by B P Walter
I have no idea how to answer this, not without turning round and facing him properly. Perhaps I should. But I say nothing. The two of us lie there, silent and separate in the darkness, until sleep arrives and saves me from my thoughts.
Chapter 16
Holly
Oxford, 1991
It took me over a week to reveal to anyone what I had seen in Ernest’s room. In the days that followed, I went from being overwhelmingly shocked to strangely numb. In these moments of numbness, I tried to prod myself – a cerebral pinprick to a memory that seemed like a dream. Sometimes it resulted in the glimpse of a jarring, explicit detail – the noise James had made as his friend entered him from behind, or the way Ernest clung to his shoulders as he pressed himself close. Other times, my mind closed up, refusing to give up such details, as if the memory itself was harmful to my wellbeing. It felt like a self-preservation mechanism. Only years later, after hours of talking to a therapist about my feelings surrounding sexual activity, would I be able to articulate and unpack the causes behind my naivety concerning the whole subject. Or perhaps innocence would be a better word. Innocence, spiked with a judgemental edge I had obviously inherited from my parents. The weight of all this baggage was a burden I didn’t know I was enduring, and the relief I would feel when I did finally shift it off my back would be astonishing.
Overall, the shock I felt at the time, witnessing James and Ernest’s night-time antics, helped me commit to my New Year’s resolution, or at least a diluted version of it. Though I was still polite and civil to them all, I never sought out their company. The nights watching Neighbours with Ally now seemed like a distant memory from a half-forgotten time. She never invited me now, nor did I offer to come. This stung at first, then I remembered it was me who had chosen to distance myself from her and her weird brother. If you keep saying no, eventually they stop asking. Then I noticed something that, temporarily, drove all concerns about the sex life of Ally’s brother out of my head.
My period hadn’t come.
When I realised I was late I experienced one hour of instant, white-hot panic. Then it subsided. People didn’t get pregnant their first time. Surely they needed to have lots of goes before? And I wasn’t eating very much – my diet had become rather poor since Christmas, with me picking at meals at dinnertime rather than properly eating them. I just wasn’t hungry. Maybe that was the cause of my out-of-sync menstrual cycle.
Denial is a funny thing. There’s a way it wraps itself around your shoulders in such a welcoming way; you hold it close to you and don’t let go. It becomes part of you. I was being stupid. And I think I knew it, deep down. But it saw me through for a time.
The truth about what I had seen during my night-time adventure did come out eventually, however, when Ally walked through my door one unseasonably warm February afternoon, holding an enormous stack of books. ‘I thought you might enjoy these!’ she said as she precariously hobbled over to my desk and set the titles down with a loud thump.
‘Er, thank you,’ I said, slightly bewildered as the books landed in front of me. ‘Where are they from?’
‘Oh, Daddy is chums with someone at Penguin. You know, the publishers.’
‘I know who Penguin are. I’m doing an English degree.’
‘Well, they always send over a load of books to the house every now and then of their recently published stuff to my Dad and he for some bizarre reason said I’d probably benefit from upping my reading of contemporary literature, so low and behold this turned up this morning and I must say I’d rather build my own coffin than work my way through that lot. Then I thought, I know who’d like these! So here they are.’
‘That’s … that’s very nice of you.’
‘Splendid. So, now you can tell me what’s been eating you up over the past few weeks.’
Her words hit me like a bullet. I didn’t think Ally was observant enough to notice such things. I blinked at her, not saying anything, hoping I’d misheard, but it was no use.
‘Come on. Can’t wait around all day. Let’s go for a walk. It helps one talk. My mother always says so. Probably why she always walks alone so nobody can hear her.’
I wasn’t sure I understood the reference, but agreed to her request. She led the way with purpose out of the halls and towards a green quad area situated by one of the closest university libraries. A small group of girls sat at the far end on a bench, text books open on their laps, but apart from that it was deserted. We started walking a slow circuit around the still leaf-bare trees and Ally opened with: ‘So, where shall we begin? Is this about James?’
