The Roommates

Back in bed, Imo doesn’t sleep. Suicide has always been one of the what-if explanations her family considered. For the rest of the night, it’s firmly lodged as a certainty.

Chapter 9 (#ulink_dfa640d3-1e99-57e1-b6a6-33630044cfe0)

Imogen

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.

Chapter 10 (#ulink_df37a888-1aa4-5577-9b38-3d04f58f36a2)

Phoenix

He’s wearing lilac. The trousers are denim and the tunic is heavy-duty cotton. Not as tall as her, but solid, box-shaped. Bull-necked. He fills the doorway and doesn’t invite her in.

“I thought I’d better come and say hello as we’re flatmates.” Phoenix wishes she’d asked Amber to do the introductions. “I’m Phoenix.” It comes out as an apology. “What’s your name?” She tries putting a won’t-take-no-for-an-answer tone into her question.

It sort of works. He mutters something, growls it really. Riku?

She smiles and tries out the basic Thai she picked up when her family did a season in Bangkok years ago, but he tilts his head to the side in apparent bafflement. She tries hello in Mandarin and Japanese. Nothing. He must be from somewhere she’s never heard of. Depressing, as she thought she knew the world pretty well. From the doorway she sees a small rucksack and a sketchpad. Something familiar hanging on the wall gives her hope for common ground, and she nearly breaks her cover story, but his unsmiling face stops her in time.

“Well, nice to meet you, Riku,” she says backing away. She intended to invite him to the Freshers’ Fair. But even with her best linguistic gymnastics, she doubts she’d make him understand and he’d probably decline anyway.

On the way to her room, she scoops up the post from the doormat. Pizza delivery leaflets, taxi fliers and electoral registration letters for previous occupants. She cleared one heap of junk mail yesterday. No one else bothered and the pile was already spreading along the hallway. Another domestic duty that’s going to fall to her.

In need of a friendly face, she knocks on Imo’s door. Hears movement inside but has to knock again before Imo appears, red-eyed.

“I can’t get onto the intranet and I’ve got a German assignment to do by tomorrow. Why is it always me?” Imo blinks hard, suppressing tears.

“They can’t have set you work in Freshers’ Week. It’s bound to be optional.”

“There’s nothing optional about Dr Wyatt.” She goes back to the bed and picks up her laptop. “I’m going to get kicked off the course in the first week.”

“Do you want me to try?” Phoenix takes the laptop, but no matter which icon she presses, a no server message appears on the screen. “I don’t think it’s your fault. The uni’s system is down.”

“Great,” Imo says, swallowing a sob. There are dark circles under her eyes, and her cheeks and chin are a plague of acne.

“Have you eaten?” Phoenix offers her mother’s preferred salve to tearful children. “Come with us to the Freshers’ Fair. You can get free snacks there. The intranet might be up by the time you get back.”

Imo makes a big sigh and wipes her eyes on her sweatshirt cuff. “I’ll come along, but I’m not joining anything.”

They get a shock when they call on Amber. Turquoise kimono and red bobbed wig. Her make-up is a tone lighter than usual and her lipstick matches her hair. Perhaps she’s hoping for a Geisha Girl Society.

Imo whips out her phone. “Let me take a photo.”

“The car’s in the main car park,” Tegan says, coming out of her room and checking her handbag for her keys. She sees Amber’s wig. “You look like an Edam cheese.”

Amber scowls and suggests they walk as the fair is in the other direction and it’s a beautiful afternoon.

“Is your ankle better?” Phoenix asks.

“Fine thanks.” She flexes her foot.

Phoenix smiles. Wasn’t it supposed to be her knee that was hurting?

The walk turns out to be a good idea. Crowds of freshers head the same way. The mood suits the sunny weather.

“Where are you from, Tegan?” Amber asks. She looks at her flatmate while they walk, as if she’s making a supreme effort to listen to the answer. The uncharitable part of Phoenix can’t help thinking it’s an act.

“Cardiff.”

Phoenix has been to Cardiff but doesn’t say. She was christened at Mermaid Quay in the tent by a local vicar. The baptism is supposed to bring the whole family health and happiness. She stiffens as she walks. Tell that to Cloud.

“Where’s your home town?” Amber asks, turning her intense expression on Phoenix.

She shrugs. “Born in Shrewsbury.” The planned two-week stopover stretched to six when Cloud went into labour early en route from Carlisle to Gloucester. “My parents work all over.”

“Cloud’s Coffee. I remember your parents’ amazing van,” Imo says. She looks at Tegan. “What do your parents do?”