While England Sleeps

by David Leavitt

  It was from Lil, I was learning, that Edward had acquired his garrulousness. She talked almost without cease; I had the suspicion that we could have all left the room for half an hour, gone on a walk, come back, and found her still chattering amiably to air. “Headley’s a bit sensitive,” she was saying, “since his m-u-m went up to G-l-a-s-g—Edward, how do you spell Glasgow? Oops!” The mention of that northern city set Headley off again. “Sarah,” Lil said, “get Mr. Botsford a cup of tea. I can’t do it myself, what with this crying child on my lap.”

  “Please call me Brian, Mrs. Phelan.”

  “Mrs. Phelan!” (Her laugh earsplittingly shrill.) “Lovey, I haven’t been Mrs. Phelan since 1924. So just call me Lil, thank you very much; everyone else does that doesn’t call me Mum. Unless you prefer to call me Mum.” She smiled winningly, as if this were a real invitation. “Your own mum’s passed on, hasn’t she?”

  “Yes,” I said. (What else had Edward told her?)

  “Well, lovey, I’m perfectly happy to be substitute mum to you. God knows with all these, one more wouldn’t make much difference.” She looked with some irritation toward Sarah, who had abandoned her carrots and was gazing at me in awe. “Sarah!” she shouted, and slapped her hand against the table so that Sarah jumped. “Now what did I tell you?”

  “I—I—”

  “I told you to get Mr. Botsford—Brian—his tea!”

  Sarah lurched up, poured hot water into a small teapot and set it in front of me.

  “Thank you,” I said. Our eyes met briefly—hers were full of terror and hunger.

  “You’re welcome,” she said, very fast and very softly.

  “Cup!” Lil barked.

  Again Sarah jumped, rushed to supply the necessary utensil, then returned to her carrots.

  Lil was sniffing. “What a smell! Lord, Pearlene, what have we been feeding you?”

  From her high chair the baby gazed at Lil beatifically. No one had bothered to wipe away the mucus, which was now dribbling precariously off the edge of her chin.

  “Oh, the smell’s not the baby,” I said. “It’s these cheeses.” I opened the bag. “I thought you might enjoy them. Only they’ve gotten a bit ripe. French cheeses. Very high quality.”

  “Well, that was thoughtful of you,” Lil said, eyeing the bag dubiously.

  “Baby-shit cheese!” Edward laughed. “And they say France is so sophisticated!”

  “Edward, that’s no way to talk,” Lil said. “I think it’s very thoughtful of Brian to bring us the cheese. We’ll have it after dinner, just like at a real elegant party, like in the cinema. Sarah, put it in the larder.”

  Holding the bag at arm’s length, Sarah lugged it off.

  “Headley, love, you’ve had your cry now,” Lil said. “It’s time to get off. Come on, that’s a good boy.”

  Reluctantly Headley allowed himself to be removed from Lil’s soggy bosom.

  “Supper’s nearly ready,” announced the returning Sarah in a hushed, anxious voice.

  “Very good,” Lil said. She stood and stretched her legs. “Shall we repair to the dining room?”—her voice suddenly that of an actress aping nobility in a cheap theatrical.

  “Yes,” I said, and followed her in.

  Dinner consisted of beef, potatoes and cabbage—the carrots were either abandoned or had been intended for another meal altogether. But though the Phelans acted as if this were an ordinary meal to which I, having “just dropped by,” had been invited on the spur of the moment, it was clear that quite a bit of effort and expense had gone into it: not only had the dining room been resurrected; we were eating off good china (or what passed for good china in Upney). The beef, moreover, was tender, and I couldn’t help but worry lest it had cost so much that it would mean no meat at all for the rest of the week. “Care for some more?” Lil asked when I had cleared my plate. “Give him some more, Sarah.” Food was being heaped in front of me before I had a chance to say a word. No one else, I noticed, got offered seconds, though Edward eyed the pot hungrily.

  For the first half of the meal, conversation centered on the decision of one Cousin Beryl to open a teashop in Dorking.

