Читать книгу The Roommates - Rachel Sargeant, Rachel Sargeant - Страница 17

The academic block is modern, built in red brick in the last twenty years. Most of the buildings are at least five storeys high. Imo gives silent thanks that she knows the languages department lecture theatre is on the ground floor.

Dozens of students saunter towards the buildings, chatting noisily in small groups, not an anxious face among them. In the distance she thinks she sees Amber, arms linked with a girl who looks like a Goth. Imo’s thoughts rush at the sight of her loose black clothing, reminiscent of the graduation gown in the photo that flooded social media. Something positive her family could do in the first few days, but now Imo hates the image.

Sunshine has brushed aside the gloomy start that greeted her when she left the flat. The beech trees beside the path cast big shadows over the beds of marigolds. Autumn now. How soon will the leaves shrivel and spin unanchored through the air, heading downwards? Falling. Bile rises to Imo’s throat at an unwelcome memory of the mortuary, but she forces it down.

Hood up, earphones in, she walks on, pretending to listen to music. Missed one lecture already and missing another now. Tegan hasn’t replied to her text, so probably won’t take notes in Business Studies.

A few girls dot around the middle of the lecture theatre and a line of lads sprawls at the back. There’s a brief pause in their conversation as Imo enters. She goes to the far end of the front row next to the wall. If the lecturer stands where the computer is, she’ll be out of his eyeshot. As she switches off her phone, a text from Tegan flashes up: Yeah no probs. Imo smiles to herself; Business lecture notes sorted.

The trace of the smile lingers when the Goth girl she thought she saw with Amber sits on the other end of her row. The girl doesn’t smile back. Imo puts in her silent earphones again. To think she’s wasted her best face on a crow.

Confident, laughing voices fill up the seats behind her. The crow shuffles towards Imo to let more girls into their row. Imo’s relieved when she takes a place three seats away. But peeved too: why doesn’t she want to sit with her?

Eventually a woman appears at the computer. Slim and wrinkled. Long, lank hair but no hint of grey. Red kilt, orange tights, flat brown ankle boots. She launches into German. Imo loses the thread after: My name is Dr Wyatt.

The lecturer switches to English. “I want you to come up here one at a time and introduce yourselves. Two minutes max and don’t tell us what you got in your A levels. No one cares. Who’s going first?”

One of the lads from the back row strides to the front. His German is fluent. Two minutes, three minutes, four. Imo thinks his grammar is dodgy, but he’s using vocabulary she doesn’t know.

By the end of the lesson, Imo’s decided she loves this boy, David. Because he talked so long and also insists on asking the subsequent speakers questions, there isn’t time for Imo’s row to present.

Dr Wyatt puts a reading list on the screen. “These are the links to the articles you need to study for next time.”

Imo’s copying them down when the crow girl leans across. “They’re on the intranet. You don’t need to do that.” Imo puts down her pen, feeling stupid.

“Right,” Dr Wyatt says. “You’re free to get to all those freshers’ parties that my lecture has inconvenienced. Can I have the register back?”

The students look at each other. Some edge up the central aisle towards the door.

“No one leaves until I get the register.”

They look back at the rows, searching, until crow girl points at Imo. The register is lying next to her pencil case. Only six names on it. It was passed to her and she didn’t notice. Red-faced, hand trembling, she signs her name and gives it to the row behind. Crow girl gives a sympathetic smile but can’t hide the sneer in her eyes.