No Angel (Spoils of Time 01) (48 page)

She kept saying that; putting it off. She felt she had to: although of course there was no reason why, really. It was only a lunch. A lunch to discuss all sorts of things. Publishing things. The launch of
Meridian
was timed for December, only a few months away. There really was quite a lot to think about, to arrange. Interviews with the literary papers, readings, meetings with the major bookshops. That was what she kept telling herself. And that self listened dutifully, then turned around and told her the actual truth: which was that lunch with Sebastian would lead not merely to a carefully planned publication of his book, but to an affair with him. There was no way she could avoid it: whichever path she took, whatever diversion she made, it would be there, confronting her. She was afraid of it, she shrank from it indeed; and yet, she felt, against her will, a hastening towards it, a growing impatience now to let it begin.

‘Now,’ she said, ‘if you’ve come about the proofs—’

‘I haven’t come about anything,’ he said, ‘as you very well know. Except to see you.’

‘Sebastian, I’m very busy. I really can’t go out to lunch with you today.’

‘What about tomorrow?’

‘No. I won’t be here tomorrow.’

‘Where are you going? Lunching with someone else, I suppose. Tell me who it is, so that I can warn him of the dangers.’

‘I am lunching with someone else, yes,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow is Saturday. It’s the Fourth of June at Eton. We’re all going.’

‘How charming. Even the twins?’

‘Of course the twins. They’re wild with excitement. They have new dresses and coats and hats for the occasion.’

‘And do you have a new dress and coat and hat?’

‘Of course.’

‘Well,’ he said with a sigh, ‘I shall just have to contain my impatience. But that particular dress is just made to go for lunch. In the garden.’

‘The garden?’

‘Yes. Of my house in Primrose Hill. I’m still waiting to show it to you. I hope you haven’t forgotten.’

‘I haven’t forgotten,’ she said, ‘but—’

‘Yes?’

‘Sebastian—’

‘Yes, Celia. Ah. Oliver good morning. I just came in to pick up my proofs. I have to leave now. Perhaps we could dine one night, discuss the publication details.’

‘Yes,’ said Oliver, ‘yes, that would be delightful. Celia, we have to do something about these jackets—’

‘He seems to spend a lot of time here,’ said Oliver when Sebastian had gone.

‘Does he?’ she said, ‘I really hadn’t noticed.’

Giles was looking forward with something close to longing to seeing his family the next day. Even the twins. The twins were, in any case, much more bearable now. Not exactly sensible, but not so silly. And very pretty. It was nice to have pretty sisters, even if they were only nine. And it would be lovely to see Barty. She was getting really pretty now too. All that curly brown hair. And he liked her voice, sounding a bit as if she had a sore throat.

He was actually, and greatly to his surprise and relief, quite happy at Eton. It would have been much nicer to be at home; but compared with the early days at St Christopher’s it was heaven. One of the best things was having his own room, tiny as it was, with a bed that folded up against the wall, and its own small grate, bookcase and writing desk. Even the housemaster had to knock before entering. You couldn’t help feeling grown-up. And then the boys were all addressed as ‘Gentlemen’. As in ‘Gentlemen may wear half change (which meant a tweed jacket) after twelve’, or, ‘Several gentlemen have left their umbrellas in Chapel’. That made him feel really grown-up too. Grown up and important. He didn’t even mind the clothes: he was tall, and knew they suited him. The first time he surveyed himself in the mirror wearing the striped trousers, tail coat and top hat, he felt quite different suddenly.

The food was horrible; but then it had been at St Christopher’s. That was part of school life, although it was rumoured that when a boy had committed suicide recently at Eton, and when the housemaster had asked if anyone could throw any light on it, someone had said, ‘Please sir, could it be anything to do with the food?’ Tea was the best meal; you could cook it yourself, fried eggs, sausages, bacon, and, of course, toast, made at your own fire. The richer boys – Giles was not among them – ordered things like grouse and pheasant from Rowlands, the official café in the town. Of course you also had to cook for your fag-master, who came from the elite Library body, a group of senior boys; this could be arduous, but Giles was lucky again, as he had certainly not been at St Christopher’s and had a pretty nice fag-master. His best friend, Willoughby, who had been at St. Christopher’s with him, had a ghastly one; he was beaten constantly, usually in the presence of the head of house. There was nothing to be done about it, they both knew that; it was simply what happened.

