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Plenty of other beaches were nearer. Ralph could rise at dawn and walk to most of them. Instow, the protected cove on the edges of the Torridge estuary, sheltered from the surf, was the nearest to the house. But he liked Woolacombe for its vast and empty Triassic expanse, the depthless sea and the exposure to the Atlantic winds. The bike ride from Mortehoe was tiring, but it seemed necessary to have another thing to keep his body occupied while his mind wandered.Every day he would count a little longer, making himself lie still, until he could feel both the sand beneath him burning the skin on the back of his legs and the sun on his face and arms. He would examine each sensation, eyes shut against the blank heat, until the feeling became intolerable and then he would rise, his eyes in a blind daze and find his way to the water. For someone like Ralph, practising self-control was an almost painfully exquisite pleasure. Counting, delaying, keeping himself always on the verge. And besides, he had nobody to prove anything to but himself.Every day of the holiday time passed in the same way. An hours’ ride, a lonely but peculiarly pleasant seclusion on the bare sand, the feeling of the sun on his body, still unwarm in the early morning and then a burning almost unendurable heat as the day progressed. And then the water, the callous, epically indifferent sea that he gave himself into for hours at a time.He had been lying still for as long as he could bear and finally, he got up, satisfied with the temperature of his skin, dived into the water and thrashed out quite far until the shore was a gash on the horizon. The promontory still seemed far away, its jagged rocky planes blurred and smoothed by the distance. He trod water for a while and tried to look down into the depths below him. The water was black and unfathomable, there was nothing between him and the unknown. Every now and then the waves crested a little and threw up lines of silver and white. He felt the pull of the current around his legs, the alternate cold and warm flowing over him and his own sense of isolation and vulnerability, a single, fragile boy, as likely to be drowned as to be saved.After a while, he swam back slowly, reached the shore, trod carefully over the flotsam, broken pieces of small sea creatures and sharp-edged shells, licked the salt from his lips and stood for a moment, surveying the empty beach. There was nobody there. There never was.Ralph walked out over the terrace and down through the garden past the potting sheds and the glasshouse, sat on the edge of a low wall behind the kitchen garden and removed his papers and tobacco. This was another fad, also solitary, started in the Upper fifth, where behind the chapel in the stone alcoves near the cloister, they would linger between Divinity and Classics. He had brought it home with him and indulged whenever the atmosphere in the house became too exasperating. Nobody missed him anyway, his father would sooner not engage with him unless he must, and his mother was on the perpetual edge of a nervous attack, usually brought on by the changes in the weather or the maid’s or neighbour’s misdemeanours.He filled the paper, rolled it quickly and lit the cigarette, intensely pleased with the painful burning down into his lungs. He exhaled a satisfying curl of smoke, thinking that every day of the long summer vac was an endless and unvaried chain of frustration, alleviated only by his escapes to the sea. Yet his body, the strength in him, his changing build, were a source of tentatively acknowledged pleasure to him. He had seen in his parent’s friends, the newly appraising eye now cast over him, whether by a wife or a husband, although he told himself that he was simply relieved that he had lost his previously childish build and now finally stood face to face with his father. It gave him a sense of the power of his body and of wanting to pit himself against the elements, to feel dragged and pushed and up against reality, to fight for something, to battle and win.He could see the house from where he sat, a little out of sight. Every now and then a flurry of activity occurred behind the French windows, which would open abruptly, and his mother would step out, her shrill voice insistently describing some failing on the maid’s behalf to his father, whose head bent distractedly, eyes wandering unseeing over the garden. He’d feel sorry for him if he didn’t despise him so.He pulled his book out of the pocket of his jacket. He’d brought it back from the library earlier in the holiday and along with both his other solitary habits, this too transported him. He never bothered to hide it. His parents were too self-absorbed to imagine anything inappropriate or transgressive within its sober looking pages. And it was Greek. It looked serious. Fortunately, that sufficed and if it looked as if Ralph were reading anything to enable a successful School Cert, then his father was grudgingly silent.
