by Simon Raven
'Dirty-minded lot, those Romans,' he said at last.
No. it was no good trying to communicate what I had to say in words. This beautiful, ignorant child would never understand them, unless they were the plain, crude words he knew, words which I neither wanted nor dared to use. So I squeezed his hand in the crook of my elbow, and his hand squeezed back. Hand against arm on the way home from the squash courts - the poor, stifled language of our love.
'Love?' said Somerset Lloyd-James. as we walked by the river some days later. 'I should have known we wouldn't get through the summer without that nonsense coming up.'
'I didn't say I was in love with anyone,' I said. 'I was just asking what you thought about it in theory.'
'You must distinguish, for a start, between several commodities all of which are loosely called by the same name. Do you want to know about desire, affection, charity, passion or infatuation?'
'Somerset is having practice in being an expert,' Peter Morrison said.
'Well,' I persisted, 'do you believe, in the first place, in the state which is known as “being in love"?'
'That,' said Somerset promptly, 'comes under the heading of infatuation.'
'Expand.'
'A superficial physical attraction which deliberately conceals its own triviality under layers of romantic accretion.'
'How,' asked Peter, 'does it form these ... layers of romantic accretion?'
'It seizes upon anything to hand which may have poetic connotations. A sunset, say, or a bottle of wine. It seeks to arrogate to itself the splendour of the former, the legendary tradition behind the latter. A kiss at sunset receives the blessing of the departing Apollo; a giggle over cheap sherry is associated with the wildness and beauty of the young Bacchus.'
'Somerset seems to know a lot about it,' said Peter. 'I wonder whether he has ever been infatuated.'
'Of course not,' said Somerset coolly. 'I have far too clear a head.'
We passed old Frank, the retired cricket pro, who was fishing with a crony. He answered our salutes by pointing at his float and shrugging.
'Frank says he catches an average of two fish a year.' said Peter, who had inquired into the productivity of the river.
'A peaceful occupation,' I ventured.
'Pointless and debilitating,' said Somerset sternly. 'Which reminds me. What are you both going to do during the holidays? Not much more than a month to go: one cannot begin to plan too soon.'
'I shall be on our farm near Whereham.' said Peter. 'until my call-up papers come through. Which should be early in September.'
'And I shall be at home at Broughton Staithe,' I said gloomily. 'as usual.'
'A pleasant place to do some work?'
'Not with my parents around. Though they'll be going away for some of the time.'
'Without you?'
'If I have any say in the matter.'
'And of course,' said Somerset, 'you will have Peter close at hand at Whereham. I think, yes, I think I shall make a tour of the East coast to inspect you all. When shall your parents be away?'
'Late August to early September.'
'Perfect. I shall come to stay. Bringing my ration book, of course. We can comfort Peter during his last days of freedom.'
'I'm not scared of the Army,' Peter said. 'Will your parents let you come? Just like that?'
They trust me and they pay me an adequate allowance. Within the limits imposed by their money and their trust, I am free to do as I please.'
At the top of the hill from the valley up to the school we came in sight of Founder's Court: on three sides the inelegant but oddly satisfying buildings reared in the 1860s, when the school had moved from the City: the fourth side open towards the valley: and in the middle of the grass a robust statue of the Elizabethan crook who had started the place.
'Sir Richard.' I said, indicating the statue, 'is rather like my father to look at. And they have other things in common. Greed and obstinacy for a start.'
'What a one you are for your obsessions. First love, then your parents. Tell me,' Somerset continued, 'if your father is so very unsympathetic, how did he come to choose such a nice name for you? He doesn't sound like a reader of Tom Jones.'
'My mother chose the name. An old friend of hers who'd been killed in the first war ... A keen cricketer who was nicknamed “Fielding'' since his surname was Legg. It always pleases her when I do well at cricket - as much as it annoys my father, who is jealous of the man.'
'Jealous of a man dead thirty years?' Peter murmured.
'I told you. He is both greedy and obstinate. He stores things up.'
