On Loving Josiah (23 page)

‘So do you think you could recognize the smell of a beech?’

‘We didn’t have a beech tree.’

‘But…’ began Thomas.

‘We moved house when I was about seven.’

‘But didn’t you smell things any more in your new garden?’

Josiah shrugged. ‘You know how it is, I felt too old to smell things.’

‘What a sophisticated seven-year-old you must have been. Well, I shall unsophisticate you. Here you are, Jo. A beech tree to dwarf even yours, I imagine, and one which existed well before any
botanical
garden was even conceived of.’

Josiah spontaneously thrust his hand into Thomas’ and was as much in awe of its hugeness and majesty as if he’d been a child of three.

‘As fine a tree as there is in the whole of Cambridge,’ agreed Thomas. ‘It’s a good metaphor, a tree, I’ve always thought. It is both moved by wind and storm, but nonetheless holds steadfast. The perfect stoic philosophy. Buddhists would have us stay out of the wind altogether, but how can you know anything of life if you simply hide yourself away? Or at least, hide your mind away, which is almost as cowardly. Some knowledge you can only experience.’

‘Well, then,’ said Josiah. ‘Excuse me while I experience it.’

And immediately Josiah took his hand away and lay down amongst the daffodils and bluebells beneath it. ‘Lie down with me,’ said Josiah.

And he said it in such a way that Thomas almost did, but he
pretended
not to have heard him.

‘The Romans, of course, loved beech trees. Beech trees featured in both the eclogues we read, of course. “
Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi,
” Tityrus, lying under the spreading beech…’

‘Was Tityrus gay, too?’

‘No, Tityrus wasn’t gay.’

‘Does our word “fag” come from “
fagus
”?’

Thomas laughed anxiously. ‘No, it doesn’t,’ he said.

‘Please come and lie next to me,’ Josiah pursued.

‘This is a
fagus sylvatica,
a woodland beech. Have you noticed how all the names of the plants are in Latin? That some are
fruticans
, others
fragrans
or even
fragrantissima
? Those Victorian botanists must have had a field day.’

‘Can’t you come here,’ yawned Josiah. ‘What is grass made for but to lie in?
Herba est iniacenda.
Grass ought to be lain on. Isn’t that right?’

So Thomas looked around him nervously and obeyed his pupil. ‘You’ve persuaded me,’ he said, sitting down stiffly on the grass about three feet away from Josiah.

But Josiah immediately rolled over the grass towards him and
took hold of his hand. ‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘Now, lie down and look up through the branches.’

Thomas did as he was told; after all, any passers-by would assume they were father and son.

‘Do you know,’ said Josiah, ‘I used to think I could talk to heaven lying under a tree. I would watch the movements of every branch, and imagined it was some kind of sign language. I just had to crack the code. But then I wondered if it wasn’t a language like ours at all, but a language which contained all languages, and was over and above them.’

‘I think you might be right,’ said Thomas. ‘Do you know about Plato?’

‘I don’t want to know about Plato. Not today,’ said the boy. Then he lay, if it was possible, even closer to his
magister.
‘I’ve often
wondered
whether buds are even more beautiful than the leaves which they promise. Look how sharp they are! They’re as sharp as needles, Tom, and bound so tightly. Then one day they’ll just burst and give birth, with leaves so fresh and green you could eat them.’

Thomas, aware that his body felt quite as tight as any bud, moved away, and said, ‘There’s a herb walk here, you know. I think I’m going to give you a test.’

‘A test?’ sighed Josiah.

‘Yes, I’m going to blindfold you with my scarf, and see whether your olfactory cells are as good as they once were.’ Thomas stood up, and part of him wished he hadn’t contrived his escape so soon.

‘Have you ever been completely in someone else’s power?’ asked Josiah, while he followed his master obediently whither he led him. Josiah was walking with eyes half closed, the sun warming his cheeks and eyelids. ‘I feel so loose today, like I’m all flesh and no bone. Have you ever felt like that?’ Thomas was dutifully pointing out the trees and shrubs as they passed them, and Josiah said, ‘It’s no good, I have no eyes today.’

