The Stranger's Child by Alan Hollinghurst

Author:Alan Hollinghurst [Hollinghurst, Alan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction - Literary
ISBN: 978-0-307-70044-5
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2011-10-10T16:00:00+00:00

4

PETER SAT in the Museum, writing up the labels with his four-coloured biro. “Whose is the sword, again?”

“Oh, the sword, sir? Brookson’s, sir,” said Milsom 1, coming over and watching intently for a moment.

“He claims it was his grandfather’s, sir,” said Dupont.

“Admiral’s Dress Sword,” Peter wrote, in black, and then, flicking to red, “Lent by Giles Brookson, Form 4.” He felt the boys themselves ought really to do the labels, but they had a thing about his handwriting. Already he saw his Greek e, his looped d, his big scrolly B, seeping through the school, infecting the print-like hand they had hitherto based on the Headmaster’s. It was funny, and flattering in a way, but of course habitual; ten years before, he had copied those Bs from a favourite master of his own. “Voilà!”

“Merci, monsieur!” said Milsom, and took the card over to the display cabinet, where the more precious and dangerous exhibits were to be housed. There was a lovely set of Indian clay figures in the dress of different ranks and trades—military piper, water-seller, chokidar—very trustingly lent by Newman’s aunt. The shelf above was home to a hand-grenade, it was assumed unarmed, a flintlock pistol, Brookson’s grandfather’s sword, and a Gurkha kukri knife, which Dupont had taken down and was working on now with a wad of Duraglit. He and Milsom were talking about their favourite words.

“I think I’d have to say,” said Milsom, “that my favourite word is glorious.”

“Not gorgeous?” said Dupont.

“No, no, I far prefer glorious.”

“Ah well …,” said Dupont.

“All right, what’s yours? And don’t don’t don’t say, you know … sort of pig, or and … or, you know …”

Dupont merely raised an eyebrow at this. “At the moment,” he said, “my favourite word would have to be Churrigueresque.” Milsom gasped and shook his head and Dupont glanced at Peter for a second to judge the effect of his announcement. “But on the other hand,” he went on airily, “perhaps it’s just something very simple like lithe.”

“Lithe?”

“Lithe,” said Dupont, waving the kukri sinuously in the air. “Just one little syllable, but you’ll find it takes as long to say it as glorious, which has three. Lithe … lithe …”

“For god’s sake be careful with that weapon, won’t you. It’s designed for chopping chaps’ heads off.”

“I am being careful, sir,” said Dupont, wounded into a blush. Since his removal from the music-room he’d been slightly wary of Peter, and seemed not to trust his own voice, with its weird octave leaps in the middle of a word. In a minute Peter came and looked over his shoulder at the wide blade: it was the angle in the middle that made the back of his thighs prickle.

“It’s a vicious-looking thing, Nigel …”

“Indeed it is, sir!” said Dupont, with a grateful glance. Strictly speaking, only prefects were addressed by their first names. He turned the kukri over, one side gleaming steel, the other a still dimly shiny blue-black. His fingers themselves were black from the wadding. “It’s perfectly balanced, you see, sir.

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