House of Windows (20 page)

When Nick stepped out of the p’lodge to find the Men’s Third VIII standing across the path in Front Court, he turned back on himself and walked away, out of College again.

It would probably have been fine
, he muttered angrily at himself as he followed Trinity Lane left into Trinity Street.
This is Cambridge University, not sixth form
. But he didn’t feel equal to the possibility that there would prove to be little difference.
They’ll have forgotten after the Lents. Better to wait until then. Not like I needed to be in College today. The library can wait.
It would have been different if he could have visited Professor Gosswin, but without being able to seek refuge in her set there was no point pushing his luck.

The sun had disappeared when he turned at Round Church into St John’s, the buildings rearing around him like a Tudor castle, cold and forbidding, ready to repel
invaders. Even after eight months, he was still surprised by how different all the colleges were: how different courtyards within the
same
college were. The red-brick walls of First Court then Second Court pressed in on him as the clouds boiled angrily above the town. He half expected to find archers leaning out of the arrow slits or over the crenellations tipped in tawny stone, usually the colour of clotted cream, today grey and dull under the darkening sky.

For once the Bridge of Sighs seemed forlorn, as if all the beauty of the stone tracery, the lancet windows opening over the Cam, had been drained away. He walked to the Backs and then along, through the gates into Clare and up the long path to the bridge.

There was a precarious magic to Cambridge: a feeling that time didn’t work the same way there. That you could walk through a day stepping in and out of the past, the present, the future, all quite seamlessly, with no one batting an eyelid. The city floated below the fog of modern worries, all its rush and roar one step out of reach. Perhaps that was why the beauty of the willows weeping into the river, the gold of King’s chapel, the white of Clare, the wine-red of Trinity Hall, seemed suddenly painful, like something slipping through his fingers.

The walk home seemed to stretch, long and cold, when all he wanted was to be there, now, curled up on his window seat with Professor Gosswin’s book under his hands. Instead, there were tourists standing in his path, and mothers with buggies ploughing a furrow through the crowds, and cars splashing up water from potholes.

By the time he stumbled through the front door, tripping on the mail on the doormat, his throat felt raw with frustration and disappointment. He slammed about the kitchen, turning the act of tea-making into one of violence. When the kettle was grumbling on the counter, he slumped into a chair, hands in his hair, torn between laughter at his own ridiculousness and tears.

Upstairs, he found himself staring at the postcard on his wall.

Serenity seemed too much to hope for, but as always there was one thing he could do something about: one way to turn misery into success.

He splashed his face with water, collected his supervision work, tucked Professor Gosswin’s book under the window-seat cushion and forced his mind on to his Analysis I problems.

When the phone rang a while later, he answered without looking at the display, still finishing a line in his equation workings. ‘Hullo?’

‘Hi, Nick.’

‘Bill! Everything OK?’

‘Fine. I heard Professor Gosswin’s going into a nursing home. Just thought I’d check in.’

Nick laid his pen down carefully, cleared his throat.
‘Different people recover at different rates,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t mean she’s stuck there forever. It’s not an exact science.’

At the other end of the line Bill sighed.

‘I’m not expecting a miracle or anything but it’s too early to give up. It can be six months before a trajectory really becomes clear.’

‘Well, it’s good to keep positive so long as you don’t expect too much.’ They were both silent for a moment. ‘Look, Nick, I know your dad’s away this weekend so I was wondering if you might like to come down to mine for a day or two: have a change of scenery.’

The face reflecting back from the window beamed.

‘Your dad and I had a talk over lunch the other day and we thought—’

We thought
… A stricken look replaced the smile. ‘It’s exam term. I have work to do.’ The words came out sharp and cold.

For a moment there was silence on the other end of the line. When Bill’s voice came again, it was full of surprise and hurt. ‘A weekend off won’t do any harm, surely.’

‘You don’t have to do that,’ Nick said, voice rough with pain. ‘You’re not my father’s keeper, or mine. You don’t have to pick up the pieces: it’s not your problem.’ He’d hung up before he realised what he was doing, pushing the phone away so roughly it clattered off the far side of the table on to the floor.

Tim looked up from his breakfast with a raised eyebrow when Nick let the phone ring and ring. ‘Are you
still
dodging Bill? It’s been three days. Can’t you give the man a break? I don’t know what he—’

‘Well, since it’s none of your bleeding business, that’s not a problem, is it?’ Nick snapped. The kitchen seemed suddenly dim and small, as if the feeling in his chest had squeezed the walls in. ‘I’ve got a lecture.’

He pulled his coat on, setting a glare on his face as he opened the front door, but the day was unexpectedly bright and sunny, the world big and wide and full of other people with other problems.

Parker’s Piece was his and the seagulls’, a white sea under a fierce sun. Nick paused in the middle, turning slowly around and around as he stared up at the cloudless sky, feeling tiny and isolated and peaceful.

Frank wasn’t at the lecture and Susie hurried off the minute it was over, the rest melting away before he’d had a chance to ask if anyone fancied revising together over a cup of tea. The streets were hectic with tourists, frantic with hurrying irritated students, people on bicycles speeding the wrong way up pedestrianised streets. He headed towards College, planning to work in the library, but at the last moment swerved away and darted through the dreary forbidding entrance to Caius instead.

