by William Boyd
“Well,” I said, “what do we do now? Piss on him?”
“No. We don’t want to remind him of that.” Hamish looked at Radipole. “I’m going to hit him a few times, then cut his hair.”
Hamish slapped Radipole’s face with some brutality, making the drool jerk into the grass, and punched him in the torso. Then he took a small pair of nail scissors from his pocket and swiftly cut—transversely—half of Radipole’s hair away, leaving an uneven gingery stubble.
“Let’s go,” he said.
At roll call that night Radipole’s absence was discovered. Minto sent Angus in the trap to Galashiels and Thornielee stations to determine whether any boy answering Radipole’s description had been seen boarding a train. During the evening meal Hamish initiated a rumor (which he attributed to somebody else) that boys from the Innerleithen orphanage had been seen in the school grounds. Later that night, at about nine o’clock, one of the maids in the stable block heard Radipole’s desperate bellows and he was released. By this time Angus had returned from Galashiels, irritated by his fruitless journey.
For some reason, Minto decided to flog Radipole: he was offended by his bizarre appearance and maddened by his inability to remember anything more than a bass shout of “Hey, you!” I suppose Minto thought he was lying and, on the principle that everyone involved in a misdemeanor was punished, considered that he might as well thrash Radipole forthwith as wait for the eventual truth of his culpability to emerge. Which it never did, of course. By this time, the orphan gang rumor was rife. Minto sent a rude letter to the principal of the orphanage and received a ruder rebuttal in reply (he was accused, I later learned, of being “unchristian”). Both Hamish and I commiserated with Radipole about his torment and the flogging (an unforeseen bonus, Hamish admitted) and the fact that he was gated until his hair grew back. I know he never suspected us. He rounded on a few people but the hysterical veracity of their innocent protestations convinced him. He ended up believing in Hamish’s rumor and swore vicious revenge on all orphans.
I was, I confess, mightily impressed by Hamish’s subterfuge. Not so much by the audacity and neatness of its execution but by his sinister patience. From that day on I stopped worrying about him. I only wish he could have shown as much confidence in himself as I did. Later in life when he was at his lowest I would remind him of the Radipole incident, hoping it would cheer him up, offering it to him as a sign of his own self-composure. “But I was a child then,” he would say. “It’s a different world, the adult one—I was never cut out for it.”
In any event, the besting of Radipole made Hamish a kind of hero in my eyes. He was not just a brilliant mathematician, I felt he had it in him to be something great.
“Wait till your spots go,” I said. “It’ll be different then.”
“No. Not me. You. You’ll be the one.”
He had his own faith in me, I now realize, although I have no idea of the evidence he based it on. Perhaps he was biased by our friendship—that I was not repelled by his pustular mask. After Radipole a real bond formed. It survived many years and many separations.
The school terms passed with no significant upheavals. In the spring of 1914, Minto flogged three boys in one week and for a while we thought we might be on the brink of a reign of terror. Minto bought a motor car, a Siddeley-Deasey, on the profits—we whispered—of the Minto Academy orchestra’s tour of six Scottish cities. Angus severed two fingers from his left hand while chopping kindling. One boy died of meningitis. Mrs. Leadbetter produced twins.
And at home Oonagh became pregnant and miscarried—“the Good Lord’s will,” she said with a beaming smile. My father developed and patented an antiseptic spray pump for operating theaters that blew a fine mist over the general area that was to be operated on. I spent many hours as a docile “patient” while my father perfected the smooth functioning of the mechanism. By now he had abandoned his faith in diet as the key factor in the fight against sepsis and had become convinced that a nostrum would be found in a distillate of pine resin. In the summer of 1913 and ’14 we rented a house on Sir Hector’s estate at Drumlarish, where I was impressed as chief resin gatherer in the copious pinewoods that grew round about. Our apartment in Edinburgh became suffused with the smell of brewing vats of resin. Even today the scent of certain soaps and deodorants brings on an attack of nausea. Miraculously, Father managed to produce a resinous solution that was at once non-adhesive and easily vaporized. He published an article in The Lancet and a chemical company in Peterborough purchased a license from him to produce Todd’s Antiseptic Resin commercially. I believe at one time its use was fairly widespread in the Northeast of England. I once got a nasty shock in a field dressing station near Dickebusch when I saw a shelfful of Todd’s Antiseptic Resin bottles. As far as I know, the resin spray had no adverse side effects and may even have been of some benefit. While it was being developed no one in our household ever suffered from a cold. The major advantage accrued to Father: he made rather a lot of money.
