House of Windows

by Alexia Casale

‘Can I help?’ Nick asked.

  Ange beamed at him and attached herself to his side as Tim led the way out to the car sitting at the kerb. Tim’s stuff was mostly boxes of books. It took an uncomfortably short amount of time to pile it up in the hall and the sitting room. Nick shivered as he stared at it.

  ‘It’s not that bad,’ Tim said, catching his expression. ‘I’ll have it out of your way in half an hour.’

  Nick shook his head. ‘Not that. Just … déjà vu.’

  ‘For what?’ Ange asked.

  ‘The day Roger threw me out.’ The words came out of his mouth instead of ringing in his head as he’d expected them to. ‘When I was ten, my mum got sick and my stepfather … Well, he wanted to focus on her and it wasn’t like he threw me out on to the street, I just moved in with my dad in London, but I didn’t have that much stuff to take and it was mostly books like this and … I actually didn’t mean to say anything. I talk to myself a lot and sometimes I get a bit confused about what I’m actually saying and what I’m not ’cos it’s not like it makes any difference when there’s no one there to hear,’ he said, the words picking up speed, tumbling out faster and faster, ‘but it’s not like I’m going to be regularly blurting out weird emotional stuff or …’ He cut himself off, squeezing his eyes shut. ‘Can we just pretend all of that happened in my head?’ He jumped when he found himself being hugged and opened his eyes to see Ange grinning up at him.

  ‘It happens to me all the time,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘That’s meant to make him not worry?’ Tim asked.

  Ange scrinched up her nose at him. ‘Meanie. I just helped you. Now I’m going and you don’t get a hug.’

  Tim stared at her soulfully.

  Ange sighed and threw herself at him. ‘You are horrid sometimes, Timothy Brethan. I love you anyway, but please try not to be awful. Girls are for … well, not necessarily for life, but certainly not just for Christmas accommodation. Pretending you’re not alone is far more painful than just accepting reality and doing something about it.’ She shook her head at him. ‘I’m going now. Bye.’ She whirled around and flung herself out of the door, slamming it behind her.

  ‘Wow,’ said Nick.

  ‘Is it OK if she comes over quite a lot? I’m not sure there’s much I can do about it if it isn’t.’

  ‘She can come over any time.’

  Tim gave him an interested look.

  ‘Oh, don’t start. I can think she’s awesome without …’

  Tim held up his hands. ‘Fair enough. And you’re right. She is awesome.’

  ‘Sort of like a cuddly version of Professor Gosswin.’

  ‘Ange and Professor Gosswin may be equally a law unto themselves, but beyond that it’s just too many levels of disturbing to contemplate.’

  Chapter 10

  (Michaelmas Term × Week 6 [≈ third week of November])

  Frank was joggling his leg up and down, tapping a rhythm against his thigh, as Dr Davis explained their last week’s problem to Susie for the fifth time.

  ‘I just don’t understand!’ Susie’s hands clenched into fists. Taking a deep breath, she smoothed her hair back behind her ears. ‘Could you please explain it to me again in a different way?’

  Dr Davis cast an appealing look at Frank, who was now picking mud out from behind his nails.

  ‘Can we move on to the next problem, or can Frank and I just go?’ Nick asked, trying to make the words friendly rather than snide.

  ‘Frank doesn’t understand it any better than I do: he’s just too dumb to admit it and get the help he needs,’ snapped Susie.

  ‘Why don’t we come back to it later,’ suggested Dr Davis. ‘I think maybe you’re just a little … frustrated at the moment.’

  Frank snorted. ‘A bit PMSing you mean.’

  Susie swivelled to face him. ‘Would you like to repeat that chauvinistic gem?’

  ‘Think that’s QED, right, Nick?’ Frank sneered.

  ‘You mean proof that you’re an inadequate, unpleasant, misogynistic—’ Susie turned her back on him. ‘I am going to stay very calm.’

  ‘Good luck with that, sweetheart.’

  ‘Now really,’ protested Dr Davis, waving his hands in the air as if trying to cool the atmosphere. ‘Now, I know that the first term is often very hard. There’s so much to learn and adjust to that it feels like the pressure’s unbearable, but we all need to stay calm and breathe.’

