Young Hearts

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Young Hearts - book excerpt

Chapter One

‘I say,’ James Albury said, ‘this brandy’s rather decent,’ and he held out his glass for a refill, which George Saunders promptly provided.

The two young men were sitting on the edge of the single bed in George’s room, and the golden rays of the afternoon sun shone in through the latticed window, casting shadows over the desk in the corner. Their old friend Maurice Kimberton was sitting facing them, with one elbow on the desk, and with his legs crossed at the knee, while the relatively new addition to their group, Michael Roberts, was standing to the side of Maurice’s chair, and with his back to them, for the moment, as he gazed through the window down over the quad.

Maurice, who was a big bear of a young man, dressed in a checked shirt and a blue pullover, brushed his blond hair back from his forehead and said they’d all be for it if Cummings, the bursar, were to come by and catch them in here drinking like this. In response, James, who was lean and short, cocked an eyebrow and said Cummings was the very least of their problems; after all, they’d have Jerry breathing down their necks before they knew it.

‘You’ve got a point there,’ Maurice nodded.

‘In which case,’ George said, ‘we might as well finish off this bottle between us and Cummings be damned -- what do you all say?’

This suggestion met with cries of approbation from the other three young men, and George squealed with laughter as he set about replenishing the empty tumblers that Michael and Maurice were now holding out to him.

George Saunders was tall, of lean build, and handsome, and he wore his blond hair short and with a parting down the middle; his lips were on the thin side, his cheek-bones were high and prominent, and his eyes a piercing blue. He was wearing a pair of grey flannel trousers with a white shirt and an argyle sweater, and looked, every inch of him, like a young man who came, as he did, from the very best stock. And whilst it is true that many of his friends were from the upper echelons of society, as might only be expected, George was nevertheless the sort of young man who liked to judge people according to their ideas and personal attributes, regardless of their position in society; which perhaps explains how it was that he had befriended someone like Michael Roberts, who was from a working-class background.

And it was upon Michael that George now turned his gaze; and, as he did so, his face assumed an expression of seriousness, as though he wanted to let his friends know that he wished to continue the discussion they had all been engaged in up until a moment ago, before they’d begun to concern themselves with the bursar. ‘As an intellectual being, Michael,’ he said, ‘surely you must feel yourself to be above notions of violence?’

 Michael Roberts’s brow became furrowed, as if he were making a strenuous effort to think, and he sipped his brandy. Michael was the tallest of the four young men, and he was blessed with a broad chest and muscular frame; his black hair was cut short and parted at the side, and he wore a bottle-green-coloured woollen pullover over a checked shirt, with a pair of grey flannel trousers, and brogues that he had polished that morning. ‘On the contrary,’ he said, ‘I should feel bound to go to war if I am called up.’

George appeared to be rather taken aback by his friend’s response. ‘Surely, though, as a lover of Keats, you must be interested in the beauty of ideas, and so you must want peace on earth and all that sort of thing.’

‘Wanting peace is one thing,’ Michael said, in tones that carried more than a hint of a West Country twang; ‘but the way I see it, peace sometimes comes at a price.’

‘And that price is sometimes war?’

‘If the enemy doesn’t know when to back down then I’d say it is, yes.’

‘Good show,’ Maurice said, and he turned to James Albury. ‘What about you, old chap?’

James Albury was by far the shortest man in the room; but, despite his diminutive frame, he was no mean pugilist. He was wearing a brown cardigan with a plain white shirt and a paisley tie; and, at that moment, his intelligent face creased in a grimace, as he held up his glass and gazed at it, rather as if he were searching for the answer to Maurice’s question in the prism of light before him; but his reply, when it came, was quite free of equivocation. ‘I shall certainly go to fight,’ he said, ‘when I feel that the time has come to do so.’

‘And when might that be?’ George asked him.

‘That’s what I’m trying to make my mind up about – but it could be sooner than you might think.’

‘That’s the spirit,’ Maurice grinned. ‘But what do you think Phoebe will have to say when she learns that the man she is hoping to marry is planning on marching off to war?’

James brushed some lint from his brown flannel trousers, before his grey eyes fixed Maurice with a determined expression. ‘I’m sure,’ he said, ‘that Phoebe will be proud to know that her fiancé is going to do his bit for his country.’

‘Good for her, I’d say,’ Maurice sipped his brandy.

Michael Roberts had come to know James Albury a little as a result of his friendship with Maurice and George, but he had yet to meet his fiancée, and he wondered if the fact that James didn’t appear to be in any hurry to show her off might perhaps mean that she wasn’t much of a looker. 

 ‘Why, how do you feel about going to fight, Maurice?’

‘I’m simply dying to have a go at Jerry, once they’ve set me free from this place. I only hope that the fighting’s not all over by then.’

‘You mean that you plan to wait until you’ve graduated before you enlist?’ James said.

‘Father would probably kill me if I didn’t.’

‘In that case, I should certainly hope we’ve polished the Germans off well before you become available to fight.’

‘You might always be called up,’ George said.

‘Yes, well in that case Father wouldn’t be in a position to object to my going, of course.’

