The Lessons Read online

  I thrust my hand into my pocket, feeling the notes and coins tumble around my keys and my packet of chewing gum. Feeling the power of the transaction.

  I took my penal collections in the fifth week in a small study next to Dr Strong’s rooms. He left the door open between the two rooms and, as I struggled through questions on heat exchange and Onsager reciprocal relations, I could hear Dr Strong making little noises as he worked. For a man so strangely silent in company, he was fairly vocal when alone. He made a bipping, questioning sound when reading, with an occasional long hmmmm, along with a variety of hums, whistles, stampings and puffings. I looked out of the window into Garden Quad, where first years whose names I didn’t know were eating lunch, then, with a force of will, drew my attention back to the question paper. I had worked to the point of exhaustion for this exam. I had skipped lectures and arrived at tutorials with an even more dismal level of preparation than usual. I had stayed up late and woken early and studied and striven and blotted out all thoughts other than ‘If I fail this exam, they’ll send me down.’ And, to my surprise, I found that the questions were clearer than I’d thought and ways of approaching them came more readily to my mind.

  Time passed. At 3 p.m. Dr Strong knocked on the door, half-smiled and held out his hand for my script. As I stood to leave, he cleared his throat.

  ‘How is your, ahem?’ he said.

  ‘My …’

  He motioned to my leg.

  ‘How is it these days?’

  ‘Oh!’ I was startled that Dr Strong had taken any notice of me. ‘It’s, um, it’s sort of settled down. I sometimes have to use my stick, but often it’s all right. At least it doesn’t hurt all the time any more. Only if I knock it.’

  ‘Ahhh-aa,’ said Dr Strong.

  He beamed at me and we stood in silence for a few moments. I was unsure whether I was meant to respond any further or leave quietly.

  At last I said, ‘Well, I should be off.’

  Dr Strong nodded.

  ‘Mind out with your, ahm, your, ahm, mind out on the stairs. They’re steep,’ he said.

  Downstairs, still slightly dazed from the exam, I went to the lodge to check my pigeonhole. Next to the glass-panelled room where the porters sat doing their crosswords was the tiled antechamber lined from floor to ceiling with dark-wood pigeonholes. The room smelled, for some reason, unpleasantly of sweat. I riffled through the Sr–St section, pulling out the few letters addressed to me. Among them was a pale green envelope with the St Benet’s crest. It was a note from Father Hugh.

  Dear James,

  I have a small matter I hope to discuss with you. Nothing that need be in the least alarming. Do pop by for a sherry – I should be in any weekday from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

  My very best wishes,

  Fr Hugh

  I had nothing else to do so I walked over. Father Hugh appeared entirely delighted with my presence, gave me sherry and offered me a seat. I sat. I drank. The sherry was very good. Father Hugh sat down, spreading his legs a little wider than I was entirely comfortable with, although nothing untoward was visible.

  ‘I’m so glad you could come,’ he said. ‘How are things?’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘not too bad.’

  I suddenly wondered if he was going to make a pass at me. One did hear things, even then, about Catholic priests.

  ‘My girlfriend,’ I continued swiftly, ‘is in the University Orchestra. She was rehearsing a lot last term, but …’ I struggled to think of a way to finish this sentence that didn’t alert Father Hugh to my having had no reason to start it, ‘not so much this term,’ I concluded.

  ‘Mmm, girlfriend,’ said Father Hugh, ‘I sometimes wonder if you students settle down too early, but I suppose –’ he took a sip of sherry – ‘better too early than too late.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ I said.

  ‘Well, James,’ said Father Hugh, ‘I wonder how you think things are with our mutual friend.’

  I pushed my lips out noncommittally.

  ‘I suppose you should ask him that,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, yes, quite,’ said Father Hugh, leaning forward, ‘but you know I always say: one gets the best reflection from still water.’

  ‘Is it Mark’s mother who wants to know?’ I said. I did not like this way of handling things.

  Father Hugh steepled his fingertips.

