G Major
I RAN AND ran back to the Timbralls but still missed Absence and, when I later checked in with Frankie, he put me on Tardy Book, which meant a week of early rises.
He could have had me flogged in front of the entire school and I would not have minded. That night, the next day and the next, you could not have wiped the dazed smile off my face.
Many times since, I have been in love. But at Eton I was in the throes of love’s first careless rapture. A time when I was ever-optimistic and also a time when I had yet to be burned.
I had horded up every moment of our time in Windsor Park and guarded those memories like a rapacious miser. Over and over again, I replayed that most magical of moments when she’d first asked to make love. The sex, the lust, the passion, I dwelt on them too.
But, now I may as well confess, there was one niggle. Just a momentary glitch, a small grey cloud on a perfect day.
It was nothing much to worry about.
All the same it vexed me and that vexation would grow and grow until it was a huge, blistered sore.
It was the moment, just before we’d made love for the first time, when I had asked India about protection. She had replied that it was “all right”.
I knew full well what she meant—she was either on the pill or using some other method—but what it chiefly meant was that, before she even knew my state of mind, India had already taken care of contraception.
These days, I suppose, it is probably the norm for women to be on the pill when they’re not in a steady relationship. But back then, it was not something I’d even thought about.
There were any number of possibilities. And the one that mocked me the most was that India had been on the pill for months, even years, just on the off-chance that she might want to have sex with any guy who took her fancy.
I know this must come across as tacky, sleazy, downright demented, for page after page I have been setting up India as my Goddess. I’ve been raving about her looks, her compassion, how much I adored her. And yet, just at the very time that I felt I had fallen in love with her, I’d already started to think the worst of her. Already I had her pinned down as a slattern who would hop into bed with the first stripling that took her fancy. Why else had she come to Eton?
It makes me sound as if I were completely deranged. I will endeavour to explain as best I can.
India was my first great love. But it was as if within my heart there were a malignant sewer-rat forever chewing away at this perfect love, chewing and chewing until everything had started to rot and fester.
And why, why did I allow this to happen? Why did I allow my jealousy to get so out of control? Why didn’t I ever talk it through with India? Why did I do nothing but feed the rat until it had cankered everything inside me?
But, jealous souls will not be answered so; they are not ever jealous for the cause, but jealous for they are jealous.
There were any number of possible explanations. You can take your pick. That I never felt worthy of India’s love; that I wanted to destroy her before I got hurt. In fact—let’s get it out there right now—that I was a sick jerk who wilfully destroyed the best thing ever to come into my life.
I can only hang my head in shame. I accept it all, deserve it all, for none of these accusations can be any worse than what I believe to be the truth. And that, as Oscar Wilde so tragically summed up, is that each man kills the thing he loves.
And I did that; I killed it. Killed it stone dead, with a cold eye and a cruel heart.
And the shame of it still makes me weep.
I COULDN’T SEE India on Wednesday, but on Thursday afternoon I was with her, with love in my heart and freshly-picked dandelions in my hand. We met on the Thames towpath and, after we had hidden ourselves, made sweet love to the accompaniment of the shrill coxes on the river and the bawling coaches on the bank. What I remember of that blazing afternoon is not so much the sex as lying there afterwards gazing at India as she slept, perfect in her nakedness. I felt not like a lover, but like a truant schoolboy that had come across her unawares. I still could not credit that I could look, stare—even touch. I did just that, trailing a blade of grass across her stomach and up to her breasts. Up and across her shoulders, along her arms, her fingers, and back down her stomach.
She still had her eyes closed. “I like that,” she said.
“And that?” I dabbed at her midriff with my tongue.
“Very much.”
Her hand came up, stroked my hair. Her legs twitched imperceptibly and, even before I’d heard her moan, I knew that India was again looking for love. We made love three times.
Three times? Hah! I can only laugh at the supreme ignorance of that seventeen-year-old Etonian. For then, I honestly thought that three times was the norm—that it was the standard two-hour sex session.
I didn’t know I was born.
India draped her arm round my hips and pressed herself close. “Tell me about yourself,” she said.
“Me?” I said. “Where do you want me to start?”
“Your family?”
“My family?” I never thought about my family much. Family was just family like school was just school.
“My family?” I said again.
I tried to visit a place where I had not been for many years.
I took a deep breath. “Nothing much to tell. My mother died when I was six.” I stared at the sky, imagined myself scudding through the clouds. “I have the pictures, but I don’t have the memories.”
“What do you remember?”
“Not much. Not much at all.”
“You must remember something.”
I toyed with India’s nipple, stroking it taut. My mind was a blank. I could remember nothing.
