Les Noyades

9: Hymn to Intellectual Beauty

With such a short drive to the house, Rumi knew he did not need to reject Yves' attentions for long. He inched as far away as he could from the driver's seat, his entire body leaning against the window, and his face pressed against the window until his breath fogged it up. He traced small patterns into it with his fingernail until it misted over again— in understanding that the evidence would be quickly taken away, he began to draw lewd little portraits to entertain himself; despite no longer attending school, he still knew how to behave like a beastly little schoolboy. Yves looked over and started to laugh when he noticed; Rumi felt the atmosphere soften as he did, and smiled along with him. The confusion and lingering nerves over what had occurred between them just ten or so minutes previous slipped away and Rumi found he once more had the ability to breathe fully in. 

§§§

After several minutes of Yves and Declan politely arguing over directions and house names, 13 Kilmore Lane was found— and hardly a lane it was, but more a rutted country track that went on for all of those several minutes and threatened to rip out the limited suspension the van had. The diving hills on either side gave way suddenly to a broad, flat valley, at the head of which a grey stone house slumped against a rocky crag. Pink-stained sheep were grazing around the periphery and a herd of cattle were sheltering from the strong wind behind the rocks. A small sign at a rotted, festering stack of wood that had once been a gate and was now tacked together with baler twine and god's hope proclaimed the place to be 13 Kilmore Lane. Declan cheered in satisfaction; he had been arguing to continue down the lane, whereas Yves, on behalf of the battered van and its lacklustre engineering, had wanted to park in the nearest town and find the place on foot. 

The van was perched beside a mossy stone wall, the likes of which peppered the valley for miles to split out farming territory. Rumi jumped out and followed Yves and his father up to the dark wood of the front door, to which Declan raised a hand and rapped against, the noise harsh against the silence of early hours in the countryside. They waited some time, shifting awkwardly and making small conversations, and were admitted at last to the entrance hall by a dark-skinned, shabby man— around his mid-twenties, Rumi would guess— with wild masses of black hair that stuck out at odd angles. He wore the beaten brown clothes of a countryman but the pinched expression of an intellectual. 

"Mr. Kanouté," Declan said as he reached out a hand, "I am so glad to see you again." 

"Professor Barrett, it is my pleasure— and please, call me Sédar." He had an accent that Rumi could certainly pinpoint to a francophone area of Africa, but no more specific than that. "Come in, come in. I was just cooking breakfast." 

He took them through to a cosy little sitting room filled with bookshelves stacked neatly with volume upon volume of literary criticism. Rumi sat hesitantly down on the sofa, where Yves joined him, lowering himself down with a soft sigh. Sédar had left them to bring through some food— enough to feed the upper half of the British Isles, he laughed, or maybe just enough for four men. He carried in a tray of food and plates to set down on a coffee table enviably free of the usual mess of papers Rumi was accustomed to. The smell of the bacon practically made his eyes water— he never ate anything as exciting as that at home. 

"Here we have tattie scones," Sédar explained as he plated some up and handed them out to eagerly receptive hands. "I have much enjoyed Scottish food while being here. And of course, black pudding and bacon." 

They all thanked him and eagerly tucked in, the food good and welcome enough to create a quiet for several minutes. Conversation eked back in only as plates were practically licked clean by the tired travellers. 

"I had a call from Ernest Culshawe," Sédar remarked as he collected up the plates and set them aside. "He told me you were looking for my thesis, is that correct?"

It was Declan's turn to nod replies. 

"This must be the student Ernest mentioned." Sédar looked in Yves' direction. "He said you were French." 

"Yes. Yves Luscombe." 

"Enchanté. I would love to lend you my thesis provided it returns to me, and if you take me through what you wish to make of your own." 

Rumi felt how Yves sat up a little straighter and saw how he smiled a little wider; evidently he liked this intelligent and polite older man, or was he simply snaring in another client? And Rumi hated himself even before he had the thought; there was nothing to say that Yves was doing anything but picking up a thesis as the entire trip had been arranged that he might do so. There was no use in being jealous over somebody he had known but a week or so and whose advances were unfulfilled and without explanation. 

The other three started to talk the duller sides of poetry and Rumi sank into the couch with weary boredom at the conversation drudged up around him. He had neither any interest in the chosen subject nor anything constructive to add; better to sit on his hands and think amongst his own thoughts than say anything which would paint him a fool within an admittedly small crowd of the well-educated. He took in the sights of the room first; the scuffed wooden floor and the narrow slats of wood that dipped into a small depression beneath the coffee table, the paintings hung on the wall of generic British landscapes and hunt horses, the wooden furniture as shabby as its owner. It was a comfortable and warm little place with the flames chattering away in the fireplace that cast a drowsy heat over the room. It made him long for normalcy at home— all they had at Doha was furniture left over from Culshawe's reign, and the majority of it he had brought with him to Errol House. Neither did they have enough space for a sofa or a real library that was not also cum-dining-room-cum-kitchen. He had not anticipated that he might find himself green-eyed over the life of somebody with a job so insipid as that of a literary critic, but sitting toasty and romantic in that room made him wish that he would never be returning from the trip and that they would remain under the care of Sédar for the rest of the future. 

He did not— because there was indeed no way to do so— know that over the next few days, as tensions blistered and resolves snapped that his desire to remain in Scotland forever would only be increasing, and not for want of some critic's old sitting room.