by H. S. Cross
Morgan longed for a cigarette. The idea of Spaulding with Rees was as distasteful as when Morgan first heard it, but now it possessed the weight of possibility. Rees and Spaulding were both in Burton-Lee’s House and both enjoyed their Housemaster’s good opinion. Spaulding’s athleticism drew his Housemaster’s loyalty, but Rees had attracted the Flea’s sympathies for reasons beyond Morgan’s grasp. Perhaps Burton knew Rees’s people.
But even if Spaulding and Rees could be linked through rumor and circumstance, a liaison between them was impossible if one remembered Burton’s particular vigilance against such things. How on earth could they have absconded together in the middle of the night?
Perhaps they had taken their leave for more wholesome purposes: drinking, for instance, cattle rustling, theft. Spaulding could have scouted the target in the afternoon—a nearby farm? the collection box of the church in Fridaythorpe?—and then conducted the burglary in the night, egged on by Revolting Rees.
A vision of Rees done for theft cheered Morgan considerably. How the mighty would fall, and how angry the Flea would be! S-K would have a coronary and dispose Rees in disgrace, perhaps after a public flogging. Such a sight would raise everyone’s spirits. There just remained the problem of Spaulding. Surely such a sportsman could be spared the ultimate penalty? Watching Spaulding undergo a public licking might prove delicious, but expulsion, no.
Another idea came to him then, not shimmering as brightly as the morning’s shimmering idea, but glowing like a bulb at the end of a corridor. It suggested a gentle course of action, and before any alarms could be raised, before the rest of his brain could resume its exhaustive and exhausting cogitation, Morgan’s feet had decamped the washroom and were carrying him across the cloisters to the classrooms. Avoiding the Latin room, they carried him upstairs, along the upper passage, and down the far stairs to Lockett-Egan’s English class, where reclined the Lower Sixth, dazed by torpor, kept just awake by their master’s dynamic reading of …
—Two vast and trunkless legs—
—Pardon me, sir, Morgan said from the door.
Lockett-Egan paused as if hoping for reprieve.
—The Head to see Spaulding, please.
So many exorbitant things turned out to be breathtakingly simple once you did them.
12
Spaulding was pale. Morgan led him through the cloisters, and at the turn to the Head’s house, he took Spaulding’s sleeve and pulled him through chapel doors, up stone steps, and along the darkened passage to the old chamber.
—What’s the idea? Spaulding protested at last.
Morgan lit a match before the panel’s keyhole. His hands at least had not forgotten the place. His knife sprang the lock, and the door to the Hermes Balcony opened.
Simple, breathtaking, once done. He stepped inside that aerie, its clutter of broken chairs undisturbed since his youth, its only light blue through stained glass, its view inside the chapel silent as ever, that secret perch where Morgan had sought refuge, where Hermes had stashed wishes, where—
—You’d better have a bloody good explanation.
Spaulding squeezed through the panel, blowing dust and every qualm away. New presence, new air. Two bodies side by side breathing in and out.
—No one comes here, Morgan said. Not even Pearl and Lydon.
Spaulding peered over the rail; a candle was glowing in a red glass far away.
—You’re in danger, Morgan whispered, more than you think.
Spaulding caught his breath.
—They’re onto Rees, Morgan said.
A flinch, like disbelief and fright.
—They don’t know about you yet, Morgan said, but they will.
In a burst of motion, Spaulding kicked the railing, and the sound echoed through the chapel.
—It’s finished anyhow, he said.
—Yesterday?
Spaulding nodded. Morgan longed to press his hand against Spaulding’s chest and feel his heart pound.
—And last night?
Spaulding recoiled.
—You were on the road, Morgan said. You climbed in the—
—Was that you?
—You locked me out!
Spaulding froze, as if putting several things together.
—Sorry, he said.
—So the least you can do is give me an explanation.
Spaulding turned his gaze upon him. Morgan barely suppressed the urge to laugh.
—Was it burglary?
—What do you take me for?
—What then?
—You know what.
