Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 14:50:42 +0000
From: Jo Vincent <joad130@hotmail.com>
Subject: Aladdin's Awakening:  Part 99

Usual Disclaimer: If you are not of an age to read this because of the laws
of your country or district please desist.  If you are a bigot or
prod-nosed fundamentalist of any persuasion find your monkey-spanking
literature elsewhere and keep your predilections and opinions to
yourself. Everyone else welcome and comments more than welcome.

This is a very long tale.  It unfolds over a good number of years.  What is
true, is true: what is not is otherwise.

			    ALADDIN'S AWAKENING

				    By

				   Joel


				CHAPTER 60

				 Part One

			  Vignettes From My Life
				[Continued]


		 28.                      The rest of 1973

     Khaled had been woken by the telephone as well and nearly went
berserk.
  His great pal James was a daddy as well!  He looked a bit sad after he
calmed down.  Although he had seen photos of his own son, Iyad, he had
never seen him in the flesh.  No way was he going to go back to that
country.  Too many bad memories.  Anne said she was sure things would work
out.

     'Phone calls had to be made and arrangements to get up to Chester that
day.  I had two tutorials but Willy said that he would personally inform Mr
Fletcher and Mr Jackson about my unavailability and he would explain the
circumstances which were unforeseen as premature births usually were as was
his son Jonathan who arrived four weeks early and to convey his and Maggy's
utmost congratulations to that young rascal and he would contact Garforth
to tell the other rascal, his Lordship and Mr Arthur who would convey the
news onward.  His Lordship being the next Lord Harford, the ex-Colonel
David Lascelles, as 'Bobsy' had died some years ago.

     Safar came bursting in as the Porter at King's had informed him after
our call and said he was coming too.  Both Stephen and Jody were performing
that evening so couldn't come but would see the infants as soon as
possible.  Francis was off-duty for once and he and Tony set off about the
same time as us.  We had been told no visitors before two o'clock and we
made it in good time.  James was pacing up and down outside the ward with
Mr Hart.  Mrs Hart and one of the daughters were sitting in the waiting
room.  All in all a bit hectic!

     James rushed up and gave Anne a hug, then me and then the rest as they
straggled in.  Mr Hart, bluff and taciturn, gave me a wry smile.

     "Like a dog with two tails!  Still, I was the same when my first was
born.  Wears off a bit when it gets to the third!"

     After a wait Anne and I were let in to see the proud mother and the
two scraps in incubators.  Although both were five pounds five ounces when
born they would be kept in for the first day.  Pink-faced, rubbery looking,
eyes closed, they reminded me so much of my first sightings of Francis and
James.  Diane looked tired but radiant.  The births had been quite easy she
said.  The second one especially.  As we sat and I held her hand great
bunches of flowers arrived.  From Stephen and Jody and Ma and Pa.

     Next morning we were allowed to go to the hospital earlier and Anne
and I were allowed to hold our grandsons, Jack Joseph Cally Thomson and
Stephen Andrew Francis Thomson.  Jack for Mr Hart, whose name was John but
was always called Jack, Jack for me, Joseph as that was Jody's real name
and Cally for James's great friend.  Of course, Stephen and Francis and
Uncle Flea were there for the second of the twins.  James smiled as he said
Piers' would approve as there was also 'SAF' for Safar.  He said his five
brothers were there and Uncle Flea and the granddads, but he couldn't pack
Uncle Lachs and all the others in as well but they would understand.  He
was sure they would be known as Jack and Saf!  He was so euphoric. We all
had to have our photos taken with the infants with Khaled and Safar holding
their namesakes in several and James fussing around in case they were
dropped.  In the end we took him, the Harts and everyone else out for a
meal that evening.

                              *
     Arrangements for Christmas and the New Year had to be made.  It was
decided that the couple should spend their first Christmas with Diane's
parents and that they should come to us for the New Year.  This meant that
the two sets of great-grandparents on our side would be present as well
with Pa and Ma staying at the Gibsons and Helen and Gerald with Tony and
Francis at their house.  What a performance.  One would have thought the
amount of clobber for the twins was enough to fill a pantechnicon from the
various parcels and packages carried up the stairs on the twenty-seventh
when they arrived.  Ma and Pa were waiting and were handed a small sleeping
bundle each to hold while the car was unloaded.

     The twins hadn't been in the house long before Khaled disappeared
closely followed by Anne and Safar.  She came back some time later saying
he was so upset, it was his son's birthday.  James overheard what she said
and immediately went and fetched Jack from Pa and took him through to where
Khaled was sitting weeping softly being hugged by his brother.

     "Cally," I heard James say, "Until you can hold Iyad, and I want to
hold him as well, you must share Jack with us and please share Saf as well.
We're brothers don't forget and brothers share everything!"

     I went into the sitting room a little later and there were Khaled and
Safar, both holding an infant and Khaled was smiling happily.  A little
later Tony and Francis brought along Helen and Gerald so there were four
generations of Thomsons and Marchams present, only Kats was missing.

     That night James said as I was very adept at cleaning up infants, as
well as grown sons, I could help him bath and change the twins and Francis
could come and watch as he would have to take his turn in future.  It took
two to cope.  It was odd.  It was just like twenty-four years ago when Kats
and I had bathed our pair, a year apart in age; it takes two to cope with
two was our feeling then.  As we undressed the infants, grown even in just
eight weeks and smiling, or wind, as the various bits of clothing were
removed.  Both were smelly and I noted James was very skilful at holding
Saf and talked to him incessantly.  It was then I noticed something on
Jack.  I pointed.  James stopped chattering and pointed too at the same
place on Saf.  The twins, identical, had the strawberry birthmark.

     I nearly dropped Jack but we managed to put both down safely then the
three of us turned and hugged each other.  James was so happy.  "That's why
I wanted you both to help me with them.  It's so wonderful," he said as we
clasped each other.  "I've always wondered why I didn't have the mark and
Francis did.  But, it's come through me.  I had it inside all the time."
One of the infants began to gurgle.  We broke our hug and I peered more
closely.  Yes.  The outline was so recognisable.  I had it, Francis had it,
dear Dodo and his son had it and our watcher and carer, Piers had had it.
Here it was now on my twin grandsons.  We washed and put clean nappies on
and called the others up to see.  Francis said we had to have a photograph
of the four of us.  On a rather chilly night, thank God for central
heating, Francis and I put shorts on and with the babes on our knees James
took photos.  James said the sooner we could all visit Ulvescott the
better.  I said it would be opening up for the Americans after Easter so
Easter would be fine.

      Both Stephen and Jody were in performances until New Year's Eve but
as soon as the matinee was over that day they caught the first available
train.  More celebrations as they brought champagne from the cast to 'wet
the babies' heads'.  More photos as they insisted also holding their
namesakes as well.  Poor kids, I thought, but the babes slept through it
all.



                              29.  1974

     After the excitements of the New Year the next two terms went without
too many incidents.  I heard that a series of papers I'd written were being
made into a special section for one of the journals which I was very
pleased about.  Tony had finished the magnum opus of his growing-up story
in the summer of last year.  He had asked me, on the advice of Kanga, to go
through the manuscript and see if I could identify any of the characters,
even though names had been changed.  Ouch!  I found myself quite easily.
There were several scenes which I remembered well - and fondly.  He'd even
got the altercation between me and Henry Gale and a pretty good description
of the discovery of Henry tied up and him rather unhappy with his pals for
doing the deed.  From internal evidence I deduced who some of Tony's
numerous conquests were and didn't realise he was actively fucking, or
being fucked by, two of the prime hunks in the Sixth Form when he was in
the Fourth.  I worked out one must have been Cliff Bates and the other
could only have been Alec Fry.  >From the evidence he had seduced both just
to see what happened.  If the rather lubricious couplings which he
described really took place they were worthy of 'Audacity'.  I had a guess
about some of the Scouts.  Quite a few must have been a year younger as
there was a hilarious account of a circle jerk which started with four but
ended up with ten as more and more curious youngsters entered the back room
at the Scout hut where, instead of being instructed in First Aid, the lot
ended up aiding themselves first.  I recognised amongst them a description
of Davy Abbott, the younger brother of my wank-buddy, Georgie.  Tony would
have to alter the site of a second encounter with that lad from the
basement of a hardware shop to somewhere else.

