The Company of Fellows

by Dan Holloway

  “Thank you.”

  “I had no idea that iconography interested you so much,” Tommy slipped in, wondering if Sansom would let on to anything.

  “There is something fascinating about art of any kind that is wholly symbolic,” said Sansom. “For a philosopher of religion, Orthodox iconography is rather like the mother lode.”

  The expression made Tommy smile. He had a feeling the word mother was entirely deliberate. He had an equally strong feeling that Sansom wasn’t about to reveal anything more. “I’m sure you will miss preaching in the Chapel.”

  “Yes, I suppose I will. I guess I’ll get more than my share of keynote speeches and after-dinner slots, though. Will you come for coffee?”

  After service coffee was a timeless tradition at the Chapel, yet more swilling of fluids in the same stale groups. Recirculated farts, thought Tommy, like air conditioning in steerage.

  “On second thoughts,” said Sansom, as if reading his thoughts. Come and have something drinkable with me.”

  “Very good idea.” Tommy smiled.

  The inside of the Lodge surprised Tommy. For all the soulless and dark tradition, the few personal touches the Sansoms had slipped in bore little resemblance to the rather stage-managed personas he’d seen the previous night. There was an early plastic Mies van der Rohe chair in the drawing room; there were a couple of Pollock prints, and even a framed reproduction of one of De Kooning’s pictures of women. The more he looked the more he saw little details: coasters, decanters, vases in bold colours and asymmetric shapes.

  “Greek coffee, metrios,” said Sansom, bringing a little plastic tray into the drawing room with three tiny high-sided cups that were filled with a sweet-smelling brown goo that was almost solid.

  “Perfect,” said Tommy.

  “Hello, Tommy,” said Clarissa, coming to join them. “How lovely to see you again so soon. Do have a langue de chat.” She offered him a plate of small buttery biscuits.

  It wasn’t how Tommy had imagined social occasions with the Sansoms. It was almost too well-oiled to be an act, slick to the point of being natural. Behind the endlessly repeated routine he sensed that each had a genuine ease in their role, and a genuine ease with each other’s role. He found everything about being there, including the magnificent roast capon with Chambolle-Musigny that was served for lunch, pleasant and relaxed.

  “That was quite exquisite, Clarissa.”

  “The secret’s to use good meat,” Clarissa replied. “I always go to Feller’s”

  Tommy laughed. “That’s something I once spent months trying to explain to someone.”

  “You should try demonstrating rather than explaining. Just cook the same meal with ingredients from Sainsbury’s the next night.”

  “I did,” said Tommy. “But it still didn’t work.”

  “Then I’m very glad to see from your left hand that you didn’t marry her,” said Clarissa. “And I’m even gladder if you divorced her for it.” They all laughed.

  “Well,” said Tommy. “It’s a long story, but I’m sure that culinary incompatibility has at least a small part to play in it.”

  “Don’t ever underestimate its role, Tommy.”

  Hedley Sansom was smiling, almost repressing a smirk. “I should explain, Tommy. Clarissa is a patissière by profession. She trained under Michel Roux in the 70s.”

  Tommy could see Clarissa blush.

  “Wait till you taste pudding,” said Sansom.

  “I’m truly honoured.” Tommy said. Michel Roux, who had established Le Gavroche, Britain’s first restaurant to receive three Michelin stars, with his brother Albert, was one of the world’s masters of all things sweet.

  “She still works in the trade, freelance these days,” Hedley said. Tommy could detect the pride in his voice. “She has done everywhere we’ve gone. We met at a pastry shop in Vienna whilst I was at Tübingen.”

  “A Viennese whirlwind romance,” Clarissa added. Tommy got the impression it was the same joke she used to hide her embarrassment every time Hedley told the story.

  After rose water soufflé, Hedley took Tommy back to the drawing room, excusing himself to Clarissa.

  “Tommy,” he said, ushering his guest into the van der Rohe chair. “You remember Dr Knightley, who was at the memorial on Friday?”

  “Yes, he was rather the worse for wear if memory serves.”

  “Indeed. It would be tragic if it weren’t for the fact that it’s not,” said Sansom enigmatically. Tommy waited. “He called me up yesterday afternoon.”