The other thing which simply happened was harder to bear than the beating. Something that Giles had been warned about in the most veiled and peculiar terms when he had been about to leave St Christopher’s, something that many fathers (although most assuredly not Oliver) had also hinted at, something that Willoughby suffered a great deal, and that Giles had so far escaped. Willoughby was small and blond and slightly girly-looking. After a very few days his fag-master, who was also a member of Pop – the society composed of the most exceptional and outrageous boys in the school – called him to his study, locked the door, and told him to pull his trousers down. Fearing yet another beating, Willoughby did so resignedly; what followed was far worse. Giles listened to the details, whispered to him behind his own locked door, with sympathetic distress.

‘But why?’ he kept saying, ‘why should they want to do that?’ Willoughby said he didn’t quite know, but they seemed to get a lot of pleasure from it. ‘It hurts,’ he said to Giles, ‘it really hurts,’ and started to cry.

Giles was deeply distressed, but knew there was nothing to be done about it, no one to complain to; he had already learned from his fag-master amongst others – that such things were part of the ethos of the school, and masters as well as boys were involved in it.

So far Giles had escaped, although he knew he was in the minority; the only encounter of a sexual nature he had had was with his housemaster, who insisted on the whole house being regularly inspected, naked.

‘We have to make sure you don’t have venereal disease,’ he said; ‘come on, boy, let’s have a look at you.’ Giles, who had no clear idea what venereal disease was, but could only suppose it was something extremely dangerous, submitted to some minor intimacies without complaint, and was grateful it wasn’t any worse.

His prowess on the athletics field was of no immediate use to him, but he was very strong, and much better co-ordinated than he had been. He was developing a modestly good bowling technique, and running fast was an indubitable advantage on the cricket pitch. He knew he would probably never be in the first eleven, but he played for his house junior team and enjoyed it; and he was enjoying, too, the academic facilities at Eton, its superb classical traditions, and the extravagances and eccentricities of the various beaks or masters. The standard was set by the headmaster, Dr Allington, who stalked about the school, wearing an overcoat made of polar bear skin, and preached such superb sermons that people actually looked forward to going to chapel. Then there was CO Beaven, who drank a thimbleful of iodine before Early School, the lesson which took place before breakfast; John Christie who taught theoretical science, without appearing to know a great deal about it, and took Early School in his dressing-gown. Giles particularly admired Jack Upcott, who taught Elizabethan history, and who was famous for saying that he would forgive any boy anything if he could make him laugh. Giles had no talent at all in that direction, but he found echoes of both his mother and his grandmother in Dr Upcott, something to do with a regard for any kind of excellence, and the view that it excused all manner of other things.

They all arrived at noon at Agar’s Plough, in the new Rolls; the twins, in pale blue coats and shoes and flower-trimmed straw bonnets, fell out and rushed at him, Barty followed more slowly, smiling shyly. Then came his Uncle Jack, who said he’d been unable to resist and hoped Giles wouldn’t mind his being there – which of course he didn’t; he liked Jack a lot, he was always good fun, and full of stories about his own schooldays at Wellington and the terrible scrapes he had got into. And then his mother, looking staggeringly beautiful in a straight, dark blue dress in sort of shiny material, with a loose tie round the neck, and her dark hair cut much shorter, half hidden by a white hat with an enormous drooping brim and wide ribbon. Barty whispered to him that it was from somewhere called Chanel.

‘It only arrived last night; she’s very pleased with it.’

He saw a lot of the boys staring at her as she kissed him and felt very proud; most of the other mothers looked much older than she did, and wore baggy dresses, with shawls and furs round their shoulders.

‘Hallo Giles, old man. How are you?’

It was his father: looking stronger than he had done, but very thin still, and dreadfully pale. His hair was almost completely grey; Giles thought of that morning when they had all waved him off to the war, so tall and upright in his uniform, his thick fair hair shining in the sunlight as he removed his hat and bent to kiss his mother, and thought how very much for the worse he had changed.

‘I’m very well, sir thank you. It’s good to see you. Do you want to watch the match?’ The school was playing the Old Boys at cricket.

