The Ways of Paradox by Narya

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Take Heart

This chapter got a little heavy. Warning for references to acute stress and thoughts of self harm/suicide.

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When we got back to the flat I could hear the familiar sounds of Harrison and Theo's favourite online game drifting from the living room.

“Enemy double kill...”

“Your turret has been destroyed...”

I sat down at the bottom of the stairs, rolling my eyes at Mark's expression. “Please don't ask.”

Clearly the others had been cleaning – perhaps in a post exam fit of productivity. The skirting boards were white rather than speckled grey; that neat-edged, just-hoovered smell hung in the air, and a cherry-scented candle burned on top of the spare fridge we kept in the hall.

“Thirty seconds remaining!”

“Hey, Claire,” called Harrison over the serene voice of the game narrator.

“Hey yourself.”

“Where the fuck have you been?” asked Theo as the game's final countdown began. “We were about to come looking for you.”

“Seven...six...five...”

“Really?” I tugged my boot over my thick winter sock. “You sound pretty busy to me.”

“VICTORY!”

The two of them whooped and cheered, and the soundscape of the game was silenced.

“Seriously, though.” Harrison's voice carried through to the hall at a more normal volume. “What have you been doing? We got back and no-one was here.”

“I didn't realise I had to stay chained to the flat while you all went out.”

“Out?” Theo's clipped, crisp tones were outraged. “Out? My bloody wrist feels like it's going to fall off the end of my bloody arm, thank you!”

“Stop whining. I actually went to get stuff for you guys.” I glanced up at Mark, who was trying not to laugh. “But I bumped into someone.”

They both appeared in the living room doorway, and a huge grin split Theo's face. “Hey! Long time, no see.” He raised his eyebrows as he came forward to shake Mark's hand. “Shit, dude, you look rough.”

“Theo!”

But Mark's smile stayed in place. “So would you if you'd spent the Christmas holidays applying for research grants.”

I was pretty sure that wasn't how he'd spent the holidays, but I kept my mouth shut.

“And you both look like you got locked out in a hurricane.” Theo looked from Mark to me and back again, as Harrison and Mark shook hands. “What have you been doing?”

“We went out to the castle,” I replied as a door opened upstairs. “You know it's exposed out on the cliffs.”

Mischief sparked in Theo's eyes, and he raised his voice just a touch. “Rosie can lend you a hairbrush; she's got enough of them.”

“I heard that!” Rosie padded down the stairs, dressed in pale pink leggings and a big white hoodie. “Happy new year, Mark.”

Theo turned to me. “So what have you been buying us?”

“It's mainly for Harrison, since we couldn't do much to celebrate yesterday.” I submitted the blue plastic bag and its contents for inspection, and watched Mark's wistful smile as the boys exclaimed their approval.

“Brilliant.” Harrison turned the bottle around to read the spiel from the distillery. “Thanks, Claire.”

“No problem. Thank you for cleaning up.” I guessed it was Harrison who had chivvied the other two into tidying the flat, and gave him a quick one-armed hug. 

“I'll get some glasses.” Theo was already heading for the kitchen.

“We haven't even had dinner yet!” Rosie protested.

Harrison looked up. “Mark, are you staying?”

“Ooh, yes, stay!” Rosie's eyes sparkled. I smiled; that look had undone so many male undergraduates last semester that I'd lost count, but it seemed to have no effect whatsoever on Mark.

He looked at me, questioning, almost waiting for permission.

“I got enough for five.” I picked up the carrier bags. “Theo, put the kettle on, I need a cup of tea before we do much else.”

“I can make tea.” Mark rescued one of the bags that was threatening to slip off my arm.

“All yours, dude.” Theo waved his arm vaguely in the direction of the kettle. “I'll only get into trouble for doing it wrong.”

“How did they exams go?” I called as the boys sloped back to the living room.

“Fine,” Harrison replied.

Theo gave an elaborate shrug. “They went.”

I shook my head as the faux-epic theme music of their game started up again. “What does that mean?” 

“I think it means they didn't go well.” Mark passed Rosie a bag of vegetables to unpack, then opened the tea cupboard, finding his way around the kitchen with ease. “Are you sure you don't mind feeding me? I can't help feeling I've pushed in.”

