One Must Hide

Lights and the night-time

Time passes differently in the dark.

The glowing red numbers on Robin's bedside clock told the tale, parcelling out minutes and hours with unwelcome abundance during the day and cruel stinginess at night. An hour that seemed endless in the chaos of daylight could vanish in a fraction of the time in the calm after dusk. There was never enough night, never enough peace, never enough time.

Robin blinked. Half a sentence on the page, and the clock had gobbled another twenty minutes. At the current rate, she wouldn't finish the required two thousand words on ‘The Senecan Ghost in Hamlet and The Spanish Tragedy' until Christmas.

Resigned to the futility of it all, Robin propped her fist under her chin and let her eyes stray to the window. Across the lake, the last lights of Wentworth College had been extinguished an hour ago, even the one third from the right on the fourth floor, which always stayed on long after all the rest. Only the floodlights remained, white spots reflecting on the glossy black surface of the largest plastic-lined lake in Europe . It was nearly four in the morning, and Robin thought it fairly reasonable to think that she was the only soul awake on the campus of three thousand.

The catch on her own window had been broken since before she had moved into the room two months ago, and Robin used a well thumbed and much despised copy of Joyce's Ulysses to prop it open. Now, though, she wedged her fingers under the lower span of glass and slid it upwards, ignoring the indignant squeal of abused pulleys. The night air flowed in unchallenged, and Robin breathed it in, relishing the crisp shock of it in her lungs. Visitors often complained that her room was freezing. Robin didn't like the cold, but she liked visitors less, and in the ten-by-ten cell of a study bedroom, fresh air mattered.

She leaned, head and shoulders, out of the window, letting the chilly wind ruffle her hair. Her breath condensed into a plume of steam, and three storeys below, the ground glittered with the first signs of a frost. Come morning, the bridge would be slippery. Someone crossing from Wentworth in a long scarf and sensible wool gloves would skid on the ice and drop biology textbooks everywhere and feel very foolish about it. The cool air sharpened Robin's senses to the absence of light and sound and warmth, sobering and intoxicating.

But it was still cold, and the papers on Robin's desk fluttered ominously in the wind. She lowered the window onto Ulysses before the first five hundred words of her revenge tragedy essay could blow away and push back the likely time of completion to Easter. She looked at the reference books stacked on her desk, their pages interleaved with grubby bits of paper and Post-It notes, sure that one was missing, and finally pushed them away. Tomorrow, she thought, pulling her coat from the hook on the back of the door. She'd work on it tomorrow.

She took her keys but didn't lock the door, letting it close by itself, and hastened along the grim corridor to the stairwell. James boasted the newest halls of all seven Colleges at York , but dirty grey carpet and identical maroon doors did not a cheerful environment make. Robin descended rapidly to the ground floor of C-block, shrugging into her jacket, and went outside.

The frost had progressed farther than she had thought. Robin walked with her eyes on the ground, placing her feet with care and avoiding the shiny patches that had been shallow puddles the previous evening. She tucked her hands into her pockets and hunched her shoulders, glad to be out of the claustrophobia of her room.

The planks of the James-Wentworth bridge glistened icily so she bypassed it, following the path that ran along the curving shore of the lake instead. York had an excellent reputation for student security. The main routes were well lit and wove between the residential blocks so that no commotion could go unheeded. The ability to wander campus in safety gave Robin the freedom of the night.

Farther along the lake the next bridge, reaching across the water in a graceless arch of concrete, was sheltered from the frost. Robin walked out to the centre of the span, then turned to lean on the railings, looking out over the lake, and wondering what was wrong with her.

Maybe Lauren was right. Maybe I am too young to be here. The memory of that argument – she couldn't call it a conversation – with her elder sister still left a bad taste in Robin's mouth. Lauren of all people should have understood. They'd shared a room until after Lauren's eighteenth birthday, just before Robin's thirteenth, and then Lauren had gone away to university and Robin had been obliged to share with one of their foster-sisters. Enforced close quarters with a stranger at that difficult age had been hard. Robin had resented the invasion of her space for four bitter years, and the chance to go to university at seventeen instead of eighteen could not have been more welcome, despite Lauren's traitorous misgivings.

