by Olivia Fane
But while Thomas was happily re-writing his lectures and working well into the evening, Josiah missed him. At first, his father took up his time. But he wasn’t to know that when Gibson called his name at their reunion in the spring, they would be the last words he ever uttered. Mute he had been for seven years, and mute he was to be for the remainder of his life. Two or three times a week Josiah took the bus to see him. Daphne Field the ward sister had dutifully informed June Briggs that these meetings were taking place, and to June’s credit she did nothing to stop them. In fact, she was momentarily embarrassed that she hadn’t suggested the meetings herself, for Josiah, at nearly fifteen years old, would by now have been sufficiently mature to understand what was involved. But even though there was no conversation between them – ah, you see, Marcus Aurelius would have understood this – there was touch, and the father and son became as father and son, a unified organism, and a mutual sympathy permeated them, a seamless truth. But after several weeks this seamless truth wasn’t enough for Josiah. They would sit together utterly close and secure, Gibson’s great arm about Josiah’s shoulder. But Josiah needed more than that, and Thomas wasn’t there to provide it. A couple of hours on a Saturday morning wasn’t enough. And that was why Josiah smuggled himself in to one of Thomas’ lectures.
As irony would have it – and this nearly caused Thomas to feign some acute illness and leave the lecture hall – Josiah found himself sitting next to Samantha. Samantha noticed her neighbour first, and wondered whether this pretty boy was one of those precocious geniuses you read about in the newspaper. And even Thomas’ wise words at the lectern before her could not push aside a fantasy of seducing him, for his lips belied a ripeness and an innocence which were quite irresistible. So Samantha smiled at him, and a very lovely, warm smile it was, and Josiah, so she fancied, responded to it. In fact, if truth be known, neither of these two were listening to a word Thomas said.
But what Thomas was telling this little audience of twenty-somethings was so important to him that within a few minutes he was even oblivious of Josiah. He might have been talking to himself, pacing up and down his study, his mind and heart in permanent dialogue with one another. For Thomas had always recognized in Marcus Aurelius, who reigned as Emperor one hundred and sixty-one years after the birth of Christ, a veritable soul-mate, who seemed to shift his own ideas at the same rate as he himself.
‘If you take one thing away with you this morning,’ Thomas was telling those undergraduates, ‘it’s this. Everything is connected. Nothing stands alone. Bodies, minds, hearts feed into each other, and not just into each other but into the Universe, into God himself. Those justly famous words of Aurelius, which you’ll find at the top of the hand-out, I want to read to you:
“All things are woven together, and the common bond is sacred, and scarcely one thing is foreign to another, for they have been arranged together in their places and together make the same ordered universe. For there is one Universe out of all, one God through all, one substance and one law, one common Reason of all intelligent creatures and one Truth.
“Frequently consider the connection of all things in the Universe.
We should not say, ‘I am an Athenian’ or ‘I am a Roman’ but ‘I am a citizen of the Universe.”’
Thomas spoke these words as though they were his own, but Josiah noticed only the fiery look he shot at him when their eyes briefly met and quickly scuttled away before the end of his lecture.
The following Saturday Josiah braced himself before knocking on his mentor’s door. Thomas didn’t know until that moment how he would greet him.
He was cold. ‘You can’t do that,’ he said. ‘Why weren’t you at school, anyway?’
‘We had an inset day,’ said Josiah, explaining himself on the doorstep.
‘What the hell’s an “inset” day?’
‘It’s when teachers learn how to be teachers,’ explained the boy. ‘I didn’t miss school, if that’s what you mean.’
Thomas’ neighbour was waving at him as she heaved rubbish into her wheelie bin. ‘It’s a lovely morning,’ said Marjorie.
‘Here, let me help you,’ said Thomas; and Marjorie, who liked Thomas, let him move a little furniture around the front room as well. By the time he was set free his front door was shut and Josiah was waving at him from his bedroom window.
‘I’ll only let you in if you promise I can live with you,’ Josiah shouted down at him.
‘Don’t be so stupid,’ Thomas retorted under his breath. Families out on their Saturday morning jaunts were approaching from the left and the right of him.
‘Open the door, Josiah,’ he said firmly, like a schoolmaster.
‘Only if you promise.’
A mother pushing a double buggy was getting closer.
‘This isn’t a joke. Let me in,’ pleaded the schoolmaster.
Suddenly the door opened, and Thomas missed the wheels of the buggy by inches. Josiah stood in the hallway, smirking. Thomas put his hands on the boy’s shoulders and shook him.
‘What the hell was that about?’ demanded Thomas.
‘It was a joke.’
‘A singularly unfunny one.’
‘You’re right, I was being serious,’ said Josiah, looking up at him, suddenly earnest.
‘Well, you can’t. It’s not legal. A boy living with a single man. These people have minds like sewers, Josiah. You can forget it.’
‘Look at this.’ Josiah produced a key from his back pocket.
Thomas momentarily panicked. ‘That key has nothing to do with this house.’
