The New Confessions by William Boyd Read Free Book Online

Aspire to that mundane level.”
    “I don’t want to be mediocre.”
    “He’d rather be totally inept.” Shrill, pleased laugh.
    “Thank you, Thompson.” To me: “Don’t you
try
?”
    “I do,” I lied.
    “Why, how, do you get one hundred percent in mathematics? Explain that!” He was shouting.
    “It’s easy. I can see what I’m meant to be doing.”
    “My God.…
Right!
I’ll tell you what I’m doing with you. The straw we must clutch at is your unaccountable talent for arithmetic. I spoke to a colleague in the maths department. There is a man, a Mr. Archibald Minto, who runs a school for such wayward talents as your own. You will start there this September.”
    This was not such bad news. “What’s the school called?” I asked.
    “Minto Academy.”
    “Can I get there by train?”
    The one blessing would be an end to my constant commuting. My father smiled.
    “Alas, no. You will be boarding. It is some thirty miles away. Near Galashiels.” He looked seriously at me. “You have brought this upon yourself, John. I didn’t want to have to send you away, but I refuse toallow you to indulge yourself any further.” He turned. “Oonagh! We’ll have that veal now.”
    The next day I took the train out to Barnton. I had to talk to Donald. I have no idea what I thought this might achieve but I felt a strong need to see him, and I knew he would want to be aware of this decisive change about to affect my life.
    I turned down the green avenue to his house. The blinds were half-lowered in the upstairs windows. In the front room I could see a housemaid dusting. I rang the doorbell.
    “Is Mr. Verulam in, please? I’ve come to see him?”
    “Sorry, sonny, Mr. Verulam’s away on his holidays. He’s gone to England.”
    The rest of the summer passed with distressing speed. Minto Academy, I learned, had no uniform apart from the kilt, a garment I had never worn. Oonagh took me to Jenner’s in Princes Street, where I was measured for three kilts and chose the tartans. Two kilts were of a coarse heavy cloth for daily wear. The third was finer, a dress kilt for formal occasions. I had two sporrans bought for me, two short tweed coats with tweed waistcoats and a black velvet jacket with silver buttons. We also purchased oiled wool knee socks, stout ankle boots and delicate pointed lace-up dress shoes. For the first time I came face to face with the paraphernalia of my national costume.
    “You look grand,” Oonagh said, when I tried the dress outfit on. I was not convinced. I was a city child; I felt I was being suborned by some primitive tribe.
    Three days remained before I had to catch the train to Thornielee, near Galashiels. From there the school trap would deliver me to the Academy, a few miles up the Tweed near a village called Laidlaw. As seems to be the norm with disaster, the baleful day was heralded by a spell of brilliant weather.
    I sat in my bedroom looking at my already packed traveling trunk, fingering my camera and wondering if I should risk taking it and my album to school. More darkly, I swore obscure revenge on my father and felt strangely betrayed by Donald Verulam’s untimely absence. I thought of leaving the apartment and Oonagh and my sense of self-pity overwhelmed me. I felt full of tears, like a sodden sponge—one slight squeeze and water would flow.
    I think Oonagh sensed this separation as keenly. For all her irony andjudicious affection, I had been her charge for thirteen years. I wandered in and out of the kitchen smiling weakly, morose, pondering my future.
    “Here,” she said, “let’s go bathing tomorrow. We’ll take the bairn to Canty Bay. Just like we used to.”
    Oonagh, Gregor and I caught an early train from Waverley. On arrival at North Berwick we walked through the village and along the stony cliff path towards the bay. The sky was a pale ice-blue. A few plump tough clouds hung up above, their shadows obligingly distant over the Forth. Coming over a rise I could see