The Company of Fellows

by Dan Holloway

  “Becky.” Catch her whilst she’s still feeling guilty, he thought. “You might be able to help me with something.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Your mother said the Warden’s first wife, Valerie, had died. When she said it, she seemed upset. Do you know why?”

  “Yes.” For a moment Tommy could see doors shutting somewhere behind Becky’s eyes. He couldn’t tell if it was something conscious or unconscious that had closed them. “Valerie and Hedley wanted to have children,” she said. “But they couldn’t. From what I can gather it never threatened their marriage, but it broke Valerie.” Tommy listened intently, as captivated by the sounds coming out of Becky’s mouth as the meaning they conveyed. The words were mature, emotionally rounded, but the voice was completely flat, as though she were reading an autocue in a foreign language, “When mum was pregnant with Carol and me, the Sansoms stopped seeing her and dad. When I, we, were born she had a breakdown. When dad left mum it was the last straw. She couldn’t bear the thought that mum and dad, who couldn’t stand the sight of each other, got to have a child when she and Hedley couldn’t. Mum thinks she blamed her for getting pregnant; you know, some kind of primordial female jealousy?” Tommy remembered the flatness in Emily’s eyes when she’d said that she and David couldn’t have children and thought perhaps he did know.

  “But maybe,” she continued, “Val didn’t blame mum, she blamed dad for leaving her, for being no kind of a father at all. Anyway, she got so low that Hedley thought about giving up work completely. When she got out of hospital he made sure that if he couldn’t be, someone else was with her every second, just in case she tried to hurt herself. Apparently they used to have cleaners in constantly. At the time he never told anyone why. People around college thought she was mad and he had OCD. Anyway, one day the cleaner, a Chinese woman, left early, before Hedley got back from the library. He got home to find her with her head in the oven.”

  Tommy gripped her hands between his, as much for his sake as hers. He thought of the inside of his room at the Warneford, of the comfort and the friendliness, of the things designed to take your mind of the fact that you were being held prisoner with no trial and no appeal. “How did it affect your parents? Did they know at the time that Valerie blamed one of them?”

  “Dad was long gone by then, on sabbatical at the Sorbonne. Mum. Well. I haven’t got a fucking clue. Hedley told her years later, after he came back. She talks about it, but it’s as though she isn’t there, you know what I mean?”

  Tommy looked into her eyes and saw nothing. “Yes.”

  “She says Hedley blames her for his wife’s death, that that’s why he left Oxford.”

  “She’s wrong about that.”

  “I know. I don’t think he told her to make her feel guilty. I think it was just for information.” Tommy finally saw something behind her eyes as she spat out the last two words: contempt.

  “Has it ever affected how she treated you?”

  “Not at all,” she said, and Tommy had a feeling that it was true.

  “So tell me about Becky Shaw.” Tommy leaned back and poured his espresso down his throat, his hair falling chaotically back over his eyes.

  “Changing the subject?”

  “One hundred percent.”

  “Thank God for that,” Becky grinned. “There’s only so much intense you can take without cracking up. So what do you want to know?”

  “Everything. Anything. Hobbies, plans, gap year, boyfriends, girlfriends, teenage stuff.” When she smiled her cheeks rounded out and her eyes glinted, and he could believe that she was a normal teenager, far away from the crusted world of Oxford and all its secrets.

  “Fuck, Tommy, you sound like an uncle.”

  “Well, I’m old enough.”

  “I guess you are,” she said. “I hadn’t thought of it like that. Well, no boyfriends at the moment, or girlfriends. You’ve seen the extent of mum’s radar for that already. Plans? Fuck knows. I am on a gap year, though. I spent the summer in Eastern Europe.”

  “Which would explain the hair.”

  “Yeah. I’d been planning to get a job but I decided to take off. You know, spoilt rich kid, why work when I cold bum around and drink cheap beer?”

