The First of July (5 page)

Benedict, London,
June 1914

B
ENEDICT HAD NEVER REALLY TRUSTED
Davies. Always more Theo’s friend than his, plain David Ivor Davies had gone to Oxford and then to London in the process of becoming the urbane Novello. He’d left Gloucester ages ago but always seemed to be returning. Benedict suspected it was to remind himself of how far he had risen since he left.

Now here he was again, with them in London.

Dr. Brewer always arranged the choir’s triennial trip to London down to the last detail. They were boarding with a Fellow of the Royal College, although Novello had offered to put them up. Brewer could hardly hide his horror, but Novello was undoubtedly just teasing him.

A bus took them northward from Paddington Station. Theo and Novello, heads together, were laughing about people Benedict had never heard of and he doubted Theo had either. Novello was confiding rather loudly that he and a friend had written a song.

“What a humdinger! It will express the mood of the nation before they even know what mood they’re in,” he said. “‘Till the boys come home.’ All we need now is the war to send them away in the first place.”

Benedict opened a recent letter from Lettie. She was innocently excited about his trip to London. She seldom left their home town, and he knew she feared that her duties as a daughter were leading her inexorably into a spinster’s life. From time to time, Benedict had wondered if he could introduce Theo to his sister, but in the last year Theo had become more and more fixed on Agnes Bradstock.

What had started as a challenge had appeared to have grown into a genuine attraction. Theo wanted Agnes. Wanted to marry her, he said. Possibly it was true; but Benedict hoped, privately and intensely, that Agnes would say no, or the bishop would say no, or Theo’s father would say no, or maybe Mrs. Bradstock, who clearly had ambitions for her beautiful daughter, would place somebody more compelling in Agnes’s path. At any rate, Theo would have to wait three more years until he could hope to support a wife.

He tried to believe that his dread was entirely a matter of losing a friend’s everyday companionship; but as Benedict looked at Novello, now whispering in Theo’s ear, hat brim to hat brim, shoulder to shoulder, Novello’s bright blazer against the sturdy tweed of Theo’s Norfolk jacket, he considered, bleakly, whether he had earned Theo’s friendship simply because in Gloucester there was nobody better.

London was sticky: noisier and more chaotic than Benedict remembered it. The noises of the city ignited tiny flashes of color, like sparks from an anvil.

Near their lodgings, the newspaper boys were shouting about the murder of a European duke. Theo borrowed a halfpenny and bought an
Express
. He pored over it as they waited for the bus.

“Stuffy-looking chap. They all look the same in Austria and Germany, don’t they? But the emperor’s heir?” Theo whistled. “Nasty. The Austrians are acting very threatening.”

“Anything about
our
reaction?”

“Nothing much. Still, one way or another, sooner or later, we’re heading for trouble somewhere. Dreadnoughts, maneuvers, sabers rattling like tin cans on a string—of course we are. All those antique admirals are in a frenzy of longing, dusting off their uniforms. Terrible smell of mothballs downwind of Whitehall.”

Benedict never knew when Theo was joking, or so Theo had often told him. But this time, behind the light-hearted tone, Theo seemed both serious and excited.

“It wouldn’t make any difference to us, though, would it?” Benedict said, as they walked slowly along Welbeck Street, and wondered if he wished it might.

“You’re such a chump sometimes,” Theo said, with a note of irritation. “Of course it would. You’d be girded in a Sam Browne, pips on your cuff, armed and polished to the teeth, not nipping off to play evensong at St. Elfrida’s in your drooping gown.”

“But I don’t know the first thing about soldiering. My people were always church.” Realizing he was sounding like an idiot, Benedict ran on: “I get seasick, I’m a rotten shot, and, anyway, I need spectacles to see into the distance.”

“I don’t think not seeing into the distance is very crucial,” Theo said. “In fact, it could be a distinct advantage.”