Morgan’s heart beat in his cheeks. Here was admission: bald, impossible, true.
—But, Rees…?
—I’m not going to explain, Spaulding said.
—Where did you go last night?
—Where did you go?
A tantalizing standoff. If only it could last …
—Ran away, Morgan said. Came back.
Spaulding scrutinized him.
—Quid pro quo, Morgan insisted.
He sat down on the floor and leaned against the paneling to illustrate resolve, and leisure. They could stay there all afternoon. No one would find them. Unaccounted time lapped about them, silence to be filled, air to breathe. Morgan licked his lips. Spaulding looked away:
—If you must know, we were at McKay’s barn.
Morgan’s arm twinged. Farmer McKay kept a ramshackle barn on the other side of Abbot’s Common. Morgan had been there once with Laurie and Nathan, but Nathan thought the structure unsound, and Laurie objected to the smell. The place had a sad, reduced appearance that indicated sons lost to war, leaving an aging man with no one to care for his property and no hope for his future. The barn itself ought to have been torn down years before, Nathan had said, but evidently Farmer McKay could not be bothered demolishing it, allowing it instead to die the slow death of atrophy, planks slowly rotting, hay turning gradually to dust.
—Why go there? Morgan asked. It’s grim.
Spaulding unbuttoned his jacket:
—Far enough not to be disturbed.
—And just what needed so much undisturbing?
Spaulding sat down and leaned against an old, broken chair.
—What do you think, Wilberforce?
His ears flushed. Spaulding had never before addressed him by name.
—Spaulding?
—What?
—What is it about Rees?
The question fell between them. Spaulding dropped his head onto his arms but did not answer. An idea came to Morgan, as logical as it was shocking:
—Don’t tell me he’s your first.
Head still on his arms, Spaulding did not protest. Morgan leaned forward and let his knee touch Spaulding’s gray trousers.
—Is it true what people say about him?
Spaulding didn’t move:
—Which part?
—The part that’s hard to believe.
—If you mean Nell Gwynn, then yes.
Rees?
—In your House, or beyond?
—It’s a nuisance outside the House, he says.
Preposterous!
—But how did he…?
—Wilberforce, Spaulding said languidly, don’t be prurient.
Morgan thought of Accounting, of the things Silk had taught him and the methods he had used. He leaned back as Spaulding was, allowing more of his leg to lie beside Spaulding’s, setting his hand on the floorboards beside Spaulding’s hands, not touching, not quite.
—How long?
Spaulding grunted:
—I can’t begin to imagine where you get your nerve.
Morgan craved a cigarette but did not dare to light one above the chapel. Instead, he played idly with the matches from his pocket. As if in response, Spaulding produced a crushed packet and offered it to him.
If Spaulding proposed smoking, Morgan would smoke, whether overlooking chapel altar or S-K’s very bedchamber.
They passed it between them. Morgan’
s fingers brushed Spaulding’s. His lips touched where Spaulding’s had. They inhaled the same smoke through the same leaves and paper.
Spaulding was different up close. He seemed more human, though not entirely mortal. Spaulding possessed something ordinary people could never possess, and that something drew people to him. Here in the Hermes Balcony, distant outpost of Olympus, Morgan sat side by side with him and passed the dwindling cigarette back and forth as if such things were natural.
—Spaulding?
—Mmm?
As if they’d been friends for ages. As if sounds could replace words between them. Morgan allowed the sole of his shoe to rest against Spaulding’s ankle.
—Did anyone see you, Morgan asked, coming or going last night?
—Only you.
—What about the fags?
—What about the brutes?
—Did you…?
—See them wrecking doors and stealing canes? No, unfortunately. Wouldn’t mind giving a few of them a good kick where it hurts.
—Are yours as bad as ours?
Spaulding grimaced:
—I don’t think any are as bad as yours.
A bleakness amidst it all, that even Spaulding knew the anarchy of Alex and his cadre.
—Spaulding?
—That’s what they call me.
—What else do they call you?
—I don’t think it bears repeating.
—I’m Morgan.