     All in all, I think I identified at least twenty protagonists and
antagonists - I remembered Dick Penbury, in 5S at the time, fulminating
about bum-bandits in the bogs of the local cinema and there he was,
verbatim, before being led as a lamb to the slaughter and losing his
virginity to Tony under the stage in the Hall at school.  It seemed anyone
who antagonised dear Tony ended up on their backs or their knees, not
having been felled by a straight left, but feeling Tony's ever straight
weapon employed to silence any detractors.  I think it was Jimmy MacDonald
who quipped that Tony had 'a long felt want'.  >From the account his wants
were felt and more than satisfied.

     Kanga whistled when I returned the manuscript in January with notes
and annotations.  Two annotations identified him as a scared young wet
dreamer and as a grateful sucker of seed at which he groaned and said he'd
already noted them.  He said he'd better get his lawyers to vet it all and
give an opinion on problems of libel.  Otherwise, he grinned, it was a
masterpiece!

     We had numerous visitors and the proposed visit to Ulvescott was made.
The American connection had been very good financially.  In February and
March we had been able to do many much needed repairs and renovations.
There was a niggle though.  I and Tony had been asked if we would be
willing to assign the lease to the university as they wanted a permanent
base which could take in more in England.  Tony felt unsure.  He said his
income was sufficient to run the place as long as the Government didn't
take so much in tax.  So we were in a bit of a quandary.  Chuck had written
to say the Trustees had been gifted an enormous sum of money by an old
alumnus benefactor who had made his money from pig farms in Oklahoma and
they would have to have an answer within a year.  At least we've got this
year to sort it out was Tony's response and the pigs will carry on
breeding.

     Khaled and Safar shared Piers' room with Stephen and Jody in the
Horsebox.  The married couples, including Tony and Francis, had three of
the refurbished rooms.  Anne and I were in the African room - tastefully
redecorated but with several of the original artefacts and other objects
displayed on the walls.  Jem and Sam had found a very nice couple, man and
wife, as chef and housekeeper and they were already installed ready to cope
with the usual sixteen to twenty American visitors with the help of a
number of people from the now- expanded village.

     The twins were duly introduced to Piers' room and James and Francis
took them round explaining all about the photos as if the almost
six-months-olds could understand.  Both cooed as they went round the room.
It was if they were absorbing that strange ambience so many of us had
already experienced.  At dinner that night both Safar and Khaled said how
peaceful they found the room and they couldn't imagine anywhere nicer to
live - except Cambridge, Safar said with his infectious grin.  Safar had
found the old copy of the Moskovski's Spanish Dances in the piano stool,
so, with him playing the upper part, we entertained everyone after dinner.
The toad kept nudging me and whispering 'Faster' and he was sight-reading!

                              *

     After Easter Safar had his finals.  He did exceptionally well and was
awarded a Chancellor's Prize and immediately asked if he could move back in
as he wanted to continue to a PhD on Moorish influence on music of the
Spanish court.  I asked how was that going to pay the rent in future years?
He just grinned and said probably in the same way as people who discovered
dirty books and published them.  "You'd be surprised what went on
underneath a harpsichord!" he said and skipped out of the way of my usual
weapon in the kitchen, a lethally flicked tea-towel.  He was also busily
constructing various instruments of that time based on documents and
accounts he was reading.  Ma was roped in as she was fluent in Spanish and
Safar and she spent many, query, happy hours pouring over old documents.

     Both Anne and I had conferences to attend in July so our holiday plans
were fluid.  I had suggested to Khaled and Safar we could go and stay with
Johann in Switzerland at the beginning of August and we had a pleasant
three weeks lazing and exploring.  Stephen and Jody had decided they wanted
sea, sand and sunshine so had gone off to the Greek Isles and came back the
day after we returned from Switzerland looking tanned and bronzed and full
of tales of how they had been pursued by predatory old men who ogled their
golden bodies.  When asked how old and how many, they said at least thirty!
Both years and men.  At the time we were sitting in the garden soaking up
more sun and I pointed out I would soon be forty-five.  Stephen sat up and
said I couldn't be, I was just care-worn looking after all my lost sheep.
As Jody was practically naked at the time and his body hair had regrown
over the Summer I suggested he should be shorn as he had to be frequently.
For someone with ginger - sorry, nice red - hair it did grow quickly and
there were often giggles from their shared bedroom as Stephen wielded the
hair remover or razor.  Khaled said he wasn't surprised about the oglers,
the pair had probably waggled their pert little bums at all and sundry.
Stephen said they hadn't had to buy themselves a drink all the holiday and
they were still as pure as the virgin snow.  "Slush!" said Safar.


30.  Tuesday 27th August 1974

     I had just consigned about six pieces of junk mail to the waste-paper
basket when I noticed an envelope with slightly unfamiliar writing.
Slitting it open and reading the first few lines I was stunned,

                                   Monday 26/viii/74
          Dear Dearest Jacko,

          I couldn't 'phone to tell you the news. My dearest brother and
your loving cousin, our little Flea, has died, peacefully and quietly.

          I knew he wasn't well but it wasn't until last Friday when
Georgie 'phoned me to say he only had a few days or even hours to live.  I
was able to be with him and held his hand when the end came in the early
hours this morning.  He was quite lucid in those last few moments and he
had that grin on his face which we all knew so well. as he must have been
reliving happier times. He said I was to give you his love.

          I found he'd had leukaemia of a rather virulent kind diagnosed at
Easter.  I thought he was just over-worked and suffering from stress
working for that firm when I saw him shortly afterwards.  He was his usual
cheerful self and said he was looking forward to meeting up with you and
Anne as soon as he could get away.

          I will let you know the arrangements as soon as possible.

          Yours, with love to Anne and all those hulking sons of yours,

                         Lachs


     The signature was slightly blurred, a tear must have dropped.  More
tears dropped as I remembered back thirty years to my first meeting with
the irrepressible imp.  I was still weeping softly when Anne came into the
study to find why I hadn't appeared for the past hour.  Time had passed.  I
silently pushed the letter on the desk over her.  Her eyes were misted too
when she handed it back.

     "There's something about friendships amongst boys which we mere women
can't and will never understand.  Isn't there?"

     I could do nothing more than nod.  That first day so many years ago
when I first met him and Lachs - three boys scared of meeting each other -
then a fortnight which blossomed into a deep love and friendship which had
lasted over the years.  We'd had quite different lives but whenever we met
that spark of companionship was immediately kindled again.

     I found I couldn't work that day.  I needed to edit an article my
publisher was crying out for.  I went for a long walk, along the Backs,
then all the way to Grantchester.  I stopped at the Rupert Brooke and had a
drink.  I thought of him, another wasted life in the Great War that claimed
Piers and Miles and then Andrew and Lachlan's father in the Second World
War.  I thought of Andrew and Lachlan, the airman and the soldier who
survived their battles but then, - 'those whom the gods love die young'.
Dear, dear Flea - too young.  I finished my drink quickly and almost
stumbled back along that long path home.  It was strange, I had so many
dear friends and loved ones, but for that walk I felt alone, deprived of a
portion of that love, but I knew that really it could never be
extinguished....  I didn't believe but I said a prayer for the repose of
that dear, dear soul.