‘Well, you don’t need eyes for the scent garden,’ said Thomas. ‘Now, I want to see how well you can smell – how old were you when your father used to blindfold you?’

‘He never did. He just told me to shut my eyes.’

‘I’m not sure I can trust you. I want to make absolutely sure you’re not sneaking a look at the labels. Here, stand still while I wind my scarf round your head.’

Now there really were onlookers: a mother with three young boys and two old ladies. But Josiah and Thomas were oblivious to them.

‘I’m going to steer you into the path. Are you ready, Josiah?’

‘I’m ready,’ said Josiah, passively.

But Thomas in his eagerness to begin let him trip on a large stone; Josiah fell but, happily, was caught. ‘I was right to trust you,’ said Josiah quietly.

‘Sorry about that,’ said Thomas brightly. ‘Now, we’re coming up to the first scent, are you ready?’

‘Jasmine,’ said Josiah.

‘That’s very good, very impressive. And now for some herbs.’

‘Rosemary.’

‘Well done!’

‘Mint.’

‘That was an easy one!’

‘Thyme.’

‘You’re very good at this, you know. You really are a gardener’s son. Now, thrust your nose into this.’ And Thomas took hold of his hand and took him to a tarragon bush. But when he looked round he saw that the boy had shrunk into himself, and his pretty face was all scrunched up; and when Thomas removed the scarf with a sense of urgency, as though it were suffocating him, he saw it was wet with tears.

‘Josiah,’ he said, gently, ‘tell me about your father.’

Josiah wiped his eyes roughly and stood up tall. ‘He wanted to come today,’ he said.

Thomas considered this, or tried to. But his overwhelming sense was of a man deceived, and he said, coldly, ‘No, Josiah, he didn’t want to come. He didn’t even know we were coming here. You didn’t know. I didn’t even know.’

Josiah was quiet. Thomas had an expression he hadn’t seen before, angry, unforgiving. Finally he said, with a trace of defiance, ‘It’s time I went home.’

‘You know what? I don’t even know where your home is. In fact, I don’t even know the first thing about you. For all I know, your name’s John and you fancied calling yourself after a Jewish King.’

‘You do know about me,’ said Josiah, the struggle between tears and no tears playing itself out over his face.

‘So why don’t you take me home with you?’

The boy stood there, sobbing, too vertical, his body begging to be taken hold of. Still, Thomas didn’t touch him.

‘Follow me, then,’ he said, suddenly turning away and running as fast as he could.

But Thomas stayed where he was.

Full term ended for Thomas, but Josiah’s was to continue for a further fortnight. Thomas was quite brazen now; every morning and afternoon he waited at his study window, and often didn’t get so much as a glimpse of the boy. And when he did, he neither smiled nor waved at him, as he used to do, but looked stern, like a captain on his ship. And when Josiah saw him standing there, he looked away and hid himself amongst throngs of schoolchildren.

But on the Saturday morning, when Josiah didn’t turn up for his Latin lesson, Thomas’ mood softened. He waited the whole weekend
for a knock at the door, and quite often he would randomly walk out onto the street to see if he could see him coming. And by the Monday afternoon, nine days after their confrontation in the
Botanical
Gardens, Thomas was quite determined to follow him home.

It was a game they were both happy to play, but it was a sad one. Josiah knew that Thomas was following him and let him: he was too listless to resist. Though occasionally, just to add interest, Josiah would pause on his journey to rip leaves from bushes, which he would tear in half and smell; but then, just as Thomas caught up with him and their eyes met, Josiah would accelerate away. When they eventually reached
The Hollies
Josiah neither talked to Thomas nor invited him in, but stood momentarily and tantalizingly in the doorway and shot Thomas a look which said
now you know and are you satisfied
? before turning away.

