Any Human Heart by William Boyd Read Free Book Online Page A

precise in his directions and we found the sunken lane — not too far from the Home Farm — and then the blasted oak and the small grassy hollow to its left-hand side. Ben and I hid some fifty yards off, higher up and well screened by dense leafless bushes with nasty thorns. We huddled in our overcoats and shared a cigarette, wondering how Peter might initiate the erotic moment. Ben, typically, had brought some opera glasses so we would have an excellent view. We talked also about our respective challenges and their respective disappointments but both agreed that they had been worthwhile exercises and had at least livened up, somewhat, the dullest, deadest term of the year. Mrs Catesby, it transpired, has invited Ben for ‘tea and cake’ —
sans
Doig, interestingly.
    After a wait of about half an hour we saw Peter and Tess emerge from the direction of the lane. Peter spread his overcoat on the grass and they sat down with their backs to the blasted oak. Tess produced a packet of cigarettes and they both lit up — we could catch unintelligible snatches of their conversation and Tess’s rather deep (rather attractive) throaty laugh. A pale sun suddenly shone and the wintry scene took on the aspect of a modest bucolic idyll. They continued talking for a while — though the mood seemed to have gone more earnest, all laughter ceasing — and then Tess shrugged off her own coat and reached into Peter’s pocket for something.
    It was his handkerchief, as it turned out, and then Ben — who was peering through the opera glasses — whispered, ‘I don’t believe it. She’s unbuttoning his flies.’
    We watched in snatched five-second glimpses, Ben and I, as the solicitous Tess dug her hand into Peter’s open fly and fetched out his flaccid white penis. She then wrapped the handkerchief around it and proceeded to toss him off — which process seemed to last no more than thirty seconds (Peter with his head back, eyes screwed tight shut). When it was over Peter’s face registered more astonishment than rapture and when — the deed done — Tess handed him back his handkerchief, neatly folded into a thick two-inch square, he simply put it back in his coat pocket without a thought or a glance. Then they kissed for a while, lying back on the coat for about ten minutes or so, but Ben and I could no longer be bothered to watch: we were so astonished and both, we later concurred, so angry. Angry that we had dreamed up this challenge for Scabius (when we could have appropriated it for ourselves) and angry that he seemed to have carried it off so effortlessly — and with the bonus we had just witnessed being thrown in as the cherry on the sundae.
    We left before they did, pushing our way through the snaggy undergrowth, as they rolled around on Peter’s coat petting each other, kissing and caressing. We both agreed that Scabius was the luckiest bastard in the school, not to say the British Isles.
     
     
    Later. Peter could not keep the imbecilic smile off his face all through dinner. He kept leaning over and saying to us, ‘She touched it, actually touched it, took it in her hand.’ We both paid him the pound that the winner was due — which leaves me seriously short of funds this term (I shall have to borrow off Ben). But both Ben and I agreed that we would persevere with our challenges, if only to preserve our integrity rather than out of any enthusiasm. This wasn’t just a bet — there is a more philosophical urgency and import to the whole enterprise. As we filed out of hall, Peter said that he was now ‘definitely in love’ with Tess. I find the idea utterly disgusting.
     
     
29 February 1924
     
    Ben arrived back early from his meeting with Doig in Glympton, saying that Doig had thrown him out. I reminded him that we had both made a pact to continue our challenges. ‘But Peter’s already won,’ he said with some weariness. ‘I just couldn’t see the point of sitting there in front of that reprobate talking