So precise was this sensation that he actually glanced around. There was, of course, no-one behind him. He hesitated. The someone who had tapped his shoulder was now drawing his hand towards the ignition keys. Colin turned the engine off. The invisible someone, he found, was now urging him to get out of the car. Realizing that this invisible person must be his conscience, telling him not to plan something, then funk it, Colin did get out of the car. He found himself encouraged up the path; in an encouraging way, just as he was about to ring Tom’s doorbell, the door was opened for him. A young woman—it was Cressida-from-upstairs—paused in the doorway.
On learning that this tall, anxious-looking, handsome man wanted to see Tom, she let him in, started to leave herself, then paused.
‘The thing is…’ She gave a frown. ‘He’s in a bit of a state. Did you know? Are you a friend of his?’
‘I’m a friend of his mother’s. A state?’ Colin also frowned. ‘That’s odd. She spoke to him last night—she said he sounded fine then…’
‘Well, I guess he would—to his mother. You know how it is.’ She made a face. ‘He doesn’t want people to know, but he and Katya had this horrible fight—last Thursday, when he got back from Edinburgh. In fact, they’ve split up, and Tom’s pretty miserable. I’m worried about him. I tried to talk to him last night, but he wouldn’t say a word. I tried this morning, but he wouldn’t even open his door. So, like, take it easy with him…’
She went out, closing the door behind her. Colin saw that now was not the moment to start discussing Lindsay and proposals. The best thing to do, he decided, was to go back to Shute, collect Lindsay, and bring her over here. He turned towards the front door, and again felt that discernible tug from that invisible hand. The hand seemed to propel him to the stairs. After more hesitation, Colin went up them.
He paused on Tom’s landing. He could hear music coming from rooms on the upper floors; he thought he recognized a Mozart opera, just discernible beneath the heavy beat of some rock group. Then he realized that from beyond Tom’s door came the sound of a man crying.
‘Tom?’ he said, in a low voice. ‘Tom? Are you in there?’
There was no reply. Colin felt a mounting concern. He knocked on the door. ‘Tom, I know you’re in there,’ he said. ‘It’s Colin Lascelles. I need to see you urgently…’ He tried the door, which was locked. ‘Tom, could you open this door, please?’
There was silence, then the sound of a chair moving. ‘Go away,’ Tom said indistinctly. ‘Just go away, OK?’
Colin hesitated. He thought he ought to go away; he also thought he ought to stay. The more he thought about it, the more important it seemed to remain and get into the room. Tom, virtually fatherless, had struck him as volatile when he met him; he thought of how he himself had been at Tom’s age, in the wake of his brother’s death. He thought of how he, at this age, had swung wildly from one extreme to another, and how, on bright mornings like this one, he had got up, looked at the day, and started drinking.
He knocked on the door again. ‘Tom, I’m not leaving. I must talk to you. Now open this door…’
‘Fuck off.’ There was a painful sound. ‘Just fuck off and leave me alone…’
Colin considered. Three days ago, had this happened, he would either have left to fetch Lindsay, or gone in search of a landlady and a key, or made foolish threats about breaking down the door. He had been shown, however, that there were quicker approaches—and speed mattered; he could now sense urgency.
Blushing scarlet, he said, ‘Tom, there’s been an accident. Now open this door at once.’
There was a brief silence, then footsteps, then the sound of a key turning. Colin took one quick look at Tom’s face and pushed past him before he could shut the door. He glanced around the room, which was in a state of chaos. The cerise sofa was without its Indian throw, which was crumpled in a corner. The bed in the alcove was unmade. There were papers and books all over the floor—and there was something else, something that caught his eye as he turned back to Tom, but he was too distressed by Tom’s appearance to take in its significance.
Tom might be his own height, but he now looked like a boy rather than a man, Colin thought. He was unshaven; his eyes were swollen, and his face was white and tear-stained. He was looking at Colin with an expression of fear and bewilderment.
‘What’s happened?’ he said. ‘What’s happened? Is Mum all right? I only spoke to her last night…Oh, Christ.’
