House of Windows (18 page)

When they got home, Nick made tea while Tim got down the biscuit tin. They sat, staring into their mugs for an hour before Tim left for a meeting with his supervisor. When he had gone, Nick curled on to the window seat, zipped Professor Gosswin’s book into the front of his hoodie and fought his way through the week’s supervision problems, trying to ignore the odd way his heart seemed to be punching at his ribs rather than beating: the way his throat burned as if he’d drunk acid, making his vision swim with tears every time he swallowed.

It was a relief to escape the glaring lights of the Cockcroft Lecture Theatre. He cut past the ugly round frontage of the Mond building, the crocodile design on the right-hand side of the door its only redeeming feature. In Free School Lane, he stopped for a minute to look at the quaint little courtyard of St Bene’t’s, then turned away on to KP.

‘Hey, Nick! Nick Derran!’

Nick turned to find a stocky young man in a football uniform calling to him from the cobbled forecourt of King’s.

‘Sam Barton,’ the man said, jogging over. ‘From school.’

‘It’s only been a few months, Sam. You haven’t changed
that
much,’ Nick said. ‘Just wasn’t expecting to see you here. I thought you were at York.’

Sam shrugged. ‘I am. I’m here for a Varsity match. Look, I’ve been meaning to say something – apologise – if I ever saw you again.’

‘Why would you need to apologise? You were always perfectly nice. There was even that time when the lacrosse team—’

‘I’d forgotten about that,’ Sam said, making a face. ‘Not really my finest hour either. You tried to thank me and I said something charming like “Don’t think this makes us best friends or anything.”’

Nick toed awkwardly at a loose pebble. ‘You were better than the others.’

‘That’s not a rousing endorsement, you know. But fair,’ he added. ‘Anyway, the thing is, you said this thing to me once. And I realised later, much later, that I said something really stupid in reply.’

Nick frowned. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. It can’t have been a big deal, so don’t worry about it.’

‘It was the only time in forever you didn’t ask what the top mark was after a test. Everyone noticed and started pestering you about what you’d got, only you wouldn’t say.’

‘Well, everyone was always cross when I
did
ask: they said I was trying to make an excuse to tell everyone I came top, so I thought I’d just not say anything. But then everyone got shirked off about me being secretive. It’s not your fault I couldn’t win.’

Sam rolled his eyes. ‘Not what I was going to say. The point was that big row in the locker room before PE.’

‘When I gave in and told everyone what I’d got and they were even more furious ’cos they’d figured I was hiding the fact I’d done badly, only I wasn’t?’ He shifted his bag to sit more comfortably on his shoulder, letting his eyes drift to a couple pedalling up KP on a tandem bike. ‘So what?’

‘That was the day Pete Simms stamped on your arm in his football boots during PE.’

‘Oh. I remember
that
,’ Nick said, finally dragging his eyes away from the tandem as it wobbled out of sight. ‘You went up to the San with me. You waited for me afterwards. That was pretty nice of you actually.’

‘Do you remember what I said? About not being such a show-off?’

Nick shrugged. ‘Not really. I guess I was. I
am
. It’s my own fault I never listen.’

‘But you said this other thing. You said, “If everyone’s
going to hate me, then it might as well be for something good, like being clever.”’

‘It sounds like me.’

‘And I said,’ Sam pressed on as if he hadn’t been interrupted, ‘“They might not hate you for being clever if you didn’t shove it down their throats so much.” I should have listened.’

‘To what?’

‘To the fact that you thought people were going to hate you no matter what.’

Nick’s face went blank.

‘I don’t know why, but I just didn’t hear that bit of it. All I heard was the bit where you said you weren’t going to stop setting people off. Back then I didn’t get that you were doing it almost like an attack—’

‘I wasn’t—’

‘Of
course
you were, Nick. Maybe you still don’t see it, but sometimes you’re kind of aggressive about it. I know you think you’re just interested in how you’re doing for your own satisfaction, but it’s not that simple. Anyway, that’s not the important thing; if I’d had half a brain I’d have asked you
why
you thought everyone was going to hate you: why your only choice was to pick the how and why.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry for that, Nick. I should have known better. I should have understood enough not to ignore something like that.’

Nick blinked, swallowed tightly. He raised a shoulder in a shrug. ‘It’s …’ He cleared his throat. ‘That’s a while ago now. Just some stupid comment I made in the school corridor.’

