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The running shoes that Coach Eames had given him no longer fit and the football boots he got from the school store felt tight and constraining, but Theo had not forgotten the art of running. Coach Eames’s lessons were embedded in his unconscious, and he knew instinctively how to set himself to sprint for the line with his head still and upright (the opposite of Liddell’s) and his shoulders dropped away from his ears and relaxed so as not to lock the hips.

And he knew how to accelerate, too, with his arms working in tandem like pistons and his knees pushed up high for greater length of stride. Breath mattered less over a short distance, but the game of rugby required the same measurement against an opponent as he had needed for distance running. The feint and change in direction came naturally to him, just as it had when he sidestepped the O’Donnell brothers at Saint Peter’s, evading their outstretched flailing arms as he ran past them and away.

It took him weeks to absorb all the rules of rugby, but his impact on the Colts’ games was immediate, and when he got the ball, he scored tries almost at will.

Lewis, watching on the touchline, smiled with satisfaction at his own perspicacity.

“Who’s that?” asked Father Philip, coming up to stand beside him. The headmaster took a close interest in school sports, especially rugby, and longed with a religious fervor for the restoration of the Inter-Schools Challenge Cup to the Saint Gregory’s trophy cabinet. For the past five years, it had been residing at Saint Augustine’s and then latterly at Saint Chad’s, whose standing in the school tables had risen in inverse proportion to a fall in Saint Gregory’s. For Father Philip’s reign as headmaster to be considered a success, he needed the cup, and for that good players like Lewis were required, whereas they all now seemed to be headed to Saint Chad’s.

“It’s the American boy, isn’t it? The peculiar one who doesn’t want to be called Campion-Bennett,” said the headmaster as Theo trotted back toward them, fresh from another scoring run.

“Yes,” said Lewis. “The one who Barker tried to get into trouble.”

“And did for himself instead,” said Father Philip with a smirk. “No loss there. A transfer to the military academy was the best result for everyone, I think.”

“It was nicely done, Father,” said Lewis, who had been impressed, not for the first time, by the new headmaster’s ruthlessness, as well as being overjoyed to see the back of Barker.

“So, is he good—the American boy?” asked Father Philip.

“Very,” said Lewis. “He’ll be in the first fifteen next year. I wish I could be here to see it.”

“So do I,” said Father Philip, thinking of the Challenge Cup. “So do I.”

But Esmond was not impressed and accused Theo of selling out. “Lewis snaps his fingers and puts a shirt on your back, and lo and behold, you’re eating out of their hands!”

“No, I’m not. I don’t see why I’m under an obligation to have a bad time just because I’m stuck here, and if I can do something fun in the afternoons, I—”

“Fun!” Esmond interrupted, repeating the word like it was something obscene. “You think that’s all it is, do you?”

Theo nodded.

“Don’t you realize that games are the way these schools get inside your head and turn you into a fighter for their cause? They know that if they can get you to care about the rugby and cricket teams, then you’re going to care about the school, and they’ve won the battle. That’s why the Old Man has us all up on the touchlines every Saturday afternoon, screaming for our side to win. It’s breeding a herd mentality, where no one thinks for themselves anymore but instead becomes a cog in the bourgeois machine. You’re blind if you can’t see it.”

“Well, Communists don’t think for themselves much either, do they?” Theo hit back. “Look at Russia—they do what they’re told over there or they’re on the first train to Siberia!”

Theo’s unexpected attack infuriated Esmond. “You look at Russia,” he shouted. “Stalin’s trying to change centuries of exploitation in a few short years. Of course he has to force the peasants forward, when their lives have been so backward. They’re illiterate and can’t think for themselves, so he’s got no choice. But the party is making a new world over there in which there will be justice and fairness for all, whereas here the poor are unemployed and starving, and no one does anything about it except play stupid ball games.”

Esmond paused, out of breath. He’d gotten up from his chair and was looking down at Theo, who had shrunk back in the face of his friend’s verbal assault. But then, as suddenly as he had become angry, Esmond was calm again. It was like a magic trick: he closed his eyes and breathed deeply, and when he opened them again, his characteristic ironic smile had returned, masking the fiery emotions that lay beneath his controlled exterior.

