William awoke with his head full of the strangest dreams that fled when he tried to recall them. He remembered hands - touching him? Eyes watching? Voices saying words like beautiful, heavy and precious.
The memories encouraged his manhood to stir and he leapt quickly from the bed knowing better than to dwell on thoughts that made such things happen. Then he paused, gazing around with some level of perplexity. This wasn’t the bedroom he shared with his chums! And the nightshirt he wore wasn’t the one stitched by his mama’s hand.
Then it came back to him. Bonny! Bonny was alive!
Grabbing his clothes and wriggling into them with all possible speed, he ran from the room determined to discover if the nagging feeling he had was true.
Unlike the bedroom, the adjoining space was shrouded in darkness, the air heavy with the scent of stale tobacco, but it wasn’t that which garnered William’s attention. Rather it was the two boys near the couch. Cropper? That name seemed familiar somehow. Tall and imposing, his cheeks rough with a man’s stubble, standing with his arm raised and a stout cane gripped in his hand. And Brolly, eyes downcast, braced against the sofa’s high back, his trousers around his knees.
“Well, if it isn’t our sleepyhead. Feeling any better this morning, young William?”
“Yes. Yes, thank you.” The words came tinted with automatic politeness but William couldn’t stop staring at Brolly – and the hiked up shirt that exposed his bare backside, already striped with scarlet welts.
An arm slung round his shoulder made him start and he glanced up, immediately captivated by kindly green eyes. He remembered those eyes. They were in his dreams. And remembering the dreams brought thoughts of Bonny to mind.
“Bonny?” he said, still unable to articulate any details.
The arm tightened and the eyes turned up at the corners, smiling. “Your friend is well. No more than a knock on the head and a broken arm. You may visit him after chapel if you will.”
William’s relief was a living thing, snatching him up and whirling him around, peppering his face with kisses. He suddenly remembered how to breathe and the day, though concealed behind heavy drapes, was brighter and full of life.
His friend was alive! The smile that broke across his face was nothing compared to the lightness in his heart and he knew – knew – that nothing could take this feeling away.
“Actually,” Cropper said, releasing him, “Your arrival is somewhat timely. I was teaching Brolly here the error of his ways. I don’t suppose…” The older boy hesitated and something, shyness perhaps, crept onto his face. “Would you care to lend a hand?”
How could William refuse? Cropper had taken him in last night, shown him nothing but kindness, found out about his friend, and given him a bed to sleep in when returning to the dormitory would have been impossible.
Even so, striking another boy felt wrong and William hesitated.
“Ah, I thought not.” Cropper turned away but not before William saw the sadness and rejection in his eyes.
“No, no,” he said quickly. “I will help you. I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.” The smile that greeted his acquiescence made the sun shine again and William reached out to take the cane from Cropper’s hand. Somewhat shyly he added, “I’ve never done this before. Could you… Show me perhaps?”
*
He was dreaming of father just before he woke, legs tangled in the sheet and a thin sheen of sweat over his body that made the cotton of his night shirt cling. The room pressed in, dark, treacherous and full of shapes he didn’t want to see, didn’t want to know. Words hung in his head, strung around his consciousness like flies around filth; “No, papa, please. I’ll be a good boy, I promise.”
Shaking with the memories, he buried his head back under the blankets willing the day to come quicker so he was safe from the sting of a cane on his bare buttocks, his father’s hands, his father’s words…
“I say, Price, if you don’t get moving you’ll miss brekkers.”
Eyes springing open, Elijah shot up in bed. Sun streamed through the open curtains, the room was abustle with boys washing and dressing, the sounds of their voices, singing and laughing danced around him, and next to his own bed Spencer, his grin as bright and honest as the window, wrestled his shirt over his head.
“I-I,” Elijah stuttered for a second, looking around wildly, confused and disorientated. This wasn’t home; this wasn’t his small stark room with its narrow cot and barred window, with its door that wouldn’t lock no matter how much he prayed.
Then it came back to him and his shoulders sagged momentarily in relief. He was at school. Father was in Africa. Gone. He was safe. Safe. No more cane, no more hands, no more words.
He smiled.
*
Cropper had arranged for William’s Sunday shirt to be brought to his rooms, so William was able to breakfast with his new friend. It felt awkward sharing a table with the boy he’d caned, yet Brolly seemed to bear no grudge, feeding William titbits of bread and jam and wiping his face with a napkin when some spilled stickily down his chin.
Halfway through their relaxed meal, Brutus and his brother joined them and William found his attention divided between the beautiful face of the older brother, the younger’s sharp wit, and Cropper’s kind eyes. He was the luckiest of creatures, having such persons as his chums; never in his entire life had William felt so loved, so cherished and so wanted.
Hesitant to interrupt the older boys conversation, which seemed vitally important and full of Greek phrases he did not understand, William finally asked, “Will I attend chapel with you or…”
Cropper’s arm immediately snaked around William’s shoulders and pulled him close. “You will remain at my side, William, if that is what you wish. However you must bid your farewells to Brutus as he, godless boy that he is, is excused the onerous duty of praising the Lord.”
“Oh,” William replied and then remembering, added, “My chum, Price, doesn’t attend either. Perhaps you could join him and study the good book together.”
The strangest expression darkened Brutus’ face and something like revulsion made William shiver.
