Free In the Time of Greenbloom by Gabriel Fielding Page A

late, hadbecome much too full of herself to love anyone other than Mary, who was just an older and more powerful replica of Melanie herself.
    Michael and Geoffrey of course would have accepted John’s situation; they knew what schools were; and as for David, he could scarcely have been expected to remark his absence more than casually. But of course they none of them knew yet that he wasn’t coming; to him his absence from something that had not yet taken place had already begun, for them it would not be apparent until tomorrow, and this time tomorrow night David would be on his way to Madeira with Prudence, to the island where sugar-cane and custard-apples grew by the warm sea in which Marston had learned to swim beautifully, powerfully, like a golden fish.
    He thought of Marston, remembered his rebuffs of the morning and in his heart, thudding there behind the fullness of his chest, he felt a sudden warmth, a glow which mounted like a blush through the column of his neck to the still thinking centre of his head. Behind his eyelids he felt this warmth initiating the tiny prickling movements which presaged tears. He was going to cry because tomorrow no one would miss him, neither those who were there nor those who were not; whereas he himself was already missing them.
    If the ‘Doctor’ really had crept down those stairs in the morning and gone into the swimming bath while it was yet scarcely day, then he must have done it after just such a night as this. How did they know, how did anyone know what the ‘Doctor’ had suffered first? For anyone to understand why he, John, wept like this, they would have to know everything: all about Victoria and what it had meant to dream in the daylight of seeing her again, all about the wedding, all about the showing-off in the French lesson, the lie to the Badger, the anticipation of two hours under the Sar’nt, the wind that blew from London and the ship that would be sailing for Madeira. They would have to know all this and a lot more he scarcely knew himself; they would have to be God; and even God didn’t care.
    The ‘Doctor’ might if he knew; if he were still alive somewhere, either in this world or another; Yes the Doctor might care.
    Still weeping quietly, he got out of bed and climbed out onto the half window sill he shared with Figgis in the next cubicle. Under the moon beside the ilexes he could see the rose garden where the ‘Doctor’ must lie. If anyone came, if a shadow formed out there where the shadows were and then moved across the playing field to stand with its grey face smiling up at him, he would not be afraid; he would throw up the window and shout to him eagerly and dive as
he
had dived, down and down onto the hard asphalt.
    He shuddered. Behind him, the rings of the curtain were shaken softly. Someone was there. Not daring to look behind him, scarcely breathing, he waited; and again he heard it, the whisper of metal being drawn over metal; then silence, until someone touched him on his heel. He turned then, his whole skin creeping, his tears trickling unheeded down his face.
    â€œWho is it?” he whispered.
    â€œShut up! It’s me of course, get into bed you ass; we can talk there.”
    Marston’s breath hissed against his ear, and obediently he got down from the sill and scrambled into his bed. Marston got in beside him and having lifted the pillows onto their faces pulled up the clothes high against the head of the bed.
    â€œWhat were you doing?” he whispered, “peeing out of the window?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWell, what were you doing?”
    â€œI don’t know—I was just—”
    â€œGood Lord! Are you blubbing?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWhy? Because you’re afraid you won’t be allowed to go to your brother’s wedding?”
    â€œYes; partly.”
    â€œYou
are
a kid, aren’t you?”
    â€œNo, not really; only you see I had been looking