Then, just a glimpse of a memory, a thin beam of light waving in the distance on a dark night.
“I’d forgotten all about it,” I said. “But we used to bake bread together in the morning. I remember kneading dough on the kitchen table. The smell of bread filling the house and the blast of hot air as we opened the oven door. It’s strange. I hadn’t really thought about it in over a decade.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“No need to be. It was cancer. Just something that happens, and it happened to us.
“She was a fantastic cook too. I remember that whenever I came home, the house always smelled of food.”
I shrugged, impervious to the memory, impervious to any sort of mental pain.
“Within two years, father had married again. They had a couple of boys.”
“And how’s that for you?”
Up until then, I’d never thought about it. It was just the set of circumstances that was my life—neither good, nor bad, perfectly endurable though not necessarily enjoyable.
“We all just do our own thing,” I said. “My father goes to his club, Tom and Ali go to prep school. My stepmother keeps the house immaculate.”
India kissed me.
“You get on with things as best you can.” I closed one eye, squinted at the sky. It was easier if I didn’t look at India. “One thing I remember clearly was the day my father came to my pre-prep. I’d just started boarding.”
“At six?”
“That was the way of it,” I said. “I’d spotted him drive up. He was by himself. I sensed immediately that something was wrong. I saw him walk into the private entrance and I had to wait thirty minutes before I was called in to see the headmaster.
“I knocked on the study door and the headmaster let me in. He told me that my father had some news, and he left us to it. My father was sitting in an armchair in the corner. I’d never seen anyone look so grey—ash grey, with black whorls under his eyes.
“I didn’t know what to do. He beckoned me over and hugged me. It was probably the last time he ever held onto me like that. He was holding me tighter than I’d ever been held before.”
India blew her nose, wiped a tear from her cheek.
“Eventually he spoke to me. ‘You’re all I’ve got left now,’ is what he said, before telling me that mother had died. But I didn’t cry. Even then I knew that big boys don’t cry.
“I had ten days off. Stiff upper lip at the funeral and the wake, and when I returned to school everyone was on best behaviour. For a while, everyone treated me with kid gloves. I was quite special. The kid with the dead mother.”
I played with India’s hair, twirling a tress between my fingers, studying each individual hair.
“And life continued. My father continued in the Army, found a nanny for me for the holidays and soon had found a step-mum to look after me for free.” I was hoarse and sipped some lemonade. “She did the best she could. But it must be hard to love your step-son as much as you love your own sons.”
I kissed India on the lips, dabbing with my tongue. “So that’s my story. Not the best of childhoods, but there must have been many worse.”
India smiled as she cuffed away another tear. “Thank you for that,” she said. “Sometimes you need to be reminded of what you’ve got.”
“And what have you got?”
“Both my parents are still alive, still together.” She tapped a finger on her cheek, as if in thought. “Oh yes, and a very affectionate boyfriend.”
“I’ve heard about him. What’s he like?”
“You’d like him,” she said, nails raking over my chest. “He’s a bit younger than me, tall, ever so handsome.”
“Sounds like quite a catch.”
“An expert in the art of love,” she continued.
“Daresay he had a good teacher.”
“A useful pianist.” She ticked the points off on her fingers. “Polished manners, considerate, obedient, witty, and, best of all, he appears to have no baggage.”
“No baggage?”
“Yes.” She kissed me. “One of the many reasons why I love him.”
“Oh, you love him now, do you?”
“Without doubt.”
“And is it mutual?”
“It would be such a terrible tragedy if it weren’t.” She was giggling. “What do you think?”
“As tragedies go, it would have to be up there with Hamlet.” I replied. “But I think he probably loves you too.”
“Even with all my baggage?”
“It makes you what you are,” I said. “Besides, how much baggage can a piano teacher have?”
“How long have you got?” she nibbled at my lip. “There was my short-lived spell at Bristol University. Should have read music. In a moment of madness I opted for medicine.”
“Doesn’t sound like excess baggage to me.”
“And the overly-attentive uncle who blighted three years of my childhood?”
“Unpleasant, but still portable.”
“And the broken heart that I thought would never be healed?”
“I’m sure your boyfriend is doing his best.”
She kissed me, pressing the length of her body against mine. “I love you so much.”
“Me?” I kissed her back. “What about that boyfriend of yours?”
“What do you think he’d say?” Her hands fumbled and teased.
I broke off from those magical lips. “I think he’d say that he loves you too.”
“He would?”
“Very much.”