Emerging into the light, he stepped on to a flagstone path lined with an avenue of peeling silver-barked plane trees. All around, the buildings soared up in blue-grey spires and gothic
turrets, like a transplanted French chateau. Wisteria twined around windows and doorways, shimmering with the silver-white of unfurled buds. It always seemed preternaturally quiet here, like a secluded monastery rather than a college, as if he had stepped out of time and space. The trees embraced overhead, elegant and secretive, shading the path. It would be beautiful when they came fully into leaf. Nothing like the over-pruned trees, mutilated into order, that lined his father’s street in London.

‘
Excuse
me,’ said a sneering, nasal voice. ‘The
College
is
closed
to visitors.’

Nick turned to find a bald porter in a stiff black suit glaring at him. ‘I’m a student,’ he said, drawing his library card out of his pocket.

The porter took it with a scornful expression. His eyebrows rose. ‘Very well,’ he said, making a dismissive gesture. ‘You may continue.’

Nick was tempted to pull a face, but the man stayed staring after him as he set off up the path. The inner court held wallflowers and pansies in happy reds and yellows and burnt orange, but he let the path lead him to the right, past the herbaceous border in front of the chapel, where forget-me-not and tulips cowered below a tottering ceanothus.

Look at all that dead wood!
With a disconcerting jolt, he almost thought his grandmother’s voice was real.
Why aren’t the gardeners pruning properly? That’ll have to go right back.

The sudden wish to be there again, in her garden, was like something wild and clawed in his chest, bringing tears to his
eyes. For a moment, he nearly dived into the nearest staircase doorway to run up and up the winding steps until somewhere in the damp grey shadows he found a place where he could sit down, bury his face in his knees and let slow silent tears soak his jeans. He could practically hear his own ragged breathing already echoing down the stairwell, but instead he strode out of the gates.

Along the Backs, the shadowed ground under the trees at the back of King’s was all bluebells and wild buttercups. He cut the corner along Queens’ Green to follow Silver Street, stopped to stare downriver. Under the Mathematical Bridge wood hyacinth nestled among a flood of daffodils.

All his favourite places – all the beauty that usually made the worst days bearable – suddenly seemed flat and unlovely.

Even though his work was on track, the lure of a First seemed dim lately. A minimum requirement, rather than a sufficient condition for happiness. Maybe it had been the less important part of his birthday ‘this time next year’ wish after all.

He walked back towards College down KP, telling himself the story about the traffic cone a night climber had balanced first on one spire of King’s Chapel, then, as soon as they’d half-erected a scaffold to remove it, the opposite one. Then the tale about the Christmas an enterprising team of climbers covered all four corner spires with Santa hats. Anything to take his mind off the pain lodged in his throat, a promise of tears that refused to be swallowed down. Outside Trinity, he tried to smile at the wooden chair leg Henry VIII brandished above the Great Gate.

Finally, sitting with his back against one of the yew trees in the Jesus grounds, damp seeping slowly into his jeans, he opened his notebook, fixed his eyes at the top of the page and read viciously, word after word after word.

Two hours later, he was staring into the toaster while the edges of the bread turned black when the sound of a key crunching into the front-door lock startled him from his daze. He popped the toast out and threw it in the bin. ‘Tim? I thought you were upstairs. Do you want a pizza or should we try cooking pasta again?’ he called.

‘I’m up for pasta.’

Nick whirled round to find Bill standing in the doorway.

‘I hope you don’t mind that I let myself in with the spare key your dad gave me.’

Nick shook his head.

Bill gave a hesitant smile when Nick continued staring at him. ‘Right, then. Saucepan.’ He bent and pulled a pot out of the cupboard.

Nick backed up to give him space then stood staring vacantly at the side of Bill’s face as he tipped salt into the water in the pan. One teaspoon, a shrug, another.

‘My ex-wife always said the key with pasta was to put plenty of salt in the water. Of course, she never said what “plenty” amounts to for the culinary deficient among us.’

When Nick didn’t laugh, Bill put a gentle hand on his
shoulder and steered him to a chair. Nick craned his head sideways to watch him, frowning, but though he opened his mouth once, he shut it again without saying anything.

‘Now, where does pasta sauce live?’

Nick watched Bill opening cupboard doors, one after the other.

‘Am I getting any warmer?’

‘On the left,’ Nick whispered. He swallowed. ‘I’m sorry,’ he blurted out. ‘I didn’t … I didn’t mean to be ungrateful.’

Bill turned with a smile, which quickly became a frown. ‘It’s not a question of gratitude, Nick.’

Nick looked away with a shrug.

‘I didn’t mean to upset you when we talked on Tuesday. I just thought it would be nice for you to get away from everything for a little bit.’

Nick pushed hurriedly to his feet and started setting out cutlery. ‘It would have been nice,’ he whispered over the clatter of the silverware. ‘It would have been
lovely
if you weren’t just doing it for my dad.’

‘Talking to the table again? Gotta keep those forks in order,’ Bill called from his place at the stove. ‘I couldn’t get away before now, but you’ve been rather pointedly dodging my calls, so I figured I’d better come in person to apologise for whatever I said that made you so upset. I really did mean well, you know.’