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Authors: William Boyd
Tags: Biographical, Fiction
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souvenir shop with a view of the pension, pretending to choose postcards for a good half-hour before Mother emerged, splendidly got up in her sable coat (‘See!’ hissed Lucy) and wearing a hat with a veil. She hurried past the sanatorium and went into the Goldener Hirsch Hotel. Lucy and I gave her five minutes before we wandered casually into the lobby. We spotted her almost immediately in the residents’ lounge, at the far end, half obscured by a potted palm. She was leaning forward in her armchair talking to the tall, lanky man we’d seen outside the sanatorium.
Lucy called a bellboy over and discreetly indicated the man. ‘Would you tell Mr Johnson that I’m here to see him,’ she said. The bellboy immediately corrected her: that’s not Mr Johnson, he said. That’s Mr Prendergast. From America. Lucy apologized for her error and we left.
I have to say I feel strangely neutral about Mother’s behaviour — I was more impressed by the guileful way Lucy discovered Prendergast’s name. But I have to accept the fact — Lucy refuses to admit any other interpretation — that in the midst of my father’s illness his wife seems to have taken up with an admirer.
Tuesday, 29 April
Sitting at lunch today I watched my father slowly masticating a chunk of Frau Dielendorfer’s roast veal. He caught me looking at him and automatically gave his faint apologetic smile, as if he’d been doing something wrong. I felt a spasm of hurt on his behalf and also felt tears warm my eyes. Mother was in rampant, unstoppable form, in loud debate with Lucy. They were arguing about polka-dots for some reason, Mother claiming that no one over the age of ten should be allowed to wear them. ‘Otherwise for servants or dancers,’ she said. This was harsh, as Lucy was actually wearing a yellow polka-dotted blouse (in which she looked very fetching, I thought). Mother declaimed on, allowing that polka-dots were suitable for circus clowns as well. Father looked over at me again and winked. Suddenly, I knew he was going to die soon.
Friday, 16 May
ABBEY
I thought H-D was more than usually patronizing today when he complimented me on my history exhibition to Jesus College. You would have thought from his self-congratulatory attitude that he’d purchased the place for me himself as one used to purchase a commission in the army. I told you Jesus was the college for you, didn’t I? And so on, as if he’d done me some great seigneurial favour. I said, without the slightest hint of a smile, ‘I couldn’t have done it without you, sir. Thank you so much, sir.’ I think he got the message. By way of apologizing he invited me for tea at his cottage next Sunday, promising to tell me more of Le Mayne.
Peter has his place at Balliol confirmed so at least there will be one fellow spirit at Oxford. We went into the woods during sports for a calming cigarette. We both think it strange and something of a shame that Ben is so dead set against varsity. Mind you, I said, given the choice between Paris and Oxford I don’t think I’d hesitate long. We decided that Ben must have some form of private income, though we couldn’t calculate how much. Clearly it wasn’t a fortune or he wouldn’t need to get a job. ‘Just enough not to worry,’ Peter said ruefully. The thought of having to earn a living one day does seem somewhat alien just now, but we both agreed we couldn’t wait to leave Abbey. I said I’ll probably end up a schoolteacher and asked Peter what he dreamed of becoming. ‘A famous novelist,’ he said. ‘Like Michael Arlen or Arnold Bennett with his yacht.’ This took me back somewhat. Peter a writer? The mind does boggle.
The summer term seems to stretch ahead interminably. I realize, with hindsight, how invigorating the ‘challenges’ had been, how they had transformed the boredom and banality of our life at school. H-D lent me a poem called
Waste Land
by Eliot, advising me to read it. There were some
Lucy called a bellboy over and discreetly indicated the man. ‘Would you tell Mr Johnson that I’m here to see him,’ she said. The bellboy immediately corrected her: that’s not Mr Johnson, he said. That’s Mr Prendergast. From America. Lucy apologized for her error and we left.
I have to say I feel strangely neutral about Mother’s behaviour — I was more impressed by the guileful way Lucy discovered Prendergast’s name. But I have to accept the fact — Lucy refuses to admit any other interpretation — that in the midst of my father’s illness his wife seems to have taken up with an admirer.
Tuesday, 29 April
Sitting at lunch today I watched my father slowly masticating a chunk of Frau Dielendorfer’s roast veal. He caught me looking at him and automatically gave his faint apologetic smile, as if he’d been doing something wrong. I felt a spasm of hurt on his behalf and also felt tears warm my eyes. Mother was in rampant, unstoppable form, in loud debate with Lucy. They were arguing about polka-dots for some reason, Mother claiming that no one over the age of ten should be allowed to wear them. ‘Otherwise for servants or dancers,’ she said. This was harsh, as Lucy was actually wearing a yellow polka-dotted blouse (in which she looked very fetching, I thought). Mother declaimed on, allowing that polka-dots were suitable for circus clowns as well. Father looked over at me again and winked. Suddenly, I knew he was going to die soon.
Friday, 16 May
ABBEY
I thought H-D was more than usually patronizing today when he complimented me on my history exhibition to Jesus College. You would have thought from his self-congratulatory attitude that he’d purchased the place for me himself as one used to purchase a commission in the army. I told you Jesus was the college for you, didn’t I? And so on, as if he’d done me some great seigneurial favour. I said, without the slightest hint of a smile, ‘I couldn’t have done it without you, sir. Thank you so much, sir.’ I think he got the message. By way of apologizing he invited me for tea at his cottage next Sunday, promising to tell me more of Le Mayne.
Peter has his place at Balliol confirmed so at least there will be one fellow spirit at Oxford. We went into the woods during sports for a calming cigarette. We both think it strange and something of a shame that Ben is so dead set against varsity. Mind you, I said, given the choice between Paris and Oxford I don’t think I’d hesitate long. We decided that Ben must have some form of private income, though we couldn’t calculate how much. Clearly it wasn’t a fortune or he wouldn’t need to get a job. ‘Just enough not to worry,’ Peter said ruefully. The thought of having to earn a living one day does seem somewhat alien just now, but we both agreed we couldn’t wait to leave Abbey. I said I’ll probably end up a schoolteacher and asked Peter what he dreamed of becoming. ‘A famous novelist,’ he said. ‘Like Michael Arlen or Arnold Bennett with his yacht.’ This took me back somewhat. Peter a writer? The mind does boggle.
The summer term seems to stretch ahead interminably. I realize, with hindsight, how invigorating the ‘challenges’ had been, how they had transformed the boredom and banality of our life at school. H-D lent me a poem called
Waste Land
by Eliot, advising me to read it. There were some
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