Hamish visited us twice. Once at Drumlarish, once at Edinburgh, where my father sent him, vainly as it turned out, to eminent dermatologists. To Hamish’s intense pleasure, one specialist had him photographed for a medical textbook. Donald too visited us on the west coast during the summer of 1913. We went walking together many times, visiting remote crofts where we took pictures of vanishing aspects of Highland life. It was like the old days of the Barnton village school and our intimacy soon reestablished itself. He said I could call him Uncle Donald if I wished (he had asked my father’s permission) and I said I would. But I preferred not to, and consequently called him nothing. “Mr. Verulam” would have been too formal after such an invitation, so I simply stopped using his name. He seemed not to notice. Several times that summer I considered asking him directly about my mother but I was restrained—by my youth and shyness. I sensed that I would know instinctively when the right moment occurred.
Sometime during that summer I passed through puberty. I do not remember my voice breaking; it seemed to deepen gradually. The fine hairs on my groin curled and thickened and, one warm afternoon, masturbating alfresco, lying on a bed of springy heather, my imagination making breasts out of the clouds above, I was rewarded with a meager spurt of semen.
That September, when we returned to Edinburgh prior to the start of the school term, Thompson said to me across the breakfast table one day, “Get that disgusting bum-fluff off your face, will you? Makes me sick.”
Oonagh came with me when I went to buy shaving soap, brush, safety razor and a supply of double-edged blades.
“Quite the young man,” she said, trying not to laugh. But she could not help herself when I emerged from the bathroom oozing blood from a dozen nicks and grazes. I looked as if I had shaved with a nutmeg grater. Thus began a lifetime’s torment. I have always hated shaving, and yet because of the density of my beard I am obliged to shave twice a day if I am to look presentable in the evening. From time to time I have grown a beard but I have never managed to get it to stop itching. I am condemned to be clean-shaven.
My father had brown hair. So too had Thompson. My mother was fair. I, on the other hand, am exceptionally dark in coloring. My skin is not olive but it has a curious dun-whiteness to it. It’s not the translucent pallor of the classic blue-eyed, dark-haired Celt. There is a hint of sludge about it. Also, as a boy, I was aware of the fine down of black hair that covered my body. Even my spine was furred in this way and when I was wet you could see a sharp line of matted hair running from the nape of my neck to my coccyx. Once I was past puberty these hairs began to grow: on my chest, stomach, legs—but also on my shoulders, shoulder blades and buttocks. I looked at my father and Thompson and noticed the difference. (I deliberately barged in on Thompson in his bath once and saw his plump girl’s breasts and shiny folds of hairless belly, and his surprisingly long, surprisingly thin penis. I got my ears boxed, two dead legs and a Chinese burn for my indecorum.) Then I looked at Donald Verulam, at what hair he had on his head
, and noted its darkness. He never bathed, or at least I never saw him, not even on the hottest days at Drumlarish, but when he removed his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves in the darkroom I saw the dense black hair on his forearms, glossy and springy.
We were on holiday at Drumlarish when war began in August 1914. Donald and I were returning from a photographic expedition to Loch Morar. My father had walked out along the Glenfinnan road to meet us.
From a distance I saw him waving the telegram at us and suddenly became convinced that he bore bad news, destined for me in particular. I felt sure that Hamish had been killed and never stopped to ask myself why his parents would have taken the trouble to telegram me. We rode up to him and dismounted.
“It’s the European war,” my father said. “We’ve declared war. Telegram from Thompson.”
“My God!” Donald said.
“Thank goodness,” I said, vastly relieved.