  Edward was for; Lil against. I was asked if I had ever been to Dorking, and I had to admit I hadn’t—a confession that provoked from Lil a rather pitying gaze that seemed to say, Poor untraveled waif, you have led a sheltered life. Then Lil started asking me questions: where my family lived, why I had left home, who cooked in Richmond and whether my sister Caroline had a “young man” and how my brother Channing was getting on with his examinations. She seemed to be intensely interested in these details, as if she derived from accounts of other people’s domestic arrangements the same sort of pleasure more educated people derived from novels, and I answered her queries as best I could. Mostly I wanted to look at her, to watch her talk and laugh and smile her fine smile. There was something so fresh about Lil! No doubt she had been a beautiful girl, and would be a beautiful old woman as well. And like Edward—like Pearlene, for that matter—she had such extraordinary eyes.

  “I can’t tell you, Brian, how grateful I am to you for taking my boy in,” Lil was saying. “It’ll be such a relief for him, living in Earl’s Court—he’ll be able to sleep a full hour later each morning and not have to make that long, long trip home! And it does a mother’s heart good to know he’ll be in such capable hands. Why, you’re just the sort of friend a mother would hope her boy might find—a gentleman. I hope you’ll always be my boy’s friend; he needs a friend like you, I must say.”

  “It’s a pleasure for me,” I said. (Was I mad, or was there something ambiguous—almost suggestive—about Lil’s use of the word “friend”?)

  “And I hope you’ll always feel you’ve a home here, Brian. Though goodness knows it ain’t much of one, I’ve done my best to make it happy for my little ones. My sister Ellen always says, ‘Lil, you’re mad to have had so many kids,’ but she’s just jealous, having only one herself and a bad lot at that. ‘Ellen,’ I tell her, ‘my only regret is I didn’t have ten more.’ And it’s true.” Tears misted her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I am a good one at working myself up.”

  “Now, Mum,” Edward said, “it’s all right; don’t let’s get all weepy.”

  “You’re right, Edward. I just think of your brother and I—” She dabbed her eyes with a napkin. “Sarah, why not bring in the cheese now, love?”

  Obediently Sarah stood and went into the kitchen, returning a few moments later with the cheeses on a tray. One was a grainy orange cylinder dotted with mold, the second a slobbering wedge, the third a dented square pillow the color of sheets that have not been washed for some time.

  Everyone regarded the cheese suspiciously.

  “I’m afraid we haven’t got any cream crackers,” Edward said.

  “That’s all right. No need for cream crackers. We can just eat it as is.”

  Nervously I sank my knife into the wedge and took an odorous sliver onto my plate.

  The jangling of keys sounded, then the barking of the invisible dog.

  “That’d be Lucy,” Edward said. “Late as usual.”

  The dining room door opened, and a young girl walked in. She had bobbed blond hair and wore on her pretty face the alert expression of a young terrier.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she said. “God, what’s that smell?”

  “We’re just having cheese,” Edward said.

  “Cheese!” Lucy said. “Since when?”

  “Cheese Mr. Botsford brought,” Edward said. “Remember? I told you I was bringing my friend Mr. Botsford to supper, and you promised not to be late?”

  “Sorry, Edward, I got held up.” She sat down in the empty seat next to mine. “Hello, I’m Lucy.”

  “Brian,” I said. “How do you do?”

  “Likewise, I’m sure. Excuse me, my feet are absolutely killing me.” She took off her shoes and threw them casually toward the kitchen door.

  “Lucy, please!” Lil impotently remarked.
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br />   “Is that a livarot?” Lucy asked, eyeing the cheese.

  “Why, yes,” I said. “You know livarot?”

  Ignoring my question, she sliced into the wedge with her knife and took a taste. “It is livarot,” she said. “And this one—is that a vacherin?”

  “You certainly do know your cheeses.”

  “She’s got a French friend,” Sarah said, almost inaudibly.

  “Shut up, you idiot,” Lucy snapped.

  “Say what?” Edward asked. “What did you say, Sarah?”

  “She’s got a French friend,” Sarah said again, her eyes opening wider now, her mouth bursting into a smile.

  “All right, and see if I keep any of your pathetic little secrets from now on,” Lucy said. “See how you feel when I announce to the whole world you’re in love with Mr. Snapes at the post office.”

  Sarah’s face went white, her mouth opened.

  “Sarah,” Lil said. “Mr. Snapes! With the crossed eyes!”