  Susie looked as if she were likely to start breathing fire as she clicked her pen on and off in little machine-gun bursts of fury.

  ‘Let’s try another example. Nick, maybe you want to start us off this time?’ Dr Davis asked hopefully.

  ‘Quiet for the Chief Swot,’ grunted Frank.

  ‘Oh shut up,’ said Susie.

  ‘Or maybe we should leave it there for the day,’ said Dr Davis.

  Frank was out of the door practically before he’d finished speaking.

  Nick and Susie packed up in silence. Outside, Nick watched Susie stride off across North Court, then turned away to the p’lodge. It was only five o’clock but fog was starting to swirl across the cobblestones in Senate House Passage. King’s Parade was dim and distant, the light from the lamp posts drained and pathetic. Although it wasn’t raining, he was wet to the skin by the time he turned the corner into his street. The lights were on in the house, warm and welcoming.

  He was halfway across the living room before he realised that Ange was curled up on the corner of the sofa. He turned, expecting to find her sleeping since she wasn’t hugging him, but her eyes were open, reflecting the light spilling in from the hallway.

  ‘Hey,’ he whispered.

  She turned in his direction, her eyes silver and staring. Then she seemed to shiver and uncurled herself. ‘Hi, Nick.’ The words came out soft and weary.

  ‘Did I wake you?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Are you … You’re a bit … quiet.’

  She grinned half-heartedly, shrugged. ‘Can’t live at a thousand miles per hour twenty-four/seven. My bounce is on standby. I’ll be recharged and good to go again in twenty minutes.’

  ‘Where’s Tim? I mean, he must have let you in, right? He must know you’re still here.’

  ‘Yeah.’ She looked away towards the stairs. ‘I came over for lunch but now he’s sulking. We had a … disagreement. If he doesn’t come down in a bit, I’ll go up to him. We both just need …’ She made a vague gesture, then yawned hugely, stretching her arms out, a slow uncurl from shoulders to fingertips. ‘Tim said you had Formal Swap tonight with your rowing people?’

  ‘Yeah, I’d better get changed.’ But he dithered for a moment.

  Ange waved a hand at him. ‘Don’t mind me. I can see how you might think that quiet could indicate that I’m dying, but I promise not to expire anywhere on the premises.’

  ‘Is it just an act?’ he found himself asking, without meaning to. ‘Sorry. Forget I said anything. You know I do that thing where I think I’ve said something in my head but I’ve actually said-said it.’

  But Ange just shook her head. ‘It’s fine, Nickie. And, no, it’s not an act. Or not exactly. I spend a lot of the time being the person I want to be. Maybe to begin with it was mostly act, but no one could say it’s not a part of me now. No one’s just one person. Most people think they should be, but it’s just not how it works. As Tim says about me, “what you see is exactly what you get.” What he should add is that it’s by no means all you get. I do everything in extremes, whether I’m happy or sad: there’s not much in between.’

  ‘You really are quite like Professor Gosswin, aren’t you?’

  And for the first time that evening Ange smiled properly. ‘That is a truly awesome compliment, Nickie. I’m getting there, but Professor Gosswin’s had longer to practise being the ultimate her. Now,’ she added, ‘off you go and get changed before you’re late for your dinner.’

  By the time he came down again, the lights were on in the living roo
m and Ange was lying on her front, staring up, wide-eyed, at an anime programme on TV. ‘Look, Nickie! Pretty prettiness!’

  He grinned and waved, but only got as far as pulling down his coat in the hall before she skipped over to hug him hard around the middle then ran back, giggling, to the TV.

  ‘Tim, you’ve got a guest! Stop being a prat and come down and talk to her!’ he yelled up the stairs before he swept the door closed.

  In the hour since he’d walked away from KP (as the crew had instructed him to call King’s Parade), the fog had settled over the town centre. As he hurried down Tennis Court Road, modern Cambridge became the London of Jack the Ripper: lamp posts looming out of the opaque grey air. People faded to shadows of themselves. Outlines were softened and distorted. The buildings seemed to ripple, though the pavement shone with thick black light and fleeting glimpses of crimson, like drying blood. The air tasted of iron.

  Behind the high railings around Peterhouse, the windows glowed like far-off islands.

