Even as the words came out of my mouth I could tell there was something not quite right about them and the expression on his face, one of disdain combined with mistrust, embarrassed me.
“I don’t think so,” he said quickly. “That’s not how it works at all. Boys can only be perverts with girls.”
“Oh,” I said, disappointed.
“Do you have a big thing?” he asked a few moments later, after picking up all the keepsakes on my desk, examining them and putting them back down again in the wrong places.
“Do I what?” I asked.
“A big thing,” he repeated. “You need a big thing if you want to be a pervert. Shall we see whose is the biggest? I bet mine is.”
My mouth dropped open in surprise and I felt a curious stirring at the pit of my stomach, an entirely new sensation that I couldn’t quite understand but that I felt happy to encourage.
“All right,” I said.
“You first,” said Julian.
“Why me first?”
“Because I said so, that’s why.”
I hesitated but, not wanting him to change his mind and move on to a different game, I undid my belt buckle and pulled my trousers and underwear down to my knees and he leaned forward, an interested expression on his face as he stared at it. “I think that’s what they call average,” he said after a moment. “Although even that might be generous of me.”
“I’m only seven,” I said, feeling offended as I pulled my pants back up.
“I’m only seven too but I’m bigger,” he said, pulling his trousers down now in order to show me, and this time I could feel the room spin a little as I stared at it. I knew there was danger to this, that to be caught would be to invite trouble and disgrace, but the risk excited me. His was definitely bigger and it fascinated me, for it was the first penis outside of my own that I had ever seen and, as he was circumcised and I was not, it intrigued me.
“Where’s the rest of it?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” he said, pulling his pants up and refastening his belt without an ounce of self-consciousness.
“The rest of your thing,” I said.
“They cut it off,” he said. “When I was a baby.”
I felt a stab of pain run through me. “Why did they do that?” I asked.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “It happens to lots of boys when they’re young. It’s a Jewish thing.”
“Are you Jewish?”
“No, why? Are you?”
“No.”
“Well then.”
“It won’t happen to me,” I said, horrified by the notion of anyone coming at my nether regions with a knife.
“It might. Anyway, have you ever been to France?”
“To France?” I asked, uncertain why he was asking. “No. Why?”
“We’re going there on our summer holidays this year, that’s all.”
“Oh,” I said, disappointed that we had moved away from talking about sex, perverts and things, as I would have liked to continue discussing them for a little while longer but he seemed to have grown bored with them now. I wondered if I brought the conversation back to girls whether he might indulge me a little longer.
“Do you just have one sister?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “Alice. She’s five.”
“Any brothers?”
He shook his head. “No. You?”
“I’m an only child.” At that age, of course, it didn’t even occur to me that my birth mother might have gone on to have more children. Or that my natural father had most likely sired a brood of them before or since my conception.
“Why do you call your parents Charles and Maude?” he asked.
“They prefer it that way,” I said. “I’m adopted, you see, and it’s to show that I’m not a real Avery.”
He laughed and shook his head and said something that made me laugh: “Bizarro.”
A tap on the door disturbed us and I turned around cautiously, like a character in a scary film that thinks there’s a murderer waiting outside. No one ever visited the top floor except Brenda and even she only dared to enter when I was at school.
“What’s the matter?” asked Julian.
“Nothing.”
“You look nervous.”
“I’m not nervous.”
“I said you look nervous.”
“It’s just that no one ever comes up here,” I said.
I watched as the door handle slowly turned, then took a step back and Julian, infected by my anxiety, moved toward the window. A moment later, a cloud of smoke entered the room followed, inevitably, by Maude. I hadn’t seen her in days and was surprised that her hair was not quite as blonde as usual and she was looking painfully thin. Her recent illness had left her with a weak appetite and she rarely ate anymore. “I can’t keep anything down,” she had told me on the last occasion that we had spoken. “Anything except nicotine, that is.”
“Maude,” I said, surprised to see her there.
“Cyril,” she replied, glancing around, surprised to see another boy in my room. “There you are. But who is this?”
“Julian Woodbead,” said Julian in a confident tone. “My father is Max Woodbead, the famous solicitor.”
He extended a hand and she stared at it for a moment as if baffled by its appearance. “What do you want?” she asked. “Money?”
“No,” said Julian, starting to laugh. “My father says it’s good manners to shake hands upon making a new acquaintance.”
“Oh, I see,” she said, leaning over and examining his fingers. “Is it clean? Have you been to the bathroom lately? Did you wash your hands afterward?”
“It’s perfectly clean, Mrs. Avery,” said Julian.
She sighed, reached out her own hand and shook his for about a tenth of a second. “You have very soft skin,” she said, purring a little. “Little boys generally do, of course. They’re not used to hard work. How old are you, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I’m seven,” said Julian.
“No, Cyril is seven,” she replied, shaking her head. “I was asking how old you are.”
“Well, I’m seven too,” he said. “We both are.”
“Both seven,” she said almost in a whisper. “Isn’t that a bit of a coincidence?”
“I don’t think it is really,” he said, considering it. “Everyone in my class at school is seven. And everyone in Cyril’s too, I imagine. There’s probably the same number of seven-year-olds in Dublin as there are people of any age.”
“Perhaps,” replied Maude, unconvinced. “Might I ask what you’re doing in Cyril’s bedroom? Did he know that you were coming? You’re not being unpleasant to him, are you? He does seem to attract bullies.”
“Julian was sitting in the hallway,” I told her. “On the ornamental chair that isn’t supposed to be used.”
“Oh no,” said Maude, appalled. “That was my mother’s.”
“I didn’t damage it,” said Julian.
“My mother was Eveline Hartford,” said Maude, as if this would mean something to one or the other of us. “So as you know, she simply adored chairs.”
“They are terribly useful,” replied Julian, catching my eye and winking at me. “If one wants to sit down, I mean.”
“Well, yes,” said Maude in a distant tone. “I mean that’s what they’re for, isn’t it?”
“But not the ornamental chair,” I pointed out. “You told me never to sit on that one.”
“That’s because you have a habit of collecting dirt,” she said. “Julian, on the other hand, looks rather clean. Did you have a bath this morning?”