House of Windows (16 page)

When Michael let himself into the house, Tim was sitting at the kitchen table, head propped on his hand, sipping his way through his third cup of coffee since lunch.

‘You look done in,’ Michael said, dropping his briefcase in the corner, then helping himself from the cafetiere. ‘I’m sorry about last night, Tim. I appreciate you holding the fort. Where’s Nick?’

‘Upstairs. Shall I call him?’

‘Think I’ll have my coffee first, then I’ll go find him.’

Tim settled back, shuffling his papers awkwardly, as Michael heaved a long-suffering sigh.

‘I’m going to have to tell him the Boat Club’s out, aren’t I? I mean, there’s no way he can avoid getting caught up in this type of thing otherwise. I wish it weren’t the case but …
You’re still a student, Tim. You know how these things work. It’s for the best, right?’

Tim shrugged. ‘I suppose if he promised not to drink again—’

‘It’s never going to work, though, is it?’

‘I honestly don’t know, but … Look, I’m really sorry if you were expecting me to keep a better eye on Nick. Maybe we should spell out some ground rules, if there’s something you’re expecting me to do. Like if there’s a curfew or something Nick should be keeping. I mean, I can’t be responsible for knowing where he is
all
the time, but maybe he should call the house if he’s not back before ten or something.’

Michael nodded. ‘That sounds like a very sensible idea. I don’t mind if he wants to be out late for a film or something, but you’re right: he should let us know where he is.’ He rubbed at his temples. ‘Nick’s just always been so
responsible
. He didn’t have anyone to hang out with at school, so he was always home when I got there. I never really had to worry about him getting into trouble.’

‘Of course. I didn’t mean …’ Tim blew out a sigh, reaching back to rub at his neck. ‘I don’t want to be here on false pretences: I know it’s my role to deal with emergencies, but I’m not sure if I’m comfortable being a pseudo-parent, having day-to-day responsibility for someone—’

‘Of course not, Tim,’ Michael said, waving further protest away. ‘It’s not what we said at all: not what I’m expecting. We won’t put you in that position again, though I really
appreciate you bailing us out – no pun intended.’ He shook his head, yawned, took a sip of coffee.

Tim ran a hand through his hair. ‘So, um … just to be super clear so I don’t let down my end of the bargain,
is
there anything else you want me to help with?’

‘Like hanging, drawing and quartering, you mean?’ Nick asked from the doorway.

Tim saw resignation flash across Michael’s face.

‘Could we skip the talk if I promise I won’t get drunk again?’ Nick asked hopefully. ‘It wasn’t all that much fun – and certainly not worth the trouble afterwards.’

‘The trouble’s mostly been Tim’s,’ Michael said tartly.

Tim winced. ‘Let me know what you guys agree and I’ll see we keep to the rules,’ he told Michael, grabbing his papers and hurrying out of the room without looking back, even though Nick was clearly trying to catch his eye.

Nick sighed as he sank into Tim’s chair.

‘We’re going to have a new system, Nick. If you’re not going to be back by ten o’clock, I want you to call the house and leave a message or text Tim. And if you’re going to be later than you say, you’ve got to let him know.’

‘Oh, Tim’s going to
love
that.’

‘It was Tim’s idea.’

Nick scowled. ‘I doubt he thought it through. He’s made it perfectly clear he’s not interested in being my keeper.’

Michael cleared his throat, sipped from his coffee mug. ‘So, the other thing I wanted to talk about … You’re not going to like this, Nick, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to
quit the Boat Club.’ He waited a moment, but Nick didn’t say anything. ‘I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but there’s just no way you’ll be able to avoid further trouble. It wouldn’t be responsible of me to let you continue putting yourself in that position. I mean, if you want to stick with the rowing, I suppose we could talk about that, but I really don’t want you involved with the rest of it.’

Nick closed his eyes, absently tracing patterns on the table. ‘OK,’ he said softly.

