House of Windows (17 page)

Nick was startled when Susie fell into step beside him after supervision as if it were something they did every week.

‘I don’t know why I don’t get it. I used to get it. I used to get everything.’ She adjusted her bag higher on her shoulder. ‘I really don’t like not being the smartest any more. I want a Cambridge degree but maybe I’d be happier as a big fish in a smaller pond.’ She sighed. ‘Or maybe I just need to figure out how to fit in more work and less having fun. I know I’m not working hard enough but I just can’t seem to …’ Another sigh. ‘I don’t know what happened. I know you’re meant to “find” yourself at uni, but I didn’t realise that meant losing yourself first. I don’t seem to know who I am any more. One minute I’m one me and the next minute I’m someone else. I’m not even sure if I know who I
want
to be. Well, I know the bits I want but not how they fit together into an actual
whole person. You know what I mean?’ She spun suddenly to stand in his path so that he had to step backwards not to walk into her.

‘Um?’ Nick offered.

Susie rolled her eyes and set off again. ‘Just you wait. You’ve got all of this to look forward to.’

‘Did you ever meet Professor Gosswin?’ Nick asked.

‘The Dragon Lady? Didn’t she have a stroke?’

‘Yeah,’ Nick said, turning his head as if following the flight of the seagull gliding from one side of North Court to the other. ‘I would
love
to see you call her that to her face.’ It came out cracked and awkward. ‘I mean, she’d take it as a compliment. She’d love that people think she’s practically mythical.’

‘What does the Dragon Lady, mythical or otherwise, have to do with my existential crisis?’

‘She’s basically an arch villain whose superpowers are snark and disdain, but it’s just her being herself to the
n
th power. Like she’s more herself than people usually are.’

‘Wish I knew that trick.’

‘Sometimes you do.’

Susie gave him a wan smile. ‘It’s nice of you to say but …’ She ran a hand over her face. ‘When I got here I decided I wanted to see if I could be a different person. No one at College saw me spotty and fat at school. They don’t know about the time I cried in the loos when Miles Franklyn dumped me in the middle of the Winter Dance. So I thought to myself, what’s to stop me being someone who really believes
she’s sexy … like a Cambridge version of Rizzo. I keep trying it out and it feels nice: like maybe I do have that in me … but not consistently. Like I can’t hold on to it. And when I
do
, I seem to stop being all the other things I like about myself.’ She scraped her hair back. ‘Anyway, enough of that. Thanks for the figurative shoulder and all. See you tomorrow.’

She was gone before he had a chance to say anything, even goodbye.

Girls are really, really weird
, he muttered as he set off for the p’lodge, trying not to let his thoughts drift to the fact that this time last week he’d been sitting down at Professor Gosswin’s chessboard.

He detoured by his pigeonhole, found a leaflet in it advertising the ‘TitHall June Event’.

‘What’s the June Event?’ he asked the porter on duty.

‘Think a normal bop – you know, Viva night – on steroids. Only with live music and a bit of food. It’s ticketed for alcohol so you’d have to ask the Senior Tutor about whether it would be OK to come if you had a parent with you.’

‘Yeah, it’s going to be loads of fun with my dad there.’

The porter gave him a sympathetic grimace, looking all too glad at the excuse to turn away when a delivery man slid a large box on to the counter.

As if Dad would come with me even if I wanted him to.

Of course that thought led on to one about whether Professor Gosswin could talk to the Senior Tutor for him …
Only she can’t talk to anyone, you idiot
, he muttered at himself.

The lights were off at home when he let himself in, but
there was a rustling of papers from the kitchen and he found himself smiling as he dropped his bag by the sofa. ‘Do you want a coffee?’ he asked Tim as he flicked on the kettle.

‘No thanks.’ Tim didn’t even look up from the papers covering every inch of the table.

‘Biscuit?’

‘No.’

Nick took his mug and retreated to the window seat in the living room, trying to settle with his latest assignment, but the house was too quiet and he found himself wandering back to the kitchen for a glass of water he didn’t want.