Our final bout of love-making reached new peaks of intimacy. A crew rowed past not ten yards away from our makeshift bed. She was on the verge of crying out when suddenly she pinned me back and drilled her tongue into my mouth. I could feel her silent scream of ecstasy thrilling through my bones.
It was wonderful. It was always wonderful.
And I could rake over our love-making for page after page, could fill the entire book with it. But that would be self-indulgence.
Because my story is not just about love and sex, but also how I sowed the seeds of my own self-destruction and how I created such a fertile breeding ground for my incipient jealousy.
THAT FRIDAY I couldn’t see India because she was tied up with lessons. As a poor second-best, Jeremy and I went to Tap, the school pub. Tap was a revered Eton institution, where boys aged sixteen and up could learn to handle their drink. We were only allowed a couple of pints, but that was more than enough to set most of us well on our way.
Some people, when I’ve told them of Tap, express amazement that Eton should be encouraging its boys to drink. But it is better by far for boys to learn about getting drunk in a controlled environment than to do it on the sly and end up soused and vomit-stained in a gutter.
Tap was a strange mix, as if a northern bar had been transported from Yorkshire and dumped onto the Eton High Street. It had dark panelling and low ceilings, while on the walls were a few school photos plus a couple of oars and some cricket bats. There was also the Long Glass, which held a quart of ale, and over the years had humiliated countless Etonians. Unless you knew the correct angle to hold the glass, it was guaranteed to dump a pint or so of beer in your face.
As usual the bar was heaving so Jeremy and I were sitting in the beer-garden. We were nursing pints of lager—we had both yet to acquire a taste for bitter—and, for a moment there in the sun, you could almost have believed you were having a quiet pint in your local.
Jeremy had not spoken for a couple of minutes. I had just told him that India and I had made love. Not, I hope, in a boastful way, but because he was a friend and an ally, and because, even then, I realised he needed to be kept abreast of events.
In total silence he heard me out, pursed his lips, nodded, templed his fingers, and when he could think of nothing else to distract him, pursed his lips again and continued to nod.
“Fouquet,” he muttered. For a few seconds he was speechless. “You lucky, lucky bastard.”
I could only shrug, the cat with the cream. I was embarrassed at my good fortune.
I might have told Jeremy more, but I was silenced by the loud, crowing voice of Savage who had walked into the beer-garden with two of his cronies. He sneered at me but didn’t say a word, returning to the bar while his friends sat down at a table. We knew their names, but they would not have been aware of our existence. One of them, Howells, was also a popper, dressed in sponge-bag trousers and a garish orange waistcoat, while the other, Buck, wore stick-ups and a silver-buttoned black waistcoat, the badge of office for another elite Eton society, Sixth-Form Select.
It’s hard to describe how oppressive it was sitting just a few yards from these senior boys. They may have been only a year older than us, but they were Eton’s cream and didn’t we just know it. Both Jeremy and I found we were unable to say a word. We played with our pints. We stared at the sky. We attempted to look as if we were sharing an amicable, contemplative silence.
Savage, King of all he surveyed, came out with a tray of drinks and peanuts. Immediately the braying Hooray Henry behaviour started—the sort of thing that most people expect of public school boys at play. We were about to skulk from the beer-garden, leaving our half-drunk pints, when Jeremy stayed my hand.
Buck had asked Savage a question. “How’s it going with you and India James?”
Howells laughed and clapped Savage on the back. “Yes— how is the wonder that is India?”
Savage took a long sip from his pint, and this stupid ‘Aw shucks’ grin appeared on his face, as if he’d have loved to have told them all about it, but it just wouldn’t be right.
“Come on,” persisted Buck. “Don’t keep us in suspense.”
Savage helped himself to some peanuts, milking the moment. He tipped his head back and trickled them into his mouth one by one. “Saw her this morning,” he said. “Gagging for it.”
Goosebumps on my wrists. It was like the air was being wrung out of my lungs. But with a studied, manic intensity, I picked up my glass and drank.
Buck, the stooge of the group, giggled. “But you’ve done more than kiss her?”
Savage, his coiffed black hair nestling into his collar, dribbled more peanuts into his mouth. “What do you think Bucky, old boy? Do you think we’ve just spent our time necking, or do you think that just possibly we might have got a stage further than that?”
I looked at Jeremy. He mechanically lifted his glass to his lips, his face an inscrutable mask.
Howells chortled. “Surely not another notch on the Savage bed-post?”
Savage shrugged and kissed the tips of his fingers.
“Tell us. Tell us,” Buck exclaimed. “We want details.”
“A gentlemen couldn’t possibly comment,” Savage said, adding underneath his breath, “Insatiable.”