“Don't be silly.” I dug in the cupboard, past the unloved packets of cheap cereal and the bulb of garlic that appeared to be mutating into an alien life form. “I meant it when I said I'd shopped for five – more, really, but Harrison and Theo eat like someone's about to re-introduce rationing.” I frowned, shifting bottles of cooking oil and vinegar aside. “Although I really hope I wasn't dreaming that spare tin of tomatoes...” 

“I can run back to Tesco?” offered Rosie.

“No need.” I emerged, clutching my prize. “Sorted.”

“Cool.” Rosie perched on the windowsill and turned back to Mark. “Anyway, you came on a good night. It's Throwback Thursday.” She drummed her feet on the floor. “And it's my turn to pick.”

Mark glanced between us as he poured boiling water into the teapot. “Sorry – I don't follow.”

“Every Thursday one of us picks a film,” I explained, cracking eggs on the side of a glass jug and separating the whites from the yolks. “Something we used to like watching when we were kids. We stopped for a while last semester when everything got crazy with Pirates, but we've picked it up again since the Christmas break.”

A soft smile curved Mark's lips. “That's a lovely idea.”

Rosie nodded. “I know. It was actually Theo's; he's such a sweetheart, even though he pretends to be a twat.”

Mark laughed. “No comment.” 

“Probably wise.” I shook the worst of the egg from my hands and turned the tap on with my elbow. “What's this week's show, Rosie?”

Her smile widened into an excited grin. “Snow White.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Do the boys know?”

“It's my choice!” She folded her arms. “We sat through that stupid toaster thing for Harrison last week.”

“Toaster thing?” Mark couldn't have looked more baffled if we were speaking Klingon.

“The Brave Little Toaster,” I translated. 

He breathed a disbelieving curse that I didn't catch. “Someone made a film about a toaster?”

“More than one.” Rosie shuddered. “Apparently there were sequels.”

“There were indeed,” I confirmed. “I used to have to put up with them all when I stayed at his house when we were younger.”

Mark stirred the teabags in the pot, his face torn between amusement and horror. “The only thing I can think to say to that is – I'm sorry.”

“Usually the standard's a bit higher,” I reassured him. “Last semester we watched The Sound of Music - oh, and The Princess Bride. That was fun.”

“I don't know that one either,” he confessed.

“You've fallen victim to one of the classic blunders!” proclaimed Rosie, at the same time as I automatically replied, “Inconceivable!”

We both fell about laughing. Mark glanced between us, evidently lost.

“Never mind,” I said, lifting a whisk from the pot of utensils. “We'll lend it to you.”

Dinner was an unexpected success – my improvised cheesy aubergines worked well, the chicken and tarragon stew was a fail-safe, and my cheat's chocolate mousse turned out better than when I'd tried to make the real thing. Surprisingly, though, the real triumph of the evening was Snow White. Theo and Harrison predictably grumbled, but it soon transpired that Harrison had last watched it when he was six, and Theo had never seen it in the first place. They had both written it off as a sappy, silly film for little girls, but they were suitably apologetic afterwards.

“That witch was fucking terrifying,” said Theo.

“I know, right? The scene where the Queen transformed...”

“...and the skeleton in the dungeon...”

“...and that bit where she leaned in through the window...”

Theo flopped backwards onto the rug. “I'm going to have nightmares.”

“Mark?” I shifted so I could see his face. We were sharing the big sofa, and I'd sneaked glances at him throughout the film. He'd seemed as transfixed as Rosie. “What did you think?”

“I saw it at the cinema.” He pulled his eyes from the screen, his expression dream-like. “I remember being almost hypnotised...I'd never seen anything like it.”

“I bet it would be good on the big screen,” said Theo wistfully. “Not that many places re-run old films now – you must have got lucky.”

Mark blinked and tensed slightly, as though just realising something. “Yes – lucky.”

I wondered what particular memories he had tied up with Snow White.

“Anyway.” Harrison squirmed forward and ejected the DVD. “Whose turn is it next week?”

“Back to the top of the order, isn't it?” Theo grinned at me. “What are you thinking, Claire?”

