Almost Home: A Novel

  “Oh!” I feel as though I’d been pricked by a pin. I remember seeing such a man from a distance, talking to Jared in the car park. He was older, ill-fitting among the flannel-and-jean clad students, too formally dressed to be one of the academic fellows. Later, when I asked Jared, he was evasive. Something to do with the teaching position he’d been offered for the following year, he said. It seemed strange at the time, but I didn’t push. There were so many little things that I swept under the rug, wanting to enjoy our days together before my departure without incident.

  “What is it?” Chris asks.

  “It’s just that…”

  Suddenly there is a hand on my shoulder. I look up. Standing there, balancing two pints, is Sebastian. “Good evening.”

  “Oh hello,” I say, surprised. My stomach flutters involuntarily. “Funny meeting you here.”

  “I’m just meeting a friend for a drink.” He gestures with his head across the bar. “Saw you and thought I’d say hi.”

  I scan the room, wondering if he is with Sophie or another woman. But my view is obscured by the crowd. “Sebastian, this is my friend Chris Bannister. We went to college together. Chris, Sebastian Hodges is a colleague of mine.”

  Chris nods. They do not shake hands, but eye each other coldly. Ironic, I think. The two men Sarah suggested I might like, just an hour earlier. They are completely different, yet both attractive in their own ways. “Well,” Sebastian says, after an awkward pause. “I’d best be getting back. Enjoy your evening. See you in the office, Jordan.”

  “That wasn’t very friendly of you,” I say to Chris when Sebastian is out of earshot. “What’s wrong?”

  Chris shrugs, turning back to his drink. “Nothing. I just don’t like the look of the chap is all.”

  There is more to it than that, I decide, studying his face. It is not like Chris to be so rude. Perhaps he is jealous. “So Peter told you that Jared received a package,” I say, changing the subject.

  He looks over his shoulder once more, then clears his throat. “You know, maybe we shouldn’t be discussing this here.” I look at him, puzzled. No one is going to hear us in the crowded, noisy room. “I mean, after what happened to you on the train…well, you just never know who’s around. My flat is just a few blocks away. Why don’t we continue our conversation there?”

  I hesitate uncertainly. I was alone with Chris dozens of times at college, of course, drinking and watching movies or playing cards in one of our rooms late into the night. But things are different now. It’s been years, and Sarah’s question an hour earlier about his possible interest burns fresh in my mind. “Oh, come on,” he persists. “I won’t bite. And there’s something I want to show you.”

  He’s right. I’m being silly. “Okay, let’s go.”

  Outside, it is dark now, the air a few degrees cooler than it was earlier but still pleasantly mild. I follow Chris as he continues north along the High Street until we reach Marylebone Road. Traffic whizzes endlessly in both directions along the wide thoroughfare until a minute later, the light changes and the cars and buses stop to let us through. At the corner, a homeless woman sits on the ground, begging for change. I study her, newly aware. How did she come to be here? Was Anna B. on a corner like this somewhere? I reach in my pocket, pull out a five-pound note, and hand it to the woman.

  Chris leads me down a smaller street and the traffic and commotion fade behind us. “So after I left Cambridge, I drove to Wales and visited with Jared’s mum,” he continues in a low voice as we walk. “His dad passed away several years ago.”

  “Oh.” I hadn’t known. I always imagined Jared’s parents as they were years ago, the one time I met them at college. His father was a tall, quiet man, a retired laborer with thick, calloused hands. His mother, a tiny, wizened woman, was born in the same seaside cottage where she raised her only son, not leaving the hamlet more than a handful of times in her life. I remember how they eyed the college buildings fearfully, as though they might be asked to leave at any moment, painfully aware they did not belong.

  “I hope you don’t mind that I didn’t ask you to come with me. I know it’s hard for you to get away from work,” he adds.

