House of Windows

by Alexia Casale

  It is sad and pathetic that your major goal for term is to get invited to someone’s room for tea, Nick was telling himself when he realised that Brent had just stepped out of the p’lodge ahead of him. He dithered instead of turning back into the passage to North Court and then it was too late.

  ‘Oh, look, it’s our favourite dropout,’ said Brent.

  ‘I said I’m sorry. My dad—’

  ‘Say no more,’ said Brent. ‘Daddy’s little boy always does as he’s told, right?’

  ‘Because I had such good reason to keep hanging out with you lot, you mean, seeing as how you all came with me to the police station to make sure I was OK.’

  ‘Poor baby,’ cooed Brent. ‘Were oo scared?’

  ‘And it was kind of you to call the next morning to check how I was doing. You’re such a mate.’

  ‘Why would I call you when you’d already emailed to throw in the towel?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Nick said, snapping his fingers. ‘I only waited one entire day before emailing. Didn’t give you, oh, twenty-four entire hours to get there first.’

  ‘Diddums. So how’s it going being Mr No-Mates again?’ sneered Brent.

  Nick felt his face flush. ‘Who says I am? Sorry to disappoint, but you’re not that important even in my life.’ He turned away, leaving Brent to shout after him as he hurried through the doors between the buttery and the dining hall, then out the other side by Latham Lawn.

  He was still distracted when he let himself in through the heavy door at the bottom of Gosswin’s staircase, nearly catching his fingers as it slammed shut at his back. He plodded upstairs, dumping his bag in the open kitchen door and flicking on the kettle before letting himself into the study.

  ‘I know you said I was here to learn more than chess, but could we pretend that’s why I’m here today, not hiding out from Brent and the crew?’ He stopped, realising that Professor Gosswin hadn’t turned from her chair by the window. ‘Are you asleep?’ He crept forward a step, another.

  He winced when the floorboards under the Turkish carpet moaned a thin, tortured sound. Then he realised how loudly the Professor was snoring – great ugly wheezes and snuffles – and grinned, stepping forward more confidently and bending to peer round into her face to see if her mouth was open, debating whether he could bring himself to take a photo on his phone if she were drooling.

  And then the air disappeared from the room.

  One of the Professor’s eyes was mostly open. The other seemed to have slipped down in her face, leaking fluid on to her sagging cheek as if it had been punctured. Her lips were parted, mouth all twisted to the side, and the snoring wasn’t snoring but …

  He knelt in front of her. Put his face in the line of the open eye, but there was no sign of recognition, no contraction in the pupil as he blocked the light. He slid his hand on to hers on the arm of the chair.

  ‘Professor?’

  Her fingers trembled and twitched under his. He drew back.

  Found he was standing.

  Found himself at the door.

  On the stairs, then by the dining hall.

  Suddenly pushing through the door into the p’lodge.

  The porter at the desk was signing someone into a ledger. Nick watched the ballet of his hands as he tucked the pen away, rolled the pages of the ledger closed, slipped it away under the desk.

  ‘Everything OK, Nick?’ the porter asked, frowning at him.

  ‘I think Professor Gosswin’s had a stroke,’ someone said with his voice.

  The porter’s frown deepened. ‘What? You mean you’ve just seen her … Hold tight.’ He ducked his head into the back room and Nick heard him order someone to call an ambulance. ‘Right. Let’s go and see,’ the porter said, lifting the flap at the end of the counter and stepping through.

  Nick felt his eyes close, found his sight blurred when he opened them, though his cheeks felt hot and dry. He looked up, expecting the porter to be angry and impatient, but he was just smiling the same kind smile. ‘There, lad. We’ll make sure she’s comfortable till the experts get here to see what exactly’s the matter.’

  Nick had to put his fist to his mouth to stop the funny sound in his throat from coming out. He let the porter turn him to the door and then there they were, in Front Court again.

  By the dining hall again.

  At the bottom of Professor Gosswin’s stairs again.

  ‘I should have run,’ Nick heard himself say. ‘Why didn’t I run to get help? Why … What if … What if … Why didn’t I run?’

  The sight of his thesis notes spread across the table brought a thrill of horror: one part can’t-do-this-it’s-too-hard, one part too-tired-for-this, and one part TV-is-more-fun.