  The crew were gathered in a dank stone anteroom by the doors to the dining hall, tugging awkwardly at the shoulders of their gowns as they waited for their hosts: the crew of the Peterhouse Men’s Second VIII, who’d dined with them at the previous Trinity Hall Formal Hall for their part of the Formal Swap. Nick hadn’t dared try his luck by joining them, but the crew were confident that he would slip through the net at Peterhouse, where the staff didn’t know his age.

  Nick caught the words ‘Lents’ and ‘wooden spoon’ as he approached. ‘What’s this?’ he asked when the circle parted to make room for him.

  ‘The Lent bumps.’

  ‘What do spoons have to do with a boat race?’ Nick asked, trying to resettle his gown on his shoulders, but the weight of the gathered semicircle of fabric kept pulling it backwards, off his shoulders.

  ‘The idea of the bumps is to, well, bump the boat in front, right?’ Brent said, rolling his eyes. ‘If you bump, or get bumped, you don’t have to “row over” and go the whole length of the course. If you bump on all four days, the whole crew gets blades – inscribed oars. But if you get bumped all four days, you get wooden spoons and everyone avoids you like the plague. So we need a plan for who we can definitely bump on at least one of the days.’

  A butler in a smart black suit jacket, waistcoat and grey trousers came marching across the passage, shoes clicking on the stone. He pushed open an iron-reinforced door under a stone arch and the gathered crowd slowly filed into the hall.

  On either side huge stained-glass windows were faded against the foggy night. Head-high burnished wood panelling with intricate mouldings rose into whitewashed stone and brick below a carved wood ceiling ribbed like the hold of a Tudor galleon. Stencilled decorations outlined the windows and filled in the walls between them. Two long dark wood tables stretched the length of the hall along the windows and down the centre. The wall of the other side was broken by a carved stone fireplace, with a half-length table to either side.

  Benches lined the tables, with one grand chair at each end.

  At the head of the hall, the panelling was hung with portraits of former College Masters. It reached nearly to the roof, giving way to a minstrels’ gallery with a scroll and a fuzzy Latin inscription painted on the back wall. Below, a wooden dais was set a few inches above the rest of the tiled floor so that High Table could sit across the width of the room, as in Trinity Hall. In the daytime, the huge semicircular bay of windows at the end of High Table would spill light across the fellows and their guests. Now it was dewed with fog on the inside and out.

  Nick filed down the length of one of the tables with the rest of the crew, staring at the precision-set silverware and crystal, a generosity of forks and spoons ranged about the royal blue tablemats. The bread plates were white with a dark border and the college crest at the centre. There were ornate square-bottomed silver candlesticks and tall, carefully folded linen napkins, and even college-crested salt and pepper shakers.

  They’d only just clambered over their bench to sit when a gong sounded and everyone was standing once more, or at least trying to stand. One of the twins nearly tumbled backwards when Brent accidentally trapped the sleeve of his gown against the table. The butler fixed a dark look on them. Brent and the twins bundled the hanging tails of their gowns into their armpits and scrambled to their feet as Nick peered round them to watch the fellows process in to High Table.

  The crew moved to sit again, only for the butler to cough as only a butler can cough.

  One of the fellows adjusted his glasses and then started to drone his way through a Latin grace. The Peterhouse students echoed the ‘Amen’ and again the crew moved to sit. The butler coughed at them once more.

  ‘Talk about putting the formal in Formal Hall,’ Brent whispered to Nick. ‘Thank God TitHall understands the point of Hall and puts the focus where it should be – on the booze.’

  Another grace ensued. This time the crew waited to take their cue from their Peterhouse hosts, who promptly sat. The butler gave the Trinity Hall holdouts a haughty sniff and turned away.

  ‘So what do you think of Formal Hall?’ asked Brent an hour later as the waiting staff came round with coffee and College mints.

  ‘You mean was having bad food passed over my shoulder, while grumpy old men glared down at us from the walls, everything I always hoped it would be?’

  Brent laughed. ‘I wonder what they had to eat on High Table. Bet it was better than the rest of us got.’ A waiter appeared at his shoulder with the port. ‘But this will make it up to me. Pour away!’ he commanded, making an uncoordinated gesture a little like the royal wave that nearly knocked the decanter out of the waiter’s hands. ‘Oops.’

