CHAPTER 49


How the Years Fly   -    September 1950 - July 1951


The first months in Paris flew by.  I was so busy with reading, writing notes, attending seminars and lectures and coaching four young students for their English exams.  My supervisor - not really, but my guide into the mysteries of the University and the Bibliotheque Nationale where I did most of my research, was a lecturer at the Sorbonne, M.  LeClerq.  He was another small, dark-haired, beetle-browed, chain-smoking Frenchman.  I was in his good books straight away when I presented him with packets of Craven A cigarettes - 'good for the throat' it said on the packet.  He had an ironic sense of humour and spoke good English though I tried my best to always talk in French to him.   He was rather impressed that I was living with the LaRivieres and said he would make a point of interviewing young Daniel himself for a place in the department he was associated with.   

     I must say I was lucky with my research.  I had decided to look at English influences on three particular French writers.  When browsing at the Bib Nat, as I researched each name, I came across a cache of letters to one of the authors from two Englishmen who had admired his work.  From further reading I found this particular gentleman had then plagiarised great sections from a book published in England by an obscure author.  He had translated the work and passed it off as his own.  A real English influence!  This story would make a good chapter for me and a possible article for publication!!

     Although I ate with the family regularly I saw very little of Daniel the first few weeks.  He was up and away to the Lycee early in the morning and two afternoons a week went to fencing classes.  When at home he seemed to lock himself away in his room.  I bumped into him sometimes in the corridor when I went to the bog for a pee and I had the feeling that he sometimes lurked in the corridor just at the moment when I was returning from the bathroom clad only in a towel round my waist.  I did spend two hours with him each Saturday morning going over his work he was doing in the English course for his Baccalaureate.  He wasn't bad and about halfway through the term he did come along to my room to ask questions during the week from then on.  He seemed rather a lonely lad but I was busy and too work-obsessed to make more time to interact with him.  Actually, as the term went on I realised he was really a very nice person.  Any initial reserve was shyness of a sort.

     Madame, or Maman, as she insisted I called her, was stupendous.  She had a great sense of humour and kept her husband from getting too stuffy and self-important.  He also was a kind man.  We discussed all sorts of topics over dinner in the evenings.  I learned a lot about French politics, but nothing about the War.  I knew from bits of conversation that the family had moved out of Paris during the War and went to live at their country house.  I didn't know where and I didn't know what he did during the War, other than he was in charge of supplies, under the Germans, for part of a `Departement'.  I thought it politic not to enquire further.  I did meet two of the sisters and their husbands.  All very formal - the husbands were civil servants too and, obviously, had to treat father-in-law with respect and a bit of deference.   I had a long chat with one, Henri-Claud, and he relaxed more and more as we talked over the after dinner brandy and he did let out that Monsieur had to keep quiet about Julien during the war and the Germans never knew he had a son in England.  I went one Sunday for lunch with Henri-Claud and his wife, Madeleine, with Daniel as well, and we had a most convivial time.  Daniel was the baby of the family and had been loved and cosseted by his much older sisters.  They had a son, Henri-Albert, aged five and a real little ball of fire, keeping 'mes oncles', Daniel and Jacques, rushing around the park we visited.

     Julien turned up with Matt in tow the Sunday before I was due to return to England for Christmas.  Matt was on leave and wasn't coming back to England until the Saturday before Christmas Day and he and Julien were going to stay at the flat in Paris.  Matt's French was now extremely good.  He had completed the Signals course and was waiting to see what his next posting might be.  He was also up for promotion to full Lieutenant in January.  I noted that Julien and Matt were eyed very closely by young Daniel.

                    Christmas 1950

     On arrival in England I went straight to Cambridge and spent two days there reporting back to Dr Blake.  He was intrigued about my finding the letters and suggested I wrote a paper on this over the vacation and send it for publication.  Little did he know I had already sketched out quite a long article on this finding and all I had to do was to find a typist!  I had really worked hard also on another concerning the plagiarised book!  Must see if editors of learned journals might be interested.

     I called in on Ma and Pa and spent a night at the flat.  Ma was having great success with her books and there was a hint one might become a screen play for a film.  I hesitated to think who might play Inspector Buck and wondered if the actor would be anything like his possible real-life counterpart.   She presented me with a copy of Aunt Della's latest 'bodice-ripper', as Pa called it.  'Not the thing for young, innocent boys to read' was his comment.  I asked him if was suitable for aged roues as he must have read it to pass such an opinion.  He chuntered on about getting old with upstart twentyone year old sons to contend with.  Actually, both Ma's latest, “The Bellingham Conundrum”, and Aunt Della's “He Only Thought of Her” were quite entertaining reads.   How Ma knew about, or invented, city low-life I didn't know and Aunt Della's description of the 'bodice-ripping' was rather graphic though veiled in allusions.  I got the feeling that Pa was right as any bright sixteen-year-old reading those pages would have plenty of images to aid his masturbation fantasies as long as he was into girls!  

     Kerslake was a hive of activity.  Mr Marcham, or Gerald, as he insisted I called him, had bought a much bigger house.  Mrs Marcham, I could never get used to calling her Helen, (especially after Tony said she had lunched a thousand chips), was not too pleased.  She liked her old house but it was Gerald now with the 'airs and graces'.  Actually I sided with him.  The intended new house was very spacious, big rooms and set in a well-tended garden.  The only thing was, the nearest neighbour was old Colonel Osbourne.  I bumped into Josh when I cycled round to the place to measure up one of the bedrooms for carpet and curtains.

     “Gosh, fancy seeing you here,” he said.  “Sorry about Kats, great girl.  Bella was devastated.”  We shook hands.  “How are the boys?” he went on.  I had to stop myself from launching into a laudatory diatribe and just said they were wonderful.  “Heard about Sam?” he asked.  I shook my head.  “Stupid bugger's in the glasshouse.  Signed on as his Mum and Dad were fed up with him and he told the Sergeant-Major where he could stick his pacestick.  They'd found he'd been pinching stuff around the barracks and selling it or pawning it.  Rumour was he'd been selling his hole as well.  Nasty piece of work!”  Here was fraud incarnate inveighing against his delinquent cousin.  “Just been to console the old boy.  He thought Sam was a little treasure.”  He leaned over to me in a confidential manner.  “Needn't have to tell you the little sod was servicing Ozzy regularly when the pair of them were home on leave.”

     “I thought that was your role at school,” I said without thinking.

     Josh nearly dropped the cigarette he was holding.  “The little bastard!  I'll kill the little fucker when I get my hands on him!”  He calmed down and grinned at me.  “Yeah, true!  Boys' school.  Horny youths  - and there was no one hornier than Ozzy!  Had to do as we were told with the older ones, but Ozzy was OK.  Kept the others off us and what we did was gratitude, really.  God! Some of those other fuckers had two or three kids a night!  Most of the kids couldn't stop pooping themselves by the middle of term!  Chesters, our head cubby boss in the House, used to say we should have been a Naval school and the older lads would all be ABs twice over - Able-Bodied Arsehole Bandits!”

     Josh was in a revelatory mood.  Would I hear more?    He must have gone up the school and become an old lag, or whatever, himself.  Had he fitted his not inconsiderable 'todger' in some accommodating warm hole in his turn?    I couldn't imagine him just doing five finger exercises on the skin-flute, as I'd heard it described by one of our choral scholars in the bar one night.  No, the subject was changed.  He wanted to know why I was visiting the empty house.  I told him about the purchase by Mr Marcham.  Of course, the farm he was beginning to manage was bought with the benefit of Mr Marcham's expertise.  He'd done his agricultural course and was building up stock and sorting the rundown place out.  I was invited to take the boys out to see the animals.  He hadn't seen much of his brother Jim recently.  He still had another year or so to do at Vet College and then he was joining his Uncle Lawrence's practice.  That reminded me I hadn't heard anything about Big Jim from Tony lately.  Must ask!

     Josh had followed me into the house and was very useful in holding the tape measure.  There were a few other revelations.  Bella had been instructed by her mother to keep the chinless wonder happy as his mother was being inveigled to add some money to the pot for the riding stable, which incidentally was going great guns.  I said his reputation had sunk when the lads had examined him as he was assumed to be extremely well-hung.  Josh laughed and said he knew about him and his left bollock was sometimes the size of an orange because he'd had an operation when a kid which had upset the drainage and his ball kept swelling up after that.  He said Bella was really keen on some medical student.  Ah!  That must be Nobbo!  Things were falling into perspective.  I wondered if she knew he was being paid to wank?

     Mr Marcham arranged for one of his typists to deal with my two articles.  She was good and got all the French quotations correct.  I had to add all the accents by hand and decided I'd better learn to type and get a French typewriter.  A task for next term.

     Tony was also very busy scribbling.  His BPhil was going to be on English nineteenth century novels with an ecclesiastical theme.  His love of Trollope had fired that.  He was reading about one book a day and kept a running list of the most inane and unintentionally funny quotes.  He also said he'd got the main part of a novel mapped out in his head.

     My sex life was running at zero level other than the incessant urge to relieve myself at least once daily.  It was awkward at Kerslake.  Tony was back in his own room and although we spent a great deal of time together when not working there was no sexual activity.  There was much unspoken intimacy as we both treasured and cherished our friendship.   I also had my boys to cherish and keep me on the straight and narrow.  Francis was now two and a bit and was demanding all the time.  He clung to me as soon as I arrived back and wanted constant attention.  It was a good job Tony and I weren't sleeping together as invariably at six o'clock in the morning I would be awoken by a small person trying to crawl into my bed.  We slept contentedly together usually until eight o'clock unless he wanted to play and I had to get up and find a truck or a train engine and make the appropriate noises.  At two and a bit he was a real chatterer and I taught him his first words of French!

     James at a year and a bit was very curious about the world.  He crawled on his backside and tried to emulate his older brother.  Francis was very gentle with him and only protested when James clung defiantly to any toy he desperately needed.  Two year olds maintain they need something most of the time.

     I had been paid rather handsomely, I thought, for the two translations I had done for Mr Blane.  He said there was another in the pipeline and if I was agreeable a contract could be drawn up.  I agreed.  It meant I had a bit of money, plus what I had left over after buying Madame flowers to be delivered at Christmas and wine for Monsieur on Daniel's recommendation.  Actually, I wasn't too badly off.  Monsieur would take nothing from me for living at the house.  I arranged with the Bursar of the college to have the living accommodation part of my grant paid into a special account in Madame's name.  So, honour was served.  For Daniel's help in choosing the wines I took him to a shop just off the Champs Elysee and let him chose a 'blouson' I knew he'd set his heart on.  His triple goodbye kiss as I left to return to England could have been construed as rather ardent - but I used no tongue when I returned it!


                    New Year 1951

     Christmas came and went.  The nursemaid went to her own home for Christmas and New Year and I think I did pretty well - with help from Mrs Marcham and a complaining but compliant Tony - in keeping the boys clean, tidy and amused until she returned.  Tony and I then took the opportunity for a couple of days at Ulvescott.  Poor Bran was truly on his last legs.  He didn't even come to welcome us but lay on blankets near the Aga in the kitchen most of the time.  We sat and hugged him with Finbar watching.  His poor old eyes were filmy but he knew us and licked our hands as we stroked him and talked to him.  Finbar was so attentive to him.  I saw him push the water bowl closer to him on one occasion and lay beside him as if to warm him.

     We visited Lady Bing and the Duchess.  Lady Bing looked so old now - she was about ninety-six we thought - but she had all her marbles.  Tim and his girlfriend, Maureen, had visited them just before Christmas so she was full of how well he was doing.  I had to play and was instructed to have further piano lessons, especially as I was in Paris.  I heard all about the Conservatoire in the late 1800's and early 1900's and how she had sung at a salon when Chausson was present.  She reminisced that she had been born before Debussy and had known him as a young man when he returned from Rome.  I said she should write her memoirs but she said her diaries carried her memories.  She was truly a remarkable woman.

     Tony and I slept together and I was able, once again, to love someone completely.  Tony again said he valued my companionship and he had often thought of me even when he'd been with his friend Perce.   He said he'd been very friendly this term with an African student and he was going to pursue this friendship more when he returned to Cambridge.  I said he probably only wanted to find out if the rumours about black men were true.  He said it wasn't that, although he'd love to find out, but he was genuinely fond of the lad.  Tony was still searching.


                         1951

     I said cheerio again to the boys and left for Paris on Monday the eighth of January with frost and snow and a rough sea for the crossing.  I was glad to reach the warmth and renewed hospitality of the LaRiviere household.  I was also eager to get on with my work and had sent Dr Blake the two completed and typed up articles to read and criticise.

     Daniel greeted me as soon as I arrived at the house laden with my bags.  He seemed pleased to see me and helped me carry my bags up to my room.  He stayed and chatted quite animatedly and I found it good as it got me back into thinking completely in French.  I had brought him two books on London and said once he'd finished his examinations this year I would take him back and he could stay with my mother and father.

     “And you?” he asked.

     I wondered about that.  There was something in his tone.  I said my mother would be there as I had to travel to Cambridge and then to Kerslake to be with my sons.

     “I would like you to show me London,” he said, carefully, in English.

     “I expect that could be arranged,” I said, also in English, and added, “For a small fee!”

     He looked puzzled, then realised it was rhetorical, an English saying.  He smiled.  “Whatever you charge.”

     He rather dogged my footsteps when we were both at home.  Again, I was sure he lurked in the corridor and one morning he came into the bathroom - I never locked the door as we were the only ones on the third floor - while I was washing.  I was, as usual, in the nude and I could see in the mirror above the washbasin that he took a deliberate look at my physique, my back, before he apologised and left.

     One extra item on my agenda was that Madame arranged for me to have some piano lessons with the organist of their church.  He was a blind man who amazed me with his musical knowledge and keen ear and, also, his ability to get around without bumping into things.  I had decided I would try for a music diploma once back in England.  It would give me the incentive to work at my playing.  He said I should think first of the enjoyment of playing and, I must say, with his help and encouragement I felt I was improving.  He had masses of music both in braille and in ordinary books.  At the end of each lesson he got me to sight read a piece I hadn't played before and so introduced me to a range of works, mainly by French composers, which was fascinating.  

     I was also concerned about my general fitness.  Jem  had laughed when he found my weights in my bedroom at Clare.  I had used them assiduously each day and I guessed he and Jem had tried them out as they were invariably moved when I inspected my bedroom after their sessions.  I had brought the small weights with me after Christmas and I wondered if Daniel thought my panting as I completed my sequence of exercises was due to other reasons.  Actually, the house was pretty soundproof!