  Tommy felt like a naughty undergraduate again.

  Summoned to see the Warden after he split up with Emily. Pointed to a chair and looked over with concern like a broken vase. Concern that gave way to warnings. Certain levels of performance expected. Everyone has a private life. Nothing wrong with that. Not in and of itself anyway. But it mustn’t get in the way of study. Was that understood? Good.

  Tommy realised that if he was going to stand a chance of earning Hedley’s trust it was time to speak first. “I went to see him yesterday.”

  “I know. He told me.” Sansom closed his eyes and drew in a breath of blue mountain coffee before he took a mouthful. “He didn’t say why but I can guess.”

  “I was curious,” Tommy said.

  “I’ll bet you were.” Sansom chuckled. “You’ll get into politics with answers like that.” Tommy sensed concern but not disapprobation. “Tommy, you’re clearly a friend to Becky and that’s good enough for me. I have a feeling you’re trying to find out about her father for her.”

  This wasn’t the time to lie. “Yes,” said Tommy. “She’s asked me to find out about him. She knows what I find might not be good.”

  “Be careful with her, Tommy. She’s been through a lot.” Tommy nodded. “But thank you for being honest with me.” He couldn’t tell if Sansom meant it, or if it was all jus part of the game. “Now let me tell you something you don’t know yet. Stephen Knightley killed himself last night. He waited till the cleaner came to his office. He waited till she opened the door, put the gun to his head, and shot himself.”

  How was he meant to react to that? Was Sansom accusing him of something? He could feel the Warden’s eyes all over him. Had Knightley known something? Had Tommy going to see him pushed him over the edge?

  “He was a tortured soul,” said Sansom, as if that were all the explanation needed.

  “I could tell.”

  “I know you have a way with people,” the Warden continued. “Charles used to tell people about it. But I’ve had to learn a little bit about understanding the human mind as well; another price I’ve paid for advancement.”

  Tommy listened. He thought he should feel patronised but he didn’t.

  “Just because someone is tortured, that doesn’t make them a good person,” Sansom went on. “The most tragic characters in art are tortured not because they’re mad, not because of the whim of the gods, but because of the wrongs they’ve done. Knightley wasn’t a good man, Tommy.”

  “He wasn’t a bad man, either,” said Tommy. “He made a mistake. He’s blamed himself ever since.”

  “I know you believe that, Tommy, and I’m not surprised. I’m sure he believed it himself for the last few years.

  “Was he drunk that night?” asked Tommy, trying to figure out just what Sansom meant.

  “No; at least, he might have been, but that wasn’t the problem.”

  “What then? Was he negligent? Did he fail to ask for help?”

  “Well, he certainly didn’t ask for help.”

  Tommy had had enough. Why didn’t Sansom just spit it out if he had something to say rather than keeping him dangling like this? “So he could have saved her? He could have saved Carol and he didn’t.”

  “No, Tommy. No. Stephen Knightley didn’t kill himself because he let Carol die. He killed himself because he let her live.”

  _____

  31

  “Let her live?” Tommy was talking almost to himself. What Hedley
had said made no sense, fitted nowhere in the frame of what Tommy knew.

  Hedley waited, allowing him to gather himself back to some kind of clarity.

  “Then what happened to her?” Tommy asked, eventually.

  “That, I’m afraid, I don’t know.” Sansom put his cup down on a bright orange coaster and steepled his hands. “And I really don’t think I want to. But it has something to do with Charles, and I am one hundred percent certain that his poor wife and daughter know nothing about it. Be very careful where you dig, Tommy. I realise that’s not necessarily a promise you can make, so please, promise me instead that you’ll be very careful what you tell them.”

  “How do you know?” was all he could say.

  “I’d suspected for a long time. Knightley told me last night before he blew his brains out. I think he wanted absolution before he died. I didn’t give him any. Now, will you make me that promise?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good.” Sansom smiled. “Let’s have some more coffee.”

  Tommy sat through one more cup of coffee and tried to keep his mind still, but the caffeine was crawling inside him, teasing him with all the possibilities this new information opened up. He needed to go; he needed to be still at his desk with Shaw’s papers, to be somewhere he could let the thoughts that were bubbling away form a scum on the surface of his mind without worrying about the stinking flotsam they would bring floating with them.

