LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER 5

      The Radcliffe Camera stood out starkly against the bright blue sky and Grace had been staring up at it for so long that she’d started to feel dizzy. The Radcliffe Camera, or the Rad Cam as the students tended to call it, was her favourite of all of Oxford’s lavish buildings. Something about this monumental, circular library always filled her with awe and even now, after six months at Oxford, Grace still marvelled at the exquisite architecture, marvelled that a place of such beauty could exist so close to the inner London neighbourhood where she had grown up. Grace had read about the dreaming spires, she’d seen the lists of the University’s illustrious alumni – Presidents, Prime Ministers, Oscar winners, Nobel Peace Prize winners, traitors, saints; intellectually at least, she’d understood that this place was immense. And yet, from the moment she had set foot on Broad Street all those months ago for her interview, Grace had fallen in love. She had survived the interviews and had returned to her school a hero, the first pupil in sixteen years to earn a place at Oxbridge and when summer had come she had aced her exams – straight As. And now here she was, standing in Radcliffe Square, metres away from the Bodleian and the Sheldonian Theatre and the Bridge of Sighs and all those places that had once been just names in books about lives; white people’s lives, a place that was not for the likes of her. And yet in her months here, she’d excelled, academically anyway. Grace loved her lectures, she’d shone in tutorials, her peers called on her to talk through essay questions. But the social part of things, in this Grace stuttered. Grace felt heat warm her face as she thought about last night and the boozy party at the bar that she’d left early. Once again she felt like the perpetual new girl, unable to relax and drink and get merry, like all the other confident undergrads at college.

      “Shit!” Grace gasped as a clock began to chime. Once again she’d dawdled and would only just have enough time to get back to her room in College to change before she had to start her shift. Grace hustled up Parks Road, passing the grand academic buildings, then took a short cut, darting across the dense green space of the University Parks until she reached Lady Henrietta College, or Hennies as everyone called it.

      “All right, Grace?” Grace nodded and waved in greeting to Paul, the head porter. She walked through the main quad towards her room. Entering her small single room, she immediately began to pull off her clothes, her usual uniform of black sweatpants and an oversized hoodie were quickly exchanged for the white shirt and black skirt that were required for her job over at Newman College.

      By the time she’d changed, there was little time left before she’d be really late for the dinner shift she was covering and so Grace jumped on her hated bike. The city of Oxford was awash with bikes and in the summer as she’d prepared to leave London, Grace had bitten the bullet and set about doing something that no child in the orphanage had ever had any need to learn: she’d learned to ride a bike. She’d forced herself to ignore the laughing little kids, who’d already left behind their stabilisers. She’d picked herself up after the falls, she’d persisted with the same doggedness with which she’d approached cross country running, until suddenly she’d been flying, cycling unaided, round and round and round. In that moment, as she’d completed her first complete loop of Pymmes Park, Grace had known that she was ready for Oxford; that if she could do this, there was nothing that she couldn’t handle.

      Grace screeched to a halt as she spotted a spare bit of railing to which she locked her bike before rushing through the grand arch that marked the entrance to Newman College. In a city renowned the world over for its beauty and architecture, a city known for its pomp and grandeur, Newman was without a doubt the grandest college of them all. Grace entered the college through the main entrance, walking quickly across the vast intimidating quad towards her destination – the College kitchens. She dashed up the service entrance stairs to the kitchens and hoped fervently that Nessa would not be on duty.

      “Cutting it fine, aren’t you?” Grace’s prayers were not to be answered and she turned to face Nessa Hughes, her supervisor.

      “Sorry I’m late, Nessa,” Grace said, curbing her impulse to roll her eyes. She needed this job, needed every penny of her meagre wage to maintain herself at Oxford. The job had seemed a godsend at first, a job at another college working as a server. But Grace had naively failed to consider what it would be like to serve students, peers, whom she might encounter in the lecture halls the very next day.

      “Always one excuse after another with you,” Nessa grated, watching as Grace pulled off her coat and quickly donned a crisp blue apron over her skirt. “You watch yourself,” she continued and then strode away disappearing with a click of heels. Grace sighed. Things had not always been bad with Nessa. At first they’d bonded, talking about London and exchanging stories about the city. One day, Grace had mentioned her heavy course load at Hennies and from that moment everything had changed. She hadn’t intentionally misled Nessa about her student status, she had assumed that Nessa, like everyone else, knew she was also a student at Oxford but from that moment Nessa had reserved for her a cutting coldness, always ready to pounce on any misdeed by Grace, real or imagined. It seemed that Nessa was determined to remind her to know her place. In the kitchen, the other servers were already lined up and Grace risked a small wave at Vicky, her only real friend there, who like her was also a student at the university.

      “Vicky, Melissa, Jack and Liam on mains. Grace, Janet and Martin – veg and sides.” Grace bit back on a groan. She hated being on veg, everybody did. With main courses at least all you had to do was set down the plate but with veg and sides, discourse with the students was always required. “Potatoes or salad, broccoli or spinach.” Grace nodded at the sympathetic look that Vicky had thrown her way and then, lest she give Nessa any cause to dock her wages or pull her up again, she grabbed the serving tray of sides and made her way towards the dining hall.

      Newman’s Dining Hall was exquisite, a long oak-panelled room that dated back to the 14^th century with ornate stained-glass windows and walls lined with portraits of dons and alumni of note. Long, heavy, wooden tables illuminated by small orange lamps stretched the length of the room and newcomers were always stopped short by the beauty of it, by the sense of history that one was assailed with on entering this hall.

      Grace had learned to ignore the impulse to stare around the Hall and instead get her serving duty over as soon as possible because even as Newman was known to be the grandest of all the colleges, its undergrads were also acknowledged to be some of the most obnoxious in the whole university. Grace was never more aware of being other than when she stepped into this Hall to serve these students. Her uniform always felt too tight, the spills of fat above her waistband always felt even more visible, her myopic eyes and her thick glasses felt even more of a burden. At Newman, Grace was never more aware of being black.

      “Potatoes or salad?” she asked.

      “Both, please.” Grace was grateful that at least this student was one of the ones who actually noticed her and answered. Often the students would be so engrossed in their conversations, so wrapped up in their laughs that she would stand there seemingly invisible. Grace moved on to the next group, deftly serving up the potatoes or veg as required. Her platter was almost empty, she would have to return to the kitchen soon. As she started towards the exit, Grace’s eyes were drawn to a young blond man at the centre of a group of laughing students. She watched the young man gesticulate, as his blond hair flopped over his forehead, while he regaled the table with a story that had them laughing again. Something about their carefree laughter held Grace and then she looked up and froze as she found a pair of blue-grey eyes staring intently at her. Someone at the table had noticed her scrutiny.

      The din of the Hall died down as she found herself

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