Page 119 of Oleander

“Yeah, it’s tough. But kinda cool too, you know? Still feel like an outsider, but next term should be better.” I missed my shot and lifted my beer. I was pretty terrible at pool, and Alfie knew it, though he still said ‘bad luck’ every time I missed.

“Exams? You get them at the end of first year?”

I nodded, “They went okay, I think. Won’t find out until end of next month, though. Then resits if I’ve messed up.”

“You’ll be good, mate – you’ve always smashed exams.”

“Hope so, hope so. Cannot be arsed with resits.”

He talked about his business development and management course, which he was doing part-time while working with his dad, and told me that he and Georgia were still going strong. She was doing an internship at the States Assembly of Jersey, working in the Lieutenant Governor’s office.

After he beat me at all three rounds of pool, we got a table near the bar and carried on talking. It was nice. I almost felt like myold self again, the Jude before Caspien, nights before I had to get wasted in order to sleep.

“So, what are the girls like at Oxford?” Alfie asked, eyes keen.

I’d had enough to drink that the idea of telling him I liked guys too didn’t feel too terrifying. But he hadn’t asked that, so I figured I’d keep it to myself.

“Yeah, they’re alright.” I nodded. After pondering it a moment, I said, “I went home with this girl on my birthday though and I swear, Alf, I can’t even remember her name.” This made him laugh, though it still didn’t feel very funny to me.

“You ever hear from Ellie?” he asked.

“No,” I said, and he left it there with a grim nod.

We parted ways at closing time with promises to stay in touch. I apologised for being shit at replying to texts and swore to be better, but Alfie waved it off and said we’d catch up at Christmas or when I was next home. I booked an Uber and waited for it on the corner where the main road out of St. Aubin met the pier.

On Sundays, they held a vintage market there, and I thought I might pop down for a bit the following day. For the first time in a year, I felt a looseness spiralling through me. That weightlessness that came from hope and possibility, from knowing that good things lay ahead, from knowing that Icouldbe happy again if I wanted. I’d had my heart broken badly, and for a while, I’d limped along, but today, I’d realised how far I’d come from the person I’d been the day in the birdwatcher’s hut.

I’dbeenhealing, even if it hadn’t felt obvious to me. I was stronger now than I was before Caspien. I’d suffered, I was battle-scarred, but I’d survived.

I slept better that night than I had in months.

Five

Iwent to see Gideon on Monday. He was upstairs, clearing out some of the unused rooms for the restorers coming in to do some work. As I went to find him, I’d paused outside Caspien’s bedroom door, frozen as if in time, wondering what would have happened had I not opened it that day.

The plan was for you to come over this evening, Jude.

What had his plan been exactly? To break my heart in the library? To bring Blackwell out like a surprise guest star in what I’d believed to be our love story? Would that have made it easier? It would have been equally as bad. Maybe even worse.

I longed to open the door, see how he’d left his room, and look for clues about whether he ever planned to return.

“You can go in if you like,” Gideon said gently. I turned to see him coming toward me.

I moved away from the door and shook my head. “I thought I heard something inside.” The lie wasn’t a good one, and I could tell Gideon didn’t buy it. “How’s it going?” I asked him, forcing myself to smile.

“Good to see you, Jude,” Gideon said, pulling me into a hug. He was dressed down, a look I’d never seen on him before: navy trousers and a cream shirt, both linen and dust-coated. Dust was in his hair, and he was wearing a pair of black round-framed glasses. He looked loose and relaxed, handsome even.

“Can I help? Elspeth said you’re clearing out?”

“You don’t have anything better to do?”he asked, eyebrow arched. “It’s summer. Surely there’s frolicking or partying or drinking to be done?”

I shrugged. “No frolicking planned for today.”

We worked at stripping sheets from covered furniture and combing through old tall boys, armoires, and sideboards. One of the rooms upstairs had been his father’s study and looked to have been closed off for decades. There were old letters, newspaper clippings, ballot papers, political documents. Gideon was technically a Marquess, having inherited the title from his father, but both his grandfather and father had been life peers too, and we found old voting records, law amendments, and MP correspondence. Gideon had a story about almost each piece of paper I showed him, and he kept a lot of the yellowing pages I came across (“They’ll be worth something to someone, Jude!”), directing me to place them in one of three large boxes he’d labelled: ‘Correspondence’, ‘Lords’, and ‘Deveraux House’.

The furniture was all antique, though not all of the same vintage; some looked as though it were over a hundred years old, others more modern art-deco pieces, but all of it looked like it would fetch a fortune at auction. Of course, I knew Gideon was rich, but I thought the value of the house and its contents had to be tens of millions alone.

After a couple of hours, he stood up, dusted off his trousers, and announced he was peckish.