The English Boys

by Julia Thomas

  “There you are, sir,” Ennis said, smiling. “Looks like it ‘took.’ I’ll get his things out of the boot. They’ve sent along everything you need for the first few days.”

  Murray watched him go out to his car and then turned to the dog.

  “What was I thinking?” he muttered. “I hope Josefine will know what to do with you.”

  The dog wagged his pencil-thin tail and cocked his head as if he understood.

  Twenty

  The theory of Chaos vs. Determinism had long been a bone of contention between Carey and Tamsyn, with Carey unexpectedly taking the side of determinism. Despite her scientific background, and the incontrovertible evidence of cacti whose leaves have become spines or fossils found in sedimentary rock at different stratigraphic levels, or even the homologous similarities in higher organisms that strongly suggest a common ancestry, she did not subscribe to the theory of evolution. It was as impossible for her to believe in the Big Bang Theory as it was the notion of time travel. Nothing in her experience proved that any living cell or sentient being had ever been created through chaos. She had combed On the Origin of Species for clues, affirming her notion of adaptation but remaining unconvinced of the idea of evolution. Darwin himself had expressed doubts in his writing, and if he did not believe that the organism of an eye could be reproduced rapidly enough to evidence evolution—an eye, which is the one sense that leads one to truth quicker than any other—then how could she believe?

  Tamsyn rather emphatically took a romantic view, preferring chaos in its infinite simplicity. Life was huge, random, uncontrollable, meaningless, unpredictable; and as long as it could be defined as such, so could she. Carey was methodical, predictable, perhaps even a bit boring; the sun rose and set, the chicken laid an egg; there exists in all known things a beginning and an end. Therefore, by process of elimination through the examination of facts as she saw them, Carey accepted the existence of God, for without a sense of meaning, she did not want to live. However, for her, God, who knew all and would come again to judge the world for its sins, was as remote and unreachable as the dimmest star. Without it, the night sky might be only a little darker, but there existed the hope that billions of light years away it burned brighter than the sun, illuminating everything in its path. She might not pray, but she wished to sometimes.

  She rubbed her tongue against her upper left cusped and stole a glance at Nick, who was typing on her computer.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, setting down her mug of cold coffee, wondering how long she’d been lost in thought.

  “Ah, you’re back,” he said, not answering her question. His hair was getting a bit long, and he pushed it out of his eyes, frowning.

  “You know what I think?” he said at last.

  “No,” Carey answered, dreading his response. She could tell by the look on his face that she wouldn’t like what he was about to say.

  “It’s stupid, that’s what this is. Really bloody stupid.” He closed the top of the laptop and looked at her, frowning again. “You’ll get yourself killed.”

  Carey was taken aback by his tone as much as by his words. “We’re asking questions, that’s all.”

  “And if you ask them of the wrong person, you’ve stepped on a land mine. No one can save you.”

  “Daniel says—”

  “That’s another thing. Who the hell does Richardson think he is, anyway? He’s got no more idea what he’s about than you.”

  Carey’s shoulders slumped and she sat down.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it, Carey. It’s just that I’m worried for you. If you keep on with this, you’ll get hurt.”

  Nick’s mobile, which was sitting next to him on the bed, began to ring. He looked at the screen and then declined the call.

  “Who was it?” Carey asked.

  “My mother,” he said, shrugging.

  “You should have answered it.”

  “She probably just wonders when I’m coming home.”

  “Do you know what you’re going to do?” Carey tried to keep her voice even and unconcerned, though she was finding Nick’s visit far more tiresome than she could have imagined. His checkered history with Tamsyn made him a difficult person to confide in at a time like this.

  “That’s the thing,” he said. “We should both go home. Your parents could use you right now, I’d say.”

  Carey turned away and tried to get her emotions in check. He didn’t understand how she felt about this, the most horrific thing that had ever happened to her, and he certainly wasn’t going to help unravel the mystery surrounding her sister’s death. She suspected he was trying to get her to leave London altogether. It was no secret that he wanted things to go back to the way they’d been when they were young. For the first time, she was truly concerned about Nick. If he didn’t figure out his future soon, he would become a complete agoraphobic.

  “I don’t—” she began, when his mobile began to ring.

  “It’s Mum again,” he said. “I’d better take it.”

  She stood to give him privacy and took her mug to the kitchen to rinse it in the sink. The stream of tepid water from the tap drowned out his conversation, and she tried to think of a way to get out of going home. It wasn’t easy for her to say no to anyone, but with Nick, it was especially difficult. She wondered, perhaps, if it was only now, when he was trying to stop her from something she wanted to do, or if it had always been that way.

  Even if she and Daniel had done all that they could do, she resented Nick saying it. She couldn’t get on that train, not now, even though they had no idea how to proceed. She realized that at this moment she preferred the company of someone who had truly loved her sister to the one person who had resented Tamsyn all of his life. She dried the mug with a cloth and set it carefully on the shelf.

  Nick ended his call and cleared his throat. “Well, that’s that. We have to go. Mum’s gotten herself hurt and needs me.”

  “What happened?” Carey asked, coming back in to sit down across from him.

