House of Windows (5 page)

‘Who’s for the pub then?’ asked Frank.

They set off en masse before Susie realised Nick wasn’t
following. ‘Aren’t you … Oh, the
pub
. Look, I’ll smile sweetly at the barman and I bet it won’t be a problem—’

‘I’ve got a meeting anyway,’ Nick interrupted. ‘See you later.’

‘See you, Nick.’ She tossed a smile over her shoulder as she marched away to where the others were waiting for her in a little cluster by the Old Library. Nick watched her sail into the lead, the rest trailing after her like ducklings as she led them through the doors by the dining hall. He waited until they were out of sight before making his way back around Latham Lawn, only to collide with Tim as he stepped backwards out of a doorway followed by a very pretty brunette.

‘You may look like butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth, but you’re a skunk, Timothy Brethan,’ the girl said, poking him in the shoulder.

‘That’s not really fair,’ protested Tim, reaching for her arm. He sighed, letting his hand fall, when she marched off towards the river, looking like she was either going to cry or savage someone with her teeth. Tim flinched when he turned to find Nick watching. ‘Oops?’ he said, raising his hands in a ‘who, me?’ gesture.

‘Why have I already seen two women angry with you when you make this big deal of being an “everyone’s best pal” sort of person?’ Nick asked.

Tim ignored the question. ‘What happened to the other newbie Mathmos?’

‘Pub.’

‘Why didn’t you suggest a coffee shop instead?’

‘Because I don’t need to start term with them all resenting me.’

‘For making them go for a coffee instead of a pint at …’ Tim slipped his phone from his pocket, checked the time. ‘It’s only noon. That’s early even for Freshers.’

‘I want people to get coffee because they want me to be there too, not out of pity, OK?’ Nick snapped.

‘They don’t even
know
you yet,’ Tim said. ‘If they start choosing to go to the pub when they
do
know you better,
then
you can take it personally.’

‘You really think reminding them that I’m too young to drink is going to help me make friends?’

‘It’s the truth. And maybe one of the others doesn’t drink anyway.’

Nick snorted.

‘Yeah, OK, it’s unlikely, but honestly, Nick, if you go about expecting the worst of everyone so you never give them a chance to like you fair and square, don’t you think that’s kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy? Maybe they simply didn’t think. Sometimes people are just straight inconsiderate – or outright thick. It’s more common at Cambridge than you’d imagine: heads in the clouds, feet in our mouths. Hey, was that almost a smile?’

Nick bit his lip, but his mouth pulled up into a grin anyway.

‘Come on. If you’re heading home, you can tag along with me to Trinity Street while I continue to dispense sage advice. Like, next time you should get in there first with a suggestion
of coffee – or better yet, tell everyone you want to go get currant buns at Fitzbillies for the sake of tradition. If they still insist on going to the pub, I give you permission to sulk to your little heart’s content.’

They pushed into the p’lodge, Tim detouring past his pigeonhole.

‘Here,’ he said, grabbing a couple of student newspapers off one of the window seats and thrusting them into Nick’s arms. ‘A copy of the first
Varsity
and
TCS
of your Cambridge career.’

‘So why were you giving the tour anyway?’ Nick asked, falling into step beside Tim as they let the street-side door of the p’lodge swing shut behind them.

‘Gosswin arranged for me to do some work for College over long vac to pay for my rent, ’cos I’ve been a bit short of blunt. Part of the deal was helping out with Induction.’

‘Didn’t you go home at all then? Is that usual for … What are you? MPhil? PhD?’

‘MPhil, converting to a PhD. At least that’s the plan. You can’t go directly to PhD any more from a BA.’

‘Well?’ asked Nick, when Tim didn’t go on.

‘Well what?’

‘Why were you here all summer?’

Tim shrugged. ‘I like it here.’

‘But how about your family?’

‘Look, Nick, the invitation to walk together doesn’t mean it’s open season on my private life, OK?’

Nick stopped. ‘Right. So you get to criticise everything I
do without even knowing me, but I don’t get to ask you why you’re messing around with first years? Good to clear that up. See you around.’

Tim watched him hurry back into College. ‘Nice, Brethan. Exactly what Gosswin meant when she asked you to be friendly.’

So much for being a font of local knowledge.
Nick trudged after the rest of the Freshers, following the JCR Welfare Officer leading the ‘Beyond College’ Tour. They’d started with the New Museums Site, where Nick would be having most of his lectures, and then headed over the road and through one of four huge arches into a courtyard filled with balustraded stone staircases, gothic towers, copper-plated cupolas, grand oriel windows and even a stretch of lawn.

