The Stranger's Child - Alan Hollinghurst [199]
“Now, here we are, Simon!” A number of pictures of “poor old C”—the best of them already in the Letters, the one of C in shorts with a rugger ball, looking furious: “You can see what marvellous legs he had!” Me: “I’d like to reproduce that one.” GFS: “Where would you do it?” Me: “In the book I’m writing about C.” GFS: “Oh, yes, I think you should. What a good idea. You know there’s never been a book about him. I’m glad you’re going to do that, it will be quite an eye-opener.” There was a little group at 2A, on the lawn with the house behind, so that I could recognize it, C and D and GFS and a large old woman in black. “That was a German woman who lived near us—my mother took pity on her. She was at the Wagner festival in Germany when the War broke out, and she couldn’t get back to England. Her house was smashed up by the local people. When she came back after the war my mother sort of took her under her wing. We all rather dreaded her, though probably she was perfectly all right. Now, here’s C and me—that’s an interesting picture, though my wife doesn’t think it’s very good of me.” I leant forward to look at it, GFS resting his hand on my shoulder. “That’s at Corley Court—you could get out on to the roof.” After a moment I recognized the place exactly, from the two or three times Peter took me up there. I said, “You could climb up through the laundry-room.” GFS: “Yes, that was it, you see.” It showed C and GFS, leaning against a chimney, C with no shirt on, GFS with his shirt half undone, looking bashful but excited. A tiny photo, of course, but clear—C’s strong wiry body, bit of black hair on his chest, and running down his stomach, one arm raised against the chimney with biceps standing up sharp. He is smiling in a sneering sort of way, and looks much older than GFS, who always seems v self-conscious in the presence of a camera. He was quite handsome at 20—odd glimpse of his white hairless chest: he looks like a schoolboy beside C. Me: “Who took it, I wonder?” GFS: “I wonder too. Possibly my sister”—which might help explain GFS’s look of confusion, if she’d just caught them at it. It gave me my first real idea of C’s body, and because the camera was like an intruder I suddenly felt what it must have been like to come into his presence—my subject! Very odd, and even a bit of a turn-on—as GFS seemed to feel, too: “I look positively debauched there, don’t I?” he said. I said, “And were you?” and felt his hand, rubbing my back encouragingly, move down not quite absent-mindedly to just above my waist. He said, “I’m afraid I probably was, you know.”
The atmosphere was now rather tense, and I glanced at him to see how conscious he was of it himself. “In what way, would you say?” (shifting away a bit, but not wanting to startle him). He kept looking at the picture, breathing slowly but heavily, as if undecided: “Well, you know, in the normal ways,” which I suppose was quite a good answer. I said something like, “Well, I don’t blame you!” “Awful, isn’t it? I was quite a dish back then! And look at me now”—turning his face to mine with a jut of his bearded chin while his hand moved down again in a determined little rubbing motion on to my bum.
So there we were, me and the famous (co-)author of An Everyday History of England, looking me in the eye with who knows what memories and conjectures, his hand appreciatively cupping my backside. I laughed awkwardly, but held his gaze for a moment, with a sort of curiosity and a sure sense now that C had touched him like this, nearly 70 years ago, and that probably I’d brought this on myself by freeing these memories in him. Also, that it didn’t matter in the least, this book-lined room was a place I was shortly going to leave, and leave him in, even the house itself would revert to the house I’d imagined for them before, a real Tudor house full of historical artefacts. I pictured the painstaking doodle I did round his name