13

In the afternoon I had hoped to be taken out for a second lesson but Oliver wanted to go for a walk. Though we set off along the roads, we soon left them and took to the footpaths, ending up in a large and sombre pine wood, possibly the one the Sheldons had explored that morning seven weeks ago. The wood sprawled over a gently sloping hillside and standing at the edge of it we looked down across a valley in which there wasn’t the smallest sign of human occupation—I hadn’t realized that in the Home Counties there were still such vast areas of wilderness. “The world is very big,” I said, “and we are very small in the world.”

“Comforting or otherwise?” asked Oliver.

“Oh, otherwise. Definitely. I should like to be very big in the world. Wouldn’t you?”

I added: “Of course, you already are. Prints—if not paintings—hanging in countless homes across the globe!”

But he didn’t bother to answer. We stood and surveyed the great rolling landscape at our feet. There was still a remnant of pale sunshine, which must have boosted the loveliness.

“I could feel a bit fed up,” he said.

I was amazed. “What! You? The second happiest man on earth?”

He made a harsh, dismissive sound and gave a wan smile. “That,” he said, “was this morning.”

“Well, it didn’t get much of a run! No real threat to ‘Chu Chin Chow’! Did your dinner give you indigestion?”

“No.”

“You’re sure you didn’t swallow a sixpence?”

“Threepenny bit,” he corrected me, mechanically.

“Well, there you are, then. That explains it.”

But all he said was: “Do you want to turn back yet or carry on?”

“I know: you’re piqued because I wouldn’t let you be the first happiest man on earth. Okay, I relinquish the title. Anyhow I wouldn’t want it, not unless you’re feeling the way you should, when standing here on top of the world!” As I said this I put my arm affectionately through his. “You see, I can make terrible puns, as well!”

He didn’t respond, but neither did he draw his arm away. “What’s the trouble, love? Surely you don’t have vertigo again?”

“A kind of vertigo, perhaps.”

“What kind?”

“The kind you get when you look behind you at all the years you’ve wasted, and look ahead and know the remainder of the way will surely be downhill.”

“But that’s ridiculous. You’re not even forty. You’re still on the very crest.”

“That’s what I mean. And do you realize something? By the time you’re forty I shall be sixty.”

“Though fantastically well-preserved, I have no doubt. Sylvia Renshaw won’t have stopped gawping at you on the tennis court.”

“Maybe not. But, somehow, I don’t find that tremendously reassuring.”

“And I thought life was supposed to begin at forty!”

I was speaking humorously but nevertheless was starting to feel angry (what, with that man who this morning had given me an XK 150?), possibly because I could now sense the walls of the prison threatening to close in—and where will you be in another twenty years?—possibly because I felt this hitherto perfect day stood in danger of becoming spoilt. Possibly because I always grew swiftly impatient of self-pity.

“Well, yes,” he said, “for some it may begin at forty. But you’ll seldom hear a homosexual tell you that.”

I pulled my arm away and turned up the collar of my sheepskin jacket. “Shall we head back?”

And if it’s really so terrible to be a homosexual, I thought, why have you done your damnedest to turn me into one? Again, I recalled that just a few hours earlier I had said he was a saint.

“Admittedly,” he went on, “for ‘normal’ men—for men who have a family—it could all be rather different. By forty you’re more or less established, the children are becoming less of a millstone, the future’s reasonably secure. Not so many fears of a lonely or a loveless old age. I sometimes think it must be very satisfying to have a family to work for.”

“In that case, matey, I’d say there’s only one solution.”

“And what’s that?”

“You’d better go looking for a wife. You’re rich enough. You’re attractive enough. Just say the word; I bet the women would come flocking!”

“You sound as though you’re serious.”

“Well, damn it, if you’re really that anxious to wallow in long-term emotional security!”

But then I heard what I was saying—and at once felt guilty.

“In any case, why in heaven’s name do you need a family to work for? You have me to work for. I’d have thought that would be enough for anyone!”

It was extraordinary to see the change in his expression when I told him that. One moment he was wooden-faced—dull-eyed—aloof.

The next he gave a laugh.

I said: “You’re a nut, Oliver Cambourne! You really are.”

“Yes, I suppose I am.” Already he spoke in a far more lively tone. “It’s just that a person gets so tired. He can’t go on and on being positive. He loses his vitality.”

“Oh, balls.”

“No, it’s true.”

“Then there’s one very obvious comment, concerning the things people get up to, either late at night or early in the morning. You won’t win much sympathy from me, complaining you feel tired!”

