“That’s what an English degree from Oxford teaches you. How to be convincing about a bunch of shit you actually know nothing about.” And there I went. Fucking up again. “But I bet PPE was useful to you, right, and has shaped your career and helped you become the incredibly successful person you are today?”
“Oxford—as a brand—still carries a certain value when effectively leveraged.”
I sat back in my chair, tucking a knee beneath me. I felt oddly sad suddenly. Not exactly for us but because of us. I’d basically squandered the last three years being disorganized and lazy and preoccupied with getting laid, and he’d just used the words brand and leveraged in cold blood. “But a world-class education…that’s a gift, isn’t it? It could make a real difference to someone. I mean, someone who was, y’know, better than we are.”
He was quiet for what felt like far too long. “I think,” he said at last, “when you claimed to be bad at this, you were either lying or sorely underestimating yourself.”
“I wouldn’t lie to you, Mr. Hart.” It was hard to tell because we were on the phone but I thought I heard him draw in a sharp breath. Something I said? Or his name, which felt intimate somehow, in my mouth? Even though the formal address should have maintained a sense of distance, rather than the reverse. “It was just a thing I thought.”
“That I should make a donation to my old college? Rather a convenient notion to cross your mind at a fund-raising telethon, don’t you think?”
“Well, yes…I mean no…I mean. Fuck. All I meant was…I couldn’t think of anything more powerful, or more important, than being able change the course of a life. To be able to give someone who truly deserved it an opportunity that money or circumstance or social inequality would otherwise deny them.” That was when the magnitude of what I was suggesting finally sank in. I squeaked. “Or…or you could just buy a plant for the JCR. That would be cool too.”
I was relieved to hear him laugh again. “You are a very dangerous young man.”
“I’m really not.” And I wasn’t sure whether it had been intended as a compliment anyway.
“I’m going to say goodbye now and think about what you’ve said.”
This was all moving a little fast for me. I wasn’t even entirely sure what had happened. “God. Are you sure? You don’t have to.”
“No, I do. Charming though this conversation has been, I’m a very busy man and I never make financial decisions without considering them thoroughly first.”
“I meant…you don’t have to…give any money. Or anything.”
“Courage, Arden. Never flinch before you seal the deal.”
“But I wasn’t trying to…to deal with you.”
“Perhaps that’s why you succeeded. I had forgotten how potent sincerity can be.”
Maybe I should have been celebrating but I felt terrible. As if I’d accidentally perpetrated an epic deception on a billionaire alumnus. And then I suddenly remembered there was a formal dinner and I was supposed to invite anybody who seemed donatey. “You should come visit,” I blurted out.
“Pardon?”
“Before you decide anything. You could come to the dinner at the end of the week. I mean, it’s free food.” Oh, what was I saying? “Though I guess that probably isn’t much of a motivation for you. But can…do you think…would you…”
He cut over my flailing. “Put me down as a maybe.”
A click. And the line went dead.
Chapter 2
My shift ended at nine, the next group of eager volunteers filing in to reach out to alumni in different time zones. While I hadn’t spoken to any more billionaires, I’d actually done okay. Somehow, my conversation with Caspian Hart had given me more confidence in what I was doing and my ability to do it. He’d said I was doing a good job, after all. And, coming from him, that had to mean something. Unless he was being sarcastic.
Oh shit. What if he was?
In any case, I’d even started to enjoy myself once I got into the swing of things. Nearly everyone had memories to share or stories to tell, and as I made my way back to my room across the moonlit quad, I found myself wondering what my story was.
I’d done so well at school that I’d come to university expecting a cross between Brideshead Revisited and an English version of The Secret History, and fully prepared to be a genius. Except Oxford wasn’t like that at all. And neither was I.
And here I was, two and a half years later, finals looming and…
Fuuuck.
I climbed the stairs and pushed open the door to my room. Well, rooms technically—set of rooms—the ultimate Oxford status symbol. I’d come bottom of the ballot, which meant I should have been living in a dustbin round the back of college, but Nik had come near the top, and since he needed someone to share with, that had hiked me up.
He was huddled on the sofa under a duvet, looking tragic.
“Feeling better?” I asked.
“Blah.”
“I’m sorry.” It was hard to know how to sympathize with someone who sounded like Emperor Palpatine. “But, hey, you can do an awesome impression of Emperor Palpatine.”
That seemed to perk him up.
“Go on. Say Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station.”
“Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station,” he rasped.
I gave him a thumbs-up and went into my bedroom to slip into something less socially acceptable, emerging a few seconds later in my boxers and an I’M FABULOUS AND I KNOW IT My Little Pony T-shirt.
We’d been roommates long enough to have established our chairs—though, unfortunately, mine was currently a make-do revision station, consisting of my laptop, a pile of books, and a half-drunk bottle of £1.99 Tesco’s own brand booze. Which you could tell was the good stuff because it was just called wine and had a screw cap.
Mooching over, I grabbed the nearest book and curled up, waiting for knowledge to miraculously osmote from page to brain. Because that was totally how it worked.
Nik stirred in his duvet cocoon. “How’s it going?”
“Terrible.”
“What have you got to worry about? It’s English lit.”
He wasn’t actually being mean. My course had a reputation for being easy—probably deservedly, since the earliest lectures started at eleven and, while they weren’t presented as optional, hardly anyone went to them anyway.
“Yes, but how am I supposed to revise every book written in English from 650 to the present day. That’s”—my voice went a bit shrill—“not reasonable.”
“Can’t you prioritize the important ones or something?”
“Do I look like Harold Bloom?”
“I’d be able to tell you if I knew who that was.”
I could have explained The Western Canon, but nobody deserved that. And Nik, whose full name was Niklaus Johannsson-Carrington, was my best and oldest friend. We’d been on the same staircase in my first year and stuck together ever since, despite having nothing in common (except maybe the time he’d been drunk enough to let me wank him off).