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7
BRON WAS DISORIENTED BYthe ambiance of the library, the effects of the wine, and the dancing. The room was chaotic, a litter of objects fighting for his attention: the whisky bottles on the drinks trolley surrounded by crystal glasses and decanters, the gilded picture frames strewn along the mantelpiece, Ada’s open books and paper scattered along the carpet at his feet. He found a tissue packet on the side table and wiped the makeup off his face. He’d never worn as much as this—scrubbed hard, and it chafed. Resorting to covering his face with his hands, he scattered back down the hall and into the bathroom, where he shrugged off the heavy accessories and wiped his face with micellar water and a towel before returning to the library.
His ears thrummed as he waited for the party to die down, loud voices still echoing through the house, the alcohol gone to his head. He lit the table lamp, the honey glow making a puddle on the floor. He climbed the decorative ladder that reached up to the shelved platform and grabbed for the book with the prettiest spine, the gold lettering:The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He read to himself, heard the words being voiced aloud but was unable to take in their meaning. The crackling of the embers in the fireplace, the ticking of the clock, this was all he heard. The silence spoke volumes.
He browsed the shelves some more. Great atlases the height of three books, and volumes with leathery spines and smelling like perfume, offered titles in Latin, Hebrew, Greek. There was a collection of Tudor Church sheet music, too delicate looking to touch. Large records in old cases, of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, of Puccini and Schubert, Tchaikovsky and Wagner, and names he’d never heard of, but which sounded just as extravagant. His favorite find was the relatively modest set of books on the history of Hollywood cinema: the MGM story, the Paramount story, the Universal story, the Colombia story, the RKO story—such range!
And then he came across the Edwardses’ story, or at least glimpses of it: a set of photo albums, all bound in an identical burgundy cloth. He selected the third at random and brought it to where he would sit in the armchair, feeling quaint and fragile as he sank back into the grandness of it, the large book open, displayed on his lap.
The photographs within weren’t sepia toned, nor were they black and white, but the quality of these images had that archaic feeling to the modern eye, where they looked almost discolored. He leafed through the thin pages similar to Bible paper, the photographs amusing him at first, each with a little descriptor of the snapshot—the interspersed images of a younger Mr. Edwards with a baby in his arms, and a beguiling young woman at his side, who held this same baby in the images that followed. “Victoria & Theodore,” they had been labeled. Mr. Edwards’s late wife, Darcy’s mother. And then a trio of photographs, two carefully set on each side, and one firmly in the middle of the row below.
The first image to the left was a display of the family: Mr. and Mrs. Edwards sat poised together with a toddler. Mrs. Edwards’s center parting, so sharp and white in contrast to the darkness of her hair, a head that could crack at any moment; Mr. Edwards’s smile beside her, indication enough that her plain features weren’t of concern to him. The second image, of father and son, was a more entrancing vision: where Mr. Edwards wore black, the young boy wore white and was perched on his lap, demure,motionless, almost unhappy to be there, and looking away from the camera’s lens. In the third photograph, the child sat on the stool alone, in an identical fashion, wearing the same expression as in the second photograph, so much so that it appeared to be the same picture, only altered, with Mr. Edwards somehow removed. Ada was nowhere to be seen within these pages; Darcy’s growth from infant into adolescence took up most of the thick volume. In the latter pages of the album, he found an assortment of images which he hadn’t expected to see.
The coarse, waved hair tied back, the warm brown skin. Giovanni. Pages and pages of photographs with the two of them—Darcy and Giovanni—together, clearly the best of friends, out in the city, together in a college dorm, in the rooms at Greenwood. The way they smiled, stood close to one another, hung onto each other’s arms. Bron felt a pang of jealousy, of these two men so close together. The photographs took on a life of their own. In his mind, they flickered into movement like a motion-picture, where he first imagined them meeting at the university.
Darcy’s eyes would have found him across a function room in one of the many colleges; they were attending an after-hours lecture on who knows what? Pamphleteers and the upside-down world of the Interregnum. Yes, something sophisticated and Oxbridge-sounding like that. And at the drinks reception they’d introduce themselves, bond instantly over their love of coffee, or red wine, the distaste they shared for the cheap pinot on offer. Still, they downed it by the bottle, made their way back to Darcy’s dorm at Trinity to escape the rest of the cohort. What happened next? He could see it in his mind’s eye: the vacant way their intoxicated eyes would wander. When they reached the dorm, Giovanni would retch at the threshold, in the in-between of the doorframe, and Darcy would immediately rush through to the en-suite bathroom to alleviate himself of the alcohol that thrashed around his own stomach, their dual puke-parade a bonding of friendship they’d never experienced before then. Though certainly, Bron knew, it would come to leave a dark mark ontheir lives, as Giovanni’s vomit had on the wooden floorboards of some Trinity dormitory.
