The Adventures of William Fitts Read online

  © 2017 E. Grace Watson

  All rights reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual businesses, is completely coincidental.

  Cover created using public domain images.

  The Adventures of William Fitts

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  For Will, who asked for a chapter and got a novel, and to the countless people who asked for Darcy’s point of view and got absolutely nothing

  (Sorry)

  Chapter 1

  There are far worse things to wake up to than the smell of Lizzy Bennet cooking breakfast.

  Every morning for the past few months, the flat had been filled with the smell of delicious food – despite having lived together for almost four months and been together for eleven, Darcy and her girlfriend, Lizzy, still made each other breakfast in bed whenever possible, and I have been witness to more than one argument about who should cook for the other one. I could say whole-heartedly that the morning was better when Lizzy cooked; the flat would be filled with the wonderful aroma of bacon or eggs or waffles, unlike the strange odour of bad egg that I associated with Darcy cooking.

  On that particular Saturday in the middle of November, I woke up to the smell and sizzle of sausages and fried eggs. There’s nothing like the prospect of a fantastic breakfast to drag you out of bed first thing in the morning. Throwing on my dressing gown, I made my way to the kitchen.

  “Morning, Will,” Lizzy greeted as I tried my best to casually saunter in the kitchen. She had her blue police-box apron on over her pyjamas, concentrating on the frying pan she had over the stove. “Sleep well?”

  “Yeah, not bad,” I said, switching on the coffee machine and leaning against the kitchen counter. “Yourself?”

  “Yeah, pretty good.” She cleared her throat, taking the pan off the stove and turning to the plates she’d already laid out. “Sausages?”

  “If there’s any going spare,” I said, trying not to look to eager.

  “Of course there are,” she grinned mischievously. “Honestly, you’d think I didn’t know you and your appetite.”

  As I dug into the plate she handed me, I was grateful – not for the first time in that week alone – that Lizzy’s dad had taught her how to cook.

  “I’ll take these through,” she said, picking up two of the three other plates. “Jordan probably won’t surface for a few hours, so don’t go eating his breakfast!”

  I made some sort of disgruntled noise through a mouthful of egg as Lizzy disappeared back into her and Darcy’s room, and I couldn’t help but wonder when, exactly, she’d become the mother of the house.

  Lizzy and Darcy moving in together (or ‘The Larcy Project’, as Jordan, Darcy’s brother, called it) had, so far, been smooth sailing, which was surprising to everyone involved. As disgustingly perfect for each other as they were, both of them had very strong, often clashing personalities. For the first few months after they met, it was virtually impossible to have them in the same room for any extended period of time, and as Darcy came into the kitchen, a bounce in her step as she hummed the latest catchy anthem that had been playing endlessly on the radio, I couldn’t help but dread the moment that their honeymoon period ended.

  “You’re in a good mood,” I commented as Darcy poured her coffee, tossing her annoyingly immaculate hair over her shoulder.

  “Any reason I shouldn’t be?”

  “Just a comment,” I shrugged. “It’s nice to see you so happy, that’s all.”

  She smiled at me over her mug, raising an eyebrow. “I’ve been ‘so happy’ for a while, you know.”

  “Well, you’ll be glad to know that the novelty of it hasn’t worn off.” I stood up and put my plate in the sink. “I’d better get ready, don’t want to be late for work.”

  “Have a good day,” said Darcy. “Oh, before I forget, could you dig out your passport? I need it for the insurance.”

  “Sure,” I said, throwing on my suit jacket and grabbing my bag. “See you later!”

  ***

  Unlike last year, when my walk to work had taken all of five minutes, I had to take the tube for a couple of stops to get to my new offices at the London Gazette, a new online news site. I’d been surprised by how much I’d liked having a commute though, as short as it was, as it gave me a bit of breathing space between work and home.

  As I did every morning, I kept an eye out for my co-workers as I left the tube station; there were some for whom bumping into them was something I looked forward to, others where I dreaded it. Making small talk first thing in the morning was hardly my strong point, and it was even worse when it was with someone I had nothing in common with.

  “Hey, Will!”

  Without realising it, I was in front of the office. Looking up when I heard my name being called, I smiled and waved when I saw one of my colleagues coming towards me.

  “Hi, Milly,” I greeted her as we met in front of the entrance to the office. Kamila Jankowski, known as Milly, was the only one of my co-workers that I would really consider my friend. If I were to be completely honest, I would say that I was slightly in awe of her. She exuded self-confidence – although not arrogance – and self-assuredness, which combined with an irrefutable aura of cool made it impossible not to like her.

  “How are you?” I asked her, trying my best to look normal – something I found myself doing a lot around her.

  “Not bad,” she smiled, although she looked a little downcast. “I did my first 5k this weekend, that was good.”

  “That’s awesome!” I quickly tried to reign in my enthusiasm at her disbelieving look. “It’s been a long time since I ran anywhere. So, um, are you – are you sure you’re okay? You seem a little down.”