“That has nothing to do with it. Good sex is one of the few things which increases your vitality.”

“Oh, really? Well. my word! Anyway, remember this. ‘Philosophan Fortifies the Over-Forties!’”

That slogan was on every tube train—although he would probably never have seen it there, and even I, since we had met, hadn’t used the underground.

“So just hold out for another eight months,” I said, “and all your problems will be over.”

Oliver made as if to give me a clip across the ear. I dodged. Then, laughing, I ran back along the track.

“Come on, Granddad! Puff, puff, puff!”

But after a while I let him catch me and we had an energetic tussle on the pine needles. These days Oliver seldom went to a gym (I was trying to get him back into the habit—as company, and competition, for myself) yet otherwise we were fairly evenly matched. As I brushed the dirt off my trousers, I remarked, “Well, not too many signs of advancing decrepitude there! And—rather annoyingly, if I’m aiming to keep up—I can’t believe there ever will be!”

The rest of the day held no such downswings. We returned home ready for tea—and Christmas cake—in the library; then moved a table closer to the fire and played a lengthy game of Monopoly. Mrs Cambourne was the winner, with Oliver coming in second. As for me, I fell a long, long way behind.

“And I always assumed,” I said, “that the Cambourne Empire was just another music hall!”

“Well, now you realize your mistake,” answered Mrs Cambourne pithily, waving a wad of paper money underneath my nose.

But soon she was talking gaily of Albert Whelan and Ella Shields and Lily Morris—“people I don’t expect either of you foolish boys have ever heard of.” Yet she was wrong. She, Oliver and I spent the next hour happily capping each other with half-spoken snatches of song: “Why am I always the bridesmaid?”, “My ole man said follow the van”, “I’m ’Enery the Eighth I am.” And also—no malice aforethought here, since I was the one who raked it up—“She was a sweet little dickie-bird; cheep, cheep, cheep she went; sweetly she sang to me, till all my money was spent…” And so on … Between us we must have resurrected more than twenty of these old music-hall anthems, interspersed with charming little footnotes from Mrs Cambourne on where she had first heard some of them or what they reminded her of. Altogether, it was fun.

Afterwards, we ate turkey sandwiches and watched ‘Top Hat’: despite its inexpressibly silly story, the sort of thing we all felt in the mood for. The song title ‘Isn’t this a lovely day?’ would have matched my sentiments entirely—if it hadn’t then gone on to talk about the rain!

Yet the next morning it did indeed hit the household like a downpour.

Oliver’s depression.

My God! He was morose from the moment he got up, but was obstinate and wouldn’t return to bed—although at first I’d thought the problem might be tiredness. He ate no breakfast, spoke to me either in monosyllables or not at all, and retired after only a few grudging sips of coffee to the drawing room, where he hid behind the latest ‘Paris Match’. I felt restless and aggrieved. I couldn’t make him out. He had seemed in such high spirits the night before and wholly recovered from the few dismal moments of the afternoon. But now there was no question about it. He was behaving like a sulky little boy.

And in fact it was far more entertaining when, halfway through the morning, Mrs Cambourne came downstairs. She and I grew practically conspiratorial. We drank coffee in the library.

“Oh, he gets these attacks,” she said. “The only wonder is, he hasn’t had one for so very long! But I’ve learned it’s best if we ignore them. Or do I mean—ignore him?”

She gave a crooked smile.

“Lots of artistic men, they tell me, are subject to these black periods. The dark night of the soul, I think they call it. It’s very trying for the rest of us.”

“You can say that again! I was going to suggest you come for a drive this afternoon—in my car—but not if these blackout conditions still prevail.”

“At any rate, John, I’m glad to know you can retain your sense of humour.”

But I hadn’t been feeling particularly humorous. I’d been thinking: I’m artistic and I don’t carry on like this!

I noticed she had called me John. Of course, when speaking of me to Oliver in my presence she had often used the name; and also on the tag to my Christmas gift; but never whilst addressing me directly. And it went through my mind how ironic life was: only two days earlier I’d have been considerably alarmed at the idea of sitting alone with her over morning coffee—and yet here we were now, getting on wonderfully. We had a stimulating ninety minutes. At the end, our talk returned to Oliver.

“It makes me very happy,” she said, “to see you show such tolerance—such sensitivity.”

Christ!

But there it was, I reflected. Her apology. Out in the open.

It assuredly gave me a good feeling—but caused me to think that I, unlike Rachel Millwood, could never be a soothsayer.

Not even in prose.

Sorry, Oliver.