  ‘We’re all concerned about Mark, James. All of us here at Benet’s, Mark’s family … I sometimes think … well –’ he leaned forward confidentially – ‘I sometimes think it was a mistake to take him out of Ampleforth. I met him several times when he was a young boy, you know. Such a happy child, and of course his family have so many friends. You know it was my predecessor, Father Anthony, who arranged his parents’ annulment. So sad. It affected Mark, of course it would. But I wonder if he would have been better left where he was instead of being dragged off across the world. He needs stability, James.’

  ‘He has stability,’ I said. ‘We’re stable. We’re his friends.’

  ‘Ah yes, friends,’ said Father Hugh, ‘but you can’t, forgive me, live in that house with him forever, can you? And then where will he go?’

  I shrugged. The question seemed ridiculous to me. Where would any of us go? We’d get jobs and rent flats and hope that we could find someone to love us forever and raise a family or at least pursue our careers. Nothing was certain, everything was possible.

  ‘I shouldn’t think Mark would ever have trouble making friends,’ I said.

  Father Hugh drank a little more sherry.

  ‘Yes, I suspect you are correct there, James. He is a very charming young man. He has certainly made an impression here at Benet’s. I suppose you know, though, that he is not quite stable?’

  He spoke the last words quickly, fixing me with his gaze to give me to understand that they were not lightly spoken. It was certainly more than I’d ever heard anyone else in Mark’s life say.

  I looked around the room. Over the cold marble fireplace hung another of those graphic and discomfiting figures of the dying Jesus. The limbs were tortured, straining to get away from the nails, the mangled hands curled around the wounds. Again and again, this same loving attention to the lineaments of suffering and the life lived, the death attained, only for others.

  Father Hugh stirred in his chair. I could feign ignorance and probably be met with pretended ignorance in return. But what, I thought, if it would be better for Mark if I were to know more than he was willing to tell me? What then?

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘he told me a little about that.’

  Father Hugh leaned back in his chair, magnanimous.

  ‘Ah, I am pleased to hear,’ he said, ‘pleased indeed to hear that he is sharing his worries. No one, of course, would want him to return to the care of a clinic, but for his own protection we must know if his behaviour becomes truly erratic. You understand? High spirits are one thing, but several years ago he became …’ Father Hugh paused, staring past me out of the window to the leaf-blown quad beyond, ‘he became violent, aggressive. We feared he would do damage to himself. And his behaviour was often … inappropriate. Do you understand?’

  I said nothing.

  ‘Can I trust you to be a friend to Mark, James?’

  ‘I am his friend,’ I said.

  ‘Good,’ said Father Hugh, ‘then we can pass to the second order of business. Isabella has sent me a gift for you.’

  He leapt to his feet, bounded over to the bookcase and retrieved a large brown-paper-wrapped parcel which he deposited in my lap.

  ‘Oh!’ I said. ‘Shall I …?’

  ‘Yes, yes, go on. Open it. I understand you had a rather clumsy incident last year, but the damage has been fully repaired. Isabella has decided to make you a gift of it.’

  I tore open the brown paper, already half knowing what was inside. It was the music box, gold and glass and glint, restored to pristine working order. There was a small white card inside with Isabella’s name, her address and her numbers in
Rome and Los Angeles.

  ‘I can’t take this,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, but you must,’ said Father Hugh. ‘After all, you’re a friend of Mark’s, just as we said.’

  At home, in the privacy of my bedroom, I opened the music box and heard it play again the familiar twanging chords of ‘Au Clair de la Lune’. The little gears turned, the tiny raised bumps pulled up the metal teeth and let them fall back. I shut the lid, quieting the sound. It seemed miraculous that the thing could have been made whole. It must have taken months of work to repair it. I removed the card and put it into my desk drawer.

  I knocked on the door of Mark’s room. He was in, sleeping off a hangover. He answered the door in pyjama bottoms, topless. I held out the parcel to him.

  ‘Father Hugh gave me this,’ I said. ‘It’s from your mother. I think it’s meant for you – a late birthday present, I expect.’

  He looked at the music box. I don’t know what I’d expected. A histrionic outburst perhaps, a repetition. Instead his lip curled.

  ‘Just like a bad penny,’ he said. ‘A priceless antique bad penny. Typical. Thanks, James.’

  And went back to bed.

