The Company of Fellows

by Dan Holloway

  “Tommy.” A woman’s voice directly in his ear.

  Something smooth and cold in his hand. He looked. His phone. He checked the screen, “Em?”

  “Shit, Tommy, you sound awful. Are you OK?”

  “No,” he said, too frightened by what he’d seen to ask himself whether he should be letting her see his weakness. “No, I’m anything but OK. You?”

  “Yeah, me too. But you know what would make me start to feel better?”

  “A large glass of something very rough?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “What time is it?” Tommy asked.

  “It really must be bad. It’s 4 in the afternoon, Tommy.”

  Tommy blinked. She was right. It was light. His cotton shone white and clean, the paint on his ceiling was ocean-clear petrol blue. It was still day and the city and the screams were receding already. “OK,” he said. “Where do you want to go?”

  “Parks?”

  “Parks sounds great. See you by the cricket pavilion in half an hour. Bring a bottle. I’ll bring a couple.”

  ____

  33

  The University Parks, and the meadows beyond, were a vast tract of green land in central Oxford straddling the River Cherwell, that headed north to the gentle flood plains of Godstow and south through Magdalen Deer Park. One of its biggest attractions was the cricket ground that nestled in the middle of it. Touring test teams would often begin their stay England with a match against the Combined Universities team in the Parks. Tommy remembered coming to watch the West Indies play one summer, their lower order batsmen using students’ picnic cloths on the boundary as target practice. By September the university season had been over for a long time, and the ground was marked out into tennis courts.

  This time Emily didn’t pretend she hadn’t seen him coming. He could see her waving a hundred metres or so away with one hand, the other cradling a wine bottle. He lifted a pair of melamine cups in reply. She was wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt and a pair of faded jeans. It had been well over 10 years since he had seen her dressed informally. He felt himself breaking into an involuntary smile.

  She held up the bottle of retsina as he approached. “Started already,” she grinned. “Sorry.”

  “Plenty more here,” he said, swinging a duffle bag off his shoulder. “And a, well, semi respectable way to drink it.”

  Emily shared the remains between his bright magenta melamine cups. “So what’s shit in your life today?” she asked.

  “Depends who’s asking.”

  “Me, Tommy, me’s asking.” Emily emptied her mug and Tommy set the foil cutter on a new bottle.

  “And who’s ‘me’, Em? Me, an old acquaintance; me, a friend; or me, DCI Harris.”

  “Fuck, you’re suspicious.”

  “I didn’t say I wouldn’t tell, though, did I?” he said. “I just wanted to know whom I’d be telling.”

  Tommy looked into her eyes. She was nowhere near tipsy, which for the amount she’d had in what can have been a few minutes at most was quite impressive. It obviously wasn’t something she’d never done before. He thought of Knightley and wondered when it would catch up with her face. Maybe it wouldn’t. He was pleased to see that she still gelled her hair into little inch-long random blonde spikes.

  “OK, Tommy. Me is an old acquaintance who figures you’re probably the only friend she’s got who really knows what she’s talking about.”

  “I hope I can help.”

  “I was at the JR last night,” she said. In a way Tommy was glad that she seemed to have forgotten she was supposed to be asking him about his day. He didn’t think it was a good idea to tell her too much for a whole host of reasons. Not wanting to get emotional in the presence of his ex, and not wanting to let on what he was up to in front of the detective who’d decided Shaw’s death was suicide were high on that list but by no means exhaustive. “A doctor shot himself,” she continued. “Stephen Knightley, the obstetrician who just happened to deliver Becky Shaw. I know you went to see him yesterday a few hours before he died.”

  “Yes, I did.” OK, he thought. Keep the answers short. Just in case this is part police work as well as crying on a friend’s shoulder.

  “And I know you know the Shaws.”

  “Yes I do.”

  “And you kind of know Reverend Sansom.”

  “Mm. Is this a list of suspects?”