I could hear the blood thumping in my ears as ice-cold anger swept through my veins. It couldn’t be possible. Could not be possible. Savage was just being the braggart he always was.
By then Jeremy had me by the elbow and was dragging me out of my seat but, even as we left, I could hear another shriek of laughter from Buck. I looked back to see Savage grotesquely thrusting his groin at the table-leg.
It made my stomach heave. Was it possible? Could he? Could she? I didn’t know what to think.
Jeremy was the first to speak. “He’s a bag of piss and wind.”
“Yeah.”
“He’s a bullshitter; you know he is.”
“Yeah.”
But it was as if that gnawing sewer-rat had done a back flip in my belly, twisting and turning through my guts. Of course I knew it wasn’t possible that India and Savage could have been together. She’d said she loved me. We’d been making love only the previous afternoon.
And yet, and yet . . .
It was like hot coals being pressed to the soles of my feet. Because, of course, a little piece of me not only believed Savage, but actively wanted to believe him.
So, as we walked back, I went along with whatever Jeremy said. I agreed with him and pretended I was mollified. But underneath I was incandescent with anger. I needed to know, had to know and, if I had been able, I would have gone round to India’s house that very moment.
But I couldn’t do that. There wasn’t time and she wasn’t due home for another hour yet. I spent the time in my room. Pulsating with rage. Cursing Savage as a liar. Wondering how to pose my questions. Whether to be upfront, to just tell her what had happened, or whether to be circuitous?
I know it seems ridiculous now. Of course India loved me and only me, and Savage was nothing but a lying, boasting hellhound who had not even come close to laying a finger on India.
But, at the time, things were not so simple. India had said she loved me, but I had no idea why. And, if me, then why not somebody like Savage, who I knew was more sporty, more funny, a hundred times better-looking? Besides, had she said she loved me exclusively and above all others?
Give me enough time and I will be able to conjure up every conceivable worst-case scenario.
Although my calm, rational side was yelling at me to get a grip, there was always this insistent sniping, this little whisper of violence in my heart that said, ‘What if he’s right?’
I called India at 7 p.m., a bristling mountain of indignant rage.
And you know what happened?
The very moment that I heard her voice and heard her say “I love you”, the heat of my anger was doused, as if a burning match had been dropped into an ocean. For that was all my jealousy was: barely a spent match compared to the sea of her love.
She loved me. Of course she loved me, and only me, and, as for that shit Savage, he was beneath contempt.
India and I chatted for a few minutes. We swapped endearments. But instead of mentioning what had happened in Tap with Savage, I vaguely alluded to him. I was casting a fly on the water, just to check for any reaction. Not that I didn’t trust her, but . . .
“Got supper in a few minutes,” I said. “In the delightful company of your old friend Savage.”
She laughed. It was so open, so natural. Not even the slightest bit forced. Her and Savage? It was unthinkable, impossible.
“Well, enjoy yourself,” she said.
But still I gave it one more tweak. I had to make sure. “But you must fancy him just a little bit?” I laughed as I said it though maybe it did sound a bit hollow. It might have given India the first hint of the monster that she was dating.
“Kim!” She shrieked with laughter. “I do hope you’re joking. He’s beyond awful!”
How happy I was to hear her say that. But you know, in this life, whatever you look for you will find—and that even goes for when you’re searching for a speck of malice in the most honest and the most caring heart that was ever to fall in love.
AL FRESCO LOVE-MAKING—IS there any finer way on God’s earth to have sex?
You can keep your linen sheets, your king-size beds, your cosy central heating, your room service, your mini-bars and your five-star hotels.
For me, sex is always better when it’s outside, with your toes grinding into the grass and your back bared to the wind. Rain, shine, clouds, snow, hail and thunder, embrace them all.
Bedrooms speak of middle-age spread and pedestrian love lives.
But sex outside? Raw and naked, with the sun seeping through the trees? With a blanket, a bar of chocolate and a thermos of ice-cold lemonade? This was how I was first introduced to the joys of love-making, and it was as if, after four grinding years at Eton, I had come to realise that I was living in paradise.
I may as well admit it though. There is one other ingredient that always adds piquancy to sex au naturel: the very real prospect of being caught.
For although there are thousands of acres around Eton that are just perfect for discreet love-making, there are also many hundreds of boys and masters, their heads filled with bile and boredom, who would delight in catching two lovers in the act.
The first time it happened was that Saturday afternoon.
By now, India and I were so meticulous about our trysts that we were like a couple of veteran World War II spies. I had started to view Eton through fresh eyes, for I was ever on the search for out-of-the-way meeting spots, and soft, secluded nooks.