But now she was here, free from the disruption of home, with her own room for the first time in her life, and Robin still wasn't happy. She craved times like this, when she could be alone with just her thoughts for company, above all else, and yet all they really afforded her was an opportunity to dwell on her disaffection from the world. She had come here looking for an education, yes, but for something else, too – the kindred spirits of whose absence she had been so keenly aware all her life. Two months in, she still hadn't found them. Robin despaired that she ever would.

She had tried conforming – joining groups, going to clubs, being the stereotype of a student – and each time looked in the mirror the next day and seen how poorly she wore the mask of who she was not. She couldn't subdue her longing for the cool and calm of the night. And when she had it, she longed for something more.

Robin walked to the other side of the bridge, looking back down the lake towards James College . The light from her window on the top floor of C-block, defining the only square of brightness there, was the only sign of life.

Or was it? Deep in the shadows at the base of the building a single spot of orange flared into being. The tip of a burning cigarette, Robin decided. She ran through in her mind all the known smokers among her housemates, but none seemed likely to come outside for a cigarette at four o'clock in the morning on a frosty November night when they could and did simply smoke out of their windows. The flame glowed brighter, as if someone were taking a drag, but she couldn't see anyone around. It could have been a firefly, bobbing and darting in the night, but Robin knew it wasn't. Someone was there.

Curious more than alarmed, Robin started back along the path. The wind began to pick up as she approached the quad of James College , and she folded her arms, wrapping her coat more tightly around herself. It whipped furiously at her hair, and Robin blinked away the tears it stung from her eyes. Then a powerful gust almost knocked her off her feet and she took a step back to brace herself, startled.

Abruptly the wind dropped to swirl lethargically around her ankles, with nothing to recall its momentary vehemence. Robin stopped. The pinprick of orange fire had vanished. She crossed the quad to where it had been. No one there. But the smell of burning tobacco drifted to her on the sluggish breeze, and her eyes dropped instinctively to the cigarette end that lay, still smoking, on the paving by her front door. She nudged it along the sparkling ground with one foot and then, acting on a hunch, turned and looked back across the quad, trying to see whoever it was she now felt certain had been watching her.

Nothing.

Robin unlocked the front door and went inside. Back in her room on the second floor, she took off her coat and put the chain on her door and went to the window. She glanced outside one last time before drawing the curtains. Time for bed, said Zebedee.

But she still lay awake for a long time, puzzling over her certainty that someone had been out there with her.

When she slept, she dreamed.

Robin woke shortly after noon with barely time enough for a shower before her first, and mercifully only, lecture of the day. Metatheatricality in Renaissance Drama would have bored her senseless at the best of times, and she flopped near the back of the lecture theatre with eyes half lidded, hardly able to muster the interest to take notes.

She didn't feel like talking to any of her fellow Lit students afterwards, especially when she overheard two of the people from her seminar group discussing their revenge tragedy essays. That pleasure wasn't going to go away.

Robin traipsed back along the lake towards James College , tired in every part of her being. The sun shone bright and thin in a cloudless sky. Last night's frost had thawed, but the air was still bitter. Daylight betrayed the uninviting murk of the lake, and people crowded the paths Robin roamed alone at night. Campus seemed a much less interesting place during the day.

She stopped at the James car park on her way home to search her car for the missing book of criticism. The D-reg Ford Orion in dull blue Robin had bought with a parental advance on her student loan was her joy, if not her pride. It had cost almost as much to insure as to buy, the wheel arches were rusting away, and warm days played havoc with the electrics, but it had transported Robin and all her stuff from Devon to Yorkshire in one piece and would hopefully manage the return journey at Christmas. Robin poked around in the boot until she came up with a book on Jacobean tragedy. The date in the front reminded her that it had been due back at the library two days ago. Robin tucked the book under her arm and slammed down the lid of the boot. Another day's fine wouldn't hurt.

