Number 11

by Jonathan Coe

  There were about twenty or thirty pictures. Each one showed a number of students in various stages of drunken revelry, but none of them made Laura feel particularly cheerful. Rictus grins, pallid, luminescent skin and red-eye photography gave all of these young people the appearance of alien creatures, visitors from another planet who had somehow managed to colonize the bodies of human beings and learn the outward manifestation of their emotions while under the skin, at heart, lay something hollow and coldly mechanical. As for Rachel, Laura could not help thinking – as she had thought at the time – that there was something half-hearted, semi-detached, about her relationship to the rest of the group: in each image, her eyes seemed to be directed elsewhere, with a gaze that was at once far-seeing and inward-looking. The pictures were arranged in a sequence which began at the pub. In some of the earliest ones, Danny’s shoulder could be glimpsed in the background – and even Laura’s own left arm, once or twice. But the drinking and the photography had continued long after Laura and Danny had left, and the last few pictures had been taken out in the street, after the pubs had closed. They included one particularly disturbing – not to say pornographic – image which showed one girl (tagged as Rebecca) bent double over the pavement, apparently in the act of throwing up. Laura felt a sudden dismay that this moment, so private and so shameful, should have been not just captured in digital form but also uploaded for all of the spotty boy’s friends (and friends of friends, and, for that matter, anybody else who felt like it) to see. Had the girl’s permission been sought? She doubted it. Was she even aware that the picture was on public display? Laura doubted that too.

  She shut the laptop down, sat back, closed her eyes and rubbed the lids softly. There was a slight ache behind her eyes now, something she always felt even after a few minutes’ computer use. One of the inescapable conditions of life in 2012.

  She did not see Rachel again until the end of the week, when they had their regular tutorial meeting. It was late on Friday afternoon, and already dark outside. Once, this had been Laura’s favourite time of day: the hour after dusk, when lights went on around college and the yellowish glow of standard lamps from innumerable windows threw a patchwork of violet shadows over the whole of the main quad. Recently, however – in fact, why be vague about this, it was since the death of her husband – she had begun to feel differently, and now came to dread this hour, especially on a Friday, with the prospect of a long weekend in the countryside ahead of her, with only her five-year-old son for company. This depressing thought could not be put entirely to one side, even as she did her best to concentrate on the subject of Rachel’s Milton essay: or rather, its continued non-appearance.

  ‘I’m pretty sure I can get it finished by Monday,’ Rachel was saying, tugging at a strand of blonde hair as her eyes roved distractedly over the contents of Laura’s bookshelves.

  ‘Really?’ said Laura. ‘Well, that would be great. But don’t rush it. Honestly. It’s not a great precedent to set, but I am used to students handing work in weeks after the deadline.’

  ‘It won’t be a problem,’ said Rachel. ‘There aren’t many distractions at the weekend. All my friends seem to go home, for one thing.’

  This, Laura had noticed, was another new phenomenon of university life: students who, in years gone by, would have regarded term as a welcome opportunity to live an independent life for eight weeks now went back to see their parents most weekends, to have their meals cooked for them and get their laundry done. But not Rachel, it seemed.

  ‘That must be a bit dreary for you,’ Laura said.

  ‘Yeah, but … well, Mum doesn’t want me under her feet. She works a seven-day week these days.’

  ‘What does she do?’

  ‘She’s a barrister.’

  ‘Ah! Is that what gave you the idea for your story?’

  ‘You read it?’ Rachel’s eyes flared with delight.

  ‘I did. And I really liked it. It’s nice to read something like that which feels as though … well, as though the writer knows what she’s talking about.’

  ‘My mum represents a lot of whistleblowers. In fact, that’s more or less all she does nowadays. It’s quite a growth industry.’

  ‘“You will be dispensed with/when you’ve become inconvenient,”’ said Laura, remembering the song lyric in which Rachel had shown such an interest. ‘She must see a lot of that.’

  Rachel, not having expected the quotation, took a moment to recognize it. ‘Oh yeah – “Harrowdown Hill”,’ she said. ‘My own little obsession.’

  ‘Well,’ said Laura, ‘we’re all prey to those, now and again.’ She smiled an unreadable smile. ‘Have you ever been there?’

  ‘No. It’s not far from Oxford, is it?’

  ‘Not at all. And it’s even closer to where I live. I bought a house very near there, with my husband, a few years before he died. We both liked the idea of living in a village, in the country. Thought it would be good for our son while he was still little.’

  ‘I didn’t know your husband had …’

  ‘Last year.’

  ‘I’m so sorry. Was it …?’

  ‘Cancer? A heart attack? No. It was an accident. A stupid accident. Or at least …’ She tailed off. ‘Well, there’s always more than one way of looking at things, isn’t there?’

