A Preview of The Passenger
The first chapter of my debut novel
I have chosen to make the first chapter of my upcoming debut novel, The Passenger, available to read for free on Substack. This has been a long and arduous process for me, done in between bouts of heartbreak, financial distress, financial joy, and nine-to-five drudgery. The first draft of The Passenger was completed between May and September 2022, and extensive re-writes have occurred since. I was, for a while at least, content to edit and re-work in perpetuity, until I realised that I’d spend the rest of my life making minute changes until I died; insane and unpublished. The novel is now with a professional proof-reader, and will be published in the coming months by the Bournbrook Press.
The Passenger by S.D. Wickett - Chapter One
I was born on a Tuesday in the August of 1933. On the Wednesday, my mother died. My father died too on a Wednesday, but not for another twelve years. In lieu of them, I became aimless and senseless, and lived out my years with a twin chasm of absence and vague loss. I carried that loss to all places and into all relations. Perhaps this is the key to understanding a man such as myself; self-raised and educated by error. And now, in my expiring embers - as I dwindle and flicker, and the cancer spreads - I seem to know myself truly. Now, as I look back from the precipice - death’s door, and all in the rear-view - wisdom is so very easy to come across. And amidst a host of other revelations, one is written in bold italics. For when, at last, a life is confined entirely to memories, and no more can be made, then he who has lived shall become one with his recollections. They shall accompany him to the grave, for memory is the only evidence of life.
A life is but the creation of memory.
Mine began in the Autumn of 1951; my first Michaelmas term at Camford. I had a life in those prior, formative years; but it had not been lived. Rather, it was spent awaiting the day I moved to Camford, for it seemed a birthright of sorts, a tether to my father and to his father before him. We were, in his words, displaced aristocrats. There had been a marquis somewhere in the tree I was told, though all that seemed to remain was a townhouse in Bayswater.
And so I went up to Camford, aflush with neuroses and trepidations; as if I were a diver on the water’s edge, stripping to the waist and readying the jump, though not knowing if the water was hot or cold, or full of sharks. There were intrigues too as I boarded the train at Paddington, the imagined outcomes of every possible scenario. So bound was I to my neuroticisms that they no longer seemed to be quirks or faults in my psyche, rather a built-in characteristic. To fear one’s shadow was to be human. So bound was I to tragedy and heartache, having become so familiar, that no other way of living seemed right. And yet, on the train - somewhere between London and High Wycombe - a miracle of sorts occurred. I was lifted, and free, and suddenly I felt a gravitational desire for more. I suddenly craved music, and drink, and dancing, and women. And so, armed with my few belongings and a tabula rasa, I rode on to the rest of my life. And after what felt like the flick of the switch, I was there. Camford entered the senses and stayed, seducing me in moments and whisking me into a taxi as that city of eternal, transient youth, and learned stones floated on by. It asked no questions, and demanded no more than two essays per week, and an acquiescence into blissful, geranium odours and plentiful wine. When I arrived at my digs, having fallen in love for the first time, I felt as groomsmen do on their happiest day.
Richard Belling was halfway asleep when I first met him. He was sprawled across a leather armchair, two feet from a gramophone that roared Beethoven’s Ninth, that was nearing the end. He smiled contentedly, with a cigarette perched on the left bank of his grin as the sun shone through a vase on the window sill, and his face was a glorious blue. After a minute or so, the music stopped. His eyes opened and narrowed upon seeing me.
“Hello,” he said. “Are you our new lodger?”
“Lodger?”, I asked, taken aback by his wording. “Y-yes. I’m R-Robin, how do you do?”
“Richard,” he said, standing and taking my hand. “Surname?”
“Fitz—w-warwick.”
“Fitz-Warwick?”, he asked with a slight chuckle. “How interesting. I know a few Fitz’s, and a few Warwick’s. I didn’t realise they’d smashed them together. You’re not a relation of Alfie Warwick, are you? I should hope not, he’s been such a terrible ass to me of late.”
