Page 37

23

Saint Gregory’s

Back at Saint Gregory’s, Theo’s resolution held firm. He worked hard in the classroom and played hard on the rugby pitch, and time passed in a blur. In November he went to Oxford on the train and stayed in a cold, gloomy room dominated by a full-length portrait of a severe nineteenth-century ecclesiastic who bore an uncanny resemblance to Herbert Hoover. The gray water pipes gurgled malevolently through the night as he lay shivering in his overcoat under clammy sheets, but sleep deprivation had no effect on his exam performance as he raced through the papers, filling the pages with fluent argument.

On the last day, he had two hours before the train left and wandered through the city streets, gazing up at the towers and spires and dreaming of the life he would have if he got in. Intoxicated by books and history and new beginnings. And three weeks later to the day, he received a letter from Trinity College informing him that he had been awarded an exhibition to study Spanish and modern history, starting in September of the following year.

Theo’s name in gold letters was added to the honor roll engraved on the wall of the main hall, and at the award-giving ceremony on the last day of term, he received so many prizes for his academic and athletic achievements that he needed help from Cattermole to carry them back to his room.

Cattermole was unrecognizable as the terrified weakling that Barker had terrorized three years earlier. He had grown up and filled out and now played rugby for the Colts, but he still worshipped Theo, although now from a respectful distance.

Outside, in the quadrangle, Cattermole suddenly stopped, looking as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t get it out.

“What is it?” asked Theo impatiently.

“I just wanted you to meet my parents,” said Cattermole timidly.

“Of course. I’d like to,” said Theo, putting his books down on the ground, and as if they’d been waiting for a cue to enter, two rotund adults with red faces appeared from behind the flagpole on which the Union Jack was fluttering cheerfully in the breeze.

Mr. Cattermole was wearing an ill-fitting black suit with a lurid green tie and his wife was in a pink dress with a bow, but they still somehow succeeded in looking like identical twins.

“We’ve heard so much about you,” they said, bobbing up and down in synchrony.

“Good things, I hope?” asked Theo, resisting the temptation to bob up and down too.

“Oh, yes,” Cattermole’s mother said. “Jason thinks you’re the cat’s whiskers.”

“Mother!” Cattermole protested in agonized embarrassment. And Theo had to breathe hard so as not to laugh.

“We wanted to thank you because you’ve done so much for Jason, particularly when he was starting out and finding his feet,” said Cattermole’s father, sounding like he was delivering a prepared speech.

“No, you’ve got it the wrong way round,” said Theo. “Your son—Jason—he saved me when I was starting out. There was an older boy who wanted to hurt me with a lie and Jason told the truth, even though he was frightened. No, worse than frightened—terrified. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone show more courage than your son did then.”

Mr. and Mrs. Cattermole looked uncertain. It wasn’t the answer they’d been expecting.

“You should be very proud of him,” Theo said insistently. He was surprised by how much it mattered to him at that moment that these strangers should understand what he was trying to tell them.

But he needn’t have worried. “Oh, we are proud,” they said, bobbing in unison again.

Theo shook their hands, and they disappeared back into the milling crowd that was still spilling out from the hall.

Theo could sense people’s attention on him and set off across the quadrangle at a quick pace, not wanting to be delayed or distracted by meaningless small talk.

“Thank you, Sterling,” said Cattermole, half running to catch up. “You didn’t need to say that.”

“Yes, I did. It was important your parents should know what happened. I’m glad you introduced me to them.”

“Are your people here?” asked Cattermole. “They should be proud of you, too, with all these prizes.” He laughed, looking down at the armful of books he was carrying.

“No. No one’s here,” said Theo, feeling suddenly sad. It was strange to be so alone when all the other boys were surrounded by their families.

They climbed the stairs to Theo’s study—the room high in the eaves that had once been Lewis’s and that he had inherited as head of house, and Cattermole carefully placed the book prizes he’d been carrying in a pile on the floor.

“I’m going home with my parents now. I wish you all the best,” he said, holding out his hand.

But Theo didn’t take it.

“My father’s dead. That’s why he’s not here. He blew his brains out in New York four years ago. I should have told you before,” he said in a rush.

Cattermole looked thunderstruck. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean ...”

“No, it’s me who’s sorry. I wish I’d told you. You’re my friend and you deserved to know. But better late than never. Good luck to you, too, Cattermole—Jason, I mean,” he said, smiling, as he shook Cattermole’s still-outstretched hand.

Theo had already done most of his packing, and the study looked forlorn. Reaching up, he took down the framed picture of Eric Liddell that Lewis had given him when he left, and held it in his hands.

“ He was a rugby player too. ” Theo’s recollection of Lewis’s voice was so clear that it almost felt as if Lewis was standing there in the room beside him. Back on that autumn day three years earlier, when he had suggested the new sport that had changed Theo’s life at Saint Gregory’s and given him purpose.