  “No. There was nothing suspicious about Knightley’s death. Let me rephrase that. To use the cliché, we’re not looking for anyone else in connection with Knightley’s death.”

  Her eyes were beginning to fuzz over, but Tommy could see enough, “Did he leave a note?” he asked. He didn’t actually know the answer to this, of course.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, as you’re sitting in the Parks with your ex, to whom you probably feel, how did you put it all those years ago – a mixture of anger and contempt, instead of with your husband, I’m guessing this is something you can’t speak about with David. And as Knightley was an obstetrician shot at his place of work that’s about where the guesswork ends.”

  “Am I that shallow?” she said. “I really mustn’t have any more.” She wiped her eyes and held out her glass.

  “Not shallow at all,” Tommy said. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  “I don’t think I’d get very far, do you?” Emily said, wiping her eyes again. “Look, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be here. You’re right, I should be with David.”

  Tommy placed his hand over her arm, very lightly, with no grip, just enough to stop her getting up. She didn’t move, and he took her hand. “How about this. I’ll talk and you say yes or no if you want. If you don’t I’ll keep talking and if I’m wrong I’ll look like an idiot and we’ll have a laugh. OK?” He could feel her hand quivering in his grip. He tried not to think of all the memories it brought back; even more he tried not to think of all the feelings that went with those memories. To his surprise it was easier than he thought. Perhaps he was too caught up in his own investigations to feel at all. No, that wasn’t it. He certainly felt something, but it was different from what he had felt when they’d been together. It was more like concern.

  “OK,” she said.

  “Stephen Knightley worked at the Women’s Health Centre, and that’s not just where you go for your obs and gynae when you’re pregnant. You’ve probably spent more than your share of time in waiting rooms there. David too – I’m guessing that the medical issues are his, which is why you can’t talk to him.” Tommy watched her for any kind of response but she was too busy staring back at him, staring but not looking. Just do it like when you’re with anyone else, he told himself, just draw your cues from her. Forget who it is. Forget it’s Em, for now at any rate.

  “So being there scratched the scab off a wound that was less healed than you thought,” Tommy continued. “But if that was it you’d be sitting somewhere with Rosie Lu. You came to see me because I know the Shaws, and I knew Knightley and Sansom. That means you know Knightley went to see Sansom last night.” He paused. A slight movement that may have been a nod.

  “And you know that Knightley killed himself because of something that happened the night Becky was born.” Another nod. “She had a twin, Carol. Becky was lucky but Carol wasn’t.” Another nod, in tempo, if there was such a thing at a time like this. In that case, time to stop. Valerie Sansom, Tommy thought. It struck him that he had never seen a picture of her, and that until he did he would see Emily’s blank face framed by cute blonde spikes. A soul weighed down by more troubles than most lifetimes allow breaking through a child-like face, like an Orthodox icon of a Christ child.

  “They’re two different things, you know?” Tommy said. “One of them is your tragedy, but the other is someone else’s. It’s terrible, and it’s not fair that people who are such bad fathers as Charles get to be parents when people who would be great dads like David can’t. And even though Haydn Shaw lost a daughter, she still got to keep one, and that’s not fair either.
You’re beating yourself up for resenting her but you mustn’t. All sorts of things happen to all sorts of people, Em, but what matters is what’s happened to you. And what happened to you sucks. And it makes it OK to feel bitter, and OK to feel angry. Not forever, but for a little while yet.”

  “I’m tired,” Emily said.

  “Me too. Shall I walk you home?” She was already asleep. Tommy watched her breathing for a while, but after a few minutes it had the same effect as concentrating on his own, and he was asleep as well.

  When Tommy woke the sun was barely clinging onto the horizon. “Em?”

  “Mm,” Emily replied without opening her eyes.

  “Em, it’s nearly dark. If we don’t go we’ll be locked in overnight.”

  “Tommy? What? Shit, it’s nearly dark. We’ve got to go.” She grabbed her empty bottle and looked at it. “Did I?”

