Gwen’s exam weeks passed without incident, which was in itself remarkable, under the circumstances. If pressed, she would reply that the day’s module had gone “okay,” or “fine,” or in the case of an art history paper, “alright, I think,” and no more would be forthcoming. Each evening she sat down ravenous to supper, did an extremely brief spell of French vocabulary on the sofa, and then retired to the bath where she would lie for an hour, occasionally memorizing history dates but more often listening to a meditation track that she had recently downloaded from the Internet. Julia would walk past the bathroom and hear snatches of, “allow your mind to empty like the waves receding,” or more oddly, “you can know anything you wish, if you simply wait in stillness for wisdom to enter.” Keeping up the Easter revision intensity for these final few days seemed a more sensible approach than waiting in stillness for wisdom to enter the cooling silted waters of a bathtub, but Julia recalled the tears and nightly hysteria of the GCSEs the year before and passed no comment. Gwen’s morning sickness had been violent but unexpectedly brief and had passed entirely, as had her fatigue. She no longer had any symptoms at all and, she would boast to anyone who’d listen, she felt entirely herself again and could forget about it for days at a time. Nonetheless she took herself to bed each night at nine p.m. “to be responsible,” and James and Julia had a series of improbably lovely evenings alone, curled together on the sofa, as it had never before been. And might never be again, Julia thought, with an ache in her throat. Gwen might be able to set aside her pregnancy while she finished off the year, but it could not be ignored much longer. She was ten weeks pregnant—in some ways very early; in others, late.
• • •
WHILE GWEN apparently grew calmer, Nathan grew increasingly desperate. His own exams would not begin until the day hers ended and, for him, everything was still to play for. Oxford had asked for two As and two Bs. He told Gwen that he did not have time to call her from school and she did not protest; she, too, was under pressure. Without the sound of her voice, it became surprisingly easy to pretend that nothing at home had changed. He was working every waking hour, and for efficiency’s sake had increased these waking hours first to eighteen, then nineteen, then, finally, to twenty a day. When his eyes closed over his books he drank coffee or took caffeine tablets, and then stayed longer at his desk to make effective use of the jittering insomnia. Charlie gave him eye drops, and these helped with the burning and dryness. He would have all summer to recover.
There was nothing he had ever wanted as much as he wanted straight As, now. He would forgo all sleep, all pleasure; he would work until his hands seized and his brain bled. When term began it had been a relief to go back to the easy, studious camaraderie of his boardinghouse but it wouldn’t have mattered. He could revise polynomials at the back of the 24 bus. He would have walked the streets reading about gene expression. He could have memorized the properties of transition metals at the foot of Eros at the heart of Piccadilly Circus while around him the pubs emptied, and the crowds flooded out of the theaters on the last Friday night before Christmas. He feared life closing down around him but he would fight his way free and Oxford would harbor him, offer safety, redemption. He was the embodiment of single-mindedness. He was indefatigable. He would succeed. He would fly.