Each day in London, they had an indifferent high tea and took in a concert. The first evening they heard George Butterworth’s
The Banks of Green Willow
, which Dr. Brewer pronounced first-class, having “escaped the tyranny of the modern.” The following day, it was a crowded organ recital at Temple Church, and the third was a concert that Brewer evidently anticipated with dread. It was only the insistence of his friend Mr. Alcock, a professor at the Royal College, that saw them seated at the Bechstein Hall waiting for the Russian soloist. Theo shifted about restlessly and Alcock’s long fingers tapped on the arm of his seat. The composer, a small, ferrety-looking man named Alexander Scriabin, was playing his own work. Benedict knew of him but had not heard any performance of his work. The program notes said he wrote for music and color; Benedict read them, wondering, hoping; it was the first time he had ever heard of a musician exploring such ideas.

The Russian bounded up the steps, bowed abruptly, sat down, ignoring the applause, closed his eyes for a few seconds, and started to play. Tangerine, then blue, filled Benedict’s mind, consuming him. Then it was deep purple; the colors rippled outward—like butchers’ tripe, he thought—and then broke into fragments as another wave built. He closed his eyes a few times, but the chords of color continued and filled the space: not a strange phenomenon created by his overactive imagination, just
there
.

Benedict was not special; he was a very ordinary man, yet he knew Dr. Brewer would balk at such perceptions in a professional musician. There was an intellectual understanding of music; there was the aptitude and coordination that drew an individual to the organ; there was discipline, which might make a man succeed in his endeavors; even a constrained emotional response and, occasionally, natural genius, such as Theo’s; but music was music. Performed for the ears. Now here was someone who knew better.

Helical columns of green and gold-brown rose in front of him; the piece was so strange, so beautiful; every time the Russian touched a note, he created visual as well as sound harmonies. The sensations Benedict had experienced at five or six in his father’s church, with Miss Bradshaw playing the tiny parish organ, were what had bound him forever to the instrument long before he knew of the possible size and scope of it, long before he knew that he was different. Listening now, he felt overwhelmed with joy.

That evening, as they walked back to their lodgings, all he wanted to talk of was the music and Scriabin, but Theo could think only of war and Agnes.

“If England goes to war, I shall join a smart regiment immediately. In my uniform, Agnes will find me irresistible. Her father could hardly deny me her hand if I was going off to do my patriotic duty.”

He looked to Benedict for agreement; and when Benedict was slow replying, he added: “He couldn’t, could he?”

“You wouldn’t finish your pupillage?”

“Heavens, no. There’s a whole lifetime for fugues, but war is a young man’s game.”

“I thought if it came to it, you’d join the Navy,” Benedict said.

“Why on earth would I do that?”

“Well, you always seem to be in with the captains and ships down at the docks.”

“I like their stories, their travels: storms, opium, fights, women—I love it all, Ben. They sail from here out into the world: Shanghai, Alexandria, Odessa: all these illiterate men who know the world far better than I ever can. But I can’t think of anything worse than being stuck on a ship. The smell. The same stories repeated, literally ad nauseam. If they were aeroplanes, now, that would be a thing. A machine, your own small kingdom and the sky, huger than the sea.”

“So what will you do? Seriously?”

“I think, if war comes—not much of an if, in my opinion—and we’re called up, we’ll try for the Gloucesters. At least we’ll mostly be able to understand what they’re saying. I had a cousin took a commission in the Durham Light Infantry. Chaps might as well have been speaking Swahili, he said.”

Benedict hardly heard Theo’s cheerful running on, because the word “we” was as far as he got. “We.”

“It would be very Homeric,” Theo went on. “Brothers in arms. You wouldn’t want to stay in Gloucester when only the old men were left. A big strong chap like you.” He punched Benedict affably on the upper arm. “And I couldn’t have you stealing Agnes from under my nose. Anyway, it wouldn’t be for long. We’d take the King’s shilling. We could always join a military band if the Gloucesters don’t want us. Or the artillery, as we can do math.” He beamed. “What a shock it would be for Father.”

Was a war inevitable? Benedict had never thought so back in Gloucester, which carried on more or less as it had since Roman times; but in London, where the decisions were made, he sensed a tension and an anticipation that he did not recognize.

He slept poorly that night.

On the following afternoon they were expected at the Royal College of Organists, but for now they could explore London on as fine a summer’s day as any visitor could hope for. Benedict thought he might go to Hertford House. It was open to the public, and he had read that it had fine instruments on display. Theo was already at breakfast, looking happy and rested. He was sitting with his back to the window, his hair metallic in the light and the tiny hairs on his hands red-gold as he spread butter on his toast.

