Elric in the Dream Realms - Michael Moorcock [170]
Richard read and re-read the Elric stories, and he felt pleasure each time Stormbringer plunged into an enemy’s chest, somehow felt a sympathetic satisfaction as Elric drew his strength from the soul-sword, like a heroin addict in a paperback thriller with a fresh supply of smack.
Richard was convinced that one day the people from Mayflower Books would come after him for their twenty-five pence. He never dared buy any more books through the mail.
J.B.C. MacBride had a secret.
“You mustn’t tell anyone.”
“Okay.”
Richard had no problem with the idea of keeping secrets. In later years he realized that he was a walking repository of old secrets, secrets that his original confidantes had probably long forgotten.
They were walking, with their arms over each other’s shoulders, up to the woods at the back of the school.
Richard had, unasked, been gifted with another secret in these woods: it is here that three of Richard’s schoolfriends have meetings with girls from the village, and where, he has been told, they display to each other their genitalia.
“I can’t tell you who told me any of this.”
“Okay,” said Richard.
“I mean, it’s true. And it’s a deadly secret.”
“Fine.”
MacBride had been spending a lot of time recently with Mr. Aliquid, the school chaplain.
“Well, everybody has two angels. God gives them one and Satan gives them one. So when you get hypnotized, Satan’s angel takes control. And that’s how Ouija boards work. It’s Satan’s angel. And you can implore your God’s angel to talk through you. But real enlightenment only occurs when you can talk to your angel. He tells you secrets.”
This was the first time that it had occurred to Grey that the Church of England might have its own esoterica, its own hidden caballah.
The other boy blinked owlishly. “You mustn’t tell anyone that. I’d get into trouble if they knew I’d told you.”
“Fine.”
There was a pause.
“Have you ever wanked off a grown-up?” asked MacBride.
“No.” Richard’s own secret was that he had not yet begun to masturbate. All of his friends masturbated, continually, alone and in pairs or groups. He was a year younger than them, and couldn’t understand what the fuss was about; the whole idea made him uncomfortable.
“Spunk everywhere. It’s thick and oozy. They try to get you to put their cocks in your mouth when they shoot off.”
“Eugh.”
“It’s not that bad.” There was a pause. “You know, Mr. Aliquid thinks you’re very clever. If you wanted to join his private religious discussion group, he might say yes.”
The private discussion group met at Mr. Aliquid’s small bachelor house, across the road from the school, in the evenings, twice a week after prep.
“I’m not Christian.”
“So? You still come top of the class in Divinity, jewboy.”
“No thanks. Hey, I got a new Moorcock. One you haven’t read. It’s an Elric book.”
“You haven’t. There isn’t a new one.”
“Is. It’s called The Jade Man’s Eyes. It’s printed in green ink. I found it in a bookshop in Brighton.”
“Can I borrow it after you?”
“Course.”
It was getting chilly, and they walked back, arm in arm. Like Elric and Moonglum, thought Richard to himself, and it made as much sense as MacBride’s angels.
Richard had daydreams in which he would kidnap Michael Moorcock, and make him tell Richard the secret.
If pushed, Richard would be unable to tell you what kind of thing the secret was. It was something to do with writing; something to do with gods.
Richard wondered where Moorcock got his ideas from.
Probably from the ruined temple, he decided, in the end, although he could no longer remember what the temple looked like. He remembered a shadow, and stars, and the feeling of pain at returning to something he thought long finished.
He wondered if that was where all authors got their ideas from, or just Michael Moorcock.
If you had told him that they just made it all up, out of their