Meeting Byron

Laurie dashed through the rain with his books pulled close to his chest. His shoes were muddy and the shoulders of his jacket glistened with drops of water falling from his bronze hair. Splashing to a stop beneath an overhang, Laurie lifted his head and judged the distance still between himself and the library. Impatiently, he stamped his feet, sending out little sprays of water and dislodging clods of soggy earth from his shoes.

“I say,” a melodious, tempered voice spoke from just behind Laurie’s left shoulder.

Laurie stopped stomping his feet with a guilty start and turned his head in the voice’s direction. He found himself staring at a man with deep brown eyes and cleft chin. His hair was cut short and curled away from a slightly receding hairline. Stepping back, Laurie turned fully and gave the man a thorough once-over. “I beg your pardon, sir. I did not see you.”

The slim body shifted in its sheltered nook. Long arms crossed in front, left hand--long, narrow fingers--clasping his right wrist. A wide, thin-lipped mouth twisted up. “No harm. No harm.” He said mildly, as if not noticing the cuffs of his wool trousers were splattered with mud from Laurie’s shoes

.

Laurie cast his glance down and away, his eyes resting briefly on the book in the man’s jacket pocket. The top edge was frayed. He could see “Plato” in dark lettering on the brown cloth cover but nothing more. He felt an uncomfortable sense of the familiar without knowing whence it came. He brushed his hand through his wet hair and stared out at the rain. The downpour looked to be settling in for a visit through Boxing Day.

“Are you studying him in school?”

"I beg your pardon?" Laurie said, still somewhat distracted by the rain.

"I asked if you were studying Plato in school?"

Laurie again turned and was greeted by a warm yet somehow startling smile. “I don't quite know who you mean.” The smile inexplicably put him on the defensive, as if the man had suddenly raised his fists. He did not quite understand why as something as benign as a smile should make him feel so, but it did. And again, there was the sense that he'd seen the man somewhere before. Laurie's face drew into a puzzled frown.

“Plato.” The man spoke mildly enough but there seemed an undercurrent; an electrostatic charge building up around a heavy wool blanket, ready to zing the tips of unwary fingers.

Feeling the topmost book under his palm, Laurie possessed an urge to hide it, as if it were an obscene commentary about his inner most thoughts. He knew the thought was foolish but he couldn't quite help it. “A school fellow gave it me.”

The lips parted, revealing small, even teeth, lightly stained with tobacco. “You don’t say.”

Laurie contemplated the rain, thinking irrationally that he should not mind a soaking and get himself away to the library. “I do say.”

“I’m a fan of ‘Symposium’, myself. Have you read it?”

“No, I haven’t,” Laurie furrowed his brow and thrust out his chin, something like a threatened monkey.

“Pity.”

The way the man’s eyes flickered up and down the length of Laurie’s body made him shiver and by inner instinct forced his right foot sideways, dragging his body with it, as if the inches separating them were not nearly room enough. Rain splattered his right side. He felt as though he were ready to flee and couldn’t think why he should, only that it should be so. Still the man offered him no violence and Laurie had to shake himself, wondering what flight of fancy had gotten into him. Beyond the familiarity of features, he couldn‘t think what the man had done to set him off so. Fairly certain he should at least try to be polite, Laurie rustled around in his head, looking for something suitable to say. “What’s it about?”

A shadow flickered behind the brown eyes and the lips twisted into an almost smile. “Love. Or, more precisely, the nature of love.”

Laurie only nodded, not at all certain what to say. Though for politeness sake, he knew ought to respond.

The man saved him. “This schoolmate of yours. You are close then?”

Again, Laurie was overcome with a need to protect himself. He forced himself to turn around and stare frankly at the man. This time his appraisal was more informative. The gentleman was several years older, Laurie judged. The eyes themselves were sharp, darting hither and thither, as if catching even the subtlest nuance. When the eyes settled on him, Laurie got the rather uncomfortable sensation of having been caught doing something wicked.

“No,” he answered. “We were not close. He gave it me as a good-bye gift."

