‘Did you ever patch things up with Louis?’

  It’s the first time he’s mentioned Louis’ name in years and the sound of it sends a shiver through him. He’s spent half his life trying to forget the man. To this day, Adam doesn’t know the exact nature of the relationship between Louis and Clio. Some said they were a couple, others that they were just good friends. Soulmates. They certainly slept with each other, but it wasn’t an exclusive arrangement. All Adam knows is that for a while there was something between them, a strange, fiery bond that seemed too combustible to last. Sure enough, they fell out spectacularly in her final term, which Adam found reassuring. It always upset him that Clio could love a man like Louis.

  ‘Louis?’ Clio almost spits out the word. ‘You must be kidding.’

  5

  May 1998

  ‘What are you studying?’ Louis asked me, glancing around the bar, a rollie bobbing at his lips.

  I took another long draught of my beer, trying to process what had just been said to me by the guy with red hair. ‘Evil’ is a strong word by anyone’s standards, but the man could have had any number of reasons for bad-mouthing Louis. The ADC Bar is a snake pit, full of petty rivalries and jealousies, far removed from the camaraderie of the Swordfish back home. What I wouldn’t give for a pint or three in somewhere like the Swordy, but there’s no pub up here that comes even close. Cambridge isn’t Newlyn, that’s for sure. Maybe the redhead was a spurned lover. I looked up at Louis, trying to forget what I had heard.

  Louis’ face was now close to mine – it was hard to hear each other above the din of drunken actors – and I was struck again by how ill he looked. It wasn’t just the sallow skin, with telltale patches of what looked like atopic dermatitis, or eczema. It was his eyes, bloodshot and watery. Hay fever? Maybe a corneal abrasion? Or just too many rollies.

  ‘I’m a medic,’ I said. ‘First year.’

  He raised his eyebrows and seemed to adjust himself, stand a little taller. I’ve noticed this a lot in people recently, as if I might somehow be able to sense, as a future doctor, whether they are hungover or have eaten something unhealthy. At least he didn’t ask me about some ailment or other, which is what people also do when they meet a medic. My choice of degree appeared to genuinely pique his interest. What I thought would be a quick bar chat turned into a discussion about my hopes and ambitions, my plan to become a consultant general paediatrician in London and then one day move back to Cornwall, and about the long journey I’ve embarked on: two years of pre-clinical studies, one year of intercalation, followed by three years of clinical training in hospitals and then a further eight years of training before, all being well, becoming a consultant.

  ‘Maybe our paths will cross again,’ Louis said. ‘My parents have a house in Cornwall. I go there often with my brother.’

  ‘I’m amazed we’ve not met before,’ I said. In truth I wasn’t surprised at all. ‘Let me guess… Rock?’ Where most of the moneyed second-homers end up.

  He smiled. ‘Polzeath, actually.’

  Near enough. It was never going to be Camborne.

  ‘I should be a keen surfer, shouldn’t I?’ he said.

  I couldn’t think of a less likely candidate.

  ‘But the sea’s not for me. I prefer the moors.’

  ‘And the Minack,’ I added.

  ‘And the Minack, of course.’

  Louis’ speech was educated and cut-glass, despite the occasional dropped consonant, which made me more self-conscious of my own Cornish lilt. He was charming too, at ease with conversation, those sculpted lips often breaking into a pinched, twitchy smile.

  ‘Six years here is a big investment,’ he said, changing the subject as he looked around the crowded bar. ‘I imagine you have to keep your nose pretty clean.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ I asked, still surprised that this apparent star of the arts scene was talking to me.

  ‘Aren’t they very strict about that sort of thing – the powers that be? “Do no harm” and all that.’

  Louis was right, even if ‘do no harm’ was not actually in the original Hippocratic Oath. It was the first thing our director of studies explained to us when we arrived in college. As medical students, we have to go ‘above and beyond’ – to work harder than other students and behave better, which is ironic, given that most medics are animals, partying the hardest, drinking the most. A police caution – for anything from fare evasion to possession of illegal drugs, drink-driving to violence – can scupper a medical career before it’s even started. ‘“Your behaviour at all times, both in the clinical environment and outside of your studies, must justify the confidence that patients and the public place in you as a future member of the medical profession,”’ Professor Beale told us, quoting from the General Medical Council’s official guidance for students.

