I would try to steal a cat-nap when I could, but I was having to get by on barely three hours sleep a day. Worse, I was still on Tardy Book and was having to report into the School Office at 6.30 a.m. every morning.
Did I ever want to have an early night instead? Just skip an evening with India and curl up in my Timbralls bed for a refreshing twelve hours?
It would have been like choosing a Big Mac over Lobster Thermidor, opting for the safe and the pedestrian over the wild, mesmerising passion that I shared with India. Nothing, least of all lack of sleep, was going to stop me from seeing her.
But even by the middle of the week, those long, long nights of love-making were starting to take their toll. My skin had the lusty glow that comes from sex outside, but my eyes were red-rimmed with haggard bags that sagged to my cheekbones. I was bone-shatteringly tired, and it was all too obvious both to my peers and to my teachers.
I was in an English division, still gazing at Angela, staring at her but looking right through her, and the tide of words was rolling over me in a never-ending stream. My ears were as impermeable as rock, not a word could register.
At first I was just thinking of India, revelling in my memories of her. Soon enough though, my reveries had turned to dreams, and I was far away from that dry-as-dust Caxton classroom. We were flying over Eton, free as larks and buoyed by our love. We were naked, holding hands, and were swooping through the school buildings with all the elegance of swifts—up, up, skirting round Lupton’s twin towers and the chapel turrets.
I didn’t know how we were flying, but instinctively I knew that the moment I looked down, the moment I started to doubt, I would plummet out of the sky.
We were swooping over Chambers now, watching the black morass of penguined-boys outside the School Hall, stuck in their privileged rut. And I, with my soul-mate, was free of them all.
One by one the boys started to look up. A wall of noise came up to us, but not the ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ of circus-crowd amazement, but a wave of laughter. They were laughing at us, laughing at our nakedness, and our love. India and I were so very different from them that all they could think to do was mock us.
I stared and I began to doubt. Maybe our love couldn’t keep us up; maybe we did look ridiculous without our clothes; maybe it would be much easier just to don my black suit and blend back into the Eton morass.
And out of the sky I tumbled, heel-over-head, seeing first the upturned mouths of the braying boys and then a last glimpse of my love. India was still gliding above me but her face was a picture of spectral horror, her mouth locked into a never-ending scream.
I hurtled headfirst into a wall of manic, savage, laughter— and that, as you may have realised, was the sound of my classmates laughing at me in my English division.
I came to with a start, my head jerking back and my eyes wide open. Instantly, I knew I was the butt of a classroom joke. Every boy in the room was jabbering, even McArdle was smirking. Although when I glanced at Angela—and for this I will always be grateful—she had a gentle smile on her face, not of mockery, but of tender sympathy.
I was lambasted.
“Ah Kim,” McArdle said, strutting round his desk like a well-heeled barrister at court. “Sorry to have disturbed your nap.”
And you know what? Something snapped. For four years, I’d been soaking it all up, accepting that abuse was all part of the Eton turf.
Suddenly I didn’t feel like playing this craven game any more.
“That’s all right,” I replied, like the churl I was.
McArdle paused mid-stride, turned to look at me. “Care to tell us what you were dreaming about?”
“Not especially, Sir.”
The laughter died. The boys scented a tussle.
“Or is it so very tedious to hear us talk about Othello?”
“It’s nothing personal, Sir.”
The tide had turned and the class was on my side now, tittering for me.
“You mean your tiredness is a general malaise?” McArdle tugged at his beard. “Well, you’d better have a ticket then. Talk it through with your tutors, just to see if there’s anything they can do to help.”
“Fair enough.”
Inside, my heart sank. A ticket to be signed by both my housemaster and my personal tutor—yet another means by which Eton stamps its heel on her unruly charges.
At the end of the division, McArdle filled out the yellow slip. He wrote my name and under it, ‘Falling asleep in class’.
“Have it back by tomorrow.”
“My pleasure.”
He scrutinised me for a moment from behind his desk, before adding one more word to the ticket: ‘Insolence’.
The ticket dangled from McArdle’s fingers. Again that surge of bravado. “I think I prefer the word ‘Cheek’.”
McArdle handed me the ticket in silence. Just as I was supposed to be, I was numb as I left the room.
It made the surprise that was awaiting me outside all the more disarming. For there standing on the pavement was Angela in her tartan mini-skirt and skin-tight navy jumper.
I rolled my eyes and raised my arm. Angela, fly as anything, high-fived me and we laughed at the crazy school we inhabited.
My metamorphosis over the previous two weeks must have been remarkable to behold. For now that I had India in my life, I had an inner ring of confidence that meant I could talk to girls without being turned into a tongue-tied fool.
Angela and I walked companionably down Judy’s Passage, her shoulder occasionally tapping against mine.
“What were you dreaming about?” she asked.
“I was flying,” I said. “I was flying over Eton.”
“With anyone in particular?”
“Would it make any difference?”
“Well, you know what Freud said about flying in your dreams?”
“What did he say?”
“You’ll have to look it up.”
“Like when I next go to the library?”