"I beg pardon," the man said mildly, meeting Laurie's gaze. "I do not mean to pry. It's just that one is always intrigued when one runs into a fellow student of the Greeks, you understand."

If the man found Laurie’s stare disconcerting, he did not show it. He reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a package of cigarettes and a box of matches. He held them out to Laurie, who took one, holding it loosely between his fingers while the man lit his own cigarette and then held the match for Laurie. The man tossed away the burnt wood and turned his head, giving Laurie his profile while he dragged on his cigarette. He pulled a speck of tobacco from his bottom lip.

Exhaling in a rush of laughter, Laurie coughed a thin blue plume of smoke. When the dark eyes focused on him in surprised good humor, Laurie shook his head, still coughing lightly. “There for a moment, you liked like Lord Byron.”

The man’s hand came up and touched his bare head. “I knew I shouldn’t have worn this turban.” His brown eyes twinkled with mischief and the lopsided smile returned to his smooth face.

Laurie laughed again and the sound reverberated off the store façade and the man smiled. A motor car pass by, its round headlamps illuminating drops of rain. “I was more in mind of the other one, from the eighteen hundreds. The painting, I mean."

"You are not the first to remark upon the resemblence. His lordship and I do not share common ancestry, as far as I am aware."

"I’m Laurie Odell. What’s your name?” Laurie stuck out his hand in that impetuous manner he had about him, somehow both frank and shy at the same time. There were moments in Laurie's life where events happened around him and he was swept away by them without effort on his part. Perhaps it was his impetuous nature or some other, foriegn instinct which led him down crooked footpaths unware. A moment later, he felt it clasped rather firmly in a soft, dry hand.

“Charles Fosticue.”

“I don’t think the rain plans to let up any time soon,” Laurie complained as he stared out into the distance. “I'd hoped to get to the library before all this started. I’ve some reading to catch up on and it’s nearly impossible in my rooms.”

“There only three suitable places to spend a day like today,” answered Charles. He dropped the fag on the ground and crushed it beneath his heel. Laurie gave him an expectant look and he raised his hand, three fingers up. “The library,” one finger folded down. “In front of a roaring fire--an electric one will do if nothing better is available,” a second digit dropped forward and only the index finger remained upright, pointed to heaven.

“And the third?” prompted Laurie.

Charles playfully waggled his index finger. “Bed.” Laurie’s face must have expressed his surprise because Charles laughed. “With a nice cup of tea and a good book, of course.”

“You left out the toast. I should think a bit of toast with jam would make the whole of it complete. Oh, you’d get crumbs in the bed and jam on the sheets but they’d shake out, I should think.” He unthinkingly dragged his hand through his damp hair, unconscious of the way the wet made it glisten darkly.

With hooded eyes, Charles studied the youthful features and fair complexion. The clothes were good quality, neat, and well-cared for. The other books in the boy’s hand were innocuous bits of history, some Shakespeare; only 'The Phaedrus' was of any interest. The youth's innocense seemed a facade to him. There remained about this Laurie Odell an odd combination of curiosity and caution, as if life's lessons had already been brutal and he'd learned to curb his enthusiasm but not yet his tongue. His eyes flickered back and forth between the rain and Laurie while his mind circled around the problem of introducing a topic that might earn him a beating or a pleasant afternoon before the electric fire.

“I should take my toast with a bit of butter and melted cheese, I think. Less likely to smudge the sheets. You’ll never get to the library without a soaking,” he added, seeing the thought of a mad dash cross Laurie’s features.

“I should give it up,” Laurie admitted. “No sense getting soaked twice just for a bit of study. Maybe by the time I make it back to my rooms, the fellows will have cleared out.”

Charles sighed deeply and dramatically. “I would think it hardly worth the effort. Of course, if your luck is anything at all like mine, you’ll get yourself turned around for home and the rain will stop.”

Laurie raised and lowered his shoulder, dismissing Charles’ questionable luck. “Nothing to be done about it, I mean, you can either get thoroughly wet to the skin and squelch around the library stacks with the librarians screwing up their faces at the noise and the mud or go find something else to do with the rest of the afternoon.”

