been punched. But he was young. If you’re young, you’re expected to do something either illegal or rude. What he would have to do at some point was find an Eton jacket and school tie to use for British Rail rides.
Right now, though, it was more important to have a place to himself to think. He had managed, with endless cups of coffee, to stay awake. Sleep was out; he wouldn’t dare. He would dream. He would dream about his mother and it would be one of those diabolically happy dreams that one never wanted to wake from even in the best of circumstances. And in waking, he would be totally vulnerable to the onslaught of feeling he had armored himself to avoid. He remembered too many times waking up to misery (at the Holdsworths’, in the scummy gray darkness of Severn School, at frozen points on a railway station when his father was coming to collect him long ago when he’d wake on the train . . .). If the dreams hadthemselves been miserable, it wouldn’t have been so bad. But it was all a trick, wasn’t it, life? Dream of a field grazed by sheep and wake up to wolves.
He took a small notebook and a pen from his pocket and held them, notebook open, pen unscrewed. HELL. He wrote it down. And then he crossed it out. Why would anyone, anything, bother to think up a Hell in the afterlife when all you had to do was stop awhile in this one?
Fields flew past, unremarked. All Alex saw was his own dim reflection in the pane. Occasionally a telephone pole here, a silo there. Farther along light shimmered over fields encircling some distant mirage of a village.
He leaned back. Money, fortunately, was no problem. Alex hadn’t saved for rainy days; he’d counted on torrents, and one had come.
Some of the money he had just won on Fortune’s Son was now on his person. For two years he had accumulated money to get him and his mum to someplace the Holdsworths had never heard of—Lithuania, he understood, was pleasant. Fourteen hundred pounds. A hundred in his wallet (less the train fare), six hundred strapped in a small money-bag round his ankle, four sewn into the lining of his jacket, the rest in an inside pocket of the rucksack.
Over four thousand quid had been accumulated during his business dealings at Severn School. Twice he had been sent down for cardplaying, although the headmaster could never understand why he played poker, since he never seemed to win.
• • •
When it had finally been decided that Alex must go off to private school, he had made the best of it. It wasn’t that he minded so much going to Severn School—actually, it made a change for a while from his comprehensive-school “mates,” whose idea of having a good time was spending Saturdays at the cinema, or going biking, or sitting about in some clubby way smoking and lying about their conquests with girls.
Alex certainly had nothing against girls; he just couldn’t find one with any imagination. They turned out to be merely prettier versions of the boys; they went to the cinema and had sleep-over parties where they smoked and talked about the boys.
While his schoolchums were sneaking into X-rated films and leaving with only Parently Approved girls, Alex was studying racingforms, the stock market, and estate agents’ brochures and adverts for properties in Ibiza. Merely for practice, he’d follow the gentrification of the London burbs. He’d take the tube to Limehouse, Wanstead, even Bow—which was now trendy. Bow, would you believe it? Alex decided that once he got the stake he’d start a trend.
Alex studied demographics, not people. He knew about people simply from listening in on conversations in tea rooms, on park benches, and in whatever pubs he could get into in dark glasses shoved on top of his head just to show he didn’t have anything to hide. He was tall for his age and his voice, fortunately, had changed early.
But he couldn’t get into the betting shops. Sitting on a park bench he’d found a seedy old con man
Right now, though, it was more important to have a place to himself to think. He had managed, with endless cups of coffee, to stay awake. Sleep was out; he wouldn’t dare. He would dream. He would dream about his mother and it would be one of those diabolically happy dreams that one never wanted to wake from even in the best of circumstances. And in waking, he would be totally vulnerable to the onslaught of feeling he had armored himself to avoid. He remembered too many times waking up to misery (at the Holdsworths’, in the scummy gray darkness of Severn School, at frozen points on a railway station when his father was coming to collect him long ago when he’d wake on the train . . .). If the dreams hadthemselves been miserable, it wouldn’t have been so bad. But it was all a trick, wasn’t it, life? Dream of a field grazed by sheep and wake up to wolves.
He took a small notebook and a pen from his pocket and held them, notebook open, pen unscrewed. HELL. He wrote it down. And then he crossed it out. Why would anyone, anything, bother to think up a Hell in the afterlife when all you had to do was stop awhile in this one?
Fields flew past, unremarked. All Alex saw was his own dim reflection in the pane. Occasionally a telephone pole here, a silo there. Farther along light shimmered over fields encircling some distant mirage of a village.
He leaned back. Money, fortunately, was no problem. Alex hadn’t saved for rainy days; he’d counted on torrents, and one had come.
Some of the money he had just won on Fortune’s Son was now on his person. For two years he had accumulated money to get him and his mum to someplace the Holdsworths had never heard of—Lithuania, he understood, was pleasant. Fourteen hundred pounds. A hundred in his wallet (less the train fare), six hundred strapped in a small money-bag round his ankle, four sewn into the lining of his jacket, the rest in an inside pocket of the rucksack.
Over four thousand quid had been accumulated during his business dealings at Severn School. Twice he had been sent down for cardplaying, although the headmaster could never understand why he played poker, since he never seemed to win.
• • •
When it had finally been decided that Alex must go off to private school, he had made the best of it. It wasn’t that he minded so much going to Severn School—actually, it made a change for a while from his comprehensive-school “mates,” whose idea of having a good time was spending Saturdays at the cinema, or going biking, or sitting about in some clubby way smoking and lying about their conquests with girls.
Alex certainly had nothing against girls; he just couldn’t find one with any imagination. They turned out to be merely prettier versions of the boys; they went to the cinema and had sleep-over parties where they smoked and talked about the boys.
While his schoolchums were sneaking into X-rated films and leaving with only Parently Approved girls, Alex was studying racingforms, the stock market, and estate agents’ brochures and adverts for properties in Ibiza. Merely for practice, he’d follow the gentrification of the London burbs. He’d take the tube to Limehouse, Wanstead, even Bow—which was now trendy. Bow, would you believe it? Alex decided that once he got the stake he’d start a trend.
Alex studied demographics, not people. He knew about people simply from listening in on conversations in tea rooms, on park benches, and in whatever pubs he could get into in dark glasses shoved on top of his head just to show he didn’t have anything to hide. He was tall for his age and his voice, fortunately, had changed early.
But he couldn’t get into the betting shops. Sitting on a park bench he’d found a seedy old con man
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