We would meet in the hidden spinneys of Eton and Windsor and only when we were far from prying eyes would we kiss and cling to each other as if our lives depended on it.
We were out in the fields past Eton’s nine-hole golf course. I had discovered a thicket of brambles, right in the very centre of which was a luxuriant bed of grass. If you jumped up high into the air from outside the thicket, you could just spot this hidden bower behind the thorns.
Getting in there had been a test. We’d crawled on our stomachs, hauling our way through on our elbows like buffed commandoes. But get through we did, and the nicks and cuts to our hands and arms only added to our pleasure. We were so in love, so besotted, that everything life hurled at us, even the inconveniences, were nothing more than spice for our passion.
India pulled a thorn from the palm of my hand and kissed the wound. It reminded me of that first time she had kissed my wrist underneath that elderberry bush near the Master’s Field. How my life had changed in barely nine days.
With all the ease of lovers who have the night ahead of them, we peeled off each other’s clothes, kissing and caressing every part of each other’s bodies until we were husky with lust and aching to make love.
India had taught me well and already I was becoming quite the veteran lover. I knew all about the monumental power of delayed gratification.
I was teasing India, teasing her with my fingers, with my hands, and with my tongue. We were both naked now, surrounded by our wall of thorns with only the sun peeping in on our bodies. India was on her back, her eyes closed, her fingers knotted tight in my hair as she tried to guide me.
But I was having none of it.
I trailed my fingers up the side of her thigh, and nuzzled at the side of her neck, my tongue light against her ear. I drew back and blew lightly on her lips as my hands glided down across her stomach. I paused again, just beneath her tummy button, so close that she thought this time, this time . . .
Her breath was short, staccato. “Please.” She was begging me. For a moment she grasped my teasing fingers, her knuckles white.
“Please,” she whispered. “Kim, you’re killing me.”
I was spinning her out as long as I dared.
Then suddenly an alien sound fell on our ears. It was one of the Eton beaks. I couldn’t see him but I recognised the voice of that dry old stick Malcolm Singleton, another of the school’s die-hard bachelors. “Hi Sultan! Sultan come here!”
Singleton was not four yards away from us, standing on the other side of the bushes. India’s body froze, every muscle locked.
There was nothing we could do. Either he found us or he went on his merry way. So I did one of the most swinish things that I have ever done as a lover.
I started to kiss India again as my hand worked down to her inner thigh. Her fingers were taut in my hair. Then, to the sound of Singleton’s Labrador rampaging through the bramble bushes, I gave India the soft touch that she had been craving. Her mouth was rigid against my lips and I could sense the breath about to shriek from her throat.
The dog had worked its way through to the centre of the thicket and was now sniffing around us. Its tail wagged against my leg. India was trembling, and I could see the ripple of her stomach muscles. What with the Labrador, and Singleton shouting on the other side of the brambles, she’d got the giggles. Suddenly she was stuffing her top into her mouth. She made no sound, but I could feel the laughter detonate through her body.
“Sultan! Sultan, come here!” It was Singleton again, only his voice was lower now. He was squinting through the brambles.
As for me, I was methodically going about my business of bringing India to the most shuddering orgasm of her life. Whether Singleton saw anything or not, I will never know. I do think that most of Eton’s masters are gentlemen who, more often than not, prefer to ignore their pupils’ myriad misdemeanours for after a slight grunt of surprise, he was marching off and calling over his shoulder for his Labrador. We were left with the sunshine and the sound of the skylarks.
“Kim.” India choked, her voice tight. “You are a monster. But God, how I love you.”
And with that, her spine arched, her arms laced round my neck, and she clung to my head as if she were drowning. She was so shattered that for a minute, two minutes, she was too weak to move. I wormed my way around her cheek to kiss her.
“I love you,” I said.
“I love you,” she replied. Her smile started to tip the sides of her mouth. We rolled to and fro on the blanket until India was astride me, her knees secure round my chest.
“I love you so very much.” She drummed a tattoo on my chest. “But I’m going to have to make you pay for that.”
And so she did, stoking me until it felt as if there was a furnace raging in the pit of my stomach and until it was now my turn to beg for release. It makes me smile just to think of that. Not quite the dominatrix, but without doubt the mistress of all she surveyed. At that moment, India could have asked me anything in the world and I would have given it her.
We cuddled, we made love, she sipped her homemade lemonade and trickled it from her lips into mine. Finally, we were spent and lay in each other’s arms, staring up at the sky and the Heathrow planes that forever drone over Eton.
