Almost Home: A Novel

by Pam Jenoff

  Outside the room, the guards stand as I exit the room and one starts to follow me.

  “That’s not necessary,” I say.

  “But Ms. Martindale gave instructions—”

  “Ms. Martindale would laugh,” I reply curtly. “I’m going twenty feet down the hall to the toilet, where I’d prefer you not follow me, and then to the cafeteria. You can call her yourself if you want,” I add, pulling out my cell phone and holding it to them. “But I’ll be back before you reach her. She was here all night and I don’t think she’ll appreciate the interruption.” The guards sit back down uncertainly.

  I walk as casually as possible around the corner, then turn into a room with three empty hospital beds. There is only one entrance, a row of high windows across the far wall. I take a deep breath, studying the windows, wondering if I can reach them to climb out. I have a minute at best before one of the guards comes to check on me. This may be my only option. Then I notice a pile of neatly folded scrubs on one of the beds. I grab a pair, duck into the toilet. Twenty seconds later I emerge wearing the blue cotton garb over my own clothes, my hair tucked away in a cap. I look both ways out the door then start down the hall in the opposite direction from Sarah’s room, fighting the urge to run.

  Outside, I race to the corner and hop into a cab. “King’s Cross,’ I say, looking out the rear window of the car to make sure I have not been followed. I rip off the surgical cap, then sink back in the seat, my mind racing. Vance is dead. Someone attacked Sarah. And as near as I can tell, both events have something to do with the paper that Jared and Duncan wanted to give at Madrid. I’ve got to get to Cambridge and talk to Professor Ang before something else happens.

  My phone rings and I pull it out of my bag. “Jordan?” Sophie’s baby-powder voice comes over the line. “Are you okay? Because the DCM was looking for you and—”

  I cut her off. “She found me, and everything is fine.” That might, I realize, be the lie of the year.

  “Oh, okay,” she says, sounding confused. “When you didn’t call me back, I thought—”

  “Back? Did you leave me a message?”

  “Two of them. Last night.” I look down at my phone but the message light is not blinking. Strange, since Mo said she tried to reach me too. “Jordan, I need to talk to you.” Alarm bells ring in my mind. Did she somehow find out about Sebastian and me? “I think I’ve found something for the investigation. Can you meet me somewhere?”

  “Sophie, I’d love to but I’m racing to catch a train out of town right now. I’m sure if you call Sebastian—”

  “I can’t,” she says more firmly than I have heard her speak, cutting me off. “Not with this.”

  “Does it have to do with the records he asked you to translate?”

  “Records? I don’t understand…”

  Impatience rises in me. I need to get on the train to Cambridge, and I don’t have time for a heart-to-heart with Sophie. Still, she is part of the team, and she might have found something important. I have an idea. “Sophie, where are you now?”

  “I’m on the Piccadilly Line near Ravenscourt Park, just on my way back from the Public Records Office. I was following up on a lead and…”

  Not far at all from Hammersmith. Perfect. “Mo gave you my key last night, right? I need you to do me a huge favor. Go to my flat and pick up the folder that is on the coffee table.” I picture the Madrid stationery as I left it the previous day. There might be something else that could help me in Cambridge. “Bring it to King’s Cross as quickly as you can. I’ll be waiting by the W. H. Smith store. We’ll talk then. But I need to make a train within the hour. So please hurry, and don’t tell anyone that you’re meeting me.”

  “I won’t,” she replies. Her voice is solemn, almost fearful.

  Fifteen minutes later, the cab pulls up in front of King’s Cross and I pay the driver. Inside, I make my way across the main concourse of the station, ducking downstairs into the toilet and removing the scrubs. As I wash my hands, I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror. Cringing, I splash water on my face, trying without success to fluff some life into my matted curls. Upstairs I scan the concourse anxiously. It is too soon, of course, for Sophie to be here. I look up at the schedule board. There is a train to Cambridge in ten minutes, another in twenty-five. I’ve got to be on one of those before Mo realizes that I gave security the jump.

