The Stranger's Child - Alan Hollinghurst [30]
11
THEY LEFT THE GARDEN through the front gate and went up the lane towards the Common, Cecil instinctively leading the way. “So what did you really do while we were flopping and droning?” said George. He’d found the hour at church, away from Cecil, unexpectedly painful.
“Oh, much the same,” said Cecil. “I flopped on the lawn; and I droned to the parlour-maid.”
“Little Veronica?”
“Poor child, yes. We assessed the chances of a war with Germany.”
“I’m sure she was a fund of pertinent views.”
“She seemed to think it was on the cards.”
“Oh, dear!”
“I fear little Veronica is rather smitten with me.”
“Darling Cecil, not everyone at ‘Two Acres’ is in love with you, you know,” said George, and smiled with private satisfaction and a hint of mistrust. He did wonder if Cecil hadn’t been almost too much of a success.
“She’s an attractive young girl,” said Cecil, in his most reasonable tone.
“Is she?”
“Well, to me.” Cecil gave him a bland smile. “But then I don’t share your fastidious horror at the mere idea of a cunt.”
“No, indeed,” said George drily, though a blush quickly followed. His face was hot and stiff. He saw how easily Cecil could spoil the walk, the day, the weekend altogether, if he wanted to, with his airy aggressions. “She is only sixteen,” he said.
“Exactly,” said Cecil, but relented, and put his arm through George’s, and pulled him to him tightly as they strode along. “Weren’t you possessed by the wickedest thoughts when you were sixteen?”
“I never had a wicked thought at all till I met you,” said George. “Or at least until I saw you, staring at me so brazenly, and longingly, across the lawn.” This was a favourite scene or theme for both of them, their little myth of origins, its artificiality a part of its erotic charm. “Little did I know that one day you would be my Father.” Here they were by Miss Nichols’s cottage. George straightened himself, knowing they would be seen, but not sure what impression he wanted to create. He felt a half-hearted desire to startle Miss Nichols, but in the event merely raised his hat and shook it in a feebly cavalier way.
“You looked so perfectly … suitable,” said Cecil, with a sudden drop of the arm and quick sharp squeeze of George’s bottom.
“Is that what you call it?” said George, wriggling free and looking quickly round.
“I wouldn’t say your brother Hubert was particularly suitable.”
“No,” said George firmly.
“Though one can’t help being just a little in love with his moustache.”
“Don’t go on about it,” said George. “You’re only saying it because I said Dudley had splendid legs. I’m not sure anyone’s ever admired poor Hubert. Besides, he’s a womanizer through and through.” And they both laughed like mad again, and somehow amorously, at the silliness of their slang. George felt a wave of happiness rise through him. Then Cecil said,
“I’m afraid you’re wrong about that, though.”
“About what?”
Cecil glanced round. “I would say your brother Hubert has one very ardent admirer—in the person of Mr. Harry Hewitt.”
“What, Harry? Don’t be idiotic. Harry’s after my mother.”
“I know that’s the idea. Your sister’s worried sick about it. But I promise you she needn’t be.”
“I don’t know what’s put this into your head.”
“Well, there’s his taste in art—you know, he told me the sort of thing he collects. But mainly, I must admit, there’s his tendency to manhandle your brother on every possible occasion.”
“Does he?” said George, with a frown of repudiation but also of dull recognition. “He’s certainly very generous to him.”
“My dear, the man must be the most arrant sodomite in Harrow.”
“A large claim!” said George, sparring a little for time.
“I just happened to catch an extraordinary moment, after dinner, when I’ll swear the old monster tried to kiss him in the inglenook. They didn’t know I could see them. Poor Hubert was most frightfully put out.”
George gasped and laughed. “You call him old,” he said, “though I believe he’s not yet forty.” The Cecil-type shock of this, the lightly brutal worldliness, brought its own little train of resistance,