     I had a long talk with Lachlan on the 'phone that evening.  His grief
was palpable.  He said he was staying in Andrew's house in the village near
Brighton to tidy up his affairs.  He said there was no tidying to
do. Andrew, knowing the end was near, had left everything, neat, complete.
He said there was even a letter and a small package for me. The
arrangements were for him to be cremated at Brighton on Tuesday September
the Third at two thirty.  I promised to be there.

     I put the 'phone down and jotted the time in my open diary for that
date.  I had to sit down.  I would be saying goodbye to my dear friend on
that day of the year when we had first inexorably sealed that friendship.
We had given ourselves to each other and in so doing had pledged that
accord which no one, not even death itself, could break.

     The finality of things must have concentrated my mind.  Before the
next weekend I had finished the article and posted it off and sketched out
thoughts for two others.  Those thoughts crystallised and I spent Tuesday
feverishly writing my analysis of two new, wonderful French poems which a
colleague had brought to my attention some time ago.

     I had 'phoned Tony immediately after I got home and he said he would
tell Francis as soon as he came home from his duties at the hospital.
Francis 'phoned back almost immediately and said he was determined to come
with me and had persuaded Grunty to change days with him.  James was not to
be left out either.  He said he would be there as well and could combine it
with having a meeting in London with a client.  Just as Edward was my
favourite uncle so they coupled Andrew and Lachlan as a single entity,
their joint favourite uncles.  Stephen was heart-broken when I told him.  I
heard him weeping after I told him the news.  Uncle Flea was his true uncle
and had been unstinting in his love towards his adored and adoring nephew.
Jody came to the 'phone and I could hear him weeping, too.  Flea had teased
him just as he teased my sons, he had been included in everything.  When
Khaled and Safar came in from work and the Library they said they would
definitely be there, in fact, their father had just 'phoned me and sounded
very heartbroken.

     Anne, Khaled, Safar and I met Tony and Francis at Cambridge station
and set out early on Tuesday morning to get to London and then to take the
Brighton train.  At Victoria there were James, Stephen and Jody waiting for
us.  They said they'd seen Pa and Ma catch an even earlier train.  We had a
quick lunch and so were early when the taxi we found drew up at the
crematorium.  Outside was Beth Catchpole.  She was going to play the organ
and said she didn't know if she felt calm and collected enough.  Safar said
he would go up to the organ loft with her to keep her company. The previous
ceremony was finishing and as soon as we could we entered the building and
when asked our names were ushered into the second row in the second seat
onwards.  The place filled rapidly but I noted that the front rows the
other side were kept empty.  Just before the appointed time two figures
dressed in black came down the aisle.  They were Sayed, closely followed by
Ibrahim.  Francis sitting next to me vacated his place and sat in the
second row immediately behind us with Ibrahim as Sayed took his place.  I
glanced at my watch just as at the appointed time we all stood as Andrew's
family, Aunt Della, Uncle Edward, Andrew's adored sister, Julia, with her
husband, and Ma on Lachlan's arm, came down the aisle and filed into the
front row.  As he passed me Lachlan smiled wryly and handed me an envelope
and a small carefully wrapped package.  As we stood Sayed put his hand in
mine and gripped it tight.  We never let go the whole of the service.

       Beth had chosen well.  Bach, of course; the Fantasia and Fugue in C
Minor, played softly.  The inexorable tread of the Fantasia was most
fitting.  The coffin, draped in a Union Jack, on it a single posy of white
flowers and two caps, RAF and Naval, appeared.  It was borne on the
shoulders of six husky lads in Sea Scout uniform.  As they laid the
seemingly diminutive box on the catafalque a stream of similarly attired
lads filed in behind and took their places in the empty seats.  When the
bearers turned I couldn't help noticing the tears on each of their cheeks
as they moved into their places in the front row.  A tall, slim figure in
the Naval uniform of an officer in the Sea Scouts slipped into the empty
seat next to me.  A gentle voice said 'Hullo, bor'.  It was Georgie.  The
unresolved g minor chord at the end of the Fantasia arrived.  The service
began.

     I had been to plenty of funeral services, burials and cremations over
the years, Dr Blake, other old dons, me representing the college for past
students there before my time, and so on.  Many were dreary affairs.  Not
today.  The clergyman who celebrated,
  yes, celebrated these funeral rites knew Andrew very well.  It was his
old friend Ludo Wilkinson.  We heard stories about his life at school from
his great friend Titty Temple-Tempest, his service in the Air Force - five
feet five of human dynamite, a Squadron Leader in every way - from a Wing
Commander he had taught to fly.  Then of his more recent years after
leaving the Air Force - one of his colleagues spoke of his dedication to
his work, how he'd used his dynamism and good humour to rescue an ailing
firm.

     Finally, Georgie stepped forward and spoke of friendship and how he
and Andrew had become firm friends not only from their joint interest in
sailing but also from a meeting of minds and emotions from living in the
country so many years ago.  He spoke clearly and from the heart..  This
Professor of Philosophy had the words and nuances of expression to convey
what I had felt in my heart for Andrew over all these years.  It was not a
sad occasion, we celebrated a life.

     We sat and listened each with their own thoughts and memories.  The
Bach Fugue, its theme so upbeat, though in a minor key, symbolised for me
that life.  A questing life, never really settled except when in the
company of friends or doing the things he really liked doing.  I listened
to the sequences, one voice following another, ascending through unrelated
keys but in the end culminating in the finality of the rising sequence of
chords after that powerful pedal note in the bass.  The curtains closed but
Andrew was still with us - in our hearts and innermost being.  Oh, Flea.  I
wept.

     As we waited to file out Sayed let go long enough for me to open the
little box.  In it was the lieutenant's pip I had given to him so many
years ago.  The only thing I had which I could give him at the time as a
remembrance.  In the envelope was a short note reminding me of that
occasion and that he had carried that pip in his uniform pocket all the
time he was in the Air Force, in his training, on those hazardous sorties
in 1956, when he trained others.....  At all times.  It was his talisman.
Lachlan stopped before passing me, smiled and opened his hand.  He was
holding the other pip.  I opened my other hand.  The old clay pipe.

     As we filed out I recognised more Bach, that most beautiful and most
appropriate chorale prelude 'Schmucke dich, O liebe Seele', 'Bedeck
thyself, O loving Soul'.  At the chapel entrance we were joined by Beth and
I realised Safar was giving his own farewell to a very favourite uncle.  We
stood and listened as the rest of the large congregation filed out, Sayed
still firmly holding onto me.  He was so clearly moved by both the
solemnity and the joy and now by his son's superb playing.  Finally,
Ibrahim and Francis came up and he was led to the large limousine with its
dark-visaged driver and equally dark bodyguard.

     In the courtyard I found Georgie talking to a group of his
solemn-looking lads.  They said cheerio to him and walked off slowly.  Two
of the tall, husky bearers remained.  I hadn't seen them for a couple of
years.  They were Georgie's twin sons, Andrew and Philip, now seventeen.
They were devastated with their loss.  Flea had also been their favourite
adopted uncle, too.  Andrew said very quietly that he was going to carry on
his namesake's work..  Philip nodded and said, "Me, too!"

     There was a fleet of cars and taxis to take us to one of the hotels in
Brighton where about a hundred people gathered who had filled the pews at
the ceremony.  There were old RAF comrades, colleagues from work, many
others, and a quartet of imposing men.  Lachlan greeted them warmly and I
and Anne shook hands with them.  Two were in military uniform, a Brigadier
and a Major-General, Cartwright and Bradley.  The others were in civilian
clothes, but had that discernible bearing of military experience.  His
Excellency Douglas Potterton, Ambassador to a Middle Eastern State,
well-known to Sayed, and Charles Sibley (no Hector Augustus) the rotund,
prosperous looking chairman of a major company, were there.  I had met them
before on a number of occasions but those memories of thirty years ago when
I visited the school flooded back.  They had known of me; the irresistible,
irrepressible imp had made his friendships known and they had been curious
to meet me at the time.  We had become friends as well I found that Potty's
second son, Freddy, was coming up for the new term to read Maths at Corpus
Christi.  I gave his father my card with a welcome note scribbled on the
back.