  In the silence that followed, Laura made a quick, impulsive decision; and before she’d had time to think whether it was a good one or not, she heard herself putting it into words. Why didn’t Rachel, if she had nothing much else to do this weekend, come and visit her tomorrow, at her house in the village? She could take the train out to Didcot and Keisha could pick her up from the station. And then, in the afternoon, they could drive out together to Harrowdown Hill itself.

  Rachel seemed doubtful at first, and Laura wondered whether the suggestion sounded too morbid. ‘It’s a really nice spot,’ she insisted; and then added, even more recklessly: ‘You could even stay the night if you wanted. There’s a nice spare bedroom which hasn’t been used for months.’

  Later that night, thinking about it soberly, Rachel knew that she had accepted the invitation more out of politeness than anything else.

  *

  The village of Little Calverton lies a few miles east of Didcot. The name itself is mysterious, since there is no Large, Big or even Great Calverton, nor is there any record of there ever having been one. It is a classically beautiful Cotswold village, where property prices are (relatively speaking) still on the low side, thanks to the proximity of Didcot power station, the massive chimneys of which rise up less than five miles away. If you can reconcile yourself to this, there are bargains to be had in Little Calverton, and houses there rarely stay on the market for more than a week or two.

  ‘Nice country,’ Keisha said to Rachel, as they drove along a single-track lane between high hedgerows. Rachel did not answer, but nodded cheerfully: she was not sure, in fact, whether Keisha was referring to the surrounding countryside or to England as a whole, and did not want to appear insensitive by misinterpreting her.

  ‘Very different to Malaysia, I expect,’ she said, in a non-commital way.

  ‘Very different. But I like it. I prefer all this. I’m very happy here. Very happy in the UK. Very happy to work for Laura. She’s a nice lady. She teaches you, yes?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘For a long time?’

  ‘Just a few months so far. But she’s great. It’s been great.’

  ‘Very nice person. Kind, generous. But sad, you know?’

  ‘Because of her husband?’

  ‘Because of Roger, yes.’

/>   ‘You knew him?’

  ‘No. I never knew him. I came after he died.’

  Briefly, just as they entered the village, a few glimmers of February sunlight broke through the clouds. On their left, the hedgerow tapered away. A triangle of lawn came into view, at its apex a war memorial flanked by two tubs of early primroses. The road curved around it, and after another fifty yards or so Keisha swung the car sharply right, into a short, loosely gravelled driveway that ended at the front door of a picture-perfect thatched cottage, its buttery-yellow, Cotswold-stone walls draped in curtains of wisteria. As soon as the car engine was turned off, the silence seemed chilling, absolute.

  ‘So, here we are. You all right with your bag?’

  It seemed a silly question: Rachel’s tiny holdall was three-quarters empty. She followed Keisha to the front door which, before they had even had time to touch the handle, was thrown open from inside. There, standing in the darkened, flagstoned hallway, was a brown-haired boy of about five or six, who hurled himself at the nanny and crushed her in his arms without saying a word.

  ‘Hello, beautiful,’ Keisha said. ‘Did you miss me?’

  ‘You must be Harry,’ said Rachel, reaching out to shake his hand with mock-ceremony, but he ignored her and turned back towards the kitchen, pulling Keisha after him as forcefully as he could.

  Rachel was left alone in the hallway. There was a steep, uncarpeted wooden staircase to her left, and three doors at the far end of the hallway, one leading straight ahead into the kitchen, the other two closed. For a moment, the sight of these three doors gave her a flickering sense of déjà vu, but it passed before she could decide whether it arose from a real or a phantom memory. What should she do? It would feel wrong to start calling out Laura’s name. She had been expecting Keisha to announce her arrival, but instead, she could see through the kitchen window that the nanny had already been dragged out into the garden by Harry, and he was trying to involve her in some sort of ball game.

  Tentatively, still carrying her holdall, she crossed the flagstones in the direction of the kitchen. Pausing outside the two closed doors, she thought she could hear, from behind one of them, the muffled clicking of keys being tapped on a computer keyboard. She pushed the door open and found herself looking into Laura’s study. Laura herself had her back to the door. She was working at a desk placed in front of a large leaded window, and she was wearing headphones as she worked. She seemed unaware of Rachel’s presence. Through the window Rachel could see a further view of the garden – a sparse expanse of lawn rolling down towards a scruffy border which hinted at a stream beyond – making her suspect for the first time that the house and its grounds might be larger than she had thought. The sun was again doing its best to break through the clouds, throwing occasional patches of light on to the grass.

  Rachel was still wondering what to do next when Laura, sensing her presence at last, swivelled round in her chair, took off the headphones and rose to her feet in greeting.

  ‘Hello, I didn’t hear you come in. Did you have a good journey? Did Keisha look after you? Where’s she got to?’

  ‘Outside with Harry.’

  ‘Come on, I’ll get you some coffee.’

  In the kitchen, decanting coffee from a frothing, bubbling, gleaming chrome-plated machine, Laura said again: ‘I’m sorry I didn’t hear you. I meant to have hit my word target hours ago but the dreaded emails intervened as usual. They never stop – not even on a Saturday. So I’m afraid I’ve still got a bit to do.’

