Gentlemen & Players (26 page)

8

“What’s the matter, Pinchbeck?”

August 23rd; the eve of my thirteenth birthday. We were standing in front of the school Portcullis, a pretentious little add-on from the nineteenth century, which marks the entrance to the Library and the Chapel Gate. It was my favorite part of the school, straight from the pages of a Walter Scott novel, with the school crest in red and gilt above the school motto (quite a recent addition, but a word or two of Latin speaks volumes to the fee-paying parents).
Audere, agere, auferre.

Leon grinned at me, his hair hanging disreputably in his eyes. “Admit it, Queenie,” he said in a mocking tone. “Looks a lot higher from down here, doesn’t it?”

I shrugged. His teasing was harmless enough for the moment, but I could read the signs. If I weakened, if I seemed in the least bit annoyed at his use of that silly nickname, then he would strike with the full force of his sarcasm and contempt.

“It’s a long way up,” I said carelessly. “But I’ve been there before. It’s easy when you know how.”

“Really?” I could see he didn’t believe me. “Show me, then.”

I didn’t want to. My father’s passkeys were a secret I had never meant to reveal to anyone, not even (and perhaps especially not) Leon. But still I could feel them, deep in my jeans pocket, daring me to say it, to share it, to cross that final, forbidden line.

Leon was watching me like a housecat who isn’t sure whether he wants to play with the mouse or unravel its guts. I had a sudden, overpowering memory of him in the garden with Francesca, one hand laid casually over one of hers, his skin tawny-green in the dappled shade. No wonder he loved her. How could I possibly compete? She had shared something with him, a secret, a thing of power that I could never hope to duplicate.

Or maybe now, I could.

“Wow.” Leon’s eyes
widened as he saw the keys. “Where did you get
those
?”

“Nicked them,” I said. “Off Big John’s desk, at the end of term.” In spite of myself, I grinned at the look on my friend’s face. “Had them copied at the key place at lunchtime, them put them back right where I found them.” That was mostly true; I’d had it done just after that last disaster, while my father lay despondent and blind drunk in his bedroom. “Slack bastard never noticed.”

Now Leon was watching me with a new light in his eyes. It was admiring, but it made me a little uneasy too. “Well, well,” he said at last. “And there I was thinking you were just another little Lower School squirt with no ideas and no balls. And you never told anyone?”

I shook my head.

“Well, good for you,” said Leon softly, and slowly his face lit with his tenderest, most captivating smile. “It’s our secret, then.”

There is something ultimately magical in the sharing of secrets. I felt it then, as I showed Leon around my empire, in spite of the accompanying pang of regret. The passageways and alcoves, the hidden rooftops and secret cellars of St. Oswald’s were no longer mine. Now they belonged to Leon as well.

We went out via a window on the Upper Corridor. I had already turned off the burglar alarm in our part of the school before locking the door carefully behind us. It was late; eleven o’clock at least, and my father’s rounds were long finished. No one would come at this time. No one would suspect our presence.

The window gave onto the Library roof. I climbed out with practiced ease; grinning, Leon followed. Here was a gentle slope of thick, mossy stone tiles, pitching down to a deep, lead-lined gutter. There was a walkway all around this gutter, designed so that a Porter might follow it with a broom, removing the accumulated leaves and detritus, although my father’s fear of heights meant that he had never attempted this. As far as I could tell he had never even checked the leadwork, and as a result the gutters were filled with silt and debris.

I looked up. The moon was nearly full, magical against a purple-brown sky. From time to time little clouds smudged across it, but it was still bright enough to underline every chimney, every gutter and slate in indigo ink. Behind me, I heard Leon draw a long, wavering breath.
“Wow!”

I looked down; far beneath me I could see the gatehouse, all lit up like a Christmas lantern. My father would be there, watching TV perhaps, or doing press-ups in front of the mirror. He didn’t seem to mind my being out at night; it had been months since he had questioned where I went and with whom.

“Wow,” repeated Leon.

I grinned, feeling absurdly proud, as if I had built it all myself. I grabbed hold of a climbing rope that I had strung into place a few months before, and hoisted myself up onto the ridge. The chimneys towered over me like kings, their heavy crowns black against the sky. Above them, the stars.

“Come on!”