‘No, but it does have something to do with the prison I live in. I’ve managed to get a duplicate of the back door key. So late at night, just occasionally, I could… if you gave me a key too…’
‘Oh yes, and what if you were ever caught? What if you were ever followed by some over-zealous careworker? Where would that leave us, Josiah? Do you think they’d solemnly let us go to Italy together?
Which reminds me. This morning I write to your key worker – is that what her title is? Come on, come upstairs and fill me in with all this crap. Do you understand? We have to be above board. We’ve nothing to hide from anyone, we’ve not done anything wrong and nor will we, but everyone will always suspect the worst of us. Come upstairs. Tell me the woman’s name.’
Thomas wrote the letter at the desk in his study; and as he did so he took out a bundle of old postcards of Siena and insisted Josiah sat down in an armchair to enjoy them.
‘Now,’ said Thomas, musing on how he was to begin, ‘She does know you’ve been learning Latin these last few months?’
‘Of course,’ lied Josiah.
‘And what does she know about me?’
‘She knows you’re a Fellow of Corpus, that you give lectures.’
‘Then I shall give Justin’s name as a referee, a friend of mine, Josiah, as a character reference. They want all this stuff, you know.’
‘I know,’ said Josiah, wisely.
‘And I’m going to give them our address in Italy. Now, I shall be giving you an “educational tour” – how does that sound.’
‘I hope not too educational,’ said Josiah.
‘We’re going to be sleeping in a medieval chapel I know of. Now where did I put Signor Scroppo’s address? Here we are. It’s about four kilometres from the nearest house, not that your Miss Angela Day need know that. And there’s just a small track from the Scroppos’ farmhouse which leads there, which means there’s no point bothering with a car. I hope you’re a good walker. It’s about twelve kilometres as the crow flies from Siena.’
‘It sounds good to me,’ said Josiah.
‘Now, I’ve got some large-scale maps somewhere or other.’ Thomas found them in a bottom drawer and laid them out over his desk and over his half-written letter to Angela Day. ‘Come and have a look, Josiah. Come and see where we’ll be walking.’
Josiah dutifully got up and feigned interest but the truth was he wasn’t much interested in maps.
He wanted to know whether there was a place they could swim together. He said the word “together” and Thomas flinched.
‘There are streams and watering-holes running right through the valley, and there must be a lake somewhere but I’ve not been there. I warn you, though, the water’s cold.’
‘Sounds good,’ said Josiah.
‘There we are, that’s where the chapel is, right there.’ Thomas was pointing at a small cross drawn in biro. ‘You see, Jo, no one knows it even exists. It’s on the Scroppos’ farm. I found it quite by chance when I fled my wife about six years ago – there’s something about me you didn’t know, I used to be married.’
Josiah felt strangely unsettled at this piece of information. If he had ever felt this particular feeling before, he would have recognized it as sexual jealousy.
‘What was she like?’ asked Josiah, biting his lip and sounding cool.
‘She was from Bengal. She was very beautiful. Kind, honest, close to her family.’
‘So why did you leave her?’
‘Marriage is a strange business, Jo. You marry because you want to be really close to someone. I imagine more often than not that closeness never really materializes. You just fall back into the old habits you had when you were single, and I would spend more and more time with my long-dead authors and she with her parents.’
‘Was she sexy?’
Thomas was faintly surprised at the question but answered him. ‘I certainly thought so. There was a sultry look about her. She had thick black hair, these soulful brown eyes…’
‘But why did you marry her if she didn’t like books?’
‘Funnily enough, she was the librarian in our faculty library. Our eyes met over piles of books. She would find books for me, reserve them for me, and lend them to me, all with that sultry look of hers. There was a time when I thought she was perfect.’
‘Did you have good sex with her?’
‘You don’t ask someone that question, Jo. It’s one of the few forbidden questions.’
‘But I don’t know anything about sex. I don’t know what to expect.’
‘Don’t you talk about it at school?’
‘Not really,’ said Josiah. ‘Not properly. They all talk about who they fancy and who they’ve shagged. But we don’t get details.’
‘What about biology lessons?’
‘Of course I know technically what happens. I just thought you could tell me something else.’ Josiah looked so pleadingly up at Thomas that he did his best to answer him.
‘Sex is a way of connecting with someone else. I would actually say it’s one of many ways – just communicating honestly with someone is a way of connecting with them, or listening to a piece of music together, that sort of thing. But sex has the potential to be really high up on the list. Or I’ve always thought it has, but if I’m to be totally honest with you, I’ve almost always been disappointed. Sex is not much good if you just do it to someone else. It might be physically satisfying but otherwise it’s dead.’
For some reason, this wasn’t the answer Josiah was wanting, and he tried to get the conversation back on track.
‘Have you ever had sex with a man?’ he asked.
‘You don’t ask that question either.’
‘But I can ask you, can’t I?’
‘As it so happens, I haven’t had sex with a man.’
‘Why not? If it’s not much good with a woman?’
‘Because I’m not gay.’
‘I think you are.’
‘Well, Josiah, I hate to disappoint you.’
‘Why did you show me that poem, then?’