  “You should go, Tommy,” Sansom said, and Tommy wondered if the Warden had read his mind. “You need to think, and then you need to go and see the Shaws.”

  “Thank you.” Tommy stood, gave his thanks to Clarissa on the way out, and left St Saviour’s through Penhaligon Gate, heading back via the side streets off Ogee Square, just to make sure he didn’t run into Emily if she had hung around after church.

  Tommy changed into his sweats and spent an hour in the gym pounding out bench presses and squats until he could barely stand. Then he lay in the bath, a thick film of lavender oil clinging hotly to his skin, forcing its way into the tightened, twisted fibres of his body. It made no headway into the sinews of his mind. He tried to hear Charles Shaw’s voice reading to him from the letter that had started everything, but the words and sounds were unfamiliar. There were no patterns discernable in his speech. All he could hear was the voice of a stranger.

  He tried to work out what it was that disgusted him most. When he did, he was repulsed. What he actually hated about the situation above all else was the fact that he had been taken by surprise; not the actual content of what he had learned. He hadn’t seen this coming at all, and he knew that he should have done. Damn it, why did he take things on trust? All the pointers were there and he had ignored them. Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. Just how much hate had there been? Like a torture instrument, but in miniature. Tommy got out of the bath. It wasn’t washing that would stop him feeling dirty. It was finding out the truth.

  Why had he ignored the clues? Because he didn’t want to think in that way about Shaw? He didn’t know for certain that the Professor had known anything about what happened the night the twins were born. He only had Sansom’s word for it, and that was the problem, wasn’t it, taking other people’s words for things? What had happened to Tommy the researcher? Tommy West the academic boy wonder who never accepted anything that couldn’t be pushed to the limits of logic? That Tommy was buried in a sea of sample books, that’s what.

  “Ad fontes,” he chided himself. To the sources!

  The electronic data storage Tommy had culled from Shaw’s things reflected the length of time the professor had been working on The Anticipation of Gifts. As well as a couple of flash drives, several CDs, and a pile of floppies, there were two or three old 5 inch disks. Tommy was intrigued by these, but he knew he would probably have to go to a professional data retriever to find out what was on them, and getting someone else involved was something he was very keen to avoid. No, it was Shaw’s voice he had struggled to find.

  His voice. The flash drives, maybe there were some audio files, some dictation, possibly. He sat at his desk in front of the new laptop and plugged in the first stick. It was full of image files, pictures of religious art to judge by the titles, which seemed to be listed by church name, city, figure depicted, and pose.

  He put the second stick into the USB and waited for the menu to come up. There they were. Sound files.

  “Good evening, Professor Shaw,” Tommy said to himself. “What have you got to say for yourself after all this time?” Tommy glanced at the file titles. There was plenty of Wagner by the look of it. There was “Tristan”, “the Tristan chord1”, along with 2, 3, 4, and 5, and what appeared to be snippets of Götterdämmerung, the Twilight of the Gods. A few were more obviously promising. Tommy tried first love, which seemed from the file size to be little more than a fragment.

  Before he clicked the mouse over the play button, Tommy closed his curtains and turned out the light. He smoothed his hands over the basalt smelling stone and filled his nostrils with whatever oils they could draw out of his skin. Then he lit a single tallow candle and sat back in his chair. He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing; the only sensation he allowed himself was the dull dark red of the single flame that he watched from behind his eyelids. He placed himself back in Shaw’s study, sitting across the room from him, a copy of his latest chapter on his knees and a pen in his hand ready to take down what was said.

  Without opening his eyes he clicked the mouse and watched as the sound transformed itself in front of him into Shaw’s lips, and expanded into his face and then the whole man sitting across from him, the playful lilt of his hands mirroring his soft middle tones with groundnotes of something that was impossible to place.

  We all remember the first time we fall in love. We remember the exact instant it happened. For most of us it is the only time we will ever make a choice that we know we will keep as long as we live. Of course, sadly, few of us ever will keep it. But that is the feeling of first love. I choose this one. I choose this and only this for the rest of my life. A choice made once and never reneged on.