  “Really, I’m fine,” she reassured me, her warm brown eyes twinkling. “How about you? You look like you’ve been thinking way too hard for half eight in the morning.”

  I laughed awkwardly despite myself as we went through the lobby and headed for the lift. “Well, er, you know… that’s just how my face looks.”

  “Sure, sure,” she laughed dryly. “Would it help to talk about it?”

  “Seriously, I have resting worried face,” I quickly reassured her. “How about yourself?”

  She sighed and rolled her eyes dramatically. “Same old, same old; relationship troubles.”

  “Oh.”

  She turned and looked at me inquisitively, and I suddenly realised that perhaps I hadn’t sounded sympathetic enough. I couldn’t think of anything else to say on the spot, though, so I tried to look as sympathetic as I could until we arrived at our floor and stepped out into the office.

  “I just can’t believe it took me six weeks to realise he was such an ass, you know? It’s always the guys that you think are nice, and they’re sweet to start with, but there’s always something. Usually arsehole friends, and I sit there wondering how this sweet, caring guy became one of the lads right in front of my eyes.”

&nbsp
; “Oh,” I frowned, confused. “Anything in particular? Or just generally being an ass?”

  “A bit of both,” she said, very matter-of-fact. “It was nothing I haven’t heard before, but that doesn’t stop them from being a bunch of xenophobic dicks.”

  It wasn’t the first time she’d made comments like that, but it still threw me off when she spoke so bluntly. I stammered for a few seconds, desperately looking for something to say that would be appropriate.

  Humour, surely? Humour had to be the way forward.

  “Well, on behalf of men everywhere, I apologise,” I said in what I hoped was a joking tone, and it worked; she smiled as she made her way to her desk, shaking her head and laughing.

  “Thanks, Will. On behalf of women everywhere, I accept your apology.”

  Well done, Will, I thought to myself bitterly as I strode across the office to my desk. Way to be ridiculously heteronormative.

  While I waited for my computer to start I watched my co-workers settling in for the day, partaking in their daily habits that never changed.

  At the desk next to mine, Eric was on his daily phone call to his mother, reassuring her in Cantonese. Even though I had no idea what they were saying I always tried to give him privacy, focussing almost too hard on something on my desk or across the room in another direction. I never asked what the phone calls were about, but one day after hanging up he explained to me that she had anxiety and would always make up a reason to check that he got into work okay. Whether he told me because he wanted to stop any speculation or just because he needed to get it off his chest, I’m still not sure, but he seemed to trust me more when a few weeks passed with no rumours spreading. He wasn’t a particularly sociable person, but the few conversations I’d had with him proved him to be observant and brilliantly witty.

  Across from Eric was Katherine, the only person who compared to him in dedication and work ethic. It took all of twenty minutes on the first day to realise that both of them, for completely different reasons, felt that they had something to prove, and that they would only be noticed if they were the best. Their competition was, for the most part, healthy and therefore fruitful.

  Katherine had always been rather standoffish towards me, and it wasn’t until I asked Milly about it that I understood why.

  “She sees you as a threat,” Milly had explained to me over lunch one day, rolling her eyes in a way that told me that I should understand. “Not to her, personally,” she’d quickly added at my horrified look. “To her career, to her work. I know it’s probably never occurred to you, but she feels like she has to work three times harder to be seen as equal to any of you guys. And she might be right.”

  It had never occurred to me, but not for the reasons she’d expect. But I hadn’t corrected her.

  “What about you?” I had asked her. “Do you feel threatened?”

  “A bit,” Milly had said nonchalantly. “Katherine buries her head in her work. I take my work – obviously far superior to any of yours – and wave it around while screaming about how wonderful it is.”

  That was about as much experience as I had with Katherine. The couple of times we’d had to work together on something she’d completed the entire thing herself in one night, unprompted. She reminded me of some of the girls in my class at school, terrified that the slightest mistake would reflect badly on them personally and ruin their reputations.

  Katherine’s attitude was not at all unjustified, especially considering the other two guys in our office.

  Josh and Alex had the two desks between Katherine and Milly, and they were as thick as thieves. They’d gone to boarding school together, gone to the same Durham college for university, and allegedly been arrested in Ibiza together – a rumour that they took no efforts to dismiss. At least once a week – usually twice – they would come into work hungover, often bragging about who they’d pulled on their ‘lads’ night out’. A couple of times they’d asked me if I wanted to join them, but I’d turned them down; apart from being white, male and privately educated, we had nothing in common, and I couldn’t think of a worse way to spend an evening than with ‘the lads’, messily downing shots and trying to find strangers to go home with. How either of them managed to get any work done was beyond me. Milly’s theory was that their parents were paying the Gazette to keep them busy from 9 to 5, five days a week, and I wish I could say I disagreed with her.

