‘No, I didn’t.’
‘Yes, we moved to South Africa just after he was born and put off having more children until we returned to England. So he was an only child for the four years we were there.’ For a moment he looked overwhelmed by the memory, but rallied, smiling as he said, ‘It was a very happy time. But when the other children were born, I think we began to demand more of him, and I also freely admit that our expectations were very traditional, very constricting, particularly for someone of Will’s temperament. I look at photographs of that carefree little boy in South Africa, and I think you used the right words, we crushed his spirit.’ His eyes looked moist but his voice was clear and steady.
‘You can’t blame yourself,’ said Alex, falling back on cliché.
Mr Shaw looked nonplussed though, and said, ‘Why not? That’s the trouble with society today - everyone wants to blame someone else, but who else am I to blame? I realized ten years ago that this was my doing.’ He laughed a little. ‘I was furious at his graduation, because he’d humiliated us, because of the lie, and it took me six months to realize, how terrible it must have been for him that he’d felt that need to lie. I tried to reconcile, of course, more than once, but quite understandably...’ He trailed off.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Alex, feeling now like he was the one expressing hollow sentiments.
Mr Shaw smiled and said, ‘I should be the one apologizing; I didn’t mean to burden you with all of this, and Will is still more deserving of your sympathy than I am.’ Alex nodded and he added, ‘And at least I have some consolation, that I was given chance to avoid the repetition of my mistakes.’
‘I don’t follow.’
‘My other children. Lucy was sixteen when Will graduated, Sam was fourteen, Georgie only eleven. Thankfully, the upheaval of that summer removed the scales from my eyes just in time. It’s enough to have one thwarted life on your conscience - I don’t think I could have borne all four.’
Alex nodded but suddenly began to feel uncomfortable. Here was a man who’d unwittingly wronged his own son but who’d acknowledged that failure and sought to atone. Alex had condemned him on sight and yet he didn’t even have the right to judge him, not when he’d made a journey of redemption like that.
‘Why didn’t you want his letters, his notebooks?’
Mr Shaw looked confused for a second, perhaps wondering how Alex had known about it, but then he said, ‘We looked through them. They spoke, to me, of the lifestyle that killed him. I’m not a masochist, Dr Stratton. I want to remember who he was, not what he became.’
‘So you didn’t keep anything from the flat in Brighton?’
‘As I remember it, there wasn’t anything else to keep.’
‘Of course,’ said Alex, thinking of this well-dressed man, his wife, perhaps one or more of his other children, looking lost and helpless in a bare and cold flat, trying to take on board the truth of how far Will had run from them. ‘I’m afraid I’ve intruded and I’m sorry, I had no right to make the comments...’
‘You had every right.’
Alex avoided looking at him but said, ‘The scholarship is a nice idea. If I think of anything else, I’ll let you know.’
‘Thank you,’ said Mr Shaw and handed him a business card.
He got up then and Alex stood with him.
‘I’ll walk you to your car. Where are you parked?’
‘The visitor parking by the Chaplaincy centre, but really, there’s no need.’
‘I’d like to.’
Mr Shaw asked about the others as they walked. Alex told him about Rob, what little he knew of Natalie, admitting then that he knew nothing of what Matt was doing. He was surprised too that Mr Shaw knew who these people were, that Natalie had been Alex’s girlfriend, that Matt came from New York.
‘There was another girl,’ said Mr Shaw then. ‘Lara? Laura?’
Alex tried to think who he could be talking about, drawing a blank, saying finally, ‘Not that I remember, certainly not one of our group.’
Mr Shaw nodded and smiled, looking around as he said, ‘I think he was very happy here. I take a lot of comfort in that.’ He pointed to a Jaguar parked across the road from them. There was a girl sitting in the passenger seat and she got out as they approached and smiled. She looked like a student and Alex guessed it was Will’s youngest sister.
‘Georgie, this is Dr Alex Stratton, Will’s friend.’ The words grated but the girl smiled and shook his hand, said hello.
She looked at her father then, her smile tinged with concern as she said, ‘Are you okay?’
‘Yes, I’m fine.’ He turned to Alex and said, ‘Thank you, I enjoyed our talk.’
‘Me too. I’m glad I had the chance to meet you.’