Bron blinked, in awe of his findings, and flicked to another page to find an even more captivating photograph: a rowing boat idle in the water behind two figures. Darcy, who was thin and wearing his rowing kit, perhaps having just won a race? And beside him, Giovanni, sitting with downcast eyes on the edge of the River Cam, one arm outstretched and only just touching Darcy’s thigh, the other brushing at an oar. He was wearing a bowler hat, was smartly dressed—it must have been hot that summer’s day, for his jacket had been tossed aside. What had gone on there? Was Giovanni not keen on the prospect of rowing, but still supportive of his companion? Had he agreed to run along the river and cheer on as his friend oared the murky waters? Afterward, with Darcy’s muscles aching from the strokes and Giovanni’s legs aching from the run, did they come to rest at the place in the photograph, where they sat by the river to talk about … what? Poetry? Their contrasting upbringings? Did they speak until the breeze grew cold and the night bloomed dark? The river’s lip their haven. And on the days where night descended on them with words still left to share, did they linger at Scudamore’s quayside and shuffle into the empty boats with a bottle of chardonnay, to watch the moon and listen to the lapping of water around their silent chuckles? The gentle jangle of the boats’ sides against each other. A sound to settle these two lovers.
Beneath the page was written, in curled inky letters:MICHAELMAS TERM, FIRST YEAR.
Bron closed the book, returned it to the shelves, and stared aimlessly into the fire, thinking back to the way Darcy had reacted upon finding Giovanni in this very room with him, and Mr. Edwards’s friendliness toward Giovanni. When had Darcy first chosen to bring him to Greenwood? Had Mr. Edwards taken as easily to Giovanni as a sponge to water? Certainly by the way Mr. Edwards’s eyes sparked at the sight of him on the evening of the last party, it wasn’t difficult to see that Giovanni had somehowbecome a part of the family, that there might be some truth to Bron’s imaginings. But where had Giovanni been tonight? He’d almost forgotten that it was partly for him that he’d gone to the effort of dressing.
He’d almost given in to the drift of sleep, when somebody walked in and shut the door. Darcy. “Aren’t you missing a pair of wings? Or something of a laurel crown?”
Bron shook himself awake, eyelids heavy.What did he just say?This mode in which he began, this riddled dialogue of an opening statement, had him grasping for meaning.
Resting his head in his palm, Bron wiped the drool onto his clothes.
“Only you look like the creature off Dürer’s engraving,” Darcy continued matter-of-factly, though his voice sounded heavy, annoyed. “Pensive and dejected, drowning in the folds of your own frock. What’s the matter?”
“Nothing’s the matter.” He cleared his throat and glanced at the clock. “I’m perfectly well. Actually, I’ve been waiting for you, as you so kindly asked me to, but I see it is now past two, and I’m tired.” He heard the irritation in his own voice, but really he was elated. Darcy had come. Just like he’d said. But the fantasy was over, and though he’d soared the skies like an angel only hours before, the oncoming sobriety had him tumbling back down to earth to have landed … where? In this armchair. A crash landing.
He both wanted and feared Darcy, standing there before him, and whose every remark was inflected with insult. Hanging onto the belief that he would be taunted, he rose. “I should probably take myself to bed.”
“Wait,” Darcy said, words slurring and slow from drink. “Just a moment. I know I asked you to come here, and that you have waited up for me.”
“I think that you forget that I am employed by your father to look after your sister. I imagine such a task extends to his son should he request something of me, as you did tonight.”
Darcy’s face fell into a look of disappointment. Had Bron been too harsh? He wished he could take his words back.
“Are you saying that you waited for me here out of loyalty to a job description?”
“I—I waited here because you asked me to wait here.”
“And you did.”
“So?”
“Ah yes.” Darcy sighed, as if he had forgotten the reason to their meeting, so late it was early again.
The house had quietened by now, and Bron wondered how many guests still drank downstairs, or if they had all said their goodbyes. Darcy gestured for him to sit back down in the chair, and when he did, he leaned against the desk. “I wanted to ask about a new acquaintance of yours, formed in the walls of this room.” He paused, his fingers creating loops in the air. “Giovanni. In case you had forgotten.”
“I hadn’t forgotten,” Bron said. “What about him?”
“He didn’t happen to mention what he was doing here the other week?” he asked. “Or say anything to you that I should know about?”
“Not that I recall,” he said, the image of Darcy and Giovanni by the River Cam still at the forefront of his mind. “You are not much of a friend to him anymore?”