  I walk to the row of shops that lines the right side of the concourse, get some cash from an ATM machine, then stop in front of the W. H. Smith newsstand and glance at the headlines on the tabloids. Five minutes pass, then ten. A voice comes over the loudspeaker, announcing the train to Cambridge. Staring at the door to the street, I fight the urge to pace. I walk to the coffee stand and order a cappuccino, keeping my eye on the door. Where’s Sophie? Damn her, I swear inwardly, returning to the newsstand. I pull out my cell phone and dial the last number called but it rings several times and goes to voice mail. What is taking her so long?

  “Train to Cambridge…” a voice announces over the public address system, calling the second train. I can wait no longer. I take a final, long look in both directions, then run for the platform.

  May 1998

  The voices and laughter fade as the door to the bar slowly closes behind me. Outside, the honeysuckle-laced night air is cool and still, the silence broken only by a chorus of crickets chirping from the bushes beside the stairs. Lights burn behind windows in the brick buildings that line two sides of the courtyard, illuminating students hunched industriously over dorm room desks.

  It is the third week in May and an air of solemnity has fallen across the college as exam time nears for the undergraduates. The college grounds are kept quiet, front gate closed even during the day, tourists shooed off by the porters. The bar was half as full as on a normal night—even Mark begged off from his usual pint and game of table footie to return to his books.

  As I walk through the archway to First Court, I stop, looking up at the library, which runs along the third floor above the Porter’s Lodge. Jared is seated at his usual carrel, head hunched over, bathed in yellow lamplight. I watch as he chews on the edge of his pencil, then scribbles something furiously. Usually I would stop up for a few minutes of whispered conversation, a quick kiss. But the past few nights he has seemed more distressed than pleased by the interruption, annoyance thinly veiled under a strained smile. So instead I turn away and start across the field toward home.

  The change seemed to come abruptly a few days ago, like the swift storm that caught us on our ride to Grantchester. Or maybe there were signs, tiny fissures of changes I hadn’t wanted to see. Jared had become distant again, stony. He’s not unkind as he was when we first met, but troubled and withdrawn, spending less time with me and the others, speaking little when he is there.

  I unlock the back door to the house and creep up the stairs so as not to wake Sarah, but when I reach the landing, light still burns beneath her door. I raise my hand to knock. It would be good to talk to her about Jared. Then I hesitate. How can I explain the problem, the subtle changes that are so difficult to articulate, even to myself? I turn and walk into my own room.

  Jared’s tension is understandable, I remind myself as I undress and climb into bed. There’s his dissertation, which he is trying to finish writing and then submit; the May Bumps are less than a month away. The Eight is training as hard as ever, working to fine-tune our timing, to look for the tricks that will give us that extra bit of speed and power.

  And then there is my departure. I close my eyes, listening to the crickets beneath the window. It is only five weeks until the semester ends and I leave England for good. Jared and I have not talked about what is happening other than in the most peripheral and perfunctory way, my casual mention that I had to book United because British Airways was completely full with summer holiday travelers, his suggestion that I give my belongings I don’t want to ship home to Oxfam or one of the other charity shops. We have not discussed what is really happening, the fa
ct that our fledging relationship will end.

  “Maybe we could meet at the winter holidays,” he once said. “A Weiss-Short summit in the States.”

  I hesitated. Was he suggesting that we continue our relationship long-distance? I loved the idea that we could transcend the miles, keep things going until somehow magically reuniting. But even as I considered it, I knew that it would never work. I had seen it all too often as an undergrad, the boyfriend in Washington trying to keep a high school flame alive with a girlfriend in Texas or Colorado. The story was always the same: hours spent on the telephone, the nervously anticipated visit at Christmas, the realization that someone cheated or changed, that the circumstances and commonalities that once held them together were no longer there. I didn’t want the resentment and repercussions that invariably came with trying to hang on to something for too long. Better to put the memories under glass and have them always than to try to take this where it could not survive, like a magical object unable to cross into the real world without disintegrating into angry dust.

  But as he watched me expectantly, I could not bring myself to extinguish his hope. “I would love to see you,” I replied instead slowly, choosing my words with care, wanting to keep the possibility alive.

