Growing Pains

by Mike Seabrook

  The boys looked at each other and thought about it. “I don’t see that it matters,” said Stephen judicially. “I don’t see any reason why not,” he said. “Yes, tell em, if you like.”

  “Okay,” said Tom.

  “Now then,” said Stephen, glad to have disposed of business matters for the time being, “what’s the cricket like round here?” And so between them, by a simple decision, taken in a few casual words and forgotten in a few moments once they had fallen to talking cricket, they set in motion a chain of events that was to have momentous consequences for all of them.

  8

  “You’ll be comfortable here,” said Tom, waving a hand expansively and standing back to allow them to precede him into their room. “Best room in the house. It’s the biggest, and it’s got the best view. There’s very little traffic comes past the green here, so you won’t be disturbed by noise if you want to have the windows open. I’ll leave you to get settled. See you later, I hope?”

  They assured him that they would be in the bar later, and he withdrew. They sat down on one of the beds, and found that it was deep, soft and comfortable. Richard bounced up and down a couple of times, then got up and went across the uneven, convex floor to the windows. There were two big casements, looking out across the little green. He threw both open to their widest extent and leaned out, breathing the sweet, chilly spring air. Then he examined the windows. “Mmm,” he mused. “They’re modern. Made of some kind of plastic, by the look of it. Double-glazed, too. But they’re very well made. Made up to look as much like the real thing as poss. Must’ve cost a bomb.”

  “Like everything else about this place,” said Stephen.

  “Yes,” said Richard, looking more closely. “They’ve been made to fit in with ye olde worlde image. But they fit their frames perfectly, and the frames have been specially made to fit the irregularities of the hole for them. Very clever.”

  They spent a quarter of an hour exploring the room. Then Stephen lay spreadeagled lazily and luxuriously across his bed, his eyes following Richard as he moved about. Richard, suddenly conscious of the silence, turned, and immediately saw the expression in Stephen’s eyes. They were slightly moist, which Richard shrewdly divined as signifying that he was thinking about Graham, but there was another look in them, too, one with which Richard was intimately and happily familiar. He went over to the bed, sat down in the curve of Stephen’s stomach, and caressed him, stroking gently up and down the inside of Stephen’s thigh. “What are you thinking?” he asked gently.

  “Just wishing none of this had happened,” murmured Stephen, worming himself across the bed to fit his long, slim body round Richard’s behind, and making a faint gurgling sound of appreciation at the caress. “And then…” he went on, “and then… I can’t actually be sorry about anything that brought you back to me. Or me back to you. Whichever,” he concluded, almost absently, dismissing the puzzle as too difficult to solve, or too trivial to be worth solving. “I’m terribly sorry about Graham,” he went on after a long silence. “I don’t think I shall ever stop mourning him. Seeing this place, and thinking what he could have done with it, has brought it all back home to me again. But I’m just as glad — in a way — that he was the means of bringing us back together. He… I… Oh, hell! You know what I mean, I expect.”

  Richard nodded. “I think so,” he murmured, slipping out of his shirt.

  They made love with all the old urgency, then again, languidly and peaceably. There was the usual horseplay in the shower. Richard burrowed in his holdall and jumped into the big glass cubicle brandishing a soap in the shape of an enormous, purple-tipped phallus. “Saw it in that sex-shop down by the Harp,” he cried, jumping on Stephen and thrusting it energetically at his backside. Stephen yelped, swung round and pushed him off, eying the huge thing in alarm.

  “You big coward,” spluttered Richard, fondling the soap lasciviously. “Big strong boy like you wouldn’t be worried by a little rapist like me, would you?”

  “Only if he tried to escape,” gasped Stephen. He hurled himself on him, wrestled the soap out of his grasp and did his best to stick the swollen, purple-red end into his mouth. Eventually they called it a draw, tidied up the shower cubicle and went downstairs to the bar laughing.

