Bones of the Buried (2 page)

In his second ‘half’ at Eton, Oliver began to enjoy himself. In the way of small boys, he quickly forgot the misery of his first half, though he kept out of Hoden’s way as much
as possible. He even made a few friends and almost anything is bearable with a friend to commiserate with you. And Eton had a lot to offer. He took to the pleasures of the river and would take a
‘whiff’ upriver to Queen’s Eyot, a little island where he could eat sausage and mash, drink the weakest of beer and read. Reading was his chief pleasure. With books he could
escape to . . . to wherever he desired and he did still want to escape. He found too that he was musical and would spend hours in the music school trying to master the piano, with some success.

In fact, sex was the only thing which spoiled Oliver’s life – not his own feelings, which had not yet begun to trouble him, but he was bewildered and distressed by the attention of
some older boys. Hoden, in particular, would summon him to the library and maul him about until he wept, when he would be contemptuously dismissed. One afternoon – this was in the summer half
and the days were long and hot – he happened to be in the house instead of on the river. He had strained a muscle in his leg and had been told not to take out his whiff for a couple of days.
The dreaded cry of ‘boy’ sounded round the virtually empty building and, with a groan, Oliver left his book and ran to answer it. It did not cross his mind that he might safely ignore
the summons. When he arrived, he found he was the only boy to have answered the call and resigned himself to carrying some stupid message to another house or making some lazy senior a cup of
tea.

He knocked on the door and opened it when a hoarse voice shouted, ‘Come!’

He recognised the voice immediately as belonging to Hoden and his heart missed a beat. But, when he was in the room, he saw that Hoden’s friend, Tilney, was also there and his spirits rose
a little. Surely Hoden would not try anything on in this other boy’s presence. But he was wrong.

‘Ah, Federstein.’ Hoden took pleasure in making the name sound as foreign as possible. ‘You’ve come at last. My friend Tilney here doesn’t believe that you can act
but I heard you had a part in the school play – Shakespeare?’

‘Love’s Labour’s Lost
, but I’ve only a very small part, Hoden.

‘So I’ve always imagined,’ Hoden sniggered. ‘As a girl, I understand?’

‘Yes,’ said Oliver miserably.

‘Well, Tilney and I want to “hear your lines”. Isn’t that what thespians say?’

‘Oh, I . . . I don’t know them yet.’

‘Well, we’ll assist you.’

‘No, I can’t remember . . .’

‘I think it might help,’ Hoden said, ‘if you took off some of your clothes.’ He pretended to appeal to Tilney who was smirking uneasily at his friend’s teasing.
‘He can’t pretend to be a girl dressed in trousers, now can he, Tilney old man?’

‘I should say not,’ said the other boy as heartily as he could manage.

‘Take off your clothes, Federstein. We want to see if you’re a girl.’

‘No, please, Hoden, let me go, won’t you.’

Oliver was now very frightened. He was not physically brave and he was almost excessively modest. He hated undressing in the bathroom with other boys and one of the things he most appreciated
about Eton was that even ‘new boys’ had separate rooms and did not sleep in dormitories.

‘I won’t, Hoden. Tilney, tell him to leave me alone.’

‘Oh, let the little sod go,’ Tilney said lazily, but Hoden now had the taste of blood.

‘No, Tilney, this little Jewboy has to be taught a lesson. Here, help me take his trousers off so I can whack him.’

Reluctantly, Tilney got up from the sofa and seized hold of the wriggling boy as Hoden removed first his ‘bum-freezer’ jacket, and then his shirt. By this time Oliver was in tears
and, as Hoden began to tug frantically at the boy’s trousers, Tilney said, ‘I say, I think we ought to let the little tyke go.’

‘No fear,’ said Hoden, picking up a cane from the pile in the corner and striking at Oliver’s back. ‘Stand still, you malodorous animal, if you don’t want to get
badly hurt,’ he ordered, waving the cane over his head as if he were trying to swat a fly. Then he screamed. A lucky kick from Oliver’s flying heels had caught him on the shin.
‘That does it, Tilney, I’m going to show the little Jew what for.’

He raised the cane above his shoulder but, before he could strike, the library door opened and Stephen Thayer entered. He took in the scene at a glance. He strode over to Hoden and tore the cane
from his grasp. Without a word he swung it hard against Hoden’s cheek, raising a red weal as thick as the bamboo. Hoden screamed again and let go of Oliver who gathered up his clothes and
fled.

