41. Peter

He was wrong: they didn’t politely ignore his feet. They made a point of discussing them.

‘It won’t be easy,’ they said, ‘fitting in. You will meet some who think you shouldn’t be here. How do you think you will cope?’

‘I don’t know,’ he’d replied. ‘I’m learning not to hide, not to pretend, but it’s hard. I hope I will be able to focus on my work, to make friends, to ignore the others.’

They had nodded and handed him a leaflet about student wellbeing.

And although they wouldn’t let him know, officially, for a week or ten days, they had made it plain they would welcome him in. All three professors shook his hand, said they very much looked forward to working with him and were excited to meet such a promising student.

It seemed a done deal. His dad would be delighted. His mum would be proud. He should phone them. He walked up and down the station platform, past the racks of bikes, the coffee kiosk, his phone in his hand, his fingers still.

What he wanted was to phone Lauren, to tell her his news. They had discussed it, before, when he was still undecided.

‘Of course you should go,’ she’d said.

And when he’d talked about how he would miss her, miss the hills, the woods, she’d poked him in the side and laughed.

‘Do you think there’s no countryside in Cambridgeshire?’ she said. ‘You can become a fen runner. The hills will still be here when you come home.’

‘I suppose.’

‘And besides, I won’t be here either. Who knows what part of the country I’ll be in?’

She’d got her UCAS form in early. She’d applied to London, Bristol, Durham and York. He could imagine her as a student, carrying piles of books into lecture theatres, wearing long knitted scarves, feeding the ducks in the park. She’d been part of his life for so long. If he closed his eyes he could smell her hair. His fingers hovered over the keys.

Then he heard her voice in the woods that morning. ‘I need Richard. I need to find Richard.’

He shoved the phone into his coat pocket. Whatever she was doing right now it didn’t involve him. She wouldn’t welcome an interruption. And he didn’t want to speak to his mum or dad. He wasn’t ready to speak to anyone. He wasn’t even ready to go home. He went into the ticket office and bought a one-way ticket to Kendal. He could get out from there into the Dales. He’d leave his suit folded behind a rock where he could return for it. He needed to run; he needed to get up high on the hills. He needed to run all night.