Tim glanced up with a glare, then shifted pointedly and turned his attention back to his papers. Nick loitered in the doorway, taking in the circles under Tim’s eyes, the angry stabbing gestures as he moved the pen from one page to the next.

With a sigh, Nick returned to the window seat. The sun was storm-yellow on the pavement, the trees dipping in the wind. A hail of prunus flowers swept the pane then crumpled to the sill like a pile of dead butterflies, all squandered beauty fading to brown.

He picked up Professor Gosswin’s book, but had only just parted the pages when he closed it again, pressed it to his chest, hand splayed protectively against the back cover.

Half an hour later, he’d still made no progress on his work. He tossed his notepad aside, padding into the kitchen. ‘Do you want to order a pizza tonight? Watch a film?’ he asked as he fished in the snack cupboard for crisps.

‘What?’ Tim looked up blankly, his eyes dazed. ‘No … maybe … Look, ask me again in an hour, OK?’

Nick sighed and set about making a fresh cup of tea. Tim started when Nick put a steaming cup down by his elbow. ‘You look like you need something. Are you sure you don’t want a biscuit?’

‘No. Thanks for the tea—’

‘But please get lost now?’

Tim threw down his pen, running his hands through his hair. ‘Just give me an hour, all right? It’d be much better if you didn’t try to talk to me until then. Look, I’ll go upstairs. Get out of your way.’ He started to gather up his papers.

‘You don’t have to do that, Tim. I just … Are you OK?’ Nick stepped closer to the table, frowning down at the papers. ‘Those are bank statements, not your PhD.’

‘And you say you’re not a genius,’ sneered Tim, then shook his head, rubbing the heel of his hand against his forehead.

‘Can’t I help?’

Tim sighed, slumping back into his chair. ‘Thanks, Nick. And thanks for the tea, but seriously. Give me an hour and I’ll be good as new. It’s not your problem.’

‘And I’m not yours, but you’d still help me if you could,’ Nick said.

Tim flinched as if stung, giving Nick a chance to pick up one of the pages. Tim gritted his teeth over the first words to come to mind, snatching the paper back.

‘Look, Tim, money problems are fixable. I can—’

‘No. Just … no. I’m not going to take money off you, Nick.’

‘Why not? If it’s fixable, why not fix it? “Change the things you can”, like my postcard says. We both know you’ll pay me back.’

‘And in the meantime your dad would be
so
impressed—’

‘It’d be none of his business. I wasn’t planning on asking
him
to lend you the money. You’re not after a fortune or anything, are you?’

Tim sighed, pressing his knuckles into his eyes.

‘Come on. I don’t believe you’ve been betting on the horses and I haven’t noticed any brand-new Porsches in front of the house—’

‘My sister’s getting married.’

‘Yeah, you said the other day.’

‘In America. In eff-gee-and-aitch-ing Sedona, Arizona. Which seems to be the most expensive place to get to on the planet, and the hotel …’

‘How much could it possibly be?’

‘Enough,’ growled Tim. ‘Enough if you don’t have it. I’ve been saving for a
year
and even without rent I’m going to have to get a maximum overdraft on all my accounts.’ He sighed, throwing his pen against the wall and locking his hands behind his head as he turned away. ‘I know you’re trying to help and I appreciate the thought, Nick, but an audience for my tantrum is not going to improve my mood.’

Nick ignored him, sifting through the papers to pick up Tim’s notepad. ‘This isn’t a lot. No, listen, Tim,’ he said,
stepping back and raising the pad behind him when Tim moved to grab it. ‘I’ve got an account for birthday money that I
never
use. I can lend you what you need. Actually I can lend you more, then you don’t need to have overdraft fees.’

‘Nick, please—’

‘Why
not
, Tim? Really, why not? Because you’re embarrassed to borrow off me? Because you’re too proud?’

‘I thought I had it under control. I was working up to ask—’ Tim cut himself off.

‘You were going to ask Professor Gosswin,’ Nick said. ‘You were working up to ask her for a loan.’

