House of Windows

by Alexia Casale

  When he turned back to his crew, the stroke was grinning at him.

  There was no time to admire the fields and woods, the willow trees feathering into the water. The coach talked him through a series of simple commands about ‘backstops’ and ‘half slides’, while Nick fluffed the steering and the crew failed to pull in unison, let alone with equal power. The boat weaved and jerked its way back downstream.

  Nick tried to keep his eyes on the river but they kept drifting back to the boathouses that periodically dotted the final stretch of their journey. Picked out in the appropriate College colours, each displayed a plasterwork crest but no other signpost to distinguish one from another. Somehow he couldn’t stop thinking of them as posh garages, lined as their fronts were on the ground floor with high double doors. He supposed the height was to give ample clearance for the expert crews, who carried their boats out above their heads.

  Ahead, he spotted the Trinity Hall boathouse. Triple lead-light windows jutted out on thick oak-beams over the forecourt at either end; matching gables rose into fancy swirling plasterwork below sharp-pointed brown-tiled roofs.

  They managed to ‘park’ in front of the boathouse without falling in or losing any oars, but it was a near thing. Then they nearly dropped the boat as they turned it upside-down to rack it again. By the time it was safely stored, the crew looked hollow with humiliation and exhaustion.

  ‘Any words, Nick?’ the coach asked.

  Nick looked at his fingers, purple and white with cold. ‘I need to invest in better gloves.’ He shrugged. ‘I thought we should end on a positive note, but that was all I could think of.’

  The stroke laughed.

  ‘Same time Friday, boys!’ said the coach to a general groaning and grumbling as the crew trudged away up the towpath towards the footbridge to Midsummer Common.

  The stroke, arm over the shoulders of one of the twins, looked back suddenly. ‘You waiting to be carried, Nick?’ He made a ‘come on then’ gesture.

  It meant going back to College in his wet things, where everyone else separated to shower and get ready for lectures, leaving him to double-back on himself to head home, but it was worth it to spend twenty minutes as part of one of the loud boisterous groups jostling across Midsummer Common. Even though no one spoke to him specifically, and he added nothing to the conversation, it was nice to belong there: to be part of something.

  Chapter 8

  (Michaelmas Term × Week 4 [≈ start of November])

  He pulled the front door open with his eyes fixed on the mat, looking among the junk mail for the DVD he’d ordered. A noise that sounded incomprehensibly like it had come from the kitchen made him look up.

  ‘Dad?’ he called as he bent to pick up the post.

  A shout from the kitchen. A flurry of noise.

  The living room was a mess.

  Understanding hit with a feeling like walking through glass: a time-stopping crunch, cutting cold and deep. His fingers fluttered against the doorframe, the emptiness of the hall hollow and loud with silence.

  Then a clack and clatter from the kitchen. A muffled shout. The sound of someone throwing themselves over the back fence.

  His heart stuttered against the inside of his ribs. Like waking from a nightmare, the need to breathe made his head swim. The air felt thick as oil, choking him. The sound of his own cough sent him cowering to his knees, ears straining for the faintest sound over the noise of his own body betraying him. But the coughing eased with no pad of footsteps above or in the kitchen.

  He fumbled his phone from his pocket, considered backing out of the front door, then took a deep breath and eased to his feet.

  They’re gone. They heard you and they ran.

  His phone showing 999, his finger over the dial button, he shifted his weight forward. Stepped forward. Another slow, sliding step. Another.

  The TV was at an odd angle. The stereo and Sky Plus box were gone, the wires trailing dismally across the floor. The cupboard spaces at the bottom of the bookshelves were open, things landsliding from them on to the carpet. A trail of Monopoly money petered out under the coffee table.

  He padded slowly into the middle of the room and peered through to the kitchen. Almost all the cupboards were open. There was a space where the microwave had been.

  He hit dial and brought the phone to his ear. The police told him to go and wait with a neighbour until they could check that the burglars were gone.

  Once he’d hung up, he crept slowly upstairs.

  Don’t be a wimp, he told himself. There’s no one here.