“You have to look behind the lies,” he said quietly. “The public schools know the value of propaganda just as much as Hitler or Mussolini. ‘Play up and play the game,’ they say, but sport is not a game. Not here: it’s how the ruling class wins hearts and minds. Do you know what they did on the first day of the Battle of the Somme when they sent those poor fools across no-man’s-land?”

Theo shook his head.

“They gave them footballs to get them to run. Kicked them forward at zero hour and told the men to chase after them. Not that they got too far. Twenty thousand were dead by the afternoon, mown down by the German guns.”

“What are you asking me to do?” Theo asked, stirring uneasily in his chair. He liked Esmond, but he didn’t enjoy being lectured.

“Think for yourself.”

“All right, I’ll do that. But I’m going to play the rugby too. I need to do something I enjoy or I’ll go crazy, sitting here.”

Esmond nodded, saying nothing, and Theo got up to go.

“Where does that leave us?” he asked. “I hope we can still be friends.”

“The trouble with you, Theo, is that you think you can have your cake and eat it. And maybe you can for now, but one day, sooner or later, you’re going to have to choose. You’re going to have to decide which side you’re on.” Esmond looked hard at Theo, as if measuring the effect of his words, and then turned away, picking up a book from his desk.

Theo hesitated in the doorway, not wanting to part on bad terms, but Esmond ignored him, and he left the room.

For the remaining few weeks of the term, Theo saw little of Esmond, who had an uncanny ability to disappear from sight when he wished to. Winter had arrived, and drifts of snow covered the cars parked in the quadrangle. Icicles like irregular white teeth hung from windowsills and from the high ledge that Theo had crossed with Cattermole, and he was grateful for the gloves and warm coat that his mother had sent him by priority mail.

There was no rugby or running, and the boys gathered, shivering, around inadequate classroom stoves, trying to keep warm. When the sun came out, they threw snowballs and dragged homemade toboggans to the top of the hill behind the school and came careening down the slope until one of them hit a tree and knocked himself out, and Father Philip put an end to their fun.

When school was over, Theo took the train to London, packed with boys in holiday mood, and was met at Waterloo Station by Causier, who raised his peaked cap an inch in welcome and drove Theo to Sir Andrew’s opulent town house in Grosvenor Square, where his mother was waiting for him with open arms.

London was beautiful in the snow. In Hyde Park, there was ice on the Serpentine Lake, and he and his mother rented skates, hanging on to each other for dear life while Sir Andrew, wearing a Russian beaver hat, looked on and laughed, and the other skaters gave them a wide berth, thinking they were certain to fall, even though they never did.

They drank hot chocolate in the café afterward and the bells in all the churches rang and Elena was happy because it was Christmas and Christ was born again in Bethlehem.

The huge Christmas tree in the drawing room of Sir Andrew’s house glittered with swans and trumpets and silver globes that shimmered in the reflected light of the ceiling chandelier, which lit Sir Andrew, too, as he accompanied his wife on the piano, while she sang Spanish carols and one in English called “In the Bleak Midwinter,” which Theo was hearing for the first time. It began with the beauty and harshness of the snow magically connecting the song with the here and now of their own winter evening, and ended with a simple expression of a true believer’s relationship to Christ:

If I were a Wise Man

I would do my part,

Yet what I can I give him,

Give my heart.

The last note hung on the air, and Theo was moved to tears that he turned away to hide. He loved his mother, but he could not share her faith. Not like his stepfather. Theo saw the perfect union between them expressed through the shared music, and he felt shut out and alone.

At the end of the evening, Sir Andrew called Theo into his study and gave him his present: a first edition of Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare illustrated by Arthur Rackham.

“I promised you this book a long time ago,” he said. “And I’m sorry that it has taken me so long to give it to you, but it’s not just for Christmas; it’s also to congratulate you on your first term at Saint Gregory’s. Your mother and I are delighted by your progress.”

