Page 45 of Save Me (Maxton Hall #1)

Ruby

I spend the rest of the day exploring the college.

I get a takeaway coffee, stroll around the lawns and extensive grounds, and look inside the buildings where my student guide tells me PPE is taught.

I’m thrilled to mingle with the real students, and, at one point, I’m so deep in thought that I accidentally wander into a lecture theater.

Nobody seems to notice me, so I sit cautiously down in the back row and spend the next hour and a half listening to a lecture on the work of Immanuel Kant.

The best ninety minutes of my life.

In the evening, applicants to all Oxford colleges are invited to the Turf Tavern, a legendary pub frequented by all kinds of famous people, including Oscar Wilde, Thomas Hardy, Elizabeth Taylor, Margaret Thatcher, and the cast of Harry Potter .

I get to the meeting place given on my timetable way too early, but I’m not the only one.

There are some of the people I recognize from the common room this morning among the little chattering groups, and Jude is here too.

He greets me with his beaming smile and immediately starts to ask me about my interview.

Once everyone’s arrived, we set off. The pub is about a mile and a half from St. Hilda’s.

Our route takes us over Magdalen Bridge, beneath which the River Cherwell glitters in the orange-red light of the setting sun.

We pass a deer park, and a few of the animals look up curiously, twitching their ears at the sound of us.

Like most of the others, I stretch out my hand to them, but they clearly aren’t tame enough to stroke.

They all turn tail and bolt away across the Grove.

After that, we walk between old buildings, sometimes on paths that are only just wide enough for two people to go side by side.

It’s starting to get dark. If I’d been alone, I’d have been scared in these alleyways, but Jude is at my side, telling me about his studies and taking my mind off things.

I’m hanging on his every word. Everything I’ve seen today, and what he’s telling me now, is deepening my longing to study here.

I’ve never wanted anything in my life as much as I do Oxford.

Now that I’ve had a taste, I’d be crushed if I didn’t make it.

Can I do this? I don’t know. I really don’t want to have to fall back onto plan B.

Suddenly, the path opens out. There are streetlights shining up ahead, while scraps of conversation and music fill my ears. A few minutes later, we emerge into a courtyard crammed with people. Most of them look like students, and they’re chatting and drinking pints of beer.

Our group weaves between them to the Turf Tavern door.

It’s an ancient, half-timbered building, with dark beams running diagonally across the white plaster.

The roof is wonky, and in places, it’s overgrown with moss.

Some people have managed to get seats under umbrellas outside the pub.

It’s cold enough that I can see my misty breath in the air, so it’s hardly surprising that most of them are wrapped up in thick coats, scarves, and woolly blankets.

There’s a chain of colorful lights running along beneath the sign and above the front door, which is dark green with peeling paint. Jude holds it open for me, and I step inside the pub.

It feels practically medieval in here. The Turf has a low ceiling and rough, bare stone walls. There are little wall sconces, while the lamps over the tables have shades like dinner plates. We’re led down a narrow corridor to an area behind and to one side of the noisy main bar.

Given Jude’s height—in here, it feels like he’s about six-six—I can’t see much apart from his back in front of me.

But then I hear it. A laugh I know very well.

Jude walks over to one of the tables reserved for us and pulls out a chair. The others all start looking for seats while I stand there, staring at the group who’ve bagged the table next to ours. Sitting there are Wren, Alistair, Cyril, Camille, Keshav, Lydia, and…James.

James, who wished me luck this morning, and stroked my wrist.

James, who freezes, his beer halfway to his lips, as he spots me, only to turn back to Cyril a second later and act like nothing ever happened.

I gulp hard.

I don’t know why I’m so surprised to bump into him and his mates here.

I knew they were applying to Oxford, and this evening in the pub is a fixed point of several colleges’ programs for anyone invited to interview.

Even so, it dampens my euphoria, and I have to admit that Oxford won’t be the entirely fresh start I’ve so often painted it as in my mind.

I’ll have to live with seeing some of them again.

If I even get in, that is.

“Ruby!”

