by Olivia Fane
Allowing himself to indulge his love – for by now, that’s what Thomas had decided the feeling was, for better or worse – made him happier and more even-tempered. He was even kindly disposed towards Samantha, who seemed more serious nowadays, and was producing good work, at last. She was thoughtful, sad. He preferred her sad. In fact, he even felt sympathetic towards her and somewhere, somewhere he understood her wistfulness. For if to be wistful is to look back with sadness at something which might have been, then he too had been in that place all too recently. The difference was, that right now he was optimistic. For he and Josiah were going to be friends forever, and love deeply and truly and hold their heads high before Time itself. The thought steadied him. And the new, steadier Thomas allowed the good Fellows of Corpus to notice his change in spirits and remark upon it to themselves, and in particular the chaplain, Justin, felt it was an appropriate moment to ask how Thomas had got on with the Augustine he’d lent him. That was in the quad, en passant, but Thomas took the opportunity to suggest that there was a lot more he wanted to pick his brains about. Might he come to see him again one night after dinner? And this time he would happily drink a whisky.
So Thomas found himself one evening with a glass of whisky in his hand, in the gentle light of Justin’s college rooms and enjoying the warmth of his fire, and Justin said to him, ‘So what is it you wish to consult me about, Thomas?’
‘Well, first,’ said Thomas, leaning back in the armchair he’d been given and enjoying the smell of Justin’s room – books, wood, warmth and furniture polish –I found Augustine quite wonderful. The beauty of the world demands a God, at the very least. And beauty is a physical thing, or rather beauty is not a thing but the frontier where the physical meets the spiritual. And I think Augustine is right.’
‘I think he is too,’ said Justin, making a mental note to incorporate such an observation into a sermon. Then Thomas suddenly broke into a smile, and Justin said. ‘If you don’t mind me saying so, you seem so much happier than you have done for a long time. It seems like you’ve resolved something.’
‘Actually, I was just thinking of a rather good question asked me by a pupil last week, “Why is your college called ‘Body’ college”? And I’m afraid to say, Justin, that I couldn’t really fill him in.’
‘Didn’t they make you swear an oath of allegiance when you became a fellow?’ Justin was genuinely shocked.
‘I think you could call it that; and of course I swore it, as an article of faith. But tell me, Justin, did I swear allegiance to the body?’ Thomas was whimsical, amused, happy.
But Justin stood up and began pacing by his fireplace, and proceeded to lecture Thomas as he might have a prospective undergraduate. ‘The college was founded by the Guilds of Corpus Christi and of the Virgin Mary in 1352, specifically to train priests, as so many had died during the Black Death. It’s the only Oxbridge college to be founded by the townspeople, and the phrase Corpus Christi is St Paul’s, of course, referring to the church, which is the body, and Christ, which is its spirit – though in Ecclesiastes, Christ is referred to as the head of the body. Does that ring any bells, Thomas? I want to say, shame on you, as a Corpus man.’
‘Shame on me,’ agreed Thomas. ‘I think I knew some of that at about twenty. But I’m afraid, Justin, I feel rebellious on this point, and perhaps posterity will too. I hear they’re doing away with the apostrophes in place names – it confuses people, apparently, too many spelling errors in King’s Cross and St John’s Wood. Well, as we know, for ages people have been trying to do away with Latin altogether, calling it ‘elitist’ etcetera. So don’t you think one day there’ll be a popular cry for the removal of these pompous Latin names and a desire to get back to basics? And what could be more basic than a body?’
‘You’ve changed, Thomas, you used to be such a traditionalist!’
‘Oh, I am, I am! But the question is, in what period should we steep our traditions? The traditions of ancient Rome, or Greece? Or do we admire Renaissance Man or Late Victorian England? Where are we to get our traditions from, Justin? More than once you’ve told me you’d like to go back to the spirit of the early Christian fathers, you’ve told me that those first Christians had the right take on what it meant to be a Christian, and we’ve been falling foul of that vision ever since. So could you tell me how we’ve fallen foul of it? This is why I’m here, this is what I want to know about. I want to know about the relationship between the body and the spirit, and I thought that, of all people in Corpus, you would be the one to put me straight.’