Oliver’s awe of Thayer was transformed in a moment to love. When several days later he met him as they were both taking boats off the racks, he tried to say something of what he felt.

‘Oh, Thayer, I wanted to thank you . . . but why are you going on the river? I thought you were a drybob.’

‘I am, but I like to scull when I have the time. And please – don’t thank me. I’ve told Hoden and Tilney if they ever come near you again I will have them sacked. I
don’t think they will try anything like that again but if they do – tell me.’

‘Oh, Thayer, thank you. I suppose there’s nothing I can do for you, is there?’

‘No, certainly not . . . though wait a minute.’ He pretended an idea had just struck him. ‘Isn’t your mater the film star, Dora Pale?’

Oliver blushed. ‘Oh yes, I’m sorry, Thayer. I keep it as quiet as I can.’

‘No, you silly beggar, you misunderstand me. I would like to meet her if that were possible. Does she ever come down to see you?’

‘No, I told her not to.’

‘Well then, ask her . . . to please me.’

‘Oh gosh . . . yes, Thayer, I will, but are you sure? You won’t . . . you won’t laugh?’

‘Oh no,’ Stephen said, ‘I won’t laugh.’

Her skin was almost translucent. ‘Pale, pale Dora, adorable Dora Pale,’ he murmured, turning over in bed to stroke her cheek. ‘You’re not asleep so why
pretend you are? Do you know you have freckles? Would you like me to lick them off for you?’

‘I do not have freckles,’ Dora said, her eyes still shut.

‘You do,’ he said stroking her stomach in the way he knew she liked.

‘You know, Stephen, you’re almost as good-looking as you think you are, but you’ve got a pimple coming just here,’ she pinched him quite hard on the cheek, ‘and
what does that tell us?’

‘Ouch, that hurt. So what does it tell us, mistress mine?’

‘It tells us, Master Thayer, that you are still a child and I don’t sleep with children.’

‘Oh but you do . . . frightfully well.’ He turned his handsome head to look at her and she met his stare unblinkingly. His eyes were black and lustrous and his eyebrows met above his
nose in a dramatic slash of black.

‘I do it “frightfully well”,’ she mocked. ‘Well, perhaps I do occasionally make exceptions. I like to think of myself as a teacher. Do you like me to teach
you?’

‘Extra-curricular coaching.’ He mouthed each syllable lovingly. ‘We call it extra work, you know.’

‘Huh! Extra work, you young . . . ah!’ He had touched her and she had responded as he knew she would. ‘Again, touch me there again. That’s . . . right. You’re a
good student and one day your wife will have cause to thank me. Wait!’ There was a knock on the door. ‘Be a good boy and open the door, Stephen. I ordered more champagne.’

He rolled out of bed, slung on a white bathrobe and went to the door and opened it.

‘Over there by the window . . .’ he began to say, and then stopped and wrapped the robe round him more tightly. ‘Oh, it’s you. What are you doing here? I thought you were
on the river.’

Oliver looked past his friend and mentor to the rumpled bed.

‘Who is it, darling?’ Dora said, raising her head a little off the pillow. Her eyes met those of her son which opened wider than might have been thought possible.

‘Oh Christ! Oliver, darling, it’s not what you think. We were just . . . we were just talking.’

The boy had still not said a word but his mouth hung open and the pupils of his eyes were dilated. He looked from his mother to his friend and back again. Then he turned and ran down the
corridor sobbing. Stephen, white-faced, turned to the woman in the bed who now seemed not the desirable sex siren he had just made love to so violently but a middle-aged woman with lines under her
eyes and bleached hair showing dark at the roots. ‘I’d better get dressed and go after him,’ he mumbled.

‘Oh Christ,’ she said again. ‘Oh Christ!’ Wearily, she let her head fall back upon the lipstick-stained pillow.