Michael frowned in surprise. ‘Nick, I don’t want you telling me one thing—’

‘I said “OK”!’ Nick snapped, then sighed. ‘I’ll quit. I won’t cox any more and then it’s not an issue. It wasn’t as if I really liked the actual rowing. The whole point was the social stuff so if I can’t do that … Not that I enjoyed it all that much anyway – they’re not really my sort of people – but at least I tried.’
Only it was just a different sort of loneliness. Maybe that’s all there is.
He whispered it to the table, his lips barely forming the words, as his father turned aside to check his phone.

‘Why don’t you think about what other clubs or societies you could join?’ Michael said, sliding his phone back into his pocket. ‘There must be something where the social elements don’t revolve around alcohol.’

‘What, like CICCU?’

‘Kick
who
?’

‘It stands for … actually, I don’t know exactly what it stands for – Cambridge something something Christian
Union. But who did
you
know at Cambridge outside the God Squad who didn’t drink? I tried all the book clubs and they were a wash-out. I’m short and small and not terribly co-ordinated. Exactly what else am I going to be any good at?’

‘How about … how about pool?’

‘I don’t play pool. And even if I did, most people play pool in bars and pubs, Dad. And before you ask, yes, I tried the film club too, but everyone basically just sat around after the showing and drank. No one really wanted to discuss the film.’

‘I enjoyed fishing as a boy.’

Nick gave him a flat stare. ‘I’d rather have the whole College laugh at me for trying out for the rugby team.’

‘Well, there’s nothing wrong with trying, Nick.’

‘Except I hate rugby. I’ve
always
hated rugby.’

‘There’s no need to be belligerent. Though it makes me wonder if I should ground you for a few weeks, seeing as how you
did
land yourself in the police station.’

‘Like I’ve got anywhere better to be any more,’ hissed Nick.

‘Oh for heaven’s sake, Nick,’ Michael said, getting up to make a fresh pot of coffee. ‘I’m only trying to help. I’ve got a meeting in a few hours, but I’ve come home to have a chat, so let’s not waste the time arguing.’ Michael turned only to find the room empty.

The light spilling through the windows splashed across the side of Professor Gosswin’s face, making her eyes look backlit and feral.

‘I gather that Mr Brethan was helpful to you after the unfortunate incident with the “boaties”.’ She said the word as if it were somehow uncouth.

‘Yeah.’ Nick shifted in his chair. ‘He was pretty cross but he still made me drink all this water before I went to bed so I wouldn’t feel too hungover in the morning.’

When he looked up, Professor Gosswin was smiling: a strange, slightly melancholy twist of the lips.

‘You look positively mellow right now.’

Professor Gosswin lifted her lip in a sneer. ‘I look “mellow”, do I, Mr Derran?’

‘Not so much now.’

‘It is a pity about the rowing but the thing about good ideas is that they often fail to take account of how complex and unpredictable the real world is. Some refinement is clearly needed. Have you thought, perhaps, of offering your services as secretary to a sporting club? Those who run around perspiring and becoming malodorous, not to mention unclean, need someone to be focused on loftier matters.’

‘I get enough maths in class,’ Nick grumbled. ‘And I doubt they’d want to put their accounts in the hands of a fifteen-year-old. It never helps that I look my age.’

Professor Gosswin sighed, suddenly looking tired. ‘I don’t suppose it does.’ She rubbed at her eyes.

‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but people …’ He shrugged, turned away to pick at a catch in his thumbnail. ‘They just don’t seem to want things from me. Some people, everyone wants to be friends with them: wants to talk to them, get to know them, be close to them. And other people … I do all the right things – at least I try to – but I just feel so … humiliated.’ He hunched his shoulders, crossing his arms over his chest. ‘It’s all so hard and nothing ever comes of it and I don’t know
why
, unless there’s just something wrong with me. At least I know how to be clever. If I can’t be anything else, that’s still good, right?’