     Uncle Edward looked bowed with the loss.  His adopted, so-loved, son -
he shook his head sadly.  Aunt Della, in unaccustomed black, held tight to
her husband's arm until he wandered off with Julia, her husband and Stephen
and we sat together and reminisced.  I had become a third son for her over
the years so there was a quiet intimacy there which we shared.  She
reminded me of the nights of the doodle-bugs and seeing Andrew in the sheet
and Lachs encased in my inverted pullover which lightened that very
frightening episode a lot.  Just then I was startled to see a tall figure
approaching, I had wondered where he'd got to as I hadn't seen him when we
got into our taxi and he certainly hadn't been in the front row in the
chapel.  It was Pa, with Francis and James on either side.  He and his
brother embraced and then I got up and gave him my seat.

     "Sat at the back and got chatting to someone I knew from the Ministry
years ago, we were going to get a cab here because you'd all gone.  Look
who rescued me, gave me and Jody a lift in that big black car!  Had to wait
for Safar to finish and come down."  It was Sayed.  I'd wondered where he'd
got to as well, but that explained it.  We hugged each other.  He said he
couldn't speak in the chapel or he would have broken down.  And that
wouldn't have done for his escort to see that.  He didn't mean Ibrahim, but
his pair of toughies.  Francis gathered Ibrahim up and took him off to
introduce him to Georgie and his boys and then they found Miles Bastable
and Titty looking forlorn and lost and were soon in animated conversation
about something or other.  Tony I noted was talking quietly and confidently
to a rather distinguished man I hadn't seen before.

     I said to Pa I wondered where he'd got to and he should have been in
the front row.  He just smiled and said Flea could see him quite clearly
from where he sat.
  Georgie came across with Beth and his sons and greeted Pa as well and
asked if he was still coming sailing at the end of September.  And then, no
doubt for the benefit of the two boys, Pa reminded him once again about the
incident with the punt on the Cam.  Pa grinned and said he knew he was a
better philosopher than a punter and congratulated him on his recently
conferred Chair at the local University.

     "Better than that son of mine," he grumbled, good-naturedly, "Fellow -
what's that?"

     I said quietly that I had been recommended for advancement to D.Litt
for my last book and the papers I'd published over the past few years.  I
would be a Doctor in Scarlet.  Pa laughed and said I was getting as pompous
as C P Snow and that book of his, The Masters.  I winced.  No, he was as
pleased as Punch and Georgie congratulated me as well, he knew Pa!.

     Gradually the gathering broke up.  I was rather surprised at the
number of people Pa knew.  Both Brigadier Cartwright and Major-General
Bradley greeted him warmly.  I knew that Cartwright had been in
Intelligence with Lachs as I had been involved too, but Pa was always
tight-lipped about some of his scientific or other involvement in such
things.  He had words to say with quite a few anonymous looking gentlemen
who from their appearance were, or had been, military in some way.  Tony's
friend had been an undergraduate at King's with him and was now a Principal
Private Secretary in the Civil Service and they had been reminiscing about
being in the same rugger team.  Tony shook his head when I looked at him.
Not one of his conquests!

     I said cheerio to Georgie, flanked by his sons.  I by mine.  Stephen
was quite distraught, his uncle had meant so much to him.  His brother,
James, and almost brother Jody, put consoling arms round him.  Safar and
Khaled had said goodbye to their father and Francis had been there as well,
arranging another visit for Ibrahim, no doubt, and the three of them came
to join us.  Georgie's sons were having interviews at Cambridge soon so
were told to come and stay with us.  Lachlan was remaining for a few days
to wind up Andrew's affairs and then would be coming to Cambridge for a
long rest.  So, quite a few of us gathered to catch the London train.  As I
got off the connection in Cambridge, with Anne, Francis and Tony, Khaled,
Safar and Ludo, I felt a whole chapter in my life had just closed.  But -
quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus tam cari capitis?  What shame or stint
should there be in mourning for one so dear?

                              *
     In December I had the degree of D.Litt conferred on me by the
Chancellor, the Duke of Edinburgh.  I suppose I had reached the apogee of
my academic career.  We had a dinner that evening for about fifty in the
Garden House Hotel.  I was surrounded by family, friends, colleagues, all
meaning so much to me, but one person I missed above all was that
irrepressible Flea.


                         31.  1975

     At the dinner in December Stephen told me he'd been chosen, as one of
a number of young artists, to take a leading role in a ballet at the Opera
House.  He had been assigned one night as Romeo, with Lisa as Juliet and
Jody would be dancing the role of Tybalt.  The three friends would all be
appearing together in roles which could give them the openings to even
greater things.

     But then in March we had a real scare.  In the week before Easter,
King Khalid of Saudi Arabia was assassinated.  I think even before the
official announcement Lachs was on the 'phone with instructions that Khaled
and Safar were to be confined to the house, the ubiquitous telephone
engineers would be in the road, and please would we accommodate Sergeant
McIver for a day or two until things quietened down.  Within hours the Post
Office engineers' tent was on the pathway and a tough looking young man, in
sweater and joggers with an overlarge sports bag turned up looking like a
boatie friend of Francis and Grunty.  Safar and Khaled were primed this
time - it was a neighbouring state and anything might happen.  I think it
was only then they realised to what extent how circumspect and restrictive
in a way their lives had been.  I had explained to Khaled all those years
ago when he wanted to go to London to study that his safety there could not
be guaranteed and he understood.  I sat with them in my study now and told
them as much as I could - Lachs had said I should give them the full story
of their kidnap and the fate of their captors and of the machinations of
the ruling people of the state.  It was then that Lachs let slip that the
two women had been given to the local barracks for the use of the soldiers
and both had killed themselves within a couple of weeks having been raped
almost continuously.  That would not be told, nor the details that Flea had
given me about the mutilation of the men.  All I said was that the
perpetrators had been punished.  Khaled, at least, knew what I meant.

     Sergeant McIver, Johnny, was a character.  From the west coast of
Scotland he had that soft burr of an accent.  We found he was told to join
up at sixteen, or face youth custody after joy-riding, and he'd made the
Army his career and the Marines his home.  He was now twenty-seven, just a
few months older than Francis.  He and the lads got on so well he was
invited to come and stay whenever he had leave.  Francis after only five
minutes with him told me he would keep him occupied whenever necessary.  He
winked, "Definitely!" he said.  So Francis gained another companion to set
beside Ibrahim, who was overwhelmed with all the activity at the Embassy,
and on a couple of evenings when the engineers gave the all clear took him
off for a drink at the local pub.....  I hoped Tony was in agreement.  Mr
McIntyre did comment about the continual need for the Post Office to deal
with a deteriorating telephone service and he couldn't see it getting any
better if we joined the Europeans and anyway there was a woman now in
charge of the Conservative party.....  I nodded and agreed.  I'd always
found that best, especially when he started to advise me on the state of my
garden.

     I did ask Francis if Johnny had consulted him yet, as the resident
doctor, on the best cure for haemorrhoids.  I got an old-fashioned look,
then a wicked grin and "There's always hope!".  That was engendered by a
joke James had come out with as a very young teenager about a man who went
to the doctor with piles and had been given some cream and told to apply
it.  The man said he didn't know how too so the doctor told him to drop his
trousers and pants and bend over and then he put both hands on the man's
shoulders and the man said, 'Gosh, that's soothing'....  James said all the
boys, older than him it transpired, had all laughed then, and was that the
whole joke?  Francis had gone bright red at the time and told James to
'Shut it'.  James, for once, had taken the hint and did.  Later that
evening there were screams of laughter from upstairs and the mention of
haemorrhoids in the household always set James off in fits of giggles.