     So, I was fit, increasing my musical prowess and working steadily.  I had essays to complete for the tutor for the L es L.  I managed to recycle quite a few from those I'd prepared for Dr Blake and they seemed acceptable.  I was reading avidly through books and collections of papers in the libraries.  I was enjoying myself.  That is, most of the time.  I thought constantly of Francis and James.  I sent a postcard every week, sometimes daily, to them jointly.  I had seen at Christmas that Mrs Marcham had started a scrapbook and had put in all those I had already sent.  I missed Kats.

     Two letters arrived almost simultaneously.  The first was an invitation to the marriage between Audrey Grace Milverton and Lieutenant Lachlan Cameron Thomson at St Margaret's Church, Westminster, on Saturday March the thirty-first at 12.30pm.   Ow!  Lachs and Audrey!!   The second was from Flea.  Very carefully he said that Lachs and Audrey were having to get married - the usual reason, as I would know!  He was going to be best man and would I be an usher?  Morning suit!  The wedding would be very posh as it was the MP's church and Edward had arranged everything.  Please be there, more details later.  Short and sweet.  A third letter arrived a few days later.  From Aunt Della.  She told the whole story.  Direct and to the point.  No wonder her stories were popular - there was little flannel.  Aunt Della was not enamoured of Audrey.  She thought she had engineered the whole thing.  She wanted the publicity of a big wedding in a posh church...  to a handsome young man, Aunt Della put, I felt, almost in capitals,...    Anyway, she was a couple of years older than him and hadn't managed to snare anyone else.  Please, please, please, she knew how close Lachs and I were, if he ever needed any help......  She went on to invite me and the boys to visit again, Julia keeps asking about her cousins.....      Two days later another letter.  From Lachs this time.  Apologising for the rush, but I know how things are.   Please come to the wedding.  Antony, Audrey's brother, would be sending details of arrangements for ushers....  A rush job it seemed.  Just like another!

     Towards the end of term, the last week before Easter, Madame and Monsieur went to visit the daughter I hadn't met.  Daniel said he was too busy studying to go and he would stay in the house with me.  Madame had already explained that I was free to stay in the house - the cook and housemaid would be there each day to prepare any meals I required as long as I let them know.  She also said, if I preferred, I could stay at the flat in Paris but would have to eat out all the time, but there were many good cafes and bistros in the area.  I said why didn't we both stay at the flat.  I would see he was fed and he could show me more of Paris on the Saturday and I would make sure he practised his English.  She looked rather relieved.  I found out afterwards that this sister's husband was a rather arrogant man who was always criticising Daniel so that was the main reason he didn't want to go.

     So, all was settled.  I packed a few things and we set off early on the Thursday morning to leave things at the flat before he had to be at the Lycee and I had to take my little group for their English conversation before I could go to the Bib Nat.  The flat was on the sixth floor, two bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom, living room and a large entrance hall and reached by a creaking ancient lift.  We dumped our things in the hallway and arranged to meet again at the flat at five o'clock.  We both had keys and had made sure the concierge, Madame Garnier,  knew I was a visitor and not some itinerant or thief attempting to steal from all and sundry in the flats.  I had the feeling the concierge had the same power as a Porter in a Cambridge college!

     I arrived back just as Daniel was unlocking the wicket gate in the large, imposing doors to the courtyard.  We both acknowledged the concierge who was watching entries and exits from her vantage point in her window.

     “She knows everything,” Daniel informed me as we squeezed into the wheezing lift.  “She tells Maman everything.  Julien had a friend here once and she blabbed to Maman next time she saw her and Maman told Julien off.”

     I was concentrating on the creaks and groaning of the lift mechanism wondering if it would ever get us to the top floor and what would happen if we got stuck so I didn't follow up what he said.  I must say I breathed a sigh of relief every time I stepped out of the lift.

     I said we had better unpack and when he was ready we would go out to eat.  He brightened up at that.  The flat felt quite cosy and he explained Madame Garnier had been in to make sure the heating was on and to make the bed.  I heard 'le lit'.  I thought two bedrooms.  I went into the first of the two and found an identical bed to the one I had at the house.  It was made up with the cover turned down.  Daniel had followed me in and put his bag on the floor.  I looked quizzically at him.

     “We share?” I asked.

     He nodded.  “Julien and Matthew always share when they stay here.  Julien says it saves on laundry.  You shared with Tony when he stayed at the house.”  

     “Have you slept with anyone else?”

     He shook his head.  “Only Julien.”

     “And what happens if I snore - your brother does!”  He looked rather open-eyed.  I laughed.  “We were all drunk and four of us shared that night.  Your brother snored as soon as his head hit the pillow!”
     So that was settled as far as Daniel was concerned.  He was going to share.  A new experience.  I just wondered if.........?

     Anyway we sorted out clothing and washing kit.  I noted he was going to wash as he had soap, washcloth and towels.  Perhaps he was a clean French boy?  I was always very aware of the whiff of unwashed bodies on the Metro on every journey, that and the all-pervading aroma of strong cigarettes or cigars of various sizes and stink.  At least Daniel didn't smoke - or at least I had never seen him with a cigarette, not like Julien or his father, or Tony these days, who lit up whenever.

     We sat and talked.  I asked him questions in English and made him practise hard.  He grinned when I said he was better than I thought.  He said he enjoyed English better than the Spanish which he also was learning.  I got him to teach me a few simple phrases in Spanish and I think he enjoyed that too.  I said my mother spoke Spanish as well because she was French and came from Strasbourg.  He looked a bit askance at that.  He said the Germans had taken over the town completely in the War because a boy at the Lycee had told him he and his family were told to move out.  I said my Grandfather had been a Professor at the University there but he was French as well.  It was interesting that Daniel had said something about the War!

     We went out about half past seven, under the watchful eye of Madame who was still sitting, knitting now.  I said to Daniel when we were safely out on the pavement that I was sure her great- grandmother must have been one of 'les tricoteuses' at the foot of the guillotine during the French Revolution.  He sniggered and said she was old enough to have been there herself and no one had ever seen anything she'd ever knitted.  He said his mother was convinced she pulled it apart every night and started up again the next day.

     Like my cousin Johann, Daniel was thawing rapidly.  He became even more loquacious over a superb dinner in a tiny restaurant.  A fragrant herby soup, cutlets and such finely cooked and buttered mashed potato, three sorts of cheese and a final creme brulee.  That and a small carafe of white wine, a bottle of red wine, plus a brandy with the coffee to end.  To thaw the lad out more I let the waiter, a lad of his age, pour him more than his fair share of the wine.  I would see if he snored like his brother.

     At home he was only ever allowed one glass of wine at dinner in the evenings and that had to be watered.  Tonight he had about three-quarters of the bottle plus almost all the carafe plus the brandy.  He didn't stagger though and we survived the scrutiny of Madame again.  I smiled at her and!!! she smiled back!!!!

     The lift creaked and complained but we reached our eyrie and it was then he had to be helped.  The warmth of the flat and the alcohol made him flop on the settee and look a bit hazy.  But, he soon woke up as I found a percolator and produced a drinkable supply of coffee.  We chatted on and he wanted to know what my school had been like.  I spoke in English most of the time and he followed well.  He had been well taught.

     About eleven o'clock I said it was time for my beauty sleep.  This was an idiom he hadn't heard and giggled when I explained it.
     “You don't need beauty sleep!” he said, “You look good now!”

     “So do you, handsome!” I said.  He was.  In fact we were very alike in colouring and the set of the nose and eyes.  Boastful me, thinking I was handsome!  “But come on, we have work to do tomorrow.”

     I went to the bedroom first and, as usual, stripped off completely and walked to the bathroom.  He watched as I did this as he was still taking his shirt off.  I peed and washed and cleaned my teeth.  I also washed my cock, easing back my foreskin to do so.  

     When I got back into the bedroom he was still in underpants and socks.  I got into bed and pointed to the bathroom.  “Wash!” I said, “And turn the lights out!”

     He scuttled out and was gone for some time.  I just wondered if he'd had a quick wank, but no, I don't think so, he came back looking just clean and tidy.  He'd seen me get into bed in the nude and, as he switched the light out dragged his undies off and pulled off his socks.  He lay flat out along the edge of his side of the bed.  All I could hear was somewhat irregular breathing.

     I turned to fully face him from the middle of my half of the bed.  “Are you comfortable?” I asked.  “You can't be perched on the edge all night like some old crow.  A real black-feathered old crow!”

     I heard him chuckle under his breath.

     “Come on, you have half the bed so use it.  Anyway, if you fall off your perch I'm not picking you up.”

     He rolled onto his side and slithered into the middle of his half.

     “Those two boys slept together, didn't they?” he said.

     “Which boys?” I asked.

     “The ones in that photograph you have in your room.  That boy who looks like you.  Maman says it's a  lovely photograph and I look like that sometimes.”

     Oh, he meant Piers and Miles.  I had the photo in its frame on my dressing-table.  I was never parted from it.  In fact I had it in my bag at present.

     I told him about the two boys.  How they had been at school together and had died in the same battle in the 1914-1918 Great War.  I heard him sniff.  A sad sniff.  I put a hand out and put it on his arm.

     “Are you OK?” I asked.

     He sniffed again.  “That is very sad,” he said.
     I said they were happy together, I knew that, one could see that from the photograph.  And they died together.  I didn't say I knew they would have been happy together if they had survived.  That coded message was enough to tell me that.

     “Don't be sad,” I said.

     He slithered over to my side and took hold of my hand.

     “I'm not sad because of them,” he said, in French, “They were happy I know.  But the brother of a friend was shot by the Germans in the village where we were.  Two of them were shot and I heard it.  My friend became very ill and I haven't seen him since I've been in Paris.”

     He broke down and sobbed.  I put my arms out and clasped him to me.  He was taut and tense with his sobbing but relaxed and snuggled against me just as Francis did when I nursed him.  I  knew what was wrong with Daniel.  I knew what grief was.  He had never shed his grief for his friend and the brother who had been shot.  Daniel could not have been more than about twelve when it happened.  I stroked his back.  He wept quite openly now and I let him.  As he quietened down I drew him as close as possible to me.

     “You sleep now, it's better isn't it?”

     He nodded and we both fell fast asleep.

     It wasn't yet light when I woke.  We had parted in the night but he still faced me.  His breathing was even now.  I watched him as dawn broke and the light filtered through the net curtains.  A vulnerable boy, hearing shots, seeing his friend distraught.  What was war?  Now, years later the memory relived and, I hoped, soothed in mind and body.  I stared at his face now in repose.  He was handsome.  He reminded me of someone - perhaps that look of the boy in the photo.  I stared on.  I thought of my own two sons and hoped they would never have to experience war.  Daniel in sleep looked just like an older version of my Francis.  The long lashes, the slight curl of the lips.  I supposed all dark-haired males looked like that when asleep.  Oh, Jacko, I thought, you have the ability to love both male and female.  Watch your step!

     I crept out of bed about seven o'clock and washed and dressed.  I slipped out of the flat after setting the percolator, went down ten flights of stairs, acknowledged Madame who was already sweeping the path, scurried to the boulangerie and bought a baguette and two hot croissants.  I did go up in the lift on my return.  Daniel was still asleep as I poured mugs of the strong coffee, put some butter on the cut up baguette, found a pot of honey and took the tray into the bedroom.  Daniel opened a wary eye as I held the coffee mug under his nose.  He smiled.  A most appealing smile.  He sat up in bed.

     “Thank you for being with me last night,” he said before even saying 'good morning'.  “I knew you would understand.  Thank you!”

     He beckoned me to him.  He kissed me lightly on the cheek.  “Thank you and good morning!”
     He smiled again and I knew a new Daniel had been born.

     I had a very good time at the Bib Nat that day.  More intriguing stuff in a thin folder between two manuscripts.  One of my authors had written a very risque novella.  I had to guess at a few of the indelicacies in the French and had to dredge my schoolboy Latin as there were many passages or phrases in that language.  I suppose to veil some of the ruder bits.  I could deal with 'membrum virile', which appeared with regularity, and  I supposed 'Pene languido senis' was an old man's drooping prick in contrast.  I think I got the gist of  'ter nocte potes' as three times a night..    'Pathice' and 'cinaede' I didn't know and I had to guess at the heading to one chapter 'Ardens in cupiditatibus' and the subject matter of another entitled 'Corruptor Juventutis' made that title clear!  Wow, five sixteen year olds in one day!  I got the idea too that the lads were dealt with in more ways than one, 'pedicabo ego vos and irrumabo'    Up and down.  Fucked and they sucked.

     It was odd, this manuscript didn't appear in the index and it was definitely in the same writing as the other two which hadn't seen the light of day for about two hundred years.  I showed it to the librarian at the desk who seemed little interested in it.  He made a desultory note of the title “O Audaciam Immanem” saying he was sure it was part of a quotation from Cicero and he didn't think it had ever been published.  He flipped the pages and did manage a smile as he read out 'demisisti gladium in jugulum'.  “I don't think this author meant a sword was in the throat,” he said.  “That's Plautus.”  He scribbled a number on the outside of the folder and handed it back.

     I set to work copying the manuscript.  I could wait to have it photographed but that would take months I had been warned.  I wrote as fast as I could and giggled at some of the descriptions.  The first part was interspersed with descriptions of the lads involved and where they were found.   The second part seemed to be how they were recruited and then cared for in the castle and in the third part the author seemed very good at describing the youths and how they were ravished or ravished each other.   I realised that there wasn't a female in sight except for some old hag, Madame Morue-chevalue, who fed and watered them in their quarters.  'Cod' and 'hairy'!  Oh yes, Johann had said 'morue' was used as slang for a woman's twat - so OHHH!  Madame Hairy-twat!   She had been the castle-owner's nursemaid and also kept the retainers in check and away from the boys.  There were quite a few words I didn't know and the French was old-fashioned and very ornate so I scribbled away not bothering most of the time to try and understand what was going on.  Obviously the Latin bits were quotations.  Oh, God!  Mike was the only one I knew who knew much Latin - he'd said his lectures in Rome were in that language and I bet they didn't have the obvious ruderies written here.  