‘Was it?’ Sam asked. ‘Maybe it could have been important if I’d been listening.’

Nick opened his mouth but nothing came out.

‘Look, I have to go but … good luck, OK? It’s great you’re here, in this place. If anyone should be, it’s you. I hope this is the start of something better.’

‘It is,’ Nick got out.

Sam smiled. ‘Good. I always figured you were one of those people who’d get happier and happier as you got older. Not like stupid Pete Simms. The best’s already
way
behind
him
.’

Nick laughed, though the sound was odd: thin and strained.

He watched Sam hurry off with a final wave over his shoulder.

Nick stopped under the high ogee arch of the Old Cavendish Laboratory to tug his hood up against the rain.

‘Hey, Nick, wait up!’ Frank skidded to a halt next to him, shaking his head to stop his hair dripping down his forehead. ‘A bunch of us are going down to Clowns, sort of an informal study group thing: wondered if you wanted to tag along. Full disclosure and all, I want to pick your brains about some of this probability stuff.’

‘You know this isn’t my best course, right? Or have you blanked out our last supervision entirely?’

Frank shrugged. ‘You can explain what three standard deviations above the norm means and beyond that I really don’t care. There’s a coffee in it for your pains.’ He held out a hand.

Nick gave him a sceptical look but shook it anyway.

The others were already shedding coats at one of the long tables when Nick and Frank squeezed through the coffee-shop doorway past the largest buggy in the world.

‘Bit cramped. You’re OK to sit on my lap, right, Susie?’ Frank said.

Susie pulled a disgusted face. ‘You couldn’t just decide that
not
being a pillock might at least get you a smile, whereas this whole schoolboy “If I pull your pigtails, you’re bound to fancy me back” routine is practically an invitation to defenestrate you.’

‘What if I offered to buy you one of those huge hazelnut white-chocolate things?’

Susie’s eyes brightened. ‘Oh Frank, you really know what a girl wants.’

He grinned, elbowing Nick in the side.

‘An offer to trade a grope for the price of a drink that’ll get her fat. Why would I drink that many calories when I could have a nice cup of tea
and
a huge chocolate brownie? Both of which I’ll be buying for myself, thanks,’ she said, pushing up from the table. ‘If I come back and find you in my seat pretending to be a cushion, Frank, your day’s going to go from bad to worse.’

‘Um … couldn’t go and get our drinks, could you?’ Frank whispered to Nick as Susie marched off. ‘Next one’s on me, promise, but I think I’d better give her a bit of space.’

‘Nick!’

Nick jumped as a small blue blur hurtled deftly between the tables and knocked him backwards into the wall.

‘Nick, Nick, Nick! You’re here! With peoplings! With human friendy peoplings!’

‘Hi, Ange.’

‘Why haven’t you come in before now to see me? I did say this was my coffee shop, right? Or Tim did? Didn’t you miss me? Of
course
you missed me. You’re a house full of boys. Do any of you ever hug? Of course not, useless things … Oh, you’re wearing your scarf.’ She patted it fondly.

‘Hell-o, pretty lady.’

Ange looked up to find Frank grinning at her over Nick’s shoulder. ‘Oh no. Oh
yuck
. He isn’t
yours
, is he, Nick?’ she asked.

‘Do I look like the type of bloke who fancies little boys?’ Frank asked, pouting. ‘No offence, mate,’ he added to Nick.

Ange surveyed Frank from head to foot. ‘You look like a Neanderthal. I don’t want to think about what you fancy. And it had better not be me,’ she added, brandishing a teaspoon in his face. ‘Don’t even think about it. You do not want to experience my experimentation with martial arts involving sugar tongs.’

Frank blinked at her. ‘Maybe I don’t,’ he conceded, pulling a face at Nick as he squeezed around to the far side of the table.

‘Really, Nick?’ Ange asked him, aggrieved.

Nick shrugged. ‘He’s the one who invited me here.’

Ange heaved a sigh. ‘Well, that’s a point in his favour, but hopefully next time one of the other ones can do the inviting and you can leave him at the farm with the other things that
go oink. Anyway, the rest look like an OK sort of crowd. Nerdy. Weird. Socially inept.’