‘Which poem was that?’ asked Thomas, knowing full well.
‘About Corydon and Alexis. That one.’
‘There are several poems, many poems, celebrating the love between men.’
‘But more which are not,’ insisted Josiah, correctly as it so happened. Then suddenly Josiah leant forward and kissed Thomas, slowly, lingeringly, wetly, on his cheek.
Thomas closed his eyes to relive it, and said, ‘You shouldn’t have done that. You mustn’t play dangerously.’
And Josiah understood that if he were to get to Siena, if he were to spend a month with his lover in peace, he had to abide by the rules which separated May from August.
In fact, there were a good number of things which Josiah understood more clearly than Thomas. To begin with, that it didn’t matter how many referees Thomas gave Angela Day, or how capable a pupil he was, or how educational the proposed tour might be, there was not a chance in hell that permission would be given. So Josiah simply disposed of Thomas’ carefully crafted letter, and equally simply nicked some headed notepaper from Angela’s office – in fact, so easy was it that despite finding his passport in an unlocked tin he decided to leave it there until he needed it.
Josiah wrote Ms Day’s reply in an ICT class:
Dear Dr Marius,
I see no problem regarding Josiah’s holiday in Italy for the month of August. I have written the dates in the diary. Please contact me if I can be of any assistance.
Yours sincerely,
Angela Day
The presentation of this sealed letter! Josiah gave it to him nervously, as though he had no idea of its contents and its verdict, and said, ‘Fingers crossed’. The envelope was typed, addressed to Dr Thomas Marius, Corpus Christi College; and then, in the right hand corner were scribbled the words ‘By Hand’.
‘It looks promising,’ said Thomas, as he opened it. ‘She would have sent it by post if she hadn’t trusted you.’
‘There you are!’ said Thomas happily. ‘What did I tell you? It always pays to be above board.’
And in their relief and delight they allowed themselves a good, solid hug.
In the weeks that followed, even though Thomas could still not give Josiah the attention he wanted, he began lending him his books, not just the Classics – Loeb editions of Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Catullus, of course; but a couple of volumes of poetry, too, Wordsworth and Philip Larkin. Josiah took down from his shelf a copy of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Thomas’ fifth form prize from his grammar school back in 1976, and immediately opened it and read out loud, ‘As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted upon a certain place…’ And Thomas interrupted him, to tell him about the Slough of Despond and the Valley of Humiliation and the town of Vanity-Fair, which was lighter than Vanity.
‘Take these books home with you,’ he insisted, and Josiah, arms piled high, took the books back to his room, and reverently placed them on his chest of drawers. His favourite book to read in bed was Pilgrim’s Progress, because it was the largest and the heaviest book and he liked the weight of it.
Josiah also began to commit himself more to his life at school; suddenly he was getting ‘A’s in his GCSE coursework, and his teachers noticed his ‘complete change in attitude’. A couple of evenings a week he even helped the care staff prepare the evening meal, and he resisted the advances of two girls who told him they wanted to sleep with him.
The lilies in Thomas’ garden grew strong and tall; and there was a moment at the end of May when Josiah picked his father a great bunch of them, and yes, there was a response when he thrust them into his arms, but there might have been a happier one. Gibson was near to tears and hugged his son, promptly squashing the flowers which were still between them, and on seeing the lilies’ demise he completely broke down, as though what he had just witnessed was the most dreadful metaphor. Josiah just laughed, a hysterical, nervous laugh, but that didn’t do much for their relationship either. Josiah yearned for something real, something to hold onto. He began to feel thwarted. And then, one day, he dared to ask him the question which had been preying on his mind. ‘What happened to my mother? Can you remember?’
The great human bulk which was Gibson lurched forward and held onto his son’s shoulders. It occurred to Josiah that all his life he had needed his father’s weight to steady him, but that now he h
ad found it, it could only topple him. Gibson said nothing, of course. He was as mute as all his social workers had been over the years on the subject. To all intents and purposes, his mother simply didn’t exist. She had less substance than the air.
By the middle of June, however, Thomas’s term was over, and he could devote himself once more to his young pupil. They immersed themselves in the works of Virgil, Ovid and Pliny, paying particular attention to their descriptions of rural life. Together they read one of Pliny’s letters about the beauty of a Tuscan landscape, and ‘some enormous amphitheatre that could only be the work of Nature, the broad plain ringed by mountains, their summits topped by ancient groves’; they dwelt on the pleasure that was to be August, and even learnt a little Italian.
So good was Josiah at living dangerously that he didn’t even bother to retrieve his passport till the morning of his departure. The only precaution he had taken was to duplicate the office key when it had been left in the door while Angela had been writing up case notes: a dash to and from Cherry Hinton High Street to the key-cutter had taken him a mere twenty minutes. So Josiah now had in his possession two keys. The power of it! And at 5 a.m. on the first of August he used the first to let himself into the office and the second to let himself out of the back door. It amused him to write Angela a note explaining he’d be away for a month and leaving it on her desk, locking the office door behind him. What a conundrum that’ll be for her! O, the power of it!