Wilberforce (55 page)

—A long way, possibly.

Fairclough made a sound like understanding.

—Would you trust him to keep a confidence?

—Implicitly.

—Even from his son?

—If the Bishop gives his assurance, you can trust it.

—But, Morgan persisted, it's a bit more complicated than that.

—Is it?

—What if he asks about something that goes beyond what I've done?

—Should you peach on your friends, you mean?

Morgan was relieved not to have to say it. Fairclough seemed to ponder the matter. He was still pondering when he began paddling back to the footbridge that sheltered their clothes.

—You aren't at school here, are you? Fairclough said.

Morgan conceded that he wasn't. Certainly not given the way the Bishop had responded to his drunkenness.

—Perhaps you ought to take advantage of that.

Morgan kept pace beside the man as the bank where they'd left their things came into view.

—He's the most peculiar clergyman I've ever met! Morgan blurted.

Fairclough laughed loudly and switched to backstroke:

—He's certainly a character, but for all that he's thoroughly orthodox.

Morgan felt his thoughts being swirled around like the mud beneath them.

—Sir, you aren't one of those people he … sorted out, are you?

Fairclough laughed again.

—Oh, I think having one's father-in-law hear one's confession would be taking things a bit far, don't you?

They regained their clothes, pulled them on over wet skin, and took off at a light trot down towpath. When they reached the Bishop's garden, Fairclough made his farewell.

—You aren't coming to tea? Morgan said, feeling suddenly anxious.

—Not like this. And I'm expected home.

A flood of questions filled Morgan's mind: where the Faircloughs lived, how Mr. Fairclough made his living, how long he had been part of the Bishop's family, how old his children were, along with countless others he could have asked at any point in the afternoon had he not been so thoroughly occupied with himself.

—Are you comfortable? Fairclough asked.

Morgan replied that he was. It had been an excellent outing. Belatedly he thanked the man for taking the time and trouble to—

—I mean in your room, Fairclough said.

Was he, comfortable?

—It's a fine room.

—St. Anne's always leaves me feeling a bit adrift.

Someone had said something about St. Anne last night, hadn't they?

—Where does St. Anne come into it, sir?

Mr. Fairclough released his right leg and began to stretch his left.

—The name of the room, surely you've noticed? They've all got names. I've slept a few nights in St. Anne's, but it always feels rather loose somehow, as if someone else might be knocking around in there with you.

Morgan shivered.

—If it gets on your nerves, ask Mrs. Hallows if you can move to St. Mark's.

—What's that like?

—Compact, like the gospel.

*   *   *

Morgan approached his room with a trepidation that annoyed him. It had just gone six o'clock. There was nothing to make a person uneasy in a sun-soaked bedroom overlooking a garden.

What kind of someone else had Mr. Fairclough meant, knocking around with him? Morgan reminded himself that he didn't believe in ghosts, certainly not in the warm light of summer.

He rinsed under the bath taps and toweled dry. When he returned to the bedroom, Droit was lounging across the counterpane trimming his nails with a penknife. Morgan's scalp prickled.

—Now listen, you, Droit said.

—Don't start.

—Get dressed, Droit told him. And for sod-all sake look smart. Enough of this scrapping about.

Shame descended. Had he been looking scrappy? Last night had they thought him callow, or lacking taste?

—I'd think a bit less about what those harpies thought of you, Droit said, and a bit more about how you're going to survive the next interval. And if you're still nursing those feeble notions of yours, you can jolly well un-nurse them.

—Why can't I simply tell him the truth?

Droit looked as if he had suggested taking up prostitution. Morgan rallied a defense, but Droit folded his knife and propped himself up on an elbow:

—Since I can see you've had a time of it, I'll keep things simple. Just what do you imagine is the point of this cozy exercise with your Bishop person?

Morgan couldn't think of a way to explain it without sounding wet.

