“I was only asking.”
“A little kid.”
“Shut up, Leon.”
“Did you think it was the real deal? Moonlight and morons and love and romance? Jesus, Pinchbeck, how banal can you get?”
“Shut up, Leon.” My face burned; I thought of starlight; winter; ice.
He laughed. “Sorry to disillusion you, Queenie.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, love, for Christ’s sake. She was just a shag.”
That shocked me. “She wasn’t.” I thought of Francesca; her tawny hair; her languid limbs. I thought of Leon and of everything I had sacrificed for him; for romance; for the anguish and exhilaration of sharing his passion. “You know she wasn’t. And don’t call me Queenie.”
“Or what?” Now he sat up, eyes shining.
“Come on, Leon. Don’t muck about.”
“You thought she was the first, didn’t you?” He grinned. “Oh, Pinchbeck. Grow up. You’re starting to sound just like her, you know. I mean, look at you, getting all worked up about it, trying to cure me of my broken heart, as if I could ever care that much about a girl—”
“But you said—”
“I was winding you up, moron. Couldn’t you tell?”
Blankly, I shook my head.
Leon punched my arm, not without affection. “Queenie. You’re such a romantic. And she was sort of sweet, even if she was only a girl. But she wasn’t the first. Not even the best I’ve had, to be honest. And definitely—definitely—not the last.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said.
“You don’t? Listen, kid.” Laughing, full of energy now, the fine hairs on his arms bleached-blackened silver in the moonlight. “Did I ever tell you why I got chucked out of my last school?”
“No. Why?”
“I shagged a Master, Queenie. Mr. Weeks, metalwork. In the shop, after hours. No end of a fuss—”
“No!” Now I began to laugh with him in sheer outrage.
“Said he loved me. Stupid bugger. Wrote me letters.”
“No.” Eyes wide. “No!”
“No one blamed me. Corruption, they said. Susceptible lad, dangerous pervert. Identity undisclosed to protect the innocent. It was all over the papers at the time.”
“Wow.” There was no doubt in my mind he was telling the truth. It explained so much; his indifference; his sexual precocity; his daring. God, his daring. “What happened?”
Leon shrugged. “Pactum factum. Bugger went down. Seven years. Felt a bit sorry for him, really.” He smiled indulgently. “He was all right, Mr. Weeks. Used to take me to clubs and everything. Ugly, though. Big fat gut on him. And old—I mean, thirty—”
“God, Leon!”
“Yeah, well. You don’t have to look. And he gave me stuff—money, CDs, this watch that cost like five hundred quid—”
“No!”
“Anyway, my mum went spare. I had to have counseling, and everything. Might have scarred me, Mother says. I might never recover.”
“And what was it—” My head was reeling with the night and with his revelations. I swallowed, dry-throated. “What was it—”
“Like?” He turned to me, grinning, and pulled me toward him. “You mean, you want to know what was it like?”
Time lurched. An adventure-story enthusiast, I had read a great deal about time stopping still; as in: “for an instant time stopped still as the cannibals crept closer to the helpless boys.” In this case, however, I distinctly felt it lurch, like a goods train in a hurry pulling out of a station. Once more I was disconnected; my hands like birds swooping and fluttering; Leon’s mouth on mine, his hands on mine, pulling at my clothes with delicious intent.
He was still laughing; a boy of light and darkness; a ghost; and beneath me I could feel the rough boy-warmth of the roof slates, the delightful friction of skin against fabric. I felt close to oblivion; thrilled and terrified; revolted and delirious with irrational joy. My sense of danger had evaporated; I was nothing but skin; every inch a million points of helpless sensation. Random thoughts flitted across my mind like fireflies.
He had never loved her.
Love was banal.
He could never care that much for a girl.
Oh, Leon. Leon.
He shed his shirt; struggled with my fly; all the time I was laughing and crying and he was talking and laughing; words I could barely hear above the seismic pounding of my heart.
Then it stopped.
Just like that. Freeze-frame on our naked, half-naked selves; I in the pillar of shadow that ran alongside the tall chimney stack; he in the moonlight, a statue of ice. Yin and yang; my face illuminated; his darkening in surprise; shock; anger.
“Leon—”
“Jesus.”
“Leon, I’m sorry, I should have—”
“Jesus!” He recoiled; his hands held out now as if to ward me off. “Jesus, Pinchbeck—”
Time. Time lurched. His face, scarred with hate and disgust. His hands, pushing me away into the dark.
Words struggled in me like tadpoles in a too-small jar. Nothing came out. Losing balance, I fell back against the chimney stack, not speaking, not crying, not even angry. That came later.
“You little pervert!” Leon’s voice, wavering, incredulous. “You fucking—little pervert!”
The contempt, the hatred in that voice told me everything I needed to know. I wailed aloud; a long, desperate wail of bitterness and loss, and then I ran, my sneakers fast and quiet on the mossy slates, over the parapet and along the walkway.
Leon followed me, swearing, heavy with rage. But he didn’t know the rooftops. I heard him, far behind, stumbling, crashing heedlessly across the tiles in pursuit. Slates fell in his wake, exploding like mortars into the courtyard below. Crossing over from the Chapel side he skidded and fell; a chimney broke his fall; the impact seemed to shudder through every gutter, every brick and pipe. I grabbed hold of an elder tree, spindly branches poking out of a long-blocked drainage grate, and hoisted myself farther up. Behind me, Leon scrabbled higher, grunting obscenities.
I ran on instinct; there was no point in trying to reason with him now. My father’s rages were just the same; and in my mind I was nine again, ducking the deadly arc of his fist. Later, perhaps, I could explain to Leon. Later, when he had had time to think. For the moment all I wanted was to get away.
I did not waste time trying to get back to the Library window. The Bell Tower was closer, with its little balconies half-rotten with lichen and pigeon droppings. The Bell Tower was another St. Oswald’s conceit; a little arched boxlike structure, which, to my knowledge, had never housed a bell. Down one side ran a steep-slanting lead gutter, leading to an overflow pipe that shot rainwater out into a deep and pigeon-stinking well between the buildings. On the other side the drop was sheer; a narrow ledge was all that stood between the trespasser and the North Quad, some two hundred feet below.
Carefully, I looked down.
I knew from my travels across the roofscape that Straitley’s room was just below me, and that the window that gave onto its crumbling balcony was loose. I teetered on the walkway, trying to gauge the distance from where I was standing, then jumped lightly onto the parapet, then down into the shelter of the small balcony.
The window, as I’d hoped, was easy to force open. I scrambled through, heedless of the broken catch that gouged my back, and at once the burglar alarm sounded, a high, unbearable squealing that deafened and disoriented me.