‘Chris,’ he said, and he yawned. ‘Forgive me. I came to see you. I must have fallen asleep. Crumbs. It’s completely dark outside. What a comfortable bed you have – it feels like sleeping on air.’
‘Peter,’ Christina began cautiously, and she wondered quite how to go on, but Peter was prodding the mattress.
‘Oh, fiddlesticks!’ he said. ‘Oh, fimblefowl! Don’t tell me – I’ve been floating, haven’t I?’
‘Levitating,’ Christina said. ‘That’s what it’s called when saints do it.’
Peter laughed. ‘I spent a long time thinking it was some weird form of epileptic seizure,’ he said. ‘Now I know it’s just plain weird. I’ve always been considered weird, as you will remember, of course. I’ve only recently stopped letting it bother me.’
‘But the floating,’ Christina said. ‘That’s quite a trick. Peter, it’s a gift. It’s a privilege. You don’t sound properly impressed.’
Peter laughed again. ‘As gifts go, one might have preferred something else,’ he said. ‘Maybe to paint like Tiepolo. Air and angels. Heavenly skies. But yes, what the hell, it has its moments.’
He held out his arms to her in friendly invitation. ‘How are you, dearest Chris?’ he said. ‘Come here. I’ve been longing to see you.’
Christina moved over and went to him. They hugged each other warmly. They were so curiously the same size, the same colour. They could have twinned at a birth. She was intrigued by how much she loved to have him there, even at the end of such a day.
‘I went to see your step-father,’ she said. ‘And now I’m wearing your jeans.’
‘So I see,’ Peter said. ‘From the M & S children’s department. Let it never be said that the parents have had to fork out for VAT on my clothes.’
‘So how did you get in?’ she said. ‘Or do you glide through locked doors?’
‘Some woman let me in,’ Peter said. ‘Bustling type. She produced a master key – and, before I forget, she’s left you a message.’ He indicated a yellow Post-It that was stuck to the glass over the wash basin. It had on it the silhouette of a black telephone and it requested, after stating date and time, that Christina feed the neutered beige feline on Saturday and on Sunday, since ‘Judy’ (as she had written) had not yet returned as expected.
‘Fiona,’ Christina said. ‘She’s the college secretary.’
‘She’s left me her house keys for you,’ Peter said. ‘I have such an honest face.’
‘Peter,’ Christina said firmly, ‘you have an angel’s face. I’ve always thought so from that first day we met. You look as if you should be playing a mandolin in the snow at the Nativity. None of those angels quite touches the ground either. Does it happen to you when you’re standing up?’
Peter nodded modestly. ‘But keep it under your hat,’ he said. ‘Please, dear Chris. I’d be obliged.’
‘So where have you been?’ she said. ‘Where have you come from?’ And to herself she thought, who is this marvellous boy, this strange and levitating boy, this boy who is not Prince Hamlet – no, nor was meant to be – he is the attendant lord, and how appropriately he has grown and grown in stature as the others have fallen around him.
‘Are you going to tell me your story?’ she said.
‘You first,’ Peter said. ‘Please. Go on.’
So Christina, as quickly as possible to get it out of the way, told him about her parents, and about the lycra suits, and about the flight from her grandmother’s house, and about Dulcie and the comp, and the Cambridge don, and about Hugo recumbent and Judith perpendicular, and about her most recent mission to Peter’s step-father in search of the Nice Young Man who was in fact someone quite other, some schmuck who had done very well for himself and who was probably a wizard with money. She told him about her realization, when face to face with the Trinity in competition with the Objective Correlative, that the way forward was to initiate an immediate switch to maths.
‘Now you,’ Christina said. ‘What’s your story, and where have you come from?’
‘Most immediately I’ve come from the dog pound,’ Peter said. ‘I’ve been visiting Serious Syrius. That’s the Star Dog Two. I brought her back with me from Africa. The Star Dog has changed its gender and acquired much longer legs. She’s a mottled yellowy mongrel bitch with a snarl and saggy dugs. She’s quite the best little dog in all of history, or perhaps the second best.’
