‘I can’t leave your brother like this!’ To him she said, ‘Darling, why don’t we all get a taxi back to Parkwood and I’ll come in with you and see you settled …’
The bell sounded again. The boy was at the lift, holding the doors open. Bobby felt his heart racing, the stuffiness of the shop closing in on him. He had to get out quickly if only to catch his breath, but panic kept him rooted to the spot. He stared at his mother. To his horror he began to cry, the sobs constricting his throat so that he gasped for air.
Stepping quickly towards him, she took his arm. Quietly she said, ‘It’s all right. We’ll walk slowly down the stairs together – it’s so hot and close in those lifts, isn’t it? We can take our time, can’t we? We can take our time, just you and me.’
* * *
Sitting in the armchair in Parkwood’s kitchen, Bobby watched his mother make tea. Margot Redpath was forty-five, her soft, round figure held rigorously in check by corsets, her plumpness keeping her skin smooth and unlined so that she could easily pass for forty. Her glossy dark hair was pinned up in much the same style captured in the photographs on the day she married his father. That marriage had lasted only two years before she was widowed. It seemed to Bobby that she didn’t much mourn her husband, he was barely mentioned, his grave never visited and when she remarried he became an official taboo. He would have been re-named Redpath, just as she was, if it hadn’t been for his grandfather’s horrified stand.
As Margot poured boiling water into the teapot Bobby said, ‘You don’t have to stay, Mum.’
She looked up at him. ‘Oh, Bobby! Don’t be silly. I’ll stay until you’re feeling better.’
He looked down at his hands, wishing he had a cigarette to occupy them. Haltingly he said, ‘I’m sorry, about earlier. I’m an idiot, behaving like that.’
‘It’s understandable.’
‘No, it’s not. I didn’t have any money, you know? I’d forgotten it. I went all that way … stupid. I’m so stupid.’
She went into the pantry. Coming out again she said, ‘You don’t have any milk, or any food that I can see. Make a list of things you need. In the morning Mark can run some errands for you.’
‘I can manage. Really, I can. It’s just today was a bad day.’ He met her eye. She was gazing at him fondly and he imagined flinging himself into her arms. But years ago he had decided it would be best to do without her completely, unable any longer to cope with the absent-minded, piecemeal affection she doled out to him. Once he’d stopped trying to compete for her attention it hardly seemed necessary to speak to her any more.
Carefully his mother said, ‘Bobby? Darling, I wish you’d let us help you.’
‘Us?’
She handed him a cup of tea. ‘Yes, us, your stepfather and me.’
‘He wouldn’t help me.’ He looked at her. ‘I bet you won’t even tell him you’ve been here.’
‘Of course I will! He’s not a monster, Bobby. He cares for you, in his own way.’
He laughed bleakly. ‘Does he? Maybe his lawyer could use that in mitigation when he finally kills me.’
‘Oh Bobby, don’t talk like that! Such dramatising! He only ever disciplined you. You vexed him so, you know you did.’ She sighed. ‘You know you’re like him, in a way. You’re both so stubborn.’
‘How can I be like him? He’s not my father!’
‘Bobby, quiet now, don’t start getting excited again. Right, I should go. Don’t forget to make that shopping list. Have a little think about what you want – some treats, perhaps.’
She hesitated, as though she expected him to protest at her leaving. When he didn’t speak, she turned away and picked up her coat and handbag from the chair where she’d left them. She glanced at him, giving him another chance to ask her to be a mother to him. He avoided her gaze, stubbornly silent.
At last she said, ‘Good night, Bobby. In the morning ask Mark to mow the lawn – it’s such a big job, your father used to spend hours looking after it.’
Despite his resolve he said, ‘Did he?’
‘He loved the garden, you know that.’
‘No, I didn’t know.’
Pulling on her gloves she said, ‘Make Mark useful – he’s more than willing.’
‘What else did he like?’
‘Sorry, darling?’
‘My father. What else did he like?’
‘Paul?’ She frowned. ‘Oh, I don’t know. It was such a long time ago.’
Bobby followed her to the front door. Unable to contain his curiosity he blurted, ‘Do I take after him?’
