[...] Hilary couldn’t believe that they sounded just like girls at school, scurrying in the rat-run of learning and testing, trying to outdo one another in protestations of how little work they’d done. Not once did any of them actually speak seriously about their subjects. Hilary now felt so deeply disappointed in university life that on the spot she made up her mind to dedicate herself to something different and nobler, although she wasn’t clear what. Neil and Julian were concentrating upon sticking a brown lump of something on a pin and roasting it with a match. From her indifferent distance she supposed this must be drugs, but she wasn’t frightened of that now.

Above the city buildings the sky was blue and pale with light, drawn across by thin skeins of transparent cloud.