“I’ve never once seen you in the library.” She cuffed me lightly on the arm.
We’d arrived at the end of Judy’s Passage, and there on the other side of the road was the dusty elderberry bush under which I had first found love with India. I looked at it and almost felt guilty for being there alone with Angela.
“You’ll let me know if you ever go flying with me?”
“Be sure of it.”
I had only just come from India’s arms and I would be seeing her again that night. But already here I was, allowing myself to flirt with Angela. Although it wasn’t as if I’d actually done anything with her. I had been faithful to India in word and deed, though not, perhaps, in thought.
I know that this—among many other things—does not show me in the best of lights. I could have skipped telling you the incident completely. But I would be doing you a disservice because what we are observing is not just my frailty but that of every schoolboy. It is not pleasant; it is not savoury. But welcome to the world of the single-sex school, where all relationships with the opposite sex are to be cultivated. Industriously.
That very afternoon I went to the school library, and Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams duly confirmed my suspicions. Flying dreams are nothing more than ‘sexual intercourse’; not so very surprising when you consider that Freud’s entire oeuvre revolved around sex.
What was surprising though was how Angela had alluded to my dream in such a risqué manner. Let her know when I flew with her? It was a come-on if ever I’d heard one.
Well, I was not going to take up Angela’s offer. I had India in my life, I had sex three or four times a day and I was deliriously in love.
No—what I did was what I believe every other boy on earth does when they’re in the midst of a grand love affair, and when they get that first tentative sniff that another girl might be interested.
They may not act, but they store it up, file it into the pending tray. Not, of course, that the grand love affair isn’t going to last forever, but, ju
st on the off chance, just in case . . .
Trust in God, but tie up your camel. An old Arab proverb and I’ve always liked it because it so pithily expresses a schoolboy’s instinctive fallback position when it comes to his dealings with women.
AFTER LUNCH, I joined the queue to Frankie’s study, a dozen boys all in various states of nervousness. We were each waiting for Frankie’s signature. Some of us had rips, which were sloppy pieces of homework that had been literally ripped at the top; some of us had show-ups and needed a tutorly pat on the back; some had chits that needed signing; and some, like me, had tickets and would be called upon to explain our misbehaviour.
Frankie’s face was always a wax mask when you entered his study, for he never knew whether in the next minute he would be delivering the carrot or the stick.
Except with me, for with me he always had on his face a look of weary resignation.
Frankie’s study was lined from floor-to-ceiling with books and there was a large window that overlooked the Slough Road. He had a sofa and armchairs, but for this meeting we adopted the formal positions of Eton combat, Frankie at his antique walnut desk while I stood, hands square behind my back.
“Falling asleep in class?” He screwed up his nose, as if at a noxious smell. “Insolence?”
Silence. The tick of the clock and the sound of boys noisy in the library outside.
“What would you like to say?”
A bluebottle worked its way across the window behind Frankie’s head. “I fell asleep in class.”
“I see.” He signed the ticket. “I see.”
He looked up and cocked an eye at me. “So, what’s been keeping you up?”
“Revision, Sir. Can’t sleep.”
Frankie ‘hmm-hmmed’ to himself and handed back the ticket. “Insolence too?”
“Slipped out, Sir.”
“Going to get you into a lot of trouble one of these days, Kim.”
As I left, he drummed his fingertips on the desk, wondering if there was anything to be done with his unbiddable pupil. Was that the moment when Frankie had that first kernel of an idea to lay a trap for me? It may well have been.
But, even without the aid of my insolent tongue, I was more than capable of landing myself into any number of hairbreadth ’scapes and disastrous chances.
For, along with our countryside sex and our midnight assignations, that very afternoon India and I were strolling right through the heart of Windsor. Not hand-in-hand, or with our arms tight round each other’s waists, but at a school like Eton it is enough—more than enough—for a boy to be seen walking with a young woman for the grapevine to start humming.
We had exercised some caution. We were off the usual schoolboy track and keeping our eyes open as we admired the Georgian houses.
We were laughing at any foolish thing that came into our heads. I’d found a Tabby cat and had bent down to scratch him behind the ear.
“My dad’s got a tabby,” I said. The cat arched its back as my hand streamed over the length of his body.
India was catching some sun, leaning against the railings, her hands outstretched. It was a beautiful day and she was wearing a short skirt, T-shirt and sunglasses. My watch glinted fetchingly on her wrist. To look at her then, she could have been aged anything from fifteen to thirty.
“I like cats,” she said dreamily. “It’s only the control freaks who can’t stand them.”
“What about dogs?”
“Love them too.” Her hair was falling back in a brown spangled waterfall over the railings. “One day, when we have our house in the country, we’ll have a whole menagerie.”
I looked up at her, silhouetted by the sun. I didn’t know if she was joking. But she had voiced my exact thoughts. Already I had started dreaming of our intertwined lives: that we would live together, travel together, have children, make music, and have the most magical sex until death us do part.
But to have her say it like that? I didn’t know whether she was playing with me. I looked at India one more time. I could have said something. Instead, I busied myself with the cat.