‘Your worth does not lie only in your academic ability. You surely see that.’ She raised her hands, massaged the sharp angle of bone beside her eyes. ‘It is always better to accomplish something than nothing, but coming of age is about more than learning who you are inside: it’s as much
about who you are in relation to others – and who you want to be.’ She sighed softly, looking away to the light spilling through the window. ‘No matter how hard we try, no one ever sees inside us. It’s who we are on the outside that leaves a mark on the world and so, in a way, all we
ever
are is the person we show to the world.’ Suddenly she smiled, her voice losing the odd wistful note. ‘That being the case, we should all strive to put on a great show.’

‘But if you’re just pretending—’

‘Not pretending, Mr Derran: realising that who you are on the outside may as well be different from who you are on the inside since no one will ever know the difference. We all have a difficult relationship with ourselves. But we can have better relationships with those around us if we choose to act as the person we want to be. And sometimes, over time, who we are on the inside comes to match. Those who suggest it is the other way around don’t understand the way humans work.’

‘And where does the waxing philosophical come in?’ He expected Professor Gosswin to snap at him, but instead she just sighed, shifted stiffly in her chair.

‘Impossible boy,’ she said, but almost fondly. ‘You still think you’re here to learn mathematics.’

‘And chess. Shall I bring the board over or do you want coffee before you trounce me?’

‘You’re not listening. Like so many people, you think that the important moments in the story of a life are big and loud, where really they’re small and quiet. Someone on the outside
would think these moments unworthy of note, but you must recognise the important moments of your own life when they happen, Nicholas. It is very important.’

She sighed again, rubbing at her right temple. ‘Now fetch me a coffee and perhaps a paracetamol.’

For once, supervision went smoothly. It was his turn to work the problems through with Dr Davis and today Susie and Frank seemed content to sit back and watch. It was almost friendly. Until the end of the supervision, when Frank and Susie rushed off in different directions without even saying goodbye.

It is sad and pathetic that your major goal for term is to get invited to someone’s room for tea
, Nick was telling himself when he realised that Brent had just stepped out of the p’lodge ahead of him. He dithered instead of turning back into the passage to North Court and then it was too late.

‘Oh, look, it’s our favourite dropout,’ said Brent.

‘I said I’m sorry. My dad—’

‘Say no more,’ said Brent. ‘Daddy’s little boy always does as he’s told, right?’

‘Because I had
such
good reason to keep hanging out with
you lot, you mean, seeing as how you all came with me to the police station to make sure I was OK.’

‘Poor baby,’ cooed Brent. ‘Were oo scared?’

‘And it was kind of you to call the next morning to check how I was doing. You’re such a mate.’

‘Why would I call you when you’d already emailed to throw in the towel?’

‘That’s right,’ Nick said, snapping his fingers. ‘I only waited one entire day before emailing. Didn’t give you, oh, twenty-four entire hours to get there first.’

‘Diddums. So how’s it going being Mr No-Mates again?’ sneered Brent.

Nick felt his face flush. ‘Who says I am? Sorry to disappoint, but you’re not that important even in
my
life.’ He turned away, leaving Brent to shout after him as he hurried through the doors between the buttery and the dining hall, then out the other side by Latham Lawn.

He was still distracted when he let himself in through the heavy door at the bottom of Gosswin’s staircase, nearly catching his fingers as it slammed shut at his back. He plodded upstairs, dumping his bag in the open kitchen door and flicking on the kettle before letting himself into the study.

‘I know you said I was here to learn more than chess, but could we pretend that’s why I’m here today, not hiding out from Brent and the crew?’ He stopped, realising that Professor Gosswin hadn’t turned from her chair by the window. ‘Are you asleep?’ He crept forward a step, another.

He winced when the floorboards under the Turkish
carpet moaned a thin, tortured sound. Then he realised how loudly the Professor was snoring – great ugly wheezes and snuffles – and grinned, stepping forward more confidently and bending to peer round into her face to see if her mouth was open, debating whether he could bring himself to take a photo on his phone if she were drooling.