Then he said nothing for a moment. He sat in silence, looking mysterious. ‘Chris,’ he said, ‘after Pam wouldn’t talk to me and then she disappeared and so did you, and Jago was in a filthy temper all the time, well, I couldn’t see much point to the place. I kept on trying to tell myself, “Go on, enjoy it. Stet and company have left.” They’d been chucked out, you see. Sent down with swift dispatch. In the end I stayed to do my GCSE exams and then I went to teach in Uganda. God in heaven, Chris,’ he said. ‘This place where I went –’ He stopped, he sighed. ‘I used to meet up with a couple of old priests who talked about it from before. Before Amin, and the war, and the child soldiers, and AIDS, and God knows what.’
He paused again. ‘I’d be teaching these people. Lovely people. I’d be taking this class and they’d be any age – say, from twelve to forty – and they’d be leaving the classroom every day to bury the dead. It’s all around. They’re leaving the school aged twelve and thirteen to go off and head their households. The parents are dead, you see. The children take over and run the farms. There are twelve-year-old farmers drudging through the day to support the infants and the elderly. It’s become a society of orphans. Anyway, my story is that in the midst of it I had a rich time. I went there a clueless, unhappy schoolboy with very little to give. I gave what I could and what I got back was – I don’t know – infinity.’
‘And a dog,’ Christina said. ‘Why have you come back at all, by the way?’
Peter looked a little sheepish. ‘It’s silly,’ he said, ‘but I’d promised the parents when I left that I’d come back and go to university. I did my A-Levels in Africa. There’s this outfit. Correspondence outfit. They ship all these course notes to Africa from a Gothic villa in North Oxford. In short, I passed. I did pretty well. Much better than I would have done had I stayed at school. The old priests flung a lot of books my way. It was an extraordinary way to learn. Midnight oil if I was lucky. Otherwise rising at dawn.’
‘Tell me about the floatiness,’ Christina said. ‘Did you learn to float in Uganda?’
‘God, no,’ Peter said. ‘No, that’s an affliction that’s been with me for years. Discretion is in my nature, Chris. I always kept it under wraps. Pam knew, but I’m proud to say that I never embarrassed her with it in public. There’s a couple of other weird things, however, that I only found out about in Africa.’
‘Like what?’ Christina said.
Peter pulled a face. ‘This is embarrassing,’ he said. ‘For instance, in the school where I taught there was this headmaster. He was mad, as in stark, staring bonkers. Trouble is, people kept dying, you see. Competent people. And sometimes there was nobody half-way decent left to take over. So, in short, the new headmaster was mad. He believed in beating the pupils incessantly. The atmosphere was so fraught that the women students frequently became hysterical.’ He paused. ‘Possessed, I suppose. You know. Like that man in the Gospel. In the cemetery. “My name is Legion for we number many thousands”. Anyway, so the headmaster is always beating people. Girl students are rushing into the fields in hysterics. It’s catchy. The Head rushes out after them, wielding his cane like the Furies to left and right.’ He paused. ‘I’m talking too much,’ he said. ‘I’m high. Am I too high? I mean, metaphorically speaking.’
‘You’re great,’ Christina said. ‘Carry on.’
‘So one evening I’m telling one of the old priests,’ Peter said, ‘I’m telling him about a particularly hairy incident that day. He says to me, in all seriousness, I must wade in and put a stop to it. I think he’s as mad as the Head, of course. I tell him so at once. “Go in ther
e, boy, and stop the man,” he says. “Go on. I’ll pray for you.” ’
‘And?’ Christina said.
‘Well,’ Peter said modestly, ‘I waded in and I stopped him. Funny thing was I did nothing. I touched the headmaster on the shoulders with my hands, that was all. Then I touched a couple of the women. After a while I realized it was enough for me merely to raise my hands and hold them over the crowd.’
‘Peter,’ Christina said, deeply impressed. ‘Hey! Are we talking once or often?’
‘Well,’ Peter said shyly. ‘I’m afraid it was all the time. I feel that I’m blushing, talking about it like this. Well, you know how reticent I am. The worst is I’m not even religious. I used to pretend that I was just to please Roland’s father. Also just a little to please your sister.’
‘Peter,’ Christina said, ‘I think it highly probable that you are a very holy person. I think it very likely that even the Queen will come to pay homage to you.’
‘Really?’ Peter said. He laughed. ‘If only I’d known about it earlier,’ he said. ‘Could it have given me any power over Stetson Gregory? That swine who came along and stole my lovely Jago?’