“I’m sure he will seek the boy out,” Lyall piped up. “Though whether-”
“Brother,” Brutus cut in. “You are not excused chapel and so should prepare accordingly. Don’t be forgetting that God’s reach is long and his vengeance fierce.”
“I felt his hand hard enough last night,” Lyall said, touching his fingers to his bruised face.
“Aye and you’ll feel it again to more delicate parts of your body if you are not careful.”
Again William was left feeling there was more to the conversation than he could ever understand and contented himself in the knowledge that he would attend chapel at a sixth former’s side, aware of the protection that would bring from the likes of Jones and his bullying chums.
*
Breakfast was spare on a Sunday. The ethos of the Lord’s Day of rest applied even to the household staff, so the boys helped themselves to cold cuts of meat from the previous night’s joints and broke chunks off loaves a day old.
There was no sign of William and questions were asked until a message arrived in the form of Samson - Craven’s servant - that their friend was well and would see them later. Then all the chatter was about Bonny and the tossing, and whether the blow to his head would make Osborne chattier or rob him of the power of speech entirely.
Spencer said it was despicable that the Matron had not seen fit to contact Bonny’s parents, claiming that his father would at least wish to know he’d been hurt, even if were only to knock some sense into him for being such a fool.
As the conversation around him turned to home and family, Elijah plastered the best of smiles on his face and told his usual tale; “Mother is dead,” – left, gone, driven away by hatred and vilification. “Father? A minister, a good man. I miss him very much,” – no papa, please, no more.
And then the food was gone and the other boys were clearing up and clearing out, laughing and shouting and going to get ready for chapel. Yet another thing Elijah was not permitted to do, another difference, another way of separating him from people he could learn to care for, another way to make him feel less than worthy.
“You’re supposed to come with me.”
The boy, small – solid is the description that stuck in Elijah’s mind – stood next to the table, his fingers drumming an irregular tattoo on the grease smeared cloth.
“Oh, thank you. I’m Price, Elijah. From Cardiff.”
Elijah held out his hand expecting it to be taken and shaken as manners dictated. Instead it received a shuttered look and the boy muttered, “Ezra Salomon,” and then more loudly, verging on a challenge, “I’m a Jew.”
“Oh,” Elijah repeated, finding himself lost for words. He knew of Jews, his father taught that they had killed Christ, and he had seen Jews, vaguely recalling that the boot maker the family used was one. But he couldn’t remember ever meeting a Jew. Strangely the boy looked completely ordinary.
Salomon wandered off and Elijah, quickly collecting his bible from its place by his seat, followed him.
*
William smiled up at his friends and sang with all his heart. He had never been happier than at this moment. Outside the sun shone brightly, dancing through the windows, dappling the altar and the boys’ faces with colour. His fear of being at school had vanished and now all he could feel was excitement at the prospect of each new challenge that was sure to be sent his way. There were experiences here that the old William had never dreamed of; deep green bathing pools, streams that boasted quick silvery fish, and scattered copses where boys went nesting. Best of all, on the way to chapel Brolly had pointed out the huge horse chestnut heavy with fruit that Cropper promised him the pick of when the season turned enough.
This afternoon, William determined, he would write to his mama, and tell her all. Tell her that, despite Uncle Quentin’s cynicism, he was settling in, that he had chums of his own and that she should not concern herself nor worry over his well being. But only after he had visited with Bonny and checked that his friend was well, and called on Elijah and Spencer, perhaps making arrangements to do their prep together, though Cropper had offered his own imposing desk for William’s use.
Wherever his thoughts turned, he found them coming back to the older boy, his new friend and mentor, and he couldn’t prevent the shuffle of his feet that drew him closer to that large reassuring body. As their elbows grazed, Cropper turned to look at him, his eyes smiling and as warm as a summer’s day, and William’s heart swelled with pride.
*
The prep room was silent, bar the quiet rustle of pages as each boy stuck to his own tome, studying the words their faiths bid them know. After a brief attempt at conversation, Elijah gave up trying to engage Salomon on any level but the most superficial; the boy seemed morose and uncommunicative, and he treated Elijah not as a potential friend but as an enemy, or untrustworthy. He reminded Elijah of an old cur that haunted the alleys around his Cardiff home, the same wary choler to his eye and flinching gait in expectation more of a kick than kindness.
Still he was able to find some comfort between the pages of his bible, venturing for the first time beyond the strict limits his father set and filling his head with the sweet words of love:
‘Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine. Because of the savour of thy good ointments thy name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee.’
The kisses of his mouth. Elijah paused, remembering the previous night and those few fleeting moments he had lain at William’s side, their hands entwined and their faces separated by no more than a breath. In his mind he found the courage he had lacked at that moment and closed the distance between them, touching their lips together – the kisses of his mouth – feeling his heart beat faster – Oh thou, whom my soul lovest – the first stirrings of youthful desire – my spikenard sendeth forth…
Ezra, less absorbed in his studies, was immediately on the alert when the door
opened. Gripping his Torah in shaking hands, he watched as Brutus slipped soundlessly
into the room and scrambled to leave when a peremptory look was flashed his
way. As he reached the door he glanced back, unable to leave without seeing
Price’s face, hoping it wouldn’t contain the accusation he levelled
at his own heart. He didn’t; but, as Brutus closed the door, slowly and
deliberately, in his face, Ezra thought he saw something so much worse –
knowledge of what was to come.