  ‘I have to be doubly careful,’ I said. ‘As a medic who wants to work with children. How about you?’

  ‘An expensive drug habit’s de rigueur if you wish to make it in the film world,’ Louis said, smiling.

  I laughed. ‘Is that what you’re studying – film?’ I knew the answer but didn’t want to appear sycophantic.

  He nodded. ‘I’m doing a PhD. The first of four happy years, if they don’t chuck me out.’

  ‘What’s it about?’ I asked, trying to sound interested. In truth, I wasn’t too bothered, but my scheming brain was working overtime, already calculating that he might be able to help me see more of Clio.

  ‘The aesthetics of evil in modern cinema.’

  I nodded as intelligently as I could. It’s a skill you learn quickly here. ‘Psycho?’ I offered, naming the first film that came into my head.

  ‘That sort of thing.’ He paused. ‘But right now I’m working on another project – looking for people to help me, in fact. As I say, your performance was impressive tonight. Accomplished. I was wondering whether you might want to appear in a small film of mine?’

  Appear in a small film of his? Accomplished? I stood a little more upright, tried to stay cool. Maybe my Doctor Faustus wasn’t so bad after all.

  6

  Adam and Clio arrive at the station. It feels weird for him to be with her again, as if no time at all has passed. He glances at a camera further down the platform. Was it always pointing in their direction? He needs to get a grip, focus on reality, not the weird machinations of his overactive mind. According to the platform indicator, a train to Blackfriars is due in one minute.

  ‘It’s been nice seeing you again,’ he says. ‘What are the chances, eh?’

  Clio looks at him and he can’t help but notice that her eyes, heavily lined with kohl, have changed in some imperceptible way. She glances down the platform – at the camera? – and back at him again.

  ‘I was thinking,’ she says, her voice even more husky, ‘it would be great to catch up – when you have a bit more time, maybe. I haven’t seen anyone from uni for years. And I’m sorry how it all ended, you know? Wish it could have been different.’

  Adam swallows. He doesn’t want to think about Clio’s last few months at uni. He’s been over it all in his head a thousand times. Clio was an innocent party, caught up in something beyond her control. Louis was the cause of it all and he disappeared off the face of the earth too.

  ‘You OK?’ Clio asks.

  He nods, still confused by her sudden appearance in his life again. She’s the same but somehow different. Is it her eyes? Or the way she angles her face upwards by a few degrees when she talks? She didn’t use to do that except on stage, a tic she adopted to transform herself into the animated, threatening Mephistopheles.

  Adam checks up and down the platform, making sure no one is within earshot.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’ he says, thrusting his hands deep into the pockets of his exercise hoodie.

  ‘Sure,’ she replies.

  He takes a deep breath. ‘Was it really a coincidence – you being in the park today?’

  She pulls back from him, a quizzical expression on her face, as if she can’t quite believe what he’s just said. And then she cocks her head to one side to check that she’s heard him correctly. He remembers that mannerism. Like a blackbird listening for worms.

  ‘A coincidence?’ she asks. ‘Of course it was a coincidence. What else could it have been? I had no idea you lived in Greenwich. If I’d known, I’d have come knocking at your door. What a strange question.’

  She laughs, staring at the ground as she dabs at a puddle with her foot.

  He needed to know, to hear her say the words, but he’s still embarrassed. He’s deluding himself again, just as he did at uni. Of course Clio hadn’t come to Greenwich to seek him out. Who’s he kidding? She was passing through, their meeting was pure chance. Serendipity.

  ‘A catch-up would be great,’ he says, keen to move on. ‘How long has it been?’

  She hesitates before answering, glancing down the platform again. ‘Must be more than twenty years.’

  ‘If you say so.’ He’s never been very good on graduation dates. They only overlapped for a year as undergraduates. Adam stayed on for another two years and then did a further three years of clinical training.

