by William Boyd
‘At the Lido’, 1924.
‘Boy with Bat and Hat’ (Xan Clay), 1924.
We kept staring at each other, faces two feet apart, chins propped on our hands, eye to eye. Everyone else in the room was working at their prep, not bothering remotely with our contest.
‘Laura?’
‘Yes?’
‘Romulus and Remus. Heard of them?’
‘Ah . . . Yeshhh.’ She said it as a dullard would, irritated.
‘Then, imagine,’ I said, in a speculative tone, as if the idea had just occurred to me, ‘imagine that Rome had been founded by Remus – and not Romulus.’
‘Yes . . . So what?’
‘In that case, the city would be called Reme.’
Laura thought about this, instinctively, and lost. Her gaze flickered.
‘Damnation! Shit and damnation!’
There was a knock at the door and a junior specimen appeared. She looked straight at me. Junior specimens were not allowed to talk unless spoken to.
‘What is it, you odious child?’ I said.
‘God wants you.’
‘God’ was our headmistress, Miss Grace Ashe. I was wary of Miss Ashe – I suspected that she saw through me, saw my very nature. I knocked on the door of her office and waited, conscious that I was a bit on edge, that I was feeling nervy, not at my best. Such an evening summons was rare. I heard her say ‘Come!’ and I checked my uniform, smoothed the creases from the knees of my beige lisle stockings, and pushed the door open.
Miss Ashe’s ‘office’ did not live up to the name – it was a sitting room, with a large burr-walnut bureau covered in papers and files set in an alcove. I could have been in a country house. The carpet was a navy blue with a scarlet border; a sofa faced two armchairs, all in white linen loose covers, across a long padded tapestry stool with books placed on it. The wallpaper had a cream and coffee-coloured stripe and the room’s paintings were real and modern, stylised landscapes and still lifes painted by Miss Ashe’s brother, Ivo (who had died in the war). Pale blue hessian curtains were allowed to bulk their hems on the floor and the table lamps burned dimly behind mottled parchment shades. Taste was being exhibited here, I realised, confident yet understated.
Miss Ashe was in her early forties, so we had calculated, pale and slim with her dark auburn hair combed tightly back from her brow to be gathered into a complex knotted bun. We all agreed she was ‘chic’. Millicent and I had decided she looked like a retired prima ballerina. We were all, in truth, rather frightened and in awe of her and her elegant, impassive demeanour, but I made it my strategy never to show this. I tried to be uncharacteristically breezy and gay with her and I think she was consequently rather annoyed by my attitude, aware it was feigned for her benefit. She was always rather short and stern with me. No smiles, as a norm.
But she was smiling now as she waved me to a chair. I was disarmed, for a second or two.
‘Evening, Miss Ashe,’ I said, trying to regain the upper hand. ‘That’s a beautiful bracelet.’
She looked at the heavy silver and Bakelite bracelet on her wrist as if she’d forgotten she’d put it on.
‘Thank you, Amory. Do sit.’
She sat down herself and reached for a cardboard file and opened it on her knee. She was wearing an emerald-green afternoon frock, trimmed with a lemon-yellow scarf at the neck. She flipped up the lid of a silver cigarette box on the table beside her chair, took out a cigarette, searched for a lighter, and lit her cigarette, all the time keeping her eyes on the open file. We’d noticed how Miss Ashe pointedly smoked in front of the older girls – it was a provocation. Thus provoked, I spoke.
‘I suppose that’s my dossier.’
She looked up. ‘It’s your file. All pupils have a file.’
‘All the facts.’
‘All the facts we know . . .’ She cocked her head, as if she were taking me in better. Pale blue eyes, unblinking. I didn’t want to start a staring match with Miss Ashe, so I lowered mine and picked invisible fluff off my skirt.
‘I’m sure there are many more “facts” we’re unaware of.’
‘I don’t think so, Miss Ashe.’ I smiled, sweetly. ‘I’ve nothing to hide.’
‘Really? You’re an open book, are you, Amory?’
‘For those who can read me.’