  They chatted with Tom over a leisurely drink, then decided to have a look at the village. They strolled off, looking interestedly about them. The high street was an ordinary enough affair, with the usual shops and amenities of a large village in a prosperous area. Crooked streets ran off it to both sides, turning very quickly into narrow, twisting lanes between high walls of ancient dark red brick, ivy-covered and stained with the grime of time. They followed one such lane half a mile into open ploughland, then cut across the fields when they came on a green ‘footpath’ sign to the church and village centre.

  Back in known territory, they slipped into the cool half-light of the fourteenth-century church, where they admired the font, the choir stalls and rood screen, and a young man in a cassock who came out of a door in a great hurry, stopped to say “Good afternoon” courteously, and then, his hurry, whatever it had been, forgotten, spent half an hour showing them over the church, of which he was clearly very proud.

  Eventually he remembered his errand and said a hurried goodbye, blushing prettily as he hastened off down the long nave and out into the mild sunlight. “Yum yum,” murmured Richard appreciatively, watching him until he was out of sight. “I could get religion in a place like this…”

  “D’you think he’d ever shaved?” asked Stephen, gazing speculatively at the vast oaken door through which the young man had disappeared.

  “Not for very long, if he has. D’you think he was wearing anything under that robe?” said Richard, rolling his eyes and letting his tongue loll out. And, seeing Stephen looking urgently about, “What’s up?”

  “Looking for a bucket of water,” said Stephen laconically. “Ow,” he added as Richard punched him hard in his ribs. “That hurt.”

  “Serves you right,” said Richard, giggling. “For being po-faced.”

  “Well, what about you, then?” retorted Stephen indignantly. “Fancying clergymen. Under-age clergymen, too, for sure. You can probably go to prison for a hundred years for that.”

  “No,” jeered Richard. “That’s only the armed forces.”

  “I bet you’re not allowed to do it with someone in orders,” said Stephen. “I bet there’s some Act of Parliament — the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction (Buggery with Parsons) Act, 1467, section 1: ‘no person shall lust after the body of an ordained clergyman between the hours of Matins and Evensong, on pain of six hours in the stocks, castration with a rusty breadknife and a year’s enforced subscription to the Jehovah’s Witness’s Gazette.’ What do you think he would have been? Some sort of trainee vicar, I s’pose.”

  “Curate or something, I expect,” said Richard vaguely. “Or a verger, maybe.”

  “Yes, that’ll be it,” agreed Stephen. “Actually, I’m on the verge myself,” he added, trying to keep a straight face but in fact giving vent to an explosive giggle.

  “Honestly,” groaned Richard, “it’s hopeless trying to take you anywhere. I mean, Christ, all the candles are likely to go out, or we’ll get struck by lightning or something.” His effort at keeping the laugh out of his voice was little better than Stephen’s. They turned towards each other, and suddenly the intense quiet and the twilit atmosphere of the place got through to them. They quietened abruptly. Stephen took his friend in his arms in a firm, passionless embrace, resting his head against Richard’s cheek.

  They stood like that for some time, allowing the deep cool of the ancient stones to seep through them. It was Richard who broke the silence. “Don’t leave me,” he said in a small, scared voice, and Stephen was surprised, and a little chilled, at the deep fear that was clearly audible. While he was still trying to think of an adequate reply Richard spoke again, in the same voice, like a frightened child. “I couldn’t bear it, Steve. I coped last tim
e, because I knew it was going to happen. You remember I said to you that night, I knew you’d let your little blond bit of peaches and cream go without a memory when Mr. Someone Else came back to claim you? You remember I used to call him that back in those days, before I knew who he was?” Stephen nodded his head against Richard’s cheek.

  “You remember I said I’d find the right person?”

  Stephen nodded again.

  “Well, I wasn’t being honest with you,” went on Richard, twisting Stephen’s fine dusty-blond hair anxiously in his fingers. “I knew I’d already found him. But I couldn’t stand between you and him, you know. He’d been there first, he had prior claim. So I convinced myself that it was nothing but a short affair between you and me, that would be soon finished, and that I’d get over it. It didn’t work,” he finished with a gulp. “It nearly broke my heart that morning you walked away in the hotel in The Hague. Please don’t make me go through that again. I… I couldn’t stand it a second time.”