  “Morning, everyone,” greeted our supervisor, Rajesh, as always coming in at 9 o’clock on the dot. I was sure he did this on purpose, waiting outside until the second hand came back round to twelve, because it was the only way to actually get Josh and Alex to work.

  Again: how they managed to keep this job astounded me.

  We all nodded an amiable greeting back before going back to what we were working on. Most of the time we were left to our own devices, which was just as blissful as it sounds.

  I’d never expected to have this much independence in a graduate level job, but it was a perk that came with working for a small, very new company. There were less than twenty of us in total, and no one was older than about thirty-five. Unlike Rosings, where I’d interned, there was no room for anyone not pulling their weight, and every individual was valued. More than that, though, this was the first time since I was in school that I’d achieved anything without Darcy’s direct help, and for that – although I’d never tell her – I was very, very proud.

  Chapter 2

  Not for the first time, I was contemplating why, exactly, passports were so easy to lose, and so difficult to find. I was sure I’d put it in a safe place, but that was the danger of safe places. They could be anywhere.

  I hadn’t even realised how much I owned until I started emptying out every drawer, cupboard and storage box in my room. Underneath the first layer of things that I used on a regular basis were things that I hadn’t used in months, years, or things that I’d bought once with the intention of using only for it to be forgotten about.

  Jordan had come to help me in my search after coming to find out why I was swearing so much and so loudly, which made the task slightly more bearable. His optimistic chatter and running commentary was something else to occupy my brain with.

  “This is a hell of a lot of stress for a red notebook with your name printed on it,” he commented, digging round in a long-forgotten underwear drawer. “Dude, these are so tight! How did you breathe?”

  I glanced over my shoulder. He was holding up a no-longer-needed binder.

  “It was worth it,” I shrugged. “Chuck ‘em over here, I’ll give them to Lizzy, see if she’s got any kids at the centre who need them.”

  Since Lizzy finished her internship at Rosings she was splitting her time between working part-time at a literary agent, and volunteering at a centre and homeless shelter for LGBTQ teenagers. She was earning just enough money that she could afford live on her own if she wanted, which made a rent-free life quite comfortable.

  I continued rifling through my desk drawers, looking through the folder where I usually kept legal documents. Everything was there – my driving licence, my deed poll, my birth certificate, bank statements – but no passport to be found.

  “How much do passports cost?” I wondered out loud.

  “About eighty quid.”

  “Damn.”

  I heard the clicking of plastic as Jordan looked through my CD collection.

  “You have a really terrible taste in music!”

  I turned round to see him looking disbelievingly at an old funk album.

  I shrugged. “What? It’s a classic!”

  He rolled his eyes as he put it back on the shelf. “Sure, whatever you say. Don’t let Darcy see it though, you know what she’s like.”

  We both chuckled at the thought, going back to our respective shelves.

  “Where the hell has it gone?” I grumbled as I stumbled over an open drawer.

  “Is this it? Oh, no, sorry. It’s… what is it?”

  I turned around. Jordan was holding
up a small, battered notebook that had been tucked away at the back of a shelf for years, forgotten about, but the moment I saw it I recognised it. He handed it over to me as I ran my fingers over the cover, flicking it open. It wasn’t a particularly extraordinary object. Just a plain notebook, nothing written on the outside. It had been well-loved, though, and it fell open easily. There were diary entries, doodles, whole pages scribbled out in anger. It was heavy somehow, as if it had absorbed the weight of the worries written down in it.

  “It’s my old diary,” I said eventually, distracted by the pages in front of me. “Or journal, or notebook or whatever. I just… there was a lot going on in my head, you know? So I tried to write some of it down. Sometimes more successfully than others.” I smiled humourlessly and held up a double page that was black with angry scribblings out and self-censorship. Jordan winced. “It was one of the only things I took with me. You know, when I left. This was the only sentimental thing, I didn’t have time and I needed clothes and stuff.” I shuddered as I thought back to that fateful day, the memory of eighteen-year-old me sobbing as my parents told me to either take it back or get out.

  Jordan watched me warily, unsure of what to do or say. “I’m – I’m sorry, mate.”

  “It’s okay,” I shrugged. “It was a long time ago – a lifetime ago – and I’m here now. That’s the most important thing.” I gave the notebook a cursory flick-through before putting it away when a piece of paper fell out of it and fluttered to the floor. Curious, I bent down to pick it up, laughing as I unfolded it and read what was written there.

  “What is it?” Jordan asked, concerned by the sudden change in mood.

  “It’s a bucket list,” I said. “Well, not quite. ‘By the time I’m twenty-five’, that’s what I’ve written here. God, I must have been what, fifteen, sixteen when I wrote this?”

  I skimmed down the list. It was like a portal to the past, seeing the things that were most important to me nine years ago. They varied from the life-changing to the insignificant, from the mundane to the nigh-impossible.