He read, blowing the smoke out before him in a fine stream. “Now, when the soul catches glimpse of a beautiful boy on earth, it is reminded of the vision of Beauty that it saw beyond the heavens. The resulting yearning is eros. The soul that can control such yearning will be granted the philosopher's boon--an early return to heaven after three thousand years instead of ten thousand years.”He lay back against the wall a little, imagining various boys but discarding most. Yes, there was one, an exuberant sort, always in the middle of a group, a handsome boy with brown red hair and a swimmers’ build, but they had barely exchanged more than the odd glance across the quad, at the baths, occasionally in Chapel. One couldn’t exist on glances alone, and anyway, how was he to know? One couldn’t just ask these things. Ralph had the feeling, like holding his breath underwater, or burning under the heat of the sun, that he was pushing himself to a limit and that he stood there now, partly in uncertainty and partly in anticipation. It was the crystallisation, he told himself, of being no longer a child and of being on the cusp. But of what, he was still not entirely sure. There were moments where he felt that he was scarcely contained within his body. It had been his for seventeen years and yet he had never been more aware of it than now. At night he often felt a heavy ache of frustration, with the household, his parents limited readings of the world and, of course, with himself and with his body, full of inexplicable yearnings that he could only barely recognise or fulfil. Ralph left for the beach again early the next morning. Leaving the house at any moment, to be free of the gloomy rooms, filled with the sort of dark mahogany tables and tallboys and overstuffed brocaded sofas, fashionable at the time of his father making his money, to be away from the heavy bulk of its constraints of tentative expectation and sour disappointment, was always a relief.He walked along the high coastal path bounded by dense low elm hedges, the wind light and cool about him and descended through the rough, tufted and windswept dunes until he was on the shore line again. The sun was still low, the heat had not swelled into the delicious scorching of the day before. He looked out across the sand and in the distance saw two people.He stopped, feeling both a little affronted by their presence but curious, nevertheless. He decided to ignore them and let them come to him. He threw off his clothes and lay flat, in his bathing trunks alone, the topper discarded in the sand. He appeared to lie in a contented stupor, the rush of the water as it crept up the shore and the drag and suck as it pulled away, filling his ears as he tried to make his mind a blank. He heard a girl’s voice and a lower one approaching him and lay still.“Hi! Sorry to invade you.” He looked up at the owner of the lower voice, a boy of around his own age. He had to shield his eyes from the sun and crick his body upwards a little to look less stupidly supine. His stomach muscles tensed, and he caught the eye of the other person next to the boy, looking away quickly.“Oh, it’s alright.” Ralph sat up properly now, it wouldn’t do to look too casual any more.“We’ve been here a whole week and you’re the first person we’ve met down here!” The boy smiled at him. “James.” He threw himself down next to Ralph and gestured to the girl with him to do the same. She sat opposite and dug her toes into the sand. “And this is Elsa.”Ralph gave each of them one of his smiles. He’d practised them a little on Mrs. Loman and occasionally Mrs. Loman’s son. Recently he had noticed that they seemed to have an effect. He was satisfied to see this developing power and its consequence over others. He reached into the pocket of his folded-up trousers and extracted his tobacco and papers. He would have liked to have a pipe at a moment like this and cursed himself for not developing the habit more convincingly last term.He offered the papers and tobacco around, to James who accepted and Elsa, who held his gaze with a surprisingly steady one and said, “Would you mind? I’m an absolute fool at doing them myself.”While the boys were busy rolling cigarettes, they all talked casually. It appeared that James and Elsa were here staying with some relatives who lived up towards Croyde.Ralph looked up from his rolling every now and then to flick away the fair hair that fell into his face. He examined the boy briefly each time. His light brown hair was swept back from a broad forehead and his eyes, heavily lashed and of a brownish gold, caught Ralph’s when he looked up. His arms were a smooth brown, his hands strong-looking. He was more obviously on the verge of adulthood than Ralph, where Ralph was slight and slender, his entire body seemed more compact and when he smiled, which he did occasionally, his teeth were white and pleasantly even. The girl was pretty, as far as Ralph was a judge of these things, an even featured face, and brown hair, bundled back in a few grips.The conversation stopped, Ralph handed her the cigarette and they lit up.Ralph asked, “Do you come every summer?” his voice even and disinterested, directed at them both.James shrugged, “Oh, whenever we have too. It seemed the only answer this year. Father’s ill again and you know how parents’ get.” A looked passed between them and Ralph smiled vaguely.“D’you like it here?” Ralph asked. It seemed important that he did.“Oh yes, heaps. Anything to get away. And Elsa always comes too.”Ralph had decided that they were involved. He insinuated this in his next question.“Oh, no, no.” James seemed to find this amusing and Ralph waited for him to elaborate, which he didn’t do and instead he looked over towards the sea and said, “I’ve never swum as far as that bit of headland there. ““Oh, it’s ridiculously far. I’ve done it, of course, lots.” Ralph blew his smoke into the air, conscious of a look of silent esteem. But it was from the girl. “It’s famous for the Smugglers, they hid there years ago, the caves were full of stuff.”