Almost Home: A Novel

by Pam Jenoff

  “We don’t know,” I answer quickly, before Chris can mention the coroner’s report. “That’s what we want to find out.”

  The Master shakes his head dismissively. “You’re wasting your time. We know what happened. He drowned.”

  I can feel Chris biting his tongue, struggling not to respond. “Maybe. But we’d like to look around and see if anyone else might remember anything,” I reply.

  “I’m sorry, but there’s simply no point. I’m afraid that I’m going to have to ask you to refrain. I can’t have you bothering the staff, digging up painful memories. If this got out, the publicity for the college wouldn’t be good. Now, I apologize, but I am rather tired and have an early tutorial tomorrow morning, so I am going to skip dessert. Lovely seeing you. Hope to see you at the reunion.” He stands up and is gone, Lady Anne following close behind.

  “Well that was interesting,” Chris remarks ten minutes later as we make our way down the stairs, the laughter of lingering students fading behind us. Outside, the cool night air is a welcome relief from the stuffiness of the hall.

  At the end of the Chimney, the taxi Chris phoned on his mobile idles in front of the gate. “The train station,” he says to the driver as he climbs in behind me. He moves closer than is necessary, his leg warm against mine.

  “I don’t think we should have told them why we were here,” I reply as the taxi starts down Jesus Lane.

  “No, that was perfect. I knew he wasn’t going to tell us anything but his reaction was exactly what I wanted to see.”

  Hearing the deliberateness in his voice, I turn to him. “So you wanted to be invited to Formal Hall with the Master?” He nods. “And you ran into Lady Anne on purpose?”

  “Absolutely.” Chris’s voice is plain and unrepentant. “I remembered that Lady Anne took her constitutional about that time every afternoon. And I’m glad I did. Did you see the look on Colbert’s face when we mentioned Jared? He knows more than he’s letting on.”

  “I don’t know…” I hesitate, looking out the window as we drive along the edge of Parker’s Piece. The flat, grassy park, bustling with cricket games and picnics by day, is deserted now, except for a couple huddled on a bench beneath one of the streetlights. “Maybe he was just nervous about poking around. Or he might just think we’re being foolish.”

  “I don’t think so,” Chris replies. “And I’m going to find out.” Neither of us speak further. I study his face out of the corner of my eye. He stares intently into the space in front of him, a man driven by a quest.

  The taxi pulls up in front of the train station and Chris pays the driver. “There’s a train leaving at nine forty-five,” he says, checking the board as we enter the station.

  Seven minutes. “You don’t have to wait. I can manage,” I reply as we walk toward the platform.

  He looks down at me protectively. “I don’t mind. Do you want something to eat for the ride? Or read?” He gestures toward the newsstand, which is about to close for the evening.

  I shake my head, lowering my hand to my bag. “I’ve got some work to do. And I’m still full from dinner,” I add, feeling a twinge of guilt as I tell the fib. I barely touched my meal. But I do not want to miss the train, and I am eager to get away from my memories and all that we learned.

  “I understand. I’m sorry I can’t drive you back to London,” he says as we walk down the platform. “But I want to stay up here and do some more digging tomorrow.”

  We reach the door of the train. “What are you going to do?”

  “Ask some questions around college. Some of the staff have been there for decades. They have to remember something.”

  “But Lord Colbert said…”

  “We’re not in college anymore, Jordan. The Master can’t control our lives. I can talk to whom I want. I just hope he hasn’t gotten to them already.”

  “Keep me posted.” I look up at the clock. Two minutes. “I’d better go.”

  “All right.” He leans forward, enveloping me in his thick arms. I find myself folding into the warmth of his chest, drawn close by the comforting smell of his aftershave. I linger, a second or two longer than usual. We have shared the weight of our discovery all day. I do not, I realize, look forward to being alone with it. “Be careful.” Pulling away, I turn and board the train, not meeting his eyes.

