Adam: A Sensuous Coming of Age Tale (15 page)

The vet
– it was the young assistant who came to the door – seemed taken aback to see them, a reaction in sharp contrast to that of the farmer who had given them a lift. In fact, Adam thought later, his face had registered something close to alarm. ‘You’d better come in,’ he said, when Sylvain explained what they had come about.

Once inside, he was thoroughly businesslike and without fuss examined the damaged wing.
He was a good-looking man, Adam noticed. He was beginning to show a few grey hairs at the temples, it was true, but he had a sensitive face and hands. While Sylvain held the buzzard’s head and legs he felt carefully at the damaged wing. ‘ I think we may be lucky,’ he said coolly. ‘ If I’m not mistaken it’s a simple long-bone fracture. The radius in the fore-wing. There are two bones there and the other one, the ulna, will work as a kind of splint provided we help in along a bit.’

He left the bird in Sylvain’s hands while he went to fetch some simple bits and pieces.
There was a plaster-impregnated tape which he moistened and then wound around the bird’s lower wing. Then he folded the bad wing tight against the bird’s body and wound a bandage round both wing and bird. Finally he found – remarkably, Adam thought – exactly the kind of leather hood that Sylvain had wished for up on the heights and slipped it over the bird’s head. To Adam’s mortification he held the now redundant but still wet handkerchief out towards both Sylvain and himself, wordlessly inviting one of them to claim it. ‘ It’s mine,’ said Adam and felt himself turning red as he held out his hand to take it. Sylvain could not suppress a smile as the thing changed hands. He had been carrying out his ancillary role, all this time, in a manner that looked almost as professional as the vet’s. There were other skills, thought Adam, besides playing the cello.

‘
I’ve got cages at the back,’ the vet said when he’d finished. ‘I’ll keep him in one of those.’ He seemed more relaxed with them now, though his manner was still businesslike and his voice serious. ‘ He’ll have to have the hood on most of the time, of course. It’ll be about ten days.’ He paused. ‘Well then, so who’s going to volunteer to feed him?’

‘
We hadn’t thought …’ began Adam.

‘
Frankly, I should be charging you four hundred francs just for setting the wing.’ The vet sounded peeved.

‘
It’s not our buzzard, though,’ protested Sylvain.

‘
I fully realise that. But this practice isn’t meant for everyone to bring in every lame wild bird they find. Surgery time costs money. I don’t just mean me. There’s more important work to do, that’s all. OK. I’m not going to charge you.’ He smiled at Adam as though for practice and then for rather longer at Sylvain. It struck Adam as a very gentle smile, quite at odds with his demeanour up to now. The word that came to Adam’s mind was … tender.

‘
That’s decent,’ mumbled Sylvain gruffly. ‘ And we’ll come and feed it if you like. Every day. Satisfied?’

‘
Can you get dead mice? Chicks too, if there are any.’

‘
Won’t raw liver do?’ Sylvain argued.

‘
Not all the time. It needs something with feathers or fur on. Very fresh.’

‘
OK,’ said Sylvain. ‘ I’ll do my best.’ He grinned round at Adam then back at the vet. ‘Adam here’s a great mouser.’ It was the first time Adam had heard Sylvain make a joke.

‘
It’s a deal,’ said the vet. ‘Only,’ he adopted a weary tone, ‘please don’t bring me any more.’ He smiled again and gave a little chuckle that sounded almost sad. Then, to Adam’s great surprise he reached out a hand, not to shake Sylvain’s but to rumple his hair. Adam was even more surprised to see that Sylvain didn’t back away but bent his head towards the brief caress. It was only then that Adam realised who they had come to see.