And set him against Esmond.

“ Whose side are you on? ” He could hear Esmond’s voice, too, reaching out to him from the past, entwining him in memories.

Dropping the picture into his suitcase, he went down the stairs to the corridor where he had had his study the year before and stopped halfway along it, facing the door that had been Esmond’s. It was slightly ajar, but he could not see inside.

He remembered that first evening when he and the other brats had stood in line to go up on the ledge and he had seen Esmond for the first time, reading a book in his armchair, oblivious to the crowd outside. The unbrushed blond hair falling about his ears, the gray sweater with the holes, the sculpted face when he looked up.

Theo remembered the room too. Every detail of it. The cheap bust of Marx on top of the bookcase, the mess of books and papers hiding the tea and sugar, and the gramophone in the corner playing “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” And he remembered himself in the room in the same armchair, crying over his dead father with Esmond’s arm around his shoulder. No one had ever comforted him like that. No one.

Theo pushed open the door and found nothing. The most recent occupant had already left for the holidays, and all that was left was the iron bedstead, a set of dusty vacant shelves, and the dirty white walls.

He closed his eyes because the pain of loss was almost too much to bear, and a moment later heard a familiar voice calling his name. Was this one real or remembered? He turned and saw Father Laurence coming toward him down the corridor.

“I was looking for you and now I’ve found you,” he said happily, but then stopped in his tracks as he took in Theo’s pale, drawn face. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost,” he said. And then, glancing through the door into the empty room, he understood. “Ah, Esmond!” he said. “I should have guessed. He’s been thinking of you too.”

“What do you mean?” asked Theo, surprised. It was the last thing he’d expected his housemaster to say.

“A postcard. It arrived this morning,” said Father Laurence. “Come downstairs to my study, and I’ll give it to you.”

Theo sat in the chair where he had spent so many happy hours, particularly since he had been made head of house—a job that required him to work closely with his housemaster, whom he had come to regard more highly with each passing term. Quiet but firm, religious but open-minded, perceptive and sympathetic—the monk possessed a combination of qualities that Theo had never known in anyone else.

He looked around at the familiar objects in the room, while Father Laurence searched for the postcard among the jumble of papers on his desk. An overcoat with a fur collar hanging from a hook on the door, the old whistling kettle that Father Laurence had set to boil when they came in, a small brass calendar with little inset wheels that turned the days and dates, and on the back wall a reproduction of El Greco’s portrait of Christ, Salvator Mundi , which had made Theo think of Spain even before he went there for the first time.

He realized with a jolt that all day he had been collecting his memories of the school—people and objects—as if to put them in a bag to take with him when he left. To the extent that he belonged anywhere, he belonged here where he had succeeded, even while constantly questioning the school’s validity and looking beyond its walls to the wide world, which had called to him ceaselessly to take sides, take a stand, take action, make a difference.

“Here,” said Father Laurence, passing over the postcard. “I’m sorry for the wait.”

On one side was his name and the school’s address and a single word, Congratulations , and on the other the same picture of the Kremlin that had once hung on Esmond’s wall upstairs. The postcard bore a British stamp and had been posted several days previously.

“I assume he is referring to your admission to Oxford and not your departure from Saint Gregory’s,” said Father Laurence dryly.

Theo nodded. It was hard to take in. He’d assumed Esmond was far away, gone from his life. But here he was, somewhere in England, monitoring his academic progress.

“I didn’t tell him,” he said, looking up. “I’ve kept my word.”

“Yes, I don’t doubt you,” said Father Laurence. “But when you leave here, your promise expires, and Esmond may come back into your life.”

“He’s my friend,” said Theo. “I miss him. But that doesn’t mean I’ll do what he tells me. I’ve grown up since he left. Become my own man.”

Father Laurence looked hard at Theo and smiled. “You have grown. More than I could have hoped,” he said. “But you’re not finished, which is just as it should be. It’s why you’re going to Oxford.”

The kettle whistled and Father Laurence got up and made the tea, placing a steaming mug in front of Theo, adorned with a poorly executed picture of the abbey church, so bad that it was almost a caricature.

“You’re right that we must try to become ourselves,” he went on thoughtfully. “That is the challenge God sets us. But our best selves and not our worst, and not something average and mundane, which is the lot of so many, drowning in unfulfilled mediocrity. We have to be patient to find fulfillment. We have to learn to walk before we run. And for some of us with the greatest potential, that is hard, because running comes naturally. Especially to you, Theo!”

“What are you saying, Father?”

“I’m saying you shouldn’t get ahead of yourself. Enjoy Oxford for its own sake. Use your time there to read and to listen and to think—and to grow. That’s the way to become your own man.”

“It’s what I intend to do, Father.”

He was speaking the truth, but sitting there on that winter’s day in Father Laurence’s study, he had no idea how difficult it was going to be to carry out his good intentions.