Oxford Blood (2 page)

PART ONE - FIRST YEAR, MICHAELMAS
TERM

Chapter One

H
arriet
French was bored of her northern town. She was bored of people’s lack of
ambition, lack of glamour, lack of achievement, lack of life. Above all though,
she was bored of the men in all their predictable, charmless glory. She’d
applied to Oxford University not only for the intellectual challenge and the
doors it could eventually open but in the hope of meeting the man of her
overheated teenage dreams.

Harriet dreamt of someone well
dressed and flamboyant, who spoke like the lead in a black and white film, who
drank champagne like other people drank Carling and who could talk about
history and philosophy and life for hours, without making themselves sound like
an idiot. Someone who made romantic gestures, who was generous to everyone and
extravagant towards her. Someone, for preference, who rowed and had the muscles
to prove it. When she was really having a bad day, someone with a title. Every
time a well-meaning access scheme leaflet tried to reassure her and all the
other state school applicants that Oxford wasn’t wall to wall Old Etonians
permanently dressed in tuxedos, she died a little inside.

***

When Harriet found out that she’d been accepted, she was at
work at the Draughtsman’s Arms. Again. As far the manager was concerned, the
Christmas holidays meant this his mainly school aged staff were off school and
were therefore suddenly able to do five shifts a week instead of two. She was
word perfect on every single one of the
24 Christmas Classics
that had
played on an endless loop all day every day since 1st December, and would have
killed to hear anything else. The previous week, she’d spent four terrifying,
glorious days being interviewed in Oxford. Going back to work afterwards had
felt like being expelled from paradise.

She’d just taken another order for a steak (well done, chips
please) and was imputing it into the till when the phone rang. “Draughtsman’s.
Cheap, delicious food and drink for all the family,” she chanted on autopilot,
straining to hear over the eighteenth rendition of
All I Want for Christmas
is You
so far that day.

“It’s me Harriet. And I’ve got a letter here for you.”

Harriet recognised her aunt’s voice and her heart began to
pound. “Well, what does it say?” she asked, trying and failing to sound calm.

 Kate began to read, “Dear Harriet French, we are pleased to
inform you that you have been accepted to read Modern History at Lilith
College, Oxford.”

Harriet barely heard as her aunt read the rest of the letter
and began to congratulate her. She felt dizzy, not so much with excitement or
pleasure as with pure relief. As she put the phone down, Martin, the slave
driving manager turned to her, clearly about to issue some demand.

“I got in,” she told him, in a voice that tried for
nonchalant and missed the mark by a long way.

“That’s amazing Harriet. Well done!”

Other staff members had overheard, and soon, she was
surrounded by people offering their congratulations. Harriet tried to look
embarrassed at the attention. Deep down though, she was loving every minute of
it.

“Go home and celebrate love,” Martin said more quietly. “God
knows you deserve it. I wonder how many of those toffs who go there have ever
done a proper days work, let alone whilst studying.”

She gave him a hug, and he looked embarrassed.

“Make sure you’re back in tomorrow though. Believe me, I’m
not going to be buying any excuses about ‘food poisoning.’”

***

By the time she’d walked the fifteen minutes back to her
house, Aunt Kate had put up some balloons and made a pot of tea.

“Congrats love. I always knew you’d do it. Give your uncle a
call! I’ve been dying to tell him ever since I got the news, but I thought
you’d prefer to do it yourself.” She turned and shouted upstairs. “Sam. Jane.
Come and congratulate Harriet.”

“Well I’ll really know I’m honoured if the twins come
downstairs on my behalf,” Harriet said.

While waiting, she phoned Uncle Bob, a man of few words and
fewer obvious emotions.

“It’s so hard to get in, you must have been really
impressive,” he said simply, but she could hear the pride underneath it.

The call took under five minutes, by which time, the twins,
her cousins, had appeared in the kitchen. Three years younger than her, Sam and
Jane were typical teenagers, obsessed with football and music respectively.
When they were younger, they’d looked almost identical, but now Sam’s once
curly blond hair was cropped close to his head, whilst Jane’s was long, and
ruthlessly straightened. His childish puppy fat was rapidly turning to muscle
whilst hers turned to curves.