‘Just remember that the Downing Site, where we’ve just been, is not actually part of Downing College, but home to various lecture theatres and departments,’ said the Welfare Officer, leading them back out to Tennis Court Road.

A right took them down Trumpington Street; where it met King’s Parade, they turned left on to Silver Street. On the bridge, the Welfare Officer pointed downriver to the wooden
Queen’s College Mathematical Bridge. ‘When Isaac Newton first constructed the bridge, he built it without a single nail. Then students took it apart to figure out how it worked, but they couldn’t solve the riddle so it had to be bolted back together. There’s a reward for anyone who can return it to its original form.’

‘How big a reward?’ one of the Freshers asked.

Nick turned away, grinning, wondering if he should tell the others that it was all a fib: a prank played on tourists.

Coe Fen stretched out on their left and, beyond, the start of Granchester Meadows, with the river winding through the waving beds of reeds and marsh grasses.

Nick let the paths of the Sidgwick Site wash over him, barely listening as the Welfare Officer listed the faculties and departments that made their home there. On West Road they turned right, back towards town.

Nick hooked a finger into his shirt collar, pulling against the stiff fabric, then tugged wearily at his tie. All the others were in normal clothes, but there wouldn’t be time between the tour and the Matriculation photo for Nick to get home to change, so he was already in his suit, gown bundled awkwardly under his arm.

‘What’s that?’ someone asked, pointing towards an ugly tower of iron-grey brick rising above a line of trees on their left.

‘That, my friends, is HM Prison UL,’ said the Welfare Officer.

‘A prison? Right in the middle of the town? Is that safe?’ one of the other Freshers squeaked.

Nick rolled his eyes. ‘UL stands for University Library.’

The Welfare Officer made a face at him. ‘It’s a prison for books, not people: only third years and graduate students are allowed to borrow the books, you see.’

The others turned to Nick for confirmation.

‘Seriously,’ said the Welfare Officer. ‘Scout’s Honour and all that.’

They crossed Queen’s Road at the traffic lights by King’s, then followed the Backs to the left. A right into Clare let them on to a long straight path bordered by gardens on the left and King’s Meadows on the right. At the end of the path, a beautiful black-painted filigree gate of wrought iron curtained the path from the grey stone bridge beyond.

They walked under an arch of grey-white stone, emerging into Old Court, then out another arch and finally through the front gate into Trinity Lane. A few dozen paces and they were back at Trinity Hall. The others hurried away to throw on their suits and gowns, while Nick wandered slowly towards Latham Lawn, where they’d been told to gather at eleven on the dot.

The day before, the College had looked enchanted in the sunshine: the warmth of the golden brick of Front Court, the autumnal glow of the buildings around Latham Lawn, the purple of the copper beech leaves, the riot of late-blooming flowers in the beds. Now, it was all shades of brown and grey. Instead of smiles, people’s faces were pinched and reddened by the icy wind.

‘How long’s this going to take?’ whined a girl to Nick’s right.

A group of begowned fellows were signalling for attention from the path in front of the Jerwood building. Slowly the crowd turned to face them. There followed a few brief speeches that were largely torn away by the wind: stuff about ‘welcome’ and ‘privilege’ and ‘opportunities’ and ‘make the most of’ and, bafflingly, ‘penguins’. At one stage, the wind dropped and he caught ‘Matriculation marks the time you officially become part of the University. Even when you graduate, as alumni you’ll still be part of this great institution. So look around at the class you’re matriculating into. These will be your peers for the rest of your life. The Matriculation photo we’re about to take is part of our formal record of matriculating students, which makes it important enough that we will be dispatching porters to find anyone missing when we take the Matriculation register. If you know any of your friends to be absent, we suggest you consider phoning them now or even slipping very briefly away to roust them from their beds before we do so. On a more serious note, we urge—’ The rest was lost to the wind.

Finally, they were herded in alphabetical order on to the scaffolding, a process complicated by the fact that in a crowd of over 120 students it was almost impossible to hear whose name was being called.

Nick smiled hopefully at the girl standing in front of him in the queue. She smiled back, but quickly, turning away. Nick sighed, fixing his eyes instead on Latham Building: trying to remember that even being here was an opportunity
and privilege that should be enjoyed and cherished. But it was hard when his face and fingers were numb with cold. When no one had spoken to him all day.

An opportunity to perfect being lonely in a crowd.

He started, not sure for a moment if he’d spoken aloud. If so, no one had heard.

‘Oh finally,’ said the girl in front as they were hustled up on to the stand. They shuffled to the middle of the second tier from the top then turned to face the river. Past the Fellows’ Garden on the left were the roofs of Clare and, beyond, King’s, cold and beautiful and close: so close that the chill misery of feeling so alone didn’t seem possible among the gardens and spires around him.

