For the first time in a long time, Lanie—now Cory—was truly happy. Not just happy but safe. Safe in his walking, safe to ask questions, safe in himself. His friends, although leagues above him, shared a similar fondness for words, and that was enough. They moved like they were in a dream, quoting Shakespeare, Gogol, Byron just off the tip of their tongues; and like with any dream, Cory studied them intently, marking down the words they used, the phrases they shared, their favourite writers and poets, and even the way they walked. He made note of one conversation in which they were battling for best author of all time and names were flying around like the tumbler of a school raffle. When their questioning landed on Akilina, she turned slowly and said: ‘Hugo. Of course,’ with such conviction that Cory went out and borrowed a copy from the library that same night. He'd never met anyone who went to private school before, and now he knew four. He quickly surmised that the true benefit of such a school was not the learning, but in the confidence, in the way they carried themselves, in the precise knowing of their worth. As far as Cory had ever considered, he was worth nothing. That was until one night Horatio told him simply to stand up an inch straighter than he could. He carried that thought everywhere.
‘You know, I read your stuff,’ Theodore mentioned to him one morning over a cup of coffee as they waited for the others. ‘Not bad at all—all things considered. Although you seem to fetishise the double-nested clause. You might consider breaking up your sentences that way.’ At which point he produced a list of page and line numbers where he'd noted what he deemed as the most egregious examples. ‘I scribbled some notes on there too, ask questions if you like. Or don’t. Have you considered learning Spanish? You know they’ve got a literary tradition too far overlooked if you ask me.’ He was a strange human, Theodore. American, yes, but not loud in the slightest, in fact he spoke with such a taciturn indifference it was difficult to say whether he was interested in you at all—empty inside, like an engine running on fumes. ‘Cervantes, Marquez, Borges… Try The House of Spirits, but don’t tell anyone you’re reading something so contemporary. It’s good, Allende. Wouldn’t know about translations, though.’
‘You speak Spanish.’ The look returned said a thousand things words could not. ‘I grew up in Texas.’ As if that answered all. Just then, a shrewd and tired voice arose from behind them, Henry without the headband, like a samurai without his knot, unmasked and ashamed. Unnatural to see him this way.
‘He's not trying to get you on the Spanish already is he? What you need is a good course in Latin and, another in French. They do both here, you know. To be fair, even in translation, Horace will change your life.’ These weeks were marked by stimulating discussion and frantic trips to the library. He'd been slacking in the months leading up to University. It's one thing to have an interest among friends, it's another to google that interest and use the responses as a surrogate for conversation. AI had not yet taken off, and the best he could do was search for his own opinions and hope to find refutation. He was to literature as a parched desert wanderer is to an oasis, needing sustenance, but overwhelmed by the sheer volume of it all.
‘“Il est l’heure de s’enivrer!”
Pour n’être pas les esclaves martyrisés du Temps, enivrez-vous; enivrez-vous sans cesse! De vin, de poésie ou de vertu, à votre guise.’ Horatio quoted freely. It was a chilly Monday night and he proposed drinks.
‘How can he be so fluent?’ Cory whispered.
‘It’s easy when your family lives in France. She speaks it better than him,’ Theodore replied, pointing with his chin to Akilina.
‘Translation: It is the drinking hour. The hour of getting a little bit fucking plastered.’ Horatio stood on his chair and gazed down at them, each having brought their own wine. Cory had made it plain early that he wasn't wealthy by any stretch. He said he understood it that meant they couldn't be friends. Then when they laughed at the notion, he explained that he was happy to drink his own drinks if no one wanted his cheap stuff. It was Horatio who said, 'You can bring your own drinks and I may or may not partake, but that by no means excludes you from my own honey dew.' Cory didn’t know how to articulate it, but more than anything, he didn’t want to be a burden.
‘Hey, Corr—’ That was Akilina’s accent rolling through. ‘How exactly do you have no money for wine when you are here? Did you not get a bursary or scholarship? I thought these were big in England. They are in my home country of Russia—’
‘—And they’re great in Russia, too,’ Horatio interjected boyishly. ‘From each according to its prestige, to each according to his ability. It’s meritocratic over there.’ She dragged him by the shoulder in a telling manner. If they weren’t already having sex, they would be soon. The English Prince and the Russian Comtesse (he later googled the word Графиня - Grafinya).
‘I don’t know,’ he lied. Actually he knew it all too well, but it was a story he was by now, tired of explaining. ‘I guess I just slipped through the cracks.’
‘So how are you surviving?’ Horatio asked. He wasn’t.
‘I’m—’ Before he could even finish, their prince-elect interrupted, leaning over the wooden table with both elbows bent and a boldness against injustice rarely seen but often written. Here was Caesar and Napoleon bubbling up through several cups of good vintage.
‘Right, you aren’t fucking bringing any more wine alright? I’ll not see some bureaucracy have you starve and have no say in it.’ Just like that, he was expunged of his drinks duties. The group easily picked up the tab for him, and he tried to pay them back in other ways, not with money but with presence and kindness.
Cory had down-graded to a simple button phone to give himself a little extra pocket money every month. If his childhood had taught him anything, it was how to stretch £20. The moment of humiliation when he took out his brick phone was eclipsed only by the following moment of reverence when Horatio made light of it, saying simply that he wished he had one like that and mentioning how much time he wasted watching funny clips online. From then on the scalding was on him for assimilating into the plebeian ranks, rather than on Cory for being among them.
‘There's a guy coming in next week to talk about a writing competition. Prize pool of £100,000. You should enter. I've read your stuff. You'll probably win,’ Theodore said, kissing the edge of his cup as he spoke. ‘Could use the money to get a new phone.’
‘There is? Where'd you hear about that? What's it called so I can look it up.’
‘I forget the lecture’s name, but I know the speaker’s name.’
‘What is it?’
‘Regulus.’