“It’s just F-Fitzwarwick. One word. You’ll have to excuse the speech, it was never my biggest s-strength.”
“Mm,” he grunted. “Fitzwarwick. Goodness me, your hair is very black.”
“Oh, yes. I believe it’s on account of my mother being Cornish.”
“Half Cornish?”, he enquired. His hair was a golden blonde.
“Yes.”
“Well, would you look at that. I’m full-blooded Cornish as it happens, or at least that’s what father likes to say. Oh well, we can’t have it all, can we? Do you smoke, old boy?”
“No.”
“You do now,” he said, taking a cigarette and placing it into my breast pocket. “D’you drink?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Here,” he said, gesturing at my bags. “Those look heavy, let me lend a hand.”
I replied with a simple cheers as he ushered me out of the way and picked up the bags, before turning to face the hall. “Fucksby! Fucksby get in here!”
Within seconds, the hard-wood floor pitter-pattered with hurried steps, as a slim and slightly wet-looking young man, of about our age, flung himself into view. “Yes, sir?”
“Take these,” he said, passing over my bags clumsily.
“Yes, sir. Very well, sir,” said Fucksby before turning and sprinting back out of the room. I looked at the now-vacant doorway, and then back at Richard, who smiled, knowing how bizarre the scene was.
“Fucksby?”, I asked.
“Yes, Fucksby.”
“How are you spelling that?”
“F-U-C-K-S-B-Y”
“I see. W-why?”
Richard sighed, as if this explanation was a regular chore. “His name is Francis Uxby. F. Uxby. Fucksby. It’s hardly a complicated evolution.”
“And is Fucksby a friend of yours?”
“Oh, the best of friends. He’s the Watson to my Holmes. Fucksby! Get in here!”
Fucksby darted back.
“I fancy a round of drinks.”
“Of course, sir.”
“Rather. I’ll have a gin and tea; dash of milk, no sugar—you know how I like it, my dear. And—the newbie will have the same.”
“Very well sir," the errand boy blurted before turning to run.
"Actually. Red for me if you have it."
The butler looked at Richard for approval and turned back to me after getting a nod. "Very well."
He ran faster once unburdened by my bags.
"He's the wind beneath my wings,” said Richard, with a great sentiment.
"I must say, I am quite impressed. He ran faster than I ever could; indoors, w-while carrying everything I own."
"Oh, yes. My dear Fucksby is a mighty fine mule. The best you can get really."
"A mule?"
"A mule, yes. It's a term at Eton. I believe you'd call him a bitch elsewhere. But I find that mule has a much softer touch. Mules are reliable, friendly. A perfect companion.”
"I see."
"Fiercely loyal, the old boy. He volunteered to stay behind for a year while I travelled to South America after the sixth. I mean, it was my idea, but he did it so he must have wished to."
"How very charitable."
Richard smiled, in that moment taking me as a friend. "Indeed" he beamed after few moments.
Fucksby came back in, not running but walking at a brisk pace, a tray balanced effortlessly on his outstretched palm. "Gin and tea, Sir."
"Thank you, Fucksby. And for yourself old boy?"
"For me? Oh—nothing, sir."
"What rot, Fucksby! Fix yourself a drink at this moment. And take the evening off while you're at it."
"Yes, sir,” said Fucksby as he turned for the doorway.
"Wait."
Fucksby turned, with a simple expression of listening.
"You're forgetting something."
He froze for a second, in thought. The penny dropped, and he handed me a glass of wine.
"Thank you, Francis."
He tried to hide a burst of euphoria, but failed. Richard looked amused.
"Yes, I suppose his name is Francis," Richard remarked when it was just us in the room. "I've called him Fucksby for so long I forget the old boy has a civilian name."
"How long have you called him that?"
"Eight years."
"And how long have you known him?"
"Eight years."
"Did you ever call him Francis?"
"I did. But as soon as I learned his surname I simply couldn't resist."