  I passed my penals. I passed them well, in fact. Well enough for Dr Strong to give a little bip of excitement as Dr Boycott informed me that, if I continued like this, I ‘might prove a credit to this college, Mr Stieff’. I wondered what I’d done differently, and if I could reproduce it in the future. I noted also, with gloomy realism, that the effort I’d put into revising thermodynamics meant that my current work had suffered. Oxford is like this; there is no time for rest.

  By the end of term I was struggling again, my head sinking under the water and rising and sinking once more. Kind, lovable Panapoulou – how could I ever have considered him odd? – walked me through several questions on our recent sheets. I had learned that there was little to expect from the tutors in additional support, and it seemed to me that if I could just drag myself, or allow the others to carry me, to the end of term I could spend the vacation trying to learn this new work.

  Mark, too, was under threat of penal collections. His college had suddenly deemed his previous term’s essays – as crumpled and perfunctory as ever – unsatisfactory in light of their high standards. He, on the other hand, through means of persuasion not available to me, had been granted a reprieve on the condition that he should produce two essays which his tutors considered of adequate quality.

  On Sunday morning at the start of ninth week, with the certainty of spring coaxing the garden into green, Emmanuella suggested that we all walk over the Port Meadow to have lunch at the Trout. Quite apart from the work whose demands crowded in on me as soon as term was over, such a walk was beyond me; my knee had flared up again. Mark said he’d run us both over in the Dino. It was only big enough for two anyway.

  When his work was finished, we went out to the car.

  Mark grinned. ‘You know what,’ he said, ‘let’s not go straight to the Trout. We’ve got time. Let’s drive somewhere, how about that? It’s Sunday, it’s sunny, let’s go somewhere beautiful.’

  He was all manic energy, bouncing in his seat as we drove up through Summertown and out into the countryside. Instead of taking the most direct route, he turned the car towards the east, choosing the smaller country roads rather than the main highways.

  It was beautiful. For a time I stared out of the passenger window at the countryside waking from its winter slumber, the trees budding green, their tiny branches surrounding them like an untidy cloud of hair. This part of the country is galleried, almost stepped, so that tree builds on tree, hill on hill, giving the effect of mistiness even on clear days. I lapsed into a sort of day-dreaming on the landscape, so that I did not notice at first that we were driving too fast.

  My warning came with a series of sharp tumbling raps on the side of the car. We had driven – too fast, much too fast, past an overhanging branch which had run its knuckles along the side of the car. I sat up and looked forward. The road was narrow and winding; we would not be able to see any car coming in the opposite direction in time to slow down safely. We rounded the corners faster and faster, the car swerving almost into the ditches at each side. Mark was smiling, just a little, at the corners of his mouth.

  We turned sharply around another bend and I saw a car ahead, travelling in the same direction as us, but much more slowly. The road was only one lane wide. I was relieved; he would have to slow down now. But he didn’t slow down. Instead, he revved the accelerator and moved closer and closer to the car ahead. He didn’t hoot or flash his lights. He even decreased his speed a little. But he was too close. The car in front, a green Volvo with two small children visible in the back, accelerated to try to put some space between us. Mark allowed them to do so, fell back a few feet, but then, after some seconds had passed, began to accelerate again.

  I spoke, trying to keep my voice calm and measured.

  ‘You’re driving too fast, Mark. And you’re too close to the car in front.’

  He turned his head towards me, away from the road.

  ‘You know, James,’ he began.

  ‘Watch the road, Mark!’

  He smiled, raised his eyebrows, looked briefly at the road and accelerated a little. He turned his head back to me.

  ‘You know, James, you worry too much.’

  I didn’t answer. I was staring at the road in front of us, casting momentary glances towards him – just enough to know that he still wasn’t looking ahead. I began to breathe faster. What should I do? Wrench the wheel out of his hands, pull hard on the handbrake? Would that be more dangerous?

  ‘Fucking hell, Mark, just look at the road, for Christ’s sake!’

  He rolled his eyes and turned his head back to the road. I relaxed a little, but we were still accelerating, getting dangerously close to the Volvo.

  ‘You see, James, worry will only give you ulcers.’

  I looked at the speedometer. We were doing 85. ‘You’re going too fast, Mark.’

  ‘Me, I’ll never get an ulcer, because I know how to have fun.’