  ‘It’s nice to know lecturers have to set themselves word targets as well,’ said Rachel. ‘I thought that was just lazy students.’

  ‘Hardly,’ said Laura. ‘I promised myself five hundred words today. But I’ll do nowhere near that, of course.’

  ‘What are you writing about?’

  ‘Well … I don’t really know. And therein lies the problem, of course. I’m trying to carry on with a project my husband began. I suppose you’d say it was about paranoid fiction. With particular reference to recent British sci fi. And even more particular reference to …’ (she looked embarrassed) ‘… the Loch Ness Monster.’

  Rachel was surprised. ‘Sounds fun,’ she said. ‘But quite a long way from Milton.’

  ‘Yes, well, the faculty isn’t too wild about it,’ said Laura, passing her a mug of treacly black coffee. ‘I’m sure they’d rather I just wrote the fifteen thousandth article on Lycidas – but … well, you have to go wherever your interests take you, don’t you?’

  While Laura returned to the study to continue writing, Rachel took her coffee outside. As she had expected, the garden was impressive, with the generous lawn dominated, at its centre, by a classical stone fountain more than six feet high, although no water was cascading today over its three lichen-encrusted tiers. Harry and Keisha were playing down by the stream and took no notice of Rachel as she found a rickety wooden bench next to a rhododendron bush and sat down on it, positioning herself carefully between the many splashes of bird shit. Now that the sun seemed to have disappeared for good, it promised to be a cold afternoon. She shivered slightly.

  It was an odd feeling, being here at her tutor’s house. Had she crossed a boundary, by coming? Had Laura crossed a boundary, by inviting her? She had not asked herself these questions before, and it was a bit late to be asking them now. Instead of welcoming her, Laura seemed to have viewed her arrival as an interruption, and for that matter the whole atmosphere of the house and the village made her feel like an intruder. The train ride to Didcot had taken only fifteen minutes and yet, thanks to the stillness and isolation of this place, the relative bustle of Oxford itself seemed already thousands of miles away. It wasn’t just a question of distance, either: Rachel felt, somehow, that in the last hour she had made a long journey through time, back to some far-off, half-forgotten era in her early life. To her childhood, even? This garden certainly bore no resemblance to her mother’s cramped old patio garden in Leeds; and it was at least three times the size of her grandparents’ garden in Beverley, where she had also spent a good many summers. No, these were not the images that were coming to mind this afternoon, as she sipped her coffee cautiously and looked around her. But still, there was an unmistakable aura of childhood about this place: not a badly off, urban, South Yorkshire childhood, such as Rachel’s had been, but a cosseted, Home Counties, 1950s childhood, of the sort with which Rachel was also familiar, if only in a second-hand way, through countless vintage children’s novels which had been her favourite choice of reading matter at the local library when she was growing up. It was all here: the spreading cedar tree which just cried out for a tree house to be built amidst the cluster of its lower branches; the shallow stream at the edge of the lawn, traversed by a footbridge, ideal for those long Sunday afternoon games of Poohsticks; the ramshackle shed which could, without too much effort or imagination, be converted into the makeshift headquarters of a junior detective club. And above all, that fountain: looking a little derelict and melancholy now, but otherwise the perfect centrepiece for a garden which felt eerily like a stage or a film set, on which idealized vignettes of a middle-class childhood were designed to be acted out. That would explain Rachel’s own growing sense of unreality, at any rate.

  After another fifteen or twenty minutes, Laura beckoned her inside and showed her up to her room. It was on the second floor (she had not even realized there was a further floor) and turned out to be a low-ceilinged but otherwise spacious bedroom running the whole depth of the house, with windows looking out over both the front and the back gardens. The room should have been cosy but there was an airlessness about it, and a feeling of neglect. The
books which spilled out from shelves ranged along every wall were sheened with a fine layer of dust. Glancing at them, Rachel could see that they were mainly devoted to cinema history and film theory.

  ‘Oh dear, it’s a bit cold in here, isn’t it?’ Laura said, laying a hand on the one small radiator. ‘I’ll get Keisha to bring up a fan heater. And what are these doing here? They should have been moved ages ago.’

  She was referring to two large cardboard boxes, crammed to the brim with old VHS tapes. Her curiosity aroused by this display of antique technology, Rachel knelt down to look at the titles.

  ‘Wow. I’ve never heard of most of these,’ she said. The first tape she had picked up was labelled THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT BBC 2 24.2.85/THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN BBC2 3.10.87.

  ‘Well, you’re looking at my husband’s pride and joy,’ Laura said. ‘Or rather, a tiny portion of it. There are thousands more – and I do mean thousands – down in the cellar. Whether that’s a good place to keep them, I don’t know. I can’t think what else to do with them at the moment. Oh God, I’ve been looking for this one for ages.’