For a moment he thought she was seriously considering his question. He watched her, surprised by how much he wanted her to tell him even the smallest detail. At last she said, ‘Your father was a very kind man. I remember he was kind. Poor Paul. We were both so young. Babies, really.’ For the briefest moment she hesitated before kissing him on the cheek. ‘I’ll send Mark over in the morning.’ Patting his arm, she turned and walked away.
Mark mowed the lawn and raked the grass into a haphazard haystack. He uprooted a sycamore sapling that had seeded itself in the border and dug over the weedy vegetable plot, burying the rotten, yellow stalks of last year’s Brussels sprouts. Against Bobby’s wishes he took a ladder from the garage and propped it against the largest chestnut tree. Holding on to the ladder to steady it as best he could, Bobby watched, terrified, as Mark climbed up and sawed off the branches that grew too close to the house.
Safely down, Mark wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his forearm, the saw dangling from his other hand. He’d rolled up the sleeves of his checked shirt, inadvertently showing off muscled arms, and undone the top few buttons, exposing blond chest hair. Bobby grinned at him, relief that he hadn’t come to any harm mixed with surprise that Mark, when not dressed in his school uniform, appeared to be grown up.
‘Never climb up there again, do you hear me? You’ll give me a heart attack.’
Mark laughed. ‘It was safe enough.’ He looked up into the half-bare canopy. ‘It needs felling, really.’
‘Felling? You’re a lumberjack now, are you?’
His brother was serious suddenly. ‘All the trees should be cut down. They’re growing too close to the house, damaging the foundations.’
‘I like the trees.’
‘Look.’ Mark pointed to a crack appearing in the side of the house. ‘What do you think is causing that?’
‘Bomb damage?’
‘Be serious, Bob! Thorp wasn’t bombed – well, not much anyway. And not round here.’
‘No? You should’ve let me know – I could have arranged something.’ Briskly he said, ‘Right, it’s lunchtime. Come on in, I’ll make you a sandwich.’
‘I didn’t go shopping for you only so you could feed me.’
‘Don’t you think you’ve earned a cheese sandwich?’ The urge to reach out and ruffle his hair was strong but he had an idea that Mark would be repelled by his touch. There was still an awkwardness between them, an uneasy atmosphere he wanted to put down to the number of years they’d spent apart rather than his own shyness with other men. The fact that Mark had once hero-worshipped him made this shyness worse. He remembered the first time he’d visited Thorp in his uniform, how Mark and his friends had crowded round him, all of them excited by the glamour of the few. Remembering Churchill’s rhetoric he smiled bitterly.
Mark touched his arm. ‘Bob? Are you all right?’
He began to walk towards the house. ‘Come in and wash your hands.’
Sitting at the kitchen table Mark swallowed a mouthful of bread and cheese. He cleared his throat before saying, ‘We’re doing that play at school, the one by Michael Morgan – Theory of Angels. Damn silly title. I’ve got the part of Captain Teddy Palmer.’ He looked down, dabbing up crumbs from his plate with the tip of his finger. After a while he said, ‘Pretty daunting really, it being the lead an’ all. Mum told me you played the same part when your school staged it.’
Standing up, Bobby cl
eared away the plates to the sink. ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’
‘No, thanks.’ He seemed to draw breath, as though working up courage. Quickly he said, ‘I thought you might help me with my lines.’
Bobby turned the tap on and held a plate under the running water. His gaze fixed on his hand, the ugliness of the healed, shrunken flesh, the weals and ridges and raw discoloration. Sometimes, on waking, his hands took him by surprise. In that too brief time between sleep and full consciousness he forgot the horror of them and his life was just as it had been. He was even fit to play Captain Teddy Palmer. He turned the tap off hard, aware of Mark watching him, waiting for his response.
‘You don’t need me to help you with your lines. I don’t think I’d have the time, anyway.’
‘Oh.’ Mark looked nonplussed. ‘All right. Well, it was just an idea.’
‘And I’m just telling you. I can’t help.’
‘Fine.’
Too sharply Bobby said, ‘Don’t sulk.’
‘I’m not! I’m sorry I’ve upset you.’
‘You haven’t upset me! And don’t be sorry. For God’s sake, why do you keep apologising to me? Tiptoeing round me all the time! Do you know how much it grates on my nerves?’
