh my God, who is that twat?’

  On the opposite side of the quad, a clearly inebriated man is climbing out of a window on to the battlements. Shouts and curses from the open casement behind him seem to echo around the walls of the building.

  Immy gasps. ‘It looks like Rupert.’

  ‘That’s because it is Rupert,’ I say quietly.

  Heads pop out of the window behind Rupert, who is wearing a tailcoat and a top hat.

  ‘Come in, you idiot, before the porters get here.’

  Ignoring his friends, Rupert starts to beat his chest and howl.

  ‘He thinks he’s Tarzan …’ I say.

  ‘For God’s sake, be quiet, Rupert!’ Immy shrieks.

  Rupert stops howling, puts his hands over the low battlement wall and leans forward.

  Immy recoils. ‘Christ, he’s so drunk he could end up splattered all over the flagstones.’

  Even I have my heart in my mouth because no matter how much I loathe the snake, I don’t want him to fall.

  His top hat falls off and bounces off the flagstones. His friends make a grab for him but he laughs and starts singing – if you can call his drunken howls singing.

  ‘Should we fetch the porters?’ I ask.

  Immy grabs my arm. ‘No need; they’ll be here in a minute with all this noise. He is an arse.’

  Rupert clearly has a better opinion of himself. ‘I’m the king of the world!’ His shout is bound to wake someone and, sure enough, a few lights start to pop on around the quad. He also seems to be swaying.

  ‘Shit, we’ll have to get someone …’ Now even Immy sounds worried. She’s about to run to the Lodge.

  A figure emerges from an archway on Rupert’s side of the quad.

  ‘Wait, it’s Rafe,’ I hiss.

  ‘Oh, the jolly old Bishop of Birmingham!’

  At Rupert’s drunken shout, Rafe immediately stops, then stands on the flagstones under the battlements, hands on hips.

  ‘De Courcey? What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

  Immy winces. ‘Oh dear, Rupert really is fucked now.’

  ‘Get down from there at once!’

  Rupert starts cackling madly.

  ‘Come back in, this minute!’ There are frantic shouts from the window behind him and hands reach out for him, but Rupert’s on a roll, drunkenly bellowing out some obscene limerick while Rafe shouts at him from below.

  ‘If you don’t get down this instant, I’ll wake the Warden!’

  Ignoring Rafe, Rupert fumbles with his trousers.

  Immy groans. ‘Oh hell, I think he’s going to moon at Rafe!’

  A second later, Rupert’s trousers are round his ankles but instead of turning around, he clutches his groin.

  Rafe leaps backwards but it’s too late to avoid the stream of urine falling from four floors up. He loses his footing and topples backwards on to the lawn.

  There is a brief moment of silence before the quad erupts.

  Rafe is struggling to his feet as two porters run over the lawn towards him.

  ‘Professor Rafe, are you OK?’

  ‘Of course I’m not OK. That revolting little shit just pissed all over me. I want him sent down!’ He pulls a handkerchief from his jacket and starts wiping his face.

  Curses and shouts ring out from the battlements, where Rupert is still cackling madly, waving his dick and singing. He’s also swaying alarmingly and seems about to topple forward when he’s hauled backwards through the window, his trousers still round his ankles. There’s a crash and even louder shouts, then the porters run under the archway to the staircase. The window slams shut.

  Immy turns to me. ‘Oh Lauren, I really thought he was going to fall off.’

  ‘Me too. Look at Rafe.’ The Dean is out now, in his pyjamas and dressing gown, trying to calm Rafe down.

  ‘Serves him bloody right,’ says Immy. ‘I don’t think I’ve enjoyed myself so much in a long time.’

  We both start laughing – I don’t know whether it’s relief or the booze or just the sheer bizarreness of the evening. Immy is convulsed beside me and I’m laughing so hard my stomach hurts.

  ‘Come on, let’s go and have a nightcap. I was knackered, but that’s woken me up again. Maybe we should go on to a club after all?’

  The next morning – or should I say the next afternoon – Immy meets me in the JCR, brandishing a tabloid newspaper. ‘Have you seen this yet?’

  ‘No, I only crawled out of bed ten minutes ago.’ For a split second, my pulse races, thinking that Valentina has gone through with her threat after all, then Immy opens a spread in the middle of the paper. My bleary eyes struggle to focus on the words but the headline is unmistakeable: ‘DON GETS A SOAKING FROM DRUNKEN TOFF’.

  ‘Oh God. How did that get in the press?’

  ‘Some hack from Cherwell saw it from his room and filmed it on his mobile. The video’s on the newspaper site. It’s even funnier than I remember. Rafe will go nuts and Rupert’s parents won’t be too pleased.’