  Michael’s room looked like it had rained boxer shorts and socks. The electric razor was gone from the en suite.

  Climbing the stairs to his floor made sour spit rise in his mouth, but his room looked untouched: everything as he’d left it, from the messy desk to the piles of books and box files, the scattering of pens and overflowing laundry basket tucked behind the door. He’d left at eight-thirty for a nine o’clock lecture, then headed straight home. It wasn’t even eleven yet: it felt too early for burglars to be starting their rounds, but at least he’d disturbed them before they’d reached his attic.

  He pulled on his grandmother’s jumper, shivering into the folds and pressing the cuffs over his nose, breathing through the scratchiness of the wool until his pulse had slowed. Sound was starting to return to normal, his ears no longer straining after every real and imagined creak in the house, every whoosh of a car passing on the street.

  He waited for the police outside, sitting on the low front wall. He called Michael as he waited, left three messages apiece on his mobile, landline at the office and landline at the flat. Then he stared at his contacts list for a while before calling Michael’s mobile again.

  When the police arrived, the officers checked the house together, then one set about taking photos and presumably checking for fingerprints while the other insisted that Nick find his father. He called Secretary Sandy only to get a recorded message that she was on leave but would be back tomorrow. He called the main switchboard at the law firm. They reported that Michael was out of the office. He called all of Michael’s numbers again and left new messages on each.

  ‘Look, Nick, we really need to talk to a responsible adult. Surely there’s someone else you can call. An aunt, uncle, older brother, family friend …’

  Nick stared down at his contacts list. ‘My godfather’s in London.’

  ‘Why don’t you give him a bell while you’re waiting for your dad to call back?’

  Bill’s phone went straight to voicemail. Nick hung up. ‘If he’s not there, what’s the point worrying him?’ he asked when the policewoman frowned.

  ‘I’m sure he wouldn’t mind,’ she said, putting a hand on his shoulder.

  He flinched without meaning to, hunching away from the mingled pity and irritation on her face.

  ‘I’m afraid we really do need to call someone for you. How about a teacher? A friend whose parents could come over?’

  ‘I told you: I’m at the University, not school.’

  ‘Then surely there’s someone at College who’s over eighteen who could pop down.’ The policewoman was grinding her back teeth, her cheek ugly with the bulging and tightening of the muscles.

  ‘Professor Gosswin’s my tutor,’ Nick told the dandelion drooping between the bottom of the wall and the pavement.

  He averted his eyes as the policewoman looked up the number for Trinity Hall on her phone, called the p’lodge and got put through to the Professor. Twelve words in, she went silent. When she spoke again, her tone was quiet, deferential. Apparently the Professor could intimidate even at a distance.

  The policewomen were standing ready to receive Gosswin when she emerged majestically from the back seat of a taxi fifteen minutes later. She barely spared them a glance before fixing her eyes on Nick. ‘Mr Derran, you should be inviting me into the kitchen and offering me a cup of tea,’ she told him.

  She took in the mess in the living room with a curl of her lip
, but followed him into the kitchen without comment. ‘Now,’ she said, as she seated herself at the table, ‘I require you to explain why it was the police and not you who called me.’

  Nick turned away to fiddle with the kettle. ‘I couldn’t get hold of my dad. I’ll keep trying.’ He took out his phone and demonstrated his efforts, setting it on the counter when he’d dialled all three numbers to no effect. ‘I even tried Bill.’

  A flicker passed over Professor Gosswin’s face. ‘But he was also not available? That is a pity. Should there be a further occurrence of this or a related sort, you will call me first, except in the unlikely instance of your father being home.’

  Nick shook his head. ‘I’m sorry the police bothered you. I tried to tell them it wasn’t your problem—’

  ‘Mr Derran, you are frequently problematic, but this is not one of those occasions.’

  Nick turned away to fetch the milk, absently tracing patterns into the condensation on the bottle. ‘It’s not your job to take care of stuff like this.’

