My Oxford Year(82)

“Smashing,” William chokes out.

“Rather.”

“It slipped. Nothing to fuss about.”

“I’ll get the broom.” Jamie’s voice deadens as he moves deeper into the cellar.

“Leave it, I’ll have Colin or one of the—”

But I hear the creak of an old hinge and Jamie says, “I’ve got it.”

“Don’t. Let it be. The last thing I need is you cutting yourself.” The sound of glass scraping against the floor. “Damn it all, I said leave it!” William explodes. “Might I be allowed to run my own ruddy house?”

“For Christ’s sake, I’m only—” A heavier set of footsteps strides toward the tunnel hallway. “Right, of course! Walk away. God, I hate . . .” Jamie falters. I imagine him clenching his jaw, his fists, every part of him in one tight coil ready to spring.

“Go on,” William dares. “You hate . . . ? You obviously have something to say, so say it, you ungrateful—”

“Stop!” Silence. Then, “Oliver’s last word, remember?”

“What are you dredging up now?”

Antonia’s hand finds mine.

After a moment, Jamie continues. “We were standing on opposite sides of his bed, arguing over him, and he said, ‘Stop.’ You pretended not to hear it. ‘Stop,’ and then he passed out. Never regained consciousness. Four hours later he needed the ventilator and I had to make the decision. And you hated me for it. ‘Stop.’ His word, not mine.”

Antonia squeezes my hand and I watch her eyes fill and overflow, tears trickling down like a roadside waterfall.

“I wasn’t aware,” William blusters. “I couldn’t hear—”

“‘Stop.’”

After a moment, the sound of tinkling glass resumes. “Hand me the bin.” Jamie sighs. A metal pail scrapes across the floor, followed by the tinny ring of glass dropping into it.

“You routed me,” William says more strongly.

“And you gutted me,” Jamie fires back.

“How so?” William shouts. “Maybe, had you consulted me, instead of behaving like some petulant child—”

The bin crashes to the floor. Oh God, are they going to come to blows?

“You said,” Jamie yells, “his body still warm before us, you said, ‘Why Oliver? Why did it have to be Oliver?’”

My eyes pop open. As do Antonia’s. She doesn’t know this either?

Even William sounds appalled. “I never said such a thing!”

“You did.”

“I would never!”

“First you blamed me for killing him and then you salted the wound by wishing it were me in his place.”

“No! Untrue! A father doesn’t favor—”

“Oh, come off it, you would have gladly exchanged—”

“I was talking about myself!” William roars. “I wanted it to be me lying there! Me! Not you! God forbid, not you.” Rasping breath and then, “I said what I said, Jamie. I did. I blamed you, yes.” William’s voice is as tight as an overwound clock. “But wish you dead? I love you! It was just . . . the pain had nowhere to go, you see, nowhere to—”

A sob rips through the cellar, echoing off the stone. I look to Antonia, but her eyes are closed. Jamie struggles for breath, for control. “Apologies,” he chokes out. “What you said. Was just . . . unexpected.”

When he speaks again, William sounds mystified. “What have I done, honestly, Jamie, what have I done to make you think I would ever wish—”

“Not that.” Jamie clears his throat. “I mean, yes, that. But no, it was the word ‘love’ what surprised me.”

“Oh, please,” William scoffs. “Don’t act as if you don’t know that.”

Eventually, the tinkling sound resumes, breaking the silence. Again. Jamie, voice more controlled now, speaks. “I’ve heard every other bloody thing. Your disappointment. Your anger. But love? No. That stays bottled up inside you like all these wines, just sitting here, waiting to be shared, enjoyed, but too valuable to open. You’re so afraid that once they’re drunk, there will be no more, it will all be gone. Well, one day, it’ll be gone anyway whether you drink it or not.”

“You’re quite the poet, I’ll give you that,” William drawls. Jamie sighs, defeated, muttering something that prompts William to counter, “Oh, come now, I’m joking. I . . . I do understand. What you’re saying, I do. But my father—”

“Dammit!” Jamie hisses. “Bugger it all to hell.” Antonia and I both look up, panicked.

“Christ, d’you cut yourself?”

“It’s fine.”

“Let me see.”

“I’m fine.”

“I have a handkerchief. I’ll wrap it.”

“It’ll stain.”

“I don’t give a mouse fart, give me your hand.”

Silence.

A long silence.

William speaks first. “I believe I may have made a bit of a mess of things.”

“It was a crap vintage anyway.”

William snorts.

Jamie sighs, all the heat seeming to have left him. As if, having volleyed those barbed words back and forth with William, having purged them, they’ve been dulled, rendered inert. “Dying is awful business.”