‘Nothing’s wrong,’ Colin replied quickly, ‘there was no accident. I couldn’t think of any other way to get you to open the door, and—’
He broke off, seeing a furtive ashamed look cross Tom’s face. Slowly, he turned and re-examined those objects on the table that had caught his eye. There was no mistaking their purpose. He turned back sharply to Tom and the boy’s face crumpled. He gave Colin a blind, miserable look and drew in an unsteady breath.
‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘I wanted to, but I couldn’t even fucking well do that.’ He began to cry again.
‘Katya said I was useless—and she’s right. I bought the fucking drink and the fucking pills, and then I couldn’t do it. I’ve sat here for three hours looking at them—and I couldn’t take them…’ He pushed past Colin, fumbled for a chair and sat down on it. ‘You know where she’s gone? She’s taken the train to London. She’s gone to see fucking Rowland McGuire. She thinks she’s in love with him…’
Quietly, Colin moved across to the table. On it was a notebook with some pencilled message and numerous crossings-out. ‘Dear Mum,’ Colin read. He passed his hand across his face. Next to the notebook was a full bottle of vodka, and laid out in rows, very neatly, was a large number of white pills. The boxes they had been taken from were stacked neatly to one side.
Colin was very afraid; he looked at the pills, then at Tom.
‘This is paracetamol,’ he said. ‘Paracetamol, not aspirin. Have you taken any?’
‘No. I told you—’
‘You’re sure? Look at me, Tom. If you’ve taken any, I have to know—’
‘I haven’t. Not one.’ Tom gave him a frightened look. ‘Count them if you like. They’re all there…’
Colin counted them; they were all there. He found he was not only afraid, but very angry.
‘Do you know what happens to people who take a paracetamol overdose?’ he said. ‘They die. It doesn’t work, using a stomach-pump on them, as it can do with aspirin. It’s irrevocable. Paracetamol causes irrevocable liver damage. You could kill yourself with a quarter of that dosage, but you wouldn’t die now; you’d die in a week’s time. Did you know that?’
‘No. I didn’t.’
‘Did you think of your mother? Tom, how could you do this? Did you think what it would do to her?’
‘Look, I didn’t take them. I didn’t take any…’
‘You thought about it. You sat here and you wrote a note. ‘Dear Mum.’ How could you? How? You’re her only child. She loves you so much…’ He looked around the room. ‘Where’s the phone? I’m calling your mother right now…’
‘No, don’t do that.’ Tom sprang to his feet. ‘Please, don’t do that. I don’t want her to know…’
‘Too bad. You should have thought of that before. I’m not hiding this from her.’
‘Please—please.’ Tom caught at his arm. ‘Don’t do that. Let me explain—I wouldn’t have done it. Really. I just—I couldn’t think. I’ve been walking round Oxford for two days, trying to think, and I couldn’t. Nothing made sense. It was just all this fucking awful horrible mess. Katya said all these horrible things—and I couldn’t believe she’d said them. I kept thinking, it’s all a dream. I’m going to wake up in a minute. And this morning—I went round to her college this morning. She told me to get lost. She had this mad look on her face. She went on and on about him, Rowland this, Rowland that—I could kill him. She’s been writing to him. I know he’s been writing back…and I thought, I’ll show her…’
He rubbed at his eyes and began t
o cry again. ‘I kept thinking she’d come in, and see all that stuff—and then she’d see how much I loved her. Only she didn’t come, and I’d locked the door anyway. Oh shit…’
Colin hesitated; it seemed to him that he ought to call Lindsay, and at once. But he could feel it again, that small odd tug at his sleeve. With a sigh, he did what it seemed most natural and useful to do: he put his arms around a boy he scarcely knew, as if he had known him all his life. Gently, he steered him to the sofa and sat down next to him. He looked anxiously at Tom.
‘You give me your word you didn’t touch any pills? There aren’t any other boxes hidden away?’