“I think I ought to tell you something,” India said with a kiss. “To avoid any embarrassment.”
Instantly my heart was yammering, claxon bells were ringing. Was this it? Was this the bullet? Was she about to reveal some ghastly skeleton from her early life?
But I could relax.
It was none of that.
“It’s my birthday tomorrow,” she said. “I thought it better to tell you now than to spring it on you on the day.”
“Brilliant!” I said. “What present would you like?”
“Only you,” she said. “Just you and nothing more.”
“That can be arranged.”
I kissed her. My heart was filled with rapturous love. A most devilish idea was forming in my mind.
“How old will you be?”
“Twenty-four.”
“Twenty-four?” I’d never really thought about her age before. India was just India, my first great love, and her age was an irrelevance. “Maybe I ought to be there to bring it in?”
“Kim, you are mad.”
“I mean it.” I was bubbling with glee at the thought of it.
“I mean it too.”
“It’ll be great,” I said. “Wait till after lights out and I could be with you in five minutes.”
“You’re mad.” She kissed me again, and that dreamy look had come into her eyes that meant she wanted more than just a kiss. Her fingers wandered down my chest. “You’re mad but I love you.”
We talked as we made love. She gasped, she purred, and she asked me, “Are you serious?”
“Of course.” Up until then, I had not thought about the sheer enormity of what I’d promised to do. But love and teenage bravado had given me wings. The more I thought about it, the better it sounded. Despite my love of the outdoors, a whole night of love with India, with soft sheets and feathered pillows, and that blissful moment when I awoke with her in my arms.
She writhed against me, her fingers deep into my back. “You know I’d love that more than anything.” She panted. “But you will take care?”
We didn’t need to utter another word. We bucked, we churned and braced against each other, our lips locked.
“Trust me,” I said.
And she did.
AS I WALKED back to the Timbralls, my mind ticked over all the various options.
I’d never broken out of the house before and when I came to consider the practicalities, it did seem a most foolhardy venture.
But my love was expecting me and I could not let her down.
My first problem was how to get out of the house. I tried the downstairs lavatory window. At a push, I could have squeezed out. But when I went upstairs, I discovered a far more expedient option: the fire-escape.
I asked Jeremy if I could borrow his bike.
“Jesus.” He shook his head as he handed me the bike lights. “If they catch you, you’re toast.”
As I knew only too well. Just being caught outside the house after dark would have warranted instant expulsion. But I thought that so long as I covered my head, I wouldn’t be recognised. And if it ever came to a chase, I would work my way home on Eton’s hidden paths and shortcuts.
What an idiot, to risk everything for a night with India. I would do it again for only a single kiss.
That evening I was a bundle of nerves, like a sprinter in the run-up to a big race. I did my best to stick to my normal routine, washing and brushing my teeth.
Jeremy was in the washroom too. All he could do was shake his head before pointing his cocked fingers to his temple and pulling the trigger. But nothing he could say was going to stop me.
In the passageway, I chatted to Frankie. I was fortunate that he didn’t come into my room, for his acute antennae couldn’t have missed that something was up.
With the radio low, I started to lay out the things I’d need. Jeans, T-shirt, dark jumper, trainers and a snug hat to pull low over my brow. Some gaffer tape for the fire-door. Fresh batteries for Jeremy’s bike lights. I bit at my thumbnail, wondering if I’d missed anything.
I had.
I had no present.
I scanned the room for anything that might service. A few crinkled novels and some dog-eared books of poetry; some shabby schoolboy clothes; my posters. Useless, all useless.
I had a nose through my box of trinkets. There were a few collar studs and five cufflinks; nothing remotely worthy for my love.
But as I raked through the little plastic box, I saw the one thing that would be a fitting present for India.
I would give her my watch.
It was the most expensive thing I owned, a classic Heuer, with a thick crocodile skin strap and a handsome face that almost covered my wrist. My father had given it to me for my sixteenth birthday. It was my most treasured possession.
Without a second thought, I decided to give it to India.
But perhaps you can already tell that this Heuer is not just some light detail that I have tossed into the mix? Before my tale is done, we will return to it.
WITH THE LIGHTS off, I dressed and peeled off some strips of gaffer tape, sticking them lightly to my arm. At 11.30, I stole out of my room. Every door pulsated with menace. There were at least fifteen other boys’ rooms on the corridor, with the most dangerous of all, Savage’s, adjacent to the fire-escape.
The passage was lit by the dim pink glow of the night-lights. I tiptoed along, feet next to the walls, testing every step.
