Read The New Confessions for Free Online Page B

who he was? To spare my father’s blushes? There seemed, moreover, to be some complicity between the two sisters. I was confused. At the time, I was being led by instinct, only half-recognizing adult evasions. Had I been more worldly I might have asked if Donald Verulam had met my mother at Oxford. Maybe the two sisters had made trips there together to visit Faye’s beau? Or, conceivably, if Donald and Vincent were so thick, perhaps Donald had met my mother at Faye’s wedding?But all I knew for sure then was that certain charges seemed to flow through the air whenever the conjunction of my mother’s name and Donald’s occurred. My adolescent antennae picked them up and they reinforced the romantic fantasy I entertained about myself. A stranger in his own home, out of step with his family, the profound reluctance—I had to admit to this now—of acknowledging Innes Todd to be my natural parent.
    I felt strengthened by what I had discovered. Things had been unknowingly divulged that allowed me to face my future with more composure and self-esteem. I began to see myself as trameled up in a great doomed love affair. Perhaps the only two people who knew or guessed at the real truth were my mother and myself. The knowledge I possessed electrified me. For decorum’s sake the masquerade continued, and would continue for a while yet, but as we drove back to Edinburgh that hot windless August evening I felt convinced for the first time of my own uniqueness. I could live the lie of being John James Todd a little longer.
    Does that seem unduly precocious? Of course it is, expressed in that way, but the sensations I experienced that evening were those exactly, if unarticulated.
    I felt different from those around me. I felt I
thought
differently too. Different things affected me from those that affected others. My chancing upon the traces of Donald Verulam’s love affair with my mother merely explained the source of those feelings. It brought a certain calm, allowed me to face my troubled future with some equanimity.
    My father and Thompson faced me across the dining table. Thompson was going up to the University and in anticipation had grown a moustache, a sorry, soft thing that he kept touching and stroking as if it were a pet. Paradoxically, it made him look younger.
    We had eaten soup—mulligatawny—and Oonagh had just cleared away the fish—breaded mackerel—and was now bringing in the neck of veal when my father said, “We’ll have that in fifteen minutes, please, Oonagh.”
    Oonagh glanced at me and backed out of the dining room. She could read the signs as well as I. I had thought something was wrong from the moment we sat down. My father gave nothing away, but Thompson kept looking expectantly at him and his remarks to me were untypically solicitous.
    “How are we today, John James? Fighting fit?”
    “
We’re
fine, thank you, Thompson. How’s our moustache?”
    My bravado would normally have stung him. He just smiled complacently and began to eat his soup.
    I knew what father was going to address me about. My entrance examination for the Royal High School, taken a week previously. I said nothing. We ate our first two courses in almost total silence. Then Oonagh was banished with the neck of veal. My father took a piece of paper from his waistcoat pocket.
    “Scripture—two out of twenty. Geography—four out of twenty. Spelling—zero out of twenty. Latin—five out of twenty. French—four out of twenty. Arithmetic … twenty out of twenty.… ‘Dear Professor Todd, we regret that with results like these, notwithstanding your son’s remarkable achievement in arithmetic, the examining board is unable to consider him a candidate for admission … etc., etc.… perhaps next year … further tuition … high caliber of other candidates,’ and so on.” He looked at me. His expression was more puzzled than angry.
    “What’s wrong with you, boy? You don’t have to excel. Mediocrity would be sufficient.