“What do you mean by that?” my father asked.
“I thought it was Hamish.”
“What’s it got to do with Hamish? Stupid boy!”
He was genuinely irritated and I could not convince him I was not being flippant. There was a discussion about whether we should abandon the holiday and return home, but after due consideration it was decided that nothing would be gained by this course of action. So we stayed on at Drumlarish until the end of August as planned. I do not recall feeling apprehensive or troubled, but it took some time for my father and Donald to relax. They both went into Fort William to make unnecessary telephone calls and speculated endlessly about what was to come.
At school, matters were somewhat different. Minto, a staunch Germanophile who had studied in Germany for many years, addressed us with uncharacteristic emotion. This was a great tragedy, he said, the worst to afflict Europe since the French Revolution. The whole thing was a conspiracy between the Russians and the French. The Russians wanted war to distract the population from thoughts of insurrection and they were being encouraged in this by the French because, if there was revolution in Russia, she would renege on her massive debts to France. Germany and Britain, Minto said, were the most natural allies in all Europe. To find two such countries at war was a travesty.
It was rather over our heads, and indeed not what we wanted to hear, as we boys were virulently anti-German and highly bellicose. Minto’s futile propaganda diminished as the year progressed. He entered a profound depression from which he never recovered. He cut his throat in 1919.
War all too easily becomes remote to those not engaged in or suffering from it, and in 1914 and ’15 the Tweed Valley was particularly conducive to that point of view. Thompson tried to enlist, was refused and returned to his studies. Donald Verulam left the University for some undisclosed job in the War Office. At school the most obvious effect was the decline in our numbers. By the summer of 1915 most of the rugby team had joined the army or had been recalled to their now-essential jobs in the mills and on the farms. The student body dwindled to just over thirty and economies began to be introduced. The Siddeley-Deasey was sold. The hot-water heating was more often off than on. We got joints of mutton every other day, and then only at weekends. Our diet was supplemented by black pudding, an increase in root vegetables and a regular mincemeat stew of dubious provenance, with a coarse texture and a gamy smell.
As far as Hamish and myself were concerned, the worst consequence of the war was that we were drafted into the rugby team. We were not keen sportsmen, though neither of us was weak or frail, but preference or inclination had no influence on Minto. I was instructed to play center three-quarter, where I was relatively content. I kept out of the scrum, could run quite fast and got rid of the ball as soon as I received it. Hamish was on the wing at first, but then after one match Minto switched him to hooker. He had no aptitude for the position at all, but his shocking acne proved to be a potent disinclination to the opposing front row. Nobody wanted to rub cheeks with Hamish and as a result the binding in the rival scrum was dangerously loose. We got a lot of possession from set play, and with the various talents of the black buns we actually won a few matches.
Hamish and I did not enjoy this extra rugby (regular coaching, a match every Saturday and extra coaching on Sunday if we lost), as it cut heavily into our free time. Normally on a Saturday we would sneak away from the compulsory spectating of the school game and climb Paulton Law, the hill behind the house. There we would sit in the shelter of a dry-stone wall, smoke cigarettes and talk. We talked about everything but, inevitably, Hamish would bring up the subject of mathematics. He did most of the talking. He was already at home in conceptual words I would never penetrate. In fact, I sensed the end of my tether once we started doing quadratic equations. The maths gift was dying on me fast. The terrain ahead seemed shrouded in an opaque mist. By this time Hamish was aged seventeen. I could no longer understand him but I was beguiled by the way his mind worked. Mathematics was for him an entrancing playground. On one of our last Saturday afternoons, I remember, he had become obsessed with the idea that numbers were infinite. He was always fascinated by immensely large numbers. It was a sign of the gulf between us. My brain seemed to seize up at anything over a million.
It was October 1915, I think. The Saturday match had been canceled due to heavy frost. It was a fissile, sharp day. A blue, washed-out sky and hard clear views of the Tweed up as far as Thornielee and downriver to the smoke from the mill chimneys in Galashiels. We sat huddled in our usual spot, smoking Turkish cigarettes and taking sips from a flask of rum that Hamish had smuggled into school.
