Any Human Heart by William Boyd

for books, Halls £73 for assorted tailoring; college battels are another tenner and God knows what the wine merchant will dun me. Dick Hodge has asked me to go with him to Spain at Easter and I’m tempted. He says £10 is all we’ll need, everything is so cheap, especially if you travel third class. Perhaps I’ll wait until summer. I rather relish the thought of London — still virtually unknown to me, after all.
     
     
Friday, 10 April
     
sumner place, south kensington
     
    Mother has transformed the house. Outside the fresh white stucco gleams. Inside it is all lacquered walls, curtains and materials of such richness and vibrancy as to make the eyes water. She has fitted out the top floor for me: my bedroom and dressing room are a dark burnt orange with emerald-green curtains and I have a small sitting room where the colours are reversed. We have a butler called Henry, a chauffeur (and a new motor) called Baker, a cook called Mrs Heseltine and two (elderly) housemaids called Cecily and Margaret. Mother has her own maid also — Encarnación. They talk sharply and loudly to each other in Spanish to the visible consternation of the other servants. Clearly we are rich: Father wasn’t wrong when he said we would be well provided for.
    And for the first time I really miss his gentle unobtrusive presence in my life. It is Easter Friday and Mother asked me if I wanted to go to Mass at the Brompton Oratory but I declined. The day Father was buried my faith, such as it was, went with him into his grave. Shelley was so right: atheism is an absolute necessity in this world of ours. If we are to survive as individuals we can rely only on those resources provided by our human spirit — appeals to a deity or deities are only a form of pretence. We might as well howl at the moon.
    Tonight at dinner Mother announced she was going to Paris on Monday for a week, or maybe ten days. I said she deserved a holiday after all her interior decorating.
    ‘I’ll be meeting a friend,’ she said, with truly horrible coyness. ‘An American gentleman of my acquaintance — Mr Prendergast.’
    Ah, the famous Mr Prendergast, I thought, but feigned ignorance.
    ‘Who is this Mr Prendergast?’
    ‘I hope you’ll become friends.’
    ‘I can’t stop you hoping, Mother.’
    ‘Don’t be difficult, Logan. He is very nice man —
muy simpático.
He give me very good advice about my investments.’
    I said I’d look forward to meeting him. Perhaps all these servants, all this ostentatious display is the result of Prendergast’s financial acumen. I asked her if I might invite Dick Hodge to stay while she was away. She made no objection.
     
     
Saturday, 18 April
     
    Mother is still away and Dick Hodge is still here, though today he and I are both very sick. Last evening we went to the Café Royal and drank champagne. Then to the Alhambra for the show. Afterwards, at the 50-50 Club we drank some more — brandies this time — and spoke to two tarts. Dick is very forthright with them — it was highly comical.
     
    DICK: HOW much?
    FIRST TART: Depends what we get up to, don’t it?
    DICK: I want to know your rates.
    SECOND TART: What d’you think we are? Piece-workers?
    DICK: I wouldn’t sit down in a restaurant without knowing what I’d be charged for the meal, would I?
     
    They soon got tired of us and wandered away. Dick told me he’d been to a brothel in Madrid and the resulting experience was ‘nothing to write home about’. We came home and I found some port and we sat up late drinking. I smoked half a cigar which, I think, is why I feel so decidedly rum this morning. Dick asked me if I’d ever kissed a boy. I confessed I had no passion for boys. He said he’d kissed dozens at school (Harrow), but then, he added, there was no alternative and everyone had someone they lusted after. I told him about Lucy and he seemed quite impressed. ‘I don’t want sex without love,’ was the last thing I remember him saying.
     
     
Monday, 20