On Thursday morning, I was woken from a fitful sleep by the quiet arrival of Hollins, the bedmaker who served my staircase, with coal and hot water. From my bed, I listened to him moving around my sitting room while rowers raced across the quad, calling to each other as they hared down to the river for an early morning outing, and a door thudded as somebody rose to take breakfast in hall.
I could never face the kind of desultory, half-resentful conversations that tended to take place at this hour so, once I heard my outer door close, I retrieved the jug of hot water Hollins had left outside my bedroom door and glanced over at the fire he’d lit. In twenty minutes or so it would be hot enough to boil a kettle for coffee.
Putting the steaming water jug on my washstand, I opened the shutters. The sun had not yet risen, and everything was cold and grey. That suited my mood, perfectly.
Having made use of the chamber pot, instead of putting on my dressing gown and setting about shaving, I got back into bed, pulled up the still-warm bedclothes and curled on my side. For the hundredth, lacerating time, the previous evening’s conversation with Teddy played itself out in my mind.
Despite my reservations, he’d been enthusiastic about conducting a post-mortem examination on Parker’s body.
‘What larks!’ He’d grinned. ‘A post-mortem in the college coach house. Much nicer than the cutting room at the Infirmary.’
I’d gazed at him, baffled as always by his enthusiasm for dissecting his fellow human beings. After fifteen years, I was none the wiser as to the origin of my feelings for this man: he was as different from me as it was possible for two men from a similar background to be. Teddy had no interest in art or literature or the finer things of life. He was almost entirely occupied with physicality: sport, surgery, sex.
‘You will bear in mind that this is a delicate case.’
‘Yes, yes, understood.’ He looked up at my pained silence. ‘I heard you, Bas. The college mustn’t be embarrassed.’
‘But obviously, we want the truth…’
‘And if the truth is embarrassing?’ Teddy shared Non Vaughan’s discomfiting tendency to ask awkward questions.
‘Then we must try and make sure it’s known only to those who need to know. Legally I mean.’
‘Are you telling me not to gossip, Mr Rice?’ He grinned.
Teddy was far more gregarious than I and, sometimes, in his cups he was less than discreet which could, frankly, be terrifying. He always dismissed my pleas for discretion with the confidence that all would be forgiven a young man racketing about town. But, at thirty-three, we were no longer young, and any licence granted to youthful high spirits had expired long ago. These days, we were held to a more sober standard, and should some of the things we got up to in London be generally known, both my place as an academic and Teddy’s as a surgeon would be lost in an instant. We’d be lucky to stay out of gaol.
However, I knew there was no point arguing with him. He would swear black was white rather than admit he might be wrong; and he’d get most of the people listening to agree with him.
‘Can you come to college and do it tomorrow?’ I asked. I was very aware that Parker had now been dead two days and had no idea how much his body might deteriorate if the post-mortem examination was left any longer.
Teddy reached for his wine glass. ‘You’ll have to clear it with the coroner. Normally it’s he who commissions post-mortems.’
‘Of course.’ I had already planned to visit Morrell.
‘But I can’t do it tomorrow, no. Or Friday. My time’s already spoken for. Can’t cry off or I’ll be in bad odour.’ He took a mouthful of wine, looking over the rim of his glass at me. ‘Not that I particularly need to be in good odour at the moment.’ He looked away. Was he, finally, going to tell me his plans?
‘Why?’
He drained his glass. ‘Because my references are in. Done. No need to be a good boy any more.’
My heart began to beat painfully fast. ‘You’re taking up a new position? Where?’ I wasn’t going to let him off the hook by telling him I already knew.
Finally, he looked me in the eye. ‘King’s. London.’
Had I been hoping that Harper was wrong, that he’d got hold of the wrong end of the stick? Apparently, I had, because as soon as Teddy said the words, a cold pain gripped at my stomach.
‘Has to be done, Bas,’ he said, matter-of-factly. ‘I’ve waited long enough. Longer than I should, actually. It’s clear they’ve no intention of setting up a proper medical school, here. Even for the purely academic stuff, the University’s in the Dark Ages. Without even so much as separate departments for anatomy and physiology we’re never going to attract the most talented men.’
‘I thought you were happy here. At the Infirmary.’
His eyes moved away again. ‘Up to a point. I enjoy surgery and the other doctors are decent chaps. Most of them. But it’s not going anywhere, Bas. It’s eighteen eighty-one. I’ll still have years of life and work in me when the twentieth century dawns. I want to be part of modern medicine, not stuck here where everything’s calcified.’
I stared at him, sprawled on my sofa. Teddy was like a lion; if he wasn’t in motion, he lazed as if resting his muscles thoroughly for the next bout of activity.
‘I’ll never get a better offer than the one Lister’s made me,’ he said. ‘You know how much I admire him.’
Am I not a better offer? Asking that question was inconceivable. As far as Teddy was concerned, we were fast friends and no more. But his having gone so far as to negotiate a position with Joseph Lister without having once mentioned his plans cut me to the quick.
As if he’d read my mind, he sighed. ‘I didn’t want to tell you until it was definite. But we always knew this day was coming, Bas. I was never going to make old bones in Oxford, and it’s time to admit that I can’t be a young rogue about town for ever. Time to become respectable. Find a wife.’
I hadn’t been able to look at him, then. That acceptance was the sticking point: I’d long since resigned myself to being one of nature’s bachelors but Teddy had always been clear that, one day, he would want a family.
Pushing him from my mind, I flung the bedclothes aside and swung myself out of bed, the floorboards’ coldness beneath my bare feet a welcome distraction. Pouring the still-warm water into my bowl, I plunged my face into it as if, in submerging myself up to my ears, I could unhear the things we’d said and wash last night away; wash away the years Teddy and I had spent together. Years that had meant entirely different things to the two of us.
My mind filled with memories, images, sensations, until I felt a terrible urge to open my mouth under the water and breathe. I jerked my face from the bowl, water cascading down my neck and chest.
I sucked in air, shocked at the impulse that had gripped me. In my heart of hearts, I’d always known the truth, and Teddy’s move to London proved it. He would never feel as I did. I had been deluding myself, allowing hope to overrule reason.
But if hope was gone, I must preserve what remained. Without Teddy, my position at Jesus was all I had, and in the anguished and wakeful watches of the night, I had decided that I must do anything I could to prevent the college’s name becoming a byword either for neglect or deviance. Teddy’s testimony would not be enough. An inquest verdict that Parker had died of natural causes would not stop the gossips if Reardon carried out his threat and accused us of negligence. That kind of accusation was liable to be picked up by the national press and the public – which included prospective undergraduates and their parents – might well decide that Jesus College was not a reputable institution. It would be the ruin of us. And, as Parker’s tutor, the end of my career.
I’d already lost Teddy. I couldn’t lose Oxford as well.
It seemed to me that it shouldn’t be too difficult to show that our duty of care had not been neglected, Parker’s living with the Trents notwithstanding. I had noticed no change in him at my weekly meetings with him, and Mrs Trent had already told Dr Fielding that she hadn’t thought him anything more than a little under the weather with his usual bowel complaint. There must be others, who knew him well, who could tell the inquest that his health had given no real cause for concern. It might not be proof against gossip about spermatorrhoea rings and breast buds, but a consensus as to Sidney Parker’s health might clear Jesus – and me – of the charge of neglecting our undergraduates’ health.
The obvious person to speak to was his parish priest at St Barnabas. According to Lily Maddox, Parker had been a devoted member of the congregation; the vicar would know him if anybody did.
But, first, I had to persuade the University Coroner to order a post-mortem examination.