                              *
     I think the ticket office at the Opera House must have been
overwhelmed by the number of seats we booked on one application.  The Grand
Tier had the whole Thomson tribe, friends, relations and hangers-on for
that marvellous May evening.  >From the first chords of the Prokofiev score
conducted by Tim Parker we knew we were in for a great treat.  Jody as
Tybalt almost brought the house down with his swaggering dances in the
First Act as he quarrelled with Romeo and his friends.  Stephen as Romeo
looked the complete young Veronese gentleman in his well-tailored costume
and short cloak with his sword by his side.  Even in the later scenes when
he tried to get into the Capulets' house he showed by his actions that he
was a cut above even his suave companions, Mercutio and Benvolio.

     Lisa looked so young as Juliet, she could have been the
twelve-year-old of the story.  In that first meeting with Romeo there was
such an air of electric attraction in the way they approached each other.
Lisa so shy, coy but knowing, and Stephen, merely by gesture and simple
steps, conveying his awe and his sudden enchantment, as a fully sexually
aware lad of fourteen, by that beautiful young girl as Mercutio tried hard
to distract him.  Jody again as Tybalt showed an imperious streak as he
ordered him to leave the house.

     In the Second Act after the marriage ceremony came the fights with
spirited swordplay.  Mercutio was killed by Tybalt and then Romeo takes on
Tybalt and runs him through. As the sword fight concluded so Tim produced
those fifteen thunderous chords from the orchestra, each sounding more and
more menacing and final, and Tybalt died.  As Stephen had said all those
years ago about his own performance as a mouse, 'he died convincingly'.

     We saw the stature of the pair of young dancers develop as the story
unfolded so that they appeared mature beyond their years within the
intricate ramifications of the story, especially for Juliet, as she
succumbed to her father's wishes to marry Paris.  Paris was a very comely
young man, whose shapely thighs matched Jody's and whose bulge seemed even
more prominent and had Francis peering through his opera glasses each time
he appeared with a nudge from Ibrahim who wanted to borrow them.  His
dancing had a real air of authority.  I noted in the programme his name was
Peter DeLisle.  Someone else to watch out for in the future.

     In the final pages of the score, where Romeo sees the apparently dead
Juliet on the bier, his final throes in the grips of the poisoned draught,
after killing Paris, were heart- rending.  Juliet's own death on waking and
finding the inert bodies of the pair was simple theatre but so, so,
effectively performed.

     Not only the Grand Tier went wild as the last notes faded away but
there was such prolonged applause the curtain calls were still going on as
we all filed out to make our way backstage.  The attendants had been
primed, as usual, that 'family were in'.
  What a family!  At last there was a final curtain call.  Tim Parker
turned and rushed to me and gave me the greatest hug, nearly stabbing me, a
la Tybalt, with his conductor's baton.  "That lad.  He'll go far.  In fact
the three of them will!"

     The three were hugged, congratulated, complimented, praised.  It took
James to bring a little sanity and a huge burst of laughter into the
proceedings as he looked at his brother in his gold and white costume with
short jacket and white tights with the usual male dancer's conspicuous
bulge.  "You're much too well-hung for a fourteen-year-old," he said,
looking at him below the midriff.  He shook his head.  "You'd better get
Francis to see to that before the next performance and then you can wear
this again."  He held up the dance-belt which must have belonged to a
ten-year-old, purloined or 'borrowed' by Stephen, and given to James that
Christmas all those years ago.

                              *
     On Saturday August the Second Stephen and Lisa were married, with Jody
as best man, and Jody's companion-to-be-for-life, Peter DeLisle, was one of
the ushers with Stephen's other four brothers.

     "'The tumult and the shouting dies; the Captains and the Kings
depart'" quoted Anne as we arrived back in Cambridge after the wedding.  It
had to take place in London at the Kensington and Chelsea Register Office
as it seemed as if half of theatrical, or balletic, London wanted to
attend.  There was a huge reception with streams of guests bearing gifts,
congratulations and best wishes for the future.

     A week before the ceremony Stephen and Lisa had been home going over
details with Anne and Ina McIntyre.  As usual, when important things were
in the air, I had retreated to my study.  Stephen came back from next door.
He peered round the door.  I was shuffling papers around.

     "Can we talk?" he asked, very seriously, then he began to giggle.

     "Not you too?" I said, guessing.

     He rushed over and flung his arms round me as he had done so many
times before.  "I've caught the Thomson bug!" he almost deafened me with
his shout.

     We just held on to each other and laughed.  That sort of laugh where
love and warmth and great affection are mingled.  My Stephen, my adopted
son but so, so, close.

     "When is it due?"  I managed to gasp as I got my breath back.

     "Middle of February!"

     I counted.  Middle of May.  The performance.

     He sat and held my hand as he said they'd already announced they were
getting married before then to some of their friends in the Company - we'd
heard the day after the performance.  That night, the four of them, he,
Lisa, Jody and Peter had gone to stay at the Kensington flat with Ma and
Pa.  He and Lisa had gone to bed together for the first time and that was
when it happened.  The same night Jody and Peter decided that their
friendship had developed into love and they had slept together, quite
chastely, according to Jody's account to Stephen.  In one night four lives
had been settled and another had begun.  Lisa's mum had guessed as she had
been sick on a visit home and they were telling Anne at the moment.

     We were sitting there when Safar appeared.  There were more noisy
congratulations and the promise not to set tongues wagging.  How he kept
silent until after the ceremony we didn't know.

                              *
     After the wedding Jody and Peter came back with us as they had three
weeks off before rehearsals started again.  As we entered the house after
Anne's quotation she turned to Jody.

     "Take your's and Peter's bags up to the big guest room."  She turned
to Peter.  "I don't know whether you're son or son-in-law now but this is
your home too!"  She kissed him as he blushed.

     There were tears all round - of joy and happiness, with Khaled and
Safar, very meaningfully saying they would miss sharing with Jody; Safar
saying mainly because he was such a fidget in bed, always tossing and
turning.  There was a certain emphasis on the word 'tossing' and it was
Jody's turn to redden, but only slightly, as the look of happiness on
Peter's face was such we knew that Jody was well-known for his fidgeting.

     The next morning I'd had breakfast in a very quiet house and was in my
study.  After some time Safar peeked in, put his finger to his lips and
beckoned me out.  As we went into the corridor he whispered he'd been down
and prepared tea and toast and marmalade for the pair.  As he was carrying
the tray he didn't knock but went in.  He smiled.  "Come on, but be quiet!"

     The door to the big guest room was open and we entered quite silently.
It had been a warm night and the two sleeping figures showed this.  Both
were nude and didn't even have a sheet over them.  They lay, facing each
other, foreheads touching, Jody's damp red locks were almost tangled with
Peter's equally damp, but lustrous, brown hair which fell forward over his
face.  Jody had a protective arm under Peter's neck and over his back.
They slept so soundly, their beautifully sculpted, well-defined torsos
moving in synchrony with their slow steady breathing.  There wasn't an
ounce of fat on them and their muscular stomachs rose and fell also in time
with their breathing.  It was noticeable that both had shaved away most of
their pubic hair which made their drooping uncircumcised penises look quite
massive on their slim bodies.  Their foreskins were slightly retracted and
the dark pink of their ends contrasted with the very white skin of Jody and
the darker, almost brown hue of Peter's lengthy young cock.  They lay so
peacefully like two young Greek gods, or a veritable Castor and Pollux.