  Stephen stood for a long time without answering, holding him gently and motionlessly. Finally, he said, “I won’t leave you. Not till you tell me to clear out.”

  “I… I’ll never do that,” said Richard in a whisper into his ear. “Do you know, I… no, I can’t say that.”

  “Say it,” commanded Stephen in a whisper.

  “No… no, I daren’t…”

  “Say it,” he repeated, in a tone that brooked no refusal.

  “When you… when I heard the news, about Graham, I mean… Do you know what the first thought that ran through my head was?” His voice had diminished until it was barely audible.

  Stephen stood there for some moments. “I think I could make a fairly shrewd guess,” he murmured. “But I don’t hold it against you. I understand.”

  “I… I… I was glad,” whispered Richard, with horror in his voice. “I was actually glad. I pushed it away, the same moment, but it was there. Just for that one instant, it was there. I was glad, I tell you. Glad he was out of the way, so I could fight to get you back and have you for my own. Isn’t that the wickedest thing you ever heard in your life?”

  “Richard, Richard,” murmured Stephen, rocking him gently in his arms. “I know what you meant. I know you never held any grudge against Graham. I know you couldn’t help feeling something like that go through you. I’d have felt exactly the same. And I know you didn’t mean it. So will you now stop worrying about it? Please?”

  “Okay,” came a low, muffled murmur, and Stephen felt suddenly better. “But don’t go away from me again, right?”

  “Right,” said Stephen, feeling at that moment a more profound love, a simpler affection than he had ever felt for his friend before. “I’m not going anywhere. You don’t have a second chance very often, and I’d be the bloody fool of all time if I didn’t jump at this one. You’re stuck with me, old chap.”

  “Good,” said Richard. He wriggled out of Stephen’s arms and blew his nose vigorously. “Come on,” he said, in almost his natural voice. “Let’s carry on, shall we?” They left the church and stood for a moment, blinking in the contrasting bright light outside, before heading back down the rough track that led from the church front door to the village and the high street.

  They wandered through the rest of the village, seeing what there was to be seen, and ended up at the small, bright cricket ground, tucked neatly between a lane of stockbrokers’ cottages with apple trees leaning over the impeccably repaired fences on one side, and a huge farmhouse and its complex of outbuildings on the other. They examined the short, springy turf of the outfield, then strolled to the middle. “Bloody good nick,” muttered Stephen approvingly, stooping and pressing a finger into the hard, firm track, mown so close as to be almost white in its lush green surround.

  “Got somebody who knows what he’s up to here.” He trotted to the scuffed, piebald but beautifully remade area where one of the wickets had been pitched in a recent game, measured out his short, casual run-up, and hopped in to bowl an imaginary off-break. Then they moved on to look at the pavilion. It was small but immaculate, gleaming in very fresh white paint. So were the sightscreens at each end, they noted, the person responsible for running the club rising rapidly in their estimation with each new revelation of competence and devotion.

  “Know what I smell here?” said Stephen, shading his face and peering through the big armoured glass window in an attempt to see the interior of the pavilion.

  “Money,” suggested Richard.

  “Quite right. But there’s something else, too. There’s somebody here who loves this club. And knows what he’s doing, too.”

  “Very kind of you to say so,” said a voice. They both jumped almost clear of the ground in their surprise. A moment later the owner of the voice appeared round the corner of the pavilion wheeling an old-fashioned wooden wheelbarrow laden with sacks of loam and marl, tools and a besom of whippy birch twigs.

  He was lean and very tall, with a creased face burned dark even in the early spring by exposure to wind and daylight. His hair was grey, but he looked formidably fit. He could have been any age from forty to seventy-five. He set the barrow down and looked down on the two boys curiously. “I take it you’re cricketers,” he observed. “Judging by the comments you were kind enough to make.” He said no more, content to wait for them to reply.

  “We are,” said Stephen, who had to look up at the man despite his own six feet plus. “New in the district. Tom at the Crown told us about the club. We were just having a look round. I…” He hesitated. “I hope we weren’t being a nuisance,” he said a bit lamely. “We haven’t been anywhere we shouldn’t. Only had a quick glance at the table.”