I didn’t have a clue whether to lie or tell the honest truth, so nodded in what I hoped was a casual, non-committal sort of way.
‘About you having the hots for him?’
I drew in a breath, ‘I don’t have ‘the hots’ for him.’
She laughed. ‘Oh Holly, you don’t have to deny it. I think every girl fancies James at some point.’
‘Just the girls?’
The question hung in between us for a few seconds, then Ally said, ‘Sorry?’ as if she’d misheard.
‘Just the girls? As in, are you sure it’s just the girls who fancy him?’
Ally looked at me, clearly not understanding. ‘Well, I’m sure some middle-aged mothers probably have the odd fantasy now and then.’
‘I’m talking about your brother, Ally.’
Ally stopped and stared at me. ‘What are you talking about, Holly? Ernest doesn’t fancy James. Yes, I joke about it, but they’re not into each other in that way. As in … I don’t know … not in a romantic sense or anything. Nothing like that.’
I stopped walking too and looked over at her. ‘We’ve spoken about this before. You implied they were intimate. I just never really knew how intimate.’
Ally still looked baffled. ‘Holly, I really don’t know where you’re going with this?’
‘I saw them.’
Her eyes widened. ‘What? Saw them where?’
‘Together. In bed together. That night, when you said I could join you lot back in Ernest’s room, after you went to that bar – The Pink Koala or something …’
‘The Crimson Cape,’ she corrected, rolling her eyes.
‘Whatever. Well, I did go there. To Ernest’s room, that is. I waited for a while in his bedroom. The door was unlocked and I was cold. And then they came back without you – just him and James.’
‘I know, I was getting tired. Decided I needed my bed. Did you guys have a row or something? Oh goodness, I abandoned you again. I’m so sorry …’
‘We didn’t have a row. I hid in the wardrobe.’
She paused for a second, then laughed. A loud, very Ally laugh. ‘Oh god, Holly. You do kill me, sometimes. Why on earth did you …’
‘Because I didn’t know what else to do. I regretted it though. Because when they came in … they …’ The awkwardness of what I had started to say had begun to catch up with me and I suddenly became very mindful of the fact that I was, after all, talking about her brother. ‘They got into bed together and … did things. Together.’ I emphasised the final word until I saw the dawning realisation in Ally’s face.
‘Oh Holly,’ she said, then laughed again.
‘Can you stop saying my name like that. I’m not a child.’
Like most of my blunt responses to Ally, this didn’t seem to hit home. She just continued to laugh and then pulled me over to one of the empty benches. ‘Come on, sit down.’
I did as I was told and looked at her, frowning, waiting for an explanation.
‘Holly, is this really what’s been bothering you?’
I nodded.
‘I swear we spoke about this. It’s nothing to worry about. James and Ernest are just two horny Etonians that haven’t kicked the habit yet.’
I wasn’t convinced. ‘When we spoke, I didn’t think you meant … well … the things they were doing.’
Ally just shrugged. ‘What did they do?’
I grimaced. �
��It feels weird telling you. Ernest’s your brother.’
She waved a hand, ‘Oh, nonsense. I’m not squeamish. I’ve seen things, goodness knows the stories I could tell you. So what did they get up to? Oral? Full-on shagging?’
I nodded again. ‘The last one.’
Ally sighed. ‘I don’t like the be the one to trample on your innocence, Holly, but it really isn’t as unusual as you’d think. I suppose, for someone who hasn’t seen that much of that sort of thing it might be a little, well, odd to witness. But I promise you, it’s just a bit of silliness between two old friends.’
‘It didn’t look like silliness. It was … intense.’
‘Sex is always intense,’ she said, casually. ‘Or at least is should be if you’re doing it right.’
I didn’t know what to say to this, so let Ally continue.