  The waiter raised his eyes to the ceiling but poured him half a glass.

  ‘Aw, don’t be stingy with me,’ Brent whined.

  The waiter looked at the butler, then withdrew. Brent blew a raspberry at his back. The butler advanced three paces and Brent quickly turned back to the table.

  ‘Duller than ditchwater. You wait till we can sneak you into a TitHall SuperHall. Now there’s a party. Last time, we had call-outs. You know, where someone calls things out and anyone it applies to has to drink.’ He giggled into his port for a moment. ‘First one was who was going commando and that girl who looks a bit like Jessica Rabbit had to drink.’ He giggled some more.

  ‘Sounds like a blast,’ Nick said unenthusiastically. ‘What are you doing?’

  Brent was peering around suspiciously. Seeing that the butler was occupied with the fellows, he grabbed his coffee cup and saucer and slipped the whole thing into an inner pocket of his suit jacket. ‘Sh!’ he whispered. ‘Got a bet on with my mate. See who can get a full set of china from all the Colleges by the time we graduate. Gotta Formal Swap with all of them to make it happen. Like a treasure hunt.’

  More like kleptomania, Nick mumbled into his coffee, trying to remind himself that this was fun: that twenty years from now he and the crew would meet up and they’d talk about this as the height of happiness. If only it felt like that now.

  Chapter 11

  (Michaelmas Term × Week 8 [≈ end of November])

  The neighbours’ cat was curled on the fence again, green glare fixed on Nick as he sat at the kitchen table, wading through his last assignment of the term, having already finished writing up his scruffy notes from the last two lectures. He tried not to think about how he would fill the holidays with so much of his work already done.

  At least it’s better than the school holidays. He’d invariably spent those in the clinical emptiness of his father’s law firm offices, sitting in deserted conference rooms, all slick black leather, white walls and abstract grey and blue prints. Working through his homework and coursework and anything extra he could find to keep himself busy was how he’d ended up so far ahead at school. ‘Change the things you can,’ he’d kept telling himself. Only work seemed to be the one thing he knew how to change.

  Where books had been a comfort before at Roge
r’s, at his dad’s they had become a necessity, old books best of all: thick heavy tomes with stories that spread and twisted through other worlds, where he could walk like a ghost in the footsteps of other lives. The first holiday after he’d moved in with his dad, he’d fallen headlong into Nicholas Nickleby, letting the soft creased pages sweep the office away, replacing the cold chrome and plastic seats with a deep leather armchair beside a fire and, outside, a narrow cobbled street between wood and stone buildings. It had felt safer to ache for the characters’ misery than his own. A clean sort of sadness instead of the sticky unpleasantness of self-pity.

  ‘I thought you said you were going to get light bulbs?’ Tim snapped, slamming into the kitchen and practically punching the kettle on.

  Nick looked up from the mess of papers spread across the table. ‘So glad to see you’re in a good mood,’ he snapped back.

  ‘How many times do we have to have this conversation?’ Tim slumped back against the counter, shading his eyes with a hand. ‘Either we just agree that I do the shopping all the time or you actually do it when it’s your turn.’

  ‘I’ll do it tomorrow, OK?’

  ‘So I get to work in the dark tonight?’

  ‘Just take a bulb from Dad’s study.’

  ‘And what if he decides to stay for the weekend after all, instead of going up first thing tomorrow?’

  ‘When has he done that since you’ve moved in? Use the bulb from the hall for now.’

  ‘So we can all fall over the mat when we get back later, after Gosswin’s Christmas party?’

  ‘Look, I’ve got to go out in a bit anyway. Dad asked me to pick up a present to take tonight. I’ll get the light bulbs then.’

  Tim sank into a chair with a sigh. ‘Let’s just do both on the walk down.’ He slowly leaned forwards until he could rest his forehead against the table.

  Nick grinned. ‘So I guess you’re not going to be able to enjoy all the free alcohol tonight.’

  Tim turned his face to glare at Nick. ‘You wait till you’re old enough to drink.’ He pushed himself up as the kettle growled to a boil.