There were two exceptions to her solitude: Mark, and Derek Mackenzie. The latter arrived on campus unexpectedly at the beginning of her second year. Unlike Mark, whose resolve to run with her was unshakeable (until it wasn’t) and endured for almost two years, Derek visited only once, for which she was grateful. The single occasion was embarrassing enough.

How Derek knew where to find Clare on campus, she didn’t know. The sight of his tall, bowed body near the steps of her residence had come as a shock. She stared at him, wondering if she was hallucinating from the pills she’d taken for the migraine she’d suffered two days earlier. She shook her head and blinked. He was still there. She hurried over.

“What’s happened? My father? Mother?”

He squinted, baffled for a moment.

“No. No,” he said, placing a hand on her forearm. “They’re fine. I thought I’d take you to lunch.”

“Lunch?” She looked around as if one of the students walking by would offer clarification.

“Is that a foreign concept to you?”

“But . . . why?”

“I’m here for work. Thought I’d come and see you.”

It was odd. Clare couldn’t imagine why her parents’ friend, her friend Zach’s father, would visit her, let alone propose lunch. She had no intention of going anywhere with him.

“I have lectures—”

“Not now.”

She stared at him. Did he know her timetable or was he assuming the university broke for lunch? She wished she’d said she had a lunchtime seminar.

“Come. We’ll be quick. I reserved a table at the bistro in High Street.”

She’d gone, unable to find a way out without being rude. It was even more awkward than she had imagined it might be.

“So, I wanted to talk to you about something,” said Derek as they waited for their order. (Chicken salad! Her heart pounded at the thought of it.)

“Oh. Okay.”

Clare knew Zach and his father had argued about the anthropology degree he had decided to enrol for at a university in Johannesburg. She wondered if Derek might want to discuss his son’s choice with her.

He leaned forward, trying to catch her eye. “The thing is . . . Mich, I mean, your mother, is worried about you.”

What? Had her mother sent Derek Mackenzie to talk to her? Why would she do that? She and Michelle had discussed her illness at length before she returned to university. What more could there be to say? Clare nodded slowly, looked at him and held his eye. She wished her father was there instead.

“She says, your mother says, that you’ve got thin because . . . um . . . you’re ill. But I—”

“My mother spoke to you about my—about me?”

Derek took a long sip of water. “We’re friends. We talk every day.”

“Did my mother ask you to visit me?”

“No! Goodness, no. She doesn’t know I’m here.”

“My father?”