Читать книгу St Oda's Bones - Marcus Attwater - Страница 11

As he came into the student union, Jake saw a familiar head of wavy dark hair at a table by the window. 'Hey, Rachel.'

'Jake, hi. Are you joining me?'

'You're not waiting for someone else?'

She closed her laptop. 'No, just killing time till the next lecture.'

'Hacking into the university records?'

'What, you need better grades already? No, I was just looking if there was anything interesting on at the theatre. Although I don't think the uni security is much to write home about.'

His sister was looking well, student life must suit her. It hadn't surprised anyone when she chose to read Computer Science. She had an ability with information technology which bordered on the magical.

'So you're enjoying your work, are you?' he asked.

'Honestly? I could probably do the three-year course in six months.' She said it without a trace of arrogance, merely stating a fact. 'But there are a few fellow students who might teach me a thing or two.' She grinned. 'So how's psychology?'

He knew she didn't think it a subject deserving of much study. Too inexact, too much talk and not enough facts. He'd have liked to defend his choice, but thinking of what he had been taught so far, he was suddenly inclined to agree with her.

'It's all right, I suppose,' he said feebly. 'Do you hear much from Judith?'

Their other sister had opted to read Law in London.

'Not much, no. I think she wants to leave us as far behind as possible.'

'Well, that's understandable.'

'Why? You haven't moved, have you?'

'No, but I'd got out already. You two were younger, you still lived at home when it all blew up.'

Rachel said 'huh' in a tone which contrived to indicate that where brothers were concerned seniority was strictly nominal.

'We're all pretty scattered now though, aren't we? Have you seen our new brother yet?' Jake asked.

'Yeah, I saw dad and Claire when they were over here in July. It's ridiculous, having a baby brother at our age. I mean, there's a girl in the year above me who has a kid of her own.'

He wondered if he should tell her that their baby brother was really their nephew. Unless their father had moved in before Claire broke up with Simon, which seemed unlikely, the child was their brother's. But Rachel wasn't really interested in family gossip. This meeting in the student union was more like bumping into a casual acquaintance than a conversation between siblings. As his sister left him with a wave, off to her lecture, he wondered if he felt the same. He wouldn't have said he was close to his family, but he wasn't as indifferent as his sisters. It was probably time to let go, though. Not a healthy bunch, as a whole, the Danvers clan. The trouble was that he felt there should be something like family in his life.

His thoughts were interrupted by a voice saying, 'We're supposed to be in Research Methods, you know.'

'What? Oh, thanks Eliot. Coming. Hey, are you all right?' Eliot certainly didn't look it.

'Yeah, sure. Well, no, not really. My gran died.'

'Oh, I'm sorry.'

What else could he say?

'I'm sad,' Eliot shrugged, 'Thanks, Jake.'

For what? he wondered, it's not like I said anything helpful. But perhaps no one else had even bothered to ask. Eliot was one of the less annoying first-years. Straight out of school, very dishy without being at all aware of it, and looking rather out of place among the crowd of psycho-babbling girls which made up most of this year's crop. Jake had tried a little friendly flirting there, during the inevitable class-getting-to-know-each other sessions, but he'd got nowhere. Eliot had, with an almost offensive reasonableness, explained that he wasn't 'that way', not that he minded that Jake was, of course not, but really, he wanted Jake to understand… and the next thing he knew, the whole flock of presumably perfectly straight girls were whispering to each other that he was gay. That had come as a bit of a shock. Faint disapproval, or a little awkwardness, yes, he was no stranger to those. But he had been used to people mature enough to have learned not to point. Now they had marked him as other, and he had realised that if he didn't want to be a complete outcast, he had better not tell them anything about his life in the past three years. Perhaps that was why it had been good talking to a sibling, especially an uninterested sibling. Whatever Jake had been up to, Rachel wasn't going to be offended, or disapproving, or pitying. Downside of that, she wasn't going to be encouraging or amused or sympathetic either. Not easy to please am I? Jake thought, while he slipped into the lecture room miming apologies to Mr Lyall for his lateness.

A few hours later, Jake was at his desk, trying to write the report Mr Lyall had asked for for next week's tutorial, but he doubted that what he was typing made much sense. He was so tired. Sometimes he could actually hear a voice in his head saying: I'm so tired, I'm so tired. He couldn't rightly say what he was so tired from, though. Strange. He hadn't been working much, on his coursework or anything else. He'd had no late nights or long days. When GrailQuest: the Waste Land came out last year he had played all through the night and gone out the following evening without adverse effects. Now even the thought of staying up so late got stifled in a long yawn, and his gaming friends - most of whom he'd never met in real life - were beginning to complain about his frequent absences. He had planned to join them for an hour or so tonight, but now he thought he would just go to bed as soon as he had finished the mandatory two pages. Or before. He read through what he'd written so far, and wearily acknowledged its extreme vapidity. No point in going on if he had nothing to say. He could probably waffle through anyway, these reports were only meant to show you had grasped what you'd been told in the lecture. And they always told you two or three times, just to be sure. And then some bright spark who hadn't been listening always asked for explanations, which meant you got to hear it all again. Jake, who had been raised by very smart people indeed, was still getting used to the idea that university students could be so stupid. Sometimes he would try to get them to talk about something more challenging. There had been an interesting section about scapegoating in their textbook today, and Jake had asked Ms Arnold whether she could tell them more about it. But she'd said it wasn't relevant to their subject, and that they would only treat it in second year. 'There's no point in going into details until you have all grasped the basics.'

Jake had seen Eden roll her eyes at that. He knew exactly how she felt. 'We'll all be in our fifties before this lot grasp the basics…' But Jake knew that if he wanted to end up with some form of qualification, he had to put up with it for the next three years. It wasn't a happy prospect for someone already feeling dead on his feet.