Francis came trotting back into the room, with a smartly prepared Gin and Tonic in hand. He'd even garnished it admirably, with coiled cucumber. It was then that I saw something unseeable in Francis, a quiet brilliance. I didn't then and still do not know why he put up with all he did. He seemed genuinely fond of Richard, and Richard seemed genuinely fond of him.
It was six when I left them. The record had been replaced and the gramophone hummed once more. I hadn't seen my room yet and wished to know my quarters. It was nearest to the back of the flat and I passed the other rooms on my way. Richard’s was large but a mess, Francis' small but well kept. Mine was intermediate between them. It was a perfect cube decorated with various shades of timber. A deep brown wooden floor and desk with a light brown wardrobe and bookcase. I'd unpacked by seven and grew hungry.
“I’m heading out,” I called, poking my head into the living room.
“Not so fast!”, Richard countered, springing to his feet. He leapfrogged the armchair he’d been laying on when I first met him, stumbling into me upon landing. “Where are you going?”
“Just out.”
He raised a brow, instilling in me a hungering desire to say more.
“For something to eat. Maybe a cup of tea as well.”
“But we have tea here,” he protested. “And gin.”
“I think I’d rather go out. I haven’t seen the city yet.”
“Fucksby!”, Richard called, as Francis stirred from the window he’d been looking out of. “Ready the flask, Fucksby. We’re going out.”
“Where to, sir?”
“Don’t call me that, Fucksby. You’re off duty. Robin wants to see the town.”
We ate in a small and forgettable bistro. All the while, Richard moved and jittered, filling my ears with his fantasies of the drunken night ahead. He paid and whisked me out of the restaurant the moment I’d finished eating, and was restless as we walked into the heart of the hum. There was a dancing autumn breeze on my fingertips, and soon I had begun to share his sense of thrill. This I kept thinking to myself, this is how the eve of battle must feel.
“I’ll have a gin and tea, please,” said Richard in the first pub we entered.
“We haven’t got any hot water,” replied a bemused barmaid.
“We’re leaving,” Richard declared after a moment’s thought.
“Well, we tried,” he continued as we stepped out into the street. “I suppose there’s always the college haunts. Though I’m not giddy about it. I can’t stand to be around other undergraduates, you see. We all know each other, much more so than I’d find desirable.”
“I see,” I said, more focused on Francis than Richard.
“They’re all the same, really - the Old Boys - you know the next fellow from all the things you do outside of school, the summers and winters. A few from the same county. I’m an Eton man myself. Have you ever heard of Eton?”
“I’m aware of Eton, yes. And I happen to have gone to Charterhouse.”
“Really?”, he asked, stopping in his tracks.
“Yes,” I said, half-amused.
“But—I’ve never heard of you.”
“I—kept a low profile.”
“What did you say your surname was again?”
“Fitzwarwick.”
“Hm. Fitzwarwick. I'll check with my sources. It’s not that I don't believe you or anything, but I'd assumed you were of the middle class. There’s no shame in it, old boy. It’s a new age, you know, as we keep on hearing.”
“So you don’t believe me?”
Richard paused for a moment. “No, I suppose not.”
During our brief sojourn into that first pub, some new life had been breathed into the city. Students now rode about gaily on bicycles, calling out to one another about this party or that party, all happening at some indeterminate point in the late hours. A few parties had already began, and every fifth house seemed to have undergraduates spilling out of the doors and windows.
“Nope. That one’s full of pricks,” Richard declared with contempt at the first party he saw, before pointing at another. “And that one’s full of even bigger pricks!”.
He sipped intermittently from a silver flask, which bore the monochrome of a fox with Belling typed underneath. “The family crest,” he said, after catching me staring. Francis had taken to walking a step behind, as the pavement became narrow at points, and no more than two could fit side-by-side. He examined Camford much in the way that I did; quietly, contently, and seduced. “Here, Fitzy—yes, Fitzy, that’s what I’ll call you from now on. Have some of this. It’s good for you, good for healthy bones.”