  ‘Here comes my train,’ she says. Adam turns to see it nosing around the bend. ‘How about tonight? A drink in town.’

  A drink? His immediate impulse is to say no – Saturdays are movie nights at home with Tania, Tilly permitting – but then he remembers that Tania will be away. Clio continues before he can say anything.

  ‘Bring Tania along too, if you can get a babysitter.’

  ‘She’s going away this afternoon,’ he says. ‘To stay with her parents.’

  He didn’t need to tell her that. She holds his gaze. Again, those eyes. What is it about them?

  ‘Oh, OK,’ she says with a Gallic shrug. ‘So text me if you fancy a drink. Tania’s got my number.’

  ‘I’m on call tonight,’ he lies. ‘Maybe another time, when you’re back in the area. We can all meet up.’

  But Clio’s already boarded the train, disappearing from his world as quickly as she entered it. Will he ever see her again? Should he? And then he realises what it was about her eyes. Like the best movie stars, she didn’t blink.

  7

  May 1998

  ‘It sounds interesting,’ I said, throwing a glance down the bar. Clio looked over in my direction and smiled. Was Louis’ film project her doing? Had she put in a word on my behalf? ‘What exactly do I have to do?’

  ‘Just be yourself,’ Louis said. ‘I’m doing a series of ALife in the Dayof… shorts. Nothing to trouble the jury at Cannes, just a slice of old-school cinéma-vérité. You go about your normal day. I follow you around with my camera. Simple as that.’ As if to demonstrate, he lifted his camcorder to his eye and started to film people at the bar again. ‘And then I’ll present you with a copy of the finished article when we’re done.’ He lowered the camera. ‘Something to keep for posterity, to remind you of your time here when you’re rich and famous. I imagine consultant paediatricians earn a fortune.’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ I said. Medical students are notoriously ambitious, myself included, but I know I’m not studying medicine for the money. ‘Believe me, my life is so boring,’ I added. ‘This play is the first extra-curricular thing I’ve done since I arrived. And it might get me thrown off the course if my grades drop. It’s all lectures, lectures and more lectures in my world. Throw in some practical classes and supervisions and that’s the extent of my life. We do so much science in the pre-clinical years compared to other medical schools. I can’t see my life here making a film. Honestly, it would send people into a coma.’

  He turned away and I wondered if I’d offended him. Who knew, maybe my mundane world could be made to look interesting in his expert hands?

  ‘That’s just what I’m after,’ Louis said. ‘Snapshots of student life. Vignettes of actualité. We’re all here to work, after all. In the last film I made, I even managed to make an aspiring accountant’s life seem interesting. Medicine must be more exciting than that.’

  ‘Possibly,’ I said. ‘Maybe you should film me in my third year, what we call intercalation – “the piss-up year”. Allegedly. We’re encouraged to study something to broaden our horizons – history of art, that kind of thing. My life might be a little more interesting by then.’

  I was bluffing. Much as I’d like to study the Newlyn School of painters, I’ve already decided that I’ll do a natural science topic for my third year, something like physiology, development and neuroscience (PDN). I can’t afford to waste my time here on a non-medicine-related subject. I owe it to others. To Mum and Dad.

  ‘Events might be a little manipulated in the film,’ Louis said. ‘Curated.’

  ‘OK… How do you mean?’

  ‘I’ve always felt Jean Rouch’s “docufiction” is the best way to get to the truth. Perhaps we can ask Clio to be involved. Arrange for you to bump into her for a coffee.’

  I blushed again, glancing over at Clio, who was deep in conversation with another woman. I wish I didn’t blush so easily – an overactive sympathetic nervous system, I guess. Just like Dad, who could blush for Britain. My ears started to burn too.

  ‘That’s not really part of my normal day,’ I said. ‘Or hers.’ Much as I’d like it to be.

  ‘I quite understand if you don’t want to participate.’ He drained his vodka as if in readiness to leave.

  ‘No, it sounds intriguing,’ I said, trying to forget what the red-haired student had said about Louis and his films. Anything to keep in touch with Clio now that the play was finished.

  ‘She’s more interested in you than you think,’ he added.