‘Everyone looking at the camera,’ shouted the photographer.

Nick blinked, tried a smile that felt like it was mostly teeth.

There were some changes to the front row. Special people in. Special people out. New special people in. And then they were all climbing back down to the lawn. Nick looked around for Susie, Frank, any of the other Mathmos, but they were all gone. He looked in at the JCR, but there was no one he knew: no one who looked interested in talking to him.

He was wandering down the path around Latham Lawn, heading towards the Jerwood Library, when a window opened above him.

‘Mr Derran,’ an imperious voice hailed him, ‘it is time for tea.’

He squinted up into the sharp white light breaking through the cloud behind the building. Professor Gosswin was glaring down at him.

By the time he left Professor Gosswin’s set, it was fully dark, the air burning cold. Around him, the many windows of the College, and Clare next door, were alight: yellow and orange against the black and blue of the night, somehow near and far. As he walked around Latham Lawn towards the corridor between the dining hall and the buttery, the tracery of the delicate stonework around the windows seemed to glide through the air, the shining glass letting on to a different world, somehow more real than the one he was walking through, all dim and vague with shadows.

Over tea the Professor had ordered him to bring a box of chocolate biscuits through from the kitchen with the advice that ‘In Cambridge the word “feast” has come to be used to indicate that a meal will be more than usually inedible, so you need have no qualms about spoiling your appetite before tonight’s Matriculation Feast: better now with chocolate than later with slivers of dead swan.’

The smells, as he passed the buttery, supported the Professor’s scepticism.

Front Court was crowded, the air fizzy as in the moment after lightning. Skin was orange and yellow in the glow of the lights, faces masklike from the shadows. Bodies seemed to
merge strangely as people flapped their gowns, put them on, took them off again, trying and failing to help one another settle them elegantly. As Nick looked, one short girl simply bundled the trailing lower half into her arms and stood cradling it like a baby.

‘Alphabetical order!’ shouted a dashing man in an extremely smart suit. ‘Matriculating students into alphabetical order.’

There was much pushing and shoving and odd bits of standing on the grass as the crowd slowly resolved into a line running down from the double doors to the dining hall, along the chapel wall, then into the middle of the courtyard. The whole crowd was shuffling from foot to foot in an awkward dance to combat the cold.

‘Gown!’ the man in the suit shouted, pointing. Nick and everyone around him turned to watch a tall boy with startlingly orange hair quail like a cartoon character. A moment later, he scuttled off towards North Court.

‘No one in Hall without a gown! And quiet!’

A hush fell. Nick squeezed to the edge of the cluster of students around him to peer out across the courtyard. The scene didn’t look real, didn’t feel real. All these people towering above him, boys in suits, girls in evening wear, everyone begowned. Even the taller students didn’t seem to fit the gowns: strange things with great batwing sleeves and so much pleating of the voluminous fabric around the shoulders that they looked to have eighties shoulder pads. There was a stiff scratchy semicircle of a collar that was clearly
meant to fit around the neck but gaped on almost everyone so that the heavy fabric pulled the gowns awkwardly backwards. Nick had assumed that gowns would be like Hogwarts robes: black hooded dressing gowns, not round tablecloths folded in half and pinched together at the sides for sleeves.

‘God, I feel like a prat,’ someone muttered, flapping his gown sleeves. ‘It’s like a poncy version of super-hero dress-up. So much for the solemn occasion.’

A wash of laughter ebbed through the crowd.

‘Matriculating students, quiet!’ shouted the man in the suit.

‘Cold. Bored. Cold,’ mumbled a girl to Nick’s left, blowing miserably on her hands.

Then finally they were moving. Waiters stood at the front of the dining hall, directing them along the benches to the left. Three long tables marched down the length of the room, each set on either side with long benches of wood so dark it looked black. At the far end, on a low wooden platform, a further table sat across the width of the hall, this one set with chairs.

Filing along the line of benches without treading on your own or someone else’s gown was clearly an art. Several people ended up in impromptu embraces as they fell on to each other. When the shuffling in Nick’s line stopped, they all collapsed gratefully on to the benches. The table was set with enough silverware and crystal for a week.

‘Bollocks,’ said the boy to Nick’s right. ‘We’re not meant to know which fork to use, are we?’

‘Was it in the Induction pack?’ asked the girl who’d flirted with Tim on the College Tour.

‘Start from the outside and move inwards,’ said Frank, his tone adding an unspoken
you uncultured morons.

The walls were gleamingly white, decorated in intricate plasterwork shaped into faux Corinthian columns, the capitals tipped in gold.

‘Oh, look,’ said Frank, pointing at the portraits hanging above them. ‘I think I see dead people.’