‘That’s a big subject,’ muttered Justin, anxiously.
‘You could just tell me what your conclusions are, if you like. You have a wife. You have known carnal desire. Or do you think I’ve already biased it? I should say, the desire to know the horizon between bodies and souls – would you put it like that?’
‘Sexual desire seems pretty biological to me. Without it there would be no human race. But what Christianity does, or any religion for that matter, is that it turns what is a morally neutral thing into a good thing.’
‘A lot of people would argue with you there, Justin. They would argue that Christianity turns what is a morally neutral thing into a bad thing.’
‘Religion provides sex with boundaries. In Christianity, sex, love and commitment to each other are a perfect triad. Love redeems sex.’
‘But why does sex need redeeming?’
‘Because sex when it is out of control is wrong. People always suggest that the advent of farming watered the first shoots of civilisation as we know it. But I’ve always maintained that when people first adopted sexual mores, when they began to live as couples and families, long before the family was defined as such, when sexual fidelity was approved of and promoted – that was the moment civilisation began to establish itself. The rules which rein in sexuality are the bedrock of society – and all those books which tell us otherwise, which tell us that monogamy is unnatural etc. etc., I want to shout back and argue against them, “What’s so good about what’s natural, all of a sudden?” Anger is natural, does that mean we shouldn’t try to control it? Human beings deserve their title “human” for the simple reason that they can curb “natural” behaviour for their own good, and for the good of the society they live in.’
‘I would argue with you on two points, Justin. You seem to advocate repression of natural desires – well, we all know that repression is absolutely no good for the individual at all, it can cause all manner of nervous diseases. Freud was right on that point, surely, if wrong on so many others. And secondly, you seem to think of society as some kind of organism which is ipso facto right in all its requirements, and needs conformity from those who belong to it. But what if a society is somehow wrong? For example, the ancient city of Carthage required the sacrifice of babies to propitiate their gods, but what if some mother refused to hand over her baby, and under threat of death ran away to another city? You can’t blame her for it! What I’m saying is, if the mores which define a particular culture are relative, then so are sexual mores. OK, even if they are the first organising principles in a society, are we going to applaud the tribe in some far-flung jungle who holds that the only way to ward off evil spirits is for the father to take his eldest daughter’s virginity? In Eskimo communities, it is customary – or has been, anyway – for the host to lend his wife to his guest for the night.’
Justin poured himself a second glass of whisky and began scratching above his ear.
‘Why are you here tonight, Thomas? What is it that you want permission for? Are you wanting me to support adultery? Do you want someone to lend you their wife? Or are you already borrowing her?’ Though Justin’s words were angry, his tone was gentle, for he was eager, now, for a confession.
‘I’ve not come here to discuss a personal matter, Justin. My personal life is squeaky clean, not a body in it. I have a purely academic interest. I want to know what Jesus would say about love, the spirit and the human body. Or even, truth and the b
ody. For God must like his creation – didn’t he settle back on the Sabbath and decide he was pleased with his handiwork? To admire the beauty of another human being – wouldn’t God think that was a good way of spending Sundays? Even a holy way?’
Justin was a wise man who was out of his depth. He considered giving Thomas another lecture, about how the Old Testament was more into bodies than the New, or at least, was more holistic about them. But there was something about Thomas’ manner that alarmed him: yes, he was happier, but also more out of control. Despite Thomas’ protestations, he decided that Thomas was without doubt seeking permission for something which was – for want of a better word – unchristian, and he was certainly not going to give it to him. So Justin apologized, and drew the conversation to a close with a fairly paltry excuse, and Thomas went home, enthusiasm undented.
