The Lessons Read online

  ‘I? Oh, er, no,’ I said. I decided to be bold. ‘I’m not a Christian, actually. I’m an agnostic if anything, I suppose.’

  Father Hugh laughed three bellowing guffaws.

  ‘You’re not even sure about that, eh? Well, we’re not prejudiced. Come along to the Catholic Society in any case for wine and my atrocious home-made shepherd’s pie. Bring Mark.’

  ‘Oh no, I don’t think I –’

  ‘You should go, Marco,’ chimed in Isabella. ‘It is good for you to have Catholic friends. This is what I want for you. It would keep you from … I …’ She trailed off, looked at me and said, ‘I do not mean to be offence, James, but I would like Marco to have more Catholic friends. Not so many a-nose-stick. A nice group of Catholic friends would help him with his …’ She frowned as if reaching for a word, then finished, ‘It would help him.’

  Even Eoin and Rosemary shifted a little in their seats at this. Mark became very still, very quiet.

  ‘Now, of course, we don’t want to tell anyone who to be friends with, do we?’ Father Hugh rearranged himself and chuckled. ‘I always say that a wide social circle provides the furniture for a mental –’

  ‘But,’ said Isabella, cutting across him, ‘excuse me, do you not think that a circle can be too wide, Father? Not every friend is suitable.’

  ‘Ah yes, that’s certainly true,’ said Father Hugh, ‘but nonetheless I think we can allow some –’

  ‘And the right group helps a person to follow a good path.’ She turned her anxious frown on Mark. ‘Like the Lord, Marco, and His disciples.’

  ‘You think I should get myself some disciples, Ma?’ He seemed curiously detached. Quiet still and slow. ‘Twelve people to follow me about and do what I tell them? Sounds good to me.’

  ‘Do not be silly, Marco!’ She slapped her hand vigorously on his forearm in agitation, alarming Colonel Felipe, who bounded across the room to cower underneath an armchair. ‘You are always so, always you try not to understand, always you …’

  She broke suddenly into a stream of Italian, too rapid for me to catch even a word or two. Her hands were balled into angry fists. She pointed first at me, then at Rosemary and Eoin, speaking emphatic ally. There were little squeaks of rage. I should not have cared to have this speech directed at me.

  Mark stiffened under the assault. At last, when the flow of her words ceased, he said, ‘So you still don’t trust me, is what you’re saying? It’s not enough for Father Hugh to keep an eye on me.’ Father Hugh stirred but did not attempt a denial. ‘You want me on a leash. Perhaps you want to carry me in your handbag too, like your bloody dog?’

  Father Hugh, raising his hand in a benedictory fashion, said, ‘I’m sure your mother only wants what’s best for you, Mark. I’m sure we all do.’ He beamed at the group. ‘Family discussions can become so heated, and I always say –’

  Isabella spoke over him again, but more quietly, her fury spent. ‘I do trust you. That is why I brought you the box. I know you can be trusted now. I know you are different now. But the Catholic Society …’

  ‘I don’t care about the fucking music box. Take it back for all I care. I don’t want anything from you. And I don’t want anything from the fucking Catholic Society either.’

  Mark spoke very low and very quickly, and then there was silence. Eoin was still holding a sandwich mid-bite. Rosemary had folded her hands neatly in her lap and was staring at them.

  Father Hugh stirred again, refolded his legs and said, ‘Families know just how to needle each other, I always say. But it’s good to air grievances and to move on. Now, Mark, I’m sure your mother simply means that you might enjoy from time to time the company of delightful energetic young people like Eoin here, or Rosemary.’

  The two sat stock still, appearing neither delightful nor energetic.

  ‘No one wants you to give up your other friends, of course not, but –’

  ‘You don’t know what she wants,’ said Mark. He stood up. ‘I apologize, Father Hugh, but I have to go now.’ He lurched out of the room and slammed the door behind him.

  At the noise, Colonel Felipe began to yap loudly, baring his little pointed teeth and shaking his head. Isabella rushed over to the armchair, gathered the Colonel to her and petted him, cooing in soft Italian until he calmed.

  ‘Oh, Father Hugh, Father Hugh. I am so sorry for this … all this anger, I am so sorry.’

