The Lie by Helen Dunmore Page B

Hundreds. Thousands, even. Frederick had textbooks, too. Kennedy’s Latin Primer , Durell’s Elementary Problem Papers , Panting’s English Grammar , Laboulaye’s Contes Bleus  . . .
    The Oxford Book of English Verse , edited by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch. That was the most important of all. Later I found out that Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch was a Cornishman, born not forty miles away, up in Bodmin.
    Frederick would toss the books to me when he was finished with them, as if they meant nothing. I could open The Oxford Book of English Verse at any page, and he would know nothing of what was on it. And yet he must have studied it. I was mystified, and then I would flatter myself with a touch of scorn for his laziness. It took me years to realise that Frederick was not lazy. I couldn’t believe that he could fail to learn, if he wanted to, with everything he needed set in front of him. I never knew how to describe what it was that Frederick had. He made it seem as if the way he did things was the only possible way that they could be done. When I realised that he couldn’t read a poem once over and know it, as I could, it made me think that there was something freakish in the gift. He laboured to learn the long lists of declensions that his school gave him. Mr Dennis read Frederick’s school report and hired a tutor for the summer holidays.
    I took The Oxford Book of English Verse from him one day when we were lying in a hollow above the cliffs. I read aloud the poem he was learning:
    Out of the night that covers me,
    Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
    I thank whatever gods may be
    For my unconquerable soul.
     
    In the fell clutch of circumstance
    I have not winced nor cried aloud.
    Under the bludgeoning of chance
    My head is bloody, but unbowed.
     
    It was the kind of stuff that I liked then. I had just time to finish declaiming it before Frederick snatched the book from me.
    ‘ You haven’t got to learn it.’
    ‘I know it already,’ I said.
    ‘You infernal blowviator.’
    ‘It’s true.’
    Frederick held the book against his chest, pages inward. He’d known for years that I could tell him any story through, if I’d read it once, but this was different. ‘All right then. Cough it up.’
    ‘ Out of the night that covers me,
    Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
    I thank whatever gods may be
    For my unconquerable soul.
     
    In the fell clutch of circumstance . . .’
     
    I went on to the end.
    ‘Do that again,’ said Frederick, staring at me as if there was a trick he hadn’t been quick enough to spot. He flipped the book open at another page and held it towards me. It was Lord Byron:
    When we two parted
    In silence and tears,
    Half broken-hearted
    To sever for years,
    Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
    Colder thy kiss;
    Truly that hour foretold
    Sorrow to this . . .
     
    Twice more Frederick opened the book at a random page, and tested me. Twice more I recalled the words perfectly. Something changed then. I couldn’t read his Greek but I could read Latin. I didn’t understand it and I mispronounced it, but I could learn it as easy as breathing. Then I wished I’d never done it, because Frederick said that he would tell his father. For a moment my mind was flooded with impossibilities. Mr Dennis would clap me on the shoulder and say, ‘My boy, this is quite remarkable.’ He would send me to school with Frederick. I would leave Mulla House. I would become—
    What would I become? Besides, Mr Dennis had no interest in poetry, or Greek or Latin. He hadn’t read a single one of his own books. Frederick had to learn what a gentleman should learn. The things he learned had no importance in themselves. Mr Dennis would be embarrassed if I showed off my tricks to him, as if Frederick had brought in a performing monkey.
    ‘Don’t tell him,’ I said.
    ‘You fatuous ape, why not?’
    ‘You’re the fatuous ape if you don’t know,’ I said, using his words, feeling them go wrong in my mouth. I got up and