“What sort of stuff?” Elsa asked.“Oh, contraband.” Ralph said with conviction.“I’d like to see.” Ralph looked at her. ““D’you think we should try it?” she continued. “I should think it would be a great caper. Let’s swim there and see.” She stood up and brushed the sand from her legs.“Elsa, you are an adventurous sort. Comes of having a mother in the Suffrage.” James got up and stood next to her, slapping her on the arm. Ralph watched to see if the hand lay there any longer than necessary. Not entirely satisfied, he looked towards Elsa.“Your mother?”“Oh, Elsa’s mother was frightfully daring.” James interrupted, “Dad says that she’s lucky she didn’t get thrown in irons like the others, the way she carried on.”Elsa nodded, unbothered, “Yes, it’s true. Anyway, lucky she met your father. If anyone would bring her down to earth, it would be him,” She gave him a look, part mischievous, part affectionate.Ah, step-siblings, but for some reason Ralph wasn’t sure if he felt relieved or not. He stood up too and caught James’ eye. “It looks ripping, shall we go in?”They walked alongside to the shore and stood, simply three people alone on a beach under a heavy blue sky, the sea lapping the land and stretching out again in seemingly infinite mystery. Along the line of the water, a couple of the small rowing boats and dinghies rocked on their moorings. There was no sound for a moment, but the slap and splash of the water against their wooden undersides.The sun had not reached its zenith and the water was still cold from the night, but they moved through it assuredly, swimming far out, where the shadows beneath them, seaweed, rocks, shoals of fish, appeared as mysterious and profound as ancient wrecks. The water swelled, and they were filled with the primal flow of energy and vitality needed to exist in the water that the land never required.Ralph looked at James’ body. His arms above the water line were a deep brown, but below, the clarity of the water gave his limbs a silvery, phantom quality, preternaturally pale and ethereal. Ralph watched him swimming, pushing his wet hair out of his eyes, swallowing mouthfuls of brine, spitting it out, smiling at him. He felt, at once, a sense of happiness and pleasure that he rarely experienced. They existed together in this moment, strangers to each other, but somehow they were united in the sea, their differences made equal by the fine balance of pleasure and peril that the land would not allow. The sea could turn, could come for them, could pluck them from life with the dip of an arm or a weakened heart and carry them to its secretive depths.They promised to meet the next day and get out to the headland.That night Ralph lay awake far into the dark, perhaps a little uncomfortable, skin burnt a little more than usual after the hours in the water. It was the sort of summer’s night where the heat of the day still permeated. There was no place to lie that was not sensitive and where his body did not feel the sweat gather and slip. The day came back to him, the taste of salt water on his lips, the currents that swept about them, the sky giving colour to the water and the body submerged beneath. “The soul that can control such yearning...” he pushed the words out of his head, caught in an unresolvable struggle between what he would like to feel and what he felt; an uncontrolled longing, in contradiction to the words that has been filling his head. He closed his eyes and tried to make himself drift away but it was hard and instead, reached for the only possibility that in recent months enabled sleep. The next day, the three of them met on the beach again. This time, a quick turn in the neighbour’s dingy seemed like a chance too good to miss and they could reach the headland if they were lucky. They untethered the boat, went in waist deep and clambered in with Ralph and James at the oars whilst Elsa sat in the prow and set out towards the promontory, the sea still and tranquil, the tilt and drop of the little boat the only sounds in the air.
The coastline as they moved away from it, was an undulating mass of gorse and bracken, burnt the colour of corn by the sun. He looked at James beside him, his head bent, brow a little furrowed, lips parted with the concentration of rowing and Ralph again felt for a moment, an intense happiness. They were comrades, setting out from Aulis across the Aegean to come to Troy.“Can I try?” Elsa interrupted his thoughts. She was leaning in a little, her hair tangled and blown in her face and her legs in the small boat almost touching his.“Surely, sit here, that’s it, next to James,” Ralph moved opposite. “Good, now grip like this, overhand, good, brace your legs a bit, but do bend them.” Ralph watched her intently and put his hand over hers. Leaning over her, his leg now touching both hers and James’s, all felt confusingly intimate.She pulled, the oar wrenching out of her hands and skittering ineffectively over the water. She laughed and tried again. It would be easy, Ralph thought, if we made something of it. Nobody would think to question. He sat back, though and moved his legs away.