—You can't, can you? Because not only
is
it wet, but it lacks purpose. Or rather it lacks a purpose for you. For him, the old dodger, he gets to be a hero to Jamsieboy, he gets to relieve the boredom of having to recuperate his silly health, and he gets to enliven his dry old years with spicy accounts.

—He isn't like that.

—Oh, no? What does a withered old widower know of
The Pearl
? This item just fancies locking himself away with you, rattling you, and making you tell him things he has no business knowing.

He'd bathed, but a film clung to him. Some foul measure of canal sludge still fermented in his stomach.

—He's nothing to be afraid of, Dicky. He can't do anything to you, unless you let him.

—What would he do to me?

Droit got up from the bed and brushed off his clothes:

—Calm down. I'm only saying you hold the cards here, so there's no reason to pander to his ploys. Don't sulk. And don't wear that tie.

Morgan set his House tie back on the hanger. Droit had a point. He'd left last night behind, so he shouldn't appear in the same ensemble again. Besides, it made him feel he were going to Prep, or for an evening in the Flea's study. He was no longer the little boy who secretly looked forward to Burton's extra-tu, and he had nothing to do with the creature who, while there, wondered what Silk was doing and whether he thought at all of Morgan.

He was seventeen years old and no longer at school. He selected the tie he wore on exeat. He combed his hair. It was the best he could do.

 

45

In the summerhouse they sat knee to knee, just as REN supposedly sat with boys he intended to purge. Morgan drew the swing back. The Bishop could corner him all he wanted. He could grab his wrist. He could breathe all over him. Morgan had made up his mind: he was sticking to his story about
The Pearl
, and no stare from the Bishop could force him to renege.

Except the Bishop was moving his own chair backwards. He now sat several arm's lengths away.

The man had ended tea abruptly, suggesting they adjourn to the summerhouse and lance the boil before Morgan worked himself into a state of indigestion. Now the man was staring at his hands and waiting for Morgan to sally out to exposed ground. Well, he wasn't born yesterday. He dispatched a skirmisher:

—Sir, who was St. Anne?

The Bishop looked up in surprise.

—The mother of Our Lady.

—Why are the rooms named after saints?

The Bishop blinked.

—It was my wife's innovation.

—Why did you never remarry, sir, if it isn't too impertinent a question?

—It is exceedingly impertinent.

The Bishop crossed his legs.

—Was her name Anne? Morgan pursued.

The Bishop's eyes narrowed. Were clergy allowed to glare?

—It was Clara, he said.

—I'm sorry she died. Why did you put me in St. Anne's?

Firing questions was almost entertaining. Why had he not taken command sooner?

—It's bright, the Bishop replied, and it has an adjoining bathroom and a soothing outlook. Are you uncomfortable there?

—No, sir.

The Bishop did not look confident of his reply.

—Remember, the Bishop said quietly, this is your project, not mine. You can leave whenever you wish.

He could! He was in the driver's seat and had been from the beginning.

—You can catch a train to London tonight. I can have a taxi here in half an hour.

That wasn't what he meant exactly. He only meant he didn't have to sit and endure twisted conversations. The Bishop gazed at the wisteria covering the summerhouse:

—You and I both know what you were referring to when you alluded to Lord Crim-Con—

Morgan flushed to his eyeballs.

—and the good Etoniensis. Perhaps you're wondering how a bishop should know anything about Victorian pornography, but when I was your age, I wasn't a bishop. And Queen Victoria was still on the throne.

Morgan's balance wavered. The Bishop twisted his cuff links idly:

—I didn't realize there were still copies of the old rag floating about, but apparently it's like Count Dracula.

—Bloodthirsty?

—Undead.

Morgan wished the swing were lower so he could keep his heels on the planks of the gazebo.

—I'm sure it's dreadfully immoral, he said, but I don't see what harm it does. It's only words.

—Many a man has made the pen his sword.

Morgan leaned forward and planted his feet:

—It's just a rude magazine. We don't pass it around. We only read it for a laugh.

