Growing Pains Read online

  Mr Curtis, who had managed men expertly for many years, broke the tension by courteously gesturing to the waiter and ordering coffee, with brandy for himself and his wife; and the emotion of the moment was gently and painlessly relieved by the boys’ faintly panic-stricken requests for glasses of lager instead.

  An hour and a half had flown by, and there was little more to be said. They emerged into the street, blinking in the bright sunlight after the subdued lighting of the restaurant, with the boys gladly promising to go to visit the Curtises in Sevenoaks very soon. Then they stood in silence outside the restaurant and watched as the Curtises walked briskly down the street until they turned a corner out of sight. Mrs Curtis turned just before they disappeared and gave them a brief, almost curt, wave of her hand. Mr Curtis did not look back at all.

  The boys looked at one another. “That was a lot easier than it might have been,” said Richard slowly, feeling the lump in his throat that had been there since Mr Curtis’s tribute gradually subsiding. Stephen looked at him steadily for a long moment. “He was right about one thing,” he said at last.

  “What was that?”

  “You’re just about the best friend anyone could have, Richard,” Stephen said very quietly; there was an undercurrent of feeling, and passion, in his low voice that made Richard’s pulse quicken. Without saying any more they began walking briskly in the direction of the pub where the cricketers were waiting.

  * * *

  Several of the party were already frisking on the fringe of tipsiness when the two boys arrived. Bill McKechnie saw them first and was at the bar before they had got through the door. “Have a drink, lads,” he said, already shoving pints of lager at them. “How did it go?” he asked, tactfully staying at the bar in order to ask out of the hearing of the rest.

  “Very well,” they said in chorus. “They’re very nice people,” said Stephen. “I wonder why Graham never talked about them much.”

  “You never know people till you live with em,” murmured Bill, and smiled as the boys leaped simultaneously to the Curtises’ defence. “True, though, lads,” he said quietly. “You’ve seen these people for an hour or so, when they’re at their most vulnerable and subdued. I’m sure they were every bit as nice as you say they were. An probably they are like that. But the scope for misunderstanding between parents an sons is about the longest measurable distance in the world. Cept the scope for misunderstanding between husbands an wives. Any case, maybe it was just something Graham was a bit private about.”

  “But they said he hardly saw anything of them in the last couple of years,” said Stephen, feeling a deep and painful sense of shame on behalf of his dead lover. Bill looked at him kindly, but very levelly. “That’s something you’ve learned then, Stevie, our kid,” he said softly. “There’s always things you don’t know about someone, however close you may be. You think you know everything there is to know about em, and one day they go an do summin, an you hear yourself sa yin ‘Well, I’m buggered, I’d never a said he’d do that’, whatever it was. ‘Him, of all people.’ Well, I got a fair idea how close you an Graham were, an here he is, still capable a surprisin you now. It’s a little quiet gift from providence, you know, son. Or maybe a little quiet hand grenade, just to keep you on the qui vive — you know, if you pull the pin out in a moment a carelessness, you blow yourself to buggery — an your mate, as well.”

  The boys stared at him. “How’s it a gift, not ever knowing someone?” asked Stephen. They both waited curiously for the answer, because this conundrum was too deep even for Richard. They were also looking with a new, and rather surprised, respect at Bill. They had known very well his great kindness, and that there was vastly more to him than he liked to let the world see, but the present face of the man, worldly, a little distant and wise, was a novelty.

  “Very simple,” said Bill. “It’s a very wise little gift. Priceless. It stops you from ever gettin any ideas a takin people for granted. That’s something everybody does, unfortunately. So if nature, or providence, or whatever, can contrive it so that the first few times you do it with the special person, you pull out the pin, an end up a few seconds later sittin on your arse fifteen feet distant with a surprised look on your face, well, that’s a pretty useful thing to have around the house, I’d say. Wouldn’t you?” And he laughed, picked up his pint, drained it, bought refills for all three of them, and led the way back to the others at the far end of the room.