  A strange expression crossed his face and I knew that he was not fooled. Deep down, he understood that this was the bargain we had made with time in exchange for this happiness, written in indelible ink. “You can show me Washington. It will be nice,” he added, clinging stubbornly to this thread as though it could stop the days that were slipping rapidly from beneath us.

  I open my eyes in the darkness. I had drifted off, for how long I do not know. I run my hand along the empty space beside me. The sheets are cool, not rumpled as they are when Jared has been here. What time is it? I listen for the sounds of students calling to one another as they spill from the pubs on their way home. But the street is silent except for a garbage truck collecting cans at the top of Lower Park Street.

  I roll over. Three-thirty, the clock on the nightstand reads. The library closes at one. Jared has been coming to me later and later, but he is always here by now. I stand up and dress swiftly, pulling on my leggings and splash top, which I had laid across the chair in preparation for the next day’s row. Then I step into my still-tied sneakers and start down the stairs.

  Easy, I think as I walk swiftly up Park Street to Jesus Lane, then turn onto Malcolm Street, studying the dilapidated row homes on both sides. Maybe Jared decided to stay at home tonight. But he always comes to me. I walk to his house and take the porch steps two at a time. I ring the door buzzer twice, pressing the button down for several seconds, but there is no response. Where is he?

  The river, I think. There is a spot by the Fort Saint George pub where Jared likes to sit and think. A few times we have taken a blanket and a bottle of wine there at night when the weather was warm. We laid on our backs, staring up at the endless sky, the field of stars revealed by the perfect darkness. But would he have gone there alone at this hour?

  I cut through college, race out the back college gate. Let him be there, I pray as I make my way across the deserted darkness of Jesus Green as if on my way to some strange middle-of-the-night outing. I am halfway across Midsummer Common when I spot him, a figure huddled along the riverbank, shrouded by the willow trees that dip low to the water. Drawing closer, I pause. He sits, hands wrapped around his knees, staring at the water. “Jared?”

  He does not answer. I drop down beside him, my panic at searching for him replaced by a new sort of alarm. I touch his shoulder, then rear back as he jumps, fearing that he might lash out, not recognizing me. But he only blinks, his eyes clearing. “Jo?” He looks around disoriented, as if waking from a dream and trying to remember where he is.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, of course,” he says, sounding as though he is trying to convince himself.

  “When I woke up and you weren’t there…” I hesitate, not wanting to nag.

  “I’m sorry if I worried you.”

  “It’s okay. It’s just that you’ve seemed different somehow these past few days.” I pause, struggling to find the right words. “Withdrawn. Preoccupied.” I take a deep breath, hating the insecurity of my own words even before they are spoken. “Is it me?”

  His eyes widen. “God, no!” He straightens, drawing me into his arms and kissing my forehead, cheeks. “Not you. Never you.” His voice is forceful, sincere. But then he recedes again, looking out at the water once more, not speaking, still holding me tight. He bites his lip as though wanting to say something, trying to decide if he should. “Come away with me, Jo.”

  “For a holiday?” I blink. How can he possibly want to go away now, with the race just weeks away? “I suppose, we could manage a weekend, see if there are any short breaks on special.”

  He shakes his head. “For good. Let’s get on a plane, go to Bali, or Johannesburg maybe, and never look back.”

  My mind races. “After graduation?”

  “I’m not talking about after graduation. I mean now.”

  “But the race—”

  “Is just a race!” he explodes. “Just a fucking college game! Whether we win or lose, our lives will be the same the next day and then it will just be something to brag about or lament at a reunion dinner once every ten years when we come back and see who is fat and thin, rich and poor, divorced and miserable and dead. Is that what you want your life to be? This place is so damn trite, all the parties and drinking…”

  “But…” I say, then falter, stung by his words. In truth I know that he is right. To me, Cambridge has been Camelot, the happiest place I have known. But I see it now as he does, a rich kids’ playground, a party in a castle.

  He grasps me by the shoulders. “Let’s get out of here,” he says again, his eyes burning. “Let’s go do something that actually matters for once.”

