Oxford Blood (6 page)

“I love the outfit. What exactly are you meant to be
though?”

“A bat. The idea amused me,” he replied, in a friendlier tone
than he’d managed at the club. Before Harriet could continue the conversation
however, he gave her a brief smile and walked away. Harriet felt as if he’d
kicked her.

Immediately, Caroline appeared next to her. “Don’t give up.
One more try. Ask him to dance.”

Something by The Killers was just starting, and people who
had been dancing half-heartedly by themselves were grabbing hold of their
friends’ hands and spinning them around. Harriet felt she should probably have
taken the hint by now, but agreed to try again.

Tom had just been served when she reached him. Harriet took
a deep breath and forced herself to ask him to dance.

Tom hesitated, his face suggesting he was debating issues of
international importance. Finally, he shrugged and downed his drink.

“Very well. We can dance if that’s what you’d like to do.”

Harriet had been bracing herself for failure and could
barely believe his words. He didn’t sound overly enthusiastic, but this was
certainly an improvement. She took his hands and jumped at their icy coldness.

“Sorry. I have terrible circulation,” he said, in an oddly
sarcastic tone.

Then they were dancing. He was spinning her round and round,
and on each spin she seemed to end up closer to him. Out of the corner of her
eye, she briefly noticed Katie staring at them with hatred in her face and
whispering something to her friend Lizzie. She saw Caroline and Olamide
glancing over at them and grinning at each other as they danced nearby. But it
was difficult to focus on any of this, to be truly aware of anything but Tom.

 When the song ended, she realised she was almost pressed
against him. She looked up at him and he stared back at her. The combination of
excitement and vigorous dancing had left her heart beating fast and her
breathing ragged. Tom seemed unaffected, standing very still, barely seeming to
breathe at all. Nonetheless, there was pure lust in his deep blue eyes and she
was sure he was going to kiss her. She put one hand on his arm. For a second he
continued to look at her, as all around them people resumed their dancing for
the next song.

Suddenly he pulled away. “I’m sorry, this is a bad idea. I
can’t take this sort of risk,” he said calmly, before walking away off the
dance floor and into the backroom of the bar.

Harriet was barely able to comprehend what had happened and
stood frozen to the spot.

“What a bastard,” said Josh, appearing beside her and
putting one hand on her shoulder. “Come and dance with us.”

***

The next morning was matriculation, the ceremony to make new
students official members of the university. All the freshers had to be up
early and dressed in their sub fusc, which for Harriet meant a black skirt and
stockings, a white shirt (tied at the neck with a black ribbon) and her gown
again. She was feeling somewhat the worse for wear from the bop, but everybody
else seemed to be in the same position. The new intake lined up to have their
photograph taken as a group. Next, it was time to walk through town to the
Sheldonian Theatre for the ceremony. Harriet laughed at the fact that so many
tourists wanted to take pictures of her and her friends, but posed nonetheless,
relishing the attention.

The ceremony itself was over in a few minutes. University
officials dressed in even stranger outfits than the students read some lines in
Latin. After that was over, they were free to go.

Harriet hugged her new friends and they walked to the Turf
pub together. She was finally a real Oxford student.

Chapter Four

A
fter
the excitement of freshers’ week, things began to settle down. Harriet was
having a fantastic time and barely had the chance to feel homesick but she
hadn’t made any progress with Tom. Indeed, after the way he’d acted at the
first bop, she’d barely seen him around (by all accounts he had a lot of out of
college friends).

Caroline and Ben hadn’t had much more luck. “We’ve hit this
horrific friend zone situation,” Caroline had moaned to her and Olamide when
they’d gone for girly cocktails at the Grand Cafe one night. “It’s ridiculous.
He clearly likes me; I obviously like him. I just don’t know what to do.”

“Talk to him,” said Ola. “Sit him down and tell him what
you’ve just told us.”

“Or just jump him,” Harriet suggested. “Make him dance with
you and then lean in and kiss him. I’d never have the balls to do that but if anyone
does it’s you.”

