Angels and Men Read Free Page B

Mara.’ She could leave. But no – one small item of any other business to finish. He dropped his voice, and began to say, ‘I was sorry to hear about your –’
    â€˜ Thank you .’ She snuffed out his sentence.
    Instantly the young man’s attention was on her. This was what she had been dreading. Dr Mowbray eyed her cautiously.
    â€˜Goodbye,’ she said before he could try again. She left the two of them with a surprised silence twanging in the air.
    Forget it. Forget it, she told herself as she made her way down the stairs. She went out of the back of the building and began to walk along the terraces and through the gardens that ran behind the college. The sky above the rooftops was a deep dark blue, and a cathedral tower was just visible beyond the chimneys, ghostly in the floodlights. She hugged the books in her thin arms. Something like glee seized her. She could drop the books and, raising her arms, be lifted on the steady wind, treading higher and higher until she looked down on the City twinkling beneath her. Tree shadows danced on the walls. She heard the water running over the weir deep in the river, over and on and out to the distant sea. Some of the college windows were lit up, bright as pictures on a black wall. As she walked, the sound of music came from various rooms.
    She entered the hallway and passed through a group of students as they exclaimed and talked. I might be a ghost, she thought. What a strange twilight realm we postgraduates inhabit. Pale figures haunting the libraries long outside term-time. She began climbing the stairs leaving their voices behind. This hall must have been majestic once. The frou-frou of long-gone petticoats rustled in her mind. Maybe she would meet her fellow ghosts one day on these steps. A Victorian maid, the one who polished these banisters a hundred years ago. We would stare at one another, wondering who was haunting whom. Mara stood feeling in her pocket for her keys, balancing the pile of books with her chin. There was a sudden noise as someone came out of the next room. She looked up to see an entirely different manifestation confronting her: a dark young man with a look of languid contempt on his face.
    â€˜Jesus Christ. Another bloody woman.’
    She straightened up slowly and stared into a pair of cold grey eyes. No need to be nice here. One of her fellow postgrads? He looked about twenty-four or -five.
    â€˜I came back thinking I was on an all-male corridor, and what do I find? It’s overrun with girls , buggering up my morning routine and clogging the bathrooms with their toiletries and tampons.’
    She continued to stare at him, fixing her eyes with offensive blankness on the bridge of his nose.
    â€˜Let’s try and understand one another, shall we?’ he continued. ‘ That ’ – pointing at a door – ‘is the bathroom I intend to use. You girls can use the other one.’
    She raised an eyebrow and let her gaze travel down to his feet, then back up to his face. He was around six feet tall, about her own height. He looked tailored and expensive from black hair to black brogues. The statement was unambiguous: Don’t fuck with me – you’re not in my league. Her eyes rested on him a while longer, then she turned indifferently and put her key in the lock. The last glimpse she had was of his astonished face as she closed him out. A smile struggled on her lips. She stood looking at the door. Was he standing staring at the other side of it, thinking – what would he be thinking? Why the hell didn’t she say anything? Or: Stuck-up bitch! She heard his footsteps walking away at last, then going into the room next door. So she was stuck between him and the field mice. Some music began to play. Tallis, she thought. How inappropriate. She tried to picture Sue from the Christian Union inviting him to a tea party. Then an idea occurred to her and a smile burst out before she could