  It seemed like a good moment for me to excuse myself. Father Hugh shook my one hand between his two, shaking his head and grinning winningly as he muttered, ‘Agnostic …’

  He, Isabella and Colonel Felipe headed out through the back of the house towards the garden, while I climbed the stairs slowly to the first floor. My knee was hurting a great deal, as it often does in hot weather even now. I took the stairs one at a time, keeping my injured leg stiff and bending only the good knee.

  At the top of the stairs I paused. Should I go after Mark? Perhaps he would be grateful for the company. I stepped heavily along the corridor when I heard a crash, a loud exasperated growl and several short bangs coming from his room.

  ‘Mark?’ I called, and the noise ceased.

  ‘Mark?’ I said again.

  ‘I’m fine!’ he called out. ‘It’s nothing.’ His voice was thick.

  I stood for a little while in the corridor.

  ‘Sure?’ I said at last.

  ‘Yup, yeah. It’s nothing. I’m fine.’

  I stood a while longer, then turned and walked back towards my room.

  The next morning, Sunday, Isabella made ready to leave. She repacked her suitcases, with Colonel Felipe yapping and snarling among the Bodleian-branded carrier bags and the Oxford University sweaters. I hid in my bedroom, hoping to remain out of sight. It was then that Mark came to ask me for the return of his razor.

  I hesitated.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘If I wanted to again, don’t you think I could just get something from the kitchen?’

  He waited patiently while I went through my bag. The razor was old, horn-handled, a pleasant thing to hold in one’s palm. I passed it to him without comment.

  It was only when he turned to go that I found myself saying, ‘What did she say to you yesterday? What happened?’

  He cocked his head to the side.

  ‘Ancient history, my friend, ancient history.’

  ‘But what?’ I persisted, surprised at myself. I found I wanted to know very much. ‘What history? That is –’ I could not help the hedge – ‘if you don’t mind saying.’

  ‘Oh …’ He thrust his hands deep into his pockets. ‘We were alone together for a long time, Ma and me. She has notions. About my soul, you know. I think she secretly hopes I’ll become a monk. Keep me safe.’

  ‘Because you’re gay?’

  His eye was mocking and sharp.

  ‘Lord, no. She doesn’t care about that. No, no.’

  He smiled faintly, a strange-angled smile.

  ‘So what, then? What’s she afraid of?’

  He thinned his lips and said, very quickly, ‘Look, I had a breakdown once, OK? It’s not serious. It never was. She panicked a bit.’ Then, blinking, looking for a moment quite different from the man I’d known up to now, younger and more serious, he said, ‘Don’t tell the others. I’d rather they didn’t know.’

  He turned and walked swiftly downstairs.

  Mark went out that afternoon unexpectedly. He had said goodbye to his mother, but she would not leave without bidding him farewell again on the doorstep. So we waited and waited for his return. When he finally reappeared at 6.30 in the evening, Isabella was irritable and Colonel Felipe was unapproachable, growling and chewing an antimacassar to pieces.

  ‘We have been waiting, Marco. Where have you been? I have been ready to leave for hours and we have been waiting for you.’

  ‘I don’t see why you had to wait for me,’ said Mark. ‘You could have left when you were ready. I wouldn’t have minded.’

  Isabel
la frowned deeply.

  ‘It’s nicer this way, though,’ Jess said quickly. ‘We can all say goodbye together, can’t we?’

  This appeal brought a general nodding agreement. Isabella, though, glanced sidelong at Jess. I wondered how we all appeared to her. A gathering of heathens, trying to draw her son from the true path? Could she really think that Jess, of all people, would do harm?

  ‘No, Marco,’ said Isabella, ‘I could not have left. I need something from you. I have decided to take the music box home with me. My mamma’s box. It is too valuable to leave in this house without proper locks. We will keep it in California, where we are insured.’

  Mark blanched.

  ‘You can’t,’ he said dully.

  ‘I think I must, Marco,’ said Isabella. ‘Bring it to me, please.’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Mark. ‘I … I don’t know where it is.’

  Isabella frowned.

  ‘But, what do you mean, Marco? Where did you put it? Have you lost it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Mark. He was looking at the floor. A flush was slowly travelling up his neck.