—I know, Spaulding said. I’m Charles.
Charles. Morgan’s uncle’s name was Charles. Until this moment, Charles had been a round, traditional type of name. Now it emitted electricity like a poorly wired lamp.
—How do you know? Morgan asked.
Christian names were reserved for intimates; displaying interest in another boy’s Christian name was not done.
—Do you imagine you’re the only one? Spaulding said.
—Only one?
—The only one who likes to find things out.
Spaulding liked to find things out? Find things out about people, up to and including Morgan. Find things out up to and including his Christian name, which could mean a myriad of things, up to and including the desire to seduce him.
And here was Spaulding, pinching out the end of their shared cigarette, content to be kidnapped from lessons and to lounge in a balcony with Morgan, with whom he had previously exchanged but a few sentences.
—I suppose the others know, Morgan said.
—The others?
—Bux and Ledge and the rest. They never leave your side. You must have told them about Rees.
—Wrong, Spaulding said.
—Which part?
Spaulding turned to face him:
—No one knows, and I’d like to keep it that way.
—Then why tell me?
—For heaven’s sake, Wilberforce, why do you think?
Spaulding licked the tip of the cigarette and placed it in the lining of his jacket. With equal deliberation he reached over with his free hand, felt for the buttons of Morgan’s trousers, and began to work them open.
A flood of heat. His cock filled as it had beneath Silk’s hand, but quicker, instant. Spaulding still reclined against the broken chairs, his left hand tucking away the cigarette packet, his right idly loosening Morgan’s flies, his eyes gazing up at the ceiling, as if they were counting constellations together. Soon Spaulding’s hand had gained admittance not only to his trousers, but to his pants, and with cold fingers was grasping him. Morgan inhaled, taken by the rough and chill, intent on not letting himself go.
Morgan unfastened his trousers the rest of the way and then reached over and unbuttoned Spaulding. It was happening. Everywhere, now, here. Spaulding was looking at him and touching him and breathing on him, and everything, everything—
A bell clanged. Spaulding leapt.
—Stay, Morgan whispered. They’ll … we can …
—Don’t be stupid, Wilberforce.
Spaulding pulled away, got up, buttoned himself.
—I assume S-K didn’t really ask for me.
He spoke as if in the quad, not meeting Morgan’s eye. Morgan still throbbed. Spaulding took his silence as reply. He dusted his clothing, pushed open the panel, and ducked into the passage.
—Charles?
Spaulding stopped but did not turn back.
—Do you fancy Rees? Really?
Spaulding’s shoulders, so square a moment before, sagged.
—You can’t make me rubbish him.
—I’m only trying to understand.
—No, you aren’t, Spaulding said.
Morgan adjusted his clothing.
—Don’t go back to that barn, he pleaded. It’s ghastly.
—I have to.
—Why? You said it was finished. Is he blackmailing you?
—No one blackmails me.
Morgan stepped into the corridor and blocked Spaulding’s path.
—If you say you have to, it means you don’t want to. So why do it?
Spaulding moved Morgan’s arm as if pushing aside a toll barrier.
—Perhaps I feel sorry for him.
He stepped past Morgan and down the passage.
—Don’t you feel sorry for me? Morgan called.
—No.
Spaulding hurried down the stairs and disappeared into the crowd. Morgan followed, frustrated and unsteady. Spaulding had been seduced by Rees, the lowest of the low. Not only seduced, but turned. The incandescent Spaulding, who could have found eager welcome in any boxroom of the school, had lost sleep to trek out to McKay’s barn, sordid, incommodious, foul. Spaulding had foundered even by his own admission. Exceedingly desired, exceedingly weak, Spaulding was almost too much to bear.
