Chapter Five
Laurie’s
winter resumed. He felt now as if he were trapped behind a glass
wall and supposed he always had been. Not until now had he wanted
something beyond it badly enough to make it real. He sat every
weekday from ten till four with Sanderson, learning nothing, acting
out the part of a boy who had learned something well enough to
convince the poor tutor that they were making headway. On nights
when his mother and father were both at home, he sat down to the
family dinner and acted out the part of a good son who still had
something to say to his parents and could make entertaining small
talk for his bored little sister. Sir William, Laurie noted with
weary satisfaction, seldom met his eyes on these occasions and
otherwise avoided him. Steered well clear of the child too, which
was Laurie’s only real concern now. Once Hannah arrived after
dinner as she did every night, he picked up his books and, acting
out the part of someone who gave a fuck, politely excused himself
and retreated to his garret to study.
He even
did so, usually, for a couple of hours. It often took Laurie a
while to come back to himself if he’d been lost in a role. Not the
fooling around he did for Clara, that schizophrenic clowning, but
the serious parts he’d undertaken for performance. A natural method
actor, his drama teacher had called him, bemused by a
sixteen-year-old who could, without a costume change, stand in his
T-shirt and jeans and suddenly convince him that he was in the
presence of Macbeth. Laurie, the Good Student, often convinced
himself just as thoroughly and would spread out his books and sit
quietly at his desk watching strings of numbers and facts that
meant nothing to him dance across the pages until he felt
sick.
On the
third night after Sasha’s departure, he allowed himself to remember
he had not incinerated all the dirty clothes that Sasha had left
behind. Sitting up from an unequal tussle with the Corn Laws,
Laurie smiled at the blank wall in front of him. There had been an
awkward moment. He’d managed to get down to the basement unseen,
the clothing bundled up with the bed linen, which could probably
have used incinerating too, after the night it had had, but needed
at least a discreet wash, and not by Mrs. Gibson. The boiler had
been blazing away; no trouble to drop the soiled garments in—except
one scarf, a soft blue scrap that had been wrapped around Sasha’s
throat, its ends tucked down to shield his chest. It was good, by
contrast with the other things. Perhaps he could use it again,
perhaps…
Perhaps he’ll come back for it, had
run through Laurie’s mind, causing his fists to clench in the
fabric, his eyes to fill with angry, painful tears. Sasha had
opened the door to the stairwell, let himself out, closed it behind
him, and been gone. Had made himself, in one instant, a nothing to
Laurie, only empty air where the second before he had been vividly,
vitally present. Laurie had tried to reconcile Sasha’s absence with
the lingering scent of him, with the traces of semen dried onto his
belly, his pubic hair, his fingers. He had stood in the boiler
room, struggling with this anomaly, the blue scarf clutched in one
hand, for a second too long, while Gibson had appeared in the
laundry next door, linen basket majestically balanced on her hip.
She had been put out, at first, that her boy wished to wash his own
sheets; she didn’t mind, not at all, that he’d spilled coffee all
over them. Then all of a sudden, she’d cottoned on—or thought she
had—bestowed upon Laurie such a look of gentle comprehension that
he had prayed to die on the spot, and left him to get on with
it.
He had
neither burned the scarf nor washed it. He’d taken it back upstairs
with him, tucked it into the bottom drawer of his pine chest, and
left it there. Swallowing dryly, Laurie stood up from his desk. He
went to the chest, ran his hands over its fine old wood, polished
smooth with use. Then he pulled open the drawer.
He lay
down on the bed, all made up with clean linen now. He couldn’t go
through that again—reached under the mattress and scrabbled around
until he found a box of tissues.
Shame
was tearing at him. He didn’t know why. Despite all the
conditioning that might have made him think so, he had never found
his own touch dirty or degrading; pleasure was pleasure, and he’d
taken a deep, quiet joy in it, in the escapes and visions he could
achieve.
Ah, no,
not shame. Instead sorrow. Yes, sorrow and a crushing sense of
hopelessness, that he was about to try to recreate what he had done
with Sasha, whose scent was rich in the scarf. Inhaling it deeply,
burying his face in the wool where it lay on the pillow, Laurie
heard his own choked sob and fell fiercely silent. What had they
done? The first time, when they’d hit the mattress in a tangle of
limbs? Laurie had landed on top, yes, and Sasha had opened his
thighs for him, then closed them and held him tight. Gasping,
Laurie grabbed for a handful of the tissues, tore open his jeans,
and shoved them into place. He had not meant this. Had meant to
build the memory slowly, give himself a half hour’s comfort in his
arid, glassed-in world, even if it was sad and degrading beyond
measure to try to do on his own what the two of them had made—that
fire, that communion. He tried for an instant of control and
failed, shooting violently into his own clasp. He broke into tears
and dragged pillow and scarf down over his head. “Oh, God! Sasha,
Sasha!”