'Quite a chapter of family history,' observed Somerset. 'Clearly, obsessions run in your blood. I think I shall come to Broughton Staithe a little early and evaluate this man.'
'Come whenever you like. My father enjoys having my friends to stay. He uses their faults as ammunition against me after they are gone.'
'Which I suppose explains why I've never been asked before. Are you sure you can risk it now?'
'Yes,' I said. 'I'm learning at last how to deal with him.'
'How?' said Peter.
'Whenever he's unpleasant, simply get up and go away. It's the only way to cope with bullies ... until you're big enough to hit back.'
'So long as you don't let him bully me instead,' Somerset said.
'You're not bullyable... you've got the evil eye.'
And so it was arranged that Somerset should come to stay with me at my home in Broughton on about 20th August, and that we should both go on to Whereham to spend several days with Peter before he was claimed for the service of the King.
Early in July I was summoned by the Headmaster, who was also, as I have said, my Housemaster. It was in both capacities, he remarked at once, that he wished to talk to me. He gestured me into a chair, and coiled his own shambling frame into one which was opposite me and had its back to the evening light outside.
'It is time,' the Headmaster said, 'for certain things to be made plain.'
'Sir?'
'Next quarter you will be head of this House. By next cricket quarter you may well be head of the entire school. Nor could anyone say that you lacked the abilities needed.'
Outside the window the evening deepened. For some days it had been intensely hot, and now thunder threatened. A dark cloud was spiralling out of the valley; there was a drop of sweat in the cleft of the Headmaster's chin.
'No,' the Headmaster said; 'your worst enemy could not say you were unequal to such responsibilities. But. But.'
'But what, sir?'
'I wish I knew more precisely where you stood. Outwardly you do us every credit: your work, your games, your ostensible behaviour. But what what is your ... your code, Fielding? On what do you base your life?'
'It's a little early to know.'
'Well,' said the Headmaster, 'there's one particular thing we must both know now. What is your... attitude... with regard to Christopher Roland?'
So that was it. Steady now.
'The same as it always has been. I've known him for nearly four years and I'm very attached to him.'
'Yes. But now there is something about the two of you ... when you are together ... which makes me uneasy.'
'There's no reason why you should be, sir.'
'Can I accept that assurance? Can I be really certain that you are a suitable person to be my Head Monitor?'
Outside the dark cloud was swiftly growing, like a huge genie called out of its lamp. The Headmaster leaned forward in his chair and shook himself like a large, worried dog.
'You haven't been confirmed,' he said. 'Where do you stand - the question must be asked - in respect to Christianity?'
'Not an easy question, sir ... I find it hard to understand its prohibitions, its obsession with what is sinful or wrong. The Greeks put their emphasis on what is pleasant and seemly and therefore right.'
'Christ, as a Jew, had a more fastidious morality. And as the Son of God He had authority to reveal new truths and check old
errors.'
'Did he?'I said.
There was a long silence between us.
'The Greeks stood for reason and decency,' I said. 'Isn't that enough?'
'Reason and decency,' the Headmaster murmured, 'but without the sanction of revealed religion ...? No, Fielding. It isn't enough. What you ignore or tolerate, I must know about and punish in order to forgive. Please bear the difference in mind.'
'It is a radical difference, sir.'
'Let us hope it will not divide us too far.., Will you come,' he went on abruptly, 'and stay with us in Wiltshire? Some time in September? You and I both, we shall be too busy to talk much more this quarter. But there is more to be said on the subject we have just been discussing. Not to mention practical arrangements for the autumn.'
'I should be glad to come, sir. Any time after September the seventh.'
I explained about Somerset and Peter.
'Good, good,' said the Headmaster, uncoiling himself to dismiss me. 'Meanwhile, please remember. I do not say that your position is dishonourable. Merely that it is rather too fluid for my comfort. Good night. Fielding.'
'Good night, sir.'
Lightning flashed through the window.