Caroline shook her head. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.
In the past I’d have done either like a shot, but I just see Ben and freeze.”

“At least he’s civil to you,” Harriet said. Her sadness over
Tom’s behaviour tended to come to the fore after a few drinks.

“You’re not still thinking about Tom are you?” Caroline said
crossly. “Forget him. Move on. I’ve no idea why he’s acting like he is, but
you’re too good to wait for him to get his act together.”

“You don’t understand. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I
really feel that he’s the one for me. I’ve always had an idea of my dream man,
all through my teens, and he just fits it exactly. The first time we met, it
was so perfect. I just want it to be like that again.”

Caroline laughed. “When you say he’s your soulmate, I think
what you actually mean is that he’s utterly gorgeous and you’d really like to
get him naked. Let’s not get too melodramatic here.”

Olamide smiled. To everyone else’s surprise, whilst Caroline
and Harriet had been agonising over their respective crushes, she’d quietly and
efficiently got together with Callum, the hardworking and shy history student.
They cooked each other meals, went to see subtitled films and studied together.
In fact, it had been an effort getting Olamide out tonight, besotted as she
was.

“You know what we should totally do?” Caroline continued.
“Get out and meet some guys from other colleges. Show Tom and Ben we don’t need
them and their antics. There’s a big Halloween party at the Union this weekend.
We should go.”

***

On Friday night, they got ready in Caroline’s room. Caroline
was a devil, in red hotpants, crop top and fishnets. Harriet had dressed as a
witch, wearing a diaphanous gothic style dress, accessorised with a fancy dress
shop pointy hat. The dress had been in the sale, though still far too expensive
to justify for fancy dress, but Caroline had made her try it on and
complimented her so effusively that she’d cracked and bought it.

Caroline did Harriet’s make-up – tons of eyeliner, green eye
shadow, deep red lipstick. It was dramatic enough to look as though she’d made
an effort for Halloween, but still erred on the side of sexy rather than scary.

“Where’s your necklace?” Caroline asked.

“Oh, I wasn’t going to bother with it tonight. I always have
it on and I wasn’t sure it worked with the outfit.”

Once they were ready, the two of them linked arms and almost
skipped down the street.

The Union had been decorated especially for the event with
cobwebs and pumpkins hanging from the ceiling. There were blood red cocktails
and shots of something green and gooey. The event was being organised by a
student on the committee called Harry. He was planning to run for election for
a higher position later that term and seemed to be everywhere, talking to
everyone and subtly making clear that he’d both put a lot of effort into
planning the event, and paid for the drinks bill out of his own (or at least
his father’s) pocket.

Harriet found him slimy and unpleasant. She nodded politely
when he talked to them but willed him to go away. Keen to make sure everyone
saw his face he quickly obliged.

The party finished at midnight, at which point Harry made an
announcement that he’d hired out a room in a club nearby.

“Do you want to go or shall we get back?” Harriet asked
Caroline.

“Oh I’ll come, but I’ve had enough of this avoidance tactic.
I’m calling Ben and getting him out as well. Shall I try Josh too or do you
want to carry on trying to forget about Tom by yourself?”

Harriet shrugged so Caroline called them both. Josh was busy
with his music friends but they arranged to meet Ben at the club. As usual, his
eyes lit up on seeing Caroline, as usual, he did nothing about it.

It was full of people who’d been to the party at the Union
and were in the remains of their fancy dress. Ben, in jeans and a stripy shirt,
was one of the few who looked remotely normal.

Harriet adored both Caroline and Ben, but she always felt
awkward dealing with both of them together. She decided to leave them to it for
a while and see if there was anyone else around that she knew. She saw a table
full of people from college, but Katie was with them, and she was still always
very cold towards her. As Harriet wondered whether to sit with them anyway,
someone appeared behind her.

“I can’t believe that bastard Harry paid for all the
champagne at the reception,” he sighed. “Trying to make everyone think he’s the
richest person here.”