She laughed, seeming genuinely amused at my remark and I felt the beginnings of a blush creep up my neck and warm my cheeks and ears. Stupid Amory, I thought. Say as little as possible. Miss Ashe was scrutinising my file again.
‘You passed all subjects at School Certificate with distinction.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you decided to drop maths, science and Greek.’
‘I’m more interested in—’
‘History, French and English. What’s your subsidiary?’ She turned a page.
‘Geography.’
She made a note and then closed the file, looking at me directly again.
‘Are you happy here at Amberfield, Amory?’
‘Would you define “happy” for me, Miss Ashe?’
‘You’re answering a question with a question. Playing for time. Just be honest – but don’t say you’re bored. I don’t care if a girl is stupid or bad but to be bored is a defeat, un échec. If you’re bored with life you might as well die.’
Something about Miss Ashe’s absolute assurance stung me. Without thinking I blurted out an answer.
‘If you want me to be honest, then I feel I’m disintegrating, here. I’m not a groaner, Miss Ashe – I know you hate groaners as much as you hate boredom – but I feel . . . lifeless. Everything’s insincere, sterile and spineless. Sometimes I feel inhuman, a robot—’ I stopped. I was already regretting abandoning my usual poise.
‘Goodness me. I’d never have guessed.’ Miss Ashe very carefully stubbed out her cigarette.
You fool, Amory, I said to myself, angry. You’ve let her win. I stared at a book on the stool between us: The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler.
‘Interesting language you use,’ Miss Ashe said.
‘Sorry?’
‘Disintegrating, lifeless, spineless, inhuman, robot. It’s just a school, Amory. We’re trying to teach you, to equip you for your adult life. We’re not some kind of autocratic regime trying to crush the life from you.’
‘I feel I’m stagnating. Trapped in this gutless, antisocial jungle—’ I stopped for the second time. I’d run out of words.
‘Well, you can certainly express yourself, Amory. Which is a gift. Very colourful. Which brings me to the point of this delightful encounter.’ She stood up and went to her desk to pick up a slip of paper.
‘I’m very pleased to tell you,’ she said with a certain formality, turning and crossing the carpet towards me, ‘that you’ve won the Roxburgh Essay Prize. Five guineas. I’ll make the announcement at prayers this evening. But you may tell your closest friends in the meantime.’ She handed me the slip of paper – that turned out to be a cheque. I failed to conceal my surprise as I took it from her. I wasn’t sure why I had spontaneously decided to enter the competition. Perhaps it was because this year’s subject had intrigued me: ‘Is it really “modern” to be modern?’ In any event I had entered, written the essay, and here I was, the winner.
Miss Ashe sat down and studied me. I stared at the cheque, realising I could now buy the new camera I coveted, the Butcher ‘Klimax’.
‘I was thinking, Amory, about Oxford.’
‘Oxford?’
‘After Higher School Certificate, you come back for a term and prepare for Oxford entrance. The Senior History Scholarship at Somerville, to be precise. I think you’d stand an excellent chance, judging by your work – and the essay you wrote.’
Miss Ashe was a graduate of Somerville College. I was aware that I was about to become a protégée, now this suggestion had been made.
‘But I don’t want to go to Oxford,’ I said.
‘That’s a very stupid remark.’
‘I don’t want to
go to any university in particular.’
‘You want to “live”, I suppose.’
I could sense Miss Ashe was now quite irritated. The tide in this confrontation was turning my way.
‘Who doesn’t?’
‘It’s entirely possible to “live” while you’re at university, you know.’
‘I’d rather do something else.’
‘And what do you want to do, Amory?’
‘I want to be a photographer.’
‘An intriguing and rewarding hobby. Miss Milburn has told me about your darkroom.’
‘I want to be a professional photographer.’
Miss Ashe stared at me, as if I were mocking her in some abstruse way. As if I’d said I wanted to become a professional prostitute.
‘But you can’t do that,’ she said.
‘Why not?’
‘Because you’re a—’ She managed to stop herself saying ‘woman’. ‘Because it’s not a reliable profession. For someone like you.’
‘I can try, can’t I?’
