The It Girl(3)

“Hi,” Hannah said as she drew closer, her case grinding on the graveled path. “Hi, my name’s Hannah Jones. Can you tell me where I should go?”

“Of course!” the girl behind the table said brightly. She had long, shiny blond hair, and her accent was crisp as cut glass. “Welcome to Pelham! So, you’ll need to get your keys and accommodation details from the Porters’ Lodge first of all.” She pointed back at the arch Hannah had just passed through. “Have you got your Bod card yet? You’ll need that for pretty much everything from paying for meals through to checking out library books.”

Hannah shook her head.

“No, but I’ve registered for it.”

“So, you pick it up from Cloisters II, but you can do that anytime today. You probably want to drop your case off first. Oh, and don’t forget the Freshers’ Fair, and the new joiners’ Meet and Greet!” She held out a sheaf of flyers, and Hannah took them awkwardly, holding the slippery papers under her free arm.

“Thanks,” Hannah said. And then, because there didn’t seem to be much else to say, she turned and dragged her case back the way she had come, to the Porters’ Lodge.

She hadn’t been inside the lodge on the day of her interview—the porter had come out to let her in—and now she saw that it was a little wood-paneled room almost like a post office, with two windows overlooking the quad and the arched entrance passageway, a counter, and rows and rows of pigeonholes neatly marked with names. The thought that one of them was presumably hers gave her a curious feeling. A kind of… belonging?

She bumped her case up the steps and waited as the porter dealt with the boy in front of her, or rather, with his parents. The boy’s mother had a lot of questions about Wi-Fi access and shower arrangements, but at last they were done, and Hannah found herself standing at the counter, wishing her own mother would hurry up and park the car. She felt she could use the backup.

“Um, hi,” she said. Her stomach was fluttering with nerves, but she tried to keep her voice steady. She was an adult now. A Pelham College student. She was here by right with nothing to feel nervous about. “My name is Hannah. Hannah Jones. Can you tell me where I should go?”

“Hannah Jones…” The porter was a round, jocular-looking man with a fluffy white beard and the air of an off-duty Father Christmas. He perched a set of spectacles on his nose and began peering down a long, printed list of names. “Hannah Jones… Hannah Jones… Ah, yes, here we are. You’re in New Quad, staircase seven, room five. That’s a set, that is. Very nice.”

A set? Hannah wasn’t sure if she was supposed to know what that meant, but the porter was still talking, and her opportunity for asking had passed.

“Now, you’ll want to head through that arch there.” He pointed through the mullioned window at a tall arch on the other side of the square of velvety grass. “Turn left through the Fellows’ Garden—mind you don’t tread on the grass—past the Master’s lodgings, and staircase seven is the opposite side of New Quad. Here’s a map. Free of charge for you, my dear.”

He slapped a shiny folded leaflet onto the wooden countertop.

“Thanks,” Hannah said. She picked up the plan, put it into her jeans pocket, and then remembered. “Oh, my mother might turn up soon. She had to park the car. Could you tell her where I’ve gone if she comes in here?”

“Hannah Jones’s mum,” the man said ruminatively. “That I can do. John,” he called over his shoulder to a man sorting post behind him, “if I’m on my lunch, if Hannah Jones’s mum comes, she’s in seven, five, New Quad.”

“Right you are,” the man standing behind him said. Then he turned and looked at Hannah. He was a big man, probably six foot, and younger than his colleague, with dark hair and a face that looked both pale and sweaty, even though he wasn’t doing anything remotely physical. His voice was oddly out of proportion with the rest of him—high and reedy—and the contrast made Hannah want to laugh nervously.

“Well, thanks,” she said, and turned to go. She was almost at the door when the second man called after her, his voice abrupt and slightly accusatory.

“Hold your horses, young lady!”

Hannah turned back, feeling her heart quicken as if she’d done something wrong.

The man came out from behind the counter, moving ponderously, and then stopped in front of her. There was something in his hand, and now he held it out to her, dangling whatever it was like a trophy.

It was a set of keys.

“Oh.” Hannah felt foolish. She gave a short laugh. “Thanks.”

She held out her hand, but for a moment, the man didn’t let go. He just stood there, the keys dangling above her palm. Then he opened his grip and let them fall, and she shoved them into her pocket and turned away.



* * *



VII, SAID THE WRITING PAINTED above the stairwell, and Hannah, looking down at the plan in her hand, and then up at the stone steps in front of her, had to assume this was the right place. She cast a glance over her shoulder—not so much because she doubted the map, but more for the pleasure of taking it all in: the pristine green square of manicured lawn, the honey-colored stone, the mullioned windows. With the sun shining and puffs of white autumnal clouds in the sky, the view had an almost unreal beauty, and Hannah had the strangest feeling that she had stepped inside the pages of one of the books in her suitcase—Brideshead Revisited, maybe. Gaudy Night. His Dark Materials. A storybook world.