  Inside, the rear car is empty except for a man in a suit at the far end reading a newspaper. I take a seat toward the middle, setting my bag beside me and turning to look behind me as the train begins to pull from the station. Through the window, I see Chris retreating down the platform, shoulders hunched, head down. Finding out that he’d been right about Jared’s death was no great thing for him.

  Facing forward, I reach in my bag for the stack of papers regarding Infodyne that I didn’t get through on the train this morning. As I do, my fingers brush against other papers, folded in half. The coroner’s report. I pull my hand back quickly and zip the bag shut. But it is too late—the thought rises up like a wave, dark and menacing. Jared did not drown. I lean my head back against the seat, closing my eyes. Someone killed him. I had always imagined, naively perhaps, that his drowning was painless, as though he simply went to sleep in the water. But now a thousand dark images flood my mind. Did he suffer? Had he known that he was going to die? I bite my knuckles, fighting the urge to scream aloud. I am not a stranger to death, or even murder. In my line of work, I have seen too often the horrors that people can invoke upon one another. But this is different. This is mine.

  Exhaustion overtakes me then, and I release the images from my mind, soothed by the gentle rocking of the train. Some time later, I awake with a start. I open my eyes. I had fallen asleep, for how long I do not know. I blink, looking out the window, trying to figure out how far we have gone. But the terrain is nondescript, shrouded in darkness.

  As I turn back, something catches my eye. It is my bag, lying on the floor of the train. Uneasiness rises in me as I lean forward to pick it up. It was on the seat beside me when I dozed off. Did it fall? But it sits perfectly upright, the contents not jostled or spilled. No, someone moved it.

  I spin around to look behind me but the car is empty, except for the businessman dozing beneath his fallen newspaper. The seats in front of me remain deserted as well. For a moment I wonder if the conductor had come through, but he surely would have woken me to ask for my ticket. Hurriedly I pick up the bag, noticing for the first time that the zipper is half open.

  “Dammit!” I swear as I reach into the bag, berating myself for falling asleep where I should not. Have I been robbed? My wallet is still there, as are my cell phone and keys. Calmer now, I rummage through my bag, taking inventory. Maybe it really did just fall. Perhaps I forgot to close it. But as I reach past the Infodyne papers and my hand closes around emptiness I know that the movement of my bag was no accident.

  The coroner’s report is missing.

  November 1997

  The early evening air is frigid against my stockinged legs as I cut across the field that separates the Lower Park Street houses from the back of college. I stick to the stone path so my high heels do not sink into the muddy earth. As I reach the edge of North Court, my shoulders sag. Usually before a boat club dinner, I have a ritual: a long nap and a hot bath, lots of water, and a snack to line my stomach for the night of drinking ahead. But today I spent nearly six hours at the University Library, looking for an obscure article to support a point regarding the Paris Peace Conference I want to make in my thesis. My eyes grew dry from scanning faded microfiche, my nails jagged from searching among the dusty stacks. I lost track of time and returned late, with barely enough time to iron my little black dress and throw on some makeup before heading toward Hall.

  Normally, I would look forward to the boat club dinner, the post-race highlight of each term. But this morning’s race, the Fairbairn Cup, left little cause for celebration. It was a simple timed race down the river, designed more for the novices than for the senior divisions. We rowed poorly,
though, becoming disjointed when the adrenaline of a race kicked in for the first time and finished eighth out of eleven boats in our division. Today’s fiasco made it impossible to ignore the truth: something is not working with this crew.

  It is not for lack of effort. We train six days a week, staying on the water more than two hours each outing, doing exercises designed to enhance the crew’s speed, strength, the precision of the strokes. I’ve heard the boys speaking in low tones through the doorway of the locker room or over breakfast in Caff, speculating on the source of the problem. Some think Mark is too inexperienced to be in the boat, or that he and Nick are not strong enough to be bow pair. Others say it is a problem with the new shell. But I know it is not any one of these things. I know that the problem is Jared.