“Oh, aren’t you a weakling!” James nudged her a little roughly. They ragged each other all the way to the headland until they reached the shallows and tethered the small boat. They could swim here, Ralph told them, and the caves were just across.They swam through, into the darkness, water slopping against the sides and echoing into the silence. James swam the furthest in, disappearing into the heavy, hanging drop of the rock. Ralph felt the almost claustrophobic embrace of it, as if he were being kept, internalised against his will, as if they would all be swallowed up and never found. He felt a panic building, thinking for some reason of his mother, of the suffocating embrace of all womanhood and of its dark and unwanted secrets. The water continued its slapping and dripping, and he felt a confusion and sense of being lost stealing over him. He trod the water and looked at Elsa who lay back floating obliviously, undisturbed by the anxiety which absorbed him. It was with relief that he saw James appearing out of the dark and swimming back towards him. His urge to get out of the cave was quite overwhelming.Once out, they climbed onto the edge of the rock and stood on an exposed ledge, the sun against them and the water below dragged down and thrown up against the rocks in its perpetual cycle. They jumped, one by one, hitting the flat wall of the sea and coming up gasping, salt water filling their mouths, thickening their hair and running down their faces. The feeling of being dragged to the seemingly endless depths and then the blessed resurfacing, breaking through the weight of the water and out, became a game to see who could stay down the longest. And fighting the desire to breathe, trying to delay the moment to the point of near asphyxiation. Ralph was particularly good at it.It was as he was surfacing after a jump from an exceptionally high rock, that Ralph felt a kick and the touch of someone else’s hands on his body. James was beside him, laughing, shaking the water out of his hair and eyes, and pulling Ralph down in a friendly but oddly brutal way. Ralph grabbed his shoulder, jovial, aware of both the strain and strength in his arm as he pushed James down. They continued like this for a while, it was easy to enjoy the game, there was nobody to judge or watch and Elsa had decided to lie out of their way on the rock. For Ralph, who avoided physical contact with either parent and had no outlet for affection or human touch, it was all enjoyably uncomfortable.James was hauling himself out, half his upper body already pulling upwards as he prepared to brace a knee on the rock, the water forming trails along his back. Ralph had a sudden urge to be gentle and place his hands into the channel of the lower part of his back where the muscles strained and tensed. He contented himself with a rough punch instead and laughed as James slid back into the water and pushed him back.After a while, Ralph dragged himself out and lay catching his breath beside Elsa on the rocks. She lay on her stomach, a hand propping up her chin. The sunlight caught her eyes and made the pupils an odd vivid green. “I like it here, it’s empty and wild. I don’t think I should like to leave it at all. I don’t miss home, you know.” She looked at him, “Oh, it’s not that it’s beastly or anything like that. If anything, I wish it were more so.” She smiled to herself but didn’t add any more.Ralph looked across at her. “Well, I do hope you come back again next year, if you like it,” he said a little stiffly. He couldn’t think what else to say. Her nearness unnerved him, he would have liked to propel her away from him and erect some insurmountable barrier between them that would explain all without having to. But underneath it all he liked her, she had a firm certainty to her, unlike his mother who was a mass of hesitancy and dissatisfaction.“You’re a quiet sort, aren’t you?” she said.Ralph felt rather put out, “Not really,” he said a little coldly.“Oh, I just mean, that you’re not always talking, you know. Trying to fill gaps.” She looked at him. “You like to keep things private. I don’t mind.”“You’re assuming that I must have lots to hide. It’s all very dull and boring, I can assure you.” He tried his charming smile on her, but it came out a little uncertainly. “You and James,” said Ralph, trying to take control, “It must be a bit awkward.”“Why?” She looked slightly puzzled and pulled herself up, her chin resting on her knees, her hair falling along her legs in long wet trails.“Well,” Ralph pursued, “being thrown together, having to play happy families,” which was not at all what he meant.“No, not really, we’ve known each other for years. And, well, there’s never been anything like that.”“Oh?” Ralph, surprised that she had gleaned his meaning, fought the urge to sit up and reach for his tobacco.“No, you won’t find that James is like that.” She looked down at Ralph curiously for a moment. “He’s not like other boys.”“Isn’t he?” Ralph felt that he had been holding himself stiff and rigid under her gaze, of which he seemed to be always on the receiving end, never quite meeting her eye. He made himself relax and sit up. Determinedly, he extracted the tobacco and gestured to her.“Yes, thanks, if you’ll do it.” She looked at him again. “You know, sometimes, I think we’re all playing parts. Do you think it?”“Probably. I’m a dutiful son. What are you?”“Oh, I’d imagine that I’m good at playing a trouble-making little bitch, at home anyway,” she laughed, “I can’t see why I should be told what to do. But really, I just like to pretend it. I expect I shall end up marrying some nice stockbroker from Henley.” She smiled at him and Ralph thought again how easy it would all be if he could take her home, although she was not the type his mother would have picked.