‘Oh – not sure. What do you think, Celia?’

‘Of course we do. I adore watching cricket. I was a frightfully good bowler myself once. Let’s find a nice place to settle and enjoy ourselves. Giles, my darling, you must have grown a foot at least, and I love the buttonhole. I remember my brothers, there were three of them here at any given time for years you know, they all wore different colours.’

It was a wonderful day; Celia had organised a superb picnic, cold chicken, pheasant and salmon, salad, tiny fruit tarts, fruit salad, a platter of wonderful cheeses, and of course, champagne. And lemonade for the children but they were also, apart from the twins, allowed a small glass of the champagne. Barty didn’t like hers; slipped it to Giles.

Half-way through lunch, a bus arrived, bearing a lot of old Etonians from Oxford, followed by another from Cambridge, all making a great deal of noise. Pretty girls wandered about kissing everyone – Jack seemed to think he knew a large number of them and kept bringing them over to the picnic for champagne, to try to establish exactly how – the sun shone most wonderfully, and the band played. Giles sneaked a third glass of champagne, actually belonging to his mother, who spent most of the meal jumping up to run over to this or that person to greet them; by the time they tripped over to the riverbank to watch the procession of boats, and listen to the strains of the Eton boat song, he was feeling very dizzy. Watching the boys stand up rather unsteadily in their boats to raise their flower-trimmed hats in salute to Windsor and Eton, made him feel worse; he had to sit down rather abruptly. His father came over to him, sat down beside him, and smiled.

‘Bit too much of the bubbly eh? I didn’t think that last glass was a good idea.’

Giles grinned at him sheepishly. ‘It’s awfully nice, though.’

‘I know. It’s been a superb day hasn’t it? And it’s so nice to see you looking so happy. Enjoying it, aren’t you?’

‘Yes,’ said Giles, ‘I really am. It’s so different from St Christopher’s.’

‘You weren’t quite so happy there?’

‘Happy!’ said Giles, his tongue loosened by the champagne, ‘I was so miserable I couldn’t believe it.’

‘Oh now, it can’t have been that bad, surely.’

Giles felt irritated.

‘Father, it was dreadful. Honestly. I was terribly unhappy.’

‘Well it can’t have been too bad, or you would have told us,’ said Oliver.

‘I did tell you. Well I told Mother. You were away, of course.’

‘And what was so terrible?’

He still looked mildly amused. He’s patronising me, thought Giles. He felt angry suddenly, wanted to let his father know how bad it had been.

‘Well,’ he said slowly, ‘I was beaten. Nearly every day Not just by the masters, but the big boys. They called me horrible names. And they made me wear a nappy. And—’

‘A nappy! Why did you have to wear a nappy?’ said Oliver. For the first time he looked properly concerned.

‘Because they decided I should,’ said Giles simply, ‘they used to hold me down while they put it on. And then they all stared at my – well at me every morning when they took it off. And made jokes about it.’

‘And you didn’t tell any of the masters?’

‘Of course not. It would have made things worse.’

Oliver was silent. Then he said, ‘And you told your mother all this, did you?’

‘No not all of it. Of course. But I did say I was dreadfully miserable.’

‘And she didn’t try and find out why? What was going on?’

‘Well – no,’ Giles began to feel rather alarmed suddenly. He shouldn’t make too much of it; it was, after all, a long way in the past. ‘But you were going away to the war. And she was very busy, and—’

‘She didn’t suggest you talked to me?’

‘No. She said I wasn’t to, that you had enough to worry about. That people were making all kinds of sacrifices, dying in the war, that it wasn’t very important, me being miserable at school. I’m sure she was right in a way,’ he added carefully.

Oliver was silent for a long time. Then he said, ‘Well, I’m sorry, Giles. So very sorry. If I had known how bad it was, I would have considered it very important. Very important indeed.’

Celia sat and listened to Oliver as he castigated her for cruelty to Giles, for not informing him about his wretchedness, for not inquiring more closely into the reasons for his unhappiness, for not taking it up with the school. When he had finished she said simply, ‘I’m sorry, Oliver, very sorry that you should feel like that. As I said to Giles at the time, there was a great deal of suffering going on, both out in France and here at home.’