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Zeph had no idea if he’d done well enough to get a first class degree. He’d spent so many days feeling too ill to do anything, even sleep and he’d not studied as hard as he would have done if he’d been well. Maybe he ought to have left when his cancer had been diagnosed and repeated the year.

When he logged onto CamSIS, the Cambridge student information system, on the day the results were out, his mouth was dry, his pulse racing. He ran his eyes down the list, found his name, looked across to the result and moaned. Then checked again. Oh God, I did it. I did it!

He phoned Martin who answered so fast, Zeph laughed.

“You did it,” Martin said.

“Yes.”

“A First?”

“Yes.”

Martin started to cry and Paulo said, “Zeph, that is wonderful. Martin is in pieces. Congratulations!! You going out to celebrate?”

“Hopefully.”

“Have fun. Brilliant news! Well done, you clever boy!”

Zeph was the only one in the house who’d got a First, but everyone was celebrating. He let himself get dragged along in a pub crawl, though he didn’t get drunk. He went home early… hoping.

There was no message from Jack on his phone.