“And James?” Ralph kept his voice light and disinterested and looked down, intent on rolling the cigarette.“Oh, I think he likes to pretend that he’s a good boy and a chip off the old block. Though really, he’s nothing like his father.” She took the cigarette from him and lit it herself. “That’s his act. Or one of them.” She looked at Ralph again and this time he held her gaze. She laid a hand lightly on his arm. He flinched slightly, and she took it in and seemed to understand its implications. “Of course, I’m not saying,” she blew her smoke out in front of her so that she was temporarily veiled in it, “that he puts on an act, no, just that perhaps he’s not always what people want him to be.”Ralph was silent as James, wading through the deeper water, rose up through the shallows, pushed the wet weight of his hair back and walked towards them.The sky was a layered and hazy blue. Ralph looked to the side as James stretched out. He was used to the close proximity of many others at school and the enforced combination of segregation and enclosure. There was nothing he hadn’t seen in many forms in the school baths, changing rooms, in the dorms, and yet, he had never really looked.The very apparent physicality of another, was fascinating to him; the vulnerable flesh in the dip of the collar bone, the skin over a frame fragile-looking, despite the sun’s colouring it brown, the shape of a ribcage and hip bones clear beneath the slope of a stomach. The sun had caught James’ hair in certain strands and it lay bleached in parts and in sharp, wet clusters against the skin of his neck. Ralph watched as a rivulet of water made its way along his cheekbone and to the underside of his jaw. He looked away as James looked up. He couldn’t be sure. But suddenly, the strain of looking and not touching and of the uncertainty, made the tension in his body unbearable. He jumped up, suggesting a walk.James got up, “You don’t have to come, Elsa. We’ll go quite far up.” He gestured offhandedly further up the rock, seemingly out of reach.“Oh, right-oh.” They exchanged a rapid, barely perceptible look and she stretched out. James turned away and began to walk.They climbed, sometimes it was pleasant and slow, sometimes the gradient of the rocks made it an effort. In the distance the near-vertical, steeply sloping cliffs which were forbidding and inaccessible, loomed over them.The sun was high now, each of them carrying on a little stoically, sweat gathering translucently along their brows. They arrived at an area which was flatter. They were both breathing a little heavily and Ralph could feel his own blood pumping around his body and his heart in his chest.“Phew.” James wiped the sweat from his brow and pushed his hair away from his face. “Shall we stop for a breather?” He smiled over at Ralph.Ralph assented, reached for his tobacco and shared it out as they sat. The glare of the sun had obliterated any of its boundaries and the sky was simply a slash of brightness. On the horizon the sea merged in a milky haze with the air above it and the water seemed almost static in its tranquillity. But beneath the illusion of stillness, out of sight, it was stirred up and swirling.They sat quite close together as the flat platform was narrow. Ralph could feel, not quite the contact of skin against his own, for they were not touching, but the electric proximity of another.“Wouldn’t it be good, if there were only this?” James flung himself backwards against the rock, arms stretched behind his head and looked up past Ralph into the sky.Ralph looked down at him, “Hmmm,” he said noncommittally. He watched the rise and fall of James’s chest and the pulse in the hollow of his hip bone beating. He looked away quickly.“We’re going tomorrow. It’s a shame we couldn’t have met sooner,” said James.Ralph lit his cigarette slowly, “Oh, well,” blew his smoke out and said, “Where will you be going then, when you finish school?”“Oh, my old man’s got me going up to Oxford, reading Medicine. He did it and Grandfather before him. It’s a sort of family tradition.”“What if you didn’t make it? I mean, what if things didn’t go the way you’d hoped?” Ralph lay back too. “And, what if you shouldn’t want to do it?”“Oh, I want to and besides, they’d be an almighty row, I expect, if I chucked it. They’re some things that aren’t worth fighting over,” he said in a tone that perhaps suggested other things that could be. Ralph sat still. “And you?” he looked at Ralph, “D’you ever do things that you oughtn’t to?” His head was inclined slightly towards Ralph, his arm thrown over his eyes shielding them a little from the sun.Ralph looked at the outlines of his mouth and chin against the rock, a full lower lip, and a curved upper, defined, not faint and blurred like so many boys, “I think things. Whether I follow through or not is a debate I have with myself.”“You don’t give much away, do you?” James lay his head back and lit his cigarette, letting the smoke roll out of his mouth, inhaling it a little, so it hung in faint twists around his lips.Ralph looked down at him. “Oh? I should think I’m quite transparent. At least,” he paused, “at least, I don’t hide what I think.”“Don’t you?” For some reason, the exchange seemed oddly charged. There were undercurrents that Ralph couldn’t fathom. He looked at James who caught his eye but looked away.They lay in an awkward silence. James broke it by turning towards Ralph, “Well, if you could do anything, what would you do?”