‘If we could keep off Jago,’ Christina said. ‘Tell me about your dog.’
‘Oh, the dog,’ Peter said. ‘She adopted me. Someone must have drowned all her puppies. She walked in on me one day with horribly swollen teats. I helped her to express some of her milk.’
Christina gawped at him. ‘How?’ she said.
‘With my mouth,’ he said. ‘How else? Then about a week before I was due to come home she began to hide my shoes. It dawned on me why she was doing it. She could read the signs of my departure. She knew that I couldn’t leave the house without my shoes, you see. In those parts you can’t walk about barefoot. You get hookworm. It’s a parasite that burrows into the soles of your feet. It causes chronic anaemia. I thought, “She’s saying we were meant for each other, and she’s right.” So I got my step-father on to the airline company to fix it for her to come back. Now she’s got to be in quarantine for six months. Well, five. She’s had one month already. She’s been in prison here, while I’ve been travelling in France.’
‘In France?’ Christina said.
‘Yes,’ Peter said. ‘In France. Well, I am French, remember? Oh, Chrissie, be happy for me. Will you believe me if I tell you that something wonderful has happened to me in France?’
‘Probably,’ Christina said. ‘Tell.’
‘Well,’ Peter said. ‘Back to the floating. I have recently begun to wonder whether it could have something to do with the stars. You see, as you know perhaps, I used to live alone with my mother in Paris. J’ai habité une fois à Paris.’
‘Pardon me?’ Christina said. ‘I never learnt to speak that language.’
‘Ah well,’ Peter said, ‘I lived in a skyloft in St-Germain. I was often alone. I day-dreamed out of the window. I relished the stars, not quite as my friends, but I relished their isolation. Then my mother’s marriage to Roland – well, it was quite dreadful, I remember. It was like being ripped from my necessary element.’
‘Untimely ripped,’ Christina said. ‘Yes, how awful for you.’
‘It was as though the gases in the air were different. Not the ones I needed to breathe. I’ve always felt like that, all my life, Chris, not quite properly adapted. Then Jago made friends with me when I was eight. For five years he sort of bound me to the earth. Then, after Jago, I was lucky. I found your sister. She picked me up like a wounded bird. And then, after she vanished – well – there was Africa.’
‘Maybe I love you,’ Christina said. ‘Or are you much too flaky?’
Peter spread his hands. ‘It’s so wonderful not to be afraid of you,’ he said. ‘I was always rather frightened by your confidence, by your sharpness, but now after France I’m afraid of nothing.’
‘Well, get on with it,’ Christina said. ‘What is it about France?’
‘I went there,’ Peter said, ‘to find out who I was. I started from the skyloft off the Rue du Bac, and then I combed the place. I kept criss-crossing the country on the TGV.’
‘What’s the tayjayvay?’ Christina said. ‘Is that proper French?’
‘It’s the railway,’ Peter said. ‘I found the house of my Polish grandmother, with a rusted lock-up shop on the ground floor.’
‘Polish?’ Christina said. ‘Well, never mind Polish. Let her pass. Can we please come to the good bit?’
‘Well,’ Peter said, ‘I went south. Way beyond Toulouse. Near the Spanish border. I was pretty tired by then. I walked and walked. I think I was in a trance. I must have forgotten to eat. I remember that I felt rather floaty.’
‘ “Hieronymo’s mad againe”,’ Christina said. ‘Please go on.’
Peter went on. ‘I don’t remember falling asleep,’ he said. ‘But when I woke I was lying in a vineyard and there was Jago. He was leaning over me. He was talking to me in French.’
‘A porno dream,’ Christina said. ‘You were having a faggy porno dream about Jago. I don’t think I want to hear this.’
‘No,’ Peter said. ‘No, it wasn’t Jago. The point is it was Jago’s twin brother.’
‘Twin brother?’ Christina said.
‘Yes,’ Peter said. ‘They’d got separated as infants. Doesn’t that happen somewhere in Shakespeare?’
Christina pulled a face. ‘All the time,’ she said. ‘What a cliché. Maybe that’s what Jago is. A cliché.’
‘His name is Victor,’ Peter said. ‘And he’s the love of my life.’