‘It’s in the Cambridge admissions rules for Mathmos now, haven’t you heard? How come you ever got to like Tim, given he’s basically the opposite of all that?’

Ange beamed at him and swooped in for a hug that pinned his arms to his sides. ‘Tim Brethan is just as inept as anyone here, only he hides it better than most. He is a bother and a nuisance.’

‘And your best friend?’

‘Well, yes, and that, of course.’

‘Only that?’ Nick asked.

Ange rolled her eyes. ‘Tim Brethan is a wonderful and amazing best friend, but he is a
horrible
boyfriend. If I went out with him, he would end up hurting me in ways I couldn’t bring myself to forgive and then I would hurt him by dumping him and never speaking to him again, and where would that get us? You can’t go out with someone in the hope that they’ll become their best self, Nick. Remember that, won’t you?’ she said earnestly, tugging on his scarf. ‘You can hope, but you can’t count on it. You’ve got to pick people for who they are
already
. And, yes, people change, but you never know
how
they’ll change. If you don’t start by thinking a person, as he or she is, is good enough already then … Well, you’ll spend your life looking to be with someone who isn’t the person you’re with.’ Ange set about settling Nick’s scarf more comfortably about his neck. ‘I’ve already got everything I want from this version of Tim Brethan. And that’s what I
told him just before Christmas, when he asked me out mostly to get an invitation to Christmas dinner and only a little because he figured it was time we “gave it a go”.’

‘Oh,’ said Nick. ‘Wow. That was a really thorough answer to a question I thought you’d just ignore.’

‘Be careful what you ask then, huh? People sometimes tell you the truth.’

Nick grinned at her. ‘There aren’t other people like you, Ange. Most humans have boundaries instead of bounce.’

Ange wrinkled up her nose. ‘Did you really not want me to tell you? Was it a bit TMI?’

Nick shrugged. ‘It’s good to know why Tim was so cross and you were so sad. I mean, even I know it’s not really that easy to be so sensible about love.’

For a moment, all the happiness went out of her face. Then she shook herself, bounced once on the balls of her feet and smiled. ‘Well, now you know everything you could possibly need to, so just you sit there and make nice with all these other weird peoplings and I’ll go and bring you something yummy. And something less so for the caveman.’ With that she skipped away to start crashing about behind the counter.

Although there was no discussion of maths
per se
, there was a lot of gossip about various lecturers, professors and fellow students. Better still, the afternoon produced a general invitation to a film the following evening as they all started the long process of pulling back on their layers of jumpers, coats, scarves, hats and gloves.

‘Hey, Nick,’ Frank said, as they stepped out on to the
street, ‘you
will
be a mate and let me borrow your assignment notes tomorrow night, won’t you? I’m really in the sh— the weeds, I mean.’

‘You can swear, Frank. I’m not two.’

‘Oh, right. Well, you don’t mind, do you? I mean, it’s not like I’m going to copy stroke for stroke or anything. I just don’t know where to start and I could really use the chance to go through someone else’s workings: just to see how to do it, yeah?’

Nick shrugged.

Frank beamed, clapping him on the shoulder. ‘Knew we’d end up pals. See you tomorrow then!’

‘Are you sure you want to do that?’ someone whispered by Nick’s ear, making him jump.

‘I think he means well,’ he said as he turned to find Susie standing behind him.

‘Do you?’ she asked, raising an elegant eyebrow. ‘I’d have given you more credit. Nick, I’m not trying to be mean but … you
do
know Frank’s the sort to latch on for what he can get, right?’

‘So?’ Nick said diffidently. ‘Today’s the first time anyone outside the boat club invited me anywhere. If it costs me the loan of some homework, I don’t mind. It’s not like Dr Davis is going to think I’ve been copying from Frank. Besides, if Frank doesn’t figure it out for himself sooner or later it’ll come out in the exams. But then it’ll be no fault of mine and I’ll have had something of a social life in the meantime.’

Susie laughed, her expression lightening. ‘I didn’t have you pegged as the super-villain type. Good for you, Nick. Keep it up.’

Nick glared across the table as his father starting replying to the eleventh email since they’d sat down to lunch. Bill promptly developed a convenient fixation with the last of his beans. The silence grew loud with anger.

‘So,’ said Bill, ‘so I was wondering … There’s this village fete near me next Sunday. I thought you might fancy popping down for the day. There’re usually a few local authors who do readings, so you’d like that, Nick.’