  “Sure,” I reply. But Chris is being polite. He knew Jared’s mother would speak more freely with him alone. She eyed me suspiciously when we met: I was an outsider, the woman who threatened to take her boy away. I was relieved when his parents didn’t come down to college for the memorial service and I was not forced to face her. No, I am glad not to have joined Chris on his trip. But part of me wishes I could have gone to see Jared’s childhood home, touched the earth that was so much a part of who he was.

  He stops in front of a row house and opens the door. Inside is a well-kept foyer, print rug on hardwood floor, a low table with a vase of daffodils. “After you,” he says, gesturing for me to go first up the stairs. “I’ve got the top floor, I’m afraid.”

  I start forward. Three steps up, I stop again. “Okay, but first I need to ask you something. I ran into Duncan Lauder.” It seems ironic, lying to Chris about the circumstances of my meeting with Duncan, even as I am asking him for the truth. But I cannot tell him about my work, any more than I could Sarah. “He mentioned that you asked him about Jared. Why didn’t you tell me you met with him?”

  Chris hesitates, considering the question. “I don’t know,” he replies, his voice sincere. “It didn’t seem important.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, I tried to do some background checking before we met. I wanted to make sure I had as much information about Jared’s death as possible to convince you that I wasn’t totally crazy in what I was trying to do. Jared mentioned Duncan a few times at college; they consulted on a project or something. So I spoke with Duncan, but he didn’t really have anything of value to offer. I didn’t mention it because it seemed inconsequential.”

  “Oh.” I study his face. My work has made me an expert in when people are lying, but Chris doesn’t sound the slightest bit defensive and his explanation makes sense. I am suddenly embarrassed at how suspicious I must have sounded. “Okay. Just wanted to know.” I continue up the flight of stairs, then another. At the top, I step aside to let Chris unlock the door.

  “Welcome to Chez Christopher,” he says, flicking a light switch then gesturing grandly with his arm.

  “Very nice.” The loft-style flat occupies the entire length of the building, unbroken except for the slight indentation where a wall had been torn down between two previously separate rooms or apartments. The décor is modern and sleek. Dark hardwood floors have been buffed to a glossy finish and recessed lighting gives the room a soft glow. A wall of exposed brick, freshly restored, runs the length of the flat.

  Chris gestures to a sitting area at the center of the room, low, futon-style couches around a metal and glass coffee table. “Have a seat. I’ll get drinks,” he says as he walks to a kitchen with stainless-steel appliances and dark granite countertops at the front end of the flat. I drop to one of the cushionless orange sofas, still taking in the apartment. The walls are adorned with black-and-white photographs, done by a well-known artist whose name I cannot remember, a framed poster marking an exhibition at the Tate Modern. The apartment is well put together, a decorator’s showcase. But something is missing: there is nothing personal here, nothing of Chris. I remember then the photographs from college I’d seen during my visits to Sarah’s. How is it that Chris, so obsessed with the past, has no mementos of it?

  “What do you think?” he asks as he crosses the flat and sets down a bottle of red wine and two glasses on the coffee table. His expression is hopeful, a little boy eager to please.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  His face breaks into a wide smile. “My sister’s a decorator so she did it up for me. Lots of my own things are still in storage, though, from when I was overseas.”

  So that explains the lack of photos, I think, chiding myself for again being suspicious. “I hear you on that. My whole life is in my parents’
attic.”

  He sits down beside me, then gestures with his head toward the rear of the flat. “Sorry about the mess. The housekeeper doesn’t come until Friday.” I notice then for the first time a wide, unmade futon bed, clothes strewn across it. The disarray is somehow comforting, proof that he didn’t plan to have me back here.

  He pours the wine and hands me a glass. “Cheers.”

  I clink my glass to his, then take a sip. “Mmm,” I sigh, savoring the rich, full flavor. Even my unrefined palate can tell the difference between this and the glass I just had at the pub. “You always could pick them.”

  Chris laughs. “Wine, at least. Seriously, I’m glad you like it. It’s the last of a limited vintage I brought back from Jo’burg last autumn.”

  “Oh.” The mention of South Africa reminds me of Sarah. I picture her lying on the floor, her expression of wounded pride.