Until now Adam had successfully concealed from his parents the nature of his long walks and bike rides. Occasional vague mumbles about meeting school friends here and there had helped prevent any parental unease developing over his spending such long days in totally solitary pursuits during the Easter holidays. But once the buzzard had become a fixture at the vet’s – not two kilometres from where his father worked – and visiting it occupied a regular slot in his daily schedule, he felt it prudent to divulge some part of the truth of the situation, pragmatically diluted with one or two unavoidable fibs. He said that he had been with Christophe when they found the buzzard, that a young man from one of the farms (no, he hadn’t caught his name) had stopped by and helped them get it to the vet’s, and that he would be going there once or twice over the next week or so to see how it was getting on, the young man from the farm having offered to help feed the creature. This story would serve quite well, he thought, should anyone spot him with Sylvain in the vicinity of the dam over the next ten days. The only thing that could blow a real hole in it would be if either of his parents ran into Christophe or his family and asked about it. On that score he would just have to keep his fingers crossed.

Fortunately Sylvain was as good as his word in supplying mice and chicks
– he had some help from the cats on his family’s farm – and even came up with the raw liver as well for the days when mice were unobtainable. Their daily schedule needed only minor adjustments: they would meet at the back of the vets’ surgery in St. Martin, feed the rather sulky captive, and then start their rural wanderings from there. Adam was relieved to find that their arrival in St. Martin usually coincided with the young vet’s absence on his rounds among the farms. His reason for this feeling of relief found its most succinct expression in the saying: two’s company. When they did meet him once or twice everyone behaved correctly. That is to say, they were polite and friendly but not too friendly. Their conversations were short and to the point. After a phrase or two about the weather they exchanged a few remarks about the progress of the bird and that was that. Adam did learn the vet’s name, though. It was Pierre. The three always shook hands formally on parting. Adam never saw him ruffle Sylvain’s hair again, but he made as sure as he reasonably could that he was always present at their meetings. They did, also, once or twice encounter the older vet, the occasional dinner party guest of Adam’s parents and then he was glad of the little tissue of half-truth he had woven for their benefit and peace of mind.

Their routines continued: their relaxed drinks beneath the Martini sunshade beside the stream in the haven of Noidant, their unrestrained lovemaking in the heart of nature with the glories of spring unfolding day by day around them. Adam found himself occasionally wondering about Sylvain and the vet and the buzzard.
‘ Don’t bring me any more,’ the vet had said. Was this because Adam had brought him wild birds before, the way a cat will bring wild things to its owner as a wordless expression of devotion? Could that be why the farmer who gave them the lift showed no sign of surprise at the nature of his sudden errand? And Adam realised that wonder was all he could ever do, that however well and however long he might know Sylvain, there would always be some questions that could not be asked, and their number might grow, not lessen, with time.

EIGHT

Adam was startled to find his mother energetically cleaning out a spare bedroom one evening and then going round the whole house with a vacuum-cleaner and as much cleansing, scouring energy as if a visit from the Pope were to be expected.
‘ You can’t have forgotten,’ she said in answer to his puzzled question. ‘Tomorrow’s the day Gary arrives.’

‘
Gary Blake?’ He had forgotten all about him.

‘
Sometimes I think you haven’t taken in a single word that’s been said to you all holiday,’ said Jennifer. ‘ I don’t know where your mind’s been all this time.’

‘
What time’s he coming?’ Adam tried to express a normal seeming degree of interest.

‘
Early afternoon, I think. Anyway, he’ll be here when you get back from school.’

Adam
’s jaw fell open.

‘
It’s the
rentrée
tomorrow,’ his mother reminded him teasingly. ‘Don’t say you’ve forgotten that as well.’

But he had.
Not only forgotten the start of the summer term but also managed to forget that it would ever start. He had projects to complete in geography, in physics and in
langues vivantes
. They were due to be submitted in the morning. He had not even begun. ‘ Oh my God,’ he said, and rushed headlong to his room.

‘
Don’t say ‘God’ like that,’ Jennifer’s voice floated up the stairs after him.