  Tommy felt that he was looking into Shaw’s eyes long after the file stopped, trying to see behind the half mischief and half charm. Trying to work out if he had ever heard Charles say the phrase, or whether he had just, for a moment, fallen into step with him when he met Clarissa Sansom. A choice made once and never reneged on. What had Clarissa’s choice been, he wondered? Sansom or the life she lived with him? And what was Shaw’s first love? His career? Haydn? Becky? Carol? He opened his eyes when he thought her name and scrolled down to the file he knew he had to open.

  He opened the curtains again, snuffed the candle and turned on the light. For thirty minutes he sat at his desk, his thoughts empty save for the sound of his blood smashing at the artery walls and every self-defence alarm in his head screaming at him to stop. Finally he took a breath, shook his head, and clicked the file called trepanning.

  The primary practical problem is that of resistance, or give, both within the armature and within the skull itself.

  The quality of the sound was fuzzy. Shaw’s voice was lighter and higher than it was on the previous recording. This had clearly been transferred from an analogue recording made some years ago. Tommy nodded dully to himself. He did not need to go looking for the image of Shaw’s carefully measured drawing to see its details in perfect clarity in front of his eyes.

  The numerous cross supports and holding devices should suffice to solve the mechanical issues. These will also diminish the particular problems envisaged as arising from the pliability of the early infant skull. In order to eradicate the problem completely, the trepanning blade will need to inscribe a circle around a holding pad that is able to stop the skull from depressing, perhaps using small barbed hooks. Measurements and tensions in the metal should be such as to produce around 95% resistance. It is important that the infant remains conscious throughout the procedure and that a certain fraction of the motion it genera
tes whilst struggling against the procedure remains. All of this of course is irrelevant if one overlooks, and does not adequately cater for, the obvious fact that death will in all probability be instantaneous upon first usage, so that timing must be split second perfect.

  Crackle. The sound stopped.

  ____

  32

  Tommy could feel the bile rising from his stomach. He thought he was about to be sick and reached for the vial of lavender absolute, opening it and snorting it like an amyl nitrate popper. His nostrils burned and his head was seared. He wanted to block everything out but he knew that he mustn’t, not for Becky, and not for his own sanity. Sooner or later the dark thoughts would have to come. So it was much better just to lash himself as fast as he could let them come.

  Questions would come later. With them would come answers, and with the answers would come harder questions, that were about the future and not the past. But if he allowed the humid cloying fug of the air that was heavy with electric and damp to clear, then the answers to those would come as well. For now the thoughts must come as they decided, raw and unprocessed, freeform and dark.

  In the safe cold cotton of his lavender filled room they came. Tommy couldn’t recognise sounds in them, or shapes or smells. They were pre-sensual, primal foldings on the cortex, disquieting disturbances that shivered in arcs through the sweat.

  He lay absolutely still. The tremors had gone. His limbs were motionless and his skin was dry. His heart was slow and the haze in his head had lifted. He opened his eyes. Sensations came easily now. Sights, and sounds, smell, and touch, and the sicked-up taste of the pit they had come from, a place with no lights and no doors, no corridors left that led in, and none he knew of that led out. A city somewhere, somewhere outside the grey-blue room. Cars and screams and laughing, jokes being told between friends outside. Something smooth in his hand. A bottle, nearly empty. A rank smell. Stale drink, not coming from him. Stale sweat and piss and cum etched into the cracks in the sheets and in the walls, and the burning sour syrup of spewed-up smack. Feet pushing against something soft. Skin. Long streaky slicks of skin that might have been legs, might have been a woman’s legs but were too thin for him to tell. Skin hanging from sad naked bones, a belt hanging from her arm just above the needle. Fumbling to put on clothes that were littered all around the room. Music in the room next door, Fake Plastic Trees by Radiohead. No idea how he got here, no idea if he would get out. Friends still screaming outside and he wanted to scream but he couldn’t. Belt twitching, head turning, eyes looking up from under dyed red hair, mouth opening, lips trailing crusted spittle, “Tommy.” Running. Running through a city, rain pounding off the tarmac, invisible in the clubbers and the lovers, the hooligans and johns, and the police. “Tommy.” Getting louder.