     There was ample evidence why they were sleeping so heavily and so
late.
  That night they had fully consummated their love for each other in all
ways we could but assume.  There were traces of that love nestling amongst
the hairs left on their bellies and there was copious further evidence on
the towels which were tucked under them.  I reached out and took Safar's
hand.  We looked at each other and smiled.  I leaned over the couple and
tenderly kissed each, very gently, on the forehead.  Then Safar did the
same.  Both smiled in their sleep.  We turned to leave them to rest knowing
that love, trust, affection and attachment had been attained fully that
night.  As we stood there we didn't realise that Khaled had been watching
us.  He went to the other side of the bed and planted his kisses of welcome
and brotherhood as well.

     It must have been near enough one o'clock when I was in the kitchen
with Khaled and Safar, with Khaled cutting sandwiches for lunch and Safar
making a big jug of Pimm's and sneering at me, baiting me to say something
about alcohol, when the two 'star-crossed lovers' appeared, shirtless, in
pairs of running shorts purloined from Francis's collection.  They both
looked so happy and kept looking at each other.  Jody couldn't contain
himself.  He flung an arm round Peter's shoulder.  He spoke to me but the
others were included.

     "Oh Dad!" he enthused, "We've both had the most wonderful dream.  It
was just like that time when I was at Ulvescott and the boy said I had to
dance as that was my life.  We both dreamt that we were blessed together
with kisses of love.  Can Peter come to Ulvescott as well?"

     Peter nodded.  "True!  And we're so much in love I can't believe it."
He smiled at us.  "And the way you've accepted me into your family."  He
shook his head.  "I'm overwhelmed!  It's taken my mum and dad five years to
accept me as I am and you all did it in five seconds!"

     We kept our peace.  We three knew not to say anything.  The sight of
those two bodies in loving repose would be an enduring memory for all three
of us.  In fact, Safar said to me some weeks later he had stored away that
memory as being one of the most beautiful things he'd ever seen.

     But, as Khaled indicated a plate for the two loaded with food, Safar
looked at me, then turned to the pair with a very serious air.

     "Didn't hear you two doing class this morning," he said with all the
gravity that only Safar could muster.

     The pair looked at each other, rather guiltily.

     "Thought we'd give it a miss this morning.  All the excitement
yesterday.  Needed to sleep," said Jody rather hesitantly.

     I looked across their heads at Safar, who knew exactly what extra
excitements needed extra sleep.  He looked from one to the other.
"Tomorrow morning then.  Light breakfast at eight and then in my and
Stephen's room at nine.  The barre's in there, Peter, I don't suppose
Jody's shown you yet.  And make certain it's the full routine."

     The pair looked at each other again.  "Of course," said Jody.


                    32.  The Lost Soul

     Khaled enjoyed his job at the finance house very much.  He'd earned
himself some quite substantial bonuses from the canny way he'd played the
market.  He shrugged his shoulders when asked how he did it.  "Sometimes
you win and sometimes you lose.  You have to keep your head and try to back
up your hunches.  Luck and good judgment."

     However, he wasn't too happy with some of the Governmental policies
and when inflation hit 26.9% in the second week of August he spent many
extra hours in the office.  Whether he was also being more watchful after
the earlier scare he did say he'd noticed a young chap, who was obviously a
down-and-out, sitting on the pavement in our road several days running.
Just in case, I 'phoned Lachs and he said he was nothing to do with him.
If we saw a strange window-cleaner's van the next couple of days they would
be keeping the vagrant under observation.

     Then Safar spotted him and said he seemed familiar and also he judged
under the dirt and tatters he wasn't all that old, not out of his teens.
He'd actually given the lad a pound and said he'd had rather a glazed look.
He wondered if he was on drugs or had been.  He looked half-starved anyway.
Lachs reported that he was unknown and the pseudo-window-cleaners went
elsewhere.

     It all came to a head a couple of days later.  A neighbour up the road
had a most aggressive terrier bitch who had gone for the flapping, torn
trouser leg of the lad as he stood at the corner and had ended up biting
him.  The neighbour was distraught and, knowing that Francis was a doctor,
who, of course, was making one of his frequent calls at home for extra
food, rushed along worrying that someone would call the police and have her
dear little dog put down.  As she quietened the dog and dragged it off,
just before it would have got a well- deserved kick up the rear from me,
Francis went up to the lad who was sitting holding his ankle and sobbing
quietly.  I went along, too, just as Francis was questioning him and trying
to get him to take his very dirty, unwashed hand away from the wound.
Gosh, the poor lad stank and his body was so thin I just wondered what was
holding him together.  I also thought he was familiar in some way and then
noticed as he took his hand away from his ankle that he had a very small
tattoo of a butterfly on the skin between his thumb and first finger of his
right hand.  I knew who it was.

     I helped Francis stand him up and we half carried him back to the
house.  He wouldn't come in so Francis sat him on a chair in the garden and
proceeded to clean the wound as best he could while I went to the
telephone.  I 'phoned Kanga in London and very quietly said we'd found his
son.

     Tristan, an only child, had been very shy and retiring.  I worked out
he must be near enough eighteen now.  He'd gone to a very good independent
school in Hampstead, was doted on by Kanga and Audrey, and had taken his
GCSEs more than a year earlier than usual.  He'd started in the Sixth Form
when he was barely fifteen and somehow had been enticed into trying drugs.
It had started with cannabis and he's been suspended from school.  Two so-
called friends of his had been found with cocaine and were prosecuted and
it was thought he had got involved as well.  When he was sixteen he had
disappeared.  Runaway kids are so common in London the police said that
they could do little.  Even Lachs said it would be difficult to find him if
he was determined to hide.

     He had visited us once when he was about ten and our lot were all in
their teens, boisterous and rowdy I suppose to a boy living with quiet
parents in a large mansion flat in Torrington Place near University College
and attending, at the time, a small private school off Goodge Street
somewhere.  I remember he watched the antics with a quiet reserve.  There
was no harm in our lot they were just full of teenage hormones and energy.
As Lachs put it after one visit - rowing, rugger, masturbation and arguing,
just like school in his day.  But Tristan had returned.  Was this some way
of trying to make contact?

     Francis said he would ring the hospital and have him admitted.  He was
really very weak and as far as Francis could make out had existed for the
past week on some scraps of food he'd found in a bin at the back of the pub
at the end of the road and some sandwiches a kind neighbour had given him.
Francis wanted to examine him properly but he needed to be cleaned up
first.  I offered to drive him to the hospital and at last we coaxed him
into the back of the car with Francis and Mrs McIntyre almost holding him
down.  He was agitated which Francis said could be a sign he was coming
down from being on drugs.  He'd need tests to see what.

     That evening Safar and I went to see him.  He was in bed in a separate
room with a drip and was sleeping.  Francis came along in his white coat
and said they'd found he'd had some heroin about a week ago but he wasn't
used to it so there must have been an adverse reaction.  He'd asked a nurse
where he was and was rather puzzled when she said Cambridge.  As we sat by
his bed Kanga came in looking so sad and so relieved.  He took one look.
"It's Tristan," he said and burst into tears.  I lead him out and we sat in
the waiting room while Safar sat by Tristan's bedside and talked softly to
him and held his hand.

     Kanga stayed the night with us and we went early in the morning to see
Tristan again.  He was more awake now but was still dehydrated and lacked
any energy.  I left father and son together.  Kanga said Audrey was beside
herself.  She had almost given up any hope of seeing her son again.  There
were so many stories of addicts being found dead she had lived in fear that
her son might be a statistic one day.

     We promised Kanga that we, and Francis, especially, would look after
him.  That evening Francis told us that as far as they could make out
Tristan hadn't become an addict.  He had the remnants of a few punctures in
his arms but not sufficient to cause concern.  His main problem was that he
was starved.  Francis then said it was obvious he had earned money to live
in the only way possible for a runaway teen.  He was starving because it
was clear he would need some reconstructive surgery to his anus and rectum
and couldn't have stood another insertion without great pain and he
probably wasn't getting enough giving blow-jobs especially in the dreadful
state he was in.  As Francis delicately put it, "Who would want their cock
sucked by a derelict?"