  The first person Stephen’s eyes fell on when they arrived in Bill’s wake was Jack Page, who had clearly been invited to join the cricket club’s private act of remembrance. Stephen murmured in Richard’s ear, and went straight over to Page. Richard, still smiling to himself over Bill’s pearl of wisdom, sat a little apart from the group, demonstrating far more clearly than he had intended that he wanted to be alone with his thoughts, and reflect on the day’s events so far.

  “You wanted to talk to me, Jacko,” said Stephen.

  “I did, my boy,” said Jack Page, he was a lean, ferret-like Welshman, all sinew and tough as whipcord, who taught German to the lower forms at Stephen’s old school, but devoted most of his time, and all his energy and passion, to the school’s rugby. “I wanted to tell ewe,” he went on in his broad Ebbw Vale brogue, “ow sorry I was that ewe never made it into the First Fifteen last year. But mainly I wanted to say that we’re lookin for a decent loose-head in the Old Boys’ side this year. Chris Perkins as gone off to the States, God elp im. What sort a rugby e thinks e’s gonna find there Lord only knows. But anyway, we’re left with a vacancy, an bein as ewe were the natural choice to step into the spot in the School XV last year, well, there ewe are, lad. Fancy it?”

  Stephen thought about it, and grinned with pleasure. After all the drama, trauma and bitterness of his departure from the school near the end of the previous year, he was profoundly surprised to find how gratifying it was to be asked back into the fold — which was what Jack Page’s offer amounted to. “Yes, please, Jacko,” he said excitedly. “I’d love to play. I haven’t given a thought to rugby lately,” he said, thinking back over the previous winter. “We watched the Five Nations on the box, of course,” he added. “And we went to watch one or two games at Strasbourg, but that was about all. Yes. Yes, please. Put me down. What’s the sub?”

  “Oh, don’t worry about the sub yet awhile,” said Jack Page dismissively. “Better get yourself sorted out with a job an all before you bother your ead about that.”

  “But I don’t need a…” began Stephen, and then stopped abruptly in mid-sentence. For the first time since the headlong turmoil and anguish of the day of Graham’s death, it occurred to him that he might be wealthy. He found himself wondering if Graham might have left him money. He had no idea, but it struck him with great force that it was highly likely that he had left him some of it — probably quite a lot. The reflection was followed closely by the further thought that if he hadn’t inherited something, he would indeed need to start thinking about finding some source of income, and soon, at that. It was an unpleasant thought, and wiped the smile off his face for a moment.

  He quickly suppressed both thoughts, however, as unworthy, on the day he was doing official honour to his beloved friend; but they kept creeping back, insidiously, into his mind, at odd moments throughout the remainder of the day. For now, though, he resolutely dismissed them to the dark corner of his mind where such stark, undeniable thoughts dwelt, and chattered excitedly about rugby with Jack Page until they were all ready to head for the station and go home to the club.

  * * *

  As soon as they were all back in the clubhouse, Bill marshalled them all in front of the great picture windows that made up most of the pitch-side wall of the building. He organised drinks, and then called for silence, on the principle that if he left it any later half the mourners would be too drunk to remember whose memory they were honouring, or to keep quiet for a minute in any case.

  “I’m not going to say much”, said Bill when everyone had stopped
shuffling their feet and all was quiet. “We all had a fair ration of sanctimonious unction this morning. But I think you’d like to show your respects for our old friend Graham Curtis by standing in silence for a few moments and remembering him when he was with us. I’d like to think he passed some of the happiest hours of his life out there in front of us, and here, among his friends. He was a good friend, at that: there aren’t many of us here who weren’t at some time or other the recipients of his kindness, his common sense and his generosity of spirit. He was also, I don’t need to remind you, a very good cricketer, a very good one indeed. You’ll remember that the last time he played on this ground he scored his first century for the club — and speaking for myself, I don’t think he’d have asked for any better way of being remembered. So now I ask you to lift your glasses and drink to the memory of our friend and fellow cricketer, and then to stand silent in his honour.”