  Despite myself, I felt heat rising in my own cheeks in sympathy.

  ‘Marco,’ said Isabella, ‘bring the box now, please.’

  ‘I told you,’ he said through gritted teeth, ‘I. Don’t. Know. Where. It. Is.’ He breathed in and out once, a choked and grating breath, then gabbled, ‘I went to look for it in my room last night but it was gone and I don’t know where it is someone must have come into the house and taken it.’

  ‘Taken …’ Isabella brought a freckled hand to her face.

  The rest of us looked furtively at one another. That one of us could have stolen the music box was unthinkable.

  ‘It must have been a thief,’ supplied Mark, ‘who sneaked in some time.’

  ‘And this thief knew where to find your music box, Marco? In all this great house?’ Her arms were folded across her chest now.

  ‘I …’ Mark hesitated then, with casual bravado, ‘Well, you did wrap it rather gaudily, Mother.’

  Isabella drew breath. We waited. If the box had been stolen, if one of us were suspected as dishonest, this house was over.

  ‘Wait,’ said Simon, standing up. ‘I think I might have seen it … Wait here.’

  He sprinted up the staircase. We heard him thump along the corridor on the first floor and throw open a door at the far end of the hall.

  ‘I’ve found it!’ Simon shouted.

  He dashed down the stairs, taking them two at a time, holding the white suede box.

  ‘I’ve found it!’ he said again. ‘It was in the storeroom. Spotted it this morning when I went to look for towels. You put it there by mistake, didn’t you? Last night?’

  Mark nodded slowly. ‘Yes, by mistake. That sounds … yes. Stupid of me.’

  His speech was thick and drawn out.

  ‘Come on, Mamma,’ he said. ‘Now you have the box, let me drive you to the station.’

  Isabella took the box from Simon’s hands and opened the lid. Half a syllable escaped from Mark’s lips, an unintelligible noise, and Isabella said, ‘Oh.’ She put it on the table and I saw what was inside.

  The music box was broken. The glass panes were cracked, the lid unhinged, one of the legs twisted. The mechanism had become unhoused and was rattling around inside the box. The ornate surface of the box was shattered, as if it had been thrown, hard, against a wall.

  ‘How did this happen?’ said Isabella.

  ‘I …’ said Mark, ‘I don’t know, I don’t know.’ He was twisting, his entire body writhing awkwardly in a gesture of such self-disgust that we all knew at once what had happened.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said again, more softly.

  Later, when we were alone, Jess asked why I’d done what I did, and I could not explain except by shrugging and saying, ‘It wasn’t so hard.’ I could not explain that I’d thought about the word ‘breakdown’, looked at the shattered box and understood what Mark was afraid of. It wasn’t just that Mark’s family could take the house away from him – away from us – though that was bad enough. It was that whatever independence he had won, in his dependent life, could be revealed as a sham. He needed us, I realized. The mythical group of friends who are closer than family, who replace family. It is a lie, of course. Friends are friends and family is family. But it is a necessary lie.

  I thought he needed to be saved and that it was for me to do. In that moment I was lost.

  ‘It was me,’ I said.

  Isabella turned astonished eyes to me.

  ‘You, James? But why? Why would you do this?’

  ‘I, er, it was an accident,’ I said. ‘I, um, I dropped it.’

  There was no going back now, only plunging onward.

  ‘I, er, well, I dropped it from the attic. Yes,’ I said, warming to my theme, ‘I often go there to, you know, get away from everything. I took it there yesterday afternoon. I just wanted to play with it but I was really stupid and I was hanging out of the window and fiddling with the box and, bang, dropped it. Four storeys. And then I, um … well, it bounced off the flagstones and fell into the undergrowth, and I had to go trampling around to find it, and I think I must have trodden on it a few times. When I found it …’ I trailed off, gazing at the broken thing.

  Isabella stared at me, then back at the box, then back to my face.

  ‘But,’ she said, ‘but why did you not tell me? Why did you put it back into the box?’

  ‘I was embarrassed,’ I said. ‘I didn’t want to tell you I’d done something so stupid. I thought I could confess to Mark after you left. I’m … I’m really sorry. Mark, I’m so, so sorry. I know it meant a lot to you, your grandmother …’ I looked into his eyes.