‘Of course you can, Amory, my dear. But remember that going to university doesn’t preclude a career as a “photographer”. And you’ll have a degree, something to fall back on. Give Somerville some thought, I urge you.’ She stood and crossed the room again to place my file on her desk. The meeting with God was over. I made for the door but she stopped me with a raised palm.
‘I almost forgot. Your father telephoned me this morning. He asked if he could take you out for tea tomorrow afternoon.’
‘He did? But it’s Wednesday tomorrow.’
‘You can have an exeat. I’ll gladly waive the usual rules. Consider it as a bonus to the Roxburgh Prize.’
I frowned. ‘Why does he want to take me out to tea?’
‘He said he had something to discuss with you, face to face. He didn’t want to put it in a letter.’ Miss Ashe looked at me, almost with kindness, I felt, sensing my puzzlement shading quickly into alarm. ‘Have you any idea what he wants to talk to you about?’ she asked, her hand briefly on my shoulder.
‘It must be some sort of family matter, I suppose. I can’t think what else.’
Miss Ashe smiled. ‘He sounded very positive and cheerful. Maybe it’s good news.’
2. FAMILY MATTERS
I STOOD AT THE front door of Gethsemane, my boarding house at Amberfield, waiting for my father. I was in the full humiliating walking-out uniform: the long black gaberdine raglan coat with attached cape trimmed with cherry-red piping, the straw bonnet, the sensible buckled shoes. Half Jane Austen spinster, half Crimean War veteran, we thought. The rude boys of Worthing had great scurrilous fun with us whenever we walked in phalanx through the town.
I saw the family motor car, the maroon Crossley ‘14’, sweep through the gates at the end of the south drive, and waved, trying to ignore my apprehension, feeling my mouth dry and salty all of a sudden. It was a cool September day with an erratic breeze pushing little gaps of blue between the bulky bright clouds – grey-white, slatey – streaky, pied skies.
The car pulled up and my father stepped out. He was wearing a navy blue double-breasted suit and his green and gold regimental tie. He looked handsome and confident – I remembered what Miss Ashe had said about his mood on the telephone and relaxed, somewhat. Perhaps there wasn’t going to be any awful news about a separation or divorce or a mistress or some fatal illness after all.
He put his hands on my shoulders and kissed my forehead.
‘Ah, Amory, Baymory, Taymory. Don’t you look strange in that outfit? What can they be thinking of? Take that ridiculous bonnet off at once.’
‘I have to wait until we leave the grounds. Are you all right, Papa?’
‘Never been righter.’ He thought about what he had said, then smiled. ‘For a writer.’
‘Why’ve you come in the middle of the week?’
‘I needed to see you, my darling, to talk about something.’
‘What’s wrong? Is it mother? Peggy, Xan?’
‘Everything’s perfect. I’ve some interesting news, that’s all.’
I relaxed again and opened the passenger door to climb in but he suggested I’d be more comfortable in the back.
‘There’s a spring about to come through the front seat. You don’t want to be stabbed.’
So I slid into the back while he took up his position behind the wheel, turning to smile at me.
‘I thought we might head up to West Grinstead.’
‘But that’s miles away. I’ve got to be back for prayers, Miss Ashe said.’
‘There’s a lovely little tea house I know – very cosy. We’ll have you back in time for your devotions, don’t worry.’
We drove north away from Worthing and the coast, over the Downs on the road for Horsham, Papa talking about Peggy and her unending flow of achievements, her bursary, her acclaim at the Royal Academy of Music – my sister, the prodigy.
‘How’s Xan?’ I asked, keen to hear less of Peggy.
‘Oh, you know Xan. Mooning about, talking to himself. He’s breeding guinea pigs – he’s got dozens. Keeps him busy.’
‘How’s he doing at school?’
‘Very badly, by all accounts. Thank goodness for you two girls. I think my son’s a goner.’
‘That’s an awful thing to say, Papa! Xan has real . . .’ I thought. ‘Xan sees the world differently to the rest of us.’
My father glanced at me over his shoulder for a moment.
‘We all see the world differently from each other. There’s nothing unusual in that. That’s the whole point – we all have unique vision.’