     Tristan was in Addenbrooke's for a week and then he came and stayed
with us.  Kanga and Audrey came too for the weekend but Francis's advice
was to let him get used to us first.  He was very listless and tired to
begin with but gradually with good food and the quieter company he revived.
It was Safar in his quiet way who got his story from him.  In the evenings
they sat and talked or just sat together.  To begin with we put him in the
small spare room but after a couple of days he moved into Safar's room and
shared his bed.  Safar said nothing was happening between them, it was just
for company as Tristan couldn't really sleep alone as he woke up
distressed.  In any case, as well as the other surgery needed, his penis
and foreskin had been mangled in some way and Francis said he would require
to be circumcised as well.

     He said he still didn't know how he got to Cambridge.  He thought he
must have hitched a lift and some long-stored memory had led him from the
city centre out to us.  He had been living rough for some months after a
man who had taken him in had chucked him out when he wouldn't take part in
any more orgies where the man's friends dressed up in outlandish costumes.
He said to Safar it all came to a head when he'd been fucked by the man and
six of his friends one night and he'd been forced to give them all
blow-jobs first.  In the end they'd tied him to a bed and fucked him so
many times he'd passed out.  That was when the damage was done.  We took
him back to Addenbrooke's and he had both sets of procedures done in
sequence.  Under his shyness he had a good sense of humour and said he felt
wrapped up for Christmas and stuffed like a turkey.  A bandage round his
dick and a mass of gauze up inside him as well.

     We brought him home and he stayed for Christmas and the New Year.  Jem
and Sam then took him over and with Lucius keeping an eye on him he was
installed in a room in the house in De Freville Avenue and was enrolled in
the Hills Road College to take his A levels.  The students in the house
adopted him as a mascot and though they were predominantly gay Tristan
wasn't.  He was an example to them where things could go wrong.  He
blossomed as he relaxed and found he didn't have to compete and Lucius even
taught him to play the flute, so another lost soul became attached to our
menagerie!


                         33.  1976

     On February the Fourteenth, St Valentine's Day, Andrew Francis James
Cameron Thomson was born in the early evening.  Lisa was booked into
Addenbrooke's Rosie Maternity Wing so we all trooped in the next afternoon.
Stephen was breathless with pride.  Jody and Peter were there as well and
had brought all the flowers the cast had received the previous night as
well as two packs of multi-coloured condoms with the best wishes of the
boys in the company.  While we were there a telephone call came from James
and Diane in Chester.  James, of course, wanted to know why the poor child
was saddled with four names when he'd been content with three each for his
own pair.  After that remark was relayed to us Stephen put on his own
imperious voice and said that he should know that his own uncle had taken
Stephen's father as his own son and had bestowed the honourable name of
Thomson on him.  He was proud to bear the name Cameron Thomson and if his
son was a bit top-heavy in names he could always remove the James.  For
once, I think James was silenced.  Then Stephen said, with his giggle,
"Only joking, bro, he's got to have the lot!"

                              *
     Several things happened in a hurry over the next few months.  Firstly,
Uncle Lester March died of some unspecified ailment with 'pneumonia' on the
death certificate and Tony had to fly out suddenly to arrange the funeral
and deal with the lawyers.  Then, because of the national financial crisis
with interest rates and so on, the hotel chain that leased Ashburn House
asked for the lease to be rescinded on payment of a goodly sum.  This was a
godsend as Messrs Grabbit and Runne, as we called our solicitors in
Kerslake, were able to offer Ashburn House on a substantial lease to the
Trustees of the American university.  The Duchess was agreeable and at over
eighty now said the lease would revert to a musical charity when she died.

     Chuck flew over immediately to finalise the deal bringing Brad the
Third, still sixteen stone, muscular and as gay as possible and deposited
him in Francis's grateful lap for an extended stay.  At least, James said,
when he came down at Easter and slapped Brad on the back in greeting and
held his hand in mock pain, he hoped Brad was kind to his elderly brother
and said Francis had never really got the hang of that double leg twist and
full submission or whatever Brad called it and was itching to practice it
all again.  As Johnny McIver was also on leave I dreaded to think what a
combined thirty stone might do to my lanky son Francis's body if they tried
a few joint wrestling moves on him.  Something worse than carpet burns?
Francis seemed to thrive on it, though.  Brad stayed on and moved into the
house with him and Tony.  He signed up for unspecified courses but seemed
to spend a lot of his time working-out with the boaties and keeping a
certain smile on Francis's face.

     Thirdly, on a weekend visit where even he looked pale and wan, Sayed
said he was giving up the Ambassadorship.  He was thoroughly fed up with
all the jockeying for position amongst his quarrelsome relations so he
would look for a nice quiet country estate in England and live the life of
an English gentleman and they could stick.....  I laughed and said he was
already more English than the English and the grand idea struck me.
Ulvescott Manor!  He knew some of the story so when I just said the two
words, Ulvescott Manor, he smiled and said "Perfect".

     My telephone bill was going to be astronomical as I had to 'phone Tony
almost daily with news and get instructions and agreements.  He said Uncle
Lester had made a very comprehensive Will and, as long as their own
versions of Sue, Grabbit and Runne in the States didn't start quibbling,
about thirty of Uncle Lester's retired little helpers would each get a
hundred thousand dollars each, another twenty fifty thousand each, and the
final four, Beef, Tex, Neils the Swede and Nick were in the running for
five hundred thousand each.  Not only that, Paul and Alistair had impressed
the old boy so much with their industry and hard work they were getting
fifty thousand each.  I whistled, and being a mathematician manque, did a
quick calculation.  "That's over six million dollars!" I said.

     "And there's the rest!" said Tony with a laugh.  "Uncle Lester knew
that money grows money and he made some very wise investments.  Those pool
parties paid off.  He got plenty of hot tips - and I don't mean what you're
thinking!"  He had a fit of the giggles and spoke to someone in the
background.  "I'll have to ring back.  There's someone from some American
Museum of Art waving a huge cheque so I'm told."

     When he rang back I found the museum was interested only in Uncle
Lester's own sketches and drawings for the films and stage shows.  There
were literally hundreds, probably thousands of these that the boys had
sorted into portfolios and they could be used as a tax deductible asset if
donated to the museum.  They were valued at some astronomical sum and I was
totally bemused by all the noughts the Americans seemed always to be
speaking about.  Of course, they called noughts zeroes but it all came to
the same thing!

     Tony flew back home and when he came to report on progress he handed
me a piece of paper.  He said he'd brought it over tucked in a copy of the
Los Angeles News or something.  He winked and said it was mine for all I'd
done for the family.  He didn't like it.  It was the Picasso drawing.  He
had decided it was probably a bull in full pursuit of some luckless
matador.  The most discernible bit of the sketch might be the gigantic
bollocks swinging back.  At least that was also the considered opinion of
Francis and Khaled when they looked at the scribble and had a learned
discussion about it.  Francis said it was like a Rorschach Inkblot Test
where you had to say what you saw.  Safar said it was more likely to be a
back view of Grunty, rushing down the pitch and scoring a try having had
his shorts split, like in that game against Bedford School.  It was pointed
out that Grunty and Picasso had never met and why did he think it was him
anyway.  Safar said his were just like melons, then blushed and said he'd
just done a James.  Jody and Peter were giggling over it and Jody said the
lot of them were just like the bloke who went to a psychologist for tests
to see if he was suitable for a job.  He was shown a triangle and asked to
say what he thought it was.  He said it was a rude picture.  The
psychologist then showed him a circle and he said that was pornographic.
On the third attempt he said a square reminded him of a centrefold in
Playboy magazine.  The psychologist said he'd never met anyone so obsessed
by sex.  The chap said "What about you mate, you're the one showing me all
the dirty pictures!".