And then the air disappeared from the room.

One of the Professor’s eyes was mostly open. The other seemed to have slipped down in her face, leaking fluid on to her sagging cheek as if it had been punctured. Her lips were parted, mouth all twisted to the side, and the snoring wasn’t snoring but …

He knelt in front of her. Put his face in the line of the open eye, but there was no sign of recognition, no contraction in the pupil as he blocked the light. He slid his hand on to hers on the arm of the chair.

‘Professor?’

Her fingers trembled and twitched under his. He drew back.

Found he was standing.

Found himself at the door.

On the stairs, then by the dining hall.

Suddenly pushing through the door into the p’lodge.

The porter at the desk was signing someone into a ledger. Nick watched the ballet of his hands as he tucked the pen away, rolled the pages of the ledger closed, slipped it away under the desk.

‘Everything OK, Nick?’ the porter asked, frowning at him.

‘I think Professor Gosswin’s had a stroke,’ someone said with his voice.

The porter’s frown deepened. ‘What? You mean you’ve just seen her … Hold tight.’ He ducked his head into the back room and Nick heard him order someone to call an ambulance. ‘Right. Let’s go and see,’ the porter said, lifting the flap at the end of the counter and stepping through.

Nick felt his eyes close, found his sight blurred when he opened them, though his cheeks felt hot and dry. He looked up, expecting the porter to be angry and impatient, but he was just smiling the same kind smile. ‘There, lad. We’ll make sure she’s comfortable till the experts get here to see what exactly’s the matter.’

Nick had to put his fist to his mouth to stop the funny sound in his throat from coming out. He let the porter turn him to the door and then there they were, in Front Court again.

By the dining hall again.

At the bottom of Professor Gosswin’s stairs again.

‘I should have run,’ Nick heard himself say. ‘Why didn’t I run to get help? Why … What if … What if … Why didn’t I run?’

The sight of his thesis notes spread across the table brought a thrill of horror: one part can’t-do-this-it’s-too-hard, one part too-tired-for-this, and one part TV-is-more-fun.

Come on, brain. Think.
Tim knocked his fist against his forehead.
Think thoughts. Clever thoughts.

He put his fingers to his laptop keyboard. He took his fingers away. He made himself a fresh cup of tea. Then fetched a biscuit. The kitchen clock read 15.02. He’d been sitting at the table for a full hour.

He reorganised his notes. 15.29.

He put his fingers to his laptop keyboard and took them away, then cursed loudly and foully and finally wrote a sentence. He deleted the sentence. He wrote a new one and tapped the space bar to start a second. His mobile rang.

‘Yes?’ he snapped.

‘Tim?’ Nick’s voice was only just recognisable.

‘What’s wrong? Are you OK?’

‘Professor Gosswin.’ Nick took a wavering breath. ‘I went over for tea. After my supervision. She … she was just sitting there. Her face was …’ Nick throttled a sound suspiciously like a sob. ‘They’re saying she had a stroke. They let me come in the ambulance.’

Tim closed his eyes. ‘Are you at Addenbrooke’s?’

‘Yes. The porters know and they said they’ll take care of things but … I don’t know who to call now. I don’t know.’

‘I’m sure the porters are handling it, Nick. They’ll have all her emergency contact details. Just hold tight, OK? I’ll be there soon.’

‘You don’t have to come. I just … I need to know what to do. My dad’s in a meeting and—’

‘Why don’t you call Bill while I’m on my way? I bet he’d want to know too.’

Silence on the other end of the line.

‘I think that’s a good idea, Nick. Give Bill a ring and I’ll see you soon, OK?’

Tim was halfway to the hospital before a near miss as he cut through a red light made him realise he’d forgotten both his helmet and his bike lights. Padlocking the bike to the first railing he found in the parking lot, he called the p’lodge as he jogged inside, following the signs for A & E as the porters filled him in.