  Jared’s presence at the boat club has proved to be worse than even my initial fears. He is perpetually angry, and his nastiness affects the entire crew—I can see from the cox’s seat how the boys tense up, waiting for him to explode at one of them for catching the water too early, not holding on long enough at the stroke’s finish. And he seems to save most of his bile for me. Rowers tend not to appreciate coxes. They see us as deadweight at the back of the boat that adds no speed or power. They never see the work that goes into steering the boat, straining to see over eight sets of massive shoulders, aiming for the most direct route, figuring out how to make the sharp turn at Ditton between the two stalled boats and the swans without crashing into the bank. And then there are the commands—it is my job to watch the movement of the blades as their spoons come in and out of the water, to gauge the length and spacing of the water displaced by each stroke, and to try to figure out what is wrong and what to say to fix it. No, the crew never sees any of that, but for the most part the others regard me as a necessary evil, and because they like me, they don’t give me too hard of a time when I occasionally set us off balance by pulling too hard on the rudder or cause us to lock oars with another crew.

  But Jared is different. He acts as if I am the root of all problems in the boat, screams at me constantly. Underqualified for the job, I am an easy target—a second-year cox, even a good one, does not always have the technical knowledge to know what is wrong or the confidence and poise to make split-second calls. This morning, after the race, I leapt from the boat, trying to stop it as I was supposed to do. But in my haste I forgot to take off my headphone and the wires tore from the cox box. “Idiot!” he berated as the rest of the crew looked on, sympathetic but powerless to help. I left the boathouse shaken and demoralized. The tension has begun to affect me outside of rowing as well. I sleep restlessly, have nightmares, and wake with a sense of dread in the morning, knowing I have to return again to the boathouse.

  I make my way across First Court and up the stairs, hanging my coat on the rack before entering the Hall. The room is already crowded with a hundred or so rowers in tuxedos and little black dresses like my own, finding seats, balancing the predinner drinks that I missed. Chairs replace the benches that normally flank the long wood tables and the chandelier has been dimmed low to give the room an elegant feel. I make my way through the crowd to the table at the front left of the room reserved for the first men’s eight. The rest of the crew is already seated. I take the last empty seat beside Roger and across from Nick. Jared, I note with relief, is at the far end. The table is set formally with cloth napkins and china bearing the college crest; folded menus announce the courses.

  The room grows warm and voices rise to be heard above the din. Waiters circulate pouring white wine. I take a sip, grimacing. Boat club dinners, like any other college event, are about the quantity of alcohol, not quality. A hand touches my shoulder. “Boat race,” Roger says. Inwardly I groan. A boat race is a drinking contest, a relay down both sides of the table. He gestures with his head toward Jared and Chris at the far end. I am surprised—I would have expected Jared to look down upon such revelry but he faces Chris, glass raised. The race begins, Chris empties his glass in a single gulp on our side, then Simon. Across the table, the progression is a split second slower, Mark hesitating for a second as Jared finishes. Poised with my own glass, I watch as Roger drinks beside me. I cannot be the cause of our defeat. When it is my turn, I tilt my head back and swallow the wine in two mouthfuls, then set down the glass to indicate we have finished.

  “Winners!” Roger and Ewan cry as jubilantly as if it were a real race. Across the table, Nick demands a rematch. As the glasses are refilled, this time with red, my eyes catch Jared’s. A look of amusement crosses his face, as if to say, “Now isn’t this silly?” dimples crushing his usually smooth cheeks. I look away quickly, feeling my neck grow warm. It is, I realize, the first time I have seen him smile.

  This time the race begins at our end of the table. I drink my wine as quickly as I can, but I am no match for the avenging Nick, who downs his in a single gulp, sending his side on to victory. “Tiebreaker!” Chris insists as the first course, baked brie, is served. My empty stomach burns in protest. I cannot bumper another glass of wine so soon.

  “Excuse me,” I say to no one in particular, standing up unsteadily and making my way to the door. The same games and banter are playing out at tables across the Hall, mini-tableaus of college life. As I reach the door, nausea rises in me. I pause, grasping the door frame for support.

