Another white-hot bolt of possessive jealousy seared its way through his guts, its intensity so great that he felt himself shudder momentarily under its passage. And then, out of nowhere a tremendous, unstoppable laugh, slightly hysterical and having nothing of humour in it whatsoever, forced its way remorselessly up his throat. He stood unable to move, trembling slightly. It came roaring up from his diaphragm and emerged in a stentorian bellow, echoing vastly round the great hall, that he could no more have held in than a sneeze or a hiccup.
“Whaaaa-hah!” he roared, and suddenly doubled up, helpless, where he stood, heaving and groaning in gusts of uncontrollable laughter. The other master stood rooted to the spot, with intense annoyance and bewilderment vying for precedence on his face. At last Graham managed to get himself under control, and rose unsteadily to his proper height. “C-c-come on”, he said, fighting for control of his voice. “I’ll buy you a coffee. But for C-Christ’s sake don’t say anything to me for a wh-wh-while, or I’ll have another f-fuh-fit, and my ruh-ruh-ribs wouldn’t stand the strain…” He plucked at his colleague’s jacket and led him away to the masters’ common room, still snorting occasionally, and walking bent forward, with his arms folded hard across his ribs.
* * *
It was a very different story that night, however, as Graham fidgeted, switched the light on and off and read the same passage half a dozen times before hurling his book into the waste-paper basket, and fought in vain to get to sleep. Tired though he was from his deliberate slogging over the last few days, the moment the room was darkened his mind turned ruthlessly and relentlessly to the simple addition of two and two; and however he went about it, the answer four clicked into place every time, like reels on a fruit machine, impersonal, inhuman, merciless, and bringing pain instantly in their wake. His imagination played reel after reel of succulent erotic dramas featuring Stephen’s well-known, comely and much-loved body entwined in a hundred styles of embrace with Richard’s — which Graham’s fairly expert eye had taken in at a glance during the farce in hall that day, and accurately assessed as being every bit as desirable as Stephen’s, if not more so.
Graham was a fit and virile man in his prime at just under thirty. In the end he gave way to the ever more red-hot fantasies that came piling in on his mind like white horses, and masturbated twice, angrily and in a record short period, in an attempt to stem his mind’s tormenting ingenuity. At last, worn out and filmed with sweat, he dropped into an uneasy doze at five o’clock. What seemed like a few seconds passed, and the alarm was sounding its infuriating insect-like bleepings, and he was practically comatose. He dragged himself through the routine of shower, shave, breakfast and the short drive to school growling imprecations on Stephen’s name, and in the worst temper ever.
As the morning crawled past, and he found it more and more difficult to keep his eyes open, his anger subsided from sheer lack of energy to sustain it. He had a free period straight after lunch, so he drove home and threw himself down on his bed for a couple of hours, which left him considerably refreshed. When the final period of the day ended he button-holed Stephen and took him aside. “Time for a word, Stephen?” he asked politely.
“Of course”, Stephen said, his heart accelerating a little.
“Good”, said Graham. “Time for a stroll round the field, perhaps?” Stephen agreed, and followed him as he threaded his way through the milling crowds of boys pouring out of classrooms to head for home. They had no chance to speak inside the building, Graham being kept busy curbing impatient spirits who couldn’t wait until they were outside before breaking into a run. “WALK, Robertson, you uncouth youth”, he roared at a small boy charging past them as they reached the main doors. “Oh!” gasped the child, pink to the ears. “Yes, sir, sorry, sir.” He scuttled away, and the two of them followed him in some relief out into the comparative peace of the open air.
Graham led the way towards the cricket field at a fair pace, and Stephen had to trot to keep up with him; he still hadn’t said a word as they reached the perimeter of the field. There he slowed to an amble, but still said nothing. Stephen followed, assuming Graham had something of a private nature to say.
They had reached a point halfway round the boundary when Graham finally stopped and turned to face him. His eyes were blazing. “You two-faced little bastard!” he said. His voice was not loud, but it was harsh, with a bitter, sardonic edge. It sounded almost like a sneer.