Decorating the house – or in this case, undecorating it – is a good, earthing thing to do with someone you love. On the following Saturday, immediately after their Latin lesson, Thomas and Josiah vigorously whitewashed walls together in an act of purification. The one germ in their midst was Greg, who made a point of drinking a cup of tea at the kitchen table while Thomas and Josiah were scrubbing down Cilla’s lime-green walls, and even clearing out cupboards. When he eventually left, Josiah said, ‘How do you put up with that man?’ and Thomas replied, ‘Better the devil you know… he pays his rent on time.’
Greg didn’t succeed, however, in dampening their mood. Thomas told Josiah how much pride the Romans had taken in their cooking, and how they had kitchen implements as sophisticated as those on sale nowadays, spatulas and balloon whisks and clay pots in which they roasted chickens and exotic birds. In fact, some of the tools were so strange-looking that neither cook nor archaeologist had been able to guess what they’d been used for – gouging out a particular bird’s brain perhaps, or extracting a boar’s brain through its nose. And as the two set to work cleaning out the oven, kneeling side by side on the kitchen floor, Thomas told his young companion about Roman banquets, and how the guests wore wreaths of flowers and rubbed perfumed unguents into their skin. He told him how they lay on couches three sides round a table, resting on their elbows, while the slaves would serve up course after course: sows’ udders stuffed with sea urchins, dormouse, flamingo, sugared meat; the stranger and the more exotic, the more the cook would be admired and the host be praised. The different slaves had different names, depending on their duties; there was a slave called a structor whose sole purpose in life was to set out the dishes for the next course; another called a scissor whose task it was to cut the meat into bite-sized pieces…
‘If I were a “scissor”,’ interrupted Josiah, ‘and I had a knife, I would probably murder my master.’
‘Owning a slave, being a slave, that was the norm, Josiah. Few questioned the system into which they had been born. And slaves even had a few rights – you could run away from a master who had mistreated you, for example. And if you were an educated slave, you might even eat at the same table as your master from time to time, though obviously at his invitation. Cicero – have I told you about the great orator, Cicero? – had a slave who became his most trusted friend and advisor, and relied on him too heavily to ever grant him his freedom. But if you were set free, you were given all the rights of a Roman citizen, and could even own slaves of your own. And the evidence is, slaves were fairly happy. They had a private life outside the home, they could follow their own religion. Though the one thing they couldn’t do was marry.’
‘I wouldn’t care if I were happy or miserable,’ insisted Josiah. If I wasn’t free, my life would be completely pointless.’
‘Freedom is an attitude of mind, Josiah. In fact, all those with an interior life are free, which is why communist regimes have never known quite what to do with artists and composers and the like. You can’t own a man, in the same way as you can’t own a piece of land. The contracts are cultural, man-made. They aren’t true in any important sense, in any god-given way. So many politically “free” people are not free at all, but tossed about by the merest whim; while some of our greatest writers have done their best work in prison. The secret to freedom, Josiah, is your own mind, nothing more, nothing less.’
‘But how can someone be sure that they’re free? What if you fall in love with someone, for example? Does that mean that suddenly you’re no longer free, because you can’t control your own feelings?’ Josiah put down his scrubbing brush and looked up at his mentor.
Thomas answered, ‘But surely love is a good thing. When would you ever wish to control those feelings?’ When Thomas stood up and looked away, Josiah took hold of his hand and pulled him back towards him.
‘I would willingly be your slave,’ he said.
Thomas squeezed his hand but said nothing, either to quash or promote the sentiment. But the painting stopped soon afterwards, and another week went by.