* *
*
On Thursday morning at ten fifteen, a light, cautious rap came
on the study-room door. Clara looked up from her latest edition
of Star Girl, and
Sanderson hung fire in the middle of a trig equation. He looked at
Laurie, who, even as his pupil, was also the son of Baronet Fitzroy
and a natural master to a man like Sanderson, who found it
reassuring to be mastered. Laurie, who could not speak—who was
bland, calm, and cool on the outside, and racked on his interior by
an impossible hope—gave him a nod of permission. Sanderson called
out, “Come in.”
My education’s no good to me, but you could use it. I’m
leaving a key to the back stairwell under the garage door. As you
come in, there’s a room to the left that nobody uses. I’ll put a
box in there with some clothes in it. My Savile Row stuff, I’m
afraid. You’ll have to look the part if you’re going to share my
tuition. You can change in there and come up. The study room’s the
last on the corridor. Laurie had stopped
there for a moment, then added, Just think
about it. Whatever you decide, keep the key. I don’t ever want you
stuck outside on a cold night again.
The note
Laurie had sealed up in an envelope for Sasha had yielded a
result.
Sasha
looked good, and it wasn’t just the clothes, though they suited him
well. He entered the room with a quiet poise that fitted Laurie’s
background story for him perfectly—useful and impressive too, since
Laurie hadn’t had the chance to tell him what it was. He was clean,
and although still thin, there was a difference. Had he found
shelter? Closing the door, he nodded to Sanderson. Turned a
brilliant smile upon his friend. “Laurie.”
Clara
dropped her baby-teen comic. “Prince Sasha!”
Oh, God.
Not quite the approach Laurie had had in mind. Well, he would have
to run with it now. Clara pattered over to Sasha, who took her
outstretched hands and shook them gravely. Laurie stood up from the
big library table where his work was spread out, and said to the
tutor, “This is the friend I said might be joining us, Sandy. The
Romanian ambassador’s son.”
“Oh!” Sanderson’s watery eyes had gone wide. “Of course,
Laurence. I didn’t…” He lowered his voice and took a few steps
toward Laurie. “I didn’t know the young gentleman was…royalty.
What’s the correct form of address, sir?”
“Just Sasha.” Laurie shot a glance over Sanderson’s shoulder to
meet Sasha’s eyes. “He’s very informal.” Keeping his gaze steady on
Sasha’s, which was kindling with astonishment and laughter, he
continued, with all the casual lordliness he could muster, “I’d be
just as pleased, Sanderson, if you wouldn’t mention this to anyone.
Prince Sasha failed his midterms too, and his father isn’t as
generous as mine. The ambassador knows Sir William, so…” He drew
himself up, allowed his tone to acquire the edge of disdain
appropriate to so vulgar a subject as money. “I’ll see that you’re
remunerated for the additional work.”
“Oh, no, Laurence.” Sanderson rubbed his hands. Laurie could
envisage him back at home that night telling his collegiate
housemates that he was confidentially tutoring a Romanian prince.
“It’ll be my pleasure, I’m sure.”
Sasha
came quietly to sit down. He took the chair next to Laurie’s, a
discreet distance away, still close enough to touch. “You found the
encampment,” Laurie said softly, passing Sasha a pen and unused
notebook. Sanderson, in his nervous excitement at this new arrival,
had swept his whiteboard clean and was now busily covering it with
a set of fresh equations. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. Better than. I’ve slept in a bed for three nights.” He
gave Laurie a luminous glance across the textbook he was opening
for them both to look at. “Well, four. Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.” Please, Laurie silently begged him. Don’t
mention any of that, or I’ll crack and disgrace both of us right
here, tutor and little sister notwithstanding. I can hardly breathe
as it is. “It’s this chapter. I hope you can make something of it,
because I haven’t got a clue.”
“My education stopped when I was thirteen, so I doubt it. Also,
you didn’t happen to warn me that I’m a prince.”
Laurie
grinned. “Blame Clara. I thought you were just an ambassador’s son.
Don’t worry; either way, you look the part.”
“All right!” Sanderson had swung around to face them, pale face
alight with the joy of abstractions. Laurie and Sasha sprang apart