  “And welcome,” said the man. His voice was a curious mixture of educated and rural burr. Richard found himself thinking of Bernard Miles. “Once I heard what you were saying I wasn’t worrying about you. Only we have occasional bits of trouble with some of the youngsters.” He surveyed them again, then stuck out a huge, thin hand at Richard, who happened to be nearer. Richard took it, and promptly winced at the bone-crushing grip the man gave it. Stephen did the same a moment later.

  “Brett,” barked the man in his strange voice. “Everybody calls me Alfie.” The boys introduced themselves. “Found the Crown, have you?,” said Alfie. “You’ll be comfortable there. Knows how to run an inn, Tom.” They looked at each other unconsciously. The faintly archaic usage sounded perfectly natural in Alfie Brett’s mouth. He lifted the barrow and moved easily towards the table. They ambled along beside him in a comfortable silence. Politeness or reserve had kept the question unspoken, but they were both aware of it, hovering in the mild, crisp air between them. Both were wondering if they should give some account of themselves. He solved the problem for them as he reached the wicket at the pavilion end and set the barrow down gently, off the mown square.

  “You’ll be the young owners that turned up out of the blue, I suppose?” he said, and smiled faintly at the twin looks of surprise that appeared simultaneously on their faces. “You don’t keep many secrets for very long round here.” His smile broadened as he proceeded to explain. “Young Blundell was in for a half-pint earlier this morning, and Tom was saying about how his employer had turned up as large as life, and how he looked like…” He stopped speaking, and the smile widened still further into a grin.

  “How he looked like a schoolboy?” hazarded Stephen, with a faintly whimsical edition of the same smile.

  “Ah, that’s roughly the size of it,” assented Alfie. “But he allowed you were pleasant, polite lads. Took him by surprise, of course. He’s been running the inn according to his own ideas for a good many years now, and it came as a bit of a shock to have his absentee landlord turn up, and have to wonder if he was old enough to be served in the bar to begin with.” He laughed softly. “Still, he said you seemed to like the way he’s handled the place. He’s well-liked in the village,” he added apparently casually, but watching them closely as he said it. They looked gratefully at him, appr
eciating the delicacy with which he had offered them a hint. Alfie, who missed little, saw the appreciation, and acknowledged it in his turn with a curiously gracious nod and a half-bow. Then he laughed softly again, and set about some delicate repair work to a badly damaged patch of the crease where some bowler’s front foot had created a miniature dust-bowl. They watched him working, his long, bony fingers as gentle as a surgeon’s with trowel and miniature fork, soil and seed.

  They kept him company for better than an hour, much of it in silent admiration of the skill and care with which he went about his work, sometimes picking up titbits of the life of the village, and telling him a little about themselves. At length he announced that he was finished for the day. They kept him company while he replaced the tools in an impregnable-looking extension at the back of the pavilion. They walked back across the field towards the cottages in the lane behind the far sightscreen, and there Alfie took his leave of them. “I live in the last house,” he said, gesturing up to where the cottages, and the lane, petered out. “Last one that hasn’t been bought up by townsmen,” he murmured.

  The boys ventured a question. “Me?” he said softly. “I was born here. Born, bred, and lived here most of my life. I’ve seen this village change, I can tell you. But I’m not going to,” he added, and his smile was bright with intelligence. “I’m not that kind of ancient-leaning-on-a-scythe village bore, as I’m sure you’re relieved to hear.” He chuckled.

  “Have you… er… been here very long?” asked Richard, curious to know how old the man was.

  “You mean how old am I, but you’re too well-mannered to ask direct, don’t you?” said Alfie in his disconcerting way. Richard blushed, and he laughed again. “I’m seventy-two next birthday.” He chuckled again at the expressions of surprise on their faces. “Aye,” he went on. “And still turn my arm over for the first XI, and score my five hundred runs a season. Used to be a thousand every year, but I’m a bit short of wind for the quick singles these days. Like to take my runs in fours as far as I can nowadays. You’ll see me about, if you’re planning to spend much time here. I dare say you’ll turn out for us from time to time?”