  There is a hand on my elbow. I look up confused. Jared hovers above me, wearing a serious expression. I wonder what he is doing here, whether he is going to yell at me about something. “You all right?” he asks, sounding concerned.

  “I’m fine,” I manage. “Just going to the loo.”

  “You looked a little green when you stood up. I’ll walk with you.” I consider protesting, then decide against it, allowing him to lead me up a short flight of stairs to the ladies’ room on the mezzanine.

  “Thanks,” I say, pulling my arm from his grasp. Inside, I stare down at the toilet, which seems to be moving in small circles. A cold sweat forms on my brow. What is wrong with me? Two glasses of wine should not affect me this way. I remember the questionable-looking tuna sandwich I ate late this morning at the library tea room. My stomach rolls. Should I make myself throw up? A tactical chunder, the boys call it. It is a deliberate way to rid the body of some of the alcohol either to avoid being drunk or, in many cases, to be able to continue on drinking. But it’s not likely to help with a sandwich eaten so many hours ago. I decide against it and wash my hands.

  Outside, I am surprised to find Jared still standing by the door. “You didn’t have to wait.”

  “No problem. I was just going to get some air myself.” He presses a glass into my hand. I start to protest. The last thing I need is another drink. “It’s water,” he adds.

  I wrap my hands around the cool glass and take a sip. “Thanks. I couldn’t handle another boat race.”

  “Come on.” He starts up the stairs. I hesitate, surprised. He is not heading back to dinner, or outside, either.

  “Where are we going?” I ask as we climb the steps, passing the darkened doorway of Upper Hall. The dining rooms are stacked like tiers on a wedding cake, each smaller than the one beneath it.

  Jared raises a finger to his lips as we pass a half-open pantry door where two waiters are discussing a bottle of wine that has been spilled. “Bloody idiot,” one says and I cannot tell if he is referring to the waiter or one of the students.

  We reach the Prioress’s Room, the third and smallest of the dining rooms. It is dark, with tables and chairs stacked in the corner. “Where are we going?” I repeat as we cross the room.

  Jared does not answer, but opens a window. “Let me go first.”

  “Go where?” I look over his shoulder into the darkness beyond.

  “Shhh.” He slips through the window, then holds his hands back through to me. I hesistate. Climbing out on the roof is surely forbidden and doing it at night after drinking is madness. I start to protest but Jared has already disappeared into the gaping darkness on the other side.

  Taking
a breath, I reach out and put my hand in his. As he pulls me through the window onto the ledge, I am greeted by an icy blast of air against my bare arms and neck. I think longingly of my coat hanging idly two stories below. “Slide this way. Careful, it’s a bit sooty.” He guides me into a corner where the side of the building abuts the chapel, forming a small nook. We move onto the chapel roof; the edge is slightly wider here. But the space is only eighteen inches deep, and beyond the precipice is a four-story drop down.

  I draw my knees to my chest and wrap my arms around them, trying to make myself as small as possible. “You wouldn’t be trying to kill me, would you?” I ask, teeth chattering.

  Jared laughs, his breath forming a tiny puff of smoke in the moonlight. “Nah, what would I do for a cox?” A bad cox, I want to say, is better than no cox at all. I decide not to antagonize him while we are perched at this height. He reaches around me, holding me in place as he closes the window. “So the porters won’t notice.” Then he takes off his dinner jacket and drapes it around my shoulders. The scent of a lemony shampoo wafts from the collar. I smelled it once before, I recall, a quick whiff mixed with sweat as he leaned over my seat to fix the cox box, cursing my technical ineptitude. I stop as the oddness of the situation strikes me. This is Jared who screams. Jared who gives me nightmares. We hate each other. Why is he being friendly now?

  He sits back but his arm remains locked firmly around my shoulder, holding me in place. I relax my grip on the edge of the building, noticing for the first time the gargoyles that guard the rooftop corners like sentries. “Look.” He gestures outward with his free hand. Across the horizon, the towers and steeples of Trinity, King’s, and Saint John’s are silhouetted cool and pale in the moonlight, the clear sky a blanket of stars behind them.