I teetered, arms spread, gathering in the night. For a second I felt as if I could step right out into the spangled air and fly, like Kiefer Sutherland in
The Lost Boys
.

“Come
on
!”

Slowly, Leon followed me. Moonlight made ghosts of both of us. His face was pale and blank—a child’s face of wonder. “Wow.”

“That’s not all.”

Emboldened by success, I led him onto the walkway; a broad path inked by shadows. I held his hand; he did not question it but followed me, docile, one arm held out across the tightrope space. Twice I warned him; a loose stone here, a broken ladder there.

“Just how long have you been coming here, anyway?”

“A while.”

“Jesus.”

“D’you like it?”

“Oh,
yeah
.”

After half an hour of climbing and scrambling, we stopped to rest on the flat, broad parapet above the Chapel roof. The heavy stone slates kept the day’s heat, and even now they were still warm. We lay on the parapet, gargoyles at our feet. Leon produced a pack of cigarettes, and we shared one, watching the town, spread out like a blanket of lights.

“This is amazing. I can’t believe you never said.”

“Told you now, haven’t I?”

“Hm.”

He was lying beside me; hands tucked behind his head. One elbow touched mine; I could feel its pressure, like a point of heat.

“Imagine having sex up here,” he said. “You could stay all night if you wanted to, and no one would ever know.” I thought his tone was slightly reproachful; imagining nights with lovely Francesca in the shadow of the rooftop kings.

“I guess.”

I didn’t want to think of that—of them. The knowledge—like an express train—passed silently between us. His closeness was unbearable; it itched like a nettle rash. I could smell his sweat and the cigarette smoke and the slightly oily, musky scent of his too-long hair. He was staring up at the sky, his eyes brimful of stars.

Slyly I put out my hand; felt his shoulder in five little pinpoints of heat at my fingertips. Leon did not react. Slowly I opened my hand; my hand trespassed across his sleeve, his arm, his chest. I was not thinking; my hand seemed divorced from my body.

“Do you miss her? Francesca, I mean?” My voice trembled, catching at the end of the phrase in an involuntary squeak.

Leon grinned. His own voice had broken months before, and he loved to tease me about my immaturity. “Aw, Pinchbeck. You’re such a kid.”

“I was only asking.”

“A little kid.”

“Shut up, Leon.”

“Did you think it was the real deal? Moonlight and morons and love and romance? Jesus, Pinchbeck, how banal can you get?”

“Shut
up
, Leon.” My face burned; I thought of starlight; winter; ice.

He laughed. “Sorry to disillusion you, Queenie.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,
love
, for Christ’s sake. She was just a shag.”

That shocked me. “She wasn’t.” I thought of Francesca; her tawny hair; her languid limbs. I thought of Leon and of everything I had sacrificed for him; for romance; for the anguish and exhilaration of sharing his passion. “You know she wasn’t. And
don’t
call me Queenie.”

“Or what?” Now he sat up, eyes shining.

“Come on, Leon. Don’t muck about.”

“You thought she was the first, didn’t you?” He grinned. “Oh, Pinchbeck. Grow up. You’re starting to sound just like her, you know. I mean, look at you, getting all worked up about it, trying to cure me of my broken heart, as if I could ever care that much about a
girl
—”

“But
you
said—”

“I was winding you up, moron. Couldn’t you tell?”

Blankly, I shook my head.

Leon punched my arm, not without affection. “Queenie. You’re
such
a romantic. And she
was
sort of sweet, even if she was only a girl. But she wasn’t the first. Not even the best I’ve had, to be honest. And definitely—definitely—not the last.”

“I don’t believe you,” I said.

“You don’t? Listen, kid.” Laughing, full of energy now, the fine hairs on his arms bleached-blackened silver in the moonlight. “Did I ever tell you why I got chucked out of my last school?”

“No. Why?”

“I shagged a Master, Queenie. Mr. Weeks, metalwork. In the shop, after hours. No end of a fuss—”

“No!” Now I began to laugh with him in sheer outrage.

“Said he loved me. Stupid bugger. Wrote me letters.”

“No.” Eyes wide. “
No
!”

“No one blamed
me
. Corruption, they said. Susceptible lad, dangerous pervert. Identity undisclosed to protect the innocent. It was all over the papers at the time.”