“Not sure yet.” I looked at Mark, debating, and came down on the side of pushing my luck. “Mark? Do you want to join us again?”

He looked at me, and then his silver eyes glanced over the three younger ones sprawling across the rug, their expressions ranging from welcoming to eager. He gave a half-smile that reminded me of the sun breaking through the sea-fog at dawn. “If you'll have me.”

“You should pick the film!” said Rosie.

The smile slipped a little, and his face started to slide back into the handsome mask I'd known through the previous term. “I'm not sure about that; I wouldn't know where to start.”

“Well, what was your favourite film when you were a kid?” Harrison asked.

“I don't know.” He looked at me as though asking for help, but I wasn't sure what he wanted me to say. “We didn't have...we didn't watch a lot of films.”

“Where did you grow up, the 1850s?” laughed Theo.

I threw a cushion at him. “Pack it in.” I wriggled further under the blanket draped across the sofa I was sharing with Mark. “You don't have to decide now – it can be anything, really, as long as it's more than about five years old and broadly suitable for family viewing.”

He nodded, looking relieved. “Well, I always liked The Wizard of Oz.”

“Oh, I love that!” Rosie squealed.

“Sorted, then,” said Harrison – but he shot me a significant look as he slipped Snow White back into its box.

I pretended not to notice. “What's the verdict on the whisky?”

Theo cast his eyes upwards in ecstasy. “Love it.” 

“Agreed.” Harrison held his glass out for a top up. “Can't go wrong with Oban.”

An excited gleam lit Theo's blue eyes. “Hey – listen. For inter-semester, let's go out to the west coast – or even the islands. We could get a cottage on Islay and tour the distilleries.”

“Yes, that's great for someone who doesn't like whisky.” Rosie's voice took on a waspish edge.

I poured myself a refill and passed the bottle to Mark. “None of you will be going anywhere for inter-semester if you fail your exams.”

A three-part chorus of groans was accompanied by several thrown cushions.

“Careful!” I yelped as my glass threatened to go flying.

Mark steadied it and tossed the errant furnishings back across the room. “You were asking for that, I think.”

“I was...”

He gave me a lazy wink.

“Whose side are you on?” I laughed, folding my arms and trying (and failing) to glare.

“The side of the downtrodden.” He tilted his head and raised his left eyebrow. “In this case – theirs.”

“I knew I liked you for a reason.” Theo rolled onto his stomach. “Seriously, Claire, do you expect us to start studying again after we've been in exams all day?”

“And drinking,” Harrison added.

“And that.”

I thought of my years of training and pupillage after university – the diploma, the aptitude tests, the interviews, the long nights of research and preparation, even when my immune system was giving up and I was so tired that my arms and legs and fingers ached, never mind my eyes and head. “No, not really. Sorry. I guess I'm just being a grumpy old woman.”

“I think I know the cure for that.” Theo swallowed the last of his Oban. “Pub?”

“Yep.” Harrison hauled himself to his feet. “Rosie?”

She made a soft noise of indecision. “I'm wearing a hoodie...”

“And?” Theo shook his head. “We're not going ballroom dancing. Anyway, it's exam week. It wouldn't surprise me if there were people out drinking in their pyjamas – oh!” His eyes sparkled. “Idea. End of exam celebration – all day pyjama party.”

“With alcohol,” Harrison added.

“Naturally.”

I laughed. “Get going; we can talk about that later.”

Rosie pulled her green quilted bodywarmer over her hoodie and leggings. “Aren't you coming?” she asked.

“Not this time, I don't think. You guys have fun.”

“Mark?” 

He smiled. “Thank you, but I'd better not. We were drinking at lunchtime.”

“Now we get to it!” Theo sighed. “Oh, to be a post-grad, now that January's here...”

“That doesn't scan,” I pointed out.

“Doesn't it?” He gave me a wicked grin. “I'd never have guessed.”

After the usual scuffle of coat-hunting, boot-finding, key-seeking and getting in each other's way, they were gone. 

I let out a long, slow breath and leaned back against the cushions, eyes closed.

“Claire?”

“Hmm?” 

“Thank you.”