‘I’m sorry …’
‘There you go again! If you can’t behave normally around me then don’t bother coming here. I’m not some pathetic bloody creature you have to treat with kid gloves!’
‘I know that! I only thought …’
‘Don’t think. Just go. I don’t want to hear about your trivial bloody school play.’
Mark stood up, knocking his chair over in his haste. Without a word he righted the chair and walked out.
For a while Bobby stood at the sink. His legs were shaking, a horrible echo of his first bouts of stage fright. He could feel again the stiff coarseness of the Captain’s khaki uniform, remembering how he’d sweated in it beneath the hot lights of his school stage.
Morgan had written Theory of Angels to commemorate the dead of the first war and Captain Teddy Palmer was the lead role. Bobby had never expected to be given the part, but that Easter, when his mother suggested it would be easier on everyone if he stayed at boarding school for the holiday, he’d practised the lines in the empty dorm until he was word perfect. At the auditions he surprised the teachers, knowing that until the moment he walked on to the stage he’d always been invisible. That night he’d written to Hugh and told him he’d won the starring role, but it was Mick Morgan who had written back to him saying he would come and see the play. ‘Friends should support each other,’ Morgan wrote. He had read that letter over and over, smiling in disbelief at Morgan’s choice of words. On the final evening of the play’s three-day run Mick Morgan took his place in the front row, accompanied by another man. He’d been too nervous to wonder who this stranger was.
He found out at the party afterwards. Pushing Morgan’s wheelchair towards him Henry Vickers gushed, ‘You were w…w…wonderful, young man! Absolutely marvellous! W…w…wasn’t he just as you imagined Palmer, Mick?’
‘Just.’ Morgan smiled at Bobby. ‘You were very good, Bob. Excellent, in fact.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ Still high on performance adrenaline, Bobby thrust his hand out towards Vickers. ‘Bobby Harris, sir. Pleased to meet you.’
Morgan laughed. ‘I’m sorry – I should have introduced you. Henry is my agent in London, Bob. Henry, this is Bobby Harris, one of Hugh’s friends.’
Vickers shook his hand and Bobby felt how slick with sweat it was, saw that his eyes were so bright he wondered if the man was feverish. Bobby drew his hand away and wiped it discreetly as the headmaster approached them. The head beamed, puffed with pride at having such a distinguished visitor at the school. Because Mick Morgan was only there because of him, Bobby had stopped being the boy whose name he couldn’t remember to become his favourite pupil.
‘Mr Morgan – we’re honoured to have you here. I hope you enjoyed our humble production of your great play!’
‘Not so humble, Headmaster. Not with such a star, eh?’ Morgan winked at him and he’d bowed his head, smiling. As the Headmaster monopolised his famous guest, Vickers took his arm and led him to one side.
‘W…w…w…would you like to be a professional actor, Bobby?’
‘I don’t know, sir. Perhaps.’
‘You’re very g…g…good.’ He drew breath as though trying to control his stammer. ‘Come to supper with Mr Morgan and me this evening. Would you like that?’
‘I don’t know if I’d be allowed to, sir.’
‘Oh, I think Mr Morgan can arrange it for the st…st…star of the show.’ He smiled, his eyes shiny, searching his face. Bobby had gazed back, feeling daring and grown up.
Putting on Captain Palmer’s voice he’d said, ‘There’s quite a good hotel in town that serves decent food, The King’s Arms.’
‘Mr Morgan and I are staying there! We’ll go now, shall we? I think it’s t…t…time we rescued Mr Morgan from your headmaster.’
Remembering, Bobby closed his eyes. That night, amongst the horse brasses and oak beams of the hotel’s dining room, the two adult men had flattered and teased him over Brown Windsor soup and roast beef. They’d allowed him a glass of red wine, then another, exchanging an amused look as a complicit waiter topped up his glass again and again. Vickers hardly took his eyes off him and Morgan would smile at his friend indulgently as Vickers plied him with questions about how he saw the character of Palmer, how he had come to play the role so well. He’d been Morgan’s showpiece, his little protégé to be exhibited. Morgan might as well have pinned a label on him.
