The pink font in my planner mocks me. She says I should ask Beaufort for Victorian clothes. Unfortunately, I don’t want to do that at all.
I overdosed on James Beaufort this week and I’m ready for the weekend. Since we decided on the motto for the Halloween party, he has been misbehaving during our meetings. Either he makes one nasty comment after the other, or he ignores us completely. I wouldn’t care if we hadn’t decided yesterday that the poster we want to design for the celebration should show a couple in authentic Victorian clothing. And the easiest way to get such costumes quickly and, above all, for free is through the Beauforts and their huge archive.
After the meeting, Lin and I drew lots to see which of us had to ask James for the favor – of course I lost. Since then, I have been thinking about how best to address him about it. Maybe I’ll just write an email. Then I wouldn’t have to ask him in front of all the other people and most likely get a reprimand.
With full force, I close my planner and slide it into my backpack.
‘We can swap,’ Lin suggests, shouldering her own bag. Then she grabs her tray, puts it on mine and takes both to take them to the dishes return.
For a moment, I weigh up whether the alternative – listening to an hour-long lecture on Lexington’s fire safety regulations – would be better.
‘Wait a minute,’ says Lin as we walk out of the cafeteria and towards the learning center. ‘I’ll take it back. I will not deceive.’
‘What a pity. I would have done it immediately.’
The campus is bathed in golden-red autumn light, and the first leaves on the oaks are beginning to change from a rich green to a delicate yellow or dark red.
‘Come on. It’s not that bad now.’
‘Says the one who screamed loudly ‘jackpot’ when she won the fire safety lecture in the lottery,’ I say dryly.
She grins, caught. ‘I just think he’s so arrogant. I mean, until the term is over, he’s a full member of our team. Then he can also contribute something, right? Especially since the whole thing was also his proposal.’
‘Yes. Unfortunately, it was a really good suggestion.’ I hold my student ID card in front of the door of the learning center until the small light in the knob lights up green. Then I open it and let Lin go ahead.
The Learning Center is a small building that is only used by the Sixth Form. This is where you can meet if you want to prepare presentations or need a quiet place to study for the final exams. Today, the first meeting of a study group is taking place in one of the tutor rooms, which is supposed to prepare us for the upcoming application process in Oxford.
‘Oh,’ Lin says softly as we enter the room, at the same moment that I stiffen.
When you talk about the devil.
The room has twenty seats, and the only people who are here are Keshav, Lydia, Alistair, Wren, Cyril and… James. In addition, two girls and a guy I only know by sight, and a young woman, but I assume is our tutor. She is the only one who greets us.
I go to one of the places furthest away from Beaufort’s clique. Lin follows me and sits down next to me. Mechanically, I unpack my planner, my pens and the new notepad that I bought especially for this study group. While I arrange everything on the table in front of me – it has to be parallel to the edge of the table – I try with all my might to pretend that the others don’t exist. I don’t want to have anything to do with James and certainly nothing to do with his friends. Just thinking about the fact that I have to compete with people like him in the application process, with people who come from very rich families with whom entire generations have studied at Oxford, makes me sick.
How Lin stands in contrast to me, I don’t know. She wasn’t part of James’ clique at the time, but she moved in his circles because she was friends with Elaine Ellington and a few other girls from the year above us. But then her father left her mother for another woman – who turned out to be a marriage swindler a little later. Within a year, he lost his entire fortune to them, which was a huge scandal at the time and the reason why no one wanted to have anything to do with the Wangs anymore. Neither business, nor socially, nor at this school.
In order for Lin to continue attending Maxton Hall, her mother had to sell her country estate and move to a smaller house near Pemwick. Although the two still live in four times as many square meters as we do, it must have been an insane change for Lin at the time. Not only did she lose her family and the life she had known until then, but above all all all her friends.
Most of the time, Lin acts as if none of this ever happened. As if it had never been different. But sometimes I can see a hint of longing in her eyes that makes me suspect that she misses her old life after all. Especially when I see how wistfully she looks at the empty seat next to Cyril. I’ve been wondering for a long time if the two of them used to have something going on, but every time I steer the conversation even remotely in that direction, Lin instantly changes the subject. I can’t blame her, after all, I hardly ever tell anything private about myself. But I’m still curious sometimes.
As if by magic, my gaze wanders to James. While his friends are talking and seem to be constantly moving, he sits completely rigid in his chair. Wren talks to him, but I’m pretty sure he’s not listening. I wonder what thoughts are responsible for the scowl on his face.
‘It’s nice that you’re all here,’ the tutor begins, and I tear my gaze away from James. ‘My name is Philippa Winfield, but you can call me Pippa. I am currently in the second semester of my studies in Oxford and also had to go through the application process at that time. So I know how you’re feeling right now.’
Wren mumbles something that makes Cyril laugh. He conceals it with a clearing of the throat. They’re probably talking about how pretty Pippa is. With her dark blonde, wavy bob and porcelain complexion, she almost looks like a doll. A beautiful, expensive doll.
‘In the coming weeks, I will help you prepare for the Thinking Skills Assessment and the interviews. The TSA is a two-hour test that you have to take for certain courses of study at Oxford. It helps the university to find out whether you have the skills and critical thinking skills to study there.’