Earlier that evening, I had already tried the fire door. It had seemed simple enough. You pressed the horizontal bar down and the two bolts at the top and bottom clunked back. But when I tried it in the still of the night, the crack of the bar seemed to sound like a rifle shot.
I was champing on my lip with nerves. I hung there motionless, my hand on the bar and the door three inches ajar.
Somehow the house stayed fast asleep. I gave it a minute and peeled off some strips of gaffer tape, slapping them on the top and bottom bolts to secure my route back in. Outside, I closed the door behind me, not shut tight, but enough to prevent a casual glance noticing anything amiss.
I felt a huge surge of exhilaration. I was out, out and on the road to my love.
For a while I stood on that black cast-iron balcony, leaning against the wall and staring at the stars.
To schoolboys everywhere, I could not recommend the experience more highly. It was one of the most exciting things I’ve ever done.
I crept down the fire-escape stairs, scrabbled onto one of the Timbralls’ bins and jumped over the outer wall. Only as I looked back at the smooth bricks did I realise that breaking back into the house was going to be a teaser. The wall had to be a full ten-feet high.
Still, I’d deal with that when I came to it.
Jeremy’s bike was where I’d hidden it, tucked away behind a van in a corner of New Schools Yard. A last look at the Timbralls, a brooding black block against the starry skyline, and off I rode, slapping the black Sebastopol cannon on the way and whistling a jaunty tune to myself.
I wasn’t heading direct for India’s home, which would have meant riding past any number of beaks’ houses on the High Street. Instead, I made a wide detour that took me past the Music Schools and the lower chapel before heading cross-country over the South Meadow playing fields.
It was one of those times in my life when it felt so good to be alive, with the wind in my face, the air tart on my lips and cold in my throat. I was on a mission and that night I knew I could not possibly fail for the Gods were with me.
On the far side of South Meadow, I turned the bike lights on and rejoined Meadow Lane. In another minute I was by Windsor Bridge.
It would have been too conspicuous to leave the bike outside India’s flat, so instead I locked it up near Rafts, where Eton’s scores of boats were stored, and skipped over to her cul-de-sac. I was grinning every step of the way. I’d done it! We’d bring in her birthday together.
I gave the bell a short ring and in moments she was tripping down the stairs. She wore silk pyjamas, a white cotton dressing-gown, leather slippers on her feet and, as she stood there in the doorway, her hands clasped her cheeks in amazement.
“You made it.” She was still shaking her head.
“Did you think I wouldn’t?”
“I’d better make it worth your while,” and with that, she took my hand and we were tearing up the stairs, up through the living room, and up the oak stairs to the heaven of her bedroom. And, of course, she’d been expecting me. The patio window was open, and the table, the walls and the windows were lined with scores of dainty, round, tea-light candles. By the bed, a bottle of Bollinger on ice. For my first introduction to indoor sex, it couldn’t have been any better.
Windsor Castle was a blaze of light above us and a zephyr of wind was seeping in off the river, bubbling at the blinds. We held each other by the window, India’s eyes sparkling bright as she gazed at me. “You came,” she said. “You’re here for my birthday.”
“Ask of me anything you will.”
Her hand slipped underneath my shirt. “Well . . .”
We made love on the bed. We timed it to perfection, tapering our finish to the exact stroke of midnight.
For the last time, I looked at the Heuer on my wrist.
“Happy birthday, India.” I kissed her. “I have another present for you too—not much, but a very small token of my esteem.” And with that, I took off my Heuer and gave it to her.
“You can’t give me that!” She gaped. “It’s your watch! It’s far too expensive!”
“Seriously, I want you to have it.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“But it’s beautiful.” She examined the Heuer before strapping it to her wrist. It was a perfect fit. In fact, even though it was a man’s watch, the Heuer looked sensational, more than just a watch but a piece of jewellery.
“I love it.” She lifted her arm up and the watch glinted in the candlelight. “And you know what I love about it best of all? That it’s yours, that you used to wear it. Now I’ll always have a part of you next to me.” She kissed me. “Do you really want me to keep it?”
“Of course; that’s why I gave it to you.”
She gazed at the watch one more time before catching sight of my empty wrist. “But what about you? What are you going to wear?”
I shrugged. “I’ll be fine.”
“I can’t have that.” She leaned across me, her breast touching my arm as she stretched to the bedside table. “You must have this.”
She gave me her watch, a silver Cartier with black leather strap, a little larger than your typical petite ladies’ watch, but not as big as the Heuer.
“But it’s your birthday, not mine!”
“I want you to have it.”
I tried it on. “Are you sure?”
“Of course,” she said. “Every time you look at it, you can think of me.”