I looked at him. Mark had curled himself into a half-reclined posture, one knee resting on the sofa arm, head leaning on his hand. He was more relaxed than I'd ever seen him, except perhaps on stage. “You're welcome. I don't mind cooking – and the others were glad to see you.” I smiled. “I told you they would be.”

His answering smile was warm and a little wistful. “They're good company.”

“I know. It's funny.” I tipped the remnants of my whisky around in my glass, breathing in its aroma of lemon peel and smoke. The candle out in the hallway sent shadows skittering across the wall, and raindrops began to flick at the windows. “When I first moved in with them they drove me mad – Theo especially.”

“I can't imagine why.”

I laughed. “But now I don't know what I'd do without them.” I finished my drink and got up to pour another, holding out a hand for Mark's glass as well.

He accepted my silent offer. “Claire, may I ask you something?”

“Of course.” 

“Why did you leave London?”

I paused halfway through pouring and looked up at him.

His eyes were soft and kind. “You didn't expect me to bring it up again.”

“Well.” I passed him his glass and sat down in the armchair, flexing my ankles and pointing my toes. It seemed odd to squash myself next to him again with the others gone. “No.”

“Of course if you'd prefer not to talk about it then I understand – but you came close over lunch, I think.”

I hesitated, then took a measured sip of whisky and nodded.

“Only I wouldn't want you to feel that if there's something you can't share with Theo or Rosie or Harrison, you have to keep it to yourself. I know we don't know each other well, so perhaps I'm presuming...”

“No. No, you're not.” I wedged my feet under the cushions; the central heating was losing its ongoing fight with the cold. 

He shifted, draping his long legs across the sofa like he was settling down for a story. Warmth blossomed inside me like a touch of sunlight as I realised that – gently, silently – he was inviting me to tell him everything.

“It's nothing very mysterious.” Heat prickled down the back of my neck and across my cheeks. “And Harrison does know a little. The stupid thing is, it wasn't even like I wasn't good at it.” I pressed my lips together, wondering where and how, exactly, it had turned downhill – but I couldn't point to a defining moment, one thing that tipped it in the wrong direction. “I just...I never really had a vocation. You know how some people have this one thing that drives them? Well, of course you do,” I added before he could answer. “You've got your music. And there's always the kid at school who wants to be an actor, or a vet, or a a doctor, and it's their dream, and they'll do anything it takes to get there.” I shrugged. “That was never me. I mean, I was clever, and when it came to choosing my subjects for sixth form my teachers tried to get me to pick sciences, but I preferred the Arts. English and Drama especially.”

Wind rattled the sashes. The rain grew heavier, like someone was flinging tiny pebbles at the glass. 

“My parents were fine with it,” I continued. “Dad's a journalist and Mum works in a gallery, they weren't bothered about pushing me into medicine or engineering if it wasn't what I wanted, but there was always...” I frowned. “Pressure's the wrong word. Not even expectation. I guess an assumption that I'd go get a degree and turn it into a traditional, well-paying career. With a BA in English, that basically meant law. I was “wasting my brains” if I did anything else.” I smiled and rolled my eyes. “So I worked my socks off, I got my First, I filled my CV up with volunteering and internships and extra-curriculars, I did mini-pupillages, the lot. Everything they said I needed to be a barrister, I ticked off – oh, I know I was aiming high,” I added at Mark's slightly quirked eyebrow. “But everyone told me how good I'd be. I was confident speaking in front of people, I was articulate, I could think on my feet, and I got through all the written papers and the aptitude tests with high marks. By the time I was called to the bar, I'd even managed to convince myself it really was my dream.” I blushed. “I'm not a bad actor. I guess I convinced my interviewers too – and suddenly there I was. Brick Court chambers, gowned and wigged, one of the lucky chosen few.” I sneaked a look at him. “You don't seem surprised.”

He shook his head. “Why should I be surprised that you achieved something you set your mind to?”

I took another sip of whisky, chewing it carefully in my mouth. “But I only did it because I could – because people expected it of me. The others in my intake all seemed to be there for much better reasons. OK, it was commercial law, not criminal; some of them were definitely only there for the money, but at least they were honest about it. I felt like...like an impostor. Like I'd stolen someone else's dream job just because I was capable of it and I couldn't think what else to do with myself.” I looked at him again, almost daring him to judge me, but his face was kind, encouraging.

