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Authors: Edward Hogan
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conventions. It was in this lowly social state that she came across David Bryant.
Their schools were separated by gender, the icy hip of the A-road, and a field containing five magnificent Herefords, including a shaggy, horned bull. The lazy bulk of the cows made the trees and cars look small from where Louisa spent her lunchtimes – in the hilltop outwoods beyond the school fence.
One morning in December, whilst playing truant, she saw a group of six boys approach the field in their dark green blazers. She recognised the blond boy as he ducked down below the wall. The others crowded around him, their heads rocking back a second before Louisa heard the squawk of their laughter. In a moment, the blond boy was up and over the wall, naked but for his pointed shoes and grey woollen socks pulled up to mid-calf.
‘Off you go, Bryant.’
‘Tell them to be gentle.’
‘With your arse.’
‘Tell them you want commitment before you do it.’
David Bryant bounced from foot to foot, his hair shuddering. ‘That one looks like Thompson’s mother,’ he said, pointing at a cow with a thick ginger fringe, as he set off towards the group of supine beasts. His sprint was compact and muscular, his cock – made shy by the frosty air – bobbing as he changed direction. The cows were uninterested but for one, who startled from a doze and sprang away, causing David to leap and call out, to the delight of his friends. After he passed the bull, he continued to run hard for the fence, his body steaming, his breath visible. He stopped twenty metres below Louisa, and laughed to himself quietly. Louisa could make out the damp brightness of his face, and the spots on his shoulders. She slid behind a tree, her smile set deep within her.
David did not see her. He turned to face his friends and raised his arms to acknowledge the applause and the shouts of bravo , while one of the boys tried to rouse the Herefords by throwing stones at them. Louisa looked at the hollows of his buttocks. The traffic slowed as it passed the scene.
Louisa was unprepared for the calamity of her feelings, and the hopelessness of the reality which met them. She knew him – he was the son of her father’s friend – and now the mention even of stern, moustachioed Mr Lawrence Bryant made her reel. She despised such reactions in herself.
It was easy to re-order her short past around the few sightings of him. She remembered accompanying her father to the Bryant house, and seeing David, seven years old, sliding down the carpeted stairs on his backside. She remembered seeing him one Christmas near the canal with his two black labs. This now seemed hugely significant to her, for she had been out with her hawks that day, despite the fact that hunting was illegal on Christmas Day. He had seen her the way she saw herself, as a falconer.
When Mrs Smedley asked Louisa if she wanted to invite someone over for tea, Louisa, knowing her father was away on business, said Roy Ogden. Her mother relented, having long given up, generally, on what she had in mind. After tea, Louisa played her guitar loud enough so that her mother, washing dishes in the kitchen, could not hear her tell Oggie about David. He laughed gently and said, ‘You want to fit everything in before you’re fifteen, that’s your trouble. You’ll soon be ready to retire. Life is long, duck. Spread the butter thin.’
Love made Louisa despise a social world which she had thus far simply ignored. Some of the girls she knew already spoke of having had more than two lovers, and even her parents seemed to find such talk fashionable when they heard it on the television. People swung, cheated, or just moved on. Louisa could not compete in such a world and did not want to. She became puritanical as a result. There would be David Bryant, and nobody else.
She thought again about that Christmas morning: like Louisa, David had shunned the trivialities of celebration in favour of responsibility to his animals. He was the
Their schools were separated by gender, the icy hip of the A-road, and a field containing five magnificent Herefords, including a shaggy, horned bull. The lazy bulk of the cows made the trees and cars look small from where Louisa spent her lunchtimes – in the hilltop outwoods beyond the school fence.
One morning in December, whilst playing truant, she saw a group of six boys approach the field in their dark green blazers. She recognised the blond boy as he ducked down below the wall. The others crowded around him, their heads rocking back a second before Louisa heard the squawk of their laughter. In a moment, the blond boy was up and over the wall, naked but for his pointed shoes and grey woollen socks pulled up to mid-calf.
‘Off you go, Bryant.’
‘Tell them to be gentle.’
‘With your arse.’
‘Tell them you want commitment before you do it.’
David Bryant bounced from foot to foot, his hair shuddering. ‘That one looks like Thompson’s mother,’ he said, pointing at a cow with a thick ginger fringe, as he set off towards the group of supine beasts. His sprint was compact and muscular, his cock – made shy by the frosty air – bobbing as he changed direction. The cows were uninterested but for one, who startled from a doze and sprang away, causing David to leap and call out, to the delight of his friends. After he passed the bull, he continued to run hard for the fence, his body steaming, his breath visible. He stopped twenty metres below Louisa, and laughed to himself quietly. Louisa could make out the damp brightness of his face, and the spots on his shoulders. She slid behind a tree, her smile set deep within her.
David did not see her. He turned to face his friends and raised his arms to acknowledge the applause and the shouts of bravo , while one of the boys tried to rouse the Herefords by throwing stones at them. Louisa looked at the hollows of his buttocks. The traffic slowed as it passed the scene.
Louisa was unprepared for the calamity of her feelings, and the hopelessness of the reality which met them. She knew him – he was the son of her father’s friend – and now the mention even of stern, moustachioed Mr Lawrence Bryant made her reel. She despised such reactions in herself.
It was easy to re-order her short past around the few sightings of him. She remembered accompanying her father to the Bryant house, and seeing David, seven years old, sliding down the carpeted stairs on his backside. She remembered seeing him one Christmas near the canal with his two black labs. This now seemed hugely significant to her, for she had been out with her hawks that day, despite the fact that hunting was illegal on Christmas Day. He had seen her the way she saw herself, as a falconer.
When Mrs Smedley asked Louisa if she wanted to invite someone over for tea, Louisa, knowing her father was away on business, said Roy Ogden. Her mother relented, having long given up, generally, on what she had in mind. After tea, Louisa played her guitar loud enough so that her mother, washing dishes in the kitchen, could not hear her tell Oggie about David. He laughed gently and said, ‘You want to fit everything in before you’re fifteen, that’s your trouble. You’ll soon be ready to retire. Life is long, duck. Spread the butter thin.’
Love made Louisa despise a social world which she had thus far simply ignored. Some of the girls she knew already spoke of having had more than two lovers, and even her parents seemed to find such talk fashionable when they heard it on the television. People swung, cheated, or just moved on. Louisa could not compete in such a world and did not want to. She became puritanical as a result. There would be David Bryant, and nobody else.
She thought again about that Christmas morning: like Louisa, David had shunned the trivialities of celebration in favour of responsibility to his animals. He was the
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