Stephen’s eyes opened wide in astonishment. “I… what?…” He stammered, and broke off in confusion.
“Are you going to stand there and make sheep’s eyes at me and tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about, you little slut?” Graham said icily.
Stephen stood staring at him, while distress chased bewilderment across his face, followed by a dull red flush of anger. “I don’t know what I’ve done to give you the right to call me that sort of name, anyway”, he snapped, a glitter of anger kindling in his own eyes to match the white heat in Graham’s.
“Oh you don’t, eh?” said Graham, openly sarcastic. “So what’s all this business about how desperately you’ve been missing me, then? Was that all just bullshit? Just a convenient cover, while all the time you were whoring round with that pretty little blond baggage? Well, congratulations on your taste. There’s a candidate for School Tart, if ever I saw one.” He swung round and started round the curve of the boundary at a fast walk, hands driven into his pockets, with rage radiating from the very set of his shoulders. Stephen stood rooted to the spot, overwhelmed for the moment by being turned on so utterly unexpectedly and violently from such an unlooked-for quarter.
Pulling himself together, he hurried after Graham, and put a hand on his shoulder to pull him back. Graham rounded on him, glaring straight into his eyes with such contempt and fury in his own that Stephen, despite himself, took half a pace backwards. Graham immediately turned again and walked on. Stephen rallied, feeling his own anger uncoiling smoothly within him like a deadly hunting animal.
“Wait!” he called sharply. Graham stopped, turned and looked back at him coldly as he approached.
“Look here”, said Stephen, “you’ve no right to speak to me like that. If I’d been cheating on you you might have the right. But…”
“What do you call it then?” snapped Graham. “I’ve been going off my bloody head with missing you, and worrying about you, wondering how you were managing to cope. I’ve been lonely, as I remember telling you only the other day. I remember you seemed surprised at the time. Well I can see why now. You would be surprised, wouldn’t you, knowing what was waiting for you when you got out of this place at the end of the day? I suppose you thought I’d get myself fixed up with some sexy little piece of tail to pass the time with, did you?” He blew out a long breath, and it formed a plume of white smoke before dissolving and fading slowly in the cold air. He looked bitterly at Stephen, and saw the look of blank incomprehension written all over his features. “Do you think I’m stupid?” he roared, his temper at last unleashing itself. “Do you think I can’t put two and two together when the figures are stuck right under my fucking nose, you… you little bloody tramp?”
Stephen stared at him, his eyes huge with pain, bewilderment and alarm. He glanced wildly about them when Graham cursed, terrified lest anyone should be in earshot; but the field was deserted.
Graham’s rage was still in full spate. “Good God!” he snorted, “you’re not even content to whore yourself around with that little… but you’ve got to announce the fact to me in the middle of the bloody school hall. Christ almighty, man, you couldn’t’ve made it plainer if you’d hired a bloody biplane to fly across the school and skywrite it”
And, at last, Stephen understood. His mind raced, and he came quickly to the only possible solution. He breathed deeply, gathering his resources. “I’m sorry you had to find out about Richard in the way you did”, he said, forcing himself to speak calmly and holding Graham’s eyes with his own. He went right up close to him, put his hand
s on Graham’s shoulders, and looked earnestly into his eyes. “Look, will you at least listen?” he said urgently. “I can see why you’re feeling pretty bitter, but surely you’ll hear my side of things?”
Graham stared at him for a moment, his eyes still glinting. But some of the bitterness faded slowly from his expression. He glanced behind Stephen and gestured at a wooden bench twenty yards beyond the boundary line. “Let’s go and sit down”, he muttered. Stephen followed him, breathing a little more easily.