  He lifted his own pint of lager and murmured “Graham Curtis,” followed by everyone else. There was a sudden choking sob, instantly stifled. Richard and Stephen, standing side by side at one end of the line of cricketers, shot hasty glances at each other, each thinking it must have been the other; in fact it was Colin Preston, one of the younger members, who had, more or less unwittingly, been responsible for some of Graham’s problems the previous season. Stephen felt a momentary spasm of irritation flit through his mind as he identified the breaker of the silence; but then a more indulgent mood chased it away. He could feel no animosity towards anyone in that company today. He blinked a couple of times, conscious that Bill’s unpretentious words had touched him as none of the loftier pieties of the service that morning had managed to do.

  They stood looking out across the ground, which was looking at its best. The outfield was lush and deep green, awaiting its final close mow before the first games of the season the coming weekend. The square in the middle was pristine, mown close and showing a much lighter green, but as yet free of scuffed, bald spots, holes dug by fast bowlers’ feet, old stump-holes and patches of grass seed. There was no tracery of faded white lines from earlier games, no spikemarks, no red streaks on the tracks where the ball had landed, and no cracks from summer droughts. The trees round three sides of the ground were putting out a first few tentative buds, and the little stream that ran beside the pavilion and then skirted the ground for two sides was in full spate, chuckling noisily to itself, and clearly audible inside the pavilion as they stood in silence.

  When the minute was up Bill lifted his glass once more, and drained the three-quarters of a pint remaining in it in a single prodigious draught, to cries of “Bravo!” Then he came quickly across to Stephen and Richard and swept them off to the bar. “If you wanna stay, lads, stay by all means, an welcome,” he murmured. “But don’t hold it against em if there’s a bit a less-than-solemnity goes on now. They’re good Englishmen an true, an as such they’re not ready for any sorta open display of emotion yet. Now lemme get you a drink.”

  They protested that he had not so far that day allowed them to buy him one, and he growled at them, seizing their glasses anyway.

  After they had stood chatting quietly with Bill for a few minutes more he drifted away to circulate round the other groups of two and three. Seeing them alone, the others gradually came up and offered their condolences to Stephen. Some did so shyly, such as Colin Preston, who was feeling acutely embarrassed by his earlier betrayal of emotion, and sidled selfconsciously up to offer a whispered mixture of regret, apology for his thoughtlessness the year before, and what they thought was certainly genuine sadness. Stephen looked steadily at him, saw the pain and misery in his eyes, and forgave him internally on the spot. He murmured a few words of comfort, and Colin went away, obscurely impressed by the boy’s bearing and his new air of adulthood, and feeling a lot better.

  Jack Page, by contrast, marched briskly up carrying three pint mugs of lager in one hand, looked curiously at Stephen, gave him and Richard one of the mugs apiece, and spoke briefly but straightforwardly about his former colleague. Stephen responded in kind, and he strode off in the same self-possessed way as he had approached, to talk rugby with Preston, Don Parker and one or two other luminaries of local club sides. By the time they felt that they had done their duty, and everyone had come to offer sympathy in one way or another, they had been at the club for an hour and a half, and both were beginning to feel a little drunk. A few of the younger ones had taken bats and balls out: all four nets were in use, there were close- and deep-catching practice groups dotted about the outfield, and Stephen and Richard were left alone in the pavilion.

  “D’you remember me saying something about fucking a bit of sense into me?” said Stephen, shooting a quick glace round and whispering into Richard’s ear. Richard nodded, flushing slightly in anticipation. “Come on, then,” whispered Stephen, gesturing with his head. “Let’s go, shall we?”

  They glanced round the building, checked the team lists for the coming weekend, when the club played its first fixture of the season, and slipped away. They found Bill, and thanked him soberly and sincerely for conducting the small private commemoration so delicately and sensitively, and finally told him of their intention to slip away quietly. He nodded seriously. “Probably makes sense,” he said. “Things can only go one way from here, an that’s downhill. You slip off, an I’ll see you both on Saturday. It’s here, at home to Boston Ramblers — they’re a lovely crowd. Wanderin sides all give you the best games a cricket. One-thirty start. Don’t be late. See you then. Take care a yourselves now.”