     I was in a very good mood when I turned up at the flat at five o'clock.  Daniel wasn't there as he was fencing until half past so I sat and scanned the nearly one hundred and twenty pages I had copied already.  I wondered if such a story, of boys being spied on wanking and pissing, then being fucked or sucking, could be put anywhere in my research.  At least the emphasis was on youths and there were lengthy descriptions of their young-manly attributes.  The author obviously liked them long-limbed, sturdy buttocked, well-endowed and not too hairy.  They sounded just like a combination of the Clare boaties and rugger team.  In fact like any group of desirable young men.  Oh, my venal desires were running away with me.  I spotted descriptions of  'Torrent of Mars', 'Neptune's Foam', 'Venal juices'.  'Adonis's river'.  'Love's cream'.  Ouch!  Why the hell didn't he just write 'spunk', whatever that was in eighteenth century French!   And I assumed 'psallare elegantius' was having a wank as the 'unloosening of sweet boy's nectar' occurred soon after.  I was giggling to myself when I heard his key in the lock.  I called out I was home and he laughed and said Madame la Tricoteuse had waylaid him to tell him the tall, elegant Englishman had greeted her when he had returned at five o'clock and she had not been in to clean the flat, yet, but had turned the heat up as it was always so cold in England, she had been told.  I laughed as well and said too true, I shivered a lot in Cambridge.  I also noticed that, from his general demeanour as he came in, young Daniel was in a lighter mood than I'd ever seen him before.  I gathered my papers together putting them carefully out of sight in a folder and asked him about his day.

     He said it wasn't too bad although he had his examinations after Easter.  His fencing had gone well and his friend Phillippe was envious that he was staying in Paris with me.  I found out that Phillippe lived the other side of Paris at Clichy and that, as the Lycee was very exclusive, almost all the boys lived a distance from it.  He had known Phillippe from joining the school and they were exactly the same age.  He asked what I had done and I, truthfully, said I had found an interesting, most probably, unpublished book by one of my authors.  I didn't tell him his long-limbed, well-endowed, firm buttocked young self would have been ideal for the contents.  Yes, he was well-endowed.  Though neither of us had hardons this morning - a real rarity for me - I noticed his uncircumcised cock was just as I remembered mine at his age.  And, he had firm buttocks!

     We both had work to do before going out for a meal.  He had a Philosophy assignment to do before Monday and I wanted to put my requirements for Monday and Tuesday at the Lib Nat in order as I was returning to England on Wednesday.  We sat either side of the table in the sitting-room and worked steadily.  Quite often we would look up, as if on cue and smile at each other without saying anything.  Just before eight I put my papers in the folder and as he looked up I mouthed “Food” in English.  He rubbed his stomach and said “Yes, please!”

     We found a different little restaurant.  It was quite busy and he said his father told him if local people use a restaurant it must be good.  It was.  I didn't let him have so much wine this evening but I think both of us had a warm glow.  He said he would make coffee when we returned to the flat and he knew there was a bottle of brandy in the cupboard.  I said “Claret for boys, port for men, but brandy for heroes!” - Oh! Dr Johnson, all three seem good to me!

     Madame Garnier was still on her perch - this was Daniel's description, but we both waved and smiled at her.  Having seen a couple of the rather sour-faced other residents stalk past her cubby-hole I guess he liked having some recognition.

     Gosh, the flat was warm.  While Daniel was busy in the kitchen I took off my shoes and trousers in the bedroom as I also wanted to massage my knee and came back to the living room and stretched out on the chaise-longue.  Two brandies later and Daniel said he was hot as well and also partially disrobed.  After the third brandy we were giggling together over some inane remark and decided it was time for bed.  I was in first and Daniel, tipsy or not, more or less dived into the bed and rolled over and clutched at me.

     “Thank you, Jacques, for a lovely evening and thank you for listening to me last night.  I have felt so much better today.”

     He rolled away from me and we lay, still with the light on, looking at each other.  He was obviously thinking.  In the end he spoke.

     “What is it like being married?” he asked, hesitantly.

     “Difficult to say,” I said after a pause.  “I wasn't married long and most of the time I was away in Cambridge.”

     He was silent for a bit.  “What I mean....” he hesitated.

     I knew what he wanted to know.

     “You mean what is it like to be with a woman.”

     He looked a little sheepish, then nodded.

     “You haven't?” I asked.

     He shook his head slowly.

     “Do you know any girls?” I asked.

     “No,” he said, “Only my sisters and that friend's sister in the village.”

     I leaned towards him.

     “Do you know about boys and girls?”

     He hesitated again.  “Only a bit.”  He looked as if he was ready to shed tears again.

     Over the next twenty minutes or so I found he knew there were basic differences, he admitted he wanked and he knew the mechanism of coupling.  I explained about love-making and then he asked, “Do boys always sleep together?”.

     “Why do you ask?”

     “I told you last night Julien and Matthew always do..., and so did you and Tony.  Do boys do things?”

     “You've slept with your brother, haven't you?”

     He nodded.  “It was here last year and Julien said it was a waste dirtying two lots of sheets so we shared.”  He looked at me, soulfully.  “He asked me if I wanted to know anything and I was too scared to ask him.  He did hold me tight and he was all hard but all he did was stroke my back and say 'you'll learn one day, little brother'.”

     “Were you hard as well?” I asked softly.

     Daniel nodded quite emphatically but very slowly.

     I said boys did do things.  Usually it was holding each other's 'weapons', 'ses triques' and helping each other to shoot their stuff.

     “Although you haven't shared a bed with anyone other than Julien have you done that with another boy?” I asked.

     He pinched his lips together, blushed slightly and nodded rapidly.

     “Phillippe?” I asked.

     He nodded again.

     “Tell me,” I said, putting out a hand and resting it on his arm.  He flinched slightly, then relaxed.  I then heard that he and Phillippe had bunked off school one afternoon when they were fourteen after an older boy had announced that he wanked three times every day and it was much better when his cousin did it to him.  They'd found an old storeroom and had tossed each other off and felt guilty about it.  Both had confessed to their priests next weekend and were told it was a sin.  They'd done it several times since and liked it and neither had confessed any more so neither was in a State of Grace.  But this year Phillippe had refused when he suggested it and he didn't know why as he wouldn't tell him except that Phillippe seemed very friendly now with a younger boy who travelled in each day from Clichy with him.

     Daniel seemed much relieved to get this all off his chest.  He said he missed Phillippe and felt very lonely at times.  I hoped this was not an invitation to seduce my landlord's son.  I was very tempted but Daniel pre-empted any further discussion by dozing off.  The wine and brandy had taken its toll.  Blast!  I now had to get out to switch the light out!

                              *
     We both slept in next morning but I was glad Daniel volunteered to get dressed and go to the bakery for our breakfast.  I was glad as I had my usual morning hardon and it ached!   I also caught a glimpse of a nicely shaped erection as Daniel rushed to the bathroom clutching his hastily grabbed-up clothes.  Nice French boys, like nice English boys and nice Swiss boys are all the same in the morning!!

     I got up while he was out and didn't bother getting dressed.  My hardon deflated when I had a piss so I came out to the kitchen and put the percolator on and laid out big coffee cups and plates before I went back to the bathroom.  I had just finished washing and shaving as he returned, grumbling about old ladies talking to the assistant.  I slipped my underpants on and went and poured the coffee.

     He took one look at me and said as he hadn't washed before going out he had better undress as well.  So, two hunks sat and chewed their way through loads of lovely French bread and croissants and imbibed masses of fragrant coffee and decided they would explore the Louvre and a couple of the massive churches neither had yet seen.  As Daniel got up from the table and started to clear the table I slapped his backside - those twin taut globes - and told him I would do that and the washing-up as long as he washed and made himself sweet and clean.  I deliberately went into the bathroom after I'd rinsed the plates and cups and sniffed him.  He was clean and sweet.  He grinned when I said he would do and then the toad turned and sniffed at me.  He grinned, “Tres pur!”.  I slapped his backside lightly again and said he mustn't be cheeky to his elders.

     We had a busy day.  I saw him gauging sizes of numerous nude male statues.  I did whisper that the Greeks must have been quite small and got a gentle blush back.  He was a bit more open with his stares after that!  Boys are all the same.  I remembered studying a postcard I'd found of Michelangelo's David with a magnifying glass when I was younger than him.  We had a baguette and a glass of wine for lunch and trawled round three churches in the afternoon before calling it a day.

     My feet ached.  He'd seen me massaging my knee the night before so got the story about my accident.  I didn't carry my stick anymore and I was mighty glad as we arrived back that there was a lift at the flats!  We smiled politely at Madame who was back knitting away.  I said if he didn't behave himself I would personally see she was there when his head rolled.  He screwed his nose up at me and said I'd be the first in the tumbril as I was a Monarchist and he was a good Republican!

     My knee did ache a bit - I think the climb up one of the church towers did it - so I sat, trouserless, with a warm face flannel round it.  I'd wrung it out in hot water and it was very comforting.  I must say he was rather concerned.  I let him feel where the steel pin was and he asked if it had hurt very much.  I said I didn't really remember much about it.  I think he was rather relieved when I said it would be OK later and we could go out for supper somewhere.  We did and had another super meal.  He insisted on paying this time as his mother had given him some money.  He also chose the wine which was very good.  I complimented him on that and he said he would like to work in the wine trade as he found it all very interesting.

     We decided to have coffee and brandy at the flat and relaxed sitting side by side on the comfortable settee.  At bedtime he went first to the bathroom and I barged in just as he was standing looking at himself, nude, in the long mirror.

     “If you think you're one of those Greek statues...,” I said.  He turned suddenly.  “.....you'll have to cut a bit of that off.  You're about five centimetres too long.”

     He stared down at me and smiled.  “You would be Hercules!”

     “Thank you,” I said, grinning at him,  “I'm glad you know when you're beaten!”  I went up to him and put my arm round his bare shoulder.  “I think you would make a good Ganymede.”

     This had been a small statue of a rather comely lad, but he had lost most of his cock and balls in some way over the centuries since he'd been sculpted.  I'd seen Daniel having a wry grin as he inspected the poor lad.  He laughed.  “Mine is all there, isn't it?” He waggled his hips and his cock and balls swung.

     No answer to that.  “Have you finished?” I asked.  He said he had.  “Go and warm the bed up then, I'll be five minutes.”

     I finished my ablutions and went into the bedroom.  He was lying flat out on my side of the bed.  I pulled up the covers and gave him a slight shove and began to climb in.  He shifted a bit but turned on his side.  “I will keep you warm!”  He flung his arms round me and twined his legs with mine and thrust his torso, hips and thighs against me.  The alcohol he'd had had reduced any inhibitions and also made him glow with heat.  As he pressed against me the inevitable happened.  Two shafts rapidly stiffened, tried to rise, but were trapped.  I moved my hips back a bit and two hard pricks pressed against our bellies as I put my arms round him as well and held us tight.

     “Show me what boys can do, please,” he whispered in that attractive young voice of his.  “Please, I want you to, I need to know.”  I stoked his back and said nothing.  “Those boys in your photograph knew.  Those boys in those photographs outside that church all know.  Julien and Matthew know.”  He whispered, “You and Tony know.  I need to know.  You all look at each other in that way.”  I waited, unsure of what to do.  “Please.....”

     I was unsure.  His only experience was tossing himself off and pulling Phillippe's pud a few times.  Oh God!  Was I in the position of Alun who had taught me things?  I supposed I was.  What would happen if things went wrong?  If Daniel suddenly panicked?  I talked to him gently.  I repeated what I'd said the night before and said he had already done that with Phillippe.  What did he need to know?

     “You do it to yourself, all boys do,” I said.  He clutched me tighter.  Confession time for me.  “I have to do it....,” I said quietly, “....even at my advanced age.”

     He relaxed his grip on me and giggled.  “I want us to do it together, now, tonight!”  He thrust his hips against me.  Our pricks ground together.   It was now or never.  “Please, Jacques, please,” he wheedled.

     I was lost.  In lust?  In love?  In sheer randiness?  “You'd better get a towel,” I whispered.

     We untwined so quickly.  A young lad with a rampant cock scurried to the bathroom and returned, beaming all over his face.  It was a large towel and was soon placed between us.  I didn't move, he launched himself at me and, facing me, put his arms round me and hugged me even tighter.  Who was being seduced?  I responded and my arms were round him and we hugged each other closely.

     His face, still soft-skinned, was against mine.  He moved it and my day's growth of beard rasped his cheek.  He was breathing more deeply and moved his head again, his mouth slightly open, and his tongue touched me on the chin just where it had pressed on his cheek.  My mouth automatically opened too, our lips and tongues touched and danced together, tongues probing and investigating.  Both of us were breathing hard by now.  I had one hand behind his head and was holding him to me with the other as well.  He was holding me almost round the neck and stroking my back slowly with his other hand.  We must have caressed and simply enjoyed that closeness for a long time because, slowly and inexorably our hips joined in, our erect shafts rubbing against each other.   Daniel gave a long, low moan and a flood of his boycream squirted up between us.  His thrusting became more frantic, sufficient to set me off and my pent-up load joined his.  We lay, panting, sticky and sweaty, cheek to cheek, still holding each other tightly.  He was motionless, but carried on making those tiny 'oh, oh, oh' sounds.  As he relaxed I stroked his back.  His cheek moved against mine and, I swear, he almost purred his contentment.

     His pushed his right hand in between us.  We were both still erect.  I could feel the huge amount of gooey cum as drops slid down my stomach.  His hand felt for my tool and he grasped the sticky length.  “That was beautiful,” he whispered, “I never knew it could be so beautiful.”

     His fingers strayed up and down my hard rod.  With expert ease he slowly brought me to a second massive climax.  If I had emptied over-full chambers somewhere before, this second load was equal and I felt really drained.  I controlled my breathing and found his lips and kissed him.  I turned him onto his back and straddled his legs, kneeling up and looking down on him.  I wanked him slowly, watching his unblinking eyes as they stared back at me.  He had that enigmatic smile on his face, just like Piers, especially,  in the photograph.  He gasped and shot his second load, ribbons of come spurted from that youthful prick.  I knelt and waited until the last drop oozed from his slit.  He held his arms up and I lay completely over him, our bodies bonded by our joint achievements.  I rolled him on his side and, holding each other tightly, then relaxing, we fell asleep.  Satiated, satisfied, content in each other's company.

                              *
     I woke early and thought I was about to have an adolescent wet-dream.  No, it was Daniel, gently stroking my ever ready cock.  I came almost immediately and he leaned over and kissed my now very bearded cheek.  “Good morning, Jacques,” he whispered, sounding quite seductive, “It doesn't take much to wake you!”

     I felt down to his own erect prick.  “You're very cheeky for a little boy,” I said, gripping the rampant six inches, “I think we'd better see if little Ganymede is not too damaged.”

     He sniggered and pushed his cock up and down in my grasping fist.  I took over the rhythm and his morning load squirted all over me.  There must have been six or seven spurts in all.  I thought of the rude book, 'Torrent of Mars'!  Dare I tell him?  No, better not, yet.

     “For a little boy,” I said, giving his hard shaft a final squeeze, “You certainly make lots.”