Richard extended the flask, and I took a small sip. A great shudder shot from the base of my skull to my knees as that utterly horrid liquid, which I can still taste today, molested my tongue with bitters and sickly sweets.
“Christ!”, I blurted. “What’s in that?”
“Ah, you know. A bit of this, a bit of that. We call it the real Eton mess.”
“It’s ghastly.”
“And not for the faint of heart.”
“How on earth have you not grimaced once? That—concoction is utterly horrid.”
“It is second nature to me now, dear boy,” Richard smiled boastfully. Though his confidence would not last long; and within moments he was keeled in a cramped alley, expunging what he had consumed. He writhed in agony as the day’s contents fell out of him and accumulated on the cobbled floor.
“Oh god, I feel like a sewer.”
“Anything I can do to help, sir?”, Francis enquired, sheepishly.
“Yeah—fuck off.” Richard said, in between dry and heaving breaths.
“Indeed, sir.”
When Francis had rounded the corner, Richard turned to me, with some unseemly fluid dangling from his lip. “You too, Fi-fitzwarwick. Out— of—— my sight.”
I did not need convincing and turned away. Strolling out of the alley, I found Francis admiring a church. The sort that one felt had always been there, and this great city of knowledge was simply built around it.
“14th century,” Francis said as I joined him. “Gorgeous thing, don’t you think?”
“How’d you two become friends?”, I asked. The question had weighed on me all through the evening. Before he could answer, Richard emerged; wiping his lips with a spotted handkerchief and staggering as if he had died and been reborn.
“Sorry for the spectacle, chaps. Had to get this rotten waste out of my precious body.”
Richard gestured at the flask, before unscrewing the top and drinking what was left. He wretched. “Never again. Now, chaps. I’ve got a nasty hangover and a creeping anaemia. I need some iron.”
“I think the pharmacy is closed, sir.”
“Not pills. Fucksby. Too small a dose. No. I need some stout.” Richard looked around in a focused daze, searching for a point of delivery. “Ah, this is familiar territory. Now, if I’m not mistaken—I believe some good old chums of mine are to be spending this evening——” Richard paused, lost in attempted recollection. He snapped his finger like a gun, his target the Bull’s Head pub. “There. Onwards!”
Before either of us could react, Richard was through the door. When I caught up with him, he was scanning the room greedily. He spotted a seat and directed Francis and I towards it. “I’ll get these one’s in.”
It was just Francis and I, as Richard waited impatiently at the bar, I wanted to ask him that same question, but decided instead to enquire in general. “So, Fu—Francis. Where are you from?”
“Oh. Nowhere really. But also, many places.”
“Oh?”, I asked, imploring him to continue.
“Well, um. Forgive me, Robin, if I speak plainly?”
“By all means.”
“Well, I am an orphan. I lost my parents in the war. So, I just got passed around really.”
“Like a bottle of Christmas gin,” I said, giving him a look. Our fates were the same, and nothing he could say would shock me.
“Yes, I suppose it is like that. Is there anything else you’d like to know?”
“W-where have you lived?”
“Oh, well. I was an evacuee when it happened, I think a stray bomb got them. I was in Herefordshire at the time, so I stayed there a while. Then with family in Pembrokeshire, then London for a while after the war. Then they sent me to board and sort of forgot about me. That’s where I met Richard and became such friends with the Belling family. They’ve been ever so good to me.”
I did not reply, instead choosing to let my smile remain in place. In an instant, he and I were bonded - tethered by loss - and our misery made us brothers. Francis pivoted the conversation to a worn out and chipped fresco on the ceiling, and I listened as he imparted upon me what he knew. Before long, Richard returned with three pints of dark stout. Just as he took a greedy first sip, an uncannily identical young man approached the table. Richard’s posture indicated that the young man was an old friend.
"Alright, Bellers? Fancy seeing you here, I figured you'd be stuck in some Bolivarian foxhole. Jarves said he left you in Caracas."