“I could offer you a bit of hospitality, if you wouldn’t think it too forward. I’ve an electric fire and a kettle. I could do with a cup of tea to ward off the chill and, if the rain lets up you can still get to the library before it closes.”

Again the little chill crawled up Laurie’s spine, warning him that he should take care. He gave Charles a hard look, trying to assess the motives and finding no reason, other than friendliness, for the offer. His hesitation continued, despite finding nothing in the open stare that should warn him off. Unless it was his own nature warning him against moving too far into a place he knew little of, beyond that horrible day in school when Lanyon had got the sack and Hazell had crowed on and on to the Headmaster about things he ought to have known nothing of. Since then Laurie had been in a state, sometimes near panic, other times near ecstasy, as if he’d got a secret no one else knew about. Which of course, he did. Not that having such a secret did him any good. One didn’t go bursting into one’s university pub and announce such a secret. Not and still have friends at the end of the night.

“It’s just there,” Charles pointed to a row of houses a few blocks away. They were dark, weathered stone with ivy climbing the walls and little wicker gates leading off the sidewalks and marking each tiny front garden. The library lay in the opposite direction and where Charles and Laurie stood split the difference between the two locations. “I’d ducked under the awning to catch my breath right before you came along.”

Laurie, now faced with three choices, stood and pondered each one. He could dash back to his room and sit steaming in front of the electric fire and idle away the remainder of the evening with the rest of his Oxford chums. He could continue with his plans for the library and a bit of quiet reading, steaming among the stacks and dripping puddles on the polished wood floors. Or he could take Charles up on his invitation of tea and a warm fire and a chance to see if the rain would go away.

The offer of tea and toast and a warm fire tempted him more than the musty library or the noisy Oxford rooms. Looking into Charles’ eyes, he caught that hint of shadow and he started again, one foot sliding on the wet pavement until he quite nearly spilled himself on the curb. Charles’ hand on his elbow steadied him. Ignoring the puzzled smile, Laurie lost himself for a moment in that brilliant flash, revelation and recognition clashing painfully in his brain in a small explosion that made him tremble all over while his mind raced ahead to possibilities. He looked down at the hand holding his elbow, uncertain as to whether to pull away or rush forward. He looked up into Charles’ eyes and thought about 'Phaedrus' and 'Symposium' and, oddly, Byron.

Charles’ resemblance to Byron intrigued him and the revelation of what might have just been offered set electric shocks tingling up and down his spine. There had been a missed opportunity once in school with Lanyon, a moment where he thought he might be kissed, but it had passed and Lanyon had gone into ignominy, never mentioned by students or prefects. Laurie had felt the loss keenly at first but soon, like many boys his age, moved beyond bits of paper string in the pockets and flights of imagination, maturing into more important contemplations.

At times, Laurie thought to himself how lonely he was, but he didn’t know how to cure this; to whom he could turn or, even if there was such a place. He knew instinctively, as those of his make did, that revelation spelled disaster and so he kept to his studies and to himself, only daring to dream in the darkest hours between midnight and dawn.

That reflection decided it for Laurie. He longed to find another like himself who understood the strange tortures and twists of fancy that haunted his steps. “I’d love tea,” he said, accepting the offer--or offers--with a casual, off-hand air.

“What a capital idea,” Byron smiled into Laurie’s eyes, willing him not to notice the predatory gleam. Keeping his hand on Laurie’s elbow, he steered the younger man across the street, splashing and laughing at the water as the went. At a small garden gate, he drew Lauire into the courtyard and they splashed some more through puddles, slipping and sliding on old cobbles, and led him to a white door, paint peeling, and put a large brass key in the lock.

Laurie heard the tumblers roll over with a clicking noise that held a note of finality to it. His imagination took flight and he imagined the door opening into a new world, one where he’d once been excluded, but now had gained membership through chance and a turn in fortune. Excitement enveloped him as he stepped over the stoop and into the darkened corridor.