  Come on, brain. Think. Tim knocked his fist against his forehead. Think thoughts. Clever thoughts.

  He put his fingers to his laptop keyboard. He took his fingers away. He made himself a fresh cup of tea. Then fetched a biscuit. The kitchen clock read 15.02. He’d been sitting at the table for a full hour.

  He reorganised his notes. 15.29.

  He put his fingers to his laptop keyboard and took them away, then cursed loudly and foully and finally wrote a sentence. He deleted the sentence. He wrote a new one and tapped the space bar to start a second. His mobile rang.

  ‘Yes?’ he snapped.

  ‘Tim?’ Nick’s voice was only just recognisable.

  ‘What’s wrong? Are you OK?’

  ‘Professor Gosswin.’ Nick took a wavering breath. ‘I went over for tea. After my supervision. She … she was just sitting there. Her face was …’ Nick throttled a sound suspiciously like a sob. ‘They’re saying she had a stroke. They let me come in the ambulance.’

  Tim closed his eyes. ‘Are you at Addenbrooke’s?’

  ‘Yes. The porters know and they said they’ll take care of things but … I don’t know who to call now. I don’t know.’

  ‘I’m sure the porters are handling it, Nick. They’ll have all her emergency contact details. Just hold tight, OK? I’ll be there soon.’

  ‘You don’t have to come. I just … I need to know what to do. My dad’s in a meeting and—’

  ‘Why don’t you call Bill while I’m on my way? I bet he’d want to know too.’

  Silence on the other end of the line.

  ‘I think that’s a good idea, Nick. Give Bill a ring and I’ll see you soon, OK?’

  Tim was halfway to the hospital before a near miss as he cut through a red light made him realise he’d forgotten both his helmet and his bike lights. Padlocking the bike to the first railing he found in the parking lot, he called the p’lodge as he jogged inside, following the signs for A & E as the porters filled him in.

  It took him a minute to spot Nick sitting absolutely still in a corner of the waiting room, eyes locked blankly on a plastic potted plant that looked as if it had somehow managed to die despite never having lived. He looked small and thin and scared, his face all sharp angles and shadows.

  ‘Nick.’

  The boy started, looked up then away. ‘Hi.’

  Tim exchanged tight-lipped smiles with the weary woman who’d been sitting next to Nick as she moved to the opposite chair to make way for him. He sank slowly on to the wheezing foam, risked putting a hand on Nick’s shoulder. ‘The porters are on to Gosswin’s lawyer: she’ll be here later. They said her niece is too far away to come until the weekend, but she’ll take care of discussions with the doctors by phone. You don’t have to worry. It’s all being handled.’

  Nick nodded mutely, staring at the ground. He didn’t pull away from Tim’s touch, though Tim could feel him struggling to suppress the hitch in his breathing.

  ‘How about we get a cup of really grotty coffee?’

  Nick shook his head, sighed, shrugged. Tim crossed to the vending machine, returning with two polystyrene cups steaming dispiritedly, as if it were too much to bother.

  ‘Here.’ Tim pressed one of the cups into Nick’s hand. ‘Drink.’ Setting his own cup down o
n the floor, he fished in his pocket and pulled out a chocolate bar, breaking off half and offering it to Nick, who had cupped his hands around the coffee, staring into its grey depths as if hypnotised. ‘Eat it, Nick.’

  He stared blankly at the chocolate, then shook his head even as he took it and raised it to his mouth.

  Tim watched his hand drop. ‘Nick.’

  He shuddered but took a bite, grimacing as he chewed, then swallowed convulsively as if he’d been fed sand. Tim sighed, guiding the coffee cup to Nick’s mouth, relieved when he rallied enough to shake him off with a look of faint irritation.

  ‘Yuck,’ Nick reported, wrinkling his nose.

  ‘I think the idea is that since you’re already in hospital it doesn’t matter if the coffee poisons you.’

  Nick made a somewhat pathetic attempt at a smile. ‘Thanks for coming,’ he whispered, as if he’d lost the ability to speak normally.

  ‘Gosswin’s been very kind to me. And hospitals aren’t good places to be alone.’

