“No. Not me. You. You’ll be the one.”
He had his own faith in me, I now realize, although I have no idea of the evidence he based it on. Perhaps he was biased by our friendship — that I was not repelled by his pustular mask. After Radipole a real bond formed. It survived many years and many separations.
The school terms passed with no significant upheavals. In the spring of 1914, Minto flogged three boys in one week and for a while we thought we might be on the brink of a reign of terror. Minto bought a motor car, a Siddeley-Deasey, on the profits — we whispered — of the Minto Academy orchestra’s tour of six Scottish cities. Angus severed two fingers from his left hand while chopping kindling. One boy died of meningitis. Mrs. Leadbetter produced twins.
And at home Oonagh became pregnant and miscarried—“the Good Lord’s will,” she said with a beaming smile. My father developed and patented an antiseptic spray pump for operating theaters that blew a fine mist over the general area that was to be operated on. I spent many hours as a docile “patient” while my father perfected the smooth functioning of the mechanism. By now he had abandoned his faith in diet as the key factor in the fight against sepsis and had become convinced that a nostrum would be found in a distillate of pine resin. In the summer of 1913 and ’14 we rented a house on Sir Hector’s estate at Drumlarish, where I was impressed as chief resin gatherer in the copious pinewoods that grew round about. Our apartment in Edinburgh became suffused with the smell of brewing vats of resin. Even today the scent of certain soaps and deodorants brings on an attack of nausea. Miraculously, Father managed to produce a resinous solution that was at once non-adhesive and easily vaporized. He published an article in The Lancet and a chemical company in Peterborough purchased a license from him to produce Todd’s Antiseptic Resin commercially. I believe at one time its use was fairly widespread in the Northeast of England. I once got a nasty shock in a field dressing station near Dickebusch when I saw a shelfful of Todd’s Antiseptic Resin bottles. As far as I know, the resin spray had no adverse side effects and may even have been of some benefit. While it was being developed no one in our household ever suffered from a cold. The major advantage accrued to Father: he made rather a lot of money.
Hamish visited us twice. Once at Drumlarish, once at Edinburgh, where my father sent him, vainly as it turned out, to eminent dermatologists. To Hamish’s intense pleasure, one specialist had him photographed for a medical textbook. Donald too visited us on the west coast during the summer of 1913. We went walking together many times, visiting remote crofts where we took pictures of vanishing aspects of Highland life. It was like the old days of the Barnton village school and our intimacy soon reestablished itself. He said I could call him Uncle Donald if I wished (he had asked my father’s permission) and I said I would. But I preferred not to, and consequently called him nothing. “Mr. Verulam” would have been too formal after such an invitation, so I simply stopped using his name. He seemed not to notice. Several times that summer I considered asking him directly about my mother but I was restrained — by my youth and shyness. I sensed that I would know instinctively when the right moment occurred.
Sometime during that summer I passed through puberty. I do not remember my voice breaking; it seemed to deepen gradually. The fine hairs on my groin curled and thickened and, one warm afternoon, masturbating alfresco, lying on a bed of springy heather, my imagination making breasts out of the clouds above, I was rewarded with a meager spurt of semen.
That September, when we returned to Edinburgh prior to the start of the school term, Thompson said to me across the breakfast table one day, “Get that disgusting bum-fluff off your face, will you? Makes me sick.”
Oonagh came with me when I went to buy shaving soap, brush, safety razor and a supply of double-edged blades.
“Quite the young man,” she said, trying not to laugh. But she could not help herself when I emerged from the bathroom oozing blood from a dozen nicks and grazes. I looked as if I had shaved with a nutmeg grater. Thus began a lifetime’s torment. I have always hated shaving, and yet because of the density of my beard I am obliged to shave twice a day if I am to look presentable in the evening. From time to time I have grown a beard but I have never managed to get it to stop itching. I am condemned to be clean-shaven.
My father had brown hair. So too had Thompson. My mother was fair. I, on the other hand, am exceptionally dark in coloring. My skin is not olive but it has a curious dun-whiteness to it. It’s not the translucent pallor of the classic blue-eyed, dark-haired Celt. There is a hint of sludge about it. Also, as a boy, I was aware of the fine down of black hair that covered my body. Even my spine was furred in this way and when I was wet you could see a sharp line of matted hair running from the nape of my neck to my coccyx. Once I was past puberty these hairs began to grow: on my chest, stomach, legs — but also on my shoulders, shoulder blades and buttocks. I looked at my father and Thompson and noticed the difference. (I deliberately barged in on Thompson in his bath once and saw his plump girl’s breasts and shiny folds of hairless belly, and his surprisingly long, surprisingly thin penis. I got my ears boxed, two dead legs and a Chinese burn for my indecorum.) Then I looked at Donald Verulam, at what hair he had on his head, and noted its darkness. He never bathed, or at least I never saw him, not even on the hottest days at Drumlarish, but when he removed his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves in the darkroom I saw the dense black hair on his forearms, glossy and springy.
We were on holiday at Drumlarish when war began in August 1914. Donald and I were returning from a photographic expedition to Loch Morar. My father had walked out along the Glenfinnan road to meet us.
From a distance I saw him waving the telegram at us and suddenly became convinced that he bore bad news, destined for me in particular. I felt sure that Hamish had been killed and never stopped to ask myself why his parents would have taken the trouble to telegram me. We rode up to him and dismounted.
“It’s the European war,” my father said. “We’ve declared war. Telegram from Thompson.”
“My God!” Donald said.
“Thank goodness,” I said, vastly relieved.
“What do you mean by that?” my father asked.
“I thought it was Hamish.”
“What’s it got to do with Hamish? Stupid boy!”
He was genuinely irritated and I could not convince him I was not being flippant. There was a discussion about whether we should abandon the holiday and return home, but after due consideration it was decided that nothing would be gained by this course of action. So we stayed on at Drumlarish until the end of August as planned. I do not recall feeling apprehensive or troubled, but it took some time for my father and Donald to relax. They both went into Fort William to make unnecessary telephone calls and speculated endlessly about what was to come.
At school, matters were somewhat different. Minto, a staunch Germanophile who had studied in Germany for many years, addressed us with uncharacteristic emotion. This was a great tragedy, he said, the worst to afflict Europe since the French Revolution. The whole thing was a conspiracy between the Russians and the French. The Russians wanted war to distract the population from thoughts of insurrection and they were being encouraged in this by the French because, if there was revolution in Russia, she would renege on her massive debts to France. Germany and Britain, Minto said, were the most natural allies in all Europe. To find two such countries at war was a travesty.
It was rather over our heads, and indeed not what we wanted to hear, as we boys were virulently anti-German and highly bellicose. Minto’s futile propaganda diminished as the year progressed. He entered a profound depression from which he never recovered. He cut his throat in 1919.