India looked down at me and stroked my hair.
“Would you like that?”
She was serious—had taken off her sunglasses.
“More than anything.” I held her hand and kissed her wrist, and for one golden moment we were two credulous fools, synchronising our idyllic futures together.
It’s funny how life never works out like that. You can have your plans, your dreams and your glorious future together mapped out. Yet fate still comes along anyway and, with haughty disregard, sets you off on a different path entirely.
One golden moment when we both dreamed the same dream.
India held her hand against my cheek. “I love you to distraction.” Even as she said it, she glanced uneasily across the road.
“No!” she said. “That boy Savage is coming.”
We ran like hares, arms pumping, our breath whistling through our teeth.
India rounded the corner first and, as I followed, I looked behind—and that was what undid us. For it was only then that Savage recognised me.
I was tearing after India still, hard on her heels. We jinked round lampposts and parking meters, turned another corner, though when I looked back I could see Savage effortlessly cruising behind us.
“Jesus!” I said. Already I was imagining what might happen if we were caught. India grabbed my hand and was dragging me down a murky cul-de-sac, a back route to one of the Windsor hotels.
I tried a fire-door but it was locked. We had to hide. India squeezed into a two-foot gap between the industrial-sized bins and I followed.
My lungs were in flames. I tried to catch my breath without making a sound. All I wanted was a rasping lungful of air but I didn’t dare breathe.
India had her back against the wall and was peeking behind the bins. “He’s standing at the top,” she said, her hand tense on mine. “Looking this way and that. Thinking about coming down here. Yes?” Her fingers clenched. “No.”
India was chuckling as she kissed me.
“Close.” I looked around, taking in our surroundings. We were in a dingy side road, with four storeys of buildings on either side and just a smear of grey skyline. Vegetables were rotting on the cobbles and there was a stinking haze of decayed food.
“Very close,” India replied and kissed me again.
It was as if India and I were on a permanent sexual hair-trigger. We could make love once, twice, and then might be contentedly sipping tea together. But just the slightest word, or look, or touch, was the only spark that was needed to start another blaze in our tinder-dry desire.
She quickly had her hands up my shirt, was pressing herself tight against me. “I hope you’re thinking what I’m thinking.”
“I just might be.”
“I’m so glad to hear that.” Already, as she kissed me, she was tugging at my belt and easing at my fly-buttons.
I was hauling at her skirt, my fingers warm on her buttocks, pulling aside the knicker elastic.
With her arms set round my neck, she gripped her knees over my hips, and there, in among the trade waste and kitchen cast-offs, we made love against the wall.
“Beautiful,” India whispered in my ear. “So beautiful.”
Although our love-making had started out of nowhere, we were taking our time. Not for us the one-minute coupling. No, it may sound sappy but our sex had become the highest expression of our love for each other. It was just as they always say—or at least certainly ought to say: ‘Sex, even when it’s sandwiched between two industrial-sized rubbish bins, blasts into outer space when you’re in love.’
“Oh my darling,” India said, rocking her hips against me. She took my ear entirely in her mouth. “I’m so close.”
The next moment she let out a little laugh. “There’s somebody coming,” she said. “It’s one of the cooks.”
I could hear him, a young man from the sound of it, whistling Under Pressure by Queen and
David Bowie.
She didn’t break stride, gently coasting up to the brink.
“Darling,” she said, looking over my shoulder. “He’s coming right over to the bin. I can’t . . .” Her knees squeezed tight at my waist. “. . . stop.”
And, to the amazement of that genial kitchen-porter, India peaked as he off-loaded another bucket of slops into the bin.
I could not see him, but there was a tell-tale pause in the whistling.
India kissed me and nuzzled into my shoulders. “I love you,” she said.
She always said that when our love-making had ended.
“Did he see us?”
She laughed again as she eased her feet down to the cobbles. “He winked at me.”
“Good for him.”
The first and indeed only time that India and I were definitely caught in flagrante delictu. I hope we made the man’s day.
An hour later we were taking our leave of each other when India fished into her handbag. “I’ve bought you a present,” she said, handing me a small box that was wrapped with love hearts.
I gazed at it, gave it a shake. Something rattled inside. “What could it be?”
“The key to my heart?”
“I’d better open it then.”
It was not quite the key to her heart. It was the key to her home, small and golden with a brown leather fob in the shape of a love-heart.
“Thank you.” I kissed her. “So you won’t have to come downstairs at midnight for me?”
“That’s right.” She kissed me back, nibbling my lower lip. “Let yourself in any time you like.”
Oh, indeed I would. But for that little golden key, how different my life might have been.
For you know the story of Duke Bluebeard? He welcomes his new bride to his castle and tells her that she may go wherever she pleases—save for the one room with the locked door. But of course she goes there. She has to go there. And, in it, she finds all of the wracked and tortured bodies of Bluebeard’s previous wives.
I too was Bluebeard’s bride. For I had been given the key to my love’s castle and the only thing stopping me from unearthing her secrets, her skeletons, was my own self-restraint.
Prelude Page 18