Free The New Confessions by William Boyd

on the floor, head hanging. My brain seemed to steep in some alchemical brew. I suddenly felt uneasy.
    “What did you do to me?”
    “Chloroform. I chloroformed you.”
    “Great. You didn’t do anything while—”
    “No, no. I just watched. Checked your pulse from time to time.”
    “For heaven’s sake, Malahide, you can’t just chloroform someone when you feel like it!”
    “I had to test it. I knew you’d never volunteer. It has to be a secret.”
    “Test it? What for?”
    “Something we’re going to do next year. I’ll tell you after the holidays.”
    There was a science lab at the school where elementary chemistry and physics were taught. Hamish had lately been spending a lot of time there. He told me he had made up the chloroform himself. An unsuspecting Minto had ordered the chemicals himself. The ambush of me was to test the strength of the potion.
    I sulked for a couple of days, but Hamish’s insouciance confirmed that my role as guinea pig had been solely in the interests of science. Besides, I was by now intensely curious to know what plan he had in mind. But he would not tell me, said merely that all would be revealed next term.
    We had a quiet Christmas that year. Thompson was away, for some reason, and my father seemed even more preoccupied with his patients. I went with Oonagh to a tedious pantomime at the King’s Theatre and, with more enthusiasm, to a noisy variety show at the Pavilion in Leith. The dark winter nights and the low gray days seemed to hold Edinburgh in a hunched frozen posture, as though pinioned by the cloud blanket. A scowthering east wind lashed the streets at all hours of the day and night, numbing your face in seconds. Now that I had been away from itfor a few months I discovered a strange affection for my home and was content to stay indoors. Oonagh disguised her pleasure at seeing me again and said she was sure I had grown. My Christmas present (was my father guilty?) was developing equipment and an enlarger and I converted one of the spare bedrooms into a temporary darkroom. From time to time I ventured out in search of pictures.
    Hamish wrote to me from Perth, where his family lived. We had made plans about a visit, but in the end nothing materialized.
    The New Year—1913—arrived and our first visitor was Donald Verulam. We had quite a jolly party that night when various of my father’s colleagues and their wives appeared. My father drank more than I had ever seen him do before. At the bells he sought me out. I was the only member of his family present (Thompson was still away—in Birmingham, I think—on church business).
    “Happy New Year, Father.”
    He shook my hand and would not let it go. I remember vividly the texture of his grasp: his palm cool, dry, oddly farinaceous. He looked at me, his eyes a little glazed, maudlin. Did he see his wife in my face?
    “How are you, boy?”
    “Fine.”
    “How’s school? It’s not so bad, is it?”
    “It’s fine.”
    “That’s the spirit. My son the mathematician, eh?”
    Then he did something I can only describe as an attempt at an embrace, though from my point of view it resembled more a cross between a cuff and a shoulder charge. In the event he managed to brush roughly against portions of my body with certain portions of his. It was odd—I remember thinking even at the time—for we never touched each other, except to shake hands. He moved off, and I was taken up by the wife of one of his colleagues and made a fuss of. People allowed themselves to feel sorry for me at occasions like these—I became a legitimate catalyst for selfless fellow feeling. I was kissed, had my hair ruffled, was praised and flattered. I wondered if, had I looked like Hamish, I would have received the same treatment. I felt a sudden intense liking for my curious friend and for an instant experienced vicariously what his life must be like. At this very hour people would be avoiding him as industriously as they sought me out. I could not