  I stared at him. ‘Really?’ I despised the eagerness in my voice, but it was impossible to hide. Clio interested in me?

  ‘She’s never met anyone like you before,’ Louis said. ‘She’s curious.’

  The feeling was mutual.

  ‘Despite – or maybe because of – her extrovert nature, she’s drawn to quiet people.’

  I was her man then. I could do quiet all day.

  ‘I’ll drop by,’ he said. ‘You’re at St Thomas’s, right?’

  ‘Yes,’ I replied.

  Most people just call it Tom’s, but Louis seems very proper, possibly even a pedant, keen to get the little things right. Apparently he did his undergraduate degree in Classics at Oxford. And then I realised that I hadn’t told him which college I was at. Which struck me as odd, but maybe he’d read the play’s programme, which included a small biography about each of us. Or perhaps Clio had told him.

  I looked over to where she’d been at the bar, but she was gone. Louis left a moment later. The place was still jumping, but I didn’t want to stay late. Too much work to catch up on. And then, as I was about to leave, I saw the student again, the one who had warned me about Louis. He was over by the door, on his way out. I drained my pint and set off in pursuit.

  ‘Hey,’ I said, outside on the street.

  He was twenty yards away, walking quickly. He turned to look back at me and carried on, almost breaking into a run, head down. I glanced up and down the empty road and jogged after him.

  ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘I just want to ask you about what you said back there. About Louis.’

  ‘I can’t say anything else,’ he said, hurrying ahead of me. ‘I shouldn’t have talked to you. Please, leave me alone.’

  ‘Why did you call him evil?’

  He stopped and turned to face me. ‘You should know,’ he said. ‘You of all people.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘After tonight. The play. The pact Faustus made with Lucifer. Stay away from Louis. And stay away from me. If he sees me talking to you, he’ll…’

  ‘He’ll what?’ I was shocked by the fear in his eyes.

  ‘I’ve got to go. Please, never speak to me again. You promise?’

  I watched him run off into the Cambridge night.

  ‘OK,’ I said sarcastically to myself. ‘I promise.’

  8

  ‘She was nice,’ Tania says, when Adam returns from the station. ‘I can’t believe you’ve never mentioned her before.’

  Tania is wiping down the kitchen surfaces, Tilly hooked over one hip. She’s awake and not crying, which is a bonus. Freddie is pushing a toy car across the floor at her feet. He’s obsessed with cars. And Tania seems animated, which could go either way.

  ‘Daddy!’ Freddie says, driving the car up his trouser leg.

  ‘Hello, you.’ Adam picks him up. Freddie continues to steer the car over his head and down the other side of his arm.

  ‘Hey, that tickles!’ Adam says, and starts to tickle Freddie back until he’s laughing uncontrollably.

  ‘He’ll wet himself if you’re not careful,’ Tania says, as Freddie begs Adam to stop.

  Freddie escapes and runs off to another room, driving his car across the walls, leaving tyre marks. It was a mistake to have had the house painted, but Tania insisted. New baby, new coat of paint. Thank God they didn’t have twins – the walls would still be wet with the second coat.

  ‘I thought I’d mentioned her,’ Adam says. He’s only stayed in touch with a handful of people he met at Cambridge. Medics mostly. And Ji Ma, of course. Godfather to Tilly. A computer science student from China, Ji became a close if unlikely friend at Cambridge, almost persuading him of the joys of videogames. Almost.

  Tania shakes her head. ‘Did you go out together?’ she asks.

  ‘Not exactly,’ he says, wrong-footed by her directness. He shouldn’t be. Tania has always been straight-talking, never one to tiptoe around issues.

  ‘But you wished you had,’ she says. ‘I mean, which man wouldn’t?’

  Adam feels uncomfortable talking about his past relationships, unlike Tania, who is happy to chat about her previous partners – she had had one long-term relationship before she met Adam. He’s never gone into much detail about his own modest love-life. The art student who worked Saturdays at the Tate in St Ives and used to let him in after hours to wander the empty galleries together; an older barmaid at the Swordy in Newlyn, who followed him down to the cellar one day and kissed him as he was changing barrels.