'Ah.' said the Headmaster; 'I always enjoy a good storm.'
We both turned to the window. A second trident of lightning forked into the valley below.
'I nearly forgot,' the Headmaster said, 'what with the very general tone of our argument ... Please let me see you less ... or at any rate less conspicuously ... in the company of Christopher Roland.'
'He says we're not to be seen together so much.'
Thunder outside the window of my tiny study. Rain dashing out of the dark against the glass. Christopher sitting in the armchair to the left of the door, myself at the desk, upright, as though interviewing him for employment.
'Why not?'
'He didn't really say. He was uneasy, he said ...'
'Uneasy about what, Fielding?'
'I don't know. Yes, I do. You see, Christopher, I'm ... I'm ...'
'Yes, Fielding?'
Such a small word, and yet I hadn't the courage to say it.
'I'm ... Both of us ... We're conspicuous people here. We must be discreet, that's all.'
'But I like being with you.'
'Same here. But we must be careful. For the sake of peace, we must be careful. Good night, Christopher.'
The thunderstorm did not clear the air. For days the heat was moist and heavy, while clouds lurked angrily round the horizon as if waiting for the moment to move in and kill. One afternoon Peter Morrison and myself, accompanied by Christopher and another boy called Ivan Blessington, took our bicyles and went for a swim in the Obelisk Pond, a sand-bottomed lake in the middle of a nearby wood, kept clean and sweet by a stream from the Thames and taking its name from a grotesque monument which an uncle of Queen Victoria's had erected to his morganatic wife.
We were not the only people there. A party of soldiers, battledress blouses flung aside, collarless shirts gaping, lolled about on the sandy shore smoking cigarettes and staring at the girls from a local private school, who were decorously bathing from some huts a hundred yards down the bank. When we arrived, the soldiers looked us over briefly, as if afraid of possible rivalry, then sneered and turned back to the bathers. An edgy mistress called to two or three girls who were swimming eagerly away from the huts as if in response to the soldiers' gaze. The girls turned back; the soldiers shrugged and swore; the four of us went into the trees to change.
When we came back, the soldiers were dressing themselves and very slowly, at the command of a rat-faced corporal, forming themselves into ranks. Bored, sweating, heavy-lidded, denied the recently promised view of young female flesh, they consoled themselves with whistling ironically at Christopher and myself, who were the first of our party to pass them. The rat-faced corporal, not above currying favour and seeing a difficult afternoon ahead, joined in the whistling, then looked anxiously at his watch.
'Eyes front,' he called: 'say good-bye to the pretty ladies.'
Chuckling morosely, the men prepared to receive orders. I walked on quickly. Christopher, trembling but resolved, turned to face the corporal.
'I'll have your name and number, please,' Christopher said.
'Who might you be?' snarled the corporal.
'A member of the public who is going to complain about your behaviour.'
'So you're going to complain about my behaviour, are you? Just you piss off double quick, my lad. before I—'
'—Will you give me your name and number? '
The corporal preened himself, inviting the squad to share his coming triumph.
'No, my lord Muck, I won't give you my name and numbah, howevah much you disapprove of my bahavlah, hah, hah, and you can just run away and play with yourself - if you've got anything to play with.'
Peter, all muscle and chest, and Ivan, who had black curling hair from his neck to his navel, had now walked down and were standing behind Christopher.
'That won't help you,' Peter said coolly. 'I know your unit. Your commanding officer comes constantly to our cricket matches. It will not be difficult for him to find out which of his men were training in these woods this afternoon. And who was in charge of them.'
'Now, look here, mate,' began the corporal with an ingratiating whine, 'it was only a joke, see, only— But Peter, Christopher and Ivan had already walked on down to the water. The corporal looked after them, twitched, spat, turned back to his men, and began mouthing instructions in a quick, uneasy singsong, looking over his shoulder from time to time to grin and shrug in our direction.
'Shall you report him?' said Christopher.
'Yes.'
'I don't know. Perhaps I'd sooner you didn't.'