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing. So tell me.” I cross my legs. “What did Jared’s mother have to say?”

  “She was surprised to see me, of course, but glad.” I nod, imagining her initial suspicion melting to Chris’s charm. “She wanted to know why I was there, asking questions about Jared.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “The truth, more or less. I didn’t go into the whole business with Dr. Peng. There’s no reason to hurt her with that, at least not until we know more. But I told her that I had questions about Jared’s death, that I thought there were some things that were never fully explained.”

  “How did she take it?”

  “That was the strange part. I thought she would be surprised, and maybe upset. But she wasn’t; she seemed almost relieved. She said she had questions, too. She hadn’t brought them up all these years because she didn’t know how or to whom, and who would listen to a grieving old lady anyway? But she was glad someone was asking.”

  “Questions?” I ask, draining my wineglass.

  “Well for one thing, she wanted to know why they wouldn’t let the family bring Jared home to be buried.”

  “What?” I set the glass down on the coffee table, harder than I intended, missing the coaster. “The Master said that Jared’s parents wanted him to be buried at college.”

  “Apparently not,” Chris replies, refilling my glass. “According to Mrs. Short, the college told her it was some sort of tradition for students who died at college to be buried there.”

  A tradition of one, I think as I take another sip of wine, picturing Jared’s lone grave by the river. Maybe she misunderstood. “That’s bizarre.”

  “And it gets stranger. Mrs. Short said that it was Lord Colbert who told her about the burial spot when he called to break the news that Jared died.”

  My hand, still clutching the wineglass, freezes in midair. “But he told us—”

  “That he was out of town the night of Jared’s death.”

  I rub my temples. “None of this makes any sense.”

  “It does if Lord Colbert has something to hide.”

  If he didn’t want us to think he was around that night. A Cambridge interment would have meant Jared could be buried quickly, without being examined by a coroner in Wales. I exhale slowly, trying to calm the thoughts that are spinning through my brain. “I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. What else did she have to say?”

  “Nothing else about his burial. But there was one other thing. She said that Jared called her a few days before he died.”

  “So?”

  “Normally they spoke only on Sundays.” I nod. Jared and I would sometimes go to the pay phone beneath the bar after Sunday lunch, each of us waiting while the other called home. “But according to his mum, he called the house that Tuesday, asking to speak with his father, who was out fishing. So he asked her instead.”

  “Asked for what?”

  “Money. He wanted her to wire him money.”

  “Oh.” This surprises me more than anything else. Jared never seemed short on cash. He was on scholarship and received a stipend. It wasn’t a lot, but enough to cover our meager expenses, the occasional pizza, a bottle of wine for Formal Hall. “How much did he ask for?”

  “She didn’t say exactly, but it sounded like a lot. Whatever she could send. Or in her words, enough ‘to clean out her whole biscuit tin.’”

  My stomach twists. Jared’s parents were not rich people. He told me once how his mother took in odd laundry and sewing jobs when he was a boy to supplement his father’s income. I always sensed a certain guilt he felt at his living among so much Cambridge grandeur while his parents worked hard to stay afloat. He was determined to make it through university on his own and to start helping them as soon as he was earning an income. He never would have asked for their help, unless it was an emergency. “He didn’t say why he needed it?”

  “No.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Jared.”

  “I know,” Chris replies. “But she didn’t seem to know any more, so I didn’t press. Anyway, after Jared’s death, the college sent home a trunk of his papers and belongings. She showed them to me.”

  “Did you go through them?”

  Chris shakes his head. “Better. I convinced her to let me borrow them.” He reaches around the back of the sofa and lugs a medium-sized steamer trunk into view.

  “Chris, how did you…?” I stand up and walk around the coffee table, approaching the trunk from the opposite end. Kneeling in front of it, I run my hand along the dusty oak lid, remembering. Jared’s trunk, the one he tucked away in his closet at college. “I’m surprised she let you take it.”

