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Giovanni moved on to admit that he had more time for the early modern playwright over any Victorian novelist. An opinion Bron completely disagreed with.
“So why don’t you study literature yourself?”
He admitted to Giovanni that he’d tried to get into the university, that they’d rejected him twice, and that there was no way he could afford to ever be a student here.
“What rubbish. You want to study literature? Then study it—every book’s a lesson. Have you seenEdward II? It has Tilda Swinton. Great costume adaptation. Very queer!”
Bron sat up at this. “You like period dramas?”
“Definitely not,” Giovanni said, laughing. Bron’s heart sank a little. “But I like Jarman. The rest is all a little too pretty for me, all these Hollywood remakes. And the BBC. Netflix too. Makes everyone go wild for all the wrong reasons. Austenmania and Brontifications—it’s a real thing, you know.”
“You don’t like any of them?”
“I tend to avoid anything adored by all, although I do think there is something to be said of Emily, not that we appreciate or even recognize her true merit.”
“And what about Austen?” Bron pressed.
“Oh, I despise the woman,” he said, and they both let out a loud laugh. “When I hear ‘Darcy,’ I run.”
Bron felt his face split into a smile. “I cannot say I share your feelings, but I do think Charlotte might have said something similar. She didn’t see much in Austen.”
“I find the gender politics of the early modern stage to be far more appealing than any proto-feminist novel, and definitely any of their more recent filmic counterparts. Have you ever read Marlowe?”
Bron had never heard of Marlowe, who Giovanni explained had been a gay playwright-slash-heretic-slash-spy, who was murdered under mysterious circumstances—scholars couldn’t quite agree upon how—and spurred by their discussion of drag, spoke of the male transvestism of the Jacobean stage. What was cross-dressing, Giovanni said, but a reassertion of the patriarchal construction of gender, or an incredible site through which to question the strictures of gender boundaries?
“Oh, I see.” Bron had of course thought about all this, in his own way, but had never felt he had the language to express it. Giovanni made it sound so simple and yet so complicated.
But when offered, Bron declined another coffee, claiming the need to get back. Ada really would be wondering what had happened to him.
“But I can walk with you, yes?”
His brain hurt, but he was glad to be asked. He thought Giovanni to be a fascinating man, and still hadn’t learned much more of his attachment to the Edwardses. “Yes.”
The university buildings and cobbled center widened into Victorian townhouses repurposed into legal offices. The Trumpington Road led them all the way to the university’s botanic garden, where Bron had shared he’d never been and where Giovanni insisted he must visit.
Giovanni angled himself toward him, knocked into his side as they walked. Bron tried to ease himself away at first, but found the light press of a bone against his side slightly comforting. He allowed Giovanni this pleasure and got wafts of his musky scent in the breeze: lemongrass and bergamot. He even thought, for a moment, that Giovanni might be flirting with him.
But Giovanni soon stopped them in the middle of the street.. “It was nice getting to know you, Bron. I liked our little chat. I live that way, so I best turn back now before I end up all the way at Greenwood. And neither of us would want that.”
Bron took note of the way he looked up at the clouds as if in search of something. Noticed the sun hanging low.
“It was rather awkward after the party, wasn’t it? Between you and Darcy?” Bron pressed.
“It was, but Dickie needs me, so I will continue to crop up every now and then.”
“But you and Mr. Edwards—Darcy … you never said how you came to know the family?”
“We went to school together. Theo—I mean Darcy—and I. Same college. Trinity.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Why would you? I doubt he speaks of me much.” Giovanni said this almost too quickly, and Bron heard something like sadness bend his voice. “But for now I am very, very hungry.”
“Cacio e pepe?” Bron said.
“Cacio e pepe.” Giovanni nodded. “But we will meet again?”
“Yes. I’ll need someone to quiz me on my reading, after all.” And Bron still wanted to know more about Giovanni’s strained relationship with Darcy.
