The Company of Fellows (23 page)

“
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.