     He giggled.  “And so do you.”  He giggled again and nestled up against me, our cum-soaked bodies meeting again as I lay down and he turned and we were facing each other.  He laughed,  “Phillippe said I lived up to my name, but I wasn't a little river [riviere] but a big stream [fleuve] so, perhaps,  I should change my name.  I said my full name was even better, LaRiviere et de Fontane, [river and fountain].....”

     I was thunderstruck.  Before he could continue I said sharply.  “.....What did you say?  What's your full name?”
     He was rather startled.  “LaRiviere et de Fontane....,” he said quietly.   “My father's name and my mother's name.”

     One more question.  “How do you spell your mother's name?” I asked, in an equally quiet voice.

     “F..  O..  N.. T......,” he began,

     “A..  N..  E....” we finished together.  No 'I'!

     I hugged him tightly and laughed out loud.  “That was my mother's name, Fontane!” I almost yelled in his ear.  “My mother's name...”  The thought struck me.  Those likenesses.  The lips, the nose, the set of the eyes.  Piers.  That hint of some sameness of Daniel and my Francis and even myself.  “....We're probably related.....”  I finished quietly.

     We were both stunned.  We lay speechless for a while.  Then we hugged each other.  “Oh Daniel!”, “O Jacques!” we said simultaneously.

     We stank and were coated with the remains of the night's activities so I said we had better get up and wash and then we would compare what we knew about our families and, “Please, call me Jacko, everyone does!”  He leaned over and smiled, “As long as you call me Dodo when we're together.  That's what my sisters call me!”

     As he washed I could hear him singing to himself.  I put the percolator on and, stinky as I was, hurriedly dressed and went to the boulangerie for our breakfast.  I arrived back to find he'd dressed and got the table all ready.  I stripped off and he followed me into the bathroom and sat on the edge of the bath and watched as I soaped and washed the residue away.  I had to have a shave and when I finished I beckoned him over and tidied up his sideburns with my razor.  I would buy him a present in England, I thought!   

     We sat at the table and he cut the bread while I retrieved the photo of Piers and Miles from my bag.  He smiled when he saw it.  I undid the frame and took the photo out as on the back I had noted the three strands of the family tree.  As we ate I told him the story as far as I knew.  About the farmers and their sons and daughters, of the French son who married an English daughter.  Of how Tony was related by marriage.  Of the bond I felt between me and Piers.  Even a hungry seventeen-year-old ate slowly as the story unfolded.  I had got a piece of foolscap paper and redrew the fragment adding in my aunts and uncles and all my cousins.  I finished by saying my grandfather didn't come originally from Strasbourg but had been born in Clermont-Ferrand.

     “Maman and Papa come from Riom.  It's not far from Clermont,” he said quietly.  “That's where we were when the War was on.  We still have a house there.  Papa was the only child, like Maman.  They are visiting my sister and she lives at Vichy with Patrice.”  He shook his head.  “Patrice was too friendly with the Germans and he is the assistant to the Mayor now.”  He looked at me then cast his eyes down.  “Patrice was accused of signing documents and Papa had to say he'd been forced into it.  Patrice isn't grateful and it's only to see his children that Maman will visit him.”  A tear rolled down his cheek.  “Someone like him signed that document when Henri and his friend were shot.  Someone like him!” he repeated.

     I stood and went round the table and knelt by him and put my arms round him.  He rested his head on my shoulder.  “I'm sorry, Daniel.  Someone always has to sign something.”  I remembered the accusations and excuses made at the Nuremberg trials - 'I was only obeying orders!'.  “We'll go to Riom together and you can see if your friend is better.  After your exams, I'll still be here.  But we'd better see if we are related as well.”

     He wiped his eyes.  I think the emotion of such intense passion the previous night, the revelation about possible kinship and his memories of his friend were too much.  But, he calmed down and we had more coffee and the croissant as he said all he knew was that his parents had been only children and his grandparents were all dead.  His mother's father had land and she had inherited it, but it was rented out.  That was all he knew.  We would have to wait until tomorrow evening when we returned to Ivry to find out more.

     Actually, we were both rather excited.  I was getting more and more bemused about all the coincidences.  I put the photo back in the frame and sat looking at it silently for a long time while Daniel cleared the breakfast things away.  I closed my eyes with a mental image of Piers as he was in the photo.  My image smiled.

     Daniel asked if I would like to go to Mass.  I said I had no belief but he said he would like to go as he felt he had to give praise and thanks.  I said he wasn't in a Sate of Grace so couldn't take communion.  He smiled and said his God wouldn't mind if he only went and listened and prayed.  We walked to Ste Clothilde and I enjoyed the music and even the homily.  I heard the organ that Cesar Franck had played.  Daniel smiled as we left.

     Thanks, Jacko,” he said and touched my arm.  “Even if we aren't related I feel so much better having met you.”

     We found a small café and had lunch as Daniel said few cafes opened on Sunday evenings.  We strolled along the Seine afterwards.  I savoured that strange ambience that Paris had surrounding it.  We walked in silence, just smiling at each other.  I hoped that Daniel was kin.

     We went to bed early that night.  I said we both had a busy day on Monday.  He nuzzled my cheek and said he'd had the happiest weekend of his life.  I showed him then what else boys could do.  As he lay mewing and quivering I kissed and licked his cheek, his chin, his neck, then gradually moved down his firm torso.  As I touched his nipples with my tongue they hardened and rose and his body shook.  Gradually I worked down.  I left a pool of saliva in his belly-button as I was drooling copiously.  I tongued down his emerging trail of black hair and, at last, took the capped end of his rock-hard shaft into my mouth.  I used my lips to push back his loose foreskin - loosened, I knew, like mine, from numerous nights of boyhood's pleasure - his whole body stiffened as I ran my tongue around the ridge and my mouth was immediately filled with his sweetly salt boycream - a real live Adonis giving me his cream.  I drew his full load from him, endeavouring to keep as much as possible in my mouth without swallowing it.  I crawled back up the bed, he was motionless, his mouth was open and he was making those noises which I'd heard my other cousins, both in England and Switzerland, make, those universal noises boys produce when they have achieved that apex of physical pleasure.  I found his open mouth and he tasted his own essence, his own cum.  Our tongues met and he put his arms round my shoulders.  We lay together just holding each other closely for nigh on fifteen minutes, just enjoying each other's company.

     I drew back and whispered an old French idiom in his ear.  “Il ne faut jamais dire, 'Fontane, je ne boirai pas de ton eau!'”        [One must never say, “I shall never need it”]

     He smiled.  “Et votr'eau,” he murmured, “J'ai besoin de....”

     He never finished his sentence but began his own descent.  He had learned well.  I gasped and clenched my fists as my fountain filled his cheeks.  We shared my seed and lay quietly stroking each other for ages and ages.  He leaned forward and kissed my lips gently.

     “That was so perfect.  Thank you for teaching me.”

                              *
     We slept after that.  In the morning I was awoken by Daniel handing me a cup of coffee.  He smiled down at me saying nothing.  He was nude, his well-formed young cock hung plumply down with his balls in their sack under.  I glanced at his thighs, beginning to be covered with a forest of small curls of black hair.  I nearly dropped the cup.  There, outlined on the inner surface of his right thigh was a small strawberry birthmark.  I handed him the cup and told him to put it down somewhere.  He looked startled.  Was something wrong?  I shook my head.  I swung my legs out of the bed and pointed.  We matched.  I said quietly, “Piers aussi!”

     We clutched each other, tears streaming down our cheeks.  If this wasn't proof what was?  The thought of coffee was abandoned.  In the next few minutes Daniel learned how joint pleasure could be accomplished.  We lay head to toe diagonally across the bed and quickly drew the night's accumulation of our juices from each other.  We shared our spunk, crying and laughing at the same time.  I knew.  And Daniel knew.  We must be related!

     We had to hurry to get ready.  We washed quickly.  We both said we would snatch some breakfast at cafes somewhere and we would meet up at the flat at five o'clock to clear up, pack and go back to Ivry.   Daniel told the ever-present Madame Garnier we would be leaving for home that evening.  I smiled at her. I don't think Madame la Concierge had ever been greeted so jovially in the morning.  I could have kissed her I was so happy.   I said that to Daniel before we parted at the end of the road.  He said he'd heard of 'la rage', rabies, and I'd better be careful, I might have got bitten!

     The day flew by.  I finished copying the rude book, almost another hundred pages.  I scribbled furiously not bothering to try to make sense of what was happening.  I did note one passage where the whole group of boys had to suck each other simultaneously, 'comme une guirlande des lis blancs'.  I felt a momentary twinge in my groin as I thought of my originally pale-legged Swiss cousin and pale-legged probable cousin this morning - like white lilies - an apt description.  I sighed with relief as I got to the end of the last page and scribbled the last sentence and then the dedication 'pour Monsieur Georges les Salles'.  Finished.  I could check over the rest of the letters tomorrow.  Most I remembered were signed,'George' and the others 'Arthur'.  I couldn't remember if there were addresses from where they were written.  I knew I'd noted it somewhere but, thinking about it, those notes were all at Kerslake.

     We met at the corner of the road and I asked him how his day was.  He screwed his face up and said, in English, 'Shitty'.  He'd been told off as he forgotten to learn an English poem to recite to the class.  He had to learn one tonight for the morning and tomorrow was the last day of school, too.  'Merde', he added, in French.

     I laughed and said we could rehearse something on the train journey and then I would help him later at the house.  We hadn't got much further than the little gateway into the courtyard when Madame swooped on us.  She explained she had cleaned the flat and had sent the dirty towels and the bed sheets to the laundry and she would settle the bill with Daniel's mother.  Oh Christ!  Dirty towels!  Bed sheets!  I noted the crusty spunk where we'd wiped ourselves on the towel when I folded them this morning.  There had also been a small patch on the bottom sheet where a copious overflow had landed.  That bath towel and that sheet  had evidence of two rather well-built sperm producers.  One bed!  Oh!   I found a note in my pocket and passed it to her.  She smiled, bowed and disappeared into her spider's web.  Daniel said nothing until we exited the ancient monument of a lift and entered the spotless flat.

     “Do you know how much you gave her,” he said, whistling under his breath.  “That would have been a good meal.”

     I held up a placatory hand.  “That or your mother hearing we'd dirtied more than our fair share of the linen and towels and those sheets were only from one bed!  And, we know we are welcome here in the future!”

     He grinned.  “Thanks.  Julien brought another officer here and she told Maman.  I know Maman told him off and said he could jeopardise his career.  I think I know why.  But we don't have careers.”

     Cheeky little hound.  I chased him round the flat and he said I mustn't make the place untidy when I laid him over the bed and gave him the Jem treatment of three sharp smacks to his backside but he squealed with pleasure.  The hound then said he'd heard Englishmen  liked to be beaten and there were places in Paris where ladies would do that to them.  I said he shouldn't know about such things.  He sneered and said who did I think those ladies were we passed on the way to the cafes each evening.  Oh, my seventeen-year-old probable cousin was more worldly wise than I was at that age!

     On the train to Ivry he got out his English text book.  I had a quick look.  “I wandered lonely as a cloud” or “Come into the garden, Maud” were ticked as possible ones to learn.  I remembered one of Tony's quips and said that first line was first written as “I wondered lonely as a cow” until the poet's sister read it and altered it.  Luckily, he didn't believe me.  I could imagine the frisson in the French educational system if that gobbet was produced in an essay!   Straight from a scholar at Cambridge University!  However, I thought I would give him the benefit of a little of my poetic knowledge.  Luckily the carriage we were in was empty.  

     “What about this one,” I said. “All English boys have to learn this.  They have to recite this to gain entry to the Fourth Year in their schools.”  I hoped my lie sounded plausible.

     He looked at me with real concentration.  I put on a very serious face.

     “There were two young girlies from Bimingham,” I started.  I watched as he mouthed the words after me.
     “And this is the story concerning them.
       They lifted the frock
       And sucked on the cock
       Of the bishop as he was confirming them.”

     I paused.  A look of shock and then of horror passed over Daniel's face.  “Quelle!” he said.  He saw my impassive face.  He realised.  “You are horrible to me, Jacko!  What would Monsieur LeGrande say if I repeated that?”

     I grinned.  “He'd want to know the rest.”

     Daniel grinned too.  “Tell me and I will learn it for Phillippe.  He has been confirmed but I do not know if that was true for him!”

     “The bishop was nobody's fool,”  I continued,
      “With those girls from that nice village school.
       But in the vestry room after
       there were loud squeals and laughter
       As he withdrew his episcopal tool.

       Your Lordship's OK said the two
       And thanks for that wonderful screw,
       But the vicar is thicker
       And quicker and slicker
       And three inches longer than you.”

     Daniel giggled even more as I explained the slang words he didn't know.  “You are very rude, Jacko,” he said in French.  “But, if I tell Phillippe I will find out if the bishop 'screwed' him!  Eh?”

     He must have realised what he had said.  “Boys screw,” he said in English, “Don't they?”

     I nodded.  That was that.  I had to repeat the set of limericks and after he'd repeated them word perfect I said he'd better be as good with his proper English poem.  We settled on “Come into the garden, Maud” and I promised to help him after dinner that evening.

     Of course, we had to settle something else.  As soon as he entered the house he rushed to the small room where his mother usually sat reading or doing embroidery in the afternoons.

     “Maman,” he shouted excitedly, just like a ten-year-old, “Maman, Jacko's my cousin!”
     His mother looked rather startled and I was laughing as I entered the room and greeted her.

     “I'm sorry about the excitement but Daniel told me your maiden name was Fontane and that was also my mother's name as well.  You both come from the same area so I suppose you might be related.”

     Daniel was almost hopping up and down and burst out before his mother could reply to me.  “And he's got a mark on his leg just like me!  And so did his cousin as well!”

     His mother was calmness itself.  She looked at me and smiled.  “That explains a lot,” she said.  “The photograph.  You.  Daniel.  You all have that same look.  I have been reminded of what my father looked like when I see you, Jacques.  He was tall, dark, but had blue eyes.  So has Daniel and the girls. You have.”  She looked at me appraisingly.  “Julien has almost blue eyes but the resemblance is more for my husband's family.”

     She stood up and retrieved an album from a cupboard.  A posed photo of a young man in his early twenties was quite unbelievable.  The set of his eyes, the mouth, the nose.  The resemblance was uncanny.  Piers.  Me.  Georges Fontane.