“Thank you,” said Theo, picking the book up and slowly turning the pages. The pictures were magnificent, but the thought came unbidden into his mind that he must refuse the gift. He thought back to Sir Andrew’s first present of King Arthur and His Knights and how agreeing to conceal it from his father had felt like a betrayal. He remembered how he had thought of giving the book back, but hadn’t been able to because it had been so beautiful, opening doors to another world, and he remembered, too, how he had read it at night in his bedroom with the aid of a flashlight, turning the beautifully illustrated pages in wonder. He had been tempted and he had succumbed, and almost without knowing it, he had joined with his mother in a silent conspiracy to keep his father shut out from their Spanish-speaking world. Outside and alone. Perhaps if his father had felt less isolated, he would have been able to turn to them in his hour of need.

The ghost of Theo’s father lay between the son and the mother, and between the son and the stepfather. Michael Sterling did not walk the halls of the Mayfair house like the ghost of Hamlet’s father, but he was present in Theo’s mind whenever Theo was there, telling his son to stand apart and not allow himself to be bought with expensive gifts.

“I’m sorry. I can’t accept this,” Theo said, putting the book down on Sir Andrew’s desk and taking a step back.

“Why not?” asked Sir Andrew, surprised.

“I can’t explain. I know you mean well, but—” Theo broke off, unable to translate into words the surge of competing emotions he felt battling for supremacy inside his head.

“Are you sure?” asked Sir Andrew, observing Theo closely as he offered him a second chance.

And now Theo wanted to accept. He tried to pull free of the past, but the words wouldn’t come, and in a moment the chance was gone.

“I’m sorry you still feel this way,” said Sir Andrew, pulling the book back to his side of the desk. “It’s a pity, as I don’t think you gain by it, but you must make your own decisions. However, you will understand that I can’t allow them to upset your mother. She is easily distressed, particularly by you, and that can make her ill. She is better at the moment, but she could very quickly go downhill again. I have to protect her from that.”

“Protect her from me, you mean?”

“Yes, if necessary.”

A surge of hatred for his stepfather ran through Theo like an electric current. What right had this man got to come between him and his mother? Theo would have liked to tell Sir Andrew what he felt, but he wasn’t going to give his stepfather the satisfaction of seeing him lose his temper. At least he hadn’t taken the book—there was some consolation in that.

“Can I go?” he asked.

Sir Andrew nodded, and without another word Theo turned and left the room.

Next day, Theo took a walk on his own, hoping to clear his head with a change of scenery.

He wandered, taking turnings at random, until he reached the river and crossed Westminster Bridge, looking back across the gray lapping water to the Houses of Parliament dominating the north bank. Mother of Parliaments. Bastion of privilege and power, wrapped up in its own history. It was no Bastille waiting to fall, and Theo sensed at that moment the absurdity of Esmond’s aspiration to tear down the social structure and start over, but at the same time he was moved by his friend’s David-like commitment to his cause and his refusal to compromise his beliefs. He missed Esmond with a sudden intensity—his quicksilver talk, his unexpected humor, and his certainty.

He walked on into Lambeth, leaving the towers of Westminster behind, and entered a poor neighborhood where the air was full of soot from choked-up chimneys and the hungry, desperate faces of the inhabitants reminded him of what he had left behind in New York. The snow in the streets here had turned to black slush, and the melting ice dripped down the crumbling walls into doorways where hollow-eyed paupers shivered in the cold.

The snow was just another deception, Theo thought as he turned for home—a white cover to conceal the black rottenness of the city underneath. Esmond was right. Sir Andrew and his kind lived lives of luxury while the poor suffered unspeakable degradations only a mile or two away, and then drove to church on Sundays to be blessed for their participation in a system of vicious exploitation that went on uninterrupted from one generation to the next. Whatever the odds, something had to be done. Something had to change.

Theo vowed to himself that he would not forget and he would not sell out. He knew where his loyalties lay.

Back at school, Esmond was in a forgiving mood. He sought Theo out and invited him to tea, telling him he had something new and wonderful and bourgeois to show him.

It was a gramophone, complete with a small, eclectic collection of records, bought for Esmond for Christmas by his doting mother, who hoped that her only son’s newfound interest in popular music might come to supplant his unfortunate obsession with Bolshevism.

