Джон Бойн - A Ladder to the Sky

‘Will I?’

‘Yes, I think so. I’m certain of it.’

Gore smiled. ‘Dash said something similar to me earlier,’ he said. ‘Although to be honest, I couldn’t give a fuck whether I am or not.’

Maurice smiled too and shook his head. His teeth were gleaming white. ‘I don’t believe that for a moment,’ he said.

‘ Sic transit gloria mundi ,’ said Gore.

‘ All glory is fleeting . Erich used the same line with me once. When we were in Rome.’

Gore’s smile faded a little now. He hadn’t expected the boy to know what the words meant. Nor did he enjoy repeating the lines of others. He needed to be first, always first.

‘Last night,’ he said.

‘What of it?’

‘It must have been three or four o’clock. I’d finished reading and switched my light off. And then the strangest thing happened.’

Maurice looked at him, his expression controlled. ‘And what was that?’ he asked.

‘Very quietly, the door to my bedroom opened and a figure stepped inside, dressed only in a red bathrobe. He closed the door behind him and walked across to the window before turning around and looking down on me. I opened my eyes and wondered whether I was lost in the midst of a dream. I’ve had such dreams in the past, you know. Of boys I’ve known, boys I’ve never known and boys I’ve wanted to know. Anyway, the moonlight was entering the room in such a way that the figure was only half illuminated but when he removed his robe, letting it fall to the floor, he was naked underneath, his body a work of art. Michelangelo might have sculpted it and failed to capture its beauty. The fierce definition of the pectoral muscles. The stomach so lean. The impressive member that lay between the boy’s legs, apparently ready to offer pleasure if given a signal of consent.’

‘And what did you do?’ asked Maurice.

‘I turned over,’ said Gore. ‘Not to invite the figure into my bed, you understand. But to make it clear that I had no interest in him.’

‘Perhaps you’ll live to regret saying no,’ said Maurice, standing up and gathering the remainder of his belongings, not bothering to fold them now, simply tossing them carelessly into his case. ‘One day it might feel like a lost opportunity.’

‘Don’t get me wrong,’ admitted Gore. ‘I’m not made of stone, so I considered it. But I resisted because I’m not a fool. I feel rather pleased with myself this morning that I said no. Something tells me that, had I lifted the covers and invited the figure in, my life would have taken an unhappy turn afterwards.’

‘Maybe you ate some rotten cheese before you went to bed,’ said Maurice.

‘We didn’t have any cheese.’

‘Then perhaps you’re just losing your mind.’

‘Oh, I’ve been doing that for years. But not long enough not to recognize when I’m being played.’

‘You think I’ve been playing you?’

‘I think you came here hoping to. And have been disappointed to find that I’m not such an easy mark. Erich Ackermann was one thing, a pussycat I imagine. And Dash, what is he? A tomcat. Slinking around the neighbourhood, hoping for a little night-luck. But I’m a different beast entirely, aren’t I? I’m a lion. I belong in the jungle. And so, I suspect, do you. This is why things could never work between us.’

Maurice said nothing but walked to the window and stared out at the view. The sea was calm but, from somewhere beneath the cliffs, the playful sounds of young swimmers could be heard. When he turned around again, his face was cold.

‘You’re probably just having sex dreams because you’re not getting any,’ he said. ‘It’s not as if anyone in their right mind would want to fuck Howard, after all.’

‘My dear boy, that’s not how things are between us,’ said Gore, momentarily thrown off guard. ‘Don’t imagine you understand what goes on between Howard and me because you don’t. What exists between us runs far deeper than sex.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Maurice. ‘I mean, the image of two fat old men writhing around on top of each other, tugging at each other’s limp old cocks, would rather make me want to throw up.’

‘Dash might be a fool,’ said Gore, rising from his chair now and making his way towards the door, shocked to realize that he was more susceptible to insults than he had imagined. Better men than Maurice had abused him over the decades and he’d never given a tuppenny damn before. ‘And Ackermann might have been a fool too, for all I know. But I’m not. So do me the courtesy of remembering that when you reconstruct the events of last night in whatever medium you choose, portraying yourself as the innocent victim of an old man’s lecherous advances.’

Maurice said nothing, simply stared at him as if he’d grown tired of this entire conversation.

‘I’ve known a lot of whores in my life,’ added Gore, running his hand along the red bathrobe that hung on the bedroom door before stepping outside into the corridor. ‘Both men and women. And in general, I’ve always found them to be good company, with a highly evolved sense of honour. A whore will never cheat you, they have too much integrity for that. But you, Mr Swift, you give the profession a bad name.’ He shuddered as he glanced around the room, unwilling to look the boy in the eye for fear of what he might see there, disinterest being the worst horror. ‘I’ll be out on the terrace in a few minutes to wave you both off. I’m looking forward to saying goodbye.’

‘So?’ asked Howard when they were alone later, sipping cocktails on the terrace, enjoying the eternally rewarding view of the sea. The sailboat and the boys were back – none of them had drowned after all – and this time they had brought some girls with them. They were screaming in delight and desire as they dived from the deck into the water and scrambled up the ladder to do it all over again, pulling up their ill-fitting trunks as they went, a glimpse of white backside occasionally visible against their tanned skin. ‘What did you make of him? Handsome, yes?’

‘Oh yes,’ agreed Gore.

‘And Dash is crazy about him.’

‘Besotted.’

‘Do you think he’ll make it?’

‘As a writer?’ He thought about it and closed his eyes for a moment, trying to imagine a literary world of the future, one that he would no longer be a part of. ‘I don’t doubt it for a moment,’ he said. ‘The boy will be an extraordinary success.’

‘Good for him,’ said Howard.

‘One thing,’ said Gore. ‘The bed in the guest room. The one that Maurice slept in last night. We’ve had it for so many years. I think it might be time we got rid of it, don’t you? Invested in something new?’

It was the early autumn of 2000 and we were marking our fifth wedding anniversary by going out to dinner. We’d only recently arrived in Norwich and were still unfamiliar with the city but you’d done a little research and reserved a table at a restaurant in Tombland that, you told me, had received a positive review in a local newspaper. You looked very handsome that night, I remember, wearing a dark blue jacket with a crisp white shirt underneath, the two top buttons open to reveal a glimpse of your chest. You’d spent the afternoon at the gym and your face had a glow that reminded me of why I’d always found you so irresistible.

I had only been to East Anglia once, when I interviewed for the job, but you had been three times, first to give a talk to the creative-writing students at the university where I would now be working and, later, to take part in a couple of literary festivals.