The test is on my calendar for shortly after Halloween, and I’m already nervous when I think about the tasks that lie ahead. In the next thirty minutes, Pippa explains to us how the test is structured and how much time we will have for which part of the task – all things that I have known for a long time. I don’t want to know anything about the course of the test, I want to learn how to pass it. As if Pippa had read my thoughts, she finally claps her hands once. ‘The best thing to do is to just take a look at an example question that could be used for the text task. At that time, it helped me a lot to discuss certain questions with other applicants, because we all have different approaches and that can be really enlightening in some cases. That’s why I thought we’d best do it this way.’ She opens her folder and takes out a stack of papers, which she distributes to us. ‘On page two you will find the first question. You,’ she says, pointing with her hand to Wren, who has been whispering something again. Please read the question aloud.’
‘With the greatest pleasure,’ he replies with an outrageous smile, before picking up his paper and reading aloud: ‘The first question is: If you can give reasons for your actions, does that mean your actions are rational?’
Lin’s arm shoots up.
‘You don’t have to raise your hand, I’m opening the open discussion,’ Pippa says and nods to Lin.
‘All actions have an emotional origin,’ my friend begins. ‘Although it is always said that you should think and make the intelligent decision instead of listening to what your heart tells you, in the end all decisions are guided by feelings and are therefore not rational.’
‘That would be a very short essay,’ says Alistair, and his friends laugh. All except James. He blinks several times as if he had just woken up from a dream.
‘It’s a thesis that can now be elaborated on or refuted by one of you,’ says Pippa.
‘In order to be able to answer the question, we would first have to define what ‘rational’ means in this context,’ says Lydia suddenly. A pen is stuck behind her ear, in front of her she holds the note with the question in her hands. Which course of study will she apply for?
‘Rationality means thinking or behavior that is characterized by reason,’ Kesh murmurs.
‘In this context, rationality means reason,’ I say. ‘But reason is something subjective. How should reason be defined if every person has different rules, principles and values?’
‘But I would say everyone has more or less the same basic values,’ Wren interjects.
I raise my shoulders indecisively. ‘I think it depends on who you are brought up by and which people move around you.’
‘Every person learns from childhood that they are not allowed to kill other people and so on. If you act according to these principles, it is objectively rational,’ he replies.
‘But not every action can be traced back to these principles,’ Lin points out.
‘So if I do something that breaks me, but I know that it follows a certain principle – then that’s a rational decision?’ asks Lydia. I look at her confused, but her gaze is firmly fixed on the piece of paper with the questions.
‘If it corresponds to your basic understanding of reason, then yes,’ I answer after a short pause. ‘This clearly shows how different the principles of different people can be. I would never voluntarily do anything that would break me.’
‘Is my basic understanding of reason, then, worth less than yours?’ Lydia suddenly looks quite angry. Red spots appear on her pale cheeks.
‘By that I mean that I believe that an action cannot be rational if it hurts someone. Be it yourself or someone else. But that’s just my claim.’
‘And your standards are higher than those of other people. Right?’
Surprised, I look at James. He spoke so softly that I almost didn’t hear him. He no longer looks as if his thoughts are somewhere else. Now he is right here, in this room, his cold gaze fixed on me.
I grip my pen tightly. ‘I’m not referring to myself, but to the fact that everyone thinks and acts differently in general.’
‘Let’s say I smuggle strippers into a party to set the mood and give everyone present a nice evening,’ James says slowly. ‘Then that would be a clearly rational decision, if you follow your understanding of the question.’
At any moment, my pen breaks through in the middle. ‘That wasn’t a rational decision, it was just immoral and shit.’
‘It’s best not to use words like ‘shit’ in the essay or in the applicant interviews,’ Pippa interjects.
‘You’re differentiating in a place that isn’t asked here,’ James replies dryly. ‘For example, if you have two job offers, one of which earns you more, but you would be happier with the lower-paid job, the rational decision would be to choose the better-paid job.’
‘If one acts according to a monetary principle of reason, which should not be a surprise with you.’ My body is flooded with energy, and it seems to me that no one exists in this room except James and me.
Now he raises an eyebrow. ‘First, you don’t know me at all. Secondly, it is the rational action to opt for the better-paid job.’
‘Why, if I may ask?’
He looks me straight in the eye. ‘Because no one in this world is interested in you if you don’t have money.’
With his words, I become aware of the worn soles on my shoes and also of my perforated backpack. Anger flares up in me, blazing and frantically fast. ‘That’s how you can tell who you were raised by.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ he asks, his voice dangerously calm.
I shrug my shoulders. ‘If you are told from an early age that no one would be interested in you if you have no money, it is clear that you act according to a reason in which nothing else counts. Pretty pathetic, really.’
A muscle in his jaw begins to twitch. ‘You’d better say no more now, Ruby.’
‘In Oxford you won’t be able to forbid anyone to speak. Maybe you should get used to getting contradicted or get used to the idea of being rejected. But even then you shouldn’t have any problems, after all, you’re still rich, and the world is interested in you.’
James flinches as if I had slapped him. The room is dead quiet. The only thing I hear is my own racing heartbeat and the roaring noise in my ears. In the next second, James gets up so jerkily that his chair tilts over backwards and rumbles to the floor. I hold my breath as he leaves the room with long strides and slams the door violently behind him.
All of a sudden, I become aware of my surroundings again. James’ friends blink perplexed, as if wondering what the hell just happened. Meanwhile, nothing but unspeakable shock is written on Lydia’s face. A cold shiver runs down my spine. Slowly I come down from my adrenaline rush, and I realize what I just said.
So much for the topic of ›remaining invisible‹. Instead of a professional discussion, I got personal because James made me angry. What he said is true. I really don’t know him. And I have no right to throw such things at his head just because he behaves like a headless bastard. That doesn’t make me any better than him.
What the hell got into me?