“Ha-ri-et. Ha-ri-et,” chanted Sam.

“Oh my God,” screeched Jane. “That’s amazing. You’re
amazing. Come here you.” She hugged Harriet tightly.

“Can we get some champagne Mum?” they asked, almost
simultaneously.

“Go on!” Sam added.

Kate laughed. “Ask your dad when he gets in. Do you want
some tea for now?”

Once the token family celebration was over Harriet went
upstairs. Once in her room, she re-read the letter for what must have been the
twentieth time, and then updated her Facebook status, trying to find a tone
that didn’t sound like she was showing off.

Congratulations were beginning to be text back to her as she
opened her intricately engraved locket and took out her favourite picture of
her parents. It had been taken in Spain in the eighties, a few weeks before the
crash. Her father was dressed in a sharp suit, pink shirt, no tie. He looked
rather like his namesake, her cousin Sam, tall and muscular with his blond hair
slicked back. Instead of the hard, arrogant expression that might be expected
considering his yuppie styling, he was cradling a baby Harriet to him, and
looking at her with an expression of absolute adoration.

She wished she could tell him about her success, certain
he’d be proud. She’d have loved to hear his stories about Oxford. Her aunt and
uncle were overjoyed, but as far as information was concerned, she might as
well ask them about going to the moon.

She could of course have asked her mother, Adelaide, for
advice, but most of the time, getting in touch with her wasn’t much easier than
getting in touch with her dead father. She visited around four times a year,
turning up laden with gifts and full of amusing stories. Outside of that time
there was no contact at all.

Harriet twirled the pearl and amber necklace around her
finger and stared at the picture again, studying the image of her mother. She
looked very similar to Harriet. She was wearing a striking red silk dress,
which showed off her tiny waist and long tanned bare legs, and black heels
vertiginous enough to make her appear nearly as tall as her strapping husband,
despite her petite build. Her green eyes were striking and her dark hair was
piled on her head to show elaborate hooped earrings. A closer examination of
the photo revealed the pendant that Harriet now wore every day. Despite the
fact that the photo was around seventeen years old, her mother hadn’t looked
much different the last time Harriet had seen her, only a few months ago.

Nowadays, Adelaide lived in London with her second husband
Gus. By all accounts, he was immensely rich and powerful, very high up in a
bank and with political connections. He was also extremely handsome for a man
in his fifties. The two of them travelled regularly for work, living abroad for
weeks or months at a time. This was the official excuse for why Harriet
couldn’t live with them, although to her, it never seemed enough to fully
explain it.

Aunt Kate was a friendly no nonsense woman who looked her
age. She didn’t work, and her life mainly revolved around her kids – the real
ones and Harriet. She was also seemingly the solitary exception to the rule that
everyone who met Harriet’s extraordinarily beautiful and preternaturally
confident mother immediately loved her. The two women couldn’t have been more
different and Kate treated Adelaide with barely disguised loathing, an approach
that Adelaide returned threefold. As for Gus, she wouldn’t even let him in the
house.

“Can I come in?” Harriet’s aunt knocked on her door,
interrupting her reverie.

“Of course,” Harriet replied, still full of goodwill to all
men.

Aunt Kate sat down on Harriet’s bed awkwardly. “I not trying
to spoil the mood or anything love, it’s just I want to ask you to be careful
at Oxford. You know what happened to Stephanie when she got in with a wild
crowd. She was such a sweet, sensible girl before she got ideas above her
station.”

“How can you say that?” Harriet asked in a shocked voice.
She was still quite defensive about her other cousin, the daughter of her
mother’s twin, who having gone to Oxford herself had supposedly died from an
overdose earlier that year.

“I still don’t believe she did that to herself. It’s obvious
some creep spiked her and everyone closed ranks.”