‘None. I swear. It was just an idea; a gesture. That’s all I’m capable of—fucking gestures…’
‘I don’t believe that,’ Colin replied in a quiet way. ‘Not taking that amount of paracetamol shows remarkable good sense. Now why don’t you tell me what’s happened? Go back to the beginning, and when you’ve finished, I’ll call Rowland.’ He paused. ‘I know you need have no worries on that score, Tom. Whatever mad idea Katya may have got into her head, Rowland won’t have encouraged her…’
‘You’re sure?’
Colin was not sure. True, he could not imagine Rowland leading Katya on, but if she had actually gone to see him, if she turned up on his doorstep? Katya was young; she was noticeably attractive. Thinking of Rowland’s past, he felt doubts, and knew it was vital to conceal them. ‘Has she gone to his house, Tom?’
‘That’s what she said she was going to do. Oh, Christ. She’ll be there now. You don’t know Katya—you don’t know what she’s like. She reads all these fucking books. She thinks she’s in a book half the time…’
‘I’m sure Rowland will cope with that. I know exactly what he’ll do. He’ll give her one of his ticking-offs—and they’re not pleasant, I can tell you. Then he’ll put her on a train and send her packing, which will almost certainly bring her to her senses…’
‘It won’t make her love me again though, will it?’ Tom bent his head. He wiped the back of his hand angrily across his eyes. ‘She doesn’t fucking care any more. She said…’
He glanced towards the bed and began crying again. Colin put his arm around Tom’s shoulders. He produced one of his Thalia-scorned handkerchiefs and handed it across.
‘Start at the beginning,’ he said, ‘and remember, people don’t always mean what they say in these circumstances.’
‘They don’t?’
‘I certainly hope not,’ Colin replied. ‘Considering some of the things that have been said to me in the past. Now, how did this begin, Tom?’
‘When I got back from Edinburgh, she just went mad—totally mad. She’d written this mad note…’ He blew his nose. Looking at Colin fiercely, he drew in a steadying breath.
‘I’ll never love anyone else, you know,’ he said. ‘Never.’
Colin was careful not to disagree. ‘Of course that’s how you feel,’ he said. ‘Now, you talk and I’ll just sit here and listen. And then we’ll find a way to sort this out, I promise you.’
‘Rowland, I love you,’ Katya said. She cleared her throat. ‘I want you to be very clear about this. Of course, I still love Tom. In many ways, I shall always love Tom, but I love Tom in this quiet, peaceful, everyday sort of way, whereas, with you…’
Katya paused. She had been rehearsing this difficult speech the whole way to London on the train. Now she was actually here, in Rowland McGuire’s strange, spartan house, it seemed more difficult to say. She had hoped that, by this point in her speech, Rowland might have done something.
He had done and said nothing. She had been admitted into the house with considerable reluctance, and only after she had burst into tears on the front step. She had been shown up to this cold, unwelcoming room with these photographs of ugly mountains. She had been in it less than five minutes before she realized that unless she embarked on her speech, she was going to find herself out on the pavement again. Rowland was now leaning up against the mantelpiece, his arms folded; his green eyes rested on her face in a manner that was not encouraging. Katya flushed.
‘With you,’ she continued, ‘it’s different. It came to me very suddenly. It was that day I met you in Oxford. It was something Miriam Stark said. Learn to read, she said. So, after you left, I started reading this novel.’ She paused again, half hoping Rowland would ask her which novel; he did not.
‘I found I could read it—and I could also read myself. And you. I know what you need, Rowland. I know what you want.’
‘Really? You have the advantage of me there.’
‘I want to go to bed with you, Rowland.’ Katya’s colour deepened. ‘You may not realize that you want to go to bed with me yet, but you will. I want you to understand…’ She paused, trying to recall her script. ‘I know it won’t be permanent; it will just be an affair. And when it’s over, I’ll go away quietly; I won’t pester you, or anything like that. I know that in your case it will be just—you know—sex, but from my point of view, it’s something I need—at this moment in my life.’
