Prelude Read Online Free Page B

the country going.” Richard leaned to the side for the maid. “Thank you.”
    “It’s not jingoism, it’s common sense,” Archie said. “Thatcher didn’t have any option.”
    “Should certainly see her through the next election, if that’s what you mean,” Richard responded.
    “What’s the Falklands got to do with a General Election? It’s a point of principle.” He crossed his eyes, let his mouth go slack. “Duhhhh!”
    Richard tapped his fingers together. For a moment he was about to say something but thought better of it. Instead, with a little shake of his head, he tackled the stew.
    “It’s principle, see?” Archie ploughed on.
    Richard buttered some bread, absorbed by the sight of his sliced white.
    “Don’t you have principles?” Archie said, straining forward over the table. The veins were popping out at the side of his neck. “Run up the white flag, why don’t you?”
    Richard looked almost like an artist as he precisely spread the butter, working it all the way to the crust.
    “Stop being such an oik, Archie,” Jeremy said, putting an end to the conversation.
    “Me?” Archie replied. “What, me?”
    Jeremy raised his eyebrows at me. For a second his eyelids fluttered, no doubt trying to stifle the urge to hurl his food in Archie’s face.
    Archie spooned up more stew. “All I’m trying to do is have a civilised conversation about the biggest story of the year. Don’t you get it? Dontcha?”
    “Thank you for explaining that,” Jeremy said. He took a pristine white handkerchief from his pocket and patted his lips before turning to me. “I have always thought it our great good fortune that, when we came to Eton, we ended up in the same house as Archie.”
    “We are blessed,” I said.
    “He is the daily grit in our lives that helps create the pearl.”
    “Grit being the operative word.”
    “Or maybe he is the mortar that helps bind our happy band together. He is our common link.”
    “Cheers Archie.” Jeremy raised his glass. “We’d all be going crazy without you.”
    Archie watched us, eyes twitching from left to right, not sure how he’d been sidelined.
    Jeremy scrutinised me and for the first time noticed the dizzy, goof smile on my face. I’d been miles away.
    “Something’s happened to you this morning,” Jeremy said quietly. “You look rather happy.”
    I could only smirk, hugging my glorious memories close; for to have said anything about India at lunch would have been to have announced it over the public address system.
    I raised my finger to my lips. “Later,” I whispered.
    ALL ETON’S BOYS have separate rooms, and mine, on the top floor of the Timbralls, had one of the best views in the school, overlooking Sixpenny and in the distance another tranche of playing fields, Mesopotamia.
    The room was a good size for a seventeen-year-old, with a shabby sofa, armchair, bookshelves and desk, or burry as it was known at Eton. On the walls were a few posters of my fantasy girls: two of Blondie with her pouting strawberry lips, one of Cheryl Tiegs, and another of Farrah Fawcett. I also had a poster of a large white Labrador. Before women came into my life, dogs had been my first love.
    I kicked off my shoes, hung up my tailcoat and lay down on the bed to give myself a few moments of beautiful reverie. Over and over again, I was re-running what had occurred in the Music Schools. I was trying to digest the huge wealth of raw unedited material that had showered my senses. Different pictures of India kept flashing into my head.
    I was distracted by the rumbling sound of a boy-call. It started off very low and went up at the end, “BoooyyyUppp”, like a farmer calling his cattle.
    For a second my limbs stiffened. It was an involuntary twitch, a hangover from the days when I too had been a fag, running errand after errand for the senior boys, the members of the library.
    The boy-calls were as good a way as any to knock any hint of preciousness out of the new boys’