  “Where did you go?” Tommy remembered the excitement of following the collapse of the Soviet Union on the news during his first year in college, when Becky was still a baby. He loved the old East and the childhood memories it conjured up, of the news, of TV shows like Threads that had scared a generation half to death, of James Bond and bookshelves filled with his father’s old John Le Carré novels. Now he went there regularly on business, and it was as simple as hopping on the Eurostar to Paris. There was a whole class of customer that went mad for communist chic, just as Eastern Europe was westernising, and sourcing authentic products was getting harder.

  “Most places,” she said, leaning forward and uncoupling her hands from his so she could use them to elaborate. “Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria…”

  She jumped as Wagner started to pound out of Tommy’s pocket.

  “I bet I know who that is!”

  “I bet you’re right,” said Tommy, looking at the screen.

  ____

  26

  Tommy hadn’t expected to hear from Emily again. He wondered if the police had reopened their investigations, but he would have found out before now if they had. For a moment, as he watched Becky pull away on her scooter up South Parks Road the possibility flashed through his mind that he had been set up and hung out to dry all along, but there had been nothing in Emily’s voice to suggest that she wanted anything except to have a drink after dinner. Maybe she had changed so much that he could no longer tell. He didn’t think so.

  It was still only 12 when he left Curry’s with his new laptop, and he didn’t feel like going back to the flat. He’d rather keep his mind clear. He’d kill some time by walking up to the John Radcliffe rather than getting the bus, but at his slowest that would take three quarters of an hour. He headed out along the High Street, stopping on Magdalen Bridge to watch the end of season tourists punting in the autumn sun. Tuesday’s storms seemed a world away as he watched the leaves, still green from summer, dripping over the banks of the Cherwell.

  Just over Magdalen Bridge the roundabout known as the Plain headed out of town to the east. Travellers who avoided turning right to St Hilda’s College or next right past the school and college buildings of the Iffley Road, and the stadium where Roger Bannister broke the four minute mile, could choose to leave Oxford via the bohemian chic of the Cowley Road, with its Asian and African-influenced food shops, or the urban hipness of St Clements with its wine bars and fish restaurants. The former would take them to the old Cowley motor works, now regenerated thanks to the success of the new Mini. The latter was the main artery out towards the M40 and London, via Headington and most of Oxford’s hospitals, including the John Radcliffe. And the Warneford, the hospital that specialises in psychiatric in-patients, Tommy’s home for several weeks in the middle of his life.

  Tommy spent an hour in Oisi Master on St Clements having a long sushi lunch. Then he took a detour round Morrell Avenue that took him past the Warneford. It helped him to stand at the crossroads with Gypsy Road and see the secure accommodation where he had spent a month in recovery. It helped that he could look through the anodyne curtains and feel nothing. He had felt nothing then, either, he reflected, but in a very different way, and only thanks to large doses of lithium.

  The Women’s Health Centre was at the top of the vast John Radcliffe complex, which was built on a steep hill leading up from the flood plain of Marston. From its place in the high grounds of Manor Park, at the top of the hospital, a wooden bench afforded Tommy a perfect view of the main car parks and the entrances to all the buildings. He called to make sure Dr Knightley hadn’t come in early, and sat down with his new laptop on his knees. There was still an hour before Knightley was due to arrive; closer to two, thought Tommy, before he
actually would. It was time to start learning how to wait.

  Tommy imagined that he was reading a book. He trained his eyes away in the distance and scanned, taking in huge gobbets of information at a time. His eyes moved exactly as they would if he were speed-reading a novel. Eyes, he knew, took in nothing as they actually moved (unless, that was, they were reading something that was also moving). In order to take in information they had to be stationary in relation to their object. Contrary to appearances super readers actually moved their eyes almost instantaneously between an evenly spaced series of static points, giving the impression of constant motion, rather like a biathlete retraining their sights in between rifle shots. Because their eyes were trained to take in such broad areas of information, using primary and peripheral vision simultaneously, sometimes only 2 or 3 of these sighting points were needed to soak up every detail on a page of text. Tommy was able to take in the whole JR site, including its car parks, using just three eye positions. He moved over them again and again and again.