  ‘Mark?’ I said. ‘Mark, can you forgive me?’

  He blinked. He became, again, Mark. Cool in repose, elegant in outline.

  ‘Oh, James,’ he said, and his voice was warm, ‘of course I forgive you. Of course, of course, it was only a silly, silly mistake, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it, Mamma?’

  Isabella could scarcely fail to concur.

  ‘Oh yes, James, you are forgiven.’

  Mark stretched out his arms and welcomed me into his embrace.

  8

  First year, Preliminary Examinations and the Long Vacation

  Mark talks a great deal about sacrifice. It’s one of his themes, although at times he places himself in the martyr’s role and at times in the place of the one for whom sacrifices are made, depending on his mood. After debating the matter with himself – my own ideas do not figure in his theology – he comes to the conclusion that both partners in a sacrifice are one. Like God and His son, the one who demands the sacrifice and the one who is sacrificed are the same.

  Mark enjoys these paradoxes. He sometimes returns to the music-box episode in his entanglements but is always careful to point out that it was not a true sacrifice, because I had nothing to lose. At the worst, Isabella would have asked me to pay for the box and Mark would have given me the money. He says it was a piece of theatre. ‘You’ve always been the more dramatic of the two of us, you know. You’re just quieter about it.’

  In a sense, he is right. At his moments of high drama he is silent, acting without debate or announcement. I think of him poised like a half-folded penknife on the edge of the water, or of his face like a stone at the funeral. It’s only when there’s nothing worth saying that he can’t stop talking.

  ‘One slice or two?’ asked Mark, poised bread in hand at the toaster. ‘I don’t know why I say one or two, actually. It could easily be three or four or five or a whole toasted loaf. Or, for that matter, a half a slice, a quarter, an eighth, a sixteenth. James, you understand maths, so maybe you can continue?’

  ‘A thirty-second,’ I said, looking over my notes again, and munching my Weetabix. ‘A sixty-fourth, a one-hundred-and-twenty-eighth, a two-hundred-and-fifty-sixth, a five-hundred-and-twelfth. I think,’ I said, looking up, ‘that to all practical pu
rposes that’d surely be a crumb of toast. Do I need to go on into atoms?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Jess. ‘You’d never find the atomic marmalade to have with it. Two please. Slices, not atoms. Why don’t you sit down and have some breakfast?’

  Mark bounced on the balls of his feet, fiddled with the glass jars of pasta and rice, almost dropped one of the lids, recovered, spun on his heel, replaced the lid and jumped back to attention when the toaster popped.

  ‘I think better on an empty stomach.’ He frowned. ‘Or is that sex?’

  ‘You’d better work it out before you start the exam,’ said Jess, ‘or you’ll confuse the invigilators.’

  ‘Confuse or delight,’ said Mark. ‘Don’t you know you’re allowed to take off anything you like once you’re inside Exam Schools?’

  We knew. We knew all such ridiculous, beautiful tales and traditions. We were dressed in subfusc: black trousers, white shirts, black ties, academic gowns and mortarboards – the compulsory attire for university examinations. Franny, who had already started the reading for next year’s sociology paper, called it ‘a typical assertion of financial and intellectual superiority by a potlatch-like act: Oxford students demonstrate that they’re so rich they can afford special exam clothes and so clever they can be brilliant even when uncomfortable’.

  But Franny and Simon had finished their exams the day before and were still in bed, and I rather enjoyed the ceremonial. The previous afternoon I’d purchased red carnations, which showed that this was our last day of exams.

  Jess finished her toast, took a swig of tea and said, ‘Flower me.’

  I pinned the carnation carefully to her gown.

  Mark leaned forward to watch and when I was finished said, ‘Now do me,’ and puffed out his chest towards me.

  I pinned a flower to him willingly. Things had changed between us since the music box. Not drastically, not violently, but the change was clear to me. I felt warmer towards him.

  Jess leaned up on tiptoes for a kiss and Mark hugged me. ‘Champagne on the lawn at 6, all right?’ he said.

  ‘Good luck,’ I said.