Go on.

My scalp tingled. “I think if I could have put it down at six o'clock, and picked it up again the next day at eight, I'd have been alright – but the problem with law at that level is that it's all-consuming, especially when you're starting out and you want to impress. “Building your personal brand,” they called it. What it means is late, late nights, cancelled weekend plans, early starts...” I paused. “Good grief, I sound pathetic.”

“No.”

“Well, my parents thought I was. Even if they didn't say so in as many words. And they were so proud when they told people what I was doing...they thought I was selfish to be whining about the hours and the stress when so many people would kill for my job. But it was like I was losing myself a little bit at a time, you know? The longer I played this character, the more she became me; I barely had time to read, let alone go to the theatre, or play the piano or the guitar, I hardly ever saw my friends, I only went home for birthdays and Christmas.” I paused, reflecting. “Maybe I didn't need to be quite so wrapped up in it, but it was like I was in competition with myself. How far could I push it? How good could I become, even at this thing I was starting to hate? I don't know – it's hard to explain.” Another sip of whisky. I savoured its mellow burn. “I couldn't bear the idea of being a failure. Even though I thought my clients were stupid plastic corporate drones, and some of my colleagues were...well, most of them were fine, but a few were just tossers, but for some reason I still so desperately wanted to be the best. I know it's mad.

“But when there's only one thing in your life, and you don't love it or even like it, you get worn out. And there's a lot of pressure with commercial law. Well. With most career paths,” I amended, thinking of my father's years struggling as a freelance journalist. “But when your clients are insisting a deadline needs to come forward, and you're working on three other things, and you've got courses to study for in your own time and you hate the whole damn stupid mess and all you want to do is sit in a corner and cry...” Horrified, I felt the familiar pricking at the rims of my eyes. “I had nothing to reach for to keep me going. No dream, no deep vocation – not even anything to distract myself with outside work. I got to a point where I didn't even want to read or go out. I couldn't face it. And it's not peaks and troughs, either. It's constant. There's no let up, no space. You're stuck on this hamster wheel. Once it's on top of you it's like some huge cage, there's no breaking through again; I'd feel sick whenever I walked into court, terrified that I hadn't prepared enough, or that I'd left something back in chambers that I needed. And I started to think that maybe, if this was my whole life, then actually I couldn't cope with that. I didn't want it. I couldn't sleep, and when I did I dreamed about work, and I'd wake up with a headache and it took me longer and longer to move on a morning because I couldn't stand the thought of going in. Weekends didn't help either – not even the odd ones where I didn't have things to finish off, or client calls to make. I'd just spend the whole time dreading Monday morning.”

A clunk and hiss from the boiler made me look up. I brushed my eyes. “Nobody knew anything was wrong. Like I said, I'm a good actor. I did a really great line in calm and competent and pulled together – if you can believe it.”

“Very easily.”

He sounded like he meant it too. “Well, anyway, one morning I woke up and all I could do was cry. I couldn't get up, I couldn't move...it was like someone was turning a wheel inside me, cranking out all this shite that had somehow got stuck...and over and over I kept thinking, I've had enough. I wish I wasn't here. I want...I want to...”

The word got stuck in my throat. Even now I couldn't bear to repeat it. It was as if saying it aloud might bring back the desire. I looked up at him, wondering what he'd been through, what he must be thinking – poor, spoiled little girl with her shiny London career, what could she possibly know about the call of the dark?

But instead he just looked deeply sad. “Oh, Claire.”