Katya paused again. Rowland, she felt, must surely now speak. There was a second part to her speech, much concerned with the nature of love, its dynamics and Katya’s theories on these dynamics—which were numerous. There was a coda to this speech that dealt with such questions as twin souls, fate, sudden attraction, and the consequences thereof: looking at Rowland’s green eyes, Katya decided to skip this section. While it had made great sense on the train to tell Rowland that she had realized he was the love of her life, it now did not.
She looked more closely at the expression in those eyes, which might have been lazily amused.
‘Are you laughing at me?’ she said. ‘This isn’t funny. It’s not easy, you know, doing this.’
‘I agree it’s not funny, and I’m certainly not laughing at you. Have you finished? I did say I’d hear you out.’
‘Look.’ Katya struggled. ‘Look—I know you’re a lot older than I am. I know you won’t be used to this kind of thing, but I think a woman should say what she feels. What’s the point of going through life covering everything up? I love you. I came up today to tell you that. If you like, we can go to bed now, and then I’ll go back to Oxford. You’ll never hear from me again. I’ve got a day return ticket, just in case.’
Rowland gave a sigh. He wondered if Katya could possibly imagine the number of times this had happened to him before. The women were different; the words were different; the intention was the same. This, of course, was the very last thing to mention.
He looked at Katya. She was wearing the workman’s donkey jacket again, a man’s shirt, jeans and a pair of Doc Marten boots. He found himself both moved and amused by this. He was moved and amused by the combination of posturing and sincerity in her expression and voice. She was now examining him closely with her large, blue, short-sighted eyes. Her hair, which was beautiful, the colour of a fox, was loose on her shoulders. She had freckles on her nose and cheekbones; her hands, he saw, were unsteady. He could see that what she said she both meant and did not mean.
He glanced away towards the windows. It was mid-afternoon, and the light was already beginning to fade. Three nights ago, he had been at the Conrad; he had spent most of the following day, the Friday, on a plane, and the whole of the following day, yesterday, seeing his newspaper to press. He felt as if he had not slept in a month, and he had realized, shortly before Katya’s unannounced arrival, that, without doubt, a Sunday was the cruellest day of the week. Most people spent Sundays with their families. In the past, he had often spent this day, or part of it, with Lindsay. Such meetings would now cease. This prospect pained him; he found himself at a loss. In a familiar city, in his own home, he felt as if he were distanced and disoriented; whatever planet this was, its atmosphere was alien.
On this planet, it seemed, anything could happen at any moment; its rules were arbitrary. Temptation could turn up at three in the afternoon, in the shape of a girl wearing Doc Marten boots, a girl with a re
turn ticket and a wish to seduce him. This apparition, he found, made him feel very tired. He had the sensation that, if he turned away, then looked back, Katya would vanish in a twinkling. He looked back; she had not vanished; speech was necessary.
‘Katya, I’m sorry,’ he began, ‘I’m touched by what you say, and flattered, obviously, but you must know—it’s out of the question…’
‘Why?’ Katya became pale. Before Rowland could answer, she undid the man’s shirt she was wearing and began crying. She hesitated, then parted the shirt to reveal a black, lacy, seductive brassiere.
‘You won’t look at me,’ she cried, tears welling. ‘You never do. Well, I’m going to make you look at me, Rowland. Oh, God, I’m so bloody miserable. I can’t work. I can’t think. Tom said I looked mad. I feel mad. I might as well go and jump in the Thames. I nearly did, this afternoon. I went and stared at the Thames for hours, but I couldn’t find the right place to jump, and it was low tide and there was all this mud…’
She made a wailing sound; large tears fell down her face. Rowland found that somehow—he was never sure how it happened—he had put an arm around her. The next thing he knew, Katya’s tears were being wept against his shoulder.
‘I want to die,’ she said, indistinctly. ‘I could die of shame. You don’t fancy me, do you? I’m fat. I’m undesirable. I’ve made an idiot of myself. Oh, this is horrible. Why did I come here? Why was I so horrible to Tom? I threw all these books around. We stayed up all night, arguing and arguing, and I drank all this wine and said these horrible, cruel things…Rowland, I could feel this storm—there wasn’t a storm, but I could hear thunder. I kept seeing these flashes of lightning…’