  ‘It is my job as Tutor to see to the needs of my tutees. I have dealt with far more unusual problems than being called to stand as responsible adult in the case of a burglary.’ She caught Nick’s interested look and her gaze darkened. ‘That was not an invitation to ask impertinent questions so you can gossip about confidential matters. Now, when might we expect your father to grace us with his presence if he does not check his messages until the end of his work day?’

  Nick fixed his eyes on the floor. There was a scuff in the paintwork of the skirting board that looked almost like a face. It was sneering at him.

  ‘From this dismal silence, I take it that perhaps we are not to expect your father at all.’

  Nick met Professor Gosswin’s eyes. He shrugged.

  ‘And how often do Michael’s peregrinations see him away from home not just during the day but throughout the night?’

  Nick shrugged again and looked back at the disdainful face in the skirting board.

  ‘I take it no one else is aware of this situation? Neither you nor your irresponsible parent has thought to make an arrangement with a relative or family friend – Mr Morrison, for example?’

  ‘Yeah, Bill’s always had a driving ambition to babysit a teenager six nights a week. I don’t have a bunch of aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents to keep me company, but I’m fifteen, not five. I don’t need anyone to tuck me in at night.’

  Professor Gosswin raised an eyebrow. ‘It is irrelevant whether or not you have a large network of people related to you by blood. The issue is that the family you do have is not here, in the home you should be sharing.’

  ‘It’s not always like this: it just goes in fits and starts. Induction week, Dad was home almost every night: a few days he was even in time for a late dinner. That’s how it’s always been with him. No one worried when I was ten, so I don’t know why it’s a problem now.’

  ‘When you were living together in London, your father was not only in the same city – a relatively short distance away – but likely to turn up at some point during the night,’ Professor Gosswin said. ‘You have to know that this situation is not equivalent – or remotely acceptable. You cannot live almost entirely alone aged fifteen.’

  ‘I don’t mind—’

  ‘I was not talking about it being acceptable to you. It is not only illegal, it is unacceptable to me, and that is a problem of a different order because I, Mr Derran, am not irresponsible or derelict in my duty. Nor shall you persuade me to be,’ she said loudly over Nick’s attempt to interrupt, ‘since it would be unkind to dismiss legitimate concern from someone who has a care for your happiness and well-being.’

  Nick darted a glance at her, then away, flushing.

  ‘Now, we don’t want to start getting sentimental, so let us move on to the practical step we shall take to resolve this situation. Since you already know Mr Brethan, it should all be simple. He will move in here as a lodger.’ She smiled as the look of horror on Nick’s face transformed into fury. ‘No need to thank me, Mr Derran. Instead, you may reflect on how neatly I have dodged the need to discuss today’s situation with both College and Social Services.’

  ‘I don’t need a keeper!’ Nick’s phone trilled on the counter. He grabbed it without even looking at it. ‘Dad, where have you—’

  ‘It’s Bill.’

  ‘Oh.’ Nick changed the phone to his other ear.

  ‘I saw I had a missed call from you. Is everything OK?’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, fine now.’ A sigh. ‘We had a burglary and I couldn’t get hold of Dad, but Professor Gosswin is here so it’s all fine. Sorry to have bothered you.’

  ‘Shall I come down? Do you need someone to board up a window or anything?’

  ‘No … I don’t think …’ He stared at the broken glass by the back door. ‘It’s fine. Thanks for calling back.’

  Professor Gosswin frowned at him when he put the phone down.

  ‘What’s that for?’ he snapped.

  ‘Why refuse your godfather’s offer of help – and company?’

  ‘He’s just being nice. I don’t need—’

  ‘It is not always about need,’ Professor Gosswin cut in, though her tone was strangely gentle. ‘With those you love, it is also about wanting, and being wanted, when you are in distress.’

  ‘Yeah, because what Bill really wants today is to drop all his work and come down to Cambridge to help me clean up the house.’

  ‘Sometimes I wonder why I speak at all when I so rarely seem to be heard.’ Professor Gosswin sighed, then pushed herself to her feet. ‘I shall speak to the police officers about securing that back window for the night.’