As if at gunpoint, Morgan forced himself to join the anonymous throng. How long could the day continue this-wise: formless, boundless, insanity-fueled? When he had arrived at the Academy—lifetimes ago?—he had felt imprisoned by the timetable, suffocated by the impossibility of a moment alone. The timetable hadn’t altered since then, but its grip had grown weak, like failed elastic bands around the knee stockings he had worn when small. The Academy’s edicts no longer bound him. If he chose to go somewhere besides lessons, he could. If he wished private audience with Rees, for instance, he could delay entrance to Chemistry and summon him as he had summoned Spaulding. If he wished to return to the Hermes Balcony alone, to sleep, to ponder, to exercise himself, for whatever purpose, he had only to go there now. In the confusion of this day, he could explain any absence. And if someone were to take exception, what recourse would they have? They could take the stick to him, but he knew, as every one of his masters knew, that such a maneuver would provide no deterrent, to Morgan or anyone, and would merely earn Morgan’s exhausted scorn. As last resort, they could send him to S-K, but S-K could do no more than deliver a stale, years-old harangue, as he had already done that morning. Morgan was free to do as he pleased, more free than pupils of the scarf-dancing girls’ school he had conjured to insult Alex’s revolutionary ambitions. The airy-fairy girls would be bound at least by a fear of offending one another, or by a desire to please their bride-of-Lenin mistresses. No such concerns bound him.
Lacking a more original idea, Morgan trudged to REN’s classroom. He sank down between Laurie and Nathan, uninterested in their glances. REN swept into the room and fiddled with the pole, moving slabs of blackboard up and down until he achieved a pleasing arrangement. Muttering to himself, he leafed through some decrepit tome and then shouted at them to begin taking notes. With a desultory movement they scrounged exercise books—their own or others, it scarcely mattered—and began sketching in vague correspondence with REN’s remarks, which he recited loudly, only occasionally raising his eyes to ensure mayhem had not taken hold of the room.
Morgan lowered his head, suddenly dizzy with fatigue. The fabric of his jacket cushioned his cheek like the firm, outsize pillows they’d once had at Longmere. A busy corner of his mind attempted to record the
various hours since he had last slept properly, where he had been during those hours, what had occurred between the tollings of clocks, and what he had learned about the matters of the age, about the fags and their rebellion, about the War, about Silk and Gallowhill, and then his mother was clutching him between her knees to towel his head dry, and back in the dorm, just as they were rising in the dark of morning, one of the fags, the youngest and smallest, like Laurie when they had first come, this boy stood in the niche by the washroom, stood there in nightgown and bare feet, bursting into tears, plaintive and forceful, and Morgan went to him to find out what was so very much the matter, and the boy cried out, Mr. Grieves! This boy had seen Mr. Grieves’s dreams and he knew the awful secrets that tormented his heart. Poor Mr. Grieves! This boy mourned for him, and suddenly Morgan did, too, his heart straining for Mr. Grieves, whose sorrows were known only by this boy and by Morgan, who had known them already, who had in fact been watching out for Mr. Grieves, who even now longed to take from Mr. Grieves those things that seared him—the whole slew of unsalvageable humanity—to relieve him of these sorrows he didn’t deserve, poor Mr. Grieves, secret Mr.—
—Oi.
Something poked his ribs and cut his shin. His eyes flashed open to see Nathan and Laurie staring at him, appalled. His lungs heaved. He was sobbing out of his dream, though the reason for it had evaporated. He swallowed, and scraped face against sleeve, subduing his renegade eyes.
13
No learning would occur that day. In cynical mode, John might argue that learning scarcely occurred any day, but he reined himself in. Gallows humor was one thing, nihilism another.
Powerless before the lunacy that ruled the East Riding of Yorkshire, John rallied to carry on. He would continue, just as he continued in that gray Saffron Walden Meeting House to wait on the light, season upon season, year upon year. The light might fail to shine upon him or within him. God might decline to speak to him or through him. The Holy Spirit might conceal its influence from his eyes. Yet despite everything, everything before and everything yet to come, he resisted the sin of despair. His heart might long to despair, but his will refused it satisfaction. Others had suffered as he never would, and still they maintained their zeal. They worshipped in the catacombs of Macedonia, in Japan while outwardly denying it, under lash, under fire, they praised their maker and redeemer. Under the circumstances—these or any—John knew no justification for abandoning hope.