Two geese were standing hopefully outside C-block. Juggling bag, book, and keys to let herself in, Robin shooed them away, wondering if someone had been feeding them again. Guano was an accepted environmental hazard at York , but actually encouraging the wildlife to stand and shit right outside the front door just made it worse.

In the spirit of putting off the inevitable for as long as possible, Robin went into the kitchen. She shared it and two shower rooms with the fourteen other students of C-block, but of those only Sarah and Gemma were actually cooking, and Jack slouched at the kitchen table looking more pole-axed than Robin felt.

“Hi, Robin,” Gemma said from the hob, where she seemed to be making some sort of omelette.

“Afternoon.” Robin put her bag on the floor and her book on the table. “Kettle on?”

“It's just boiled,” said Sarah.

Robin found a mug on the draining board, rinsed it under the tap to make sure, and then went looking for teabags. She'd bought some in the first week, but no one had respected the sanctity of her English Breakfast. Tea and coffee were fair game.

Jack roused himself from his stupor. “Make us one, Robin.”

Robin got another mug, but didn't wash it. Jack wouldn't notice the difference. She took two teabags from a box of PG Tips and then went to the fridge for milk.

“Ta,” Jack said when she put his cup in front of him.

Robin settled into a chair by the window and warmed her hands on her mug, waiting for the tea to cool enough to drink. “It's hot,” she warned Jack as he raised his inattentively to his lips.

“Mm.” Jack took a gulp and then made a face, sucking in air. “Ouch.”

“What did I tell you?”

He blew on his tea before taking a more cautious sip. “Cheers.”

Gemma and Sarah came to the table, setting out knives and forks and their plates of omelette. Robin thought it looked burnt, but they sat and ate anyway, making a show of their sophistication. Across the table, Jack slurped his tea, and the two girls shot annoyed sideways looks at him, which he ignored. It had taken a group effort just to get him to agree not to smoke in the kitchen.

The thought triggered Robin's memory. “Jack, you weren't outside having a smoke at about four this morning, were you?”

“Nope.” He scratched at the unsavoury-looking chest hair poking out of the top of his shirt, and tugged at the tarnished chain he wore around his neck. “Was over Alcuin last night. Didn't get back here till just now.”

“What were you doing at four o'clock in the morning, Robin?” Gemma asked with exaggerated politeness.

“This and that.” Robin drank her tea, reflecting that Jack might be a slob, but at least he wasn't self righteous. He made no particular pretence of friendliness, and neither had nor desired the acceptance of the group that had formed of most of the other C-block first-years. Robin had herself drifted far to the fringe after giving up on fitting in.

“Oh,” said Sarah, as if the thought had just come to her, “Robin, were you planning on going to Sainsbury's today?”

“Not today. I've got an essay to finish.” And I'm not a taxi service.

“Oh,” Sarah said again. “It's just, we were going to have some people round, and we wanted to get some drinks and stuff.” She paused, and swapped a look with Gemma. “You're invited, too.”

“Sorry.” Robin sipped her tea. “Essay.”

“Oh.”

The prospect of finishing that tedious composition suddenly seemed preferable to spending any further time drinking tea in the company of her housemates. Robin took her mug back to the sink, washed it, and put it back on the draining board. Then, to the stony sound of silence, she picked up her bag and her book and left.

Bibliography.

Surely, Robin thought as she typed, there was no sweeter word in the English language. It meant done. It meant the end. It meant save it-print it-hand it in. She saved, printed, and finally put the finished essay away in a folder, to be delivered in the morning.

Then she pushed her chair back from her desk and stood, stretching to loosen locked joints with accompanying cracks and pops. The rhythmic thump-thump-thump of music from downstairs had stopped abruptly almost an hour ago, no doubt courtesy of a visit from the porters, but the talking and shouting and – worst of all – the giggling went on. Robin checked the clock as she had not dared to since sitting down to work. Half past twelve . The night was young yet.