  He’s been drinking, I realize, catching a whiff of acrid breath. I notice then his bloodshot eyes, the saucerlike pupils. This surprises me more than anything else. He doesn’t usually drink the night before an outing, or touch alcohol at all this close to a race. “I think,” I begin carefully, “that we should get some sleep and talk about this in the morning.”

  He opens his mouth and for a minute I fear that he will refuse to come with me, that he will launch into another tirade. “All right,” he says, his voice calm and rational now. I stand and he reaches up, putting his hand in mine like a child and climbing to his feet. Wordlessly he allows me to lead him back to my house.

  In my room, I undress once more and climb in bed to my usual place beside the wall. He climbs in, curving himself around my back, and I am surprised to feel his hardness against me, his arousal in spite of the alcohol. His hand brushes my breast and I wonder if he will try to make love to me, but he buries his head in my neck and a moment later begins to breathe long and even. But I am awake now, my mind active from our conversation. Why would Jared talk about going away now, with the race just weeks away? He is panicking, I decide. It is about more than just winning. The moment we’ve worked for all these months will soon be here and then, win or lose, it will be over. And I will be gone.

  I burrow deeper into his arms, close my eyes, begin to dream, as I so often do, that I am in the boat. We are just beginning an outing, warming up in pairs, then fours as we make our way past the other boathouses. The sky is low with clouds, the air warm and close. As we turn onto the Long Reach, all eight begin to row. I open my mouth, wanting to rebuke the crew for not waiting for my command, but no sound comes out. The boat is gaining speed, moving faster than we ever have, but the strokes are jerky and unsettled, sending water splashing up at me. I look at Chris, mutely signaling him for help, but he stares straight ahead, not seeing my distress.

  Jared, I think, craning to see over Chris’s broad shoulders. But at Jared’s normal place at five sits a substitute, a strange, dark-haired boy I do not recognize. Where is Jared? Perhaps he traded places with som
eone. I lean forward, struggling to look farther down in the boat. But he is not there. Terror rising in me, I stand up. The boat begins to wobble, then tilts sharply to the left, capsizing, and as I am swallowed by the cold abyss of the water, everything goes black…

  I open my eyes to the darkness of my bedroom, trying to raise myself from the clutches of the dream, gasping for breath. But the air does not come. There is something around my neck, I realize, reaching up: Jared’s hands clamped tightly around my throat.

  “Jared,” I try to croak, but as in the dream the sound will not come, the effort instead pressing the last bit of air that remains from my lungs. In the moonlight, I can see his eyes shut tightly, pupils moving beneath lids, as he struggles in his own dream, oblivious to what he is doing. His grip tightens around my throat, pressing against my windpipe. I am going to die, I panic, as my head grows light.

  Desperately I raise my knee to his groin. He cries out, his hands loosening as his eyes fly open. I inhale sharply. “What happened?” he asks, clutching himself. “Why did you kick me?” I continue sucking in great gulps of the air, unable to answer. “Are you all right?” He looks down at my neck. There are marks, I can tell. Red finger marks, accusatory across the paleness of my skin in the moonlight. “Oh God,” he leaps up, oblivious to his own pain. “I’m so sorry. What was I doing?”

  “It’s okay,” I say, still shaken. “It was just a dream. Come back to bed.” The fact that he did not mean to strangle me is of little comfort to either of us, though. He walks from the room. He’s going to leave, I think, gripped by cold panic. But a few minutes later he returns, his hair damp around the edges of his face where he splashed water. He sits on the floor beside the bed, holding my hand until I drift off to sleep.

  In the morning, bright sunlight filters through my eyelids, waking me. I lie still for a moment, smelling freshly cut grass through the open window, wondering if the previous night was a dream. Then I open my eyes. Jared is lying on the floor, his hand raised up to hold mine, just as he had done at rowing camp before anyone knew we were together. I start to rouse him, to convince him to return to bed. Then I stop, knowing it is pointless that no matter how hard I try to persuade him, he will not get back into bed with me again. Part of me is relieved. I cannot be sure he will not hurt me, lost in his nightmares, beyond conscious reach. What if I had been facing away from him, unable to kick and wake him to save my own life? My stomach twists, both hating and guiltily grateful for the distance he has put between us, doing the only thing he can to keep me safe.