  ‘Oh no,’ I moan.

  ‘Why are you bothered? Rupes has been awful to you.’

  ‘Yes, but Letty is lovely.’

  ‘Well, it’s not your fault and it serves Rupert right. Apparently he’s already been rusticated and banned from the ball! The Warden said he’d brought the college into disrepute.’

  ‘Rusticated? What does that mean?’

  ‘Banned from entering college for the rest of term.’

  ‘Well, technically, term’s over.’

  ‘Yes, but they’ve made him leave his room and he can’t come to the ball and he’s had a massive fine. I don’t suppose he’ll care about the fine or being thrown out, but he won’t like missing the ball.’

  A Rupert-free ball sounds great to me. ‘That sounds fair enough.’

  ‘Yes, it does. I also heard from the Sub Dean that the Warden had to persuade Rafe not to go to the police. He wanted to sue for assault.’

  ‘Does peeing on someone count as assault?’ I say, scanning the news report and wincing on Letty’s behalf.

  ‘Spitting is, so why not? Rafe’s agreed not to press charges but Rupert still has to write a grovelling apology and pay for all Rafe’s clothes to be dry-cleaned.’

  This news fills me with such childish glee I worry about myself. No more Rupert or Rafe will be one of the few joys of leaving Wyckham.

  Immy peers at the image of Rupert drenching Rafe on her mobile. She rubs her finger over the tiny star that’s covering his dignity to save the blushes of readers of the ‘family newspaper’. ‘Of course,’ she says, ‘he’ll probably end up as the next prime minister. Now, if you don’t have too bad a hangover, shall we hit the shops ready for the ball?’

  The next morning, I’ve just finished Skyping my parents when Immy stomps into my room and flops down on the bed in disgust.

  ‘Gah!’

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Can you believe it? After I managed to wangle an extra ticket for Hamish the rower from one of the ball committee, he goes and ruptures his bloody Achilles! How am I going to find someone else at such short notice? Like, who hasn’t already left or made plans or isn’t a total twat?’

  ‘Oh, Immy, I am sorry.’

  ‘Me too. I was looking forward to having a partner. I know everyone goes in groups now and you, Alexander and the gang will be there, but still, it would have been nice. Poor Hamish.’ She sighs. ‘And I ordered a gorgeous new dress too, and you know we’re booked in to the salon?’

  ‘It’ll still be an amazing night. So why don’t I take you out for lunch at the Boathouse now?’

 
She smiles. ‘That sounds great, but I’ll treat you. The thing is …’ – she hesitates – ‘we don’t have much time left do we? Promise you will keep in touch after you leave?’

  ‘Promise you’ll make Washington your first stop on your world tour? You’ll be welcome any time and I’ll be back to Europe at some point.’

  ‘Alexander will make sure of that. Have you told him about the job interview yet?’

  I shake my head. ‘I’m waiting till after the ball.’

  Immy gives me a hard look. ‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’

  ‘I don’t think there will ever be a good time. Come on, let’s go out.’

  We’re heading into town when we see Scott cycling past the Bodleian. He brakes hard when he sees us and nearly falls off on to the cobbles outside the Radcliffe Camera.

  ‘Whoa!’

  ‘Sorry we startled you.’

  ‘We have that effect on people,’ Immy says, seeming transfixed by his cycling shorts.

  ‘We were just off to lunch at the Boathouse. Want to join us?’

  ‘Like this? I’m all sweaty.’

  ‘How awful,’ says Immy. ‘But we could just sit outside the pub instead. You look like you could do with a nice cool beer.’

  ‘In that case, if you don’t mind sitting next to a hobo, it’s a deal.’

  ‘I can stand it, if you can,’ says Immy.

  Scott chains up his bike, and we grab drinks and menus and sit in the sun in the garden of the Turf. Talk turns to what we’ve all been doing after the exams.

  It doesn’t take long for poor Immy to start feeling sorry for herself again about the ball and the wasted ticket. ‘Oh well, I guess I can get rid of the ticket easily enough at Wyckham, unless you know anyone from St Nick’s who wants it,’ she says, bravely.

  Scott sips his pint before replying. ‘Hmm. Tricky, but I might possible know someone …’

  Immy brightens. ‘Really?’ Then she pulls a face. ‘Is he even vaguely human?’

  ‘Vaguely,’ says Scott. ‘You’re looking at him.’

  Immy’s mouth literally drops open. ‘You?’

  Scott has a hang-dog expression. ‘Yes. Although by the look on your face, maybe it’s not such a good idea!’