  Standing alone in the kitchen, Nick slammed the nearest open cupboard door shut. Then the next, then the one after. When the police asked if they could get at the window, he stomped his way upstairs and spent the next while shoving the clothes the burglars had strewn about the room haphazardly back into his father’s drawers, only to take them all out again. His hands shook as he folded them carefully. Suddenly his throat was stinging. He sank on to the bed.

  Someone cleared their throat by the door, making him jump. Professor Gosswin used his shoulder to lever herself down to sit beside him, then left her hand there, pressing gently. After a little while, she lowered her hand to reach for his, clasped it, rested their joined hands on his knee.

  ‘I don’t want a lodger.’ He had to bite the words out around the frustration and helplessness.

  ‘This is one of those cases that is about need, rather than want. But who is to know? Sometimes one can become the other,’ she said, but softly. ‘You need not to be living alone in this house. And Mr Brethan needs a home. So it is not just about your needs. Maybe that will make it easier to accept.’

  Nick nodded jerkily, the movement making his neck hurt.

  A key scratched into the front door lock.

  ‘Dad.’ The words croaked out as his eyes stung afresh.

  He tore to the head of the stairs as the door opened. A second too late, he felt his face doing the thing that his father’s did whenever he found Nick unexpectedly awake when he got home.

  ‘Oh, hi, Nick,’ Bill said, smiling nervously up at him. ‘Sorry for crashing in on you mid-afternoon and all, but I figured your plans were blown anyway.’

  He tried to lift his chin and grin, tried to make his voice warm enough to wipe away any hint of disappointment. ‘You didn’t have to come.’

  Bill shrugged. ‘Just figured I’d drop by in case … You know, in case you were still having difficulty getting hold of Mike. I didn’t have anything scheduled this afternoon so I thought I’d come early and miss the rush. When I did the morning commute with Mike last time I stayed over, it was so crowded there were people sitting in the luggage spaces. I swear some of them looked like they were considering climbing into the overhead racks. Don’t envy your dad that every day.’

  Nick made a non-committal noise, felt it catch in his throat.


  ‘Ah, Mr Morrison,’ said Professor Gosswin, appearing beside Nick on the stairs. ‘It is good to see you.’ Something insistent and pointed in the way she said it made Bill turn from hanging up his coat. The Professor nodded at him approvingly. ‘Shall we seek out a cup of what passes for tea in this household to celebrate your arrival?’

  The police had finished in the kitchen. A corkboard had been nailed to the window-frame.

  Bill looked at it with misgiving. ‘I’ll find someone to come and fix that,’ he said, as Nick set about making tea.

  ‘Mr Brethan can take care of those arrangements as his first contribution to the household,’ Professor Gosswin said.

  ‘She’s making us get a lodger,’ Nick explained, grinning when Bill practically blanched at hearing the Professor referred to, in her presence, as ‘she’.

  ‘Mike’s been pretty resistant to live-in help in the past,’ Bill said tentatively. ‘I did suggest a nanny – ages ago!’ he rushed on, when Nick swung around, spilling milk in an arc across the counter. ‘When you first came to live with him, I mean.’

  ‘I didn’t need a nanny then, either!’

  Bill sighed, took his glasses off to rub at his eyes. ‘It didn’t seem my place to argue, but it’s always been a worry how little … How much Mike works. I did talk to him about it,’ he said, appealing to Professor Gosswin. ‘But it would have been hard to have a third person living in the London flat unless Mike had given up his study. When Nick first moved in, Mike said he’d start looking for a new place once he got everything sorted with the new school but … Well, it was all a bit … precipitous. I thought he’d figure it out,’ he said, flicking a glance at Nick and then looking away, toeing at a wrinkled pea lying forgotten under the kitchen table.

  After the tea, Bill set about clearing up the broken glass while Nick sorted out the living room and study, then they sat down to make a list of all the things that were missing. Professor Gosswin installed herself in the study and rang Tim to order him to start packing. Nick snorted at the audible side of the conversation. Somehow knowing that Tim had taken some persuading (or what passed as persuasion with Professor Gosswin) made the idea less uncomfortable.