‘The upshot of all this is that boys are rampant horny devils who would fuck anything with a pulse, given half the chance. I once saw James give my brother a hand job in the library one summer holiday when I was fourteen and they were fifteen or sixteen. I was amazed, but then I asked them about it afterwards and they said they did it all the time at school. Don’t be so shocked. And please don’t tell me you believe the whole nonsense about it being bad for one’s soul or they’ll go to hell or something. That’s just bigotry.’
‘I’m not a bigot. And I’m not religious. Not really. My parents are. But I’m not my parents. Not at all.’
‘Glad to hear it. Things are changing, Holly. You need to open your eyes.’
‘I know they are. And my eyes are open. I’m just …’
‘Not sure you like what you see?’ Ally finished the sentence for me and sighed. ‘I’m not stupid, Holly. I realise you probably didn’t have much exposure to all this when you were growing up. But guess what, some boys like other boys, some girls like other girls …’
‘I know they do. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound—’
‘And some,’ she continued, interrupting me, ‘Just do it for the sheer fun of it. Honestly, Holly, all the stories and rumours you’ve heard about boy-on-boy action at single sex private schools? They are all true. They just love it.’
‘I haven’t heard any stories,’ I murmured, picking at a bit of dirt stuck to the bench.
‘Well, now you’ve got one to tell. More than one, in fact.’
I looked up at her. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well,’ she said, slightly quieter, and I had the sense she was avoiding catching my eye, ‘you’re making a bit of a habit of this, aren’t you?’
I pulled an affronted expression, but had a slightly mortifying feeling I knew what she was implying. ‘A habit of what?’
She smiled and for the first time it looked more like a smirk than her happy, carefree grin. ‘First James and Julianne at Rupert’s party, now James and Ernest in their bedroom from your view from the wardrobe. You’ve become quite the expert little voyeur.’
I stood up immediately. ‘That’s sick. You know it’s not like that.’
Ally tutted and stood up too. ‘I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have worded it like that.’
‘No, you shouldn’t have,’ I snapped, feeling myself going red.
‘Look,’ she said, clasping hold of one of my hands, ‘Let’s go via the little corner shop and get some chocolate, then feast in my room in front of some tacky Australian soap? How does that sound? No talk of sex or boys or anything like that. Sound like a deal?’
I stared hard at the floor for a few seconds, then looked at her again, feeling less angry now. ‘OK,’ I said.
She grinned. ‘Perfect. Walk this way.’
I didn’t look at her as I walked, nor did I really bother to talk to her either. I think she thought we were OK. And part of me really wishes we were. How I would like someone I could properly talk to about everything that was in my head. My frustration at my parents. That I constantly felt like an outsider here at Oxford and a stranger back at home. That I was becoming increasingly worried about the absence of my period and what this might mean for my future and any choices I might have to make because of it. But it didn’t seem like Ally and I were ever destined to have that kind of friendship. She wasn’t a bit like me. I watched her as we walked, standing tall and confident, pleased that she’d managed to make the poor confused commoner alright about the thought of her brother fucking the night away with his lifelong male friend. I was starting to hate everything about them. All of them. It wasn’t the fact James and Ernest were two males. I was prepared to put my initial shock at the gay sex down to my sheltered existence up until now (and, in no small part, growing up with my parents). If James and Ernest were genuinely gay I could have understood. But that would have been too normal for them. Too mainstream. It was their arrogant belief that nothing ordinary applied to them. All of them. Ally, too. They seemed to think they were members of some exclusive club who had been handed a get-out-of-jail-free card at birth. They didn’t have to ‘be’ anything; they didn’t have to subscribe to the set lifestyle the rest of us were saddled with. If the time came, I vowed I would tell them what I thought of them. For now, however, I decided to keep a dignified silence and allow Ally to treat me like a child she’d successfully talked down from a tantrum.
Chapter 17
Julianne
Knightsbridge, 2019
‘Julianne? Where are you? Ally’s here.’
James calls up the stairs, but I’m already down in the kitchen helping Cassie. I come through, wiping my hand on a tea towel, and smile at Ally.
‘So sorry, got caught up with something. Ally, let me take your coat.’