“Travel,” said Ralph without a pause. “I’d find a boat, work my passage somewhere.” He blew his smoke upwards and watched as it dissolved into the air. “I’d go far away.”“And never come back?” James gave him a look, partly ironic but also underneath it all, oddly direct.“Sometimes, I’m not sure there’s much to come back for.” Here he was telling someone, a stranger really, that he was in fact not particularly happy. Ralph was never very forthright about his family or life at home. Whatever he was or felt at home, never made it past the school gates, where he was Lanyon, and he knew, to a certain extent, the allure of the character he had created, part himself and part a composite of the others’ projections.James reached out and touched his hair. Ralph held himself rigid. All boundaries had been transgressed and blown, he wasn’t sure which way to lean but James’s hand came away, “Ash,” he said and blew it off his fingertips. If Ralph had been more knowing he would have wondered whether he was being played with, but he was not so well schooled and instead felt that perhaps, he was simply misreading signals.“You don’t have a girl here?” They held each other’s gaze for a few moments.“Not really my thing,” Ralph shrugged and looked down, examining the cigarette carefully.“No,” James seemed about to say more but he sat quietly instead. After a moment he said, “Shall we climb a little more or go back?”“We’d better go back. It’s late,” said Ralph reluctantly and caught a flicker in James’ eye. He felt frustrated. He had a sudden urge to be isolated and trapped here with him. They could stay, caught up in the nights approach, as fundamental to the world as the rock and the sea. He would not have to return home, there would be no explanations. But they both turned and continued the slow progression back down again.Below them, the jagged edges of rock reared in uneven formations, peaking sharply and creating crevices full of shadow. Partly because Ralph was preoccupied and partly because the path was steep and rough, he slipped. The fall was sudden and abrupt. He had enough time to put his hands out to stop himself careering too far but in doing so veered sideways and felt the impact of his forehead with the face of rock.“Good grief!” James had grabbed his arm to haul him back upwards and they stood staring at each other for a split second.Ralph felt the first throb of pain as the cut above his eyebrow rapidly began to bead with pinpricks of blood. He felt it cautiously with his fingertips and they came away with a smear. The cut was deep, enough to lift the skin in a triangular flap and carry on pooling blood that trickled along the side of his face. It was already spreading a blackish red along his temple and into his fair hair as he pushed it backwards.“Christ, does it hurt?” James asked. Ralph shook his head. “Liar.” He moved his hand to Ralph’s cut and touched it softly and then spat onto his fingers and pressed them to the wound. “It helps,” he said as Ralph looked at him strangely. “I’m going to be a doctor, remember?”They stood looking at each other. For a moment, Ralph felt as if there was nothing else that could be said. He didn’t want to speak. His mind was full of elevated ideals brought down to earth suddenly by the uncomfortable feeling of pressure in his body.
“You’ll have a scar.” James removed his fingers and wiped the blood onto his leg.“I shouldn’t mind it.” Ralph made a small movement but stopped.“Is there anything else you shouldn’t mind?” James leaned in slowly and Ralph felt the touch of his mouth and the taste of salt on his lips. His fingers moved over Ralph’s face, touching the fresh and tender wound and bringing them down to rest gently by the side of his mouth. Ralph could taste his own blood, mixed in with salt and saliva. His body, so unused to the touch of another, responded readily. He felt himself impelled towards James, the force between them a compulsion as physical as two magnets drawn together.“No, nothing,” he said and pressed his body against the other’s.This, he knew, is what he had been building towards, in the late night, lonely stirrings of his body, in his mind, in the thoughts which obsessed him. He felt now only that it had been obvious, born into him as certainly as the colour of his eyes or the texture of his hair, that this was what he was.He let his hands run along the muscled part of James’s back, resting lightly at first and then with more strength, finding the dip at the base of his spine and pressing his body towards him. He felt the sun on his face and the air filled with the heavy scent of pine sap, he felt James legs separating his, his thigh pushing against his hip and his own back scraped against the harsh rock.It was instinctive, to place his own hands low on James’s body, feel the tension in his own thighs and hold the other’s back as they pushed towards him, feeling the answering sensation in himself. He felt James’ mouth on his neck and then on his lips and in the taste each time, the mingling of blood and saliva.Everywhere he touched felt as if he were revealing something long buried beneath, like an unearthed treasure dragged suddenly to the air; the line of bone in James’s jaw, the feeling of his own fingers on the underside, touching his neck, the pulse beat in his throat, the sensation of his tongue in his mouth and the sinew and muscle beneath his flesh.Ralph felt aroused by the ache in his brow and the sharp piercing of the rock