     We sat and she told the family story.  Or what she knew of it.  Her father wanted to be a musician but his father, also Georges, had a small vineyard which he had inherited.  He and his brother had quarrelled about the amount of land and he had moved from Clermont to Riom.  Her father didn't like dealing with the vineyard and after his father died just before the First World War had let the vineyard run down and had died of tuberculosis himself in 1928.  Her mother died soon after and she, an only child, had inherited the almost derelict land but rented it to the local Co-operative who cared for it now.

     We looked at my reconstruction of the tree and she pointed at my great-grandfather's name, Jacques Fontane.  “That was my grandfather's brother, he was a lawyer.  Grandfather said he was a hard man, very strict, very exact.  He was a Protestant....”  I interrupted and said his son, my grandfather, was a Protestant clergyman, she nodded.   “.....but Georges became Catholic again and that did not help.  There was a sister too but I don't know about her.”

     I nodded.   Daniel and I were truly related.  I smiled at him.  We took each other's hands, stood and went to where his mother was sitting.

     “Maman, Jacko is my cousin, isn't he?”

     She smiled.  “Not quite a full cousin, but you both have the same great-great-grandfather.”

     I leaned forward and kissed her cheek.  “You have been very kind to me even before you knew.  Thank you.”  I smiled.  “May I call you Aunt?  And what will your husband say?”

     She laughed.  “Auguste is used to me by now and you can be my nephew now I have a family, too!”

     I said there must be other relations because of the lad who had escaped to Switzerland.  She said she knew there were some others in Clermont, probably descended from the sister, but her father had never contacted them wanting only to play his violin and read books.

     Papa was working late because he had been away and 'M Le Ministre' wanted a report ready before Easter.  As soon as he came in and Daniel breathlessly announced the news he ordered aperitifs all round to recover.  I came in for a hearty back-slapping, once he'd recovered, with a great welcome to the family.

     I excused myself as soon as dinner was finished as I wanted to write to my Aunts in Switzerland and America with the news.  I would be seeing Ma on Wednesday evening so a letter wouldn't reach her by then.  She would get the good tidings in person.  I said I would take Daniel back to England with me for the summer, if they could spare him, Daniel sniffed and his parents laughed, and he could visit Ulvescott and also, I knew, Johann was coming as well.  Perhaps, sometime we would meet our American 'cousins' as well.

     Unfortunately, I had started something else.  After I came out of the bathroom, ready to go to bed, Daniel was lurking.

     “Please, Jacko, can we share?” he began....

     I shook my head.  “No, Daniel, it would not be right.”

     He pouted.  I leaned forward and kissed his cheek.

     “Sometime perhaps, but not now in your house....”  He smiled and nodded.  “....You have plenty to think about - now go to bed - and don't make more than one towel dirty or you'll have to take them to Madame next time at the flat.”

     He sniffed.  “They would smell bad by then.”  He smiled and kissed my bare shoulder.  “Goodnight, sweet Prince,” he said in English.  Shakespeare does come in handy.

                              *
     I was in a good mood the next morning with my English group.  We laughed our way though 'The Owl and the Pussycat' which wasn't on the syllabus but one of the girls had an old book of nursery rhymes and poems.  I also said if any were in London during the Summer they should contact me and over Easter they must read the rest of the set books as we would deal with them finally before their exams next semester.

     I also felt light-hearted at the Lib Nat especially when the librarian I usually dealt with said he'd checked the index to 'L'Enfer' - the naughty books - and there was no record of the book being published.  His superior had asked for a copy of anything I published on it.  More for Dr Blake to look at for me.  Oh my God!  Could I ask Dr Blake to read the mucky story?  Anyway what could I write about it?  I could do a translation and I could foresee that causing a sensation as an appendix to my thesis!  Anyway, I still had plenty of other things to write about.

     I had a quick look to see I'd made copies of all the letters.  I made another note of the address at the top of George's letters - Garthorpe.  Arthur only put 'G' and the date '72' or '73' on his.  I took that to mean all his were written in 1772 and 1773.  I then found a few more in the next box of documents.  These were proof that the writer 'George' must be the same as the dedicatee, Georges les Salles, as there was specific mention of a secret book which he hoped to receive.  These had '1773' at the top and were written between May and September.  I scribbled out the contents of the five letters to make clearer copies later.  At least I could read my own handwriting.  So, tired but happy in my work, I said goodbye to the librarian and said I would be back in four weeks time.

     We had a superb dinner that evening.  Even Daniel was allowed a complete glass of wine.  We watched and waited as each washed in the bathroom later.  When I'd finished he came up and put his arms around me.  “Thank you, Jacko,” he said so sincerely, “You have made me very happy and I want to meet your sons, they must be as nice as you.”

     “If they are as nice as you, Dodo, I would be very happy!”  I kissed his cheek and we held each other closely.  “Go to bed now and make sure.....”

     He giggled in my ear.  “.....or Madame la Tricoteuse will get me!”

     I felt down and grasped his already hardening cock in his underpants.  “Go on, bed!”

     He had left a card on the breakfast table in the morning.  It was addressed to Francis and James and the message, in English, 'To my little cousins and their big father'.   As the picture was of a rampantly phallic Eiffel Tower I wondered if it was deliberate.  But then, was I being boastful!

     At least the crossing wasn't rough but I found the interminable Dover to London train journey a real bore.  I was sitting, slightly comatose, thinking about the 'secret book' and the letters.  I sat up suddenly as if hit by an electric shock.  The old lady sitting next to me looked a bit startled.  I apologised saying I'd dropped off to sleep and woken suddenly.  It wasn't that.  I had suddenly made a connection.  'Garthorpe'.  Garthorpe Hall in Westmorland was where Charley lived.  Charley Lascelles.  And the dedicatee was 'Georges les Salles'.  A Frenchman's error of hearing I assumed.  I keep saying Oh my God!  to myself but here I thought it was wholly justified.  That dirty book was commissioned and written for some ancestor of Charley's.  I nearly burst out laughing.  The Abominable Arseholes had a lover of arseholes in his family tree.  I had only digested snippets of the book but remembered a passage about the oiling and fingering of Robin's passage of love before.....  I couldn't remember the next bit in the French.  Oh God! I must.... I must translate the complete book!

     Ma and Pa were really pleased to see me.  I broke the news gently.  That is, pulling my dear mother's leg as I said I had discovered long lost relatives of hers who would probably demand a share of any family fortunes.  I then told the story straight and put out the photograph of Piers with Miles and beside it a photo of Daniel taken last year which his mother had given me.  Ma shook her head in disbelief.  I said finally about the three birthmarks, Piers', Daniel's and mine.  Ma quietly said “Four”.  I stared.  “Francis.  It was very noticeable.  I saw it two weeks ago when he was sitting on my knee at Kerslake.”
     I sat stunned and only came to as she talked about their visit to the States and meeting her sister again after so many years.  My cousins were grown and both were set to marry.   Charles was with some big law firm in Boston while Sam was learning the ropes at a stockbrokers.  She laughed and said if we thought Uncle Alfred was rather large the pair of them were massive - they would give Bruce a run for his money!  Pa had made a great impression with his counterparts across the ocean and Lord Harford's committee was highly pleased.  It meant the PM and Cabinet wouldn't reduce their budget, too.  What all this meant I didn't know.  Pa said it was important to keep my mouth shut and not to mention that he'd even been to the US to anybody.  Who'd be interested anyway, I thought.  They were highly delighted to have been invited to Lachs' and Audrey's wedding.  I grinned and said it ran in the Cameron family as well.  'Oh dear!' said Ma.

     Being my usual rather disorganised self I hadn't realise how close to Easter we were.  I 'phoned the college later that afternoon and Willy was on duty.  He confirmed Dr Blake was visiting his sister in Suffolk but would be back on Wednesday week as he was accompanying his great-nephew on a visit to Lord Harford at Garthorpe Hall from Thursday until the Monday.  Oh good, that would give me plenty of time to write up more about the letters and get down to translating as much of the 'secret' book as possible.  Lord Harford was in for a shock sometime!  And I wondered if Bruce remembered to cut the 'fuckin's' from his vocabulary when with his great-uncle.  So, Bruce hadn't gone to grandmother's.  I wondered where he was?  


                         Easter 1951

     All was revealed the next day.  I remembered I had to go to the new address just as I got in the taxi at Kerslake station with all my luggage.  Who should be standing at the gate as the taxi drew up but Bruce.  Thank goodness the house was large!  There was Bruce cradling a diminutive James with one massive arm with a lively Francis holding onto two fingers of his other hand.

     “How'ya cobber,” he greeted me, in a bit deeper voice than before, “Got your joeys here to meet you!”  He looked at me shyly.  “I got my degree!”  His face lit up in a huge smile.

     “Oh, Bruce, congratulations!  I knew you would.  You worked really hard last year.”

     His face was a picture of pleasure.  Then Francis let go of his fingers and hurtled towards me.  I bent down.   “Dad,” he said.   I swept him up and hugged him.

     “Here's the other one,” said Bruce, “I'll get your bags.”

     Once settled I found that Tony had discovered a more or less abandoned Bruce in college at the end of term.  He didn't want to go to see his grandmother as she nagged him all the time.  He said he was looking forward to going to Westmorland though.  I found he and Tony had taken over the two boys and Francis kept telling me he was a kangaroo now.  Unfortunately, that reminded me of Roo - and that reminded me of Kats.  Tony was driving now and that afternoon had taken his mother to see the riding stable which seemed to attract all the pubescent teenage girls from miles around.  He whispered to me after I watched him park the car in the garage that he'd never seen so many girls bouncing up and down, having orgasms without the benefit of insertion.  I said as if he'd know.  I asked how his African idyll was going.  He wrinkled his nose.  “Six inches at most and not interested.”  And how was Bruce?  He laughed.  “Five and a half and wondering!”

     This was all before I related the story.  “Bloo...dy Hell,” Tony said as the four of us, he, his mother, Bruce and I had sat down for a cup of tea and I had finished the tale.  Mrs Marcham looked at him sharply.  Then she grinned.  “My sentiments exactly,” she said.  “How you manage all these coincidences I don't know, Jacko, you certainly pile them up.”  She poured more tea.  “Mary 'phoned to say poor old Bran isn't well.  Tony's promised to take Bruce over to Ulvescott so you go with them and I'll look after the boys as Maggy's gone home for a long weekend.”  Maggy was the very efficient nursemaid and I had wondered where she was.

     Bruce was a more than efficient nursemaid himself.  The boys loved him and he kept them amused effortlessly and with seemingly never-diminishing energy.  While he was being pursued round the garden after tea I sat with Tony and outlined my findings.  He whistled when I said about the 'secret' book and the most probable Lascelles connection.  That evening, after dinner, we sat together in my most luxurious room and pored over my scribbled transcript.

     He wrote down a fair copy of my translation as I said it out loud.  I said I would have to tidy it up but he was to write whatever I said.  The 'secret' story started with two friends strolling in the country discussing Nature and God and the handiwork of the Almighty and the supremacy of Man over the whole kingdom of animals.  It seemed rather philosophical.  There were statements such as 'Happiness depends on the good working of our organs, our education and the sensations which we perceive.  If these sensations are pleasing then our love for ourselves will increase.'  This went on for several paragraphs until the friends espy a young farmhand scything, his shirt off, his fine muscles rippling like a young God of War  - 'mowing down his enemies' was the guess I made at the flowery language.  He pauses in his work and the watchers see him 'unbreech and draw out Nature's weapon which after drawing off his rank piss he caresses and then more urgently doth'  -Tony sniggered at my own flowery output - 'doth rub' - I couldn't think of another translation for 'frotte' - 'doth rub until with martial cries his torrent of Mars doth' -  I liked my 'doths'! - 'his torrent of Mars doth shoot forth then fall upon the good Earth to join the seed cast there to grow and nourish us.'  We both burst out laughing.

     “We never saw  Hubert, our little Storm-Trooper, reach that stage.  That would have been something,” Tony said over his giggles, “But all he got was a boot up the goolies!”  He giggled more.  “His 'Nature's weapon' looked well-used - not much rust on that, I bet!  Anyway, it sounds as if that lad didn't cast his seed upon stony ground.  St Matthew chapter thirteen, I think!”

       I said I was glad of his Biblical knowledge but as there was plenty more, we'd better get on.  Tony grinned and said he couldn't wait to find out what happened next, casting seed or whatever.  From what I translated next we gathered that the friends then left that scene and continued their discussion.  One asked the other the nature of passions, those based on a love of God and those based on a love of sensual pleasure.  This went on for a couple of pages until they came to a lake where a lad, a young Neptune, was fishing.  For some of the next I pored over my copy of Larousse   I decided he was stripped and 'wore but a clout tied loose around his sturdy waist'.  He was casting his net and 'drawing in good fish'.  They watched his back 'shimmering in summer light', his firm well-buttocked thighs 'twisting and turning as he pulls his net'.  Satisfied with his catch he stares around but sees no one as our watchers are well-hid.  With nonchalant calm 'as he hath cast his net he casts away his clout and rings his water' - I was a bit hesitant over that - it looked like a participle of  'sonner' - 'sounds his water till all is spent then grasps his trident staff with casual ease until with conch-like cries bold Neptune's foam spreads over' - I told Tony to change that to 'o'er' - 'the swelling tide'.  Tony said he thought that was not quite right.  Lakes didn't have tides.  I grimaced.  What the hell!

     The adventurers carried on, walking back to the castle where they lived through the woods.  I read out several long paragraphs which seemed to be a discussion of free-will against determinism or something like that.  Then they came across young James, I noted the name was given in English, 'who axe in hand was', ..... here I had to consult the big Larousse - ....'pollarding the young saplings as slender as the stripling they perceived.  His jerkin of fine'.....  I had a look at the dictionary again......

     “Did you say he was jerking?” queried Tony, still writing, “He started that quickly!”

     “No, I did not!” I said, laughing, “I said 'jerkin' as in coat.”

     He rolled his eyes heavenwards.  “Only asked,” he said, “Must have been expecting more.”

     “Wait,” I said, “This is only the start.  Anyway, I think his jerkin is of fine leather.  I may not have copied that word down correctly or it's obsolete.  I'll continue....”

     I started off again saying that his jerkin of fine leather slipped off his shoulders as he reached forward showing 'those fair sculpted arms like some Grecian statue of a youth in a niche in the castle hall'.  I said the English was a bit rough but it gave the idea.  'His short pantaloons of russet colour'.
     - here Tony giggled - “Of russet hue sounds better,” he said.