I whirl around and see Lin coming toward me, arms outstretched. Her cheeks are flushed from the cold air outside, and she’s got a chunky gray scarf around her neck, which covers half her face. The next moment, she flings her arms around me, and I hug her back, just as hard.

“Tell me everything,” I say excitedly, once we’ve let each other go.

“Come on, sit down,” says Jude, pointing to a bench facing him. Lin drops onto it first, and I follow suit once I’ve slipped off my coat. Somehow, I manage not to glance in James’s direction again.

“This is so cool,” Lin says, once we’ve sat down and looked at the menus. “Almost like we’ve gone back in time.”

“Yeah, there’s a real sense of history here,” I agree. “But spill! Your text was so cryptic. How did it go?”

“You first!” Lin replies, and I give her the short version of my interview this morning.

“They had total poker faces—I had no clue whether what I was saying was right or wrong. I bet they were confused by the way I grinned at them after the first question,” I say.

“Well, at least they weren’t glaring at you. I got a tutor with a unibrow, and he frowned so hard it made me lose my train of thought a couple of times. I was so glad when it was over.” She sighs, scowls, and props her chin on her hand. “It really didn’t go well.”

“But there’s another interview,” I say encouragingly, squeezing her arm for a moment. “You’ve got this.”

“Two more, actually. One each for economics and philosophy. Lucky you to have both combined.”

“But that means you have two more chances to prove yourself. That’s a good thing, trust me.”

“In my interview, they asked me if I could retrieve a pen that had gone under the armchair,” Jude pipes up unexpectedly.

“What?” asks Lin.

“I thought it was part of the interview and started to work out the economic grounds for the question and build an answer based on that.” He grins. “But in the end, they really did just want me to pick up the pen.”

Lin and I start to laugh.

Then a barman comes to take our orders. Jude says drinking in the Turf is an absolute must, at least once, so Lin and I both get pints and a few nibbles.

As we wait for our food, I tell her about my afternoon and the lecture I snuck into.

After that, we make the most of the opportunity to bombard Jude with questions about seminars, tutorials, fellow students, and life in Oxford.

Our drinks arrive after a while. I’ve never had beer before.

The only other alcohol I’ve drunk was the sweet stuff Wren plied me with at that party.

I know what I’m doing this time as we clink glasses.

This is my decision. It’s my own choice to drink because it’s part of the experience.

It feels grown-up and exciting to do a thing I’ve never allowed myself in the past.

I lift the glass and take a sip. Then I pull a revolted face. “Ugh, that’s vile !” I exclaim.

Jude and Lin burst out laughing, and I look from one of them to the other, genuinely confused. “Why would anyone drink this of their own free will?”

“Your first beer?” Jude asks.

I nod. “And my last.”

“You say that now ,” he replies, waggling his eyebrows, and Lin nods.

“It’s like coffee. It’s disgusting when you’re a child, but the older you get, the better it tastes.” Lin points to my mouth. “You’ve got a foam mustache, by the way.”

Startled, I wipe my lips with the back of my hand. “I’ve always liked coffee. This is…It tastes…like licking a tree.”

They explode with laughter again.

“I don’t want to know how you know what licking a tree tastes like,” Jude jokes.

I push the beer away to the middle of the table. “Help yourselves. I’m going to get myself a Coke.”

I slip off the bench, squeeze between two tables and down the narrow corridor to the bar.

It’s even more crowded than before—after all, the Turf Tavern’s a tourist trap as well as a student hangout.

It takes almost ten minutes to get the barman’s attention.

I smile as he finally hands me a Coke and turn away.

At that moment, I spot Lydia. She’s pushing her way hastily through the throng to the loos and doesn’t seem to see me. Her cheeks are pale, and I see her hand shake as she pushes a man out of her way. Puzzled, I watch her vanish into the ladies’.

I guess she’s had too much to drink. But it’s not even eight.

I shake my head and walk back to our table, where Jude and Lin are deep in conversation with some of the others we came here with.

I plunge into the chat, sipping my drink occasionally.

I keep squinting over to where Lydia was sitting, but she still hasn’t come back from the toilet.

Thinking about it, she didn’t look well. Looked really bad, in fact.