Thomas was not satisfied. For ten minutes or so he stood staring at the austere Victorian building and at all those who entered and left it. He watched while two thuggish older boys had their hands on the collar of a child about ten years old, pushing him along as though he were a shopping trolley; the child was giggling nervously. He watched as a young girl, plump, ugly and caked in make-up, left the house in a mini-skirt and see-through blouse and made her way to the bus stop. Three boys, all about twelve, left the house with handfuls of jam
sandwiches
and even seemed happy. He looked up at the large first floor windows, and the smaller windows under the roof, waiting even now for a wave or at least a glimpse of him. Wasn’t Josiah even curious to know if he was still waiting there? It seemed that he wasn’t.

By the time Thomas was in bed that night, a self-loathing had possessed him such as he had never known. His ignorance, his
brutality
, his lack of generosity; his lack of faith in a boy who was so good, so sensitive, so unutterably beautiful. He could not imagine how he might begin to make amends. So where were his parents? Were they alive or dead? Was the boy an orphan? If so, since when?

‘I am a clambering idiot,’ said Thomas, out loud. ‘No
punishment
is bad enough for me.’

There were a hundred scenarios Thomas tried out that night. He decided that Josiah’s mother was probably dead, and his father was probably alive. But whether he was mad, bad or simply incapable of looking after the boy, he hadn’t a clue. His mother was a classicist, his father, a gardener: he saw no reason why Josiah should lie about that. But then, how strange that they should ever have married! And wasn’t there a clue in that? And for a while it seemed perfectly clear to Thomas that Josiah’s father was serving life for the murder of his mother.

In the cold light of day Thomas decided to find out. His first instinct was to phone the Cambridge Registry of Births, Marriages and Deaths, but the question he might have put to them, namely, ‘Has a man called Nelson, a gardener in a Cambridge college, died in the last fifteen years?’, seemed risible. So his next project was to ring up the Social Services Department in Burleigh Street, and the receptionist asked him whom he wished to speak to.

‘I have an inquiry,’ he began.

‘Which area would this be?’ asked the receptionist.

‘It’s about a boy, Josiah Nelson.’

‘Where does he live?’

‘Cherry Hinton. In a Children’s Home,
The Hollies
.’

‘One moment. I’ll put you through.’

A moment was a minute. Thomas thought he’d been cut off and was about to try again, when a flat voice said:

‘June Briggs.’

‘Ah, hello,’ said Thomas.

‘Can I help?’

‘I want to make an inquiry concerning Josiah Nelson.’

‘And you are?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Thomas Marius.’

‘In what capacity are you inquiring?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘To what organization do you belong?’

‘The University.’

June Briggs sighed audibly. ‘What exactly is the nature of your inquiry?’

‘It’s about Josiah’s Nelson’s father. I want his address.’

‘And why exactly is the University wanting to know about Josiah’s father?’

‘It’s my personal inquiry,’ said Thomas Marius.

‘Then I’m afraid the information is confidential.’

‘Would you be able to forward him a letter on my behalf?’

‘I’m sorry, we can’t help you, Mr Marius.’ But then suddenly
curiosity
got the better of June Briggs, and she asked, ‘How do you know Josiah?’

‘I’m afraid that information is also confidential,’ said Thomas, coldly. He hung up on her. But he was making progress: now he knew for certain that Josiah’s father at least had an address.

Thomas’s self-recrimination became even harder to bear. So intent had he been on their present pleasures, he had never given Josiah the space to talk about his past. In his brutal categorisation of his
fellow
-creatures, childhoods, like dreams, were only interesting to the people who had actually had them. He’d never even bothered to ask Josiah what he remembered about his mother; he didn’t even know their Christian names, nor whether they’d been kind to him, nor whether they’d been rich or poor. So, had Thomas really expected some sort of confession from his protégé, when it was evident he had so little interest?

In the end Thomas wrote Josiah a note, which he delivered by hand.

‘My dear Josiah, how will you ever forgive me? I am a brute, I know. I deserve to be gagged and kicked. But here is an alternative. Would you like to come with me to Siena this summer, a
beautiful
medieval city in Italy? Would they let you? We could go away together for the whole of August. What do you think? With
affection
and huge regret, Tom.’