  Tommy nodded. “Welcome back. Let’s go.”

  There were several University owned parks in Oxford, of which the Parks was the largest. All of them were freely open to anyone, but all of them were gated for security and had variable opening hours designed to coincide more or less with sunlight throughout the year. The University’s website had a list of opening times, but as the Parks weren’t yet wi-fi hotspots that was little help to picnickers, who had to hope they can remember what was posted in the little slot at the gate that says Today this gate will close at…. Most students got it wrong at least once during their time in Oxford, usually after celebrating the end of an exam or falling asleep with a book. After looking in not very imaginative places for bolt holes they tended resort to seeing how much they could remember about gate vaults from PE.

  “Do you want me to walk you home?” Tommy asked when they were safely outside.

  “No, I’m fine. Don’t worry, I didn’t drive.”

  “Good. Will I see you again soon?”

  “Yeah, definitely. Thanks, Tommy. You OK? You never said what was wrong. Well, you might have done but, er…”

  “It’s OK, I went to sleep about a minute behind you.” Tommy smiled. “I’ll be fine. Call me.”

  “I will.”

  ____

  34

  Emily didn’t hurry home. It was a warm night and there was no reason not to dawdle. It was always hot in September these days, she reflected. That was another reason for the green-leaning city council to cry global warming and rack up the pressure on her carbon footprint. The vicar loved to use words like stewardship, to point out that humanity has a duty to look after a planet that has been entrusted to it by God. Look after it for future generations, that’s what people always said, and it made her furious. Future generations of other people’s children. Why the fuck did she care about other people’s children? It was bad enough she couldn’t have children. Now Oxford City Council, and the government, and every sanctimonious north Oxford duffer who called her to whinge about fucking traffic violations wanted to take away the pleasures she did have for the sake of the smug fucks who already had one up on her.

  She kicked the kerb. Hard. “Fuck.” She sat on the pavement with her head in her hands and cried for ten minutes, purposely left the empty wine bottle to litter the pavement and picked up some chewing gum from a late night corner shop before she got home.

  “Hey, stranger.” David was waiting on the sofa when she got in. His papers were laid out on the floor in front of him and it looked like he’d really been working on them. It didn’t look like he was suspicious. Damn, she shouldn’t even be thinking that.

  “Hey, D.”

  “Shepherd’s pie’s still warm in the oven if you want some.”

  “Thanks.”

  Emily reached over and kissed him. “I’ll go and get a plate. Want anything?”

  “I’m fine.”

  She fetched the dish from the oven. David had cut the pie exactly in half down the middle, and left a little extra cheese topping hanging over the side of her portion, crisped up with Worcestershire Sauce how she liked it.

  What was happening to her? She felt as though what she wanted more than anything was a fight that would clear the air once and for all. She wanted a reason to kick things off but wherever she looked she found only more evidence of his kindness, of his devotion, of his damned goodness as a human being. Perhaps that was it. He didn’t care whether she was up to anything. Maybe that’s why he wasn’t being funny about her disappearing goodness knows where. Didn’t care or wanted to distract attention away from his own behaviour? Hardly.

  Maybe she should just tell him. I’ve been out on the lash with Tommy. Just like I was the other night. But Tommy wasn’t the reason she was angry. Tommy would hurt him but he’d get over it. She was angry because he couldn’t give her what she wanted and it wasn’t his fault. Maybe if she said that he wouldn’t get over it. Almost certainly they wouldn’t get over it together. If it wasn’t for God, of course, she’d sign up for a sperm donor and that would be it. It wouldn’t be David’s DNA, but that was biology. It would be his kid. But she couldn’t go there, and she’d forgotten the reason why but she knew that it was God’s reason, and that’s why she was angry. She was angry with God, and she was angry with herself that she couldn’t give Him up.