  “And he’s got no hair!” Edward added. They both started laughing. Mortified, Sarah pushed out her chair and fled the room.

  “Sarah,” Edward called after her, “don’t be so sensitive, we were only teasing! Poor dear, no one ever takes her seriously.”

  Distantly a door slammed. The unseen dog started up its barking. Headley gave a little shriek like a warning signal.

  “You didn’t say anything about a French friend,” Edward remarked leeringly.

  “Don’t see why I should report every detail of my personal life to you,” Lucy said, cutting once again into the vacherin. “Have you got a fag, Mr. Botsford?”

  “Certainly.” I took the cigarette case from my pocket.

  “My, a cigarette case,” Lil said. “You are a gentleman.”

  “Of sorts,” I said, lighting Lucy’s cigarette. Lil laughed, then started coughing. “Lucy, take that outside. You know I can’t stomach smoke since this influenza.”

  “All right,” Lucy said, standing and sauntering to the door. “Mr. Botsford, would you care to join me for a cigarette?”

  “Yes—of course,” I said. And followed her out. The door was made of splintery wood and opened onto a dreary garden in which a few ragged lettuce heads lounged among the weeds. Beyond the fence another garden, a mirror image of the Phelans’, led up to a mirror house.

  I lit my own cigarette. Lucy was leaning against the railing, gazing dreamily at the wretched expanse that passed for a view.

  “So is my brother buggering you?” she asked quite casually.

  For a split second I was taken aback.

  “No,” I answered. “As a matter of fact, I’m buggering him.”

  “How interesting,” Lucy said. “I always assumed it would be the other way round. I suppose I don’t know my brother as well as I thought I did.”

  “Of course it’s quite possible we’ll try it that way too.”

  “Men are wonderfully capable.”

  “Aren’t we.”

  Lucy blew smoke rings. “I do have a French friend, you know. And my friend’s going to take me to live in Paris, and I shall never ever ever return to bloody cold horrible dreary London as long as I live.”

  “How nice for you.”

  “You think I’m making it up, but I’m not. We’re leaving next month, my friend and I, to live in this absolutely wonderful flat on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, and I shall spend all day reading in cafés and drinking gallons of very black French coffee.”

  Friend! How fond this family was of that maddening and elusive word!

  “You remind me of a girl I used to know,” I said. “She had several French friends as well. But wouldn’t you know it, every one of them just happened to disappear with all her money the day before the two of them were supposed to elope.”

  “My friend would never do that. My friend has all the money in the world.”

  “I hope so, for your sake.”

  A scream issued from inside the house. I turned to see what had provoked it, but only caught a glimpse of Edward hastily backing off from frosted glass. “Oh, Headley!” Lucy said. “I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate children, and once I arrive in Paris I shall be glad never to see another one again.”

  “I don’t know how to break this to you,” I said, “but there are children in Paris.”

  “Not on the Boulevard Saint-Germain.”

  “Perhaps not.” We were silent for a moment. “So I suppose you don’t want children of your own?”

  “Oh, no. They would only get in the way. I intend to spend my life painting pictures and writing books and performing in plays. That’s the difference between us, you see: my brother wants to improve himself, but I want to change the world.”

  “You may change your mind when you’re older. About children, I mean.”

  “Shall not.”

  The door swung open; Edward sauntered out like a peacock. “And what are you two gossiping about?” he asked.

  “I was just asking Mr. Botsford if you buggered him, and he told me he buggered you,” Lucy said. “Is that true, Edward? What does it feel like? Was it the first time? Was it bliss?”

  Edward’s brilliant tail feathers instantly fell. “Mother’s got coffee and cake,” he stammered. “If you want some, come into the dining room.”

  We followed him back inside. Conversation returned almost immediately to the apparently indefatigable topic of Cousin Beryl’s teashop in Dorking. Sarah did not reemerge from internal exile.

  Eventually I stood, expressed my heartfelt thanks to the family and said I must be going.

  “But it’s nearly eleven!” Lil said. “The trains’ll stop running soon, and in any case it’ll take you hours to get to Earl’s Court. Why not stay here tonight and catch the train back in the morning with Edward?”

  “Yes, why not?” Lucy echoed.

  I hesitated. “Really, that’s kind of you, but there can’t possibly be room.”