“Wow.” There was no doubt in my mind he was telling the truth. It explained so much; his indifference; his sexual precocity; his daring. God, his daring. “What happened?”

Leon shrugged. “
Pactum factum.
Bugger went down. Seven years. Felt a bit sorry for him, really.” He smiled indulgently. “He was all right, Mr. Weeks. Used to take me to clubs and everything. Ugly, though. Big fat gut on him. And
old
—I mean,
thirty
—”

“God, Leon!”

“Yeah, well. You don’t have to look. And he gave me stuff—money, CDs, this watch that cost like five hundred quid—”

“No!”

“Anyway, my mum went spare. I had to have counseling, and everything. Might have scarred me, Mother says. I might never recover.”

“And what was it—” My head was reeling with the night and with his revelations. I swallowed, dry-throated. “What was it—”

“Like?”
He turned to me, grinning, and pulled me toward him. “You mean, you want to know what was it
like
?”

Time lurched.
An adventure-story enthusiast, I had read a great deal about time
stopping still
; as in: “
for an instant time stopped still as the cannibals crept closer to the helpless boys.
” In this case, however, I distinctly felt it
lurch
, like a goods train in a hurry pulling out of a station. Once more I was disconnected; my hands like birds swooping and fluttering; Leon’s mouth on mine, his hands on mine, pulling at my clothes with delicious intent.

He was still laughing; a boy of light and darkness; a ghost; and beneath me I could feel the rough boy-warmth of the roof slates, the delightful friction of skin against fabric. I felt close to oblivion; thrilled and terrified; revolted and delirious with irrational joy. My sense of danger had evaporated; I was nothing but skin; every inch a million points of helpless sensation. Random thoughts flitted across my mind like fireflies.

He had never loved her.

Love was
banal
.

He could never care that much for a girl.

Oh, Leon. Leon.

He shed his shirt; struggled with my fly; all the time I was laughing and crying and he was talking and laughing; words I could barely hear above the seismic pounding of my heart.

Then it stopped.

Just like that. Freeze-frame on our naked, half-naked selves; I in the pillar of shadow that ran alongside the tall chimney stack; he in the moonlight, a statue of ice. Yin and yang; my face illuminated; his darkening in surprise; shock; anger.

“Leon—”

“Jesus.”

“Leon, I’m sorry, I should have—”

“Jesus!”
He recoiled; his hands held out now as if to ward me off. “Jesus, Pinchbeck—”

Time. Time lurched. His face, scarred with hate and disgust. His hands, pushing me away into the dark.

Words struggled in me like tadpoles in a too-small jar. Nothing came out. Losing balance, I fell back against the chimney stack, not speaking, not crying, not even angry. That came later.

“You little pervert!” Leon’s voice, wavering, incredulous. “You fucking—little
pervert
!”

The contempt, the hatred in that voice told me everything I needed to know. I wailed aloud; a long, desperate wail of bitterness and loss, and then I ran, my sneakers fast and quiet on the mossy slates, over the parapet and along the walkway.

Leon followed me, swearing, heavy with rage. But he didn’t know the rooftops. I heard him, far behind, stumbling, crashing heedlessly across the tiles in pursuit. Slates fell in his wake, exploding like mortars into the courtyard below. Crossing over from the Chapel side he skidded and fell; a chimney broke his fall; the impact seemed to shudder through every gutter, every brick and pipe. I grabbed hold of an elder tree, spindly branches poking out of a long-blocked drainage grate, and hoisted myself farther up. Behind me, Leon scrabbled higher, grunting obscenities.

I ran on instinct; there was no point in trying to reason with him now. My father’s rages were just the same; and in my mind I was nine again, ducking the deadly arc of his fist. Later, perhaps, I could explain to Leon. Later, when he had had time to think. For the moment all I wanted was to get away.

I did not waste time trying to get back to the Library window. The Bell Tower was closer, with its little balconies half-rotten with lichen and pigeon droppings. The Bell Tower was another St. Oswald’s conceit; a little arched boxlike structure, which, to my knowledge, had never housed a bell. Down one side ran a steep-slanting lead gutter, leading to an overflow pipe that shot rainwater out into a deep and pigeon-stinking well between the buildings. On the other side the drop was sheer; a narrow ledge was all that stood between the trespasser and the North Quad, some two hundred feet below.