  On that last word, fun, he pushed the accelerator down hard, so that our bumper almost touched the back of the Volvo. I saw two white, panicked faces turn round to stare at us.

  Mark laughed, then pulled his foot off the accelerator so that the car in front was able to escape a little; it must have been doing 90 at least. The Volvo hooted three or four times and flashed its hazard lights.

  Mark wrinkled his mouth and looked at me. ‘Do you think they’re trying to tell us something?’

  He stepped on the accelerator again, the car ludicrously responsive, roaring as if in sight of prey. The Volvo tried to accelerate away, but it did not have the power. We approached inch by inch until, again, we were almost touching. If the car in front had to stop, if there were a car coming the other way, we would plough straight through the back of it, straight across the back seat where the two children were sitting.

  ‘See,’ said Mark, though his voice was very distant to me, ‘you need to learn how to take some risks, James.’

  We pushed forward again. Our bumper touched that of the car in front; I felt the judder. The Volvo glanced suddenly sideways, then righted itself. Mark accelerated again.

  I became very calm suddenly. It was as though time elongated; I felt I had minutes in which to decide, very carefully, what to do. Could I wrest the steering wheel from him? No, we would hit one of the banks and die. Could I persuade him to stop?

  I said, ‘Mark. You must stop. Now.’

  He laughed.

  I said, ‘If you don’t slow this car down right now, I swear to you I’ll pull the handbrake. We’ll do a 360-spin, skid all over the road and bury ourselves in one of those trees. I swear to you I’ll do it.’

  He opened his mouth, still smiling, then closed it again. He bit his lower lip. I noticed that his forehead was beaded with perspiration.

  I knew then that he might kill us both. That he himself did not know why.


  ‘Right now, Mark.’

  He took his foot off the accelerator pedal. The speedometer needle wound backwards: 90, 80, 70. As we got to 70, we finally passed a lay-by and the Volvo pulled off the road. As we drove past, I saw the mother turn round to comfort her children. Both were tearful. The boy had been sick.

  We drove the remaining ten miles at a slower pace. Mark became thoughtful as we went and, after fifteen minutes or so had passed, he said, ‘You know, James, I’ve noticed that when you drive, you always leave a big space between you and the car in front. And as you drive, you let the space get bigger and bigger. If they slow down, you slow down more. If they speed up, you don’t speed up quite so much. Why do you think that is?’

  ‘It’s called road safety, Mark. You should try it.’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t think that’s it.’

  ‘OK, Mark, you tell me. Why?’

  He pursed his lips.

  ‘I think,’ he said, ‘I think it’s because you like to let people get away from you. You know. You don’t like being chased, you like to be the one who pursues. But you can’t pursue too hard, or they’ll realize you’re interested. So you’re always tagging along behind people, slowly letting them get away.’

  My voice became very level, very tight. I said, ‘I have never heard anything so incredibly, pathetically stupid. Do you honestly think that you can derive some cod-psychological truths about me from the way that I drive? And after the performance you have just given, which fucking one of us do you really think has the problem, Mark? How can you think you have any right to lecture me about my personality?’

  He looked at me, smiling. ‘It’s true though, isn’t it? I expect that’s what Father Hugh wanted to tell you too.’ He looked back at the road, spun the wheel in his hands and turned the Dino into the pub car park.

  11

  Second year, May, fifth week of term

  When did I begin to be afraid to answer the telephone? Here in San Ceterino we have an answerphone set so that the phones barely ring before Mark’s recorded voice requests, drily, that a message be left. When Mark isn’t at home I hover by the machine, listening to the call, my hands by my sides, gauging my own response to the idea of speaking to them. Often it’s a friend of Mark’s from the village, less often a member of his family or one of their financial representatives, least often my parents or Anne telling me a piece of family news in their small, bitter voices. I listen to the recording being made; I stand waiting until the person hangs up. I allow the messages to accumulate, then I delete them. Mark is different: he either picks up the phone impulsively, surprised if the person on the other end isn’t entirely delightful, or fails to listen to the messages at all. But then, it’s not Mark who’s had to receive the calls about him and the things he has done over the years. It’s not Mark who’s had to decide what to do about them.