The Secret History

Suddenly Camilla stopped and put a finger to her lips. In a dead tree, split in two by lightning, were perched three huge, black birds, too big for crows. I had never seen anything like them before.

'Ravens,' said Charles.

We stood stock-still, watching them. One of them hopped clumsily to the end of a branch, which squeaked and bobbed under its weight and sent it squawking into the air. The other two followed, with a battery of flaps. They sailed over the meadow in a triangle formation, three dark shadows on the grass.

Charles laughed. 'Three of them for three of us. That's an augury, I bet.'

'An omen.'

'Of what?' I said.

'Don't know,' said Charles. 'Henry's the ornithomantist. The bird-diviner.'

'He's such an old Roman. He'd know.'

We had turned towards home and, at the top of a rise, I saw the gables of Monmouth House, bleak in the distance. The sky was cold and empty. A sliver of moon, like the white crescent of a thumbnail, floated in the dim. I was unused to those dreary autumn twilights, to chill and early dark; the nights fell too quickly and the hush that settled on the meadow in the evening filled me with a strange, tremulous sadness. Gloomily, I thought of Monmouth House: empty corridors, old gas-jets, the key turning in the lock of my room.

'Well, see you later,' Charles said, at the front door of Monmouth, his face pale in the glow of the porch lamp.

Off in the distance, I saw the lights in the dining hall, across Commons; could see dark silhouettes moving past the windows.

'It was fun,' I said, digging my hands in my pockets. 'Want to come have di

'Afraid not. We ought to be getting home.'

'Oh, well,' I said, disappointed but relieved. 'Some other time.'

'Well, you know…?' said Camilla, turning to Charles.

He furrowed his eyebrows. 'Hm

'Come have di

'Oh, no,' I said quickly.

'Please.'

'No, but thanks. It's all right, really.'

'Oh, come on,' said Charles graciously. 'We're not having anything very good but we'd like you to come,' I felt a rush of gratitude towards him. I did want to go, rather a lot. 'If you're sure it's no trouble,' I said.

'No trouble at all,' said Camilla. 'Let's go.'

Charles and Camilla rented a furnished apartment on the third floor of a house in North Hampden. Stepping inside, one found oneself in a small living room with slanted walls and dormer windows. The armchairs and the lumpy sofa were upholstered in dusty brocades, threadbare at the arms: rose patterns on tan, acorns and oak leaves on mossy green. Everywhere were tattered doilies, dark with age. On the mantel of the fireplace (which I later discovered was inoperable) glittered a pair of lead-glass candelabra and a few pieces of tarnished silver plate.

Though not untidy, exactly, it verged on being so. Books were stacked on every available surface; the tables were cluttered with papers, ashtrays, bottles of whiskey, boxes of chocolates; umbrellas and galoshes made passage difficult in the narrow hall.

In Charles's room clothes were scattered on the rug and a rich confusion of ties hung from the door of the wardrobe; Camilla's night table was littered with empty teacups, leaky pens, dead marigolds in a water glass, and on the foot of her bed was laid a half-played game of solitaire. The layout of the place was peculiar, with unexpected windows and halls that led nowhere and low doors I had to duck to get through, and everywhere I looked was some fresh oddity: an old stereopticon (the palmy avenues of a ghostly Nice, receding in the sepia distance); arrowheads in a dusty glass case; a staghorn fern; a bird's skeleton.

Charles went into the kitchen and began to open and shut cabinets Camilla made me a drink from a bottle of Irish whiskey which stood on top of a pile of National Geographies.

'Have you been to the La Brea tar pits?' she said, matter-offactly.

'No,' Helplessly perplexed, I gazed at my drink.

'Imagine that. Charles,' she said, into the kitchen, 'he lives in California and he's never been to the La Brea tar pits.'

Charles emerged in the doorway, wiping his hands on a dishtowel. 'Really?' he said, with childlike astonishment. 'Why not?'

'I don't know.'

'But they're so interesting. Really, just think of it.'

'Do you know many people here from California?' said Camilla.

'No.'

'You know Judy Poovey.'

I was startled: how did she know that? 'She's not my friend,' I said.

'Nor mine,' she said. 'Last year she threw a drink in my face.'

'I heard about that,' I said, laughing, but she didn't smile.

'Don't believe everything you hear,' she said, and took another sip of her drink. 'Do you know who Cloke Rayburn is?'

I knew of him. There was a tight, fashionable clique of Californians at Hampden, mostly from San Francisco and L. A.; Cloke Rayburn was at its center, all bored smiles and sleepy eyes and cigarettes. The girls from Los Angeles, Judy Poovey included, were fanatically devoted to him. He was the sort you saw in the men's room at parties, doing coke on the edge of the sink.

'He's a friend of Bu

'How's that?' I said, surprised.

'They were at prep school together. At Saint Jerome's in Pe

'You know Hampden,' said Charles, taking a large gulp of his 7i drink. 'These progressive schools, they love the problem student, the underdog. Cloke came in from some college in Colorado after his first year. He went skiing every day and failed every class. Hampden's the last place on earth '

'For the worst people in the world,' said Camilla, laughing.

'Oh, come on now,' I said.

'Well, in a way, I think it's true,' said Charles. 'Half the people here are here because nowhere else would let them in. Not that Hampden's not a wonderful school. Maybe that's why it's wonderful. Take Henry, for instance. If Hampden hadn't let him in, he probably wouldn't have been able to go to college at all.'

'I can't believe that,' I said.

'Well, it does sound absurd, but he never went past tenth grade in high school and, 1 mean, how many decent colleges are likely to take a tenth-grade dropout? Then there's the business of standardized tests. Henry refused to take the SATs – he'd probably score off the charts if he did, but he's got some kind of aesthetic objection to them. You can imagine how that looks to an admissions board.' He took another sip of his drink. 'So, how did you end up here?'

The expression in his eyes was hard to read. 'I liked the catalogue,' I said.

'And to the admissions board I'm sure that seemed a perfectly sensible reason for letting you in.'

I wished I had a glass of water. The room was hot and my throat was dry and the whiskey had left a terrible taste in my mouth, not that it was bad whiskey; it was actually quite good, but I had a hangover and I hadn't eaten all day, and I felt, all at once, very nauseous.

There was a knock at the door and then a flurry of knocks.

Without a word, Charles drained his drink and ducked back into the kitchen while Camilla went to answer it.

Before it was even open all the way I could see the glint of little round glasses. There was a chorus of hellos, and there they 72. all were: Henry; Bu

The last inside, he leaned to kiss Camilla – not on the cheek, but on the mouth, with a loud and satisfied smack. 'Hello, dear,' he said. 'What a happy mistake we have made. I've got champagne, and Bu

I stood up.

For a fraction of a second they were struck silent. Then Bu