The driver insisted on helping her drag all her suitcases and boxes out of the car. After she had piled everything up on the front steps of Archer Crescent, she went to give him a £20 note. But instead, for reasons she couldn’t quite understand, she found herself throwing her arms around his neck and planting a kiss on his cheek. He flushed, but didn’t seem unhappy about it.

‘Good luck with it all,’ he said, smiling at the floor. ‘Work hard, but don’t forget to have some fun as well.’

‘Thank you. It’s going to be great.’

2

Then

Greg panted as he dropped the suitcase on the uneven wooden floor. There was a sheen to his bald head despite the fact that it was cold outside – crisp and blue in a way that only October ever was.

A helpful-looking student adviser had offered to carry the bags to Chloe’s new room, but Greg, always keen to play the adoring stepfather for the outside world, had insisted that he didn’t need any assistance.

‘My hero!’ Chloe’s mother, Louise, smiled, putting her arms around Greg’s neck. Her touch made his blue shirt stick to his back. ‘What would we do without you?’ she laughed. Chloe considered telling her mother that without Greg she wouldn’t have needed to pack such heavy suitcases because she would want to come home more than once a term, but that would prompt an argument, and there was no point.

‘Thanks, Greg,’ she said, eyes firmly on the empty pinboard on the wall behind where he stood. He didn’t reply.

‘I wonder who your room-mate is going to be,’ her mother said, her voice aspartame. She went to the door, looking at the little metal frames which held the names of those who lived inside. On the left, Chloe Sanders. On the right, Zadie Lister. ‘Zadie,’ she said, as if it was the most astonishing name she’d ever heard in her life. ‘Very exotic.’ She made ‘exotic’ sound like it rhymed with ‘toxic’. Her mother didn’t approve of unusual names. ‘It’s all so exciting, isn’t it?’ she added, looking around the room.

Chloe nodded. ‘It’s nice. I didn’t realize I’d be sharing.’ The room was wide and rectangular with a high ceiling. Each side had a double bed, a sink, a chest of drawers and a wardrobe, all made of the kind of pine that was virtually impossible to damage. She wondered what it would originally have been, before it was part of a halls of residence, when it was still a country house. Spartan and pragmatic as it was, nothing could take away from the height of the ceilings, the cornicing around the top of the walls and the huge sash windows.

Greg snorted. ‘If it’s not to your liking, we can take you home, madam. Or see if there are any rooms at the Ritz?’