It was good to be home. Lord Edward Corinth lay in his bath splashing himself contentedly with an enormous yellow sponge. Now and again he put it on his head and let the water
dribble over his eyes and ears to lubricate his brain, which felt arid and infertile after the transatlantic crossing. He had disembarked from the
Normandie
at Southampton, along with the
other English passengers, at seven o’clock the previous morning, and reached his rooms in Albany six hours later. His man, Fenton had grilled him a chop, which he washed down with half a
bottle of Perrier-Jouet and then, overcome with lassitude, he had strolled round to the hammam in Jermyn Street. Steamed, scrubbed and massaged within an inch of his life, he had slept in his
cubicle for an hour. Then, feeling a little restored but as weak as a newborn lamb, he had tottered round to his club in St James’s. There, he hid himself away in a corner unable to face
social intercourse and had Barney, the smoking-room waiter, bring him potted shrimps, scrambled eggs, angels on horseback, along with a weak whisky and soda. After which he had snoozed in his chair
for half an hour and then crawled back home. He toyed with a pile of letters which lay on his desk but could not face opening any of them and was in bed not much after nine.

This morning he had awoken refreshed but still curiously reluctant to face the world, despite having looked forward for so long to seeing his old friends and revisiting old haunts. In the six
months he had been away, an era had ended with the death of the King on January 20th. The new King, Edward VIII, with his film-star good looks and easy charm, was hugely popular, to judge from what
he read in the papers, but he was mistrusted by the ‘old guard’ who suspected he lacked his father’s sense of duty. They did not like his friends either. In New York, Edward had
heard disquieting rumours concerning his lady friend, Mrs Simpson, a divorcée of dubious morals. It looked as though 1936 would prove to be an interesting year.

He submerged himself in the rapidly cooling water until only his aquiline nose showed above the surface like the periscope of a submarine. He suspected that Dr Freud, whose works he had been
perusing on the boat coming over, might mutter something to the effect that his bath provided a womb into which he could retreat when in need of comfort and reassurance, and it was true that just
the sight of this huge, ornate iron bath, standing foursquare in the centre of the room on massive gilt claws, had always aroused in him a most profound sense of well-being. The United States
– well, New York – seemed to assume its denizens preferred showering to lying in a soup of bath salts and soap, and the
Normandie
– beyond criticism in every other respect
– boasted baths which, to be enjoyed, demanded amputation at the knees. Luxurious though that great ship was, the next time he crossed the Atlantic he promised himself a berth on the
Queen
Mary
, which was about to set out on her maiden voyage. All the talk on the
Normandie
had been of this new Cunard liner whose launch demonstrated that the economic depression was at last
raising its dead hand from British industry. Among the passengers wagers were given and taken on whether or not it would wrest the Blue Riband from the
Normandie
which, ever since it had
made its first transatlantic crossing the previous year, had been hailed as a miracle of engineering and the acme of luxury.

Edward supposed the first-class passengers were, for the most part, good enough people but, to his jaundiced eye, they appeared a seedy set – American millionaires, their women decorated
like Christmas trees, and every kind of mountebank and charlatan. He recognised one South American card-sharp he had punched in the face on a railway train out of Valparaíso three years
before. Edward watched him playing poker with a Hollywood producer and his girlfriend and, as he was pondering whether or not to warn them that they were about to be fleeced, the man caught his eye
and had the gall to give him a wink. Edward supposed he ought to advise the company that there were sharks on board even if there were none in the ocean, but how to distinguish the predators from
their victims? He decided he did not care enough to work it out. One evening, at dinner in the art deco glory of the first-class Café Grill, a little actress, her hair unnaturally blonde and
her lips coated in vermilion – attached, he thought, to a German businessman of quite staggering corpulence – offered herself to him for dessert and he had suddenly felt disgusted with
himself and the company he was keeping.

Yes, it was good to be home. He loved New York. It invigorated him; the skyscrapers, the noise, the bustle, even the sight of the policemen, dressed up to look like postmen, gave him an
electrical charge. Each evening, as he walked down Fifth Avenue in the direction of Broadway, he found himself whistling. He had made a host of friends there. He had been elected an honorary member
of the Knickerbocker, the city’s most exclusive club, which he privately thought was even duller and more hidebound than the Athenaeum, but it was in the night-clubs, long after working New
Yorkers had taken to their beds, that he and Amy dined and danced till there was light in the sky. Amy Pageant, the girl on his arm, was Broadway’s newest, brightest star, and the couple had
been fêted in a manner which would have turned him into a conceited ass if he had not realised that their popularity, pleasant though it was, was so much hooey.