In Parkwood’s kitchen, Bobby sank down in the armchair. After several attempts he lit a cigarette, drawing the calming smoke deep into his lungs. Even so, he still saw Henry Vickers’ face and smelt the red-wine taint of his breath.
Vickers groaned, ‘Oh you’re so sweet, so sweet … Beautiful …’
The hotel bedroom was lit by a full moon shining through a gap in the curtains. He’d watched Vickers’ shadow on the wall as he’d undressed, feeling drunk for the first time in his life, too disorientated by the speed of events to move. Somehow he was naked; there were cool sheets beneath his belly. Naked too, Vickers sat beside him on the bed and placed his hand gently on the small of his back.
‘It’s not your first time, is it? Boys like you … so knowing. Born knowing …’
His head felt heavy, his thoughts sluggish from the effect of the wine. He knew that he should make some kind of protest but a deferential voice in his head told him he shouldn’t offend this friend of Mick Morgan’s. Besides, the room was spinning, he couldn’t move, too afraid of throwing up all over the hotel bed. He wondered why he’d undressed; it had seemed funny at the time, part of the naughtiness of being away from school for a night without permission. Vickers had promised to make it all right with his housemaster, giggling with him as they’d stumbled up the stairs. In a room on the ground floor, Mick Morgan had retired to bed. When they’d passed his door Vickers had pressed a finger to his lips, smiling as though to make him believe Morgan had no part in the conspiracy.
Lying down beside him, Vickers pulled him into his arms so that they lay face to face. Vickers was breathing heavily. Hoarsely, seemingly in control of his stammer, he whispered, ‘You’re tense. Try and relax. It’s nothing you haven’t done before. Many times, eh?’ Stroking his hair back from his face he repeated, ‘Many times. I expect you experiment all the time, all the younger boys in love with you …You’ll have your cherry pick of them …’ He groaned softly. ‘You’re beautiful, beautiful. I didn’t believe him when Mick said how astonishing you were.’
Lying rigid on his side, he felt Vickers’ erection against his belly and attempted to pull away from him. ‘I think I may be sick.’
Vickers held him more tightly. ‘You drank too much. We should’ve been more careful of you.’ He kissed his mouth, his lips closed, his eyes focused on his, as they had been most of the ni
ght. ‘You’re g…g…going to be sweet to me, aren’t you? Sweet and still and g…g…good? I don’t like rough boys. But you’re not rough, I can see that. As soon as I saw you I knew that you’d be good.’
Later, going over and over that night in his head, he’d tried to understand why he didn’t push him away, why he lay rigid as a corpse and allowed Vickers to arrange his legs, to shove pillows beneath his groin so that his body was angled in the best position. All he knew was that he kept his eyes closed, hoping that this frightening humiliation would stop, his voice lost somewhere deep inside him. Vickers went on, interpreting his silence as acceptance. He tore inside him, overcoming Bobby’s resistance with a force that made Vickers curse with satisfaction. Bobby remembered that the agony of it had taken his breath away, keeping him silent.
The sheets had smelt of harsh soap and the bed had banged against the wall, a pounding din that was the fitting accompaniment to the terrible, shaming pain. He had grasped handfuls of the sheets, trying to keep his body still to stop the rhythmic friction. He had an erection, he would come, and he was too shocked and horrified by this to think straight. Perhaps his body’s disgusting response was the reason he hadn’t struggled; he had felt too vile and worthless, a nothing, a hole to be used. But he had known he was worthless all his life, just not like this. Not as filthy and dirty as this.
Vickers, who had looked so slight, was a dead weight on top of him; the man grunted like an animal, his fleshy lips close to his ear, like a pig rooting in muck. Bobby knew that he was hurt, that he could never be the same again, but now Vickers slipped out of him, soft, spent. Breathless on his back, he reached for Bobby’s hand and squeezed it. ‘Good boy,’ he said. His voice became puzzled. ‘You really weren’t a virgin, were you?’
In Parkwood’s kitchen Bobby’s cigarette had burnt down to his fingers and he stubbed it out. He thought of Vickers’ smile, how it had vanished in slow motion as he realised what he’d done. Vickers had covered his mouth with his hand, muffling his words as he groaned, ‘Oh Christ. Why didn’t you say something? You led me to believe …’
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