And India was right about that, for as I write these words now, I have that same Cartier watch on my wrist. A little battered, a little knocked at the edges, but every time I look at it, I do indeed think of India.
I popped the champagne and we nestled down to the luxury of a mattress, cotton sheets and soft pillows. The simple pleasures of a bedroom. Don’t think I didn’t appreciate them.
Neither of us slept that night. We made love, we kissed, we caressed.
And we talked.
“What were your other girlfriends like,” India asked.
“Other girlfriends?” I said. “Are you joking?”
“Someone like you, Kim?” India said. “I thought you must have been snapped up long ago.”
I laughed at the thought of it. Me with legions of girlfriends? “You flatter me India.” I poured her more Bollinger. “I was keeping myself chaste for you.”
“Chaste rather than pursued,” she laughed, swirling the champagne as she stared at the rainbow of colours in her cut-crystal glass. “I wish . . . I wish I could say the same.”
And the silence stretched and stretched till it was at breaking point. After asking me about my past loves, India was undoubtedly waiting for me to volley back the same question.
I knew she wanted me to ask her. But I couldn’t. Wouldn’t. I didn’t want to know. The thought of learning about India’s exes was too awful.
She spoke again, quickly. “There’s something you should . . .”
“I don’t want to know.”
“But—”
“Don’t tell me.” I was too fast for her, far too fast for her. I knew what she was going to start describing and I shut her up by tickling her armpits and her tummy. I’d known that finally she was about to embark on tales of boyfriends past—and I knew too that it was a place I never wished to visit.
To have started unearthing India’s past would have been like spitting on a sublime work of art. My perception of India would never have been the same again.
I tickled her until she was squealing for mercy, red in the face, ribs aching with laughter. And just as I’d hoped, the moment of terrible confession passed by. Everything that India had wanted to say had diffused into that great ether of thoughts that are left unspoken and unheard.
From that night on, I think India sensed my jealousy. She never once brought up the subject of her ex-boyfriends again.
But I was nothing if not contrary.
For although I did not wish to hear a sentence, a single word, of India’s sexual past, another darker side of me was burning to know it all. I wanted to know how many lovers there had been, when she’d lost her virginity and with whom. I wanted to know about the snapshot downstairs of the guy that she’d been holding; and the story behind that picture on her piano when she was looking so beautiful in the surf; and why certain Well-Tempered preludes made her cry; and exactly how long she’d been on the pill before she’d met me, and—one other thing besides.
The diamond ring.
That night she had it on the ring-finger of her right hand and, as I lay in the crook of her arm, it was winking in the candlelight, daring me, goading me on.
I didn’t ask her outright.
But I brought the subject up. Even though I knew it would torture me, I had to ask. I couldn’t help myself.
“Nice ring,” I said. Sly. Devious. Probing.
She stared at the diamond, splaying her fingers out to catch the light. She was on the very cusp of telling me.
I willed her on.
I urged her to stop.
“I don’t know why I still wear it.” She sighed. “Sometimes it’s hard to let go.”
The blood was draining from my cheeks. Was this it? Was she going to tell me everything? Was I about to learn that my golden Goddess had feet of clay?
“Do you like it?” she said, but then she answered her own question. “No, I know you don’t want to know.”
I cocked my head. I said nothing although I hated it, of course I did, because it would become a daily reminder that India had once loved a man other than myself.
She knew all this without a word being said. “You’re right,” she continued. “It’s time to move on.”
She worked the diamond off her finger and tossed it onto the bedside table.
“Look,” she said, and held up her long, bare fingers. “A fresh start.”
We kissed and I gazed at her hands.
All I could see was not bare fingers, but the indent from where her diamond ring had once been.
I couldn’t even rejoice that the ring was off and that I wouldn’t have it thrust in my face every day because, jealous twisted teenager that I was, every time I looked at India’s manicured fingers, all I could think was that once that diamond had been there.
And here is a tip if you ever have the misfortune to bring a jealous lover into your life.
Don’t ever pander to them, because all you will be doing is stoking the fires. Cave in once, twice, and they begin to believe that they’re in the right, that they’re being reasonable.
So India had thoughtfully caved in on this one. She had taken off her diamond ring because she thought it might make me happy.
It did nothing of the sort.
For a few hours, I had a guilty glow. I knew I had won a very minor battle. But, before the cock had even crowed thrice in the morning, I was thirsting for more information. I wanted to know who had given her the diamond, why she had worn it so long.
But another side of me was also horrified at my petty victory. For I had walked into the stagnant swamp of my own jealousy and the more I floundered, the more it sucked me down.