The good, gentle, virtuous Dr Thomas Marius spent the week justifying, normalizing, and occasionally glorifying his relationship with the young Josiah. So he read reams of Greek and Latin literature, quite often spending his evenings in the Corpus library. In the spring term he was giving a series of lectures on Marcus Aurelius and Stoic philosophy, and he saw no reason not to get to grips with Aurelius’ love letters to his tutor. To be both wise and capable of love was beginning to seem to Thomas a perfect pathway through this life, for a life without feeling was meaningless. Human beings were born to feel, but this did not mean they should be reckless with such a capacity, rather they should learn to feel correctly and within bounds… and yet, when it came to love, why should there be any bounds? An infinite, boundless, constant love was unconditionally a good thing.
If the boy Marcus Aurelius remained constant in his devotion to his master, the nature of Fronto’s appreciation of his pupil shifted with time. At the beginning, Fronto sees their love in strictly Platonic terms; he distinguishes himself from Aurelius’ other suitors, whom he disparagingly terms as erotokoi – lovers who desire him for themselves, who are possessive and needy and might even ‘pay a fee’ – while he gives money expecting nothing in return, he admires Aurelius disinterestedly, and appreciates the boy’s beauty as an aesthetic thing, not as something to be bought and used. But later on in his letters Fronto falls from his lofty ideals, he’ll give up his consulship to hold the boy in his arms. And whom do we like best, the younger or the older Fronto? Don’t we prefer him when he’s given up his highfalutin chatter? Isn’t being human first and foremost about needing and wanting?
Josiah’s progress in Latin was such that they were already beginning to read a few lines here and there from original texts. Thomas found him aphorisms to translate, which they would muse over together: Cicero said about himself that he sought the antidote to pain from philosophy – Doloris medicinam a philosophia peto. Is it possible, they discussed, to remove an emotional pain by rational thought alone? Thomas confessed that he had previously thought so but now he wasn’t so sure, while Josiah was the polar opposite, saying that so far he hadn’t been able to, but one day he thought he might. On Thomas probing into the nature of any dolor at his tender age, Josiah was evasive; though less so on the subject of destiny. Quocumque trahunt Fata, sequamur – wherever Fate drags us, let us follow, as suggested by Virgil. Josiah shocked Thomas by insisting that Fate would never get the better of him, that he was stronger than Fate itself, that if he wanted he could be in Scotland in twenty-four hours, or, for that matter, in any part of the world, because he had a passport and he knew where it was kept and he could just take it if he felt like it. Thomas limply asked Josiah where he’d been on holiday, anything to shift his strident tone, and Josiah told him he’d been on a school trip to Belgium to check out battlefields, but it had all been rubbish. So Thomas took him to a saying of Seneca, Quos amor verus tenuit tenebit – If the love which holds you together is true, it will always hold you – and he asked Josiah if he felt more sympathetic to that particular sentiment.
Josiah
shifted his tone completely. ‘A verus amor will hold people together forever,’ he said, sternly.
‘And how do you know about such a love?’ asked Thomas.
‘I know about parents, don’t I?’ he said.
‘Of course,’ repeated Thomas, and if there were a word to express being moved and disappointed all in one breath, that was what he felt then.
By the end of term, Josiah and Thomas had not only completed both volumes of the Oxford Latin course, but had applied three coats of white paint to Thomas’ walls. Thomas now decided that Josiah was ready to be introduced to Latin Literature proper, and, what with the advent of the Easter holidays and Sweet Spring, full of sweet days and roses, he found his old copy of Virgil’s Eclogues and suggested that a little pastoral poetry might be just the ticket.
Thomas knew from the first what he wanted to show Josiah. They plodded through the first eclogue like schoolmaster and schoolboy, and Josiah was quite frank, he found it both difficult and dull, and he wanted to read Catullus.
But Thomas was determined to read out the first two lines of the second eclogue (it was a bold venture, three sleepless nights’ worth) and so keen was he to know Josiah’s reaction to them, that his voice was flat and stilted.
Formosum pastor Corydon ardebat Alexin,
Delicias domini, nec quid speraret habebat.
‘Do you want to have a crack at translating any of that?’ Thomas asked, as if they were just any two lines.