It made no sense to me so I looked out of the window as we motored through Findon and Washington.
‘What did you want to talk to me about?’ I asked, after a while.
‘My novel,’ he said. ‘I’m halfway through. It’s going terribly well.’
‘What’s it about?’
‘The war. I’m telling the truth. The unvarnished truth. Nobody’s ever written anything like it. I’m going to call it Naked in Hell.’
‘I don’t think people want to read about the war. They want to look forward.’
‘You can only look forward with confidence if you know the truth about your past.’
‘There’s the sign for West Grinstead!’
But, rather than turn right, my father turned left, down a narrow lane between dense hawthorn and elder hedges that led towards a beech wood.
‘Where are we going, Papa?’
I saw a fingerpost that said ‘Hookland Castle’ and then, through the trees, caught a glimpse of a silver expanse of water, a long thin lake. The lane we’d taken led us directly to its southern edge, curving round into more woodland up ahead that partially screened the castle with its battlemented tower. Maybe there was a tea room at the castle, I thought, as we arrived at the lakeside. It was man-made, I could now see, part of a vast landscaped park, the water grey and corrugated by the breeze. There was some sort of classical Greek temple-folly on a small round island. We seemed to be going faster all of a sudden and my father glanced back at me, his face contorted in a strange grimace, as if he were fighting to keep back tears.
‘I love you, my darling girl. Never forget that.’
And then he turned the wheel abruptly to the right and we swerved off the metalled road with a bump, roared across a thin strip of grass and the car fell headlong into the lake. The impact with the water flung me forward against the front seat, blasting the air from my lungs. I screamed as the light darkened as we plunged beneath the water and a monstrous whooshing and gurgling noise filled the interior of the car.
Then, almost instantly, the Crossley hit the bottom, our fall stopped, and the car canted over a few degrees. Water was rising through the floor and small jets sprayed in from the window mountings. My father had fallen sideways, away from the wheel, and seemed unconscious, his head leaning against the window at an odd angle. I felt the seconds slow to minutes. I crouch-stood, now knee deep in water, s
creaming – Papa! Papa! – but he didn’t respond. I kicked off my shoes and shrugged myself out of my heavy coat. I wrestled with the door handle but I couldn’t push it open. It gave only an inch or so as the water pressure from outside was too powerful. I unwound the window and a great torrent rushed in, bitter cold, the level rising almost instantly, it seemed, to my waist. But now the door would open and I fought my way out and swam my way up and emerged, choking, gasping, in a second. The Crossley was barely submerged, its roof just two feet below the surface. I clambered on to it and stood up, sucking in huge lungfuls of air. I could see the tracks we had made on the turf before the car had leapt over the stone banking of the lake edge and dived. Our momentum had driven us twenty feet or so into the body of the lake. A few strokes would take me to safety. Man-made lake, therefore not very deep, I thought, with preposterous rationality. Then I remembered my father.
I jumped back in and ducked under the surface to see that the interior of the car was now full of water. My father was floating in the space between the front seat and the windscreen, his eyes open, bubbles rising from his parted lips as his lungs emptied. I opened the front door – it opened easily – and grabbed the waving end of his regimental tie and pulled. He slid buoyantly out and I pushed him up to the roof before crawling on to it myself, grabbing him round the neck with an armlock like a wrestler, and raising his head so he could breathe.
This was all I could do, I reasoned. He had only been underwater a few seconds – surely he wouldn’t have had time to drown. So I sat there and waited, holding him up and, on cue, he coughed, water dribbled from his mouth and he opened his eyes.
‘What happened?’ he said, and coughed again, vomiting more water.
‘We’re safe,’ I said. ‘What were you trying to do to us?’
‘Oh, God. Oh, God, no!’ he shouted. He shrugged off my arm and stood up. For an awful moment I thought he was going to fling himself back into the water.
‘Papa! No!’ I stood up and grabbed the sopping front of his jacket. He looked at me with awful intensity, putting his hands on my shoulders.
‘It wasn’t meant to be like this, Amory.’ His voice sounded calmer, almost reasonable. ‘I didn’t want to go on my own, you see. I wanted you to come with me.’