“To begin with, you’re wrong about Richard Fitzjohn”, he began when they had sat themselves down, awkwardly, at opposite ends of the bench. “He’s not at all the kind of thing you said — though he said something of the kind about himself. But that was just his manner. He likes to say things like that. I think he enjoys shocking people. But he’s as honourable and unselfish a person as you’d ever meet. He knows about you…”
“What!” roared Graham. “You mean you…”
“No, no, I never said a word”, said Stephen hastily. “He saw us saying goodbye on the last day of last term, and put two and two together. He’s fearsomely clever. He’d known all along that I’d got someone who had left me for the time being. He knew all that without a single word from me. He also said you’d — the someone else would — come back to me…” He gave Graham a quick summary of Richard’s prophetic conversation. Graham listened, amazed, and more of the boiling, passionate anger and jealousy ebbed out of his system.
“He saw all that?” he said slowly. “He’s bright all right He’s dangerous, if you ask me. I’ll have to go into hiding.”
“He’s no danger to you”, said Stephen seriously. “He’s in love with me, but he knows you’ll always come first. He’s only waiting for the day when I have to tell him you’ve called me, and he knows that when that happens I’ll have to leave him.” He shrugged unhappily, and kicked idly at the tussocks of grass growing round the leg of the bench.
He went hurriedly on, speaking very fast to forestall any further interruptions or outbursts from Graham, trying to explain the other, deeper current of feeling that ran constantly in him beneath his uncomplicated regard for Richard, and Richard’s strange, self-effacing understanding of it. Graham sat staring out over the cricket field. A light mist was beginning to drift across the table from the narrow strip of trees that bordered a stream on the far side. Stephen obeyed an instinct to remain silent for a while. At length Graham spoke, and to Stephen’s immense relief it was in something nearer his normal, much loved voice.
“I was bloody annoyed with you yesterday”, he said. “And today, of course, but you’ve seen that for yourself. But when I started thinking about it yesterday, I could have strangled you — though I’d rather have strangled that bloody little temptress…”
Stephen suddenly remembered something. “But you were laughing your head off’, he said, in genuine surprise. “I heard you. I didn’t think much about it at the time. But I heard you. You did laugh, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did”, admitted Graham, speaking more calmly than at any time since they started their walk. “It was funny, I admit that. At the time, anyway. It touched a nerve. All the same, it put me in a bloody awkward and embarrassing position, as I’d have thought you’d have seen for yourself. You might have thought of that before you played your little stunt. You might have thought about how I’d feel, too. I know you’re only young, and I ought to know if anybody does how thoughtless people your age can be. I’m not so bloody ancient myself, apart from anything else. I can remember being your age. But I’ve still got feelings, and I’d have expected you of all people to recognize the fact. Christ, I know schoolkids think we’re made in Birmingham — sorry, better make that Taiwan — and haven’t got human feelings, but you’re not a kid any more, and we haven’t exactly got a normal schoolmaster-and-pupil relationship, have we?”
Stephen gazed at him, feeling a great surge of remorse flood over him, accompanied by an intense flaring-up of tenderness and affection. Without thinking about what he was doing he slid along the bench and put a hand on Graham’s neck, stroking it lightly. Graham shot a swift glance round, but otherwise stayed still.
“It wasn’t a stunt”, said Stephen, looking at him anxiously to see if he believed him. “I didn’t know Mr Mildmay was going to say what he said just as we happened to be passing. And I… we… I couldn’t help laughing. I didn’t mean to, and nor did Richard. I didn’t even think…I mean, it would never have crossed my mind that you’d realize…”
“I’m not blind, Stephen, and I’m not so dumb that I can’t add two and two, as I said just now.”
“I know that”, said Stephen desperately. “But really, I didn’t mean to laugh when he said… what he said, and I know Richard didn’t either. It just happened. I couldn’t help it, honestly. I hadn’t told you about Richard, because…because…well, because I suppose I knew it would hurt and upset you. But I would have told you, one day—and I mean soon, not in five years. It was just that everything’s so complicated for us at the moment, I thought it would only be hurting you unnecessarily to come straight out with it now. I’d have told you when we’re together. That I promise you. I’d have told you the moment we were in a position to come back to each other. I’d have had to tell you then, to give you the chance to…to…well, you know…
“But I really didn’t think it was betraying you. I went with Richard first because I was…was frustrated. I mean sexually. I wanted it so badly. I mean, I’d never had it at all until you — you know, on tour. And then I found out, and, oh Christ, I wanted someone, and Richard…well, more or less chucked himself at me.” He sat in silence for a while, thinking about it.