     I nodded.  OK.  'Of russet hue topped shapely thighs with scarce a hair'.  I shook my head.  'He moved along the river bank with casual ease.....'  “I think it's 'plying'”, I said glancing at the page in the dictionary.  'Plying his heavy blade to yielding stem until the heat of the day strikes his now bare and reddened back.  The cooling water beckons and with one....'  “'Wrest' it says here,” I said, fingers on two pages.  '...Wrest those pantaloons are on the bank and the sweet youth steps into the stream.  His thirst he quenches by bending over....'

     “O'er,” said Tony.

     'Bending o'er scooping in cupped hands the cooling draught while'   Something 'trempe'....I wondered...... 'while dipping down with legs parted wide he shows his other self which gleams and shines and then is gone...'  

     “Winked at them, did he?” laughed Tony, “Carry on!”

     “Oh, it's something like '..pausing' or, perhaps it's 'staying for a moment he...'  I sighed.  '.....then standing tall like some yeoman's bow....'  Unhh...  '..long-bow, he stretches tautly his own Cupid's bow with two fingers...'

     “I bet that's 'fingers twain',” said Tony.  “And the bloody Frogs used to cut off the two fingers of any English archers they caught - so watch it - if I see you holding your Cupid's bow like that I'll chop the buggers off.”

     “Shut up and write!   ....'And draws the string ready and lets off...'   Or is that 'looses off'?” I said.   '...looses off five arrows enough to pierce any lover's heart....'   '....which fall into that swift stream never to be found again.”

     We giggled.  Tony said  “Down the plughole”.

     I looked at the next paragraphs.  The pair were moving on through the woods and discussing more about the idea of the freedom of the will and ending up for the day at the castle gate.

     “I think I'd better try to translate this next lot by myself and I really need to talk to someone who knows the philosophy of that time,” I said.  “It's difficult.  We were told by some old bird in a lecture that to really understand this form of literature one has to think about the new ideas which were underlying the thinking of the time.  I spent ages reading Voltaire and Diderot and a couple of others and discussing them with Don McFee so I should be OK once I get going at it.”

     Tony nodded and then grinned.  “You're quite the academic now, eh?”  He put the pencil down and rubbed his hands and smirked.  “That's three lads.  Any more?”

     “Oh yes!  This part is divided into three days,” I said, “And I think there are three lads each day....   ....and there are twins on the third day.”

     Tony looked at his watch.  “Time for one more day,” he said, “But cut the twaddle.”

     I laughed.  Tony was intrigued, but so was I.  I skimmed the beginning of the second day.  There was a whole lot of discussion about how brothers reared together could have different characters, then....

     “Here it is, pencil ready!  They're walking in the village or town now.  Yes...  'Take heed' says one, 'that butcher there, young William, round, red-faced, well-fed, has a merry look as he sharpens his long slim knife on that hard...'  It's called a steel, isn't it?”  Tony nodded.  '....steel and strokes the knife as quick as he strokes his hard....'”  I laughed.  “There's a pun here, Tony!  'Vite' for quick and 'vit' for prick!”  Tony looked at my scribble and screwed up his nose.  “The next bit's something like...  'It's said that ruddy William sharpens his blade ter nocte potes', three times a night, 'until he lies drenched in his venal juices'.....   They move on up the road and doff their hats to the village priest and there's something about Church and State....”  I turned the page.  “Yup.  They enter the tavern where 'young Robin has on his broad back a barrel which he lifts upon the bench, his muscled chest heaving as he lifts.  His shirt is ripped and shreds some more as the cruel barrel tears at the soft cloth.  In anger he pulls it off and stands in small clothes...'  I think, Oh yes!  '....From there peeps out....'   enchapuchone,”  I consulted the dictionary, ahh!  “...Hooded like serpent long a creature of the night.”

     “Is that right?” queried Tony.

     I nodded.  “I think so.  That's a literal translation.  Anyway, that lad's been spotted, they drink up and leave.  There's a whole lot about the joy of work, as if that pair ever did any!  I'll leave that until later....”  I scanned the next page.  “....They see smoke rising from a forge, OK?  'Taking our footsteps to the forge we stood as a young Goliath wielded a heavy hammer, bare-chested and with the sweat of heat and work...'  'Travail dur'.... Better be 'toil' I think.   '...which glistening like rain on paths of stone....   .....outlines the strength contained within....  He turns and plunges the red hot rod of iron into the... .....quenching trough which screams like ravished youth... ...Then like the horse tethered to the rail John...'” I shook my head and thumbed the Larousse.  I grimaced.  “'....stales into the trough to rid himself then takes his private iron-hard rod and coats the fiery Vesuvius cone with his own ...  sulphurous slime....'”    

     “Sounds like you, Jacko!” Tony said waving his pencil at me, “Enough to put the fire out!”

     I'd cottoned on.  The Vesuvius cone must be the fire in the forge.  Yep, I'd told Tony about my adventure with Mike all those years ago now.

     Tony looked at what he'd written.  “Stales?” he queried.

     I had one over our resident English specialist!  “Old word for horse's peeing," I said.  “At least that's what it says here and it makes sense.”  I tapped the Larousse.  “Anyway, except for their walk back to the castle and more about honest toil for honest Christians that's day two.  Had enough?”

     We both had.  Tony said he'd copy his own scribble neatly and he wanted to hear about the other three.  It was late.  We washed.  We shared.

                         *

     We shared each other too that night.  Carefully and slowly we quenched our red-hot rods of iron with cooling mouths.  We giggled after sharing our own warm slime and Tony said neither of us could scream filled as we were.

     I turfed him out of bed as soon as I woke.  Grumbling, he went to his own bedroom next door, giving me a two-fingered salute as he went out of the door.  I didn't want an inquisitive almost three-year-old wanting to burrow between Dad and Uncle Tony.  I washed and dressed and crept down to the next floor where the Marchams slept with the nursery-room next door.  The boys were still asleep.  I sat and watched until Francis woke first, saw me, and started chattering animatedly.  I wondered if I would ever be able to look after them properly.  He climbed out of bed and sat on my knee.  But first.  “Pee-pee” he said.  I took him into the adjoining bathroom and, like the grown-up little man he was, he concentrated hard and turned and smiled.  “All done,” he said, “Wash hands.”  I took him to the sink and obeyed.  He had been taught well.  My Francis.  I started to read him a story from the book by the bed.  Then James woke and wanted attention, too.  “He needs a nappy,” said Francis, “Pooh!”  Luckily Mrs Marcham came in then, in floral nightgown.

     “Don't look,” she ordered, “I'm a sight in the mornings.”  Francis was pointing at James and still going “Pooh”.  “It's not so long since you were like that, young man, and your Uncle Tony, and your Daddy!”  We laughed.  She scooped up James and disappeared into the bathroom with him.

     “Grandma smells nice,” said Francis.  “Do you?”

     I ignored that and read some more.  He sat on my knee mouthing the words.  I pointed.

     “And the boy went into the forest,” he said, “and saw the giant.”

     I wondered.  I turned two pages and pointed again, saying nothing.

     “And the beans grew and grew until they were bigger than the house.”

     I covered the next line.  He looked up at me.  “Show me,” he said.

     I picked out a book from the pile and opened it.  I pointed.

     “How a bear likes honey,” he began, then looked at me, “Is that zed?”

     “Buzz, buzz, buzz,” I said, nodding.

     “Daddy can read!” he said.

     Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings!  At that moment Mrs Marcham came out of the bathroom with a cleaned-up James.  Should I boast that I think my son can read?  Who taught him? Mrs Marcham grinned.

     “Francis, show Daddy you can read.”

     “I have.  Daddy can read, too.”

     There was general collapse of stout parties then.  Over breakfast I found that Maggy had discovered only the weekend before that Francis was beginning to read.  He had pointed to a headline on the local newspaper and said “Kerslake school open”.  When asked how he knew he said he had seen that word, pointing to 'Kerslake' lots of times and that word 'school' was outside Daddy's old school and the baker's shop had a notice on the door, 'open'.  He asked the first word, which was 'New'.   She had tested him with new sentences from the story of Jack and the Beanstalk and he made few mistakes.  So, he'd spent quite a bit of time in the week reading to himself asking about 'k's and 'c's and so on.  He'd learned to read in about a week!

     Mrs Marcham laughed.  “Tony read very early, by the age of three, and so did Kats.”  She paused.  Memories.  She recovered.  “Ask your mother about you.”

     We'd more or less finished breakfast when the thundering footsteps of Bruce came up the drive.  He'd been for a morning run.  I felt envious.  “Lovely day out there,” he said.  He disappeared and we heard him telling Tony he should be up and out.  I said I would investigate and followed him upstairs.  I heard him singing to himself in the bathroom on our third floor.  We all had to share that and with Bruce in it by himself it was rather crowded.  I opened the door and went in.  He was standing by the sink naked.

     “Have a look, Jacko, what do you think of that!” he said proudly.

     The thin tube of gristle was now much thicker and had lengthened into that hanging flap of foreskin.  His balls had dropped considerably.  All this was surmounted by a spreading bush.

     “Gotta thank you for that, Jacko,” he said enthusiastically, “Would never have taken myself to that doc without you.”

     Tony took Bruce and me over to Ulvescott that day.  He drove his father's new Rover and I sat in the front with him with Bruce taking up almost the whole of the back seat.  Bruce was getting more and more enthusiastic about England.  The green and pleasant land was charming him more and more.  He commented on the thatched cottages we passed and the green fields and became positively elated when he spied a flock of sheep.  I nudged Tony carefully, I didn't want to distract him too much from his very efficient driving.  “Seen a few of his relations no doubt,” I said quietly, “I think his name should be Baa..sil!”  'Fool!'  was his only retort.

     On arrival there was no Finbar and no Bran at the gate.  When we went into the house the answer was clear.  Finbar was looking after a very sick Bran.  He was sitting by him in the kitchen by the Aga.   Both Tony and I knelt and stroked Bran's head and he tried to lick our hands.  We hugged Finbar and then introduced him to Bruce.  Wow, two mountains - a dog mountain and a man mountain!

     Bruce was very impressed with Ulvescott Manor and when he was shown the Horsebox where he was going to sleep his eyes opened wide.  Tony and I were going to share Piers' room - Bruce never batted an eyelid about us sharing - the years in the jackaroo's bunkhouse must have accustomed him to young men sharing.  We made sure our sharing was very quiet!!

     Of course, as soon as Aunt Mary appeared I had to tell her about her late husband's new-found relations.  She was adamant that Julien, Daniel and their sisters and everyone else should come and visit.  I said I knew Daniel would be with me in the summer.  The invitation was there.  The photos were compared and I said about the four birthmarks.  I said that I had seen the one on Francis's leg when I had bathed him the night before.  She shook her head in amazement and Miss P said that it would make a very good story.
     Finbar wouldn't leave Bran when we three lads set out next day to explore the estate.  The saw-mill was going great guns.  There were stacks of timber waiting to be sawn and Bruce said plenty of the wood could be prepared for furniture or other better uses than just for firewood.  I don't think the men operating the saw really knew much about wood.   It was something to mention to Mr Marcham.
     In the afternoon Tony drove us to see Lady Bing.  I had to tell her all about the boys.  She said she wasn't surprised Francis could read at such an early age, but it took some children a lot longer.  I felt flattered and guessed she was commenting on her daughter's early progress.  I played.  In fact, I had brought two of the French pieces my blind teacher had lent me.  She was very appreciative and told Stella she would like her to play some French music for a change in future.  Then she wanted to know all about Australia where dear Nellie came from.  She said Thomas was very rude about her because he'd said on a fine day she could be heard clearly in Calais when she sang in the Albert Hall.  I gathered from the Duchess she meant Sir Thomas Beecham and Dame Nellie Melba.   She whispered to me as we departed that she'd wanted to play French music but her mother always insisted on Beethoven and Brahms.

     Easter Sunday morning we all went to church.  Both Tony and Bruce went up for Communion but I sat, head bowed, thinking over the past three years of my life.  So much had happened.  What would happen over the next few years?

     We had just finished Sunday lunch when we heard Finbar give an unearthly howl.  Mrs Browne came rushing to the dining-room and beckoned.  The six of us rushed to the kitchen.  Bran had died that very moment.  It seemed as if he had waited until Tony and I had reached Ulvescott for that last time to see him.  I hugged Finbar who was growling softly.  We were all weeping.  Bruce took control.  He found out from Mrs Crossley that there was a corner where the two previous dogs had been buried.  After lunch we went searching.  We found it sadly overgrown.  As I cleared nettles and  brambles Tony and Bruce dug a deep hole in the soft earth.  Bran was wrapped in an old blanket he used for a bed and gently he was carried to his grave on a flat barrow we found in the barn.  The three of us lowered him into the hole and as Finbar, Aunt Mary, Miss Pike, Mrs Browne and Dora watched, we covered him with earth.  Our friend had gone.  It was very noticeable, Finbar took over the role of guard dog and friend to the family straight away.  

                              *
     I think Francis was rather sad when we took Bruce to Kerslake Station on Tuesday.  He wanted Uncle Bruce to come and visit again and tell him more about kangaroos.  I promised he would and that when we went to see Grandma in London we would go to the Zoo to see some real live ones.  I gave Bruce a letter for his great-uncle saying I would be in Cambridge next week and outlined the fact I'd found the 'secret' story written around 1773 or 4 and I needed advice.  In a postscript I asked him if he knew anything about the Lascelles family history, without letting on about the  dedicatee.  Knowing Dr Blake, two and two would make twenty-seven!!

     With Bruce gone and Maggy back to look after the boys I was able to get on with the translation.  Again, Tony insisted he would write at my dictation as it would give him a rest from his own work.  We were ready for the third day and the rest of the lads.

     “OK,” I said, “I won't bother with all the preamble.  It seems to be about the influence of the Church and the venality of rich monasteries and churches.  Yes, here they are.  'Crossing a new mown field my companion spied through the tall hedge a young.....”  I opened the big dictionary......  I had seen the word before but needed to check, 'garennier', Yes!  '...a young warrener surveying his snares where his captives had squealed and died.  He was tall and so fair headed his golden tresses hung to his shoulders like a .....'  Wait for it!   '... like a nimbus cloud of light around his angelic face.  Over his shoulders was.... ...was slung a green cloak of such a darkness and round his waist was...   ...was a cincture of silver rabbit-skin which pouched above his bare supple legs....'” I stopped.  Tony was sniffing.

     “Bloody furry jockstrap that.  Must tell Perce to get some for his cousin's next party.”  He laughed, “Can just see Billy Clarke prancing around in one of those.” He sniffed again.  “Anyway, in those days bunnies were called coneys, so I'll put coney-skin.  Sounds a bit more authentic!”