“Do you remember that time,” he asked, apropos of nothing, “when you said, did prime numbers exist before anyone had thought of them?”
“Did I say that?”
“Yes.… Well, I was thinking. Is maths something we invented or something we discovered? And I thought, we couldn’t have invented something as complicated as maths. The history of maths is a history of exploration. As we go we find out more. It is all there”—he waved at the general scene—“waiting to be found.”
“I suppose so.”
“And what does that tell you about the world?”
I said nothing.
“If maths in some way is already there … who created it?”
“I don’t know.… God?”
“Yes. Maybe. Maybe maths proves God exists.” He looked at me. The cold air was having its usual unfortunate effect on his face, but his eyes were wide with the intensity of his thought. To my astonishment, I suddenly felt a little frightened.
“What I think,” he began slowly, “is that maths is the key to everything.” He paused. “If you go far enough, perhaps you’ll discover the meaning of life.”
I was going to scoff, but I saw that he was caught in a strange fervent mood. He drank from the flask. He was intoxicated, but not as a result of any spiritous liquor. That afternoon he went on to tell me about a mathematician called Georg Cantor, a man, he said, who had organized the infinite. He talked about set theory, transfinite and irrational numbers, and the square root of 2, and the mysteriously potent designation aleph-null that Cantor had devised. He told me many things, most of which I understood not at all, or which promptly slipped my mind, but I will never forget the passion of his monologue. It had a quality that was rare, and, although it may be bizarre to talk about it in association with an abstract academic subject, I can find no better word to describe it than “faith.”
It was shortly after that day on Paulton Law that my uncle Vincent Hobhouse died, not from apoplexy or heart failure as we might reasonably have supposed, but from being run over by a motor bus in Charlbury High Street. I wrote a clumsy but sincere letter of condolence to Aunt Faye. She replied at once, saying how “touched” and “moved” she had been by my sympathy and concern. Perhaps her own bereavement reminded her of mine, but whatever the reason she began to write to me regularly once a week. At first I thought this a little strange, but gradually I grew to look forward to her letters with impatience. I started writin
g back too, and our correspondence was soon in full spate.
You will understand that, the average seventeen-year-old boy has little or no power over his affections. In my case this impotence was singular. I lived under the sway of my emotions. Even as an adult I find the struggle to resist exhausting. I possessed no resilience then. This sort of nature is both a curse and a blessing. Try to understand me as I was and do not judge too harshly when you hear what happened next.
I have always felt vividly and instantly with no mediating influence of reflection or logic. My nature gives to all my work an impulse and a motive that, however the critics may have carped, they have never denied is my prime and most valuable asset. It is a propensity that has brought me the happiest moments of my life and wreaked terrible devastation. Oonagh was the first to receive my love, and my aunt Faye was the next. She initiated my first adult, equal discourse. I fell in love with her through print. I had not seen her since that day in Waverley Station when she kissed my cheek. Now, those seconds of contact returned—and with what transforming force. I saw her dark, bruised eyes, humid and alive; smelled the odor of her perfume; felt the soft contact of her cheek with mine. I realized, with thrilling hindsight, that I had in fact loved her, unknowingly, since that moment. When the post arrived and was distributed, I held the letter unopened for minutes, my heart clubbing my ribs, my breath painfully constricted. “All my love, Faye.” I derived a hundred nuances from those four bland monosyllables. This was my first blind passion and I celebrated it nightly with physical release.
I began to take more care over the composition of my letters, expanding them from tedious itemization of the school news into what I hoped were stylish intimations of my own character and personality. I told her of Minto’s deepening gloom about the war, of Hamish’s speculations about mathematics as the key to all nature; I whimsically embellished and exaggerated our own roles in the rugby team, as if we were a couple of knowing aesthetes pretending to be bloods for a dare. I presented her with myself stripped of any secondary defining role—child, pupil, nephew. It was a test, in its way, and I took the increasing candor and intimacy of Faye’s replies as a sign that I had passed.