‘I’ve got it,’ James says, stepping in to take it and hanging it up. I hang the tea towel on a vacant peg next to it. James looks at me as if I’ve just stripped naked, then back at the towel, clearly mortified I would do something so odd. I ignore him. I’m not sure I care any more.
Ally, who either hasn’t noticed the odd gesture or chooses not to comment, embraces me in a hug. ‘Oh Julianne, how are you?’
‘Kind of the same as yesterday,’ I say in an attempt at a bright voice. Well, it’s true, I suppose.
She laughs as if I’ve cracked a joke, then steps aside, revealing a young man like a magic trick. He’s just standing there, staring blankly at me. I’m taken aback, then realise who he is.
‘Julianne, James, this is Cameron, my new man.’ It’s like she’s just got a new car and is eager to show it off. Cameron, on the other hand, seems less than eager. He is good-looking and it’s clear right away why Ally finds him attractive, but he must know what we’re all thinking: God, he’s so young. Must be mid-twenties at the very most. He’s wearing a nice patterned shirt – the kind I occasionally used to buy for Stephen, until James turned up his nose at them, describing them as ‘very high street’ – and chinos, and is shivering slightly, apparently arrived in from the cold without a coat. I shake his hand and welcome him and he gives a thin smile, all the time looking around him. It isn’t just his age that sticks out. He isn’t used to wealth. James will have noticed that immediately. I can sense James wanting to catch my eye, but I avoid his gaze.
As Cameron and Ally go into the lounge, the doorbell rings. ‘I’ll get it,’ I say, and look towards the disappearing figures of Ally and Cameron, making it clear to James he should be following them.
‘Julianne, many greetings of the season.’
Ernest steps inside the house before I’ve said anything, followed by his wife, Louise. In all the time I’ve known him, Ernest has been one of those men who seem desperate to assert their own attractiveness whenever possible, something that, to my slight irritation, he’s rather good at. Louise, on the other hand, is loveliness personified, but I’m aware James finds her irritating. She comes across as a bit too eager to please and, although her refined accent makes it sound as if she’s been bathed in money, it’s hard to believe sometimes that she’s one of us, or rather one of James’s group of frien
ds. Under her slightly ditzy temperament shelters a brilliant mind, apparently, or so Ally always says. She even beat us both with her degree, graduating four years after we did with a double first in history. Maybe that’s how she maintains her confidence in front of us all.
Ernest, now an MP like his dad, and godfather to my son, is talking very animatedly. ‘Such a sodding nuisance, this weather. The road at the end of your street is like an ice rink. Not sure what the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea think they’re doing, but they aren’t doing enough. Why haven’t they gritted the road? This is London, for God’s sake. Nearly lost control of the car.’
His wife laughs. ‘A bad workman blames his tools.’ She chuckles and turns to me. ‘Lovely to see you, Julianne, it’s been too long. God, you look lovely, as ever.’
I smile and thank her, even though I’m sure I probably look as haggard as my mother suggested two days ago. Louise looks a little tired herself, but Ernest seems to be bright-eyed and crackling with energy. He has his typical white-shirt-and-tie affair going on, as if he’s just walked out of a constituency meeting. Even back when we were students, he would wear crisp white shirts while lying around in his dorms reading or nipping out for drinks.
‘How are you, Julianne?’ He reaches forward to kiss me on the cheek. He’s always been a bit of a charmer. Blond and traditionally handsome, Ernest has a striking presence that never quite hides what I always think is a slightly cruel-looking edge to his face. His hair has been combed over today and the angular shape of his shoulders suggests that, amidst his time in parliament, he still finds time to work out a lot. He and James used to play squash together, but over the past couple of years their meet-ups have become more about food and alcohol than fitness.
‘I’m good, thank you, Ernest,’ I say. ‘It’s been too long.’
‘Certainly has,’ he says, his deep, posh voice resonating through the hallway.
‘Come on into the lounge, I’m just finishing up with the food.’ I go to walk back towards the kitchen.