“Harrison doesn't know that part, and I don't ever plan to tell him, or the others.” Talking about it all seemed to have drawn my courtroom character to the surface, I thought, noting the steel in my voice as though it was someone else speaking. “It wasn't the first time I'd thought it but it was the first time I couldn't get away from it. I was...” The hard tone faded. “I was frightened. I called in sick and I stayed in my flat – oh, God, I haven't even told you about the flat. I don't know how they got permission to market it as a separate dwelling. It was literally a loft room above someone's garage, with a fold-down bed and a camping stove.” I laughed humourlessly. “Good old London. Anyway, I was signed off on a leave of absence, first for two weeks, then a month, and then before I knew where I was it was autumn, and while all this was going on Harrison had grown up and got his A-levels and gone off to university. He sent me pictures of him and Theo and Rosie and a few others in the snow at night...” I trailed off, remembering staring at the photographs, realising what a mistake I'd made with my life. “I had savings. I moved home for a bit – tried to pull myself back together. Did a self-taught crash course on everything that had happened in my field since I graduated, threw some applications together, and was accepted here.” I looked around the room, feeling a sudden rush of affection for the peeling paintwork and battered posters and the cheap fairy lights Rosie had strewn across the bookshelf. “Hundreds of miles from London, but happy. Or getting there.”

“Is that enough?”

“It's a start.” I wondered whether I should have been quite so open – but I hadn't been able to help it, somehow. And he had asked. “My parents think it's mad, of course, but I have pointed out what a university chancellor earns.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Which is?”

“Not as much as a QC barrister, but enough to keep them in style when they decide to retire.” My smile grew wry. “I don't actually want to be a chancellor either, but they don't need to know that yet. For now it's helping them get used to the idea of their high-flying daughter facing a future of low-paid short-term contract work.”

“Ah. The joys of academia.”

I shrugged. “I don't care. I just want the space and time to...to figure out what I really want to research, and then I'll go from there. But they'd say that was silly.”

A long, thoughtful pause. “Do they know?”

I didn't have to ask what about. “No.”

“Will you tell them?”

“No.”

He nodded, swirling whisky in the bottom of his glass. “You made the right decision.”

“Not telling them?”

“Only you can answer that.” He sat up, held my eyes with his strange silver gaze. “I mean that you were right to change your mind. To make your life different, instead of holding to a path that would only have hurt you and everyone around you.”

Something in his voice and face caught at me – a flash of the same deep yearning that haunted his music and song. I watched as he settled back into the cushions, elegant limbs draped, hair gleaming, eyes far away. In the soft-edged lamplight he looked like an oil painting, an angel fallen from the canvas of a Renaissance master. 

“How about you?” I asked quietly.

He glanced back at me, surprised. 

“Come on. Research grants?” I raised my eyebrows. “The others might buy that, I suppose, but...”

“But you aren't them.”

“Indeed.”

His mouth quirked. “Claire James, are you worried about me?”

“Well.” I blushed, not wanting to sound defensive – or worse, motherly – but after the conversation we'd just had, honesty seemed the best policy. “Shouldn't I be? You did disappear for weeks on end. And you look...” I hunted for the word. “I don't know. Worn, I guess. Even Theo noticed – although you look better than you did before Christmas.”

“Thank you.” A brief laugh. “I did suspect you might be taking pity on me earlier.” 

The colour in my cheeks deepened. “I wouldn't say that, exactly.” Seeing his glass was empty, I passed him the whisky bottle. “But fair's fair; you get the same deal I did. No pressure to say anything if you don't want to, but don't think I don't care, or I can't cope, or I wouldn't want to know, or any of that rubbish. Not after what you just sat through from me.”

He poured another measure and handed the bottle back. The lamplight gleamed and flared olive-gold through the whisky in his glass. “Claire...”

A shift in the light and a trace of cherry and smoke on the air told me the candle in the hallway had guttered out.

“I can only tell you a little,” he said eventually.

I nodded. It was more than I'd expected.

“And only if you're certain you want to hear.”

“I'm certain.” 

He sighed. “Alright.” Rain spattered against the walls and windows. “You already know, I think, that I've...I've watched people die.”

I wished I was nearer, wished I could lay my hand over his.

“Many of those deaths I could have prevented. Some of them I even caused. Some of them...” He looked at me, considering, deciding. “Some of those I watched die, I killed.”

As I inhaled my lungs seemed to hit a stone boundary – but it was no more than I'd already guessed. With his background it was to be expected. I tried, as he had done, to keep my face neutral, open, and realised with surprising detachment that I wasn't in any way afraid.