into his back was like his conscience intruding. But the pain was like half of an equation, and without it the pleasure would be unbalanced. He was elated and acknowledged the hand on him, where he had only allowed himself to go, as the consequence of all his equivocal yearnings. Perhaps it could have been anyone, maybe it was simply the collision of the heat, his loneliness and the hidden part of the rock that brought the moment into being. But it was also particularly James, the feel of his hair and the press of his body and the heat of his breath. Ralph closed his eyes and felt his hand guided and almost resisted it, for to allow himself to be directed was not in his nature. But there was something gratifying in the relinquishment of control. He gave in, the hand closed around his and moved down. Perhaps he had not allowed himself to imagine this, being with another and having the intimate parts of his body discovered and touching someone else in a way that confused his reading of the Phaedrus. But by letting himself give in to it, the moment of contact seemed both ancient and fundamental.Ralph moved around so that this time it was James who was being pushed backwards. He placed one hand flat against the rock and with the other still on James continued to move against him. Every time he looked down, he felt his head pulled upwards and kissed a little roughly. He felt himself building and the pressure of bodies against each other could only bring about one resolution. Nothing registered, nothing mattered but reaching the height. He bit down quite hard on James’ lip, barely able to control himself and felt the familiar surge, but this time it was different as all his senses were engaged.They stood for a while, breathing into each other, sweat running, until the pulsating between them faded away.In Ralph, the tension of the past year, of suspecting but never quite understanding his own nature, was released. Childhood was over, the mystery no longer hidden, the membrane ripped and dissolved. He stood, still smeared with blood across his lips and brow and smiled into James’ eyes. He sensed the atmosphere in the house as soon as he walked up the drive. The Tudor style Edwardian pile seemed to bristle with anticipation, it’s mock gables, a strict and newly painted monochrome, arched severely, the windows glinted with Jeyes cleaning fluid.He went in around the back hoping to slip into his bedroom unheeded, but his mother was in the kitchen.“Ralph, dear, your father’s been asking for you.”“Study?” Ralph tried to move past her quickly, with his head down, but she stopped him with a quick hand to his arm. Unused to her breaching the boundaries between them, he almost flinched.“Darling, don’t be cross with him. I couldn’t bear it. What with the Richardsons coming to tea.” She looked tremulous and timid. For a moment he wanted to push her away and yet also to embrace her, something he hadn’t done since early childhood. He moved his arm towards his hair instead, partially hiding the cut, letting hers fall as if by accident.“Should I be?” He turned away and was already walking down the corridor.“He’s just…” her voice faded away delicately behind him.Ralph knocked and opened the door to the study, where he found his father sitting at his large mahogany desk. He looked up and gestured to Ralph to come forward. He drummed on the table with his fingers. “The reading going well is it?”“Yes, sir.” Ralph waited.“All set for Cambridge? Only a year and a half to go, you know.”“I should hope so, sir.”“Good. Erm. Less play and more work.” He trailed off and seemed to be pondering a delicate question.“I don’t follow.”His father kept his voice even, but Ralph could sense him building towards something, “Well, I can’t see how you expect to get anywhere when all you do each day is make off down to the beach. We haven’t seen hide nor hair of you most of the holiday.” His father seemed to swell up a little, “Jeavons boy, now there’s a fellow. Can’t winkle him out to play. Damned fine broker he’ll make, too.”“I’m sure, sir.” Ralph found comfort in being polite. Previous conversations with his father along the same lines, had ended with Ralph’s nauseating sense of frustration and suppressed rage. This time the urge to punch something was curiously absent.
“But, well, I’d hate to think you’d wasted this summer.”“I’m sorry you feel that way, sir, but I can assure you that I haven’t wasted it.” He felt curiously light, free of limitation, as if he had been bound tightly and the bonds had been cut.“It’s all very well being out of doors,” his father continued, faltering in the face of such equanimity, “very healthy and all that, but well, well, just make sure you follow through. That’s all.”“Yes. I’m doing everything that needs doing, sir.” Ralph saw that his father looked slight and brittle. His pinched, thin face, lined with the inevitable disappointments and dissatisfactions of a marriage between an older bachelor and a foolish girl, seemed both poignant and pitiful. As an afterthought he added, “You know that I’m head prefect this year. I’d like to think that I’m worthy of the responsibility, sir.”“Hmmm, yes, glad to hear it.” His father pushed himself upright, with a little difficulty, and moved around the table, his face close to Ralph’s now. Ralph saw the thin skin stretched over angular bones, the eyes a pale and faded blue, a mirror held up to the future perhaps. But his father was staring at the raw cut above his eyebrow. “Whatever happened?”