Page 86 of For Real

“Well, well, well. Mr. Dalziel.”

Oh God. Behind the desk was Bob, immortal, unchanging, terrifying Bob, who regarded me today with the same too-knowing, slightly disdainful affection he had shown some twenty years ago.20

“Hello, Bob,” I muttered, quiet and lost and eighteen again.

Toby had hustled in behind me, and now he glanced between us with blatant fascination. “You know him?”

Bob’s eyes glinted. “Laurence Jennings Dalziel, 1995, Medicine. Of course I know him.”

“I’ve booked a room,” I tried, before anything worse could happen.

“I suppose you’re here to see Dr. Leigh.”

Dr. Leigh? He’d never called me that even when it was my correct title. Always “mister” and always in this tone of faint exasperation. But I found myself nodding meekly.

“Charming gentleman, Dr. Leigh.” Bob pulled a large, leather-bound book out from under the counter. There was a computer two steps away, but of course it would be the book. He opened it and began squinting down page after page of spindly, handwritten entries.

“How’s Mrs.…” Fuck, I’d forgotten his surname. “How’s your wife?”

“Why, she’s dead, Mr. Dalziel.” There was an awful silence.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry.”

“I’m only joking. Sheila’s doing very well.” He turned a page. “Ah, yes, you’re in the New Building, third floor.”

Toby had both hands fisted over his mouth, but high-pitched little giggles were escaping anyway.

Bob turned to the vast grid behind him and with great ceremony lifted a key from its hook. He turned the tag over, subjecting it to a level of scrutiny probably not witnessed on earth since Moses got his hands on some sort of tablet. And finally he slammed it down on the counter.

Heaven forefend he actually give it to me.

I sighed, picked up the key, and pocketed it. “Thank you.”

I had my hand on the door handle and my foot on the step when he called out in a nasty sort of singsong. “Oh, Mr. Dalziel?”

“Yes?”

“You wouldn’t be having an overnight guest, would you?”

I spun round. “For the love of God, I’m thirty-seven. I’m…I’m…I’m allowed.” In my head, that had sounded more assertive and less pathetic.

Bob blinked, just once, and then waved me off imperiously.

This time I was almost out of the door. “Oh, Mr. Dalziel?”

I gritted my teeth. “What?”

“Welcome back.”

In the quad, Toby had hysterics, and I waited with what I thought was impressive forbearance for him to calm down.

“This place,” he gasped, “is fucking nuts.”

“It has its ways.”

He wriggled his hand back into the crook of my arm. “You really like it, huh?”

“There’s always going to be a part of me that calls Oxford home.” We walked across the quad, past the chapel, and into the honeyed gloom of the cloisters, our steps echoing together upon the flagstones. “It’s where some of the most important things of my life happened to me. I grew up here. Learned who I was here. It’s where I first fell in love. Had sex. Got drunk. Took drugs. Stayed up all night talking with people who understood me.”

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