‘A boy?’ Christina said, feeling a little crestfallen. ‘So don’t you believe in mixed relationships?’
‘Dearest,’ Peter said. ‘I’ve brought him back with me to Cambridge. I’ve left him with Jago for the moment, so that they can be reunited. I want you to be happy for me.’
‘I’m happy for you,’ Christina said. ‘Maybe I’m a bit sad for myself.’
Peter kissed her cheek. ‘Jago is desperate to see you, by the way,’ he said. ‘He’s been sweetening you up, he tells me, by writing you silly letters.’
‘What?’ Christina said.
‘He’s been writing to you,’ Peter said. ‘Leaving messages for you in your bicycle basket. He’s written them with his left hand in order to conceal his identity. He’s all remorse, you see. He says he treated you very badly.’
‘And so he did,’ she said. ‘The swine.’
‘He hid behind you,’ Peter said, ‘in order to distance himself from your sister’s assailants. But it was not as cynical as you think. He saw your sister being raped – that is, he witnessed a rape in the woods. Once he’d found out it was your sister – well, he clung to you in the aftermath – not in order to make use of you. I think you seemed somehow spiritually close to her.’
He paused, then he said, ‘I’m afraid he loves your sister madly, and all the while he was tormented.’
‘Thanks,’ Christina said. ‘This gets better and better.’
‘I spoke to your sister on the phone yesterday,’ Peter said. ‘I’ve arranged for us to meet her in a café.’
‘When?’ Christina said. ‘Where?’
‘In ten minutes,’ Peter said. ‘Round the corner. You won’t pull out on me, will you? Chris, you wouldn’t dare.’
Twins, Siblings and Shadow Theatre
In the pizza joint where Pam was waiting Christina embraced her sister. ‘Oh, Pam,’ she said.
‘Oh, Pam.’ The boy was dark-haired and olive-skinned, and he slept beside his mother in a stroller. Pam looked thinner and older. Her clothes were much the same.
‘So you were pregnant?’ Christina said, trying her hand at irony.
‘Of course I was,’ Pam said. ‘Can you forgive me, Chrissie? I put you to all that trouble and expense when the whole thing so went against my nature.’
Peter meanwhile had addressed the waiter. ‘Four seasons,’ he said. ‘Bring us a big one to share between us. And a bottle of house red, please.’
‘H
ow’s our mother?’ Christina said awkwardly. ‘How are the oldies, then?’
Quite a lot, it seemed, had changed. ‘Mama walked out pretty well when you did,’ Pam said. ‘I was left sort of high and dry between them.’
‘What?’ Christina said.
‘Look,’ Pam said, ‘both of them loved me; heaped care and attention on me. It was just a bit like being one of those little joint-custody kids. I had a bedroom in each of their apartments. I was expected to shuttle between them. Now Mama has come back to England.’
Christina gawped at her but said nothing. She left Pam to go on.
‘There had always been all that emphasis on how I had brought them together,’ Pam said. ‘Quite a burden for me, incidentally. But Chrissie, it was you who had held them together. Once you’d gone Mama saw no reason to stay. She shipped out almost immediately and turned herself into somebody else. She gave up her teaching and became a book-keeper. Right now she’s retraining as an accountant. She gave up the Church and became an agnostic. In short, she got a new job, new apartment, new friends, new furniture, new beliefs. Or perhaps they were just all the old ones but they’d been lying there dormant for years.’
‘Pam,’ Chrissie said earnestly. ‘Why did nobody tell me all this?’
‘Because,’ Pam said. ‘You had made it pretty clear that if we did you would stop communicating with us and we’d lose touch with you altogether.’
Then she said, ‘The air was poison between them. Papa was sure that she’d taken a lover – I had to stop him from setting spies on her. She suspected him of laying siege to me for the sake of the male grandchild. I’d had to have some tests, you see, for reasons that I won’t go into. They’d happened to reveal that Bruno was male. In the midst of it all I fled, Chrissie – for a few months, anyway. It was mean of me but that’s what I did.’
What Pam had done, as she now explained, was to come to England and find the hospital where her natural mother had died. She had given birth to little Bruno with the assistance of an elderly nun who had nursed her dying mother. It had been very good for her, she said, to get an accurate picture of her mother.
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