‘I’m a bit light-headed, that’s all. I’ve been ill.’ Her presence – her attention – eases something inside him. He pushes his hands into his pockets, trying to look casual. ‘And how are you, Magister? Working hard?’
A flash of a grimace crosses her face. He remembers that feeling: how long did he struggle before he got the idea for Reflections? He wants to put his arms around her and tell her it’ll come, that she’s an artist, that it always feels like this at first. But of course he won’t. ‘If you want to go back to the library, I can chaperone you,’ he says. He’s not sure if it would be allowed, but the idea of being alone in the library at night, with her, is strangely exciting.
‘No, thanks,’ she says. ‘What I really want is a drink. I’ve got some brandy—’ she stumbles on the word, and for a second he remembers standing in her room, a bottle in his hand, the sting of rejection. It was only his brandy she didn’t want, then. She shoots him a look as if she’s read his thoughts. ‘It was a gift from my English cousins. I haven’t opened it, because …’ There’s a tiny pause. Perhaps she notices that she’s on the verge of apologising, because she looks away. ‘I don’t suppose you want to join me?’
‘For a drink?’
‘No, you’re right. You shouldn’t, if you’ve been ill. And I have a class first thing tomorrow.’
‘I’d love to. I mean – I’d kill for a drink. Yes. Please.’ Has she already retracted the offer? He hunches his shoulders in a gesture that’s meant to be boyish and charming. ‘That would be lovely, thank you. By the way, have you seen this month’s Gambit? There was a contribution from Millicent Cairn that made me think of you.’
‘Because she’s a woman.’
‘No, because she talks about the liberating effect of not having been to a school. I thought perhaps—’
‘How can not getting an education be liberating?’ But it doesn’t matter what she’s saying, because he’s distracted her into setting off across the court towards the Magisters’ Entrance, obviously expecting him to accompany her. ‘You think all female players are the same, don’t you, Martin? And yet male players are varied, because they’re not hampered by having to think about being a woman all the time. Is that right?’
‘I don’t know,’ he says.
‘My word, I’m sick of it. Home, husband and happiness, isn’t that what your Party wants for us? As soon as we were starting to get concessions … Do you realise that thirty years ago a married woman couldn’t have her own library card without her husband’s permission?’
‘At least you got the vote.’
She narrows her eyes at him. ‘Yes, things were getting better. And then there was the Depression, and your lot came along and …’ She takes a deep breath. ‘Never mind. You want some brandy, or not?’
They go in through the massive oak door and turn towards her rooms. The corridor is quiet and cold, striped with starlight. He hovers in her doorway as she lights a lamp and beckons him to come in. ‘Oh – wait …’ She collects up her papers from the desk and dumps them into a drawer.
‘I’m not going to plagiarise,’ he says, stung.
‘No – I didn’t think you – of course not,’ she says, but she bundles the last notebook away as if she means the opposite. She crouches down to take the bottle of brandy out of a low cupboard. ‘Wait, let me get a glass from upstairs.’
She disappears up the stairs. Part of him wants desperately to rifle through her desk and expose whatever she’s hiding: but of course he won’t. He contents himself with turning in a slow circle, looking at the austere shapes of desk and chair and window. What’s it like, to live here? To know that she’s here for ever? A life sentence. Can she possibly be happy?
‘Here,’ she says, from the foot of the stairs. ‘I’ll have to drink from the bottle.’ She hands him a tooth-glass and pours some brandy into it. He raises it to her, and drinks. It’s good, and fiery, with that dusty, papery scent that makes him think incongruously of old books. It leaves heat on his tongue and seems to fill his empty stomach. He takes another mouthful, and another. She watches him, smiling. Then she bends her head and takes her cap off, flicking it on to the desk like a deflated puffball. Her hair is falling out of its chignon, and in this light – and, he has to admit, with the alcohol already softening his senses – she looks like Carfax at the end of term, when his hair had been uncut for twelve weeks. They always looked like scarecrows, all of them; there was a servant in the infirmary who’d cut your hair on Sundays, but even though people like Emile had valets at home it was de rigueur to pretend you were above asking a servant to touch you. The first thing Dad always said when Léo got home was, ‘Well, I’ll be blowed. For a moment there I thought you were a girl.’ Now, as the Magister raises the bottle in response and drinks from it, it’s the other way round. She could be a young man, especially now that she’s spluttering a little and wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. He stares at her.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says.
‘Don’t be. Please.’
‘It’s been quite a day. I’m so tired. I haven’t slept for ages, thinking about this blasted game. Yes, the Midsummer Game,’ she adds, when he raises his eyebrows. She leans against the desk and pushes the chair towards him. ‘Sit down, please.’
‘Thanks,’ he says. It feels strange to sit while she’s standing.
She takes a deep breath, tapping her fingernails against the neck of the bottle. Then, suddenly, she says, ‘I haven’t got anything. You understand? I’ve got to perform the Midsummer Game in two months, and I haven’t got anything. Not an idea. Not a title. A blank page. I’m terrified.’
There’s a silence. He bows his head, turns his glass between his hands, watching the lamplight roll through the liquid. ‘I see,’ he says, almost under his breath.
‘I have to write it. But I – oh, if I—’ Her voice cracks. He glances up, confused. She’s staring at the window, at her own reflection, with an expression of … what is it? Longing, he thinks, but it doesn’t make any sense.
He says, ‘Have you ever written a joint game?’ Somehow he doesn’t think she’d be a natural: she’s too rigid, too prickly, too passionate. She’d be worse than Carfax. He takes a mouthful of brandy, so big that he has to concentrate to swallow. He doesn’t want to think about Carfax. Certainly not now, when he’s here with her. With the Magister. Ha. How absurd, that even in his head he calls her that. Surely by now he should be calling her by her name. Claire.
She raises the bottle to her lips, but she doesn’t tilt it to drink. She breathes out, and the air rings hollowly across the glass. ‘No,’ she says. ‘No.’
‘It’ll be all right,’ he says. ‘I mean … I could help. If you wanted.’
‘You?’ The edge in her voice flicks him on the raw. Perhaps he is being vain to imagine that he has anything worth contributing, but she could at least pretend to be grateful.