“My family are gone – I don't know where, not for certain, but what I suspect is terrible. I cannot reach them. I will not see them again.” His mouth twisted into a crooked half-smile that didn't touch his eyes. “I've had a lonely life, Claire, you were right about that. Few have ever known even as much as I've told you. I have to keep it at a distance, you see – put things in the way, because if I let it get too near...” A pause. He sipped his drink, thinking. “My memory is peculiarly vivid,” he said slowly. “I find it all too easy to get lost in the past; at times it is like it is happening to me over and over again, and there is no escape from it.”

I wondered if he was talking about flashbacks, or PTSD – but it sounded like even more than that. Every word was weighed and carefully chosen, as though each syllable concealed three more, and the grief in his voice was as sharp as the salt in the sea.

What the hell happened to you?

His silver eyes strayed to the window and he swallowed the rest of his whisky. “I cannot tell you any more than that.” 

The wind hissed again, and a soft pit-pit sound came from the windowsill. The sashes were leaking. The radiator gave a creak and a pop, and out in the streets students shrieked, dodging the rain.

I bit my lip, acutely aware of the rise and fall of my breath. “Mark...”

He looked back at me, half-wary, as though he expected to be told to leave. The idea was like a knife-wound in my gut. 

I leaned over and passed him the bottle of Oban. 

Shock stilled his features for a moment. “Are you sure?”

“I don't think Luvians are going to run out of whisky. We can always get more.”

He took it from me slowly, like a talisman, relief and disbelief mingling on his face. “You know that's not what I meant.”

It wasn't easy, I admitted. My outstretched arm felt cold and heavy, and as he accepted the bottle I had the sense that I'd done something profound, irreversible. Thoughts of darkly shining stars drifted across my mind, and I shook myself. “One thing, though.”

“Only one? Goodness.”

I knew the sarcasm was only for show; it was the first time I'd heard anything approaching a tremor in his voice. “You've said you can't tell me any more, and that's fine. But if there is something else you need to keep hidden, for your safety or for ours or for whatever reason, then maybe watch what you say in front of the other three.”

His eyes widened. Clearly he hadn't expected that.

“I know what I said before, but they're not stupid,” I added. I thought again of his uneasy response to their questions about childhood films, their wild speculations before Christmas, and what I'd seen out at the castle that day. “And you're not always careful.”

“No.” He curled his fingers around the whisky glass, eyes clouding as though they rested on something I couldn't see. “No, apparently not.”

I poured another whisky for myself, wincing at the draft that whistled through the room. “Christ. Sometimes I think I was mad to come to Scotland. At least London was warm – relatively speaking.”

He looked at me, astonished, a smile curling at the corner of his mouth. “Claire...”

“Yes?”

A slow shake of that beautiful head. “You remind me of one of my cousins.”

“Really?” The last thing I'd expected was for him to start talking about his lost family. I hesitated, then asked, “What was she like?”

“He was...” The smile slipped. “Many things, but above all, loyal. Whatever any of us did, however imprudent or cruel or stupid, he never stopped believing that we were good people, and that everything would come right in the end.”

I blushed. My first instinct was to protest that he was giving me too much credit, but I stopped myself before my mouth was even open. I couldn't bat away the comparison like that, not when I now had a better idea what it must mean for him to make it. “Is this the same cousin who fell out of a tree because he climbed up it blindfolded?”

A shadow and a ghost of a laugh flickered in his eyes. “Yes. Oh, he was a fool when he was young! He used to drive my brother to distraction.”

A brother too – but I'd already pushed my luck plenty of times tonight. I slid out of my chair and sat cross legged on the floor, my back leaning against the sofa, on the pretence of putting the whisky bottle where we could both reach it.

“But he grew up to be a better man than any of us.”

His drink was cradled in his right hand; his left hung over the arm of the sofa near my head. Unthinking, I reached up and took it – and this time there was no flinch, no start, no look of shock or surprise. He looped his fingers through mine and smiled at me, though I could tell from his eyes that part of him, at least, was a long way away from St Andrews.

When the others came home, much later, we were both on the big sofa again. I was reading Northanger Abbey, my knees tucked tightly under my chin; Mark had fallen asleep, his head pillowed on his right arm.