  ‘Like when your parents died?’

  Tim took a sip of his own coffee, gave himself a moment to choose his words. ‘My sister was there. She’s older. Took care of things.’

  Nick nodded, fixing his eyes on Tim’s for the first time since he’d arrived, but he didn’t venture anything further. Grateful not to be pressed, Tim chanced putting his arm about Nick’s shoulders, not surprised when he simply sat stiffly, neither leaning into comfort nor pushing him away.

  ‘Her face was all purple,’ Nick said suddenly, and Tim could see the liquid in his coffee cup rippling. ‘She was sitting in her chair, facing the window, and her face was all purple. One of her eyes was sort of open. I thought … I thought she’d died but there was this horrible horrible rattling sound and I realised … Her face was all … melted. Melted.’ Tim felt the bones in Nick’s back sharpen through his jumper as he went rigid, as if holding his breath. When he raised his head, his face was dry, though there was a feverish flush of colour highlighting each cheekbone.

  When Professor Gosswin’s lawyer turned up, she waved aside Tim and Nick’s explanations with a simple, ‘Yes, I know who you both are.’ Then she disappeared to talk to the doctors. Afterwards, she sent them off with little information but a promise to call ‘when things become clearer’.

  Nick let Tim lead him to a taxi. On the way home, Nick called Bill and then his father, leaving a second message on each phone in a hard flat voice. When the taxi pulled up at the house, he followed Tim silently up the front path and inside, slumping bonelessly into a chair as Tim set about heating tinned tomato soup.

  The sound of a key in the front door brought Nick’s head up.

  Tim had to turn away from the look of mingled despair and relief on Nick’s face as Bill appeared in the kitchen doorway.

  Chapter 18

  (Lent Term × Week 4 [≈ second week of February])

  Nick was startled when Susie fell into step beside him after supervision as if it were something they did every week.

  ‘I don’t know why I don’t get it. I used to get it. I used to get everything.’ She adjusted her bag higher on her shoulder. ‘I really don’t like not being the smartest any more. I want a Cambridge degree but maybe I’d be happier as a big fish in a smaller pond.’ She sighed. ‘Or maybe I just need to figure out how to fit in more work and less having fun. I know I’m not working hard enough but I just can’t seem to …’ Another sigh. ‘I don’t know what happened. I know you’re meant to “find” yourself at uni, but I didn’t realise that meant losing yourself first. I don’t seem to know who I am any more. One minute I’m one me and the next minute I’m someone else. I’m not even sure if I know who I want to be. Well, I know the bits I want but not how they fit together into an actual whole person. You know what I mean?’ She spun suddenly to stand in his path so that he had to step backwards not to walk into her.

  ‘Um?’ Nick offered.

  Susie rolled her eyes and set off again. ‘Just you wait. You’ve got all of this to look forward to.’

  ‘Did you ever meet Professor Gosswin?’ Nick asked.

  ‘The Dragon Lady? Didn’t she have a stroke?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Nick said, turning his head as if following the flight of the seagull gliding from one side of North Court to the other. ‘I would love to see you call her that to her face.’ It came out cracked and awkward. ‘I mean, she’d take it as a compliment. She’d love that people think she’s practically mythical.’

  ‘What does the Dragon Lady, mythical or otherwise, have to do with my existential crisis?’

  ‘She’s basically an arch villain whose superpowers are snark and disdain, but it’s just her being herself to the nth power. Like she’s more herself than people usually are.’

  ‘Wish I knew that trick.’

  ‘Sometimes you do.’

  Susie gave him a wan smile. ‘It’s nice of you to say but …’ She ran a hand over her face. ‘When I got here I decided I wanted to see if I could be a different person. No one at College saw me spotty and fat at school. They don’t know about the time I cried in the loos when Miles Franklyn dumped me in the middle of the Winter Dance. So I thought to myself, what’s to stop me being someone who really believes she’s sexy … like a Cambridge version of Rizzo. I keep trying it out and it feels nice: like maybe I do have that in me … but not consistently. Like I can’t hold on to it. And when I do, I seem to stop being all the other things I like about myself.’ She scraped her hair back. ‘Anyway, enough of that. Thanks for the figurative shoulder and all. See you tomorrow.’