The festivities seemed to have been confined to the lower floor of C-block, but the characteristic smells assaulted Robin's nose the moment she opened the fire door to the stairwell. Spilt beer and cigarette smoke were the least of them. The distinctive whiff of cannabis wafted up the stairs, and so too the sour odour of vomit. Robin didn't know if they were connected and didn't especially care. She just wanted to get out into the clean, cold air and forget for a while that she was sharing living space with sub-humans.

She had to step over the slumped form of someone who'd collapsed on the first floor landing. Farther down the stairs she encountered a couple so involved with each other that they didn't notice her. The kitchen was full of laughing, hooting students, and the front door had been wedged open with the toaster. Someone had set up the ironing board out in the quad, and more people sat outside in the pool of light from the kitchen window. It was cold, but not frosty. A good hard frost would have driven them all inside by now.

Robin slipped quietly out of the open front door, trying to make herself unobtrusive, determined not to be accosted. She almost brushed shoulders with one fat guy who stank of beer, but he didn't stop her. She wondered if he even saw her. She skirted the quad and crossed the bridge to Wentworth, then followed the shore to the low bench half-hidden in the shadow of a big willow.

The cold air cleared her head wonderfully, and from the remove of the lake's width the horseplay going on at James seemed miles away. Robin put one foot up on the bench and rested her crossed arms on her knee, staring into the far distance, letting her mind wander.

“What do you see?”

Robin stirred from her reverie, and answered, “Lights, and the night-time.”

He didn't reply for a long while. Robin looked at him from the corner of her eye, certain she recognised him. Not tall, though he had inches on her and the dark coat emphasised his height. White-blonde hair, more white than blonde, made a striking contrast. The darker stubble was designer, not slovenly.

“Just look at that,” Robin said at last, nodding disgustedly across the lake. Someone had produced a traffic cone from somewhere and thrown it into the shallows. “The brightest young minds in the country and they can't even come up with an original prank.”

“Friends of yours?” he asked.

“Hardly.”

“But you live here.” It was more statement than question.

“Up there.” Robin pointed to her window. “Which means that when the Provost comes round tomorrow to give everyone a bollocking, I'll get it in the neck too.”

“That doesn't seem fair.”

“Not really,” she agreed. “It's probably meant to prepare us for the crushing injustice of the real world.”

He smiled with a flash of eyes that could have been blue or green.

“I'm Robin, by the way,” she added.

“There's power in a name.”

“You haven't told me yours.” Robin looked askance at him.”It must be something embarrassing.”

His grin broadened, and he said nothing.

“Boris?” she guessed. “Smedley? Engelbert?”

“Not exactly.”

Robin cocked her head, studying him openly. Still smiling, he returned her bold stare. There was something disconcerting in his composure, and something alluring, too. “Well, then,” she said, and then instinct, or intuition, spoke with her voice. “What about…David?”

That cooled the amusement in his eyes. “Good guess.”

Good, not lucky, Robin noticed, and he didn't look surprised that she had hit the mark; only thoughtful. “We must have met before,” she said. It occurred to her that David spoke with an unpronounced American accent. York hosted a number of foreign students, but something told her he wasn't one of them. “Where are you from?”

He paused before replying, as if to consider his answer. “California ,” he said.

“Really?” Robin appraised him quickly, up and down. “Did you leave your tan at Customs?”

David's chuckle was low and rough. “Come out with me, Robin.”

“Now?” The sudden invitation took her aback. “Where?”

“Tomorrow night.” David began to walk away. “I'll pick you up.”

His abrupt retreat startled Robin. “Wait, wait, wait! What time?”

David looked back over his shoulder with a knowing grin. “Don't be late.”

He merged seamlessly into the shadows between one moment and the next, even the pale blur of his shock of hair lost to view. Robin took one step after him and then made herself stop. She realised belatedly that her heart was racing. She felt warm despite the chill. And the night around her seemed darker with mystery, richer with promise, brighter with possibility.

Tomorrow night.

I won't be late.