  They went, waving to anyone among the practice matches who saw them going. Twenty-five minutes later they were in Richard’s bed.

  * * *

  They got out of bed lazily, hours later, and only because pangs of hunger were gnawing insistently at them and would not be stilled. They made themselves a generous snack meal downstairs, watched television with little interest while they ate it, and then suddenly gave the set their full attention as the news report turned to the memorial service that morning. They watched the report minutely, hoping to see themselves or someone they knew, but there was no such treat for them. When the news was over they scanned the programme details, found nothing that could compete with their own bodies, and went back to bed.

  It was while they were lying side by side on their backs, sated, sticky and pleasantly tired from their exertions, that Stephen turned their desultory conversation to the thoughts that had suddenly assailed him earlier that day, while he had been talking to Jack Page. He turned lazily onto his side and propped himself on an elbow so that he could see Richard’s face as he talked.

  “D’you think he may have left me something?” he said, and promptly wished he hadn’t mentioned it. “Not that I…” He floundered, feeling a strong sense of embarrassment to be discussing such matters. Richard understood, and swiftly moved to dispel his doubts.

  “There’s no need to be worried about it,” he said, stroking Stephen’s thigh. “You were bound to think of it some time. I imagine,” he continued, looking thoughtful as he returned to the original point, “it rather depends on whether he made a will or not. Did he, d’you know?”

  Stephen didn’t: Graham’s will had been so much an afterthought when he had made his last visit to Chancery Lane that he had forgotten about it after leaving the solicitors’ offices, and never subsequently remembered to mention it to Stephen.

  “Oh well,” said Richard, feeling signs of arousal under his hand and preparing for more immediate matters, “I dare say we can find out easily enough. Let’s ring those lawyers he went to see tomorrow, shall we?”

  “Mmm.. okay” murmured Stephen, rolling on top of Richard and slipping his tongue into his mouth.

  As it turned out, events overtook their vague notion, because when they eventually left each other alone for long enough to get out of bed late the following morning they found a number of letters on the mat, forwarded from the post office in Saint-Hippolyte in accordance with Richard’s instructions. One
of them was from the solicitors. They looked at each other expectantly; but as it happened the letter answered none of their questions, simply requesting Stephen to make contact with them as a matter of urgency. He rang them after breakfast, with Richard perched beside him trying to work out what was being said at the other end from Stephen’s contributions. Since these were mostly excited monosyllables he didn’t have much luck.

  “Yes,” said Stephen. “Yes… Yes, I see… No, I didn’t… Yes, I can, of course. When? … Today? … Oh, right… Yes, I understand that… Yes… Right. Thank you very much… Who do I ask for, please?… Mr Guilfoyle, right, yes I’ve got that… Yes, I’ve got your letter here with the address… Fine. Thank you very much… I’ll see you at two o’clock then… Bye.”

  Richard raised his eyebrows eloquently at him as he put the receiver down. Stephen hugged him and twirled him off the ground. “I’ve got to go and see them today,” he said excitedly. “He said Graham did make a will, and — you’ll never guess!”

  Richard thought he could make a very fair guess, watching the rapid succession of conflicting emotions passing across Stephen’s face. There was sadness there, every time a memory of Graham himself came into his mind. But there was excitement too, a deep, powerful throbbing kind of excitement, which communicated itself immediately to Richard. They knew each other very well, these two, and in certain moments of stress or high emotion they barely needed words to communicate. Richard found himself feeling as if he was looking down into a very deep well, funnelling down into a darkness so profound that he couldn’t even imagine such blackness, let alone what might be at the bottom of it. It was a giddy, unpleasant feeling, and he strove to force it back into whatever cage it had escaped from. But he was still very aware of having distinctly mixed feelings about what he had privately already made up his mind was going to turn out to be Stephen’s immense good fortune — or at least, he heard part of his mind murmur, his immense fortune.