Theo said, his mouth half full, “Look. We need to go shopping. I need to get something for Agnes that she couldn’t possibly get in Gloucester and that will impress upon her what a sophisticated suitor I am.”

Benedict’s own plans faded away. Theo’s ideas, once broached, always seemed so much more insistent than his own. “London’s a big place.”

“Well, I thought Mayfair or Knightsbridge, but the best stores are all in Regent Street, Novello says.” He looked up as if momentarily nervous that Benedict would say no. “We could take a tram or a bus to Piccadilly Circus. Novello told me how to get there. And then we could look around and then walk past the shops. It’s a nice day,” he added, as if Benedict might not have noticed. “And we’ll easily be back for this afternoon’s little musical outing.” He made a face.

Benedict wondered if he could find something to buy for Lettie. It would have to be a small something, but then so, presumably, would whatever Theo bought for Agnes.

The interior of the bus smelled of sweat, hair oil, and tobacco. A fat man, who got on the bus just before them, took up the whole of the last double seat, staring outward defiantly. They hung on the rail, swaying as the bus made its way between horses, carts, and motorcars. There was a young man in a boater standing next to Benedict. In the crush, his outer thigh was pressed against Benedict’s. When a woman and child pushed past to get off the bus, he turned slightly and caught Benedict’s eye. Though Benedict turned away and looked over his shoulder at the other passengers, the stranger’s eyes never left him; he could feel it. They were still on him when he looked back. And now, unmistakably, the stranger’s groin was against Benedict’s hip, and Benedict was sure he was aroused; the man moved a little and rhythmically. He swallowed and knew he was blushing, looked across at Theo, wishing he could catch his eye. The young man must have seen his confusion, yet he made no attempt to move away, and every movement of the bus made Benedict more aware of this other figure, this unknown man, so intimately close.

Finally Theo looked up and mouthed “Next stop.” But even as he felt relief and prepared to get off, Benedict realized that the man’s knuckles were against his hip, moving his fingers gently and watching his face for any reaction. The bus stopped, Benedict pushed past, burning with shame, and yet, despite himself, excited. He felt almost sick with it as he stood on the pavement waiting urgently for Theo, who jumped off the step to join him. He watched in dread, in case the stranger stepped down too.

“You all right?” Theo asked.

The bus was pulling away and Benedict thought he could see the man, watching him still. He pulled down the brim of his hat, as much to hide his shame from Theo as his face from the stranger. He turned away, walking so briskly that Theo, laughing, reached out and took his arm, saying “Slow down, old chap. No hurry,” but Benedict pulled away and felt Theo’s puzzlement at his silence.

Piccadilly Circus was all movement: the uneven bobbing of straw hats, a few parasols riding above the crowd and the traffic circling around
Eros
, the burnished statue forever poised on one foot, his arrow ready to fly. Two policemen passed through the crowd, a small path opening before them. It was something of a human rookery: the flurries and shouts, a car’s horn, the rumble of hansom-cab wheels and the percussion of horses’ hooves.

It was already very warm. Benedict scratched his head surreptitiously under his hat. Two brightly dressed girls came toward them, smiling and swaying arm in arm, looking as if they thought they knew them, but Theo shook his head and grinned before they reached him. The girls swerved past, one looking back and winking.

“Just what Dr. Brewer warned us about, I think,” Theo said, looking pleased. “On the whole, any warning from Brewer could be seen as a recommendation, but it doesn’t seem quite the thing when we’re off to find a present for Agnes.” He stopped, pulled out his small map, and traced a finger down it.

Benedict’s eyes followed the girls as they turned down by the Lyons Corner House and toward a group of laughing soldiers. Household Cavalry, he thought. The slightly frantic, purple bursts of a hurdy-gurdy came from his left. Just yards away, his eye caught sight of three young men cast into the shade of a building, one of them scarcely more than a boy and another lounging back against the shop front, one knee raised. They stood at a distance from each other, unspeaking, looking at the crowd, simultaneously vigilant yet indifferent. Something about them spoke of threat and possibility: the essence of the whole city, he thought.