The Stranger's Child - Alan Hollinghurst [237]
So, a letter-book, copies kept by the grateful “Hubert”? It seemed a bit unlikely he would show such pride in them. In which case, letters transcribed by their recipient, also “H” of course, to immortalize them, if that was the word? So many of them were thank-you letters that it seemed little more than a vanity project. He had an image of this wealthy old queen in effect writing thank-you letters to himself (“ ‘My dear Harry,’ wrote Harry”). Rob skimmed on, with lowish expectations, eye out for proper nouns … Harrow, Mattocks, Stanmore, the whole thing parochial in the extreme, and then Hamburg, “when you get back from Germany, Harry”—well, we knew Harry was a businessman. Rob sipped frowningly at his tea. It was slightly chilly in the shop. “You will not find me much use at bridge, Harry, Old maid is about my level!”
Jumping ahead, Rob started to see there was something else going on, a kind of shadow side to the glow of gratitude. June 4, 1913—“My dear old Harry, I am very sorry but you know by now I am not the demonstrative type, it is not in my nature Harry.” September 14, 1913—“Harry, you must not think me ungrateful, no one ever had a better friend, however I’m afraid I do rather shun, and Dislike, displays of physical affection between men. It is not in my way Harry.” In fact—of course—the two strands often came together, thanks and no thanks. Perhaps the book of vanity was also a covert record of mortification—or success: Rob didn’t know how it was going to end. He tried to picture the displays of physical affection—what were they? More than hugs, kisses, perhaps, begun with tense negligence, then growing more insistent and difficult. And meanwhile the presents escalated. May 1913, “The gun arrived this morning—it’s an absolute ripper, Harry old boy”; October 1913, “Harry, I can’t thank you enough for the truly splendid wardrobe. My poor old suits look quite shabby in their new home!”—and a quaint reflection, “Creature comforts in life do matter Harry, whatever the Divines may say!” Then January 1914, “My dear old Harry, the little car is a joy—I went out with Daphne for a spin in her—we did 48mph several times! She says a Straker is the best car in the world, and I am bound to agree. Only a large Wolseley overhauled us.” Was there a certain hardening, the half-hidden note of covetousness, poor puzzled Hubert very slightly corrupted by all this generosity? Perhaps Harry would give him a Wolseley next. To an ardent gay man the recurrent olds that tolled through the letters—“My dear old Harry,” “Harry old boy”—however cheerfully meant, might have palled after a bit: “I cannot believe you are 37 tomorrow, Harry old boy!” in November 1912. Well, it was a curiosity—clever of Raymond to see that, and worth paying a bit for. One of Garsaint’s customers would probably go for it, the collectors of Gay Lives, which Rob had made a speciality of. And then of course the date.
He leafed forward, something resistant in the dense exclamatory crawl of the writing, the words themselves. There was very little after the end of 1914—a few short letters from France, it seemed: BEF Rouen, more whole-hearted letters now they were apart, perhaps, and the whole perspective had changed. Then a letter of April 5, 1917: “My dear old Harry—A quick letter as we are moving shortly