  After 20 minutes he was already bored, and started playing counting games with the cars. When he had finished this he played colour bingo with patients’ shirts, and number and letter games with car number plates. Soon he was bored again and longing for a book, although that would, of course, have defeated the object of the stakeout.

  Finally, just as he was beginning to be very glad that he wasn’t actually a private investigator, or a paparazzo, or any other job that involved sitting still and not being able to do anything, he saw Stephen Knightley emerge from a black BMW in the staff car park. As Tommy had figured, the Dr seemed in no particular hurry to start his shift.

  “Dr Knightley,” he called, walking to cut him off at the entrance.

  “Hullo.”

  Tommy held out his hand. “We met yesterday. Sorry if I gave you a fright.”

  “Yes. Becky Shaw’s young man, quite right. What can I do for you?”

  Tommy would have put him right about his relationship with Becky; but without missing a beat he realised that it was the perfect way into the conversation. “Well, I was wondering if you had a moment.”

  “Not really,” said Knightley unconvincingly. “Can it wait?”

  “That’s the thing,” Tommy said. “It would be able to wait, but I’m having dinner with Becky tonight.” Tommy lowered his head in a suitably conspiratorial way and gave off just the right amount of gaucheness to leave Knightley in no doubt as to what he meant by dinner.

  “Mm. I see. Coffee, quickly. My office. Come on, then.”

  Tommy followed through the open, sterile corridors of the Women’s Health Centre, with its playful patterns in the safety flooring and peppering of Tonka trucks that had long since ceased to serve any real purpose other than giving health and safety risk assessors something to waste paper on.

  “Can I get your coffee?” Tommy asked as they drew up to the League of Friends café.

  “I said coffee. Not pig’s platelets.”

  Knightley opened his office door, and switched on the light and the kettle simultaneously. On top of a filing cabinet he kept a cafetiere and some individually wrapped packets of ground Columbian roast, two of which he put into the pyrex. Tommy could guess what he kept in the top drawer of the cabinet – several bottles of something considerably cheaper and nastier than the Speyside and Islay malts that Tommy could see on the shelves over Knightley’s desk. Something he wasn’t so keen to let the visiting professors and the Trust directors see. “Well, what do you want to know? Not sure I can be much help in, er,” he coughed, “that department. Known Becky since she was, well, longer than anyone else. Not sure it would be appropriate.”

  “Good Lord, no.” Tommy laughed. “It’s just rather awkward. I was a student of Charles Shaw’s many years ago. I know Becky, but I don’t really know anything about Haydn, or her relationship with her father come to that, and I got the impression from seeing them together that there were some issues. Areas where I might do well to tread carefully so as not to muddy the waters. And I’m afraid that you happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.” That may have been a misplaced attempt at humour, he thought, as he saw the colour go from Knightley’s face. Or maybe it was just the lack of a drink. Tommy got up and went to the window, leaving his back turned just long enough to allow Knightley time to fumble in his top drawer if he needed. “I’m afraid you’re the only person I can think of to talk to.” Tommy meandered back to his chair, keeping up the show of suitor’s nerves.

  “Well. Very good. Coffee, black I’m afraid.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re right of course. Bloody awful business leaving her like that.”

  “Becky’s told me her parents divorced when shortly after she was born. That was all she said.”

  Tommy guessed from the glad intake of breath as Knightley sipped his coffee that at least half the liquid wasn’t water. “Didn’t tell you why then?” said the Dr.

  “No, but I’m hoping you might be able to. I really don’t want to land myself in it.”

  “Quite right. Quite right. Little shit. Not you. Well, you might be, don’t know. He was, though. Becky had a twin, you know?” Tommy had anticipated this and looked suitably surprised. “No, didn’t think you did. Haydn got very ill just before she was due.” He tipped the rest of the coffee down his throat and looked as though he needed more of whatever was in it. “Had to do a Caesarian on her. That shit Charles was in London. Said he was going to an art auction. Becky’s twin didn’t make it. Carol. Nothing I could do. Nothing. If he’d been there.” Knightley was shaking and the redness of the broken capillaries on his cheeks had spread across his face. “Came to see her next day. Bold as brass. Thought he was going to apologise. He walked in and screamed the place down. Said it was her fault for working too long – just jealous of her. Always had more talent than he did. Made her feel it was her fault Carol died, but I’ve blamed myself for it every day since. Well, you can see, stuck here coming in on Saturdays when all the old college boys are nine to fiving in Harley Street. Finished me off. Only person that never blamed themselves was that little shit.”