“Nothing, sir. Just a knock.”“You must let your mother see to it, boy,” he said a little gruffly, “And, well, good show, about school and all that.” He turned, and Ralph felt himself dismissed.His mother met him by the foot of the stairs. “Darling, all well? ““Yes thanks, Mother.” He stood awkwardly before her, looking down at her with more affection than he had felt for her of late. He felt himself cutting away from both his parents. They were old, almost in the past, they would exist, but they would never follow him into the areas where he must go. Looking at his mother’s upturned face, he felt suddenly that she was a silly woman, but underneath her weakness, he felt her inherent tenderness towards him. Ralph leant forward and kissed her cheek. She looked surprised and turned a little pink.“Oh, your face!” She exclaimed but he was already gone. “Look at them.” Lewis leant against the window and watched the swarm of new arrivals lugging their trunks across the quad, boaters either perfectly in place or slightly askew, depending on the sort of characters they were. A small group of twerps stood in silent awe as one of the housemasters, it looked like Stuart from this distance, dispensed wisdom and pamphlets. “Pathetic. Don’t know what’s worse, when they get fresh or when they hang around like blithering idiots.”Ralph, who had been seemingly engrossed in a sheaf of lists, lifted his head and gave the other a look. “Now, now, I’d expect we’d ought to give them a chance, innocent until proven guilty and all that.” He returned to his lists.“Ah, R.R Lanyon. Living up to head prefect material, as ever.” Treviss placed a hand portentously on Ralph’s shoulder and gave him a comically solemn look. Ralph liked Treviss. He let his hand lie there. Had it been anyone else he would have shaken it off. Anyone else would probably never have dared. “Good grief,” he said suddenly looking at Ralph’s eyebrow, “what the hell have you done to your face? Old man cut up a bit rough, did he?” He said the last part of this with a distinctly below stairs accent. It was a private joke between them, perhaps more appreciated by Treviss himself, that Lanyon’s people were not quite U and liked to hide it.“Oh, just a bit of trouble with a man about a dog…” Ralph didn’t look up and continued to examine the lists with interest.“Lanyon’s old man is rough, no cutting up about it.” Hunter swung his feet up on to the table. “Give us one of those little Turkish numbers, would you?” This directed at Treviss.“You’ll have to do it by the window.” Treviss pulled out the packet and threw it over.“Come on then, let’s have it, Lanyon.” Treviss turned back, perched on the table in front of him and looked down. “Bad vac?”“Oh, the worst. Though the thought of seeing you again kept me going.”“Ha, ha, funny.” Treviss pulled out his pipe and began loading it. “Now do tell. In fact, you look quite changed,” he peered at him, “good Lord, no? Really?” He sat back, “well, well,” he said and laughed.“Lanyon’s gone quite red.” said Hunter.“Oh, you’d know, Hunter. Or perhaps you wouldn’t.” Treviss shot him a look. Hunter looked indifferently up at the ceiling but shifted a little in his seat. The background noise of clattering cups and saucers had stopped. Hunter caught the eye of one of the junior boys cowering slightly in the corner. “Don’t look at me,” he said somewhat contradictorily. “Name?”“Simons, please, Hunter,” said the boy.“Well, what are you still doing in here? Eavesdropping? You’ve finished making the tea, haven’t you?”“No, please, Hunter, I-I mean, yes…”“Oh, for Christ’s sake, go on, get out.”Simons made for the door but found that, of course, Hunter’s legs were still slung across the table, barring his way. He stopped, paralysed by indecision, not daring to speak again but desperate to be away.“Oh, do give it a rest, Hunter. You’ll wear yourself out before the term’s even begun.” Ralph’s voice was crisp.Hunter blew smoke reflectively into the air but cast a glance across at Ralph and found himself at the receiving end of one of his straight looks. He lifted his legs up theatrically and dropped them onto the ground with a thud. Simons threw a worshipful look in Ralph’s direction and raced out.Ralph tossed down the lists and got up. “For God’s sake, Hunter, it reeks in here. At least do it by the window next time, there’s a good boy.” He flung open the casement and leant out, head against the stone mullions.A new term. He felt a pleasant sense of invigoration at the autumnal commotion of new arrivals, the mulched leaves and the peaty, smoky smell of an English winter approaching.
The ground-floor window of the prefects’ study was at the perfect level for yelling at dawdlers and stragglers. He watched for a while, the fluid movement of the boys across the quad. A large group was clattering across the flagstones. He could make out the one with the red hair in the middle, jostled a little on either side in an affectionate way. His friend had placed an arm over his shoulder and he let it lie there, comfortable and assured, talking, smiling at some comment or other. The boy passed quite near, still smiling and as he did so, looked up. They caught each other’s eyes and Ralph saw that his were a bright hazel. The boy looked away, the moment of connection was over quickly. Ralph turned back to the room and picked up the lists again.L.P Odell. Spud. No idea what his first name was, though being of Irish extraction the P was probably for Patrick.