The return to school was a major upheaval at the best of times.
This time, having literally forgotten all about it – and being in the middle of the mightiest experience his emotions had ever engaged with – to say nothing of being expected by Sylvain tomorrow at the vet’s to witness the return to liberty of the buzzard patient, and not being able to tell Sylvain that he couldn’t make it, and uncertain how and when he could contact him again …

Adam
experienced this
rentrée
as an unprecedented clash of worlds, a collision of forces on a cosmic scale. In the safe privacy of his bedroom he first sat on his bed in silent trembling shock, too overcome with the surprise of what tomorrow signified even to cry. Then he composed himself and put his mind to the practical problem of his unstarted holiday projects for the school. There was no point even attempting anything tonight. Tomorrow he would have to beg for an extension, on bended knee if he had to. And after that he did the only thing he could think of that would give him any solace there and then. He picked up a biro and his
bloque-notes
and wrote a letter to Michael. The letter was long. It needed to be. It told of all his deeds with Sylvain and all of what he felt. Only afterwards, when his heart was safely sealed up in the envelope and he was in his bed, did the tears flow quietly down his face.

But the dreaded return to school the next morning proved unexpectedly painless.
Although he set off feeling like a soft-shelled prawn forced to swim through storm waves breaking onto rocks, so heightened was his sensitivity, his actual arrival presented him with nothing at all that was painful or fearsome. To his great surprise Thierry greeted him with unfeigned pleasure and seemed genuinely disappointed to have seen nothing of him over the holiday. He did not appear to remember – or at least chose not to – that they had quarrelled and come close to blows the last time they had met. Adam was learning the lesson that the things you said to people and regretted immediately afterwards were seldom remembered for as long or with such crystal clarity by the people they were addressed to as they were by yourself.

Christophe
too seemed to have forgotten how unpleasantly Adam had turned on him on the same occasion and met him with smiles. ‘You might have to cover a white lie of mine some time,’ Adam said to him. ‘About a buzzard. I’ll explain another time.’

‘
A buzzard? You’re crazy, Adam – though what’s new?
Ouais
. Just tell me what to say and who to. I’ll back you.’ Christophe laughed and their friendship seemed quite restored.

The unaccomplished holiday homework presented little difficulty either.
Adam was given a two-week extension for one task and a three-week respite in the case of the others. He received the strong impression that his teachers would have preferred it if he had forgotten about the projects entirely and it even crossed his mind that perhaps they had forgotten too.

Only one seismic change had occurred during the Easter break. Céline had met a man two years older than herself, the eldest son of a wealthy paper manufacturer and wildly handsome with it.
She would no longer be the focus of competitive strife among her male school-friends.

Adam
found himself slotting back into his French school for his third and last term with less difficulty even than he had at the start of his second. More than that, he found that he was now quite positively accepted by his peers. The holidays had transformed him, by some strange alchemy of time, from a weird foreign creature that represented some obscure threat into a new personage that, despite its funny accent, had something of luck and magic about it like a talisman. People who had never even looked in his direction, let alone spoken to him, were coming up and asking him how he was. There was talk of tennis games and summer evening barbecues. He was conscious of the irony that, just when his growing certainty about his sexual orientation was forcing him to see himself more and more clearly as an eternal outsider, his schoolmates were choosing this moment to open the gates, haul him in like a wooden horse of Troy and deck the city from end to end with festive greenery.

Not until he arrived home that evening
– driven in his mother’s car and fretting because he had found no way to contact Sylvain that day – did he give a thought to Gary Blake. But when they got in, there he was. From Jennifer’s talk of him Adam had expected him to be something of a drooping lily: someone in the Chopin mould, with sensitive features, delicate limbs and wearing a halo of melancholy. Adam was relieved to find the reality somewhat different. Gary was a trim, fit-looking man who positively radiated energy. Although some grey could be seen in his hair if one looked closely (Adam did) the general impression he gave was of someone rather more youthful than his mother and very much more so than Hugh. His bright brown eyes wore an amused twinkle that was perhaps a permanent feature; time would tell. He was not as tall as Adam, which came as a surprise. Adam was not yet used to the idea that adults might be smaller than he was. His growth-spurt had only begun during the last year and he had yet to catch up with its implications. He still had a perception of himself as a small, rather skinny boy, while the reality – which was what other people saw – had become something very different.