Читать книгу Black Diamond - Havana Adams - Страница 19

CHAPTER 9

The sun was setting over the River Cherwell as Grace walked back from her tutorial, crossing over Magdalen Bridge. Grace slowed her steps, moving to lean over the bridge as she watched the sky. From below, there was a burst of laughter and Grace looked down to see a group of students on two punts pushing through the water, with more enthusiasm than skill. Grace sighed. Trinity Term, the Oxford summer term, was over, her room back at Hennies had been packed up, there was no avoiding it now; she had to go home for the summer. The sun had almost completely disappeared and the punters were disappearing around a bend in the river. Reluctantly, Grace grabbed her bag up and continued the walk back to College. The last few weeks of term had flown by and Grace had been aware of a certain lightness in her; even Vicky had noticed the difference.

“Why are you smiling?” she’d asked Grace once, as they’d completed another shift serving dinner at Newman. Grace had shrugged and said nothing but Vicky had thrown her a knowing smile and rolled her eyes. Grace had recounted the events to Vicky – the dropped potato and then the incident outside the lecture theatre and talking with Matt.

“You shouldn’t get all moony about him,” Vicky said with her usual pragmatism. Grace rewarded her friend with a glare.

“I’m not mooning,” she snapped.

“You barely even noticed when Nessa screamed at you.” Grace shook her head and they’d carried on towards College.

But now as she slowly threaded her way down Turl Street, she knew that Vicky had seen through her. Since that day, when they had talked, Matt nodded to her whenever he saw her, he greeted her with a smile on the rare occasions when she’d ended up serving him in Hall. He had never purposely sought her out and yet somehow Grace knew that he was protecting her from The Gatsbies. There had been sidelong looks and glances from Poppy and the others, but none of the unkind words that Grace had feared; there was no doubt about it, Matt was her protector. Grace was embarrassed and yet she found herself daydreaming about Matt, wondering how she might orchestrate a meeting with him. And then she would catch sight of herself in a mirror and the fantasy would be broken. Matt would never look at anyone like her.

Grace sighed and she turned her mind to the journey home. By claiming pressures of college work and taking a job on the cleaning staff of the College during Easter, Grace had managed to stay away from London, away from The Pastor for most of the academic year. She had not seen her mother in months. Grace had longed for her mother to come up to Oxford, just for the first day but The Pastor had forbidden it. Grace felt a sting of guilt. She had abandoned her mother these last few months, but she gritted her teeth and pushed the feeling aside; she had done what she needed to do.

As she walked through the University Parks, Grace noticed in the distance a small group of people. Several picnic hampers had been carelessly discarded, a kissing couple slow danced and several bodies lazed on checked picnic blankets in the dull glow of the setting sun. Grace adjusted her glasses and squinted as she tried to make out their faces and then she froze. It was The Gatsbies. Her eyes turned back to the couple slow dancing and now she saw them clearly. It was Matt and in his arms was Laura. Grace felt her stomach plummet. All the inchoate fantasies that she had hardly allowed herself to give name to scattered in the wind and behind her glasses, she blinked hard. Her head down, Grace continued towards the exit that would take her to Hennies. As she stamped down on the mournful emotions that threatened to rise up in her, she thanked the gods that this time at least, her humiliation had been private.