  “Promised her I would bring them back personally next week and stay for a visit. The poor dear is starved for company, I think.” A wave of guilt washes over me when I think of Jared’s mother, alone in her tiny cottage with only her memories. I could have written, sent a Christmas card. But part of me feared her, thought that she blamed me somehow for her son’s death.

  Slowly, ceremoniously, Chris opens the lid. Inside sit two piles of neatly stacked papers, a nest of folded clothing beneath. It is meticulous, as if Jared had arranged the trunk himself. “Have you gone through them yet?” I ask as he lifts the stacks of papers from the trunk.

  He shakes his head. “I just got back an hour ago and I called you right away.”

  I lean over, reaching into the trunk and pulling out a jacket. It is a red and black splash top, one of the nylon and fleece pullovers worn by rowers everywhere. But it is too small for Jared. Mine, I realize, sinking from the sofa to the floor. I bring the jacket to my face, inhaling the mixture of sweat and dirty river water, preserved ten years in this crypt. “I must have left this in his room.” I lost the jacket, or thought I did, sometime in the middle of the May term. Now I wonder if Jared kept it purposely, wanting to have a part of me near him after I was gone.

  I set down the top beside me on the floor, then reach inside the trunk once more and pull out a large blue shirt. It is the one Jared wore the night of the Tideway, I remember instantly. The night of our first kiss. I shake it out. A small bloodstain still marks the shoulder where he got the tattoo. I lift it to my nose, inhaling. The room blurs and for a minute I am in the galley of the boathouse on the Thames, the concrete damp and hard beneath me, my head buried in Jared’s neck.

  Chris clears his throat. My vision clears. He has looked up from the papers and is watching me. An expression I cannot decipher crosses his face. “Mrs. Short wouldn’t mind if you keep that, I’m sure,” he says gently. I do not answer. He lifts some of the papers from his lap and holds them out. “Here, let’s divide these up.”

  Reluctantly, I set down the shirt and take the stack from him. Jared kept everything, it seems: college bills, invitations to parties, notes people left for him in his pigeonhole. A paper narrative of his life at college. I rifle through each one, scanning it quickly as I would an investigation file at work, parsing through the needless bits, looking for kernels of information. But it is mostly routine, notes sent to him about rowing p
ractice, plans for the weekend. I thumb farther down the stack. A piece of paper, folded, heavier cream-colored stock, catches my eye. I open it. “Memorandum of Understanding” the heading reads. It is a letter agreement; Jared’s signature and another I do not recognize at the bottom. “Chris, what do you make of this?”

  He takes the paper from me, his eyes darting from side to side as he reads. “This has to do with Jared’s scholarship. It was privately underwritten by the MacLeod Foundation out of New York. Apparently, they paid for his tuition and provided a stipend.”

  “I don’t understand.” I take the paper back from him, processing. I knew Jared had a scholarship, of course; but I always assumed it was just from the university. Why would an American foundation fund his studies? Suddenly he is a stranger to me. We were together such a short time. Despite our instant closeness, there is much about him I do not know. I pick up Jared’s shirt again, clutching it as though it might contain answers.

  “Look,” Chris says a moment later. I set the shirt and paper aside and turn to find him holding a racing number from the Nottingham Regatta, a race that I had long forgotten. “It’s funny, isn’t it? Jared was so terse and practical. You wouldn’t have thought him nostalgic. But he kept everything. These papers are like a documentary of our time at college.”

  “Yes.” I reply, wishing that I kept something. I planned to keep it all of course, the invitations, the notes, every little scrap of paper. But that was before.

  I look down at the papers in my lap once more. Another thick crème piece of paper catches my eye. I pull it out quickly, wondering if it will shed more light on Jared’s scholarship. But it is a piece of stationery. “Vincci Via Hotel,” it reads across the top. Beneath is a street address in Madrid. Perhaps Jared was there on holiday before he knew me. The thought sends a small stab through my stomach. Like most people, I think little of life beyond the immediate place where I am. I picture Jared’s life as the single year that I knew him. It hurts to remember that I missed most of the years that he was alive, to acknowledge that there were vacations and lovers and laughter that came before me.