  “You can share Edward’s bed,” Lil said.

  “Somehow I’m sure he wouldn’t mind that,” Lucy said.

  Edward glared at his sister, but said, “No, no, that would be fine.”

  My cheeks flushed, the idea so excited me—it would, after all, be the first time Edward and I had actually spent the night together. Still, I felt obliged to hesitate.

  “Well, if you’re sure it won’t be too much trouble,” I said, “then thank you.”

  “Now, if you boys would just set up the beds, I’ll get Sarah to help calm the children,” Lil said, then retreated to the kitchen, while Edward and I pushed the table to the corner and set up a pair of narrow beds that had been dismantled and stowed in a closet, as well as a rather rickety-looking crib. The children, who had already fallen asleep, were carried back in and carefully laid in their places. Pearlene made not a sound, while from his cot Headley wheezed asthmatically.

  “Good night, lovey,” Lil whispered, so as not to wake the children. “Very happy to have met you. Edward knows where the towels are.” She gave me a wet kiss on the cheek, a kiss that lasted, I thought, a bit too long, then departed, closing the door behind her and leaving in her wake a pronounced milky smell.

  And finally Edward and I were alone—alone, that is, except for the sleeping children. We stripped to our drawers—embarrassed, somehow, to be doing so—then climbed together into his narrow bed. It was cold; I felt Edward’s nipples, hardened from the chill, rake against my chest. Reaching down, I pulled off his drawers; he did the same to mine, so that the two pairs bunched together at the foot of the bed. His erection silky and stone hard against my own.

  For a long time we lay together, rubbing and shifting and trying to relax ourselves, even though our bodies were continuously pressing each other into states of arousal. Only our fear of waking the children kept us chaste. I don’t know how we slept, and I certainly wasn’t conscious of falling asleep, but at some point I opened my eyes, and heard a cock crowing, and saw that the room had filled with smoky dawn light. No time at all seemed to have pa
ssed.

  Pearlene had woken. From her crib, she gazed at me, her gray eyes wide as planets, while across the room her brother exhaled ragged ribbons of breath. Edward had his arm draped over my chest. I could feel little bursts of warmth on my back as he breathed against me. I could hear the knock and whistle of the water pipes, the purr of the calico cat. And at that moment a happiness filled me that was pure and perfect and yet it was bled with despair—as if I had been handed a cup of ambrosial nectar to drink from and knew that once I finished drinking, the cup would be withdrawn forever, and nothing to come would ever taste as good.

  Chapter Five

  It seems to me that some explanation is required now of my attitude toward homosexuality back in the fall of 1936.

  To start with, at that time I’d gone to bed with probably three dozen boys, all of them either German or English; never with a woman. Nonetheless—and incredible though it may seem—I still assumed that a day would come when I would fall in love with some lovely, intelligent girl, whom I would marry and who would bear me children. And what of my attraction to men? To tell the truth, I didn’t worry much about it. I pretended my homosexuality was a function of my youth, that when I “grew up” it would fall away, like baby teeth, to be replaced by something more mature and permanent. I, after all, was no pansy; the boy in Croydon who hanged himself after his father caught him in makeup and garters, he was a pansy, as was Oscar Wilde, my first-form Latin tutor, Channing’s friend Peter Lovesey’s brother. Pansies farted differently, and went to pubs where the barstools didn’t have seats, and had very little in common with my crowd, by which I meant Nigel and Horst and our other homosexual friends, all of whom were aggressively, unreservedly masculine, reveled in things male, and held no truck with sissies and fairies, the overrefined Rupert Halliwells of the world. To the untrained eye nothing distinguished us from “normal” men—though I must confess that by 1936 the majority of my friends had stopped deluding themselves into believing their homosexuality was merely a phase. They claimed, rather, to have sworn off women, by choice. For them, homosexuality was an act of rebellion, a way of flouting the rigid mores of Edwardian England, but they were also fundamentally misogynists who would have much preferred living in a world devoid of things feminine, where men bred parthenogenically. Women, according to these friends, were the “class enemy” in a sexual revolution. Infuriated by our indifference to them (and to the natural order), they schemed to trap and convert us, thus foiling the challenge we presented to the invincible heterosexual bond.