     I flapped a hand at him telling him to get on with it.  “...'Hung from his belt were three of his trophies and bending quickly he gathered up another.   By a stately oak tree young Allan loosened his cloak which fell to the ground and leaning against the friendly trunk he took the pipe hung on a cord around his neck and played a merry tune.   That pipe fashioned with his own hands from rare wood silenced....'   Ow! ....'stilled the birds who answered in their turn.  With a quick hand his pouch was off and as his fingers raised the melodies from that pipe so psallare elegantius........'” I showed Tony the phrase in my scribble, he copied it down.   “.....with sweet boy's nectar in myriad drops joining the refrain....  That nectar sweet enough to charm the honey-bee as the sweet notes delighted the song-birds in the air.'”

     “What on earth,” said Tony.  “He's trying to be poetical I suppose.”  He paused.  “I don't suppose 'psallare' is like 'psaltery' in the Bible?”  He screwed his nose up.  “That was a sort of harp or lyre....   Got it!  As he piped a tune he plucked his elegant lyre as accompaniment and the 'sweet boy's nectar' shot out in drops.”  He laughed.  “Got to tell you this.  I've put how boys come into categories.”  I must have looked a bit askance.  “Go on, you've seen enough.  Anyway you're top category.  Do you want me to tell you?”  I nodded.  “Well, top notch are lads like you,  the 'squirters'.”

     “Thank you,” I said, “Glad I'm top quality.”

     “Shut up and listen,” he said waving his pencil at me.  “Next are the 'gobbets'.  They get around stomach level, you squirters would hit the ceiling on a good day.”

     I shook my head, laughing.  “Never done that yet!”

     “Oh, you know what I mean.  Chest and upwards!”  He held up his left hand and tapped a third finger.  “The 'drippers' are next.  Lots of grunting then out at belly level.   And lastly there's the 'oozers'.  Runs out and down the old prong.  Perce is like that.  Whoops, how do I know, you may ask?”  He laughed.  “Should have got Nobbo and Cleggy to do a survey, eh?”

     I said they were busy enough now chopping off lumps of old bodies and tossing off on Thursdays without bothering with how they or their fellow wankers came.

     “Young Allan and all these others in the story are all squirters though,” he said.

     'Young Allan'?  I scrabbled through the pages Tony had written previously.

     “Another English influence!”  I said triumphantly.  “Look, there's Robin in the pub, there's John the blacksmith and William the butcher.” I laughed, “Red-faced, ruddy, that's Will Scarlett and now Allan.  It's all Robin Hood and his Merry Men, eh?”

     “Well I'll be buggered!” nodded Tony, “Hood, hood?”  He scrabbled through the pages.  “Yeah!  'Peeps out hooded like serpent long'.  That's Robin's dick!  You're right.”

     I was struggling to think of other characters.  There was the something Miller and Friar Tuck and who was James?

     “I think there's one or two more.”  I remembered.  “Much the Miller and all we need then is Friar Tuck!” I said.

     Tony laughed again.  “No, I don't think he'll be a character, but I bet it'll be Try'a Fuck later!”

     Ouch!

     It seemed that the wanderers left Allan merrily piping his tune and walked on, I skipped the chat,  until they heard the sound of sawing.  Tony was scribbling as I translated this and then went on.... 'Two brawny youths, covered with....'  Sciure de bois?  '....saw-dust, laboured with a great blade within....'   Une fosse de scieurs de long....  I wrinkled my brow.  Dictionary.  '....a saw-pit...  cutting the trunk with ease.  Like Castor and Pollux they appeared, red-gold their curly locks..'  I nodded.  I thought my translation of 'boucles de cheveux' was good.  '...and as the dust rose and the saw gained heat so Castor above lifted his short tunic and pissed to cool the blade and lay the dust.  His twin, that Pollux of same blood....   .....called halt.... ....and climbed to stand beside his strong brother.  He took his flask and drained it...'  A grands traits... '....with great gulps....  ....while Castor drank his own... ...pouring the quenching draught fully into his throat....'    '....Their flasks drained dry young Pollux called and soon a bright-haired....'  gaillard '....lad wanting two summers of the pair brought new swollen flasks.  The brothers whispered to the boy and pulled his ears and stroked his broad young back and long brown arms.  He blushed and scampered off, laughing, while they smiling and laughing too, cast off their tunics and stood...'  Au front d'arain '..as bold as brass, clasping each other's mighty blade and with practised stroke pulled back and forth as in the pit until with joyful shouts twin streams gushed and mingled with the dust.  Their hidden brother, the young Adonis, now taught well, would in his bed that night take on their guise..'   Same word I noted.  '....and draw his own sweet cream, hand by hand, and wonder should he creep to his brothers' bed....'    '....to share his new-found joy with them.'

     As I said that Tony sniggered.  “Little wanker!  I get it.  I suppose they're about fifteen or sixteen and he's two summers younger and that'll be his first time.  Your bloke certainly goes the rounds.”

     I went to the last couple of pages of the complete manuscript.  I remembered that as the lads reached eighteen they were paid a goodly sum and left and new youngsters were recruited.  There it was.  I showed Tony the French and then said as Castor and Pollux left through the castle gate, their bags of golden coins in their hands, so they passed their young brother and his friend coming in.
     “C'est la vie,” said Tony, “The bloom of youth on their cheeks had faded and another blooming cheeky youth takes over.”  He got serious.  “That translation sounds a bit rough, you'd better work on it if you're going to discuss it with Dr Blake.  Are you going to try to put it in that mock flowery style?  It sounds as if the French is a bit like that.  And you'd better list all the Latin bits.  Most of those are later, eh?  But you'd better get a couple of your proper chapters ready for him as well.  You've only got another year!”

     Nag, nag, nag, I thought.  But he's right.  I had done the two articles and I had outlined the general basics for my thesis.  Would it be enough?

     “I've only got to put mine together this term and they can have it,” he continued.  “It's mainly a catalogue with examples, but my supervisor said no one's done the amount of reading I have and I could stay on and pad it out for a doctorate.  Got other plans, though.”  He grinned.  “You come back in the summer with half your thesis done and I'll let you read what I've written of my novel!   Got to find a job though!”

     He wanted to stay in Cambridge and there were plenty of academic establishments catering for those who needed help with passing exams - crammers for Higher School Certificate and other sort after qualifications.  He'd made enquiries and at least two would sign him up as a tutor.  Not well-paid but enough to keep the wolf from the door while he scribbled in a garret, so he said!  He wouldn't starve, there was always the Blue Boar and the card he'd been given.  I wondered if Lord Harford would still honour his cards if he heard about the family skeleton?  Dr Blake would have to be consulted.

                              *
     In between playing all sorts of games with Francis and James and hearing Francis read I carried on trying to put the translation into reasonable English.  I did all the maundering bits and got the feeling this was all a ploy to make the rest sound legitimate.  I plumped for the pseudo-poetic as that seemed to be the style of the original.  I did the whole of part one and left it at that.  From the antics in parts two and three I thought I'd have a very willing transcriber in Tony later!   Anyway, Tony read through my second draft and altered a few phrases and it did begin to sound more authentic.  We would see.  I also practised typing on my ancient French typewriter which Ma had found in a secondhand shop in the Fulham Road and given me as a premature birthday present.  I never asked what she was doing rooting around Chelsea and that area.  Local colour for a forthcoming story, no doubt.

                              *
     That wedding!  I caught an early train to London on Saturday.  I had to be at Moss Bros by ten to be fitted with a morning suit.  I really looked a toff!  Top hat and all!!  I met many of Lachs and Flea's friends again.  Mostly military of course.  Titty gave me a great handshake and he and Bastable were in their full dress Royal Marines Officers' uniforms.  Potty was there looking very imperious, with countless others.  I bumped into Ludo Wilkinson.  He was staying on in Cambridge having done a stint at a theological college and had just been ordained deacon in the C of E.   I hadn't seen him for nearly a year and he wanted to know all my news.  I found he was now to be a Junior Fellow in his college and teach Anglo-Saxon.  Oh!  Keeping up the old Oxbridge tradition of Fellows being clergymen.  I wondered about my future.
     I must say Audrey looked stunning and didn't look a bit pregnant.  Lachs was smiling but it was very noticeable she was at least four inches taller than him.  Still he and Flea made a fine pair in their Officers' dress uniforms as well.  Aunt Della was charm itself.  Mother-in-law!   And Uncle Edward, with Ma and Pa, and a grinning Rhys, completed our bit of the family.  Oh, yes!  Julia was a bridesmaid.

     Actually, Audrey's mother was very nice and her father was a quiet man and said to me he hoped Lachlan knew what he was letting himself in for!   Antony Milverton and I had quite a chat at the reception.  I liked him more each time I met him.  I felt he was just himself, no arrogance, although he was making quite a career for himself as the young wonder of the silver screen.  He said he would like to visit Cambridge again as he so enjoyed that previous time.  He was there with three young men of his own age.  He, at least, was the up and coming film-star and they were his hangers-on.  I think Antony had the measure of his sister, who was revelling in all the publicity she would get - there were several Press photographers outside the church and I saw my own photo in one of the rags early the next week.

     Flea was everywhere gossiping with all, but at the reception at the Dorchester we sat by ourselves and chatted.  He said Audrey had Lachs twisted round her little finger and from all accounts he'd been shagging the arse off her at every opportunity for about a year.  That was until Christmas when, and here Flea chortled, the johnnie burst.  We laughed thinking of Peggy Finch and young Georgie's tale.  At least, Lachs hadn't lost his virginity with her.  Panic stations when Audrey discovered she had a bun in the oven but all was smoothed as the run of the play was finishing at Easter.  Her next job was to go to Hollywood to be in a film in November so the sprog would be popped before then.  He said Lachs' promotion to Captain was to be announced in a couple of weeks and he was being seconded to the War Office.  Flea said he was enjoying his flying.  He was helping to train new young pilots but there were rumours of some of them being transferred to Korea.  I asked him about his love-life.

     “It's OK,” he said with that particular grin, “I've lost it, too.  Sister of a pal of mine.  Nothing serious.  She doesn't want to carry on, though.  Thinks pilots only want one thing and then they're off.  She's been through a few from all accounts.  OK while it lasts, eh?  But I'm too busy to worry.  Plenty of time to settle.”

     He said he had most weekends off and had bought a little Morgan sports car so took that out for runs, mainly up to Chester.  I said come over to Kerslake to see the boys.  Francis wanted to see his Uncle Andrew and insisted making aeroplane noises every time his name was mentioned.  That was arranged.

     Lachs was whisked off before I could chat to him other than giving him my heartiest congratulations and whispering that he was only keeping up the family tradition.  He said he supposed Edward and I had been good, or bad, examples.  “Keep an eye on Flea for me always, eh?” he said as we parted.

                              *
       Tony stayed on in Kerslake, scribbling, as he said, when I went over to Cambridge to see Dr Blake and report my findings.  Willy was in the Porter's Lodge when I arrived.  He greeted me effusively and said would I see the Bursar first.  There was also a whole pile of letters and copies of journals for me as well.  He said he would get Davy to take them over to the Guest Room where I was being accommodated for the couple of days of my stay.  Young Davy then appeared.  A younger version of Jem, who I knew was now in Egypt as a cook with his pal Sam in the Officers' Mess in Alexandria.  I didn't know if he knew of the closeness of that pair but he was a dark-haired 'gaillard, a young Adonis...'. Oh.  Jacko!  He knew who I was and from the look he gave me I bet his brother had tittle-tattled to him!  We were interrupted by Bruce appearing.  He gave Davy a swipe on his bum.

     “Hi there cobber!  Fitzbillies, eh?”  He produced a half-crown and Davy went off laughing.  Extra sustenance from the bun-shop!

     He greeted Willy then who asked if he'd had a good trip to Garthorpe and was Dr Blake in residence now?

     “Oh, bonzer!” he enthused, “Charley's Pa offered me a job up there.  Needs a manager and says I can have it.  And Uncle Will says I should take it.  He's up in his rooms unpacking his clobber.”  He turned to me.  “How are ye, mate?  And the lads?  I miss 'em.”

     I said all were well and Francis wanted to know where Uncle Bruce was.  I said I expected Tony sent his love and Bruce blushed a bit.  He offered to take the folder of stuff I had for his great-uncle as he was having tea with him later.  After the Fitzbillie's buns, I thought!  Huhn, there also seemed to be growing rapport between great-uncle and great-nephew.  Perhaps Dr Blake was no longer quite so distant from the lad.  Lad?  He's twenty-two now.  I keep forgetting that time flies!

     My first task then was to see the Bursar.  Over a welcome cup of tea he said he had good news.  A College benefactor had given a considerable sum of money for distribution to needy research students and if I didn't mind receiving what he thought was a portion of conscience money over black-market profits there was a cheque for two hundred pounds for me.  I said my conscience was clear, he laughed and the cheque was mine.  Solvent!  That, with my stipend would see me comfortably through the next year!

     My second task was to scour Heffers for appropriate reading books for Francis which could then be passed on to, I hoped, an equally bright young James.  The lady assistant was much amused as I selected almost a dozen suitable ones as she was more used to my queries about rather more erudite volumes.  I explained they were for my elder son and her eyebrows raised perceptibly.  I could almost see the cog-wheels churning.  If children tended to learn to read at about five or six this young man must have been....?  No, surely boys of fourteen or so couldn't, or mustn't, or....!  I put her out of her misery by saying he was nearly three but we'd found he was beginning to read well.   She unstiffened.  Still, I saw her look at me closely....  I must have been quite young...!

       I was in the Guest Room when Davy tapped on the door.  “Excuse me, Mr Thomson,” he said once I'd bellowed 'Come in '.  “Dr Blake presents his compliments and will see you at nine o'clock in the morning, sir.  Shall I call you at seven?”

     Very properly I thanked him and said that would be most acceptable.  As he turned to go I asked him, “How's your brother?  It seems strange without him and Sam here.”

     He turned and gave a shy grin.  “He's well.”  He put his hand in his coat pocket and drew out a photo, “Here they are.”  Two smiling, and definitely plumper, young men standing with arms round each other's shoulders, stared at the camera.  The background was undoubtably the Pyramids.  I handed it back to him.  “He says he misses it here,” he said, “I miss him, too.”

     I said he'd find it dull after the Pyramids.  He grinned and left.

     I did quite a lot of work that evening sorting out the headings for a new chapter.  I had to have plenty to show Dr Blake.  I musn't be accused of slacking.

     Davy had been well-trained.  I was awake and stretching when he came in with the customary mug of tea.  The snippet of news that day was that one of the old Dons had died in the night in Addenbrookes.  He was well over eighty and had been at the college from the age of eighteen.  He was doddery when I first joined the college and I'd had a breakfast with him early on and he was still all there mentally.  He was a mathematician and my maths friends had said he had been quite a celebrity in his early days.