 Hearing the way he was talking, Michael had the feeling that Maurice had failed to grasp the first thing about the nature of war. ‘You talk as though it’s all likely to be a bit of a lark, Maurice, an adventure, this war that we’ve got ourselves into,’ Michael frowned. ‘In fact, I’m quite certain that it’s a terribly dirty business, believe you me…The truth of the matter is that all any of us knows about war is what we’ve read in books. And no one ever defeated the enemy in battle by showing he was able to quote from Shakespeare or Virgil.’

‘You’re right, of course.’ George brought his glass to his lips and downed its contents in a single gulp.

Just then, the silence was broken by a loud knock at the door. ‘Open up!’ rang out the voice of Cummings, the bursar, in angry, authoritative tones.

‘Oh crikey, it’s the Kaiser himself!’ Maurice whispered, and George began gesturing for everyone to drink up, as he looked for a place to hide his glass, along with the bottle of Napoleon brandy that they had been drinking from.

‘Open up, I say!’ The bursar hammered again at the door.   

‘All right, I’m coming.’

Michael, James and Maurice all followed their host’s lead and quickly stashed their glasses under the bed; and by the time George had opened the door, they were all sitting with books open on their laps. ‘Can I be of any assistance to you?’ George asked the bursar with suave irony.

Cummings’s face was red with rage as his eyes travelled about the room and took in the scene. ‘What have we got here, then?’

‘We’re holding a poetry reading.’

Cummings looked unimpressed. ‘I’ll be keeping an eye on you gentlemen from now on,’ he growled, and with that he turned and stormed off.

George just managed to keep a straight face until he’d shut the door, and then he and his three friends all erupted into paroxysms of laughter.

‘That’s the way to send the Kaiser packing,’ Maurice beamed.

If only it were that simple to send the other Kaiser packing, Michael Roberts thought. For he sensed that the war was going to turn out to be a far more serious and deadly affair than his friends were willing, or perhaps even able, to contemplate.

Michael went up to his room after the party broke up and worked hard for a while on an essay. Then he took a nap, and when he awoke, some three hours later, he got up and went over to the window, where he stood stretching his arms as he gazed out at the scene before him.

The sun was about to set, and the city looked stunningly beautiful in the failing light. To one side, Michael could see Carfax Tower, whose bells were being rung at that very moment by the mechanical figures known as ‘Quarter Boys’; whilst to the other side, he could see St Mary the Virgin, which marked the site where the Oxford Martyrs were tried for heresy in 1555.

And coming from a working-class background, as he did, Michael was intensely aware of just how enormously privileged he was simply to be here, in this city whose hallowed spires represented, to his eye, a veritable symphony of architectural design that blended with the heritage of the place to create something truly magical.

            With these thoughts in mind, Michael spruced himself up a little, then put on the light cotton jacket that he had been wearing all summer, and left his room. He descended the wooden stairs two at a time, and, when he got to the bottom, he hurried out through the doorway, crossed the quad, and passed out through the archway down Catte Street, past St Mary the Virgin, from whose front portico the terrifying gargoyles peered out menacingly, turned the corner into High Street and carried on as far as the Chequers.

The entrance to the pub was blocked by a group of young people, and, as Michael set about weaving his way through them, a girl appeared to trip into his path, and he took hold of her arm to steady her; then, once she had regained her balance, he asked her if she was all right. ‘Yes,’ the girl said, ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Not at all.’

She threw her head back, and her long black hair fell either side of her face, so that Michael got a good look at her for the first time, and he was truly taken aback by her beauty. Her skin was white and smooth as porcelain, save for the down on her cheeks, which resembled the skin of a ripe peach. Her lips were full and red as cherries, her cheek-bones high and proud; and through her long black lashes peered eyes that were the perfect blue of hyacinths. ‘Thank you for preventing me from breaking my neck, anyway.’ The girl suppressed a little giggle and then appeared to blush slightly.

‘Don’t mention it.’

She offered Michael her hand and said, ‘I’m Phoebe Markham. I’m at Somerville reading English.’

‘How do you do,’ he smiled. ‘I’m Michael Roberts and I’m at Balliol.’ They shook hands, and as they did so, Michael, who had never considered himself to be the romantic sort, until now, gazed into the girl’s beautiful blue eyes and felt as though he would give anything to discover the mysteries that resided in their inky depths.

‘I must go,’ she said. ‘I’m with this lot and we’re just about to leave here to go and eat. We’re celebrating my friend’s birthday.’ And with that she turned and rejoined the group she was with.

Michael stood there, as if rooted to the spot, and watched her go up the street along with her companions and turn the corner. Then he went on into the pub, and squeezed through a group of rambunctious medical students to get to the counter, where he bought himself a pint of bitter. The place was filled with the babble of excited, youthful chatter and occasional laughter, and the walls were adorned with pictures of Balliol and some of the other colleges, as well as with drawings which recorded the events that took place on February 10th, back in 1354, better known as St Scholastrica’s Day, when rioting broke out after students drinking at Swyndlestock Tavern accused the landlord of serving them ‘indifferent wine’.

 Michael tasted his beer and was grateful for the fact that it was better than ‘indifferent’, so that he could have no cause to make a complaint to the landlord as to its quality. He rested his arms on the counter, and thoughts of the beautiful girl he happened, quite literally, to bump into outside rushed into his mind. Phoebe, she’d told him her name was: Phoebe Markham.

The name was vaguely familiar to Michael, although quite as to where he’d heard it mentioned before, and in what context, he couldn’t recall. What he did know, though, was that he simply had to find her and talk to her again.