—Surely for something more than a laugh.

—Well, if you really want me to say it, we read it for a wank.

The Bishop listened with maddening serenity.

—And I know it's the sin of Onan and all that, but can you really say it's that wicked? Think of the alternatives.

—Fornication, you mean?

What a word for a bishop to use!

—I—you said it. So given that, is a bit of a wank such a terrible thing?

—Are you asking me or telling me?

—I'm telling you!

The Bishop nodded.

—All right, I'm asking.

—Very well, the Bishop said, if you're asking. Is
a bit of a wank
such a terrible thing?

Morgan squared his jaw. If the Bishop thought he would embarrass him into dropping it, he was mistaken.

—I would say, the Bishop began, it may not be
such
a terrible thing so long as it doesn't encourage mental corruption or become a substitute for congress with one's wife.

—I haven't got a wife.

—Which is why I say it may not be the worst of options before you. Onanism is not quite the same as masturbation, by the way.

He felt he would start bleeding from his ears!

—I've no idea what you mean.

—Onan's sin was coitus interruptus, the Bishop replied outrageously, spilling his seed, which the Hebrews thought contained an entire human life, on barren ground, something akin to murder.

—That's bunk, Morgan declared. It takes two to make a baby.

—Indeed.

—So the sin makes no sense!

—But of course, the real problem with Onan was his disobedience and selfishness.

The Bishop looked at him as if that answered everything. Morgan set his jaw:

—You can't stop there and expect me to understand. I'm no clergyman.

—No, the Bishop replied wryly. But you might recall that Onan's brother had died.

—
So?

—So Onan was expected to impregnate—

—Sir!

—his sister-in-law Tamar to ensure the continuation of his brother's line. Onan enjoyed coitus with her, but then betrayed her by withdrawing prematurely, on more than one occasion.

Whoever would, or
could
…?

—So in disobeying strict custom, he not only killed the family line of Tamar and his brother, but he took grave advantage of his sister-in-law, a young widow helpless but for the support of her husband's family.

Cad.

—The same cannot be said, the Bishop continued, of seventeen-year-old boys releasing their frustrations with
a bit of a wank
.

—Then why do grown-ups make such a commotion about it? Morgan retorted.

—Do they? Were you punished for it as a child?

—No! I never—no.

He held the cards. He could determine the moves.

—At school, then?

—No, sir.

—In that case, I fail to see the commotion, the Bishop said. But we were speaking of the exceedingly blue compositions by men calling themselves Lord Crim-Con and Etoniensis. The latter was Swinburne, by the way.

Morgan had never heard so many appalling things in his life. The Bishop took out a handkerchief and used it on the back of his neck:

—The problem with Lord Crim-Con is not that boys find it arousing, or even that someone has written explicitly about what we normally reserve for our private relationships. The problem is what exposure to such very degrading material does to the reader, in particular the young reader.

—What's so degrading about it? Those people are having a jolly good time.

—Are they? the Bishop pursued, unabashed. I recall it as frightfully mechanical and repetitive, this part into that one, ad nauseam.

—I suppose it's meant to be all procreational, your wife closing her eyes and thinking of England.

—Of all the—if you'd even the
slightest
idea, I can't believe you'd speak that way.

The Bishop got up and stepped to the edge of the gazebo. Blood rushed across Morgan's skin.

—Forgive me, the Bishop said to the canal. I'm afraid I was insufficiently prepared for a discussion of marital intimacies.

—I suppose you planned to tell me off and leave it at that.

The Bishop turned and looked at him with … pity.

—If only you knew how much I understand.

Morgan wanted to punch someone. If the Bishop weren't old and unwell—

—Sexual union is a gift from God. Perhaps when you've spent some more time with Mr. Donne, or the Song of Solomon, you'll begin to appreciate it for yourself.

—You can be awfully patronizing, Morgan retorted. I'm not a child.

—Aren't you?