  “She fell and broke her arm. Of course, it’s her right arm. She won’t be able to do anything for weeks. I’ll check the train times.”

  “I’m sorry you have to leave,” Carey said.

  He’d been opening the laptop and paused with the top half-open. “You need to come too.”

  “I will,” she said, “but there’s something I have to do first.”

  “What?” he asked, eyes narrowing.

  “Something at university,” she lied. “I was in the process of filing papers, and I have to get it done before I can go.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “Two or three days, I think.”

  “I can’t wait that long.”

  “No,” she said, taking control of the situation. “You have to go without me. I’ll follow as soon as I can.”

  Reluctantly, he agreed, and after ordering a ticket, called his mother to let her know.

  Carey tried not to show her relief as she helped Nick get his things together.

  “Do you want a cup of tea first? Or a sandwich?” she asked.

  “No, thanks,” he answered, clearly peeved. “If I want something, I’ll get it at the station.”

  Any other time, she would have tried to reason with him, but now she couldn’t wait to see him out the door. She put on her jacket and walked him to the Tube, growing more anxious by the minute in case he changed his mind.

  They said an awkward goodbye at Charing Cross Station. He hadn’t been in the building thirty seconds before she found herself dialing Daniel Richardson’s phone number. She didn’t even stop to wonder why.

  An hour later, Carey watched Daniel swirl the stout in his glass, erasing the foam that clung to its sides while she looked around the room. She’d never been in this pub before. It was all chrome and glass and wine spritzers, the sort of place
she hated. She wondered if it was Daniel’s sort of place, or if it had merely been a convenient spot to meet. Even now, this late in the day, she wondered why she had asked him to help her. She’d never seen any of his films and had no great appreciation for actors. He wasn’t formidable or amazingly brilliant. Perhaps it was merely the comfort she felt in the solidarity of their union against the wrong that had been done them. Daniel felt it as keenly as she did, she was sure.

  “I should go,” she said. “It’s getting late.”

  “Stay,” he answered, putting his glass on the bar and signaling for another drink. “We’ll come up with something.”

  “You don’t want to be alone,” she said, glancing up at him.

  “Neither do you.”

  He’d called her bluff, leaving her to wonder if she was that easy to read. Still, the fact could not be escaped that the moment Nick was gone, she had called him.

  “Damn,” she said, pushing away the glass. She rarely drank, and it was beginning to affect her already. She picked up her mobile and punched in a number on speed dial.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nick was angry when he left. He won’t answer my calls.” She tried to imagine him making his way through the crowded station, fuming all the way back home.

  “You can’t beat yourself up about it. We’ve got a lot on our minds right now. It’s not exactly easy to take care of old friends when we’re trying to get somewhere with this bloody case.”

  “You shouldn’t say that. He came all this way, and it was difficult for him.”

  “Why?” Daniel asked.

  She stared at him, wondering if he was truly so obtuse. Surely he had noticed the tic in Nick’s arm, as much as Nick always tried to hide it. He had developed defense mechanisms for obscuring it from view: holding his hand in his pocket; putting his arm on the back of Carey’s chair, fingers grasping the wood tightly; throwing his jacket over his shoulder in a way that concealed his arm. As long as she’d known him, she had never been able to forget it or his awkwardness in dealing with it. But she found she couldn’t explain to Daniel that Nick was the most self-conscious person she knew, or that he hated people and crowds, or that he was in serious danger of becoming a recluse.

  “It just was. Let’s leave it at that,” she said.

  They sat for a minute without speaking. The music playing in the background was beginning to give her a pain between the eyes. It had been wrong to ring him up, and she had no idea why she’d bothered. There was nothing he could do about Nick or Tamsyn or anything. For that matter, there was nothing she could do either. She stood, a little wobbly, and tugged on her jacket.

  “Let me help with that,” he offered.

  “No, thanks,” she answered, moving away from him. If she’d gone just a touch farther, she might have toppled over. “I’m leaving.”

  “I can see that.”

  Daniel stood, threw a few coins on the table, and put on his own coat, following her out of the pub. They walked for a block until she reached the Tube station, stepping up to the machine to purchase a ticket. He reached in his pocket for change as well.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked.

  “Getting a ticket. That’s what one usually does at a ticket machine.”

  “No, I mean, why? You can go back home. We haven’t accomplished anything today.”

  “Do you think I’m letting you go by yourself? You’re drunk.”

  “I am not,” Carey protested. “I’m just tired.”

  “Let’s get a cab.”

  “No thank you.”

  Below, the station was nearly empty, but the sound was deafening when the train roared up to the platform and the doors slid open. She clambered up the steps and sat on the edge of her seat, holding on to the metal bar and doing her best to appear sober. He slid into the seat behind her, bracing his feet on the floor before the train slid forward once again. When it came to a stop at Charing Cross, they got off and found their way out onto the pavement.

  “You’re stalking me,” Carey pronounced, crossing Villiers Street and heading toward her building.

  “You could say that, I suppose. I prefer to think of it as personal protection.”

  She said nothing more, letting him walk her to her building and then up the stairs to her flat, where she took out her key and after a moment’s fumbling, opened the door.