     So, at nine o'clock I knocked on the door and was greeted more than affably.  He'd heard all about the boys from Bruce and also about the death of Bran.  Peter lay in his usual comatose state under a table.  He was pretty ancient.  We got down to business.  He harumphed a bit and said I'd made an interesting discovery.  Was I aware of that kind of literature from that time?  I said I wasn't other than the references to subversive books smuggled in from Switzerland during the years leading up to the Revolution which one of the lecturers had talked about.  I said he'd hinted that as well as tracts against the Monarchy and the Church there were also books of a more dubious nature, as he put it.  Dr Blake then said that at undergraduate level one could only scrape the surface.  Surface!  I'd spent bloody hours reading all sorts of books to write essays or answer questions in the exams!!  He must have seen my expression.  He smiled.

     “Surface I said, and I mean it.  There was a lot going on in that century leading to the Revolution.”  He waved a hand at me.  “I know I deal with the previous century mainly but you find yourself finding out all sorts of things as you leave your undergraduate days behind.  You've started and started well it seems.  You've placed your three authors very well in those two chapters I've read.  Now this rather, shall we say, risque discovery.  How does it place you?”  He laughed.  “That will make a very good appendix to your thesis with plenty of scholarly notes.”  He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a black-bound book.  “This might give you an idea of what was published at the time.  If  I'm not mistaken your author read it.  Look after it.  You might find some of the illustrations rather revealing.  Keep it carefully, it's not for handing around in polite company.  I found it in a pile of old books in Paris a good few years ago.”

     I took the book from him.  Black binding.  No title on the spine.  I opened it to the title page.  'Therese Philosophe' in a shield with three rather naked ladies around it.  I riffled the pages.  It was in French.  Wow.  An illustration caught my eye.  A bare-bummed girl kneeling by a reading desk with a hooded man about to deal with her with a very lengthy dick.  I hurried on realising there were several more quite revealing pictures.  I glanced up.  Dr Blake was watching me.
     “It is what is termed a 'livre philosophique' of the more dubious kind.  The ones you mentioned against Monarchy or the Church were also in that general category because they were forbidden and could get you branded and sent to the galleys if you dealt in them.  That one was published  in1748 and your oeuvre was written about 1773, so you say.”  He laughed.  “I don't think it was delivered because George Lascelles and his cousin Arthur went to Jamaica in late1773.  They ran a sugar plantation out there but died when their mansion burnt down in 1778.”

     I sat open-eyed.  Over the next half hour or so he said he had asked Lord Harford if he knew much about his family and had been given a slim book to look at compiled by his grandfather.  He'd noted that George, born in 1750, had travelled widely on the Continent with his cousin, Arthur, who was a year younger.  It wasn't clear in the book why he'd gone to Jamaica but he'd brought it up in conversation with Lord Harford who'd said he'd heard there was trouble over stable-boys.  The fire was thought to have been started by a disgruntled slave who was also burnt to death.  Boys will be boys was what his Lordship said.

       He said he'd guessed there was a connection somehow with the Lascelles family from my cryptic comment so he'd taken the hint.  I was then told to translate the whole manuscript and also check the other manuscripts against the printed books.  He would give my list of Latin phrases to a friend who was a Classics don to see if he could place the origins and give translations.  I said it seemed that some were euphemisms and he said that was quite common, my guess at the lyre seemed correct.  That lot over I then had to go through in detail the chapters of my thesis I had already written.  He said he thought my arguments were sound and, by the way, the editor had accepted my article on the plagiarised book.  Dr Blake still had my second article - about the cache of letters.  He suggested I put a cliff-hanger at the end just saying that in further letters there was evidence for a secret book.  He suggested once my complete translation was done to talk to Lord Harford about it and reveal the family connection.  He expected it would be all right but he didn't want the family upset by any sudden revelations, even of something so far in the past.  There was the customary knock on the door at twelve o'clock and a stocky red-haired lad stood there, lunch was served.  As he looked the same sort of age as Davy I wondered if they were friends, too.

     I had to visit the University Library after lunch so had no chance to look at the book until late that night after I got back to Kerslake.  Wow!  As I scanned the pages I found it was the story of this young girl, Therese, released from a convent, and her adventures.  She, like the two in the story, hides but she watches an affair between an abbe and a woman.  The illustrations left nothing to the imagination.  The abbe with his prick well-in, doggy-fashion - something about inserting St Francis's cord!  Another with the man being beaten on the bare bum with a bundle of birch twigs by a woman while another tosses him off..  Then Therese with a naked Count, pulling his plonker for him.  Wow!!  One thing I did note, when I got round to looking at the text, was the fact of many familiar phrases.  My crafty author had pinched bits of this book as well!

                              *
     Francis was in bed when I got home so next morning I was woken by him bouncing on top of me.

     “Daddy, Uncle Andrew is coming.  Why do you call him Flea?  Can I call him Flea?   James has done another poo.”
     I grabbed him and bundled him under the covers.  He squealed as I tickled him.

     “I call him Flea 'cause he used to hop about like you.  And that's my name for him!”

     “I want to call him Uncle Flea.  I shall ask him.”

     I staggered out of bed, Francis taking no notice of my hairy nakedness.  I found one of the books.  It was a cut-down illustrated version of the Swiss Family Robinson.  We sat up side by side in bed, he half across my lap and we read the first page.  At least, I started but he took over and with few hesitancies he read about the boat sailing from the port on its long journey.

     “Can I go on a boat?” he asked.

     “When we go to France you can.”

     Oh, the inquisitiveness of the young!  I had to tell him about my cousin Johann in Switzerland where that family came from and then about Julien and Daniel in France.  He'd met Julien who had called in with Matt earlier in the year.  Then there was America.  He slid off the bed and trotted out coming back with postcards which Grandma and Grandpa had sent to him on their visit and the one Daniel had sent from France. He announced that Maggy was cleaning James' bottom.   I had to answer questions like 'Is France in London?', 'Are there boats in London?'  'Is Uncle Bruce in London?'.  This obsession with London seemed to be because I had promised a visit to the Zoo.  Next week, I promised.  Uncle Tony and I will take you to see the kangaroos and the monkeys and the penguins and the camels.  'Will Uncle Bruce be there?'.  No, I said, just a gorilla, I expect.  The irony was lost.  I covered it by saying that Grandma would probably be there.  'Will Grandpa be there?'.  If I thought tutorials with Dr Blake made one's head spin....  Was I like that at that age?

     I tried something else.  I pointed to his nose.  “Say 'this is my nose'.” He did.  I repeated it in French.  He repeated it.  We tried 'hand', 'foot' and 'finger'.  He cottoned on quickly.  I heard him later marching round the garden and he had the genders correct as he recited and pointed, 'mon nez', 'ma main'....

     Flea arrived later in his sports car and by the time he went on Sunday I think even Francis was tired.  Saturday night we slept together - he had so much to tell me.  I locked the door carefully before I joined him in bed.  I heard about his flying.  How one of his young trainees had died when he crashed on his first mission.  How alone he felt when that happened.  How alone I must have felt when Kats and my friend Roo died.  He said he'd got no comfort fucking the girl.  She wanted sex and he enjoyed doing it but it was empty.   I said I hoped I had come to terms with my loss but the gain was in my sons.  He said he felt close to them and I said how Francis hung on his every word.  Until he found his own love and perhaps had his own children he could have a share in mine.  We had made that vow of oneness those years ago.  If he felt comfort in their presence and in mine I was happy.  That night we found comfort in each other.  We lay facing each other as on many nights before, caressing each other and releasing each other's seed with complete contentment.  He kissed my cheek after a second massive climax each.  “I may fly high but you raise me even higher.”

     He'd gone when I woke next morning.  I woke because I heard him in his room across the corridor laughing with my son who was demonstrating that Uncle Flea had 'un nez', 'une main' 'un doigt'.......  I hoped one day he'd have 'la joie' I had.

                              *
      Tony was all enthusiastic about taking his nephew to London.  So, the next Tuesday we set off to catch an early train.  The questions were incessant.  The comments at the Zoo were hilarious.  Elephants do bigger poo than James.  Who wipes their bottoms?  Can that monkey talk?  I nearly said only if it's name is Tony but feared more questions.  We met Ma who was regaled by her grandson with all he'd seen on the train journey and he was going to Switzerland on a boat and a train to see a family.  The journey to the flat by the Albert Hall was by a real London red double-decker just like the model he had.

     When we got there Tim was practising on the upright piano in his room.  He had news.  He was having an audition at the Opera House, too.  To join the music staff.  He was just completing his fourth year at the Royal Academy and had just been awarded  prizes for both piano playing and conducting.  One more term to go!

     Francis slept all the way back on the train.  The compartment was empty so I told Tony a bit more about the secret book.  I had compared the 'philosophical' bits with the Therese book and found he'd pinched whole paragraphs or had just altered bits to fit his story.  I said I'd also had a go at Part Two where the twins were enticed first into the castle and given to Madame Hairy-Twat to be taught how to behave as young gentlemen.  They were then 'accidentally' discovered fucking each other by the two watchers, who were the young owner of the castle and his slightly younger cousin.  Matching George and Arthur, though in the book they were Milord and Monsieur.  Fearing they would be banished to the life in the saw-pit again they were given the task of luring the fisherboy in.  I said the book was quite graphic on how he was then fucked at both ends by the twins and wanted more.  Madame Hairy-Twat dressed him in silk and velvet and his task was to lure Robin the inn-keeper's son.  Poor Robin was no sooner in the castle when, after a good meal, his sturdy limbs were stripped and he was up-ended, oiled and was then fucked into delirium by the fisherboy and the twins.  By the time it was the young coney-catcher's turn there were eight well-used arses and eight over-used pricks.  His initiation was after he had been taken to explore a non-existent warren in the castle cellars by the eighth lad, the harvester, a farmer's youngest son.  He was now masquerading as a Milord himself, who then divested himself of his rich cloak, his doublet and his hose and ripped the poor lad's fur-lined jockstrap off and thrust his mighty shaft 'bent like his erstwhile sickle' straight up.  The poor lad screamed but found himself surrounded, not by rescuers, but by seven other lusty youths who gave him the works, one by one and two by two, and then the twins let him have his way with them.  As  I said to Tony, all ends well for Part Two, as everyone is more than satisfied.  The others bear him off on their shoulders, with William the butcher playing the pipe from round young Allan's neck, and the twins stroking his lengthy tail crying out that it is not furry like his coneys but soft as the silk he will be dressed in.

     Tony was in stitches as I relayed all this.  We both had hardons too!  Luckily there was time for deflation to take place, as Tony put it, but he was sure inflation would occur again later in more private circumstances.  

     No way could I ask Mr Marcham's typist to do the story.  I laboured at the French typewriter and found after a few days I could get up a reasonable speed using two fingers.  I knew there was a typewriter at Ivry but I would have to ask permission to use it or buy one in Paris.

     Next morning after having been assailed by an ever talkative Francis, I heard him a bit later in Tony's room.

     “Daddy's got a hairy bottom.”

     Grunt from Tony.

     “That monkey had a hairy bottom.....”  Pause “....Is the monkey a daddy?”

     Tony said later he thought Francis might become a logician but he himself wasn't up to solving syllogisms but he thought a better question might be....  He didn't have a chance to say more as I was behind him at the time where he was sitting at his desk and put his neck in an arm lock until we both stopped laughing.

                         *

     All too soon it was again time to go back to Paris.  Actually, Francis wasn't too concerned, the constant comings and goings of so many people was something he had got used to.  Maggy said she would see he wasn't put under any pressure about reading but she would see how far she could get with counting with him.  I left early in the morning and, thank goodness, had a smooth crossing.

     Daniel was waiting when I arrived at the house in Ivry.  Maman had gone to see a friend.  He was just like an older version of Francis.  Questions came in abundance.  I was quickly back to speaking French.  I switched to English and said he'd better have some practice before his exams and he'd better be good and pass or I wouldn't take him to England.  He did work hard.   I checked his answers to past papers and questions his teachers had set him to do over the vacation.  There were few errors - mainly things like 'would' versus 'should'.  We practised these until Maman came home and then her questions started!

     So started twelve weeks of concentrated work.  My three authors were in a web of others.  I had to read more and more.  I read associated books and then realised, quite suddenly, I was thinking almost in the same way as they all were at that time in the eighteenth century.  This was a very important breakthrough.  I felt as if I was now beginning to be a scholar.  I wrote to Dr Blake saying I would completely recast the chapters I had already written.  A laconic note came back saying something like 'I thought you would'.

     I did take a couple of days off after Daniel finished his exams.  We made the journey to Riom.  Papa insisted he got the train tickets.  As befitted a 'functionnaire' they were First Class!  We stayed in the family house which was looked after by an older woman in the town.  

     We enquired around and found his friend now lived in a small village a couple of miles away.  The boys met.  Jean-Claud was now eighteen, quite recovered, and worked in his father's bakery.  They chatted on for ages and then we went to the local church and saw the memorial to the two brave boys in the graveyard.  Jean-Claud and Daniel hugged each other and wept and their future friendship was assured.

     Daniel wanted to know more about what boys could do and on the second night I fucked him and then he fucked me.  I could hardly get him out of bed in the morning before Madame came to clean the house.  He wanted to hold me and talk.  Did all boys do that?  I said one should only do it with love and affection.  I was back with Lachs and Flea and the other friends who I valued in that way.  Daniel was now counted among them.  I don't think the smile on his face disappeared  for several days.  At home he knew we were on forbidden territory but we talked and confided all sorts of feelings and thoughts.  On the long summer days I sat in the garden with him in the evenings and told him about Kerslake, my friends, about Ulvescott, about love, about marriage, and my sons.  He relived our experiences but said he wanted to get married one day but I had taught him much about love.

     Laden down with more books, presents and accompanied by an excited Daniel, I left to return to England on Wednesday July the eighteenth.  I was half way through my stay in Paris.


[Author's Note:  Therese Philosophique: Ou Memoirs pour servir a l'histoire du P. Dirrag et Mlle Eradice  exists.  There is a copy in the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries, though I doubt if you could have it on inter-library loan.  It has been reprinted in L'Enfer de la Bibliotheque Nationale (Paris, 1986), V, 102.  The manuscript of O Audaciam Immanem is so rare it is not even listed in Bib Nat ms.  Fr.  21928-21929 which contains over 1,500 titles of illegal works, some not published, for the years 1696 to 1773.  It may, of course, be a figment of the imagination.]