  “Maybe he did,” Tommy said, standing up and walking over to the filing cabinet. Knightley had stopped shaking and Tommy thought he was about to start sobbing. Tommy opened the drawer, poured a large Teacher’s into Knightley’s cup, put the bottle back, and sat down without saying anything. Knightley smiled. “Maybe that’s why he killed himself.”

  “That’s bollocks.”

  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t ask but you sound like you don’t believe he was at an auction the night Becky was born.” Tommy ran through the list of auction catalogues he had found amongst Charles’ papers, and realised he didn’t know when Becky’s birthday was. He made a note to ask her later. Not that a catalogue proved anything.

  “Philandering little shit. Ran through the brightest things in every year.”

  “So why did he marry Haydn? For his career?”

  “Career, bollocks. Married her because she said yes. He asked every bloody one of them. She was the first who said yes. God knows why he wanted to be married. Worst husband I ever met. Didn’t even play the game.” Knightley paused. He looked confused, as though he had got lost somewhere along the thread, and then he started again, as though he had remembered where he left off. “Advice, yes. Watch out with Becky. Survivor’s guilt”

  “Thank you, Dr Knightley.” Tommy got up to leave. He looked at how much of the cup Knightley had emptied. He didn’t think he needed to worry that the doctor would be straight on the phone to Becky and Haydn to check the details of Tommy’s story.

  “Lovely girl, Becky. Lovely girl.”

  “Yes,” said Tommy. “She is.”

  “Be gentle with her.” Tommy thought that Knightley flushed redder than even the drink had made him. It almost made him choke back something in his throat, a part of him that was moved by the sight of someone who had spent much of their life slowly rotting momentarily peeling away
the decay to reveal something unspoilt. But then that was the problem, he thought. That small kernel of something good that refused to die. That was why someone like Knightley couldn’t just carry on after something like that as though nothing had happened. It was the residue of goodness that drove some people to destroy themselves whilst others flourished.

  *

  Knightley waited long enough to make sure that Tommy was gone and picked up the phone. “I need to see Hedley tonight,” he said. “Tell him to meet me at Vincent’s at 7.”

  ____

  27

  The line somewhere along which a half-truth between spouses becomes a lie becomes an infidelity is one of the grey moral relatives that people grapple to define every day. But when one’s life is lived by absolutes the line writhes and twists in one’s soul until eventually it breaks free in anguish.

  Emily watched David dishing the lasagne and tried to understand what felt wrong. She told herself she would feel the same if she were going to have a drink with Rosie, but that wasn’t true. She told herself she was satisfying her professional curiosity, but that wasn’t true either. If either had been true she would have told David and ridden out his sighs of half-hearted disapproval. She had no romantic interest in Tommy, and she knew that David, for all his huffing and puffing, would believe her absolutely when she said so. So why not tell him? Did she really want to see Tommy more than she wanted to be truthful with David, or was that the wrong question? She wasn’t sure she wanted to see Tommy at all. For some reason she needed to. Maybe she’d find out why when she saw him.

  “See you later,” Emily kissed David on the cheek. “Love you.”

  “Love you too. Take care.”

  The Anchor on Polstead Road wasn’t somewhere David’s friends would go. At the heart of North Oxford society, it was the regular watering hole of the creative, green and bohemian set, very different from David’s solid, dependable, predictable friends. It was also just around the corner from Tommy’s house, which gave her an excuse to pick him up. She was curious to see what he had done with the house since he turned designer, to see what made him tick. She parked up and got straight out. She was sure he would be watching for her so there was no time to get a feel for the place. The main drive was neat enough, with plenty of parking space for customers, but it was clear that he was more of an indoor designer than a gardener. It was another thing they didn’t have in common.