     All in all, as Tony was the main residual beneficiary it turned out he
inherited a very large sum of money.  Before the British tax man could get
his fingers on it he bought a villa in the South of France and announced he
would spend six months of the year there and Francis was going to do a
course in France so he could practise as a doctor there as well.  Uncle
Lester had also included all my six in the Will so with luck and the help
of a good tax consultant they wouldn't be too hard up.

     Tony said that the four lads were devastated about Uncle Lester's
death but what was very worrying was that two seemed to have caught some
bug.  He said Tex and Beef were both losing weight and were getting
listless and lethargic.  Some of their friends were complaining too of
similar symptoms.  He'd instructed the attorneys to sell off the houses in
Beverly Hills and Los Angeles and the four lads, with the Porto Rican boy
who was looking after Beef and Tex mainly, would be living at the Florida
house as long as they liked.  Of course, any of us could visit whenever.

                              *
     Sayed took over the lease of Ulvescott Manor in November with the
intention of giving up his post in January and moving into a further
refurbished Manor before Easter.  His trusted assistant Walid, with his
bodyguard and driver, would also be in residence and we were all invited to
keep him company whenever we felt like it.  The best thing for Khaled was
that Iyad would be brought over and cared for there probably later in the
year.

     Safar started his third year writing up the first chapters of his
thesis.  He'd got bogged down over translating a very old document in
ancient Spanish and Arabic and had to wait for it to be done for him as Ma
had struggled but the archaisms were very technical and Safar's actual
knowledge of Arabic was very rudimentary.  But he was busy practising and
we arranged for Johnny McIver to accompany him to London to take his organ
exams.  They stayed at the flat in Kensington as the Royal College of
Organists building was just across the road.  They must have shared a room
as I heard Safar on the 'phone to Francis when he returned.  ".....And
you're right, Francis...." Then came the usual giggle.  "....from tiny
acorns mighty oaks grow.....  Wow!"  I had wondered why the stay had been
extended from the expected three days to five!  Ma did say she thought
Johnny was a very personable young man.  Safar added ARCO to his BA and
LRAM.

                         34.  1977

     Just before Easter Safar said he was very pleased about the way his
thesis was going now.  He'd completed his analytical chapters and was now
writing up conclusions and would present it during the Summer Term.  He'd
wandered along to my study and although he seemed guileless with these
remarks, which I knew anyway, I guessed there was more to just telling me
all that.

     "Dad," he at last was going to get something off his chest.  I knew by
the way he said that one word.  "D'you think I could ask someone....." He
looked at me, his brown eyes wide open.  "....Dad, I'd better tell you.
There's one of the librarians.  She's ever so nice.  D'you think I could
invite her to supper one night?"

     "Why don't you just ask her and take her out for a meal?"

     He bit his lip.  "I'm shy about it.  Well, she's white.....  ....and
I'm not."

     "Safar don't be silly.  If she likes you and you like her what
difference will that make?  It's never made any difference to anything
else, has it?"

     He shook his head.  "It's not just that.  I'm supposed to be a Muslim
but I don't think I am really.  I don't know anything about it.  And
Khaled's not much help, he says he just remembers bits of the Koran they
made him learn but that's all and that's all hazy.  He just laughed and
said as far as he knew we both got the chop to mark us out, but so did Leo
Weinstein at school.  He was Jewish but he said his parents didn't go to
synagogue.  So I don't really know anything.  What happens if she asks me?"

     "That's a question which might get asked later," I said.  "Why don't
you ask Ludo.  He'll know all about religions.  I'm afraid I don't know
anything."  I smiled.  "You know quite well we took on two scraps of
humanity and never asked any questions about whether you were green, blue
or striped or whether you were C of E, R.C, Rastafarian or Hindu."  He
laughed.  I went on. "You were two naked little pagans in the bath as far
as I was concerned when I saw all of you first.  The only difference
between you and Cally and the others around here as far as I know, having
inspected the lot of you either voluntarily or compulsorily many times
before and since then, is you and your brother tan a bit more easily and
you pinch your Mum's hand lotion now when you run out of your own!"

     "Dad!" he said, bursting into a fit of the giggles, "James is right.
You know everything.  How do you know about the hand lotion?"

     "Safar, most English boys know the difference between Old Spice and
Brut and drench themselves in one or the other on Saturday evenings, think
James, but there are very few who keep two bottles of Boots best hand
lotion tucked away on the top of their bedside cabinets."  I winked at him.
"That bit of extra makes it unnecessary!"

     He roared.  "Don't tell me!.....  James and the others have teased me
enough.....  Whoops, Safar, you've done a James!"

     He looked at me studiously.  "I know it's not what I wanted to ask you
but are all boys like us?"

     "Safar you're twenty-four and you're asking me that!  Are you asking
whether boys were the same when I was young?"

     He nodded.

     "You've read the book?"  He nodded.  "I expect James told you about
the diaries" He nodded again.  "And who instructed Grunty?"  'Tiger' he
murmured.  "Well, that's quite a few generations, so as far as I know, boys
have always been the same.  It's in their nature.  Now tell me about the
librarian, and she's coming to supper on Saturday if you ask her.  I'll
arrange it with Anne and we'll ban the others!"  I laughed.  "Ibrahim's
going to be at Tony's and I don't suppose you want father to hear anything
yet and Brad, and I expect Tris, will be with them.  I know, what about
Thingy, the organist...." I could never remember his name....  I
remembered.  A Welsh lad.  "...Lewis.  He's got a girlfriend because I've
seen him with her...."

     He smiled.  "Yes, she's in the Graduate Office.  She's nice, too."

     "Right," I said, "Dinner for six.  No, nine, Jody and Peter will be
here and I forgot your brother."  I laughed.  "They'll behave.  Anne'll
arrange for Nick to do it.  He owes us a dinner.  And we can have a couple
of bottles of the wine from Ulvescott!  That is, if you can force it down,
I know Khaled will.."

     "Dad!  Stop it.  Father likes a drop, too.  You know he does.  And so
do Ibrahim and Walid."

     "Well it might be a way for questions not to be asked.  By the way,
what's her name?  We'd better know that or it could be embarrassing for
some ancient old don to ask 'And you're Miss....?  Do you come here often?"
I had put on a wavery voice.

     "Dad", he said, looking much more relaxed, "Stop taking the mickey.
You're not ancient... yet!  Anyway, she's Charlotte Holmes and Lew's
girlfriend is Cressida...., Cressida Grosvenor.  They both know you because
they both took French Subsid and..."  He laughed.  "....and Cressy says all
the girls used to sit in the front row at your lectures because they
thought you were tall, dark and handsome....  Dad, you mustn't say
anything, will you?"

     "I'll see.  Tall, dark and handsome, you say?  I'll tell your Mum
that!"

     He laughed.  "She knows!"

     "And what about Charlotte?"

     He was getting expansive now - a lovesick swain from the enthusiastic
tone of his voice.  "She read music.  She was at Girton.  That's why she's
in the music library.  She plays the cello and Cressy plays the oboe...."

     "....And have you played any duets yet?"

     He looked at me, pouted and stuck his lips out.  "If I think what you
mean is...  the answer's no!"

     "So, all other procreative demands have passed you by, too."  I knew
from Lachs that Safar's duties were not required.

     He snickered, then looked serious.  "They only made Khaled do it
because he was the eldest son.  Ibrahim told me I've been crossed off any
lists.  With father leaving I'm a nobody as far as they are concerned.  It
doesn't worry me.  Ibrahim said they'll make me an allowance, but I'd
rather earn my living.  That is, if I can.  And it's alright for Khaled
coming.  I told him and he knows."


To be Continued:................