Tim clenched his jaw, the muscles working in his cheek.

‘Well, then you can ask me. Or rather you don’t even have to ask. I don’t need the money right now and you do.’

‘I know you think this is a good idea—’

‘It’s a
brilliant
idea. There’s absolutely
nothing
wrong with it apart from your attitude.’ Nick’s face was flushed with frustration. ‘I know we’re not close or anything, but I thought we were sort of friends at least. You came to pick me up from the police station.’

Tim blew out a breath. ‘That’s different, Nick.’

The flush vanished from Nick’s face and his lips thinned. ‘Your deal with Dad is to be around and help with emergencies. But you didn’t have to be nice to me.’

‘I was nice, was I?’

‘Well, for two in the morning, you were. And you didn’t have to come to the hospital when Professor Gosswin … I know you did it more for her than me, but you still didn’t
have to. I’m not going to hold the money over you, so just get over yourself, OK? Your angst is not that special.’

And Tim laughed.

‘I’ll interpret that as a “Yes, Nick. Thank you
so
much, Nick. You’re a star among housemates, Nick,” even though your expression says “Let’s not get carried away.” Just leave me a note with the amount you need in order not to be in hock to anyone, and your bank details, and we don’t ever have to talk about it again.’

‘I won’t be able to pay you back for—’

‘You’ve got until I graduate or you move out. That long enough?’

The area of Cambridge around Addenbrooke’s was nothing like the University: ordinary, unenchanted. There were lots of old trees, and different textures of hedge, but the houses were unexceptional: faux-stucco plasterwork and flat-roofed one-car garages. It was less than two miles from home, but the taxi journey seemed to take an hour, stop-start stop-start all the way up Hills Road.

Nick let Tim lead the way through the hospital corridors, Michael following behind, eyes on his phone, reinforcing the message that he’d ‘need to go soon: can’t take the day off on the spur of the moment.’

The nurses of the High Dependency Unit were expecting them, just as Gosswin’s lawyer had promised they would be
when she’d called to let them know they could visit now. The duty nurse watched them carefully as they took it in turns to cleanse their hands with the stinging gel from the alcohol-rub dispenser, then led them down the ward to the far corner.

‘We don’t usually have more than two people round a bed at once in HDU, but we’ll make an exception,’ the nurse said, pulling the curtain closed between Gosswin’s bed and the next patient. ‘Just remember to use the hand sanitiser again when you leave.’

In the week since the stroke, Professor Gosswin’s face had somehow become both swollen and lax: wrinkled, grey and unimpressive.

‘She looks like a normal person,’ Tim said. ‘I feel like she’s going to rear up from the bed like something out of a horror film and try to bite my nose off for even
thinking
that.’

Nick didn’t say anything, just slid his hand into the curl of the Professor’s limp fingers.

The figure in the bed shifted, grunted, opened one watery blue eye. The other stayed at half-mast, the lashes fluttering.

‘It’s Nick, Professor. Nick and Tim and Michael.’

The Professor slurred a hoarse, unrecognisable word, her other hand lifting up from the bed before settling back on to the covers.

Nick pressed the back of the hand he was holding. ‘I know you must be so bored right now, but they’re moving you to a recovery home soon and I’ll bring your chess set once you’re settled there.’

One side of Professor Gosswin’s face lifted up into a
leering smile. Tim took a step towards the door, but Nick just smiled back at her.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘But you’ll have to wait to insult us, I’m afraid. It’ll be good motivation, stocking up all the shouting for later on.’

When Professor Gosswin’s eyes slid shut and stayed shut, Nick sighed, placing her hand gently back on the bed. ‘I don’t suppose she’d want us to stick around and watch her sleep,’ he said quietly.

There was a taxi waiting outside the hospital when they left. Michael started to shift about awkwardly, checking his phone, his watch, his phone again, the moment they climbed in.

‘Shall we drop you at the station, Dad?’ Nick asked.

‘Would you mind? It was good to see her, pay my respects after all she’s done for us, but, well, life goes on, right?’ He raised his hands helplessly.