  She was gone before he had a chance to say anything, even goodbye.

  Girls are really, really weird, he muttered as he set off for the p’lodge, trying not to let his thoughts drift to the fact that this time last week he’d been sitting down at Professor Gosswin’s chessboard.

  He detoured by his pigeonhole, found a leaflet in it advertising the ‘TitHall June Event’.

  ‘What’s the June Event?’ he asked the porter on duty.

  ‘Think a normal bop – you know, Viva night – on steroids. Only with live music and a bit of food. It’s ticketed for alcohol so you’d have to ask the Senior Tutor about whether it would be OK to come if you had a parent with you.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s going to be loads of fun with my dad there.’

  The porter gave him a sympathetic grimace, looking all too glad at the excuse to turn away when a delivery man slid a large box on to the counter.

  As if Dad would come with me even if I wanted him to.

  Of course that thought led on to one about whether Professor Gosswin could talk to the Senior Tutor for him … Only she can’t talk to anyone, you idiot, he muttered at himself.

  The lights were off at home when he let himself in, but there was a rustling of papers from the kitchen and he found himself smiling as he dropped his bag by the sofa. ‘Do you want a coffee?’ he asked Tim as he flicked on the kettle.

  ‘No thanks.’ Tim didn’t even look up from the papers covering every inch of the table.

  ‘Biscuit?’

  ‘No.’

  Nick took his mug and retreated to the window seat in the living room, trying to settle with his latest assignment, but the house was too quiet and he found himself wandering back to the kitchen for a glass of water he didn’t want.

  Tim glanced up with a glare, then shifted pointedly and turned his attention back to his papers. Nick loitered in the doorway, taking in the circles under Tim’s eyes, the angry stabbing gestures as he moved the pen from one page to the next.

  With a sigh, Nick returned to the window seat. The sun was storm-yellow on the pavement, the trees dipping in the wind. A hail of prunus flowers swept the pane then crumpled to the sill like a pile of dead butterflies, all squandered beauty fading to brown.

  He picked up Professor Gosswin’s book, but had only just parted the pages when he closed it again, pressed it to his chest, hand splayed protectively against the back cover.

  Ha
lf an hour later, he’d still made no progress on his work. He tossed his notepad aside, padding into the kitchen. ‘Do you want to order a pizza tonight? Watch a film?’ he asked as he fished in the snack cupboard for crisps.

  ‘What?’ Tim looked up blankly, his eyes dazed. ‘No … maybe … Look, ask me again in an hour, OK?’

  Nick sighed and set about making a fresh cup of tea. Tim started when Nick put a steaming cup down by his elbow. ‘You look like you need something. Are you sure you don’t want a biscuit?’

  ‘No. Thanks for the tea—’

  ‘But please get lost now?’

  Tim threw down his pen, running his hands through his hair. ‘Just give me an hour, all right? It’d be much better if you didn’t try to talk to me until then. Look, I’ll go upstairs. Get out of your way.’ He started to gather up his papers.

  ‘You don’t have to do that, Tim. I just … Are you OK?’ Nick stepped closer to the table, frowning down at the papers. ‘Those are bank statements, not your PhD.’

  ‘And you say you’re not a genius,’ sneered Tim, then shook his head, rubbing the heel of his hand against his forehead.

  ‘Can’t I help?’

  Tim sighed, slumping back into his chair. ‘Thanks, Nick. And thanks for the tea, but seriously. Give me an hour and I’ll be good as new. It’s not your problem.’

  ‘And I’m not yours, but you’d still help me if you could,’ Nick said.

  Tim flinched as if stung, giving Nick a chance to pick up one of the pages. Tim gritted his teeth over the first words to come to mind, snatching the paper back.

  ‘Look, Tim, money problems are fixable. I can—’

  ‘No. Just … no. I’m not going to take money off you, Nick.’

  ‘Why not? If it’s fixable, why not fix it? “Change the things you can”, like my postcard says. We both know you’ll pay me back.’

  ‘And in the meantime your dad would be so impressed—’

  ‘It’d be none of his business. I wasn’t planning on asking him to lend you the money. You’re not after a fortune or anything, are you?’