  “I need an aspirin,” she said, kicking off her shoes and hanging her jacket on an ancient coat rack by the door. “What about you?”

  “No thank you,” he answered. “Another drink would be nice, though.”

  “I don’t usually keep anything around,” she said coolly. “I don’t drink much.”

  “I can see that.”

  A rickety chessboard sat on the edge of a dresser and Daniel picked up the white queen, tapping it against his palm. He couldn’t even imagine what sort of girl played chess, or for that matter studied medicine, or appeared to be a terminal virgin at the ripe age of twenty-three. Carey Burke was an anomaly, and while some men might find it an irresistible challenge to their masculinity, he did not. Instead, he felt protective of her; more so with each passing day.

  “Do you play?” she asked, before tipping back her head to swallow the pill.

  “Not well, and not for years. Hugh went through a phase where he made me play endlessly at school. He finally tired of it, thank God.”

  “Let’s see how bad you are.”

  “No, really, I can’t. I’m drunk, and you’re a brain, two reasons you’ll enjoy an unfair advantage.”

  She, like Hugh, refused to be dissuaded, setting the board on a table and placing the pieces on the squares before holding out her hand. Reluctantly, he relinquished control of the errant queen.

  “That’s the last control I’ll have in this game.”

  To Carey’s surprise, it was not. She followed a plan when playing chess: second left pawn, forward one space; bishop to the pawn’s spot, blocking the rook; mirroring the moves on the right; waiting for the overeager player opposite to make a bolder move and jeopardize his queen. Daniel was far too haphazard a player for that and held his own, strategizing at her level if not beyond. He appeared to play by instinct rather than reason, but he was good at it. It was impossible to predict what he would do, because even he didn’t know what his next move would be.

  While he contemplated moving a knight that could, if he saw it, put her king in check, she watched him. He was self-deprecating and often prevented people from seeing his intelligence, perhaps in order for them to feel better about themselves. She could see why he had been so close to Tamsyn. She herself wasn’t interested in a relationship while she was in medical school. For one thing, men were rarely intelligent enough for her, and when they were, their personalities were infused with the quirks and eccentricities of men like Jared and Roddy, whose sense of humor was submerged so deep as to be nearly nonexistent. In fact, she hadn’t thought that a sense of humor was something she would relish in a partner or friend, but spending time with Daniel over the last few days had made her realize its power. He was kind, and he had cared about Tamsyn, loved her, perhaps, and he was trying to help Carey believe that this heinous crime would not go unpunished. She reached over and tipped her king onto his side.

  “You lied,” she said, yawning. “You’re good, and I can’t keep up with you tonight.”

  He leaned back, his eyes betraying the fact that he was tired too. She got up and pulled a quilt from the wardrobe and handed it to him. “It’s late. You can stay on the sofa, if you like.”

  “You don’t mind?”

  “Of course not. It’s not much, but … ”

  “It’s great. Thanks.”

  She went into the toilet and came back, toothbrush and toothpaste in hand. “I don’t have an extra toothbrush. Sorry.”

  “That’s all right
.” He held out his index finger and she squirted some of the paste on it, but instead of following her into the loo, he went into the kitchen and bent over the sink.

  She changed into black shorts and an old sweatshirt, and he untied his shoes and set them neatly on the floor by the sofa. Then she brought him a pillow and crawled into the small bed on the opposite wall, pulling the quilt up to her chin. Afterward, she turned off the lamp, and neither of them uttered a word, each falling asleep within minutes, the weight of their struggles with their personal demons lifting in the comforting black of night.

  When Daniel woke the next morning, he felt somehow different, knowing he would see Carey as soon as he opened his eyes. The feeling shocked him. He heard the shower being turned on and could smell the coffee she had made and put on the table beside him. She must have come close to him, and he wondered if she’d put it down quickly or lingered over him. He tried to get hold of himself. He had an unnaturally strong feeling for her because of what they were going through. The two of them were on a lifeboat in the middle of the sea; they would either both drown or both be saved, but it was something they would experience together. No one else could help them through the storm they were facing now.

  “Shall I make breakfast?” she asked when she came out of the shower, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. She pulled the tie of her robe tighter, smiling.

  “No, thanks,” he said, collecting himself. He took a quick gulp of coffee and stood, folding the quilt and placing it on the sofa. “I have things to do this morning.”

  In fact, he didn’t, but it was time to leave and think about what the hell they were playing at. The morning intimacy with Tamsyn’s younger sister was somehow more than he could stand.

  Twenty-One

  It was two days before Christmas when it all fell apart. Daniel was standing by the fireplace at the Ashley-Hunts’ house in Gloucestershire, a drink in hand, listening to a toast being made by one of Hugh’s cousins at the annual Christmas party. It was the one time of year when sloppy sentimentalism was tolerated by Hugh’s father, and a round of toasts and long litanies of family history were recited by half of those present as they drank copious amounts of wine. Tamsyn sat in a chair on the other side of the room, listening, as he was, with half an ear. She wore a form-fitting black sweater over an ankle-length skirt of red and green, a sort of patchwork contraption where the fraying seams were on the outside of the garment rather than the inside. He smiled. She was a rebel to the core.