Read Online The Back of His Head by Patrick Evans - Free Book Online

Robert, private. There was nothing I could do to stop the whispered public embroidering of the story of Raymond’s triumph to the effect that he had been struck down in his pomp, as if the prize itself had brought the illness with it as in some medieval allegory.
    The rumours became monstrous—Raymond was dying of meningitis, Raymond was dying of AIDS, he was dying of syphilis contracted during his misspent Wanderjahr in North Africa years before: he had weeks to live. In the end it was a relief, almost, when he told us what his doctor had just told him. Parkinson’s. Seems I’ll be going around interviewing people, he said, which was classy, we all thought, given the circumstances: very stylish indeed. But at least we knew he would be with us for a good while more, though in quite what state, at that stage, we simply didn’t know.
    I had it out with Semple after that, I really did. Now are you satisfied? I demanded. He really is sick, he really is being punished? You told me , is what he replied. You started it off! Anyway, he said, everyone knows he’s a prick, he’s got up everyone’s nose who’s ever met him! He might well be difficult , I told him. I’ve never pretended my father was perfect. Uncle , he said. Ray’s your uncle . Father too, I reminded him. Adoptive father—now, what about this other stuff that’s going around? What other stuff, he said, and I thought he looked furtive when I went on the front foot to him like that. You know very well what other stuff, I told him. Oh, that , he said. Well, it’s true, isn’t it? You remember the things he used to get up to, don’t pretend it didn’t happen to you. It happened to everyone, all of us. I’ve no idea what you’re talking about , I told him. And if there’s any more of this we’ll sue —
    I still find it hard to forgive him, to forgive Robert—to forgive all those who simply had to drag down a man like that in his finest hour. He’d been a public figure for some years, and inevitably there were stories that had been doing the rounds in that time. Some of these had something to them: after all, Raymond had been in and out of enough bedroom windows actually to have been spotted at some of them. And, yes, he was a difficult man, I’m sure that’s becoming clear to you by now, he was a very difficult man indeed. He was an artist, and he was difficult because he was an artist: and an artist because difficult. The two things were one.
    That’s what I try to remind the others on the occasions that something comes up from a past they seem to remember in far greater detail than ever I can—I, who, unlike them, actually shared his house and life, who was actually present at the times they talk about. I’ve had to reprimand each of them more than once: Julian least, perhaps, since he had least to do with the Master as a young man, coming somewhat later to the scene as he did: although, of course, he’s as susceptible to suggestion as the next man.
    Remember what Raymond brought us! I reminded them all, and still remind them. Remember when we were waiting, remember when it happened—remember Stockholm! Remember when we were together , is what I meant, when we had a sense of purpose in our lives, a sense of meaning and magic. Because, dear Lord, there’s no doubting he brought us some wonderful times, an excitement we’d never have known ourselves without him. What would we be without him? I often ask, and I don’t just mean the four of us on the Trust. He was a gift to us all, a gift to everyone.
    For myself, I know I made too much of him when he was younger, despite our difficulties— because of our difficulties, in truth, because of them. Nothing is simple, nothing straightforward. I used to love him more when those things happened that I found so hard, sometimes so wrong , but that was when he meant more and more to me. The two went