Nick raised one shoulder in a shrug.

‘Sounds great,’ Michael said, not looking up.

Nick’s hands clenched into fists around his cutlery.

‘Come on, Mike. Just give us ten minutes without the phone,’ Bill said. ‘You know,’ he added, turning to Nick with a too broad, too bright smile, ‘I think your dad’s actually slightly
better
about focusing on the world around him than he used to be.’ He held up a hand as if Nick had protested instead of just stabbing a pea around his plate. ‘You wouldn’t credit the number of times he put his pen in his coffee instead of his pencil holder. And then there was the famous coffee-and-cornflakes incident … Didn’t even bat an eyelid. Just munched away, muttering over his notes.’

‘It was during Finals!’ said Michael, setting the
phone aside.

Bill rolled his eyes so hard he moved his whole head. Nick would have appreciated the effort if he hadn’t been so humiliated that it was necessary.

‘And you remember that time you tried to make roast chestnuts only you didn’t know to pierce them first and they exploded in the oven?’ Bill said, face flushing with laughter. ‘And you were
nothing
to Yvette …’

Nick saw the moment Bill realised his mistake. ‘I’m going to visit Mum next week. On her birthday. Whether you come or not,’ Nick said into the sudden quiet. ‘If you won’t take me, I’ll get a taxi—’

‘Bill’s just invited us down to this shindig of his. Why didn’t you say—’

‘I’ve been asking you for a
month
.’

Michael sighed, arranged his cutlery on his plate, then beside it again. ‘Nick, I’m not sure that visiting the graveyard— It’s not like she’s, well,
there
.’

‘I’m not a toddler, Dad. I just want … I want to pay my respects. Last year you kept saying maybe on her birthday, or maybe on Mother’s Day, but it never happened. I want to go. I want to know I’ve gone.’

Michael sighed. ‘Well, maybe we
will
go on Mother’s Day this time, like you suggested. Or we could visit Gosswin in Addenbrooke’s again. Wouldn’t that be better?’

‘I can visit Gosswin by myself, like I have the other four times I’ve gone, seeing as how she’s only two miles away. You don’t have to come to see Mum, but it’s the second
anniversary and I haven’t been since the funeral so I’m
going
.’

‘But Bill—’

‘It’s just a stupid local fair, Mike,’ Bill interrupted. ‘No big deal and there’s always next year.’

‘Why didn’t you just say something earlier, Nick?’

Nick slammed up from his chair and stormed out of the room.

As he started upstairs, he heard his father huff, ‘Lord save me from teenage strops … No, don’t start clearing up, Bill. Just leave it for now.’

Nick caught the sound of their chairs scratching away from the kitchen table, then footsteps moving closer, from the kitchen into the living room. He hovered at the top of the stairs, torn between going down to apologise and carrying on to his room.

‘Why are you glaring at me, Morrison?’ Michael demanded from below, sounding aggrieved.

‘Just because we’ve swapped to more comfortable chairs doesn’t mean you’re off the hook.’

‘Nick’s the one throwing the hissy fit!’

‘I expect he was hoping you’d remember what next weekend was,’ came Bill’s voice, ‘and that he’d already talked to you about it.’

‘You and Nick both know I’ve got a lot on my plate—’

‘So much you couldn’t remember that next weekend’s Yvette’s birthday?’

Nick found himself sinking down on to the top step, arms wound around the banister.

‘She hadn’t been my wife
years
before she died,’ his father was protesting below. ‘Why do I have to remember her birthday?’

‘Because she’s your son’s mother, Mike! Yvette will always be that, no matter how much you try to ignore the fact that she ever existed. You don’t even have a photo of her, at least none that isn’t tucked away in some dusty old corner.’

Nick lost Bill’s next words as his thoughts turned to the photo frame hidden in his bookcase. He nearly pushed himself up to fetch it out, put it proudly on display, but his fingers froze on the banister post. No one went into his room apart from the cleaner. No one knew where the picture was: no one apart from him, and what would he do if he took it out? Turn it the wrong way round? Endlessly shift it so that the reflection off the glass always obscured her face? Try to avoid ever looking at that part of his room, as if it didn’t exist? Might as well treat the picture as if it were a Medusa, ready to turn him to stone if he met her eyes.