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‘Of course it isn’t all right, you thundering lout, that’s a built-up shoe,’ Rook said. ‘Are we going to the buttery?’
The buttery was a public house of sorts inside the college, where undergraduates could buy drink. Jem had wondered, in the fearful nights, if he’d ever be able to summon up the nerve to enter such a place by himself, and if one day he might have friends who would greet him there. The prospect of entering for the first time in company felt like a small miracle, such an unexpected relief that he could only assume this was some sort of cruel joke and brace himself to become the punchline.
Feynsham drew him on, making no concession to Jem’s limp, and Jem let himself be drawn, since he had no idea what else to do. Rook strolled at his other side, towering over him, long legs meaning that he seemed to idle where Jem hurried. He and Feynsham both knew where they were going, as though the geography of the college was second nature to them. Born to be here.
Feynsham steered Jem through a door, Rook claimed an oak table for them in the buttery, and just like that Jem found himself ensconced at the heart of StAnselm’s College, with a brimming tankard of beer in front of him and Feynsham—‘call me Toby, won’t you, and this is Nicky’—talking to him as though they’d been friends for ever.
‘My sister’s at Anselm Hall. The women’s place, you know, it’s up Park Road past the Museum. Studying chemistry, would you credit it. She has all the brains of the two of us.’
‘And all the beauty,’ Nicky said. ‘And most of the brawn.’
‘Ella is the only person who doesn’t put up with Nicky’s nonsense. Well, and me, of course, and I trust you won’t. His bark’s worse than his bite.’
‘No, it isn’t. I simply haven’t bitten you hard enough.’
‘I’m reading history, for my sins,’ Toby went on. ‘Nicky’s reading English. What are you here for?’
‘Mathematics.’
‘Ah.’ Nicky gave him a measuring look. ‘A cyphering man. And—Oh, wait a moment.’ He leaned back as he spoke, putting out a long arm that blocked the passage of another undergraduate to the bar.
‘Excuse me?’ that gentleman said, looking down with some affront, and then, ‘I say, aren’t you Rook of Winchester?’
‘I am, and you’re Morley-Adams,’ Nicky said. ‘My colleagues Kite and Feynsham. Meet Hugo Morley-Adams, Harrow’s best fencer.’
‘If by that you mean the only one to beat you?—’
‘That is precisely what I mean. Care to join us, unless you have another engagement?’
‘Delighted,’ Morley-Adams said. ‘Anyone need a top-up?’
‘Morley-Adams?’ Jem asked in a whisper as he went to the bar. ‘Like the shipbuilding man?’
‘So like he could be his son, and indeed is,’ Nicky said. ‘Morley-Adams is, to use the vulgar parlance, swimming in lard thanks to Papa’s industry. But he’s excellent with the foils and remarkably tolerable for a Harrovian.’
Jem couldn’t help glancing at Toby. It wasn’t that Nicky had been making a request, or a suggestion, or anything other than a statement, but still he had a sense of something presented for consideration, and he found himself thinking,One for Toby’s collection?
Morley-Adams returned with a drink and settled at the table. He was as confident and charming as the others, effortlessly courteous if perhaps a little less open; he treated Jem with a politeness that had a little distance in it, at first. Hardly surprising. Jem’s father worked in a factory, while Morley-Adams’s father owned them, and dockyards too.
Jem’s instinct was to be entirely mute in this confident gathering of Winchester and Harrow and breeding and money, and he had to force himself to be audible when asked direct questions. But he stayed doggedly in his seat as the first glasses were replaced by the second, and then the subject changed to books. It turned out they were all addicted to the works of Conan Doyle, though only Nicky preferredThe White Companyto the tales of Sherlock Holmes. He also thought that ‘Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime’ in Wilde’s story collection was better than ‘The Canterville Ghost’, which was simply wrong. Jem took issue, at first shyly and then with increasing heat, and the argument leaped into full flame when Nicky said he couldn’t respect an opinion on William Morris’sNews from Nowherethat wasn’t grounded in some medieval text or other, and then had the gall to admit he hadn’t even readNew Grub Street.
Jem planted his finger on the table and talked about books that were written by the people, about the people. Morley-Adams—Hugo—said he’d rather read this George Gissing fellow than whatever incomprehensible tripe Nicky was talking about. Nicky called Jem a radical agitator. Toby laughed at them all and bought more beer.
Well into the third pint, they were rowing joyously aboutSalome, Oscar Wilde’s banned play, when a loud low groan erupted from the back of the room.
Jem knew what that noise meant: public schoolboys made it where others might boo. He looked up, as they all did, and saw that a black man had come in, alone.
He wore a scholar’s gown but looked slightly older than the rest of them, into his twenties, well-built, with dark skin, a broad nose, and magnificent cheekbones. His face was closed and expressionless.
There was another groan, even louder, in which several more voices joined.
‘For God’s sake,’ Hugo said. ‘Quiet over there! Shame on you.’
There were more groans, and more cries of protest at them. The man at the centre of this sudden storm stood still, poised, looking entirely calm except for the tension around his mouth. Jem had noticed him when they had all stood taking the matriculation photograph, heard people whispering that he was the first black man Anselm’s had ever admitted. He had hoped at the time that this other novelty might take attention away from himself, and now felt a stab of guilt, as though his wish had caused this.
‘Could we not, uh—’ he began.
‘Yes indeed. I say,’ Toby said loudly. ‘We’ve a spare seat here, if you’d care to join us.’