Among the recordings were some of the Dixieland jazz hits that Theo remembered blaring out from the doorways of the Fourteenth Street dime stores in New York. The strutting rhythm of the trumpets and clarinets made Theo homesick, and he felt the connection to his childhood in the aching, time-jumping way that sound and smell can provide, but the remembering mind, laboring in the abstract, can never attain.

Perhaps it was Esmond’s intention to create this effect, because he saved the song that he wanted Theo to listen to for last.

It was a fresh-off-the-press recording of Bing Crosby singing “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” and Theo’s attention was captured immediately by the haunting, poetic lyrics that told the story of a hardworking man who lived the American dream and made a success of his life, but was then ruined by the Depression and reduced to begging for charity on the street corner.

Esmond wound the gramophone so Theo could listen to the song again and a third time, too, watching the effect on his friend. Theo was spellbound, straining to hear and understand every word.

“I thought of what you told me about your father when I heard it, and so I went straight out to buy the record because I wanted you to hear it too,” said Esmond. Theo nodded, but his mind was far away, thinking of his father, who had dreamed the same dream, laboring to climb the ladder of success, only to see all that he had built come crashing to the ground. On and on, up and up, always believing, until he fell. The song told his story too.

Theo tried to imagine what his father must have felt when his dreams turned to dust. Disappointment, disillusionment, despair ... Why? he must have thought. Why? —that must have been the last word in his father’s mind when he pulled the trigger. No one’s name, as Theo had once hoped or imagined, just Why? —the same question as the man with his hand held out was asking in the song.

“Thank you,” he said, looking up at Esmond. “It helps that you understand.”

“I do,” said Esmond. “And I feel your pain. It’s a terrible thing to lose your father the way you did, and your home too.”

Looking back afterward, Theo was surprised that Esmond hadn’t used the song to lecture him about the evils of capitalism. Instead, it had been a means—artificial but real—for him to convey a genuine sympathy for Theo’s situation. The conversation stung Theo into realizing that Esmond was the only one who cared about what he felt, apart from Frank, who was too far away to make a difference. His mother acted like the past did not exist and was immersed in her new life in London with her new husband, but Esmond was his friend and that had a value beyond price.

It helped, too, that Esmond had become less combative. He spoke less about the evils of Saint Gregory’s and its role in perpetuating class exploitation in Britain, and he refrained from any further criticism of Theo for playing rugby and trying to make the best of school life. Instead, he talked to him about the world outside and its dangers and iniquities, and here he found a willing listener, tapping into Theo’s own belief, born of his experience in New York, that his contemporaries, with their selfish, petty concerns, were playing at life without any understanding of what it was really about.

As part of this change of approach, Esmond invited Theo to join him on his regular weekend visits to Carborough, the neighboring town, which was a half hour’s bus ride from Saint Gregory’s. This was technically permitted only to sixth formers, but Theo’s popularity in the house and his sporting prowess meant that no one objected to him accompanying Esmond on non-match days.

Carborough was not a tourist destination. In fact, it was doubtful a tourist had ever set foot there, except by mistake. Its two most famous inhabitants were a Puritan fanatic who had signed Charles the First’s death warrant and his great-great-grandson, who had founded an ironworks on the outskirts of the town during the Industrial Revolution.

The factory was still in business, but the Depression had severely curtailed its profitability and more and more of its employees were being laid off, adding to the long queues at the hideous chocolate-and-green Labor Exchange in the High Street. In the meantime, the coal smoke from the blast furnace continued to hang like a shroud over the town, poisoning the inhabitants, who suffered from one of the highest rates of lung disease in the nation. Misery was not hard to find in the narrow, cobbled streets of back-to-back houses smelling of damp and destitution, and misery was what Esmond was looking for.

Carborough possessed no cathedral and precious few theaters or public parks, but one amenity it did have in abundance was public houses. Practically every street had a Rose and Crown or Nag’s Head at its end, catering to the local population’s constant need to drown its sorrows in drink. And it was to the spit-and-sawdust taprooms of these pubs that Esmond went with Theo in tow to spread awareness of the class struggle and listen to the drinkers’ tales of their wretched lives spent toiling on the breadline.