“Either way, that wouldn’t have happened around here. You
need to be careful around those posh boys when you go to Oxford. They may seem
charming, but they’re not like nice dependable Yorkshire lads.”

Chapter Two

H
arriet
sat at her desk. Her new room was exactly what she’d wished for, from the
fireplace decorated with carvings of the college crest to the leaded bay
window. It had a view out into the quad, which was walled on three sides with
tall honey-coloured stone buildings and open to parkland on the fourth side.
There was an immaculate grassed square in the middle.

She’d been in Oxford for just over two hours and already
felt overcome with a sense of unreality. As her uncle had driven her in, she’d
thought that there couldn’t be a more magical town anywhere in England. Once in
the town centre, nearly every building seemed was pre-twentieth century, built
in a grand and ornate style. Some were dark, Victorian and imposing, others
medieval and sweet. One looked like a castle, another like a giant gothic
church. Some were hidden away behind gates, others faced directly onto the
road. She was sure however that hers was the most awe-inspiring of all.

“According to this there’s tea for new students and their
families in the New Rooms at five,” her aunt said, flicking through her
introductory booklet. “Shall we head over there in a minute?”

“Absolutely,” Harriet replied, feeling a rush of excitement
at the thought of finally meeting the other students.

The New Rooms, like New College, (which had been founded in
1379), were actually rather old. The red carpets, oak panelling and portraits
on the wall gave the impression of a grand Victorian drawing room. A table cups
and saucers and several jugs full of tea and coffee, all of which bore the
college crest. Harriet’s aunt and uncle glanced around them in awe at
everything from the rooms sternly lavish decorative scheme to the attention to
detail that had gone into decorating the crockery. They were becoming slightly
flustered and shy.

Harriet felt guilty for even thinking it, but couldn’t help
wishing that her mother had been able to accompany her instead. She wouldn’t
have been overawed. She’d have been talking to everyone, telling stories of her
days at the college and ensuring that Harriet didn’t have the chance to feel
nervous.

Deciding to follow her example, Harriet took a deep breath
and approached a nearby girl at random, who was black and rather frail looking.
She was pretty but hiding it well in dowdy loose fitting clothes, glasses and
no make-up.

“Hey, I’m Harriet.”

“Olamide,” the girl replied shyly. “What subject are you
doing?”

When Harriet replied that she was reading History, Olamide
excitedly announced that she was too. This lead neatly into a discussion of
what papers they’d picked. Olamide had gone for mainly medieval options, but
seemed excited by the mere thought of any period. When she wandered away to get
another drink, Harriet felt pleased that she’d managed to make a friendly
acquaintance, even if she did seem a little overly keen.

The next person she managed to talk to couldn’t have been
more different. Katie was a tall, striking girl with an oriental look, an
expensive seeming knee length skirt over opaque tights and a cashmere jumper
that clung to her body. She spoke in a cut glass accent and made Harriet
slightly nervous. She announced that she was doing PPE.

“Sorry, what?”

“Philosophy, Politics and Economics,” she explained, obviously
amused that Harriet hadn’t heard of it before. “It’s what half the current
Cabinet studied.”

“So are you planning to go into politics?” Harriet asked,
but Katie was clearly no longer listening. The other girl was staring spellbound
over her shoulder. Harriet turned to see what has caught her attention. It was
the most beautiful boy she had ever seen. She too entirely lost the thread of
the conversation as she stared at him. It wasn’t just that the boy was
jawdroppingly attractive in his emerald coloured polo shirt (collar up,
inevitably) and tight jeans, with a sweater knotted around his neck. He
certainly was, from his slim but toned build to his razor sharp cheekbones,
from his jet-black lightly curling hair to his full lips, and above all, to his
eyes, a deep blue that was almost purple. There was more though. Looking at him
Harriet felt an odd wave of recognition and of longing. The boy turned his
wonderful and terrifying eyes full on her, smiled darkly and beckoned her over.
Nervously she walked across the room. Inevitably, Katie followed.

He gave Katie a cursory, if appreciative glance, but to
Harriet’s surprise, his gaze lingered on her.