“It started as a sexual thing”, he said when he resumed. “It was as simple as that, to start with. For me, at any rate. I’m not so sure about Richard. He says he fell in love with me after we started — er—doing it. But I’m not so sure. I’ve got a feeling he was in love with me, and then decided to have me. I don’t know. He’s a lot deeper than me. And cleverer. If he wanted something I’d bet on him getting it. But it started with sex for me. You don’t know how badly I wanted…”
He broke off and looked at Graham with the same compassionate, gentle expression as before. “Of course, you do know, don’t you?” he said softly. “You’d know only too well, wouldn’t you. Poor Graham. I’m sorry. Really sorry. Can you believe that, when you think so badly of me?” He paused, then rushed on “if I’m to tell you the truth, I can’t say I’m sorry, exactly, about going to bed with Richard. That was just a physical feeling, and I couldn’t resist it. If he’d come to you, I don’t think you’d have resisted him either, honestly Graham. Like I said, I’d back him to get anything he goes after.
“I can’t even say I’m sorry for coming to love him, either. I couldn’t help that. You can’t help thinking, or feeling. You can only help what you do. But I can tell you this: I don’t love him like I love you. It’s nothing like that at all. It’s deeper with you. It’s not as much fun, but I expect that’s only because we can’t do anything together, at least if we’re going to be seen. I learn when I’m with you, and I have fun as well, but it’s… oh, I don’t know, it’s just different.” He made a small, hopeless gesture with his hands at the impossibility of finding words to express what he wanted to say. Graham looked at him without speaking for some time. Then, quite unexpectedly, he put his arm lightly round Stephen’s shoulders.
“All right, Stephen”, he said, and his voice was gentle, as it usually was when he was with Stephen. “There’s no point in inquests. Maybe I shouldn’t have upbraided you like that. I certainly oughtn’t to have called you those fancy names.”
“Forget it”, said Stephen. “I deserved them, didn’t I? At least for not being straight with you. Maybe I should have been stronger and not gone to bed with Richard. I don’t know. But I ought to have been honest with you.”
“Well”, said Graham, “It was me who put the relationship you really wanted out of b
ounds. If I hadn’t done that, you’d have been settled with me, and, judging by the way you say he’s spoken, this Richard wouldn’t have made his approach. But I did put it out of bounds, as deliberately and as beyond doubt as I could — not once, but twice. Maybe I shouldn’t scold you for finding yourself a consolation prize, in the circumstances.”
He sat musing for a while, and then, surprisingly, smiled faintly. “What’s funny?” asked Stephen.
“I was only thinking of my own body’s response to your choice of consolation prize. Maybe he wasn’t a consolation prize at all. More like a special gold award, maybe.
“Anyway”, he said, more briskly, “it wasn’t your actually being unfaithful that I felt so bitter and upset about, really. What really hurt was not so much your doing whatever you were doing with that little madam, but that you announced the fact to me, in about the most public manner possible, in the most public place in the entire school precincts, yet in such a way that I couldn’t do a damn thing about it.” And then, to Stephen’s great relief, he laughed. It was little more than a brief bark, but it was a laugh.
“Anyway”, he went on, “the long and the short of it is that I’ve been in an unspeakable temper all day today, tearing strips off people right, left and centre, all because I had an awful sleepless night last night. And as I felt worse and worse as the day went on, I started feeling more and more bitter, until I decided to come and dragoon you into this walk. The rest…the rest you know. Shall we go on a bit?” He stood up, shivering slightly, and looked down at Stephen, still sitting on the bench. He put out a hand, and when Stephen took it, pulled him to his feet.
Out of Bounds Page 18