"I came back for the Belling place at Camford. Say, speaking of Jarves, is he here?"
"Yeah, he's just around the corner."
“Oh, good. I must speak with that great ginger beast.”
The two exchanged a few more pleasantries, before the doppelgänger left.
“That’s Maz,” Richard said, once he had vanished into the crowd. “Complete prick. Biggest of the bunch really.”
Richard turned and began craning his neck for a better view around the bar.
"Jarves!", he called across the room.
"Yeah," called a disembodied voice around the corner
"Relocate your ginger self to whence I call your name."
"Shag yourself, Bellers," the voice replied. "I'm not done with my pint."
"If I have to drag you here I will!"
Presently, 'Jarves' showed himself. He had a thick head of bright orange hair and a beard of brown patches, the sort that the university would declare unseemly and have forcibly shaved before the term began. He was scruffy and familiar, and I recognised him immediately as being in the year above me in school.
"What is it?", he groaned, pulling a chair out and sitting abruptly. "Hello, Francis."
"Hello, Matthew," Francis replied with a smile.
"See him?", Richard declared, pointing right at me.
“I see him.”
"Claims he’s a Carthusian.”
"Oh yeah? House?"
"Grownboys."
His eyes narrowed. I held firm, as it became clear that he had remembered me.
“Who was your beak for English?", he asked with a smirk.
"Harding."
Jarves scoffed. “Well, he's telling the truth, I'll tell you that much. Fitzwarwick, right? Yeah I remember you,” he said, turning to face Richard again. “He fancied himself as a writer,” Jarves continued. “People used to say that he wrote because he couldn’t speak, and all the energy went there. Always scribbling away in a battered old journal. Harding was a right bastard to him, so I heard. Right?"
I tightened.
"Why? What did he do?", Richard asked, keenly.
"Oh, it was brutal. The kid had a stammer like a broken-down car, and Harding knew it, the sadist,” Jarves explained, before realising the impropriety of his tone and nodding a sort of apology. I accepted without fuss, as pretending not to be phased by Harding's antics was just how I coped with school. “Apparently, Ol’ Bastard Harding would make him stand up and recite Byron, over and over and over. And this other time, he--”
Jarves was suddenly interrupted as a glass thundered against the floor and shattered. We looked over and saw that Francis was the culprit.
"Fucksby you plum!", Richard exclaimed as he roared into laughter. Jarves chuckled silently. I looked at him in disbelief.
"Sorry, sir. Must've just—slipped.”
"You are a damned fool my dear boy, but you do provide the most abundant mirth," Richard chortled, roughing up his hair as he smiled vacantly. Richard bored of the ribbing and engaged Jarves in a conversation only discernible to their ilk. Francis caught my eye and winked. And with that, I had made my first friend in Camford.
The next day I awoke to an awful drowse. I grimaced and rubbed my eyes as the room grew focused and I saw that it was ten past eleven. As the various sounds of the day wafted in, I heard collective voices in the lounge. Richard's voice rose above, and I recalled that he had invited the faces from the night before to luncheon. They were all dressed exquisitely. Silks, tweeds, and trilbies, that emanated all relations of the system from which they had emerged. The same, yet possessing a well-tasted and minute touch of their own. Jarves, and Maz, and Portnoy, to whom I was a stranger.
"Fitzy do get dressed," groaned Richard. "We're going to be late. You do remember that you agreed to have lunch with us?"
"Of course, just give me a moment."
I slipped back into my room and picked out a slim blue two-piece, my favourite tie, and a simple white handkerchief. There was a boutonniere, which I had reserved for a special occasion, but not this. Richard was impatient when I returned.
"Do hurry, old boy. The cab's waiting."
I gestured to the door, and we left the flat.
Jarves fell into step with me on the stairs. "I remember you a tad bit better now. You were Monty’s friend, right?"
“Yes.”
We emerged out of the front door. Immediately, I spotted Francis standing by a car, and deduced that he was our driver. We piled in and headed for town. Francis drove like a ballerina dances.