'Then you should have ignored him. Whatever you begin with men like that must be finished. Otherwise they think they can get away with things.'
'But he'll get into trouble.'
'Exactly. Why else should you have asked for his number?'
We began swimming, black Ivan in the lead, towards the girls along the bank. Rubber-capped heads turned quickly in our direction, turned away, turned back again with intent, interrogatory looks. Ivan, twenty yards in front of the rest of us, skimmed the water with his hand and splashed the nearest girl.
'Jolly warm, isn't it?' he called.
The edgy school-mistress, who had regarded the invasion with mistrust, smiled with relief as she heard Ivan's safe public school voice. Nevertheless,
'Only two more minutes, girls,' she shrilled.
Myself, I duck-dived and swam under water until my ears roared. Now then; surface: what would I find? Miscalculation;
I had come up short. Ahead of me some girls were standing in a ring round Ivan, who was floating on his back (the black hair on his chest and belly curling and glistening) and explaining how you could float for ever, if you only relaxed and got your breathing right, could eat your meals, wait for rescue, even sleep. Peter was swimming in a circle round a tall, slender girl with ripe breasts, talking gravely up to her as she stood and nodded. Christopher, like me, seemed somehow to be in the margin; peevish, he swam a noisy thirty yards on his back; petulant, he aimed a splash at one of the youngest girls, laughed raucously, went deep red as the child winced and backed away, her lips quivering.
'All out,' howled the mistress.
The girls withdrew. Ivan's group waved and giggled. Peter's solitary maiden walked in backwards, her eyes fixed on his round, solemn face. Christopher and I swam away fiercely and professionally, as if to indicate that the serious business of the afternoon was only now to begin.
Later, as we all lay on the strip of sand by the shore, Peter said:
'A pleasant change.'
Proud, easy, the well oiled male, fully equipped for his role. Ivan nodded and grunted, then turned his face to the sky; and laughed.
'They didn't believe a word of what I told them,' Ivan said, 'but they looked at me as though I'd been Joh
n the Baptist come to preach in the river Jordan.'
'One of their traps,' I said snappishly. Their biological function is to entice the male and then smother him, so that they can breed from him without fear of revolt. A little simulated worship is a well tried bait.'
Peter and Ivan grinned tolerantly.
'Who's been listening to Somerset Lloyd-James?' Peter said. Christopher looked across at me.
'I left my watch up with my clothes,' he said. 'Those soldiers ,.. I'm going to make sure it's still there.'
'I'll come with you,' I said.
Peter and Ivan assumed carefully neutral expressions, Christopher and I walked slowly and silently towards the trees. Even in the shade the afternoon was very hot ... hot, damp, urgent. As Christopher bent down to look for his watch I put my two hands on his bare neck and started to scratch him lightly with my finger-nails. He shivered and went on searching, 'Here it is. Quite safe.'
He turned to face me, then rested his cheek against mine. 'Come on, Fielding. We must go back.'
'Let's stay here. Just a little.'
'No.'
'Why not?'
'Peter and Ivan ... they'll think it funny.'
I turned my head and kissed his cheek. He stood quite still for perhaps ten seconds. Then he shivered - just as he had when I massaged his neck - and slipped away from me.
'Back to the others,'
I followed, wildly elated by the kiss, scarcely resenting the evasion. This must be enough, I thought tenderly, for he prefers it so. Don't be greedy. Don't ask for any more.
Back to the lake.
'Peter ... Ivan ...'
'Watch all right?'
'Watch?' said Christopher. 'Oh... yes. thanks.'
'Good. I thought you looked rather flustered.'
'Of course I'm not flustered.'
'Of course not,' said Peter serenely, 'if your watch is all right.'
A double file of schoolgirls was now trotting home along the opposite shore of the lake. Peter raised himself on one elbow to wave, and was answered by a gust of giggles, which passed across the water and into the trees like birdsong.
That night I couldn't sleep.
Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque ametmis ... The words went round and round in my head.