My eyes and mouth opened wide in scandalized delight. “No,” I admitted. “Not so far anyway. I think it’s something they teach them in the seminary.”
“It’s because they’re all so sexually frustrated, of course,” he told me. “They can’t have sex, you see, so they beat up little boys and it gives them stiffies when they do it. It’s the closest they get to orgasms during the day. It’s ridiculous, really. I mean I’m sexually frustrated but I don’t think beating up children will solve the problem.”
“What would?” I asked.
“Well, fucking, of course,” he said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
“Right,” I said.
“Haven’t you ever noticed, though? The next time one of the priests hits you, take a look downstairs and you’ll see that he’s flying at full mast. And afterward they go back to their rooms and wank themselves silly thinking about us. Do they come into the shower rooms here?”
“Well, yes,” I said. “To make sure that everyone is washing themselves correctly.”
“Bless your pure heart,” he said, looking at me as if I was an innocent child. “It’s not our personal hygiene that they’re interested in, Cyril. In my last school, there was a priest named Father Cremins who tried to kiss me and I punched him in the nose. It broke. There was blood everywhere. But of course there was nothing he could do about it because he could hardly report me in case I said what had provoked the attack. He told everyone that he’d walked into a door instead.”
“Boys kissing boys!” I said, laughing nervously and scratching my head. “I didn’t know that…I mean it seems strange that…after all, when there are—”
“Are you all right, Cyril?” he asked. “Your face has gone all red and you’re waffling.”
“I think I’m getting a cold,” I said, my voice choosing that exact moment to slip between registers. “I think I’m getting a cold,” I repeated, adopting my deepest tone now.
“Well, don’t give it to me,” he said, turning away to place his toothbrush and facecloth on his bedside table along with a copy of Howards End. “I can’t stand being ill.”
“Where were you before here anyway?” I asked after a lengthy pause, when it seemed as if he’d forgotten that I was even in the room.
“Blackrock College.”
“I thought your father was a Belvedere boy.”
“He is,” he replied. “But he’s one of those past pupils who likes to revel in memories of his glory days on the rugby field but probably remembers enough bad things about the place to make him send his own son somewhere else. He took me out of Blackrock when he found out that my Irish-language teacher had written a poem and published it in the Irish Times, casting doubt on the virtue of Princess Margaret. He won’t hear a word said against the Royal Family, you see. Although they do say that Princess Margaret is a bit of a slut. Apparently she puts it about with half the men in London and some of the women too. I wouldn’t say no, though, would you? She’s a looker. A lot more fun than the Queen, I imagine. Can you imagine the Queen going down on Prince Philip’s cock? It’s the kind of image that would give you nightmares.”
“I remember your father,” I told him, startled by the frankness of his conversation and wishing to steer it back to safer territory. “He interrupted a dinner party in my house once and had a fight with my adoptive father.”
“Did your old man fight back?”
“He did. But it didn’t do him any good. He took a pasting.”
“Well, old Max was a prizefighter when he was younger,” said Julian proudly. “He’s still pretty handy with his fists, actually,” he added. “I should know.”
“Do you remember meeting me back then?” I asked.
“There’s a tiny bell ringing somewhere in my head,” said Julian. “Maybe I remember you slightly.”
“My room was the one on the top floor of the house.”
“My sister Alice uses that room now. I never go up there. It reeks of perfume.”
“Well, what about you?” I asked, feeling a little sad that he didn’t use my old room; I rather liked the idea of us having that in common. “Where do you sleep?”
“A room on the second floor. Why, does it matter?”
“Is it the room overlooking the square or the garden at the rear of the house?”
“The square.”
“That was my adoptive mother’s study. Charles had the first floor and Maude had the second.”
“Of course,” he said, brightening up now. “Your mother was Maude Avery, wasn’t she?”
“That’s right,” I said. “Well, my adoptive mother.”
“Why do you keep saying that?”
“It’s the way I was brought up,” I told him. “I’m not a real Avery, you see.”
“What an odd thing to say.”
“My adoptive father insists that I make it clear to people.”
“So I’m sleeping in the room where Maude Avery wrote all her books?”
“If you have the room that overlooks the square, then yes.”
“Gosh,” he said, impressed. “Now, that is something. A real claim to fame, wouldn’t you say?”
“Is it?” I asked.
“Of course it is. It was Maude Avery’s writing room! The Maude Avery! Your father must be rolling in it now,” he added. “Wasn’t there a point last year where she had six books in the top-ten-bestsellers chart at the same time? I read that it was the first time this had ever happened.”
“I think it was seven, actually,” I said. “But, yes, I suppose he is. He makes more money from her work than he does from his own.”
“And how many languages is she translated into now?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “A lot. It seems to grow all the time.”
“It’s a pity she died before she knew real success,” said Julian. “She would have been gratified to know how respected she’s become. There are so many artists who have to wait until they’re dead to be fully appreciated. You know Van Gogh only sold one painting during his lifetime? And that Herman Melville was an absolute unknown while he was alive and was only discovered, so to speak, when he was already in the ground? He was worm food before anyone even took a second glance at Moby-Dick. He idolized Hawthorne, of course, and was always popping over there for his tea but who can name one of Hawthorne’s novels now?”
“The Scarlet Letter,” I said.
“Oh yes. The one about the girl who puts it about while her husband’s at sea. I haven’t read it. Is it dirty? I love dirty books. Have you read Lady Chatterley’s Lover? My father got a copy in England and I snuck it out of his library to read it. It’s pure filth. There’s a wonderful bit where—”
“I don’t think fame was what Maude was looking for,” I said, interrupting him. “Actually, I think the idea of literary approbation would have appalled her.”
“Why? What’s the point of writing if no one reads you?”
“Well, if the work has some value, then there’s merit in that alone, surely?”