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Cloke he saw rather less frequently. He and Bu
'I just like to have an idea,' Henry explained, 'where he goes.'
But actually it was quite simple to keep tabs on Bu
If he treated Henry with deference, it was the rest of us who were forced to bear the wearing, day-to-day brunt of his anger.
Most of the time he was simply irritating: for example, in his ill-informed and frequent tirades against the Catholic Church.
Bu
What was worse was when he chose to zero in on one person in particular. With some preternatural craftiness he always knew the right nerve to touch, at exactly the right moment, to wound and outrage most. Charles was good-natured, and slow to anger, but he was sometimes so disturbed by these anti-Catholic diatribes that his very teacup would clatter upon its saucer. He was also sensitive to remarks about his drinking. As a matter of fact, Charles did drinka lot. We all did: but still, though he didn't indulge in any very conspicuous excess, I'd frequently had the experience of smelling liquor on his breath at odd hours or dropping by unexpectedly in the early afternoon to find him with a glass in his hand – which was perhaps understandable, things being what they were. Bu
With Francis, on the other hand, things were more pointed and unpleasant. Nobody said anything about it, ever, but we all knew he was gay. Though he was not promiscuous, every so often he would disappear quite mysteriously at a party and once, very early in our acquaintance, he'd made a subtle but unmistakable pass at me one afternoon when we were drunk and by ourselves in the rowboat. I'd dropped an oar, and in the confusion of retrieving it I felt his fingertips brush in a casual yet deliberate fashion along my cheek near the jawbone. I glanced up, startled, and our eyes met in that way that eyes will, and we looked at each other for a moment, the boat wobbling around us and the lost oar forgotten. I was dreadfully flustered; embarrassed, I looked away; when suddenly, and to my great surprise, he burst out laughing at my distress.
'No?' he said.
'No,' I said, relieved.
It might seem that this episode would have imposed a certain coolness upon our friendship. While I don't suppose that anyone who has devoted much energy to the study of Classics can be very much disturbed by homosexuality, neither am I particularly comfortable with it as it concerns me directly. Though I liked Francis well enough, I had always been nervous around him; oddly, it was this pass of his that cleared the air between us. I suppose I knew it was inevitable, and dreaded it. Once it was out of the way I was perfectly comfortable being alone with him even in the most questionable situations – drunk, or in his apartment, or even wedged in the back seat of a car.
With Francis and Bu
I suppose the shock of recognition is one of the nastiest shocks of all. I'd never considered, though I should have, that these crackpot prejudices of Bu
Not that Francis, in normal circumstances, wasn't perfectly able to take care of himself. He had a quick temper, and a sharp tongue, and though he could've put Bu
I don't really have the heart to recount all the vile things he said and did to Francis, the practical jokes, the remarks about faggots and queers, the public, humiliating stream of questions about his preference and practices: clinical and incredibly detailed ones, having to do with such things as enemas, and gerbils, and incandescent light bulbs.
'Just once,' I remember Francis hissing, through clenched teeth.
'Just once I'd like to…'
But there was absolutely nothing that anyone could say or do.
One might expect that I, being at that time perfectly i
Because, as fond as I was of the others, I was fond of Bu