Harriet turned to see George. He was dressed as a vampire,
in a Victorian suit and waistcoat and a flowing black and red cape. The outfit
looked astonishing on him, as she imagined everything probably did. He smiled,
showing sharp fangs that were much more realistic than the plastic fancy dress
shop versions she’d seen several people wearing. Presumably, like Katie, he got
his outfits from theatre suppliers.

“You’re too blond to pull that look off you know,” she said,
trying hard not to seem overawed by him.

“Really?” He strode to the bar, gesturing for Harriet to
follow. “Ten bottles of Taittinger please. Give me one bottle and two glasses
and share the rest out between everyone here.”

Turning to a startled Harriet, he pointed to the one empty
table, away in a slightly quieter spot of the bar. She followed him, aware of
several eyes on her, and nervously sat down. Without saying another word, he
poured her a glass.

“I told you last time we met that I don’t take drinks from
guys like you,” Harriet said half-heartedly, but it seemed churlish to turn
down this sort of gesture. Shrugging, she lifted her glass and took a sip.
“Thank you,” she managed.

From that moment on, she didn’t feel entirely in control of
herself. Glass of champagne followed glass of champagne, and the conversation
sped along. George was telling her about his family, who apparently had involvement
at the highest level in politics, finance and journalism, amongst other things.
It was bragging, she supposed, and she’d usually have found it distasteful, but
lulled by the alcohol and by George’s charm, she felt impressed instead. She
was also proud that he’d selected her to be the one and only person to join him
at his table.

When the bottle was almost finished, he apologised and said
that he had to make a call, but would be back in a moment. Whilst he was gone,
Harriet began to calm down. Thinking back over some of the things he’d said,
she was struck, in a way she hadn’t been whilst he was saying them, just how
arrogant and indeed unpleasant George could be. Despite this, she couldn’t
entirely shake off an irrational flood of excitement and a crazy hope that he’d
try to take things further.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of a very
drunken Robert, a PPE-ist she vaguely knew, who sat down and shouted, “wey,
Harriet, good work on pulling the millionaire.” He dashed off to dance, giving
her no chance to answer.

Before she’d had the chance to recover from that intrusion,
Katie wandered over, clutching her glass of champagne. She was also in a
witch’s outfit, albeit one that looked as though it had been liberated from the
set of
Wicked
.

“This is probably none of my business, but seriously, I’ve
heard some dodgy stuff about George. Okay, so he’s hot and he’s rich, but watch
out.”

“What are you trying to say? That he’s a bit of a player? I
think I already worked that one out. I’m hardly thinking he’s potential
marriage material.”

Katie paused, before answering in a hesitant tone. “Well,
that, obviously. A different girl every night sort of player, but there are
plenty of people I could say the same about around here. If it was just that I’d
leave you to get you heartbroken.”

“Well, what else then?” Katie was a bitch, but her words
were feeding the niggling doubt about George that she’d felt since the first
time she’d seen him.

“Well, it’s friends of friends type stuff. But I keep
hearing the same rumours. Girls who swear they weren’t that drunk but have no
memories of the night before other than leaving a bar with George. Girls
feeling completely out of it for days. Cuts and bruises way beyond what mere
over enthusiastic sex would cause. So, I’m thinking date rape drugs at the very
least. Then God knows what he does to them.” Katie seemed pleased at Harriet’s
horrified expression.

“So why has no one confronted him? Or gone to the police?”

“Well, in a way that’s the worst bit. From what I hear,
whatever state they’re in, they all stay besotted with him. There’ll be no
contact for weeks. They’ll see him in the Bridge or somewhere and he’ll blank
them. Out of the blue, he’ll text and they’ll come running. Then the same thing
happens again. The memory loss. The cuts and bruises, a few days in bed. He
basically has this army of fuck buddies he can do whatever he wants with.”

Katie paused for dramatic effect. “And of course, he’s in
the inner circle of the Cavaliers and that’s not something you want to be
getting messed up with.”

Harriet was trying desperately to think of a way of asking
about the Cavaliers, without sounding clueless (were the posh girls given a
guide to this sort of thing?), when she noticed George coming back into the
club.