  Why not? David would love her anyway. And fuck it, she’d see every last ounce of duty he was summoning up not to be judgmental. Oh, D, why do you have to be so dutiful?. Why can’t you be more human? Why can’t you be just a little bit fallible like me? You and God both.

  ____

  35

  Tommy got back as daylight finally gave up on the weekend. He was pleased that Emily had called him, pleased that someone else’s problems had taken his thoughts away from his own, but he felt bad that Emily was unhappy, bad that there was nothing he could do to make her really feel better. But that wasn’t his job now. That was David’s job. And that made him feel worst of all.

  He didn’t want to be left to his thoughts yet. It was still too early and he’d had too much sleep already to get much more for a while yet. He really didn’t know if he could speak to Becky, if he could keep the events of today from her, even if she didn’t ask. He knew she would see somewhere behind his eyes that he was keeping things from her, and even if she didn’t ask him what they were, she would wonder.

  He had to speak to her at some stage, though, and right now he needed to speak to someone. H picked up the phone.

  “Good evening.”

  “Good evening, Haydn.”

  “Tommy, how lovely to hear from you.”

  “I wanted to thank you properly for Friday evening.”

  “There’s no need for that, Tommy. It was lovely to have you there. You know, I think I approve of you spending time with Becky.”

  “Thank you. You do realise that we’re friends, don’t you? I mean, that there’s nothing more to it than that?”

  Haydn laughed. “It hadn’t occurred to me, Tommy.”

  “I was calling because I wanted to thank you by inviting you to dinner here tomorrow night.”

  “Wonderful. Is that both of us, Tommy, or just me?”

  Hmm. He wished he could see her eyes. “Both of you of course, Haydn. If you’re both free. If not, I would be delighted for you to come anyway.”

  “We would both love to come. Thank you.”

  “Is there anything you don’t eat?” Tommy asked. He realised how little time he had actually known the Shaws, how quickly his life was moving, leaving behind the polite minutiae of his usual acquaintances.

  “Badly cooked food, but I don’t imagine that will be a problem. Good night, Tommy, I’ll see you tomorrow. When would be best? Seven?”

  “Seven would be perfect. Good night, Haydn.”

  Tommy looked at his watch. He was restless. His head wasn’t clear enough to sift through any more files but it was far too clear to let him rest. Alone with his thoughts? Or alone with Becky? Neither sounded great. He picked up the phone again.

  “Hi, I’m sorry to bother you. DCI Harris gave me your number.�
��

  “Mm.”

  “It’s Tommy West.”

  “Tommy! Tommi!” said Rosie, emphasising the shortened “i”, “Well I didn’t expect to hear from you.”

  “Well I didn’t expect you’d hear from me either, Rosie.” Tommy laughed. “The truth is I don’t actually know many people I can just call up in Oxford.”

  “You don’t know me, Tommy.” Her voice had a relaxed lilt. He was glad he’d called.

  “No, but Emily does, so I was hoping you might at least know I’m not a psycho. OK, bad call, she’s probably not exactly the best mutual friend for a character reference.”

  “Want pizza?”

  “I’d love some. Where are you?”

  “About five minutes up the road from you. I’ll give you ten to get here before I eat it all. See you, Tommy.”

  “In ten.”

  Tommy wondered what he was doing as he walked up the Banbury Road with a bottle of Chianti Classico Tenute Marchese Antinori. He was aware that several of the controls he kept firmly in place in his life were loosening, and that his mood swings were getting more severe. These were always the early warning signs of an episode – slight exaggerations at first, the need to spend a little more time with people and a little less time on his own, the need never quite to be still enough to let his thoughts have reign, slightly riskier behaviour than normal. At least he was aware it was happening, he thought. He needed to stay that way. He needed to be aware when his body needed time to stop; aware if people stopped being pleased to see him and started finding him a pain in the neck; aware when he started to develop an unrealistic dismissal of risk. If any of those points came then he had to stop altogether for a while. Only he couldn’t stop. Not yet.