It took him a minute to spot Nick sitting absolutely still in a corner of the waiting room, eyes locked blankly on a plastic potted plant that looked as if it had somehow managed to die despite never having lived. He looked small and thin and scared, his face all sharp angles and shadows.

‘Nick.’

The boy started, looked up then away. ‘Hi.’

Tim exchanged tight-lipped smiles with the weary woman who’d been sitting next to Nick as she moved to the opposite chair to make way for him. He sank slowly on to the wheezing foam, risked putting a hand on Nick’s shoulder. ‘The porters are on to Gosswin’s lawyer: she’ll be here later. They said her niece is too far away to come until the weekend, but she’ll take care of discussions with the doctors by phone. You don’t have to worry. It’s all being handled.’

Nick nodded mutely, staring at the ground. He didn’t
pull away from Tim’s touch, though Tim could feel him struggling to suppress the hitch in his breathing.

‘How about we get a cup of
really
grotty coffee?’

Nick shook his head, sighed, shrugged. Tim crossed to the vending machine, returning with two polystyrene cups steaming dispiritedly, as if it were too much to bother.

‘Here.’ Tim pressed one of the cups into Nick’s hand. ‘Drink.’ Setting his own cup down on the floor, he fished in his pocket and pulled out a chocolate bar, breaking off half and offering it to Nick, who had cupped his hands around the coffee, staring into its grey depths as if hypnotised. ‘Eat it, Nick.’

He stared blankly at the chocolate, then shook his head even as he took it and raised it to his mouth.

Tim watched his hand drop. ‘Nick.’

He shuddered but took a bite, grimacing as he chewed, then swallowed convulsively as if he’d been fed sand. Tim sighed, guiding the coffee cup to Nick’s mouth, relieved when he rallied enough to shake him off with a look of faint irritation.

‘Yuck,’ Nick reported, wrinkling his nose.

‘I think the idea is that since you’re already in hospital it doesn’t matter if the coffee poisons you.’

Nick made a somewhat pathetic attempt at a smile. ‘Thanks for coming,’ he whispered, as if he’d lost the ability to speak normally.

‘Gosswin’s been very kind to me. And hospitals aren’t good places to be alone.’

‘Like when your parents died?’

Tim took a sip of his own coffee, gave himself a moment to choose his words. ‘My sister was there. She’s older. Took care of things.’

Nick nodded, fixing his eyes on Tim’s for the first time since he’d arrived, but he didn’t venture anything further. Grateful not to be pressed, Tim chanced putting his arm about Nick’s shoulders, not surprised when he simply sat stiffly, neither leaning into comfort nor pushing him away.

‘Her face was all purple,’ Nick said suddenly, and Tim could see the liquid in his coffee cup rippling. ‘She was sitting in her chair, facing the window, and her face was all purple. One of her eyes was sort of open. I thought … I thought she’d died but there was this horrible
horrible
rattling sound and I realised … Her face was all … melted. Melted.’ Tim felt the bones in Nick’s back sharpen through his jumper as he went rigid, as if holding his breath. When he raised his head, his face was dry, though there was a feverish flush of colour highlighting each cheekbone.

When Professor Gosswin’s lawyer turned up, she waved aside Tim and Nick’s explanations with a simple, ‘Yes, I know who you both are.’ Then she disappeared to talk to the doctors. Afterwards, she sent them off with little information but a promise to call ‘when things become clearer’.

Nick let Tim lead him to a taxi. On the way home, Nick called Bill and then his father, leaving a second message on each phone in a hard flat voice. When the taxi pulled up at the house, he followed Tim silently up the front path and
inside, slumping bonelessly into a chair as Tim set about heating tinned tomato soup.

The sound of a key in the front door brought Nick’s head up.

Tim had to turn away from the look of mingled despair and relief on Nick’s face as Bill appeared in the kitchen doorway.