Life by Gwyneth Jones Read Free Book Online Page B

taste for extraordinary things. That’s why I’m here, at The Forest University of Bournemouth, instead of in Manchester: why I’m doing Biology Foundation instead of specializing. I wanted to do something different, to see another world. And to know. I want to know my subject, not just get a job. She returned to her reading, thrilled by a romance and a magic that was invisible to Ramone. Studies on the chemical nature of the substance inducing transformation of pneumococcal types. Avery, OT et al. 1944…
    But what about Rob?
    She hated herself for following Rob and Daz around. Tagging along, clinging, any excuse to be a gooseberry. It was shameful, miserable, how those stupid thoughts kept creeping back : he will turn to me, he will come to me, he will be mine at last.
    He WON’T.
    Got to jolt myself onto a different track; that’s the only answer.

    One day, Spence took a roll of thinsulate, a fat spliff of Frank’s best sensi, and his trusty volume of Kierkegaard, and headed for the hills. He was planning to do some sunbathing, a little reading, and possibly catch up on his sleep. He was still glad he’d moved out. Except for a trip to Amsterdam in March (cold as an Illinois winter, lots of dope), he’d spent his whole year on campus. It would have been a crime to go home without experiencing something different from the Woods. However, he had to admit that the Regis Passage squat was not the spot for quiet slumbers or for calm revision.
    Alone, he wended his way into dry declivities. The university, second-wave redbrick, had spread from two Georgian houses and the first modern buildings to fill the whole valley: less romantic than it had sounded, but pleasing enough, plenty of frisbee space and tree-clad lawns. Spence had discovered that if you went further, the hordes vanished and interesting things started to happen. It was open country; grass-clad downs fading into the heath and pines of the ancient Royal Forest. Silence fell, remarkably quickly. When the weather was good and the sky was clear above, the air had a warm, humming mystery that was almost sinister. He settled himself on a more or less level patch below a ridge path, pulled off his tee, and lay for a while, gazing straight into the blue. He was a pilgrim and a stranger, and all the supposed friendships of this year out of time fell away.
    Maybe read for a while.
    About an hour later—Spence wasn’t wearing a watch—he looked up and saw someone coming towards him. The figure was still far off. He was in such a solitary mood that he almost rolled up his mat and took himself out of sight, then saw that it was Anna. She was wearing a lavender-colored dress that grazed her knees and left her brown arms bare. He waved. She waved back. Soon she was climbing up to his sun terrace, and then she sat down beside him among the summer flowers.
    “Hi. I thought it was you.”
    “Just catching a few rays.”
    She smiled, her eyes wary. He sensed the shyness he’d divined in her, that other people mistook for self-possession. “I won’t stay.”
    “Oh no, please do. I’d like your company.”
    “Aren’t you afraid you’ll burn? It’s pretty hot.”
    Spence’s skin was naturally matt, sallow, and pallid as a fish’s belly until the moment the sun came out. “I never burn.”
    “Nor do I, though people always think I will. I expect we’ll get skin cancer.”
    “Yeah. Melanoma, I bet. Dead in days.” He shrugged. “Too bad.”
    “I don’t know why people make such a fuss about death-dealing disease,” said Anna. “One in four people will die of cancer: how awful. As if the other three were going to be fine, as if death was an avoidable disease.”
    “No one here gets out alive.” He looked at her quizzically. “You been sleeping badly too?”
    “It’s just end-of-termitis.”
    “You’re worried about the sit-down exams?”
    “Not at all. I like them.”
    “Yeah, so do I. People will let you alone.”
    “Peaceful.”
    Anna slipped