Kane & Abel (1979) Read online

  She carried a steaming cup over to William and looked at him to see whether the significance of her remarks had registered. Satisfied, she smiled and passed him the cup, allowing their hands to touch. He stirred the hot chocolate vigorously.

  ‘Gerald is attending a conference,’ she continued. It was the first time he had ever heard Mr Raglan’s first name. ‘Do shut the door, William, and come and sit down.’

  William hesitated; he shut the door, but he did not feel he could sit in Rags’s chair, nor did he want to sit next to Mrs Raglan. He decided Rags’s chair was the lesser of two evils, and moved towards it.

  ‘No, no,’ she said, and patted the seat beside her.

  William shuffled across and sat down nervously by her side, staring into his cup for inspiration. Finding none, he gulped the contents down, burning his tongue. He was relieved when Mrs Raglan stood up. She refilled his cup, ignoring his murmured protest, then moved silently across the room, wound up the Victrola and placed the needle on a record. He was still looking at the floor when she returned.

  ‘You wouldn’t let a lady dance by herself, would you, William?’

  She began swaying in time to the music. William stood up and put his arm formally around her waist, as if they were in the middle of a crowded dance floor. Rags could have fitted in between them without any trouble. After a few bars she moved closer to William, and he stared over her right shoulder fixedly to indicate that he had not noticed that her left hand had slipped from his shoulder to the small of his back. When the music stopped, William assumed he would have a chance to return to the safety of his hot chocolate, but she had turned the record over and was back in his arms before he could sit down.

  ‘Mrs Raglan, I think I ought to—’

  ‘Relax a little, William.’

  At last he found the courage to look into her eyes. He tried to reply, but he couldn’t speak. Her hand was now exploring his back, and he felt her thigh move gently against his groin. He tightened his hold around her waist.

  ‘That’s better,’ she said.

  They circled the room, closely entwined, slower and slower, keeping time with the music as the record gently ran down. When it stopped she slipped away and switched off the light. William stood in the near dark, not moving, hearing the rustle of silk as he watched her discard her clothes.

  The crooner had completed his song, and the needle was still scratching as the record continued to spin. William stood motionless in the middle of the room. Mrs Raglan took off his jacket, then led him back to the chaise longue. He groped for her in the dark, his shy novice’s fingers encountering several parts of her body that did not feel at all as he had imagined they would. He withdrew them hastily to the comparatively familiar territory of her breasts. Her fingers exhibited no such reticence, and he began to feel sensations he had never dreamed possible. He wanted to shout out loud but checked himself, fearing it would wake the boys sleeping above him. She undid his fly buttons, and began to pull off his trousers.

  William wondered how to enter her without showing his total lack of experience. It was not as easy as he had expected, and he grew more desperate by the second. Then her fingers moved across his stomach and guided him expertly. But before he could enter her, he had an orgasm.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ said William, not sure what to do next. He lay silently on top of her for some time before she spoke.

  ‘It will be better tomorrow, William. Don’t forget, Rags is not back until Saturday.’

  The sound of the scratching record returned to his ears.

  Mrs Raglan remained in William’s mind until lights out the next day. That night, she sighed. On Wednesday she panted. On Thursday she moaned. On Friday she cried out.

  On Saturday morning, Rags Raglan returned from his conference, by which time William’s education was complete.

  At the end of the Easter vacation, on Ascension Day, to be exact, Abby Blount finally succumbed to William’s charms. It cost Matthew five dollars and Abby her virginity. She was, after Mrs Raglan, something of an anticlimax. It was the only event worthy of mention that happened during the entire break, because Abby was whisked off to Palm Beach with her parents, and William spent most of his time shut away with his books, at home to no one other than the grandmothers and Alan Lloyd. As Rags Raglan attended no further conferences, when William returned to St Paul’s he continued to concentrate on his books.

  He and Matthew would sit in their study for hours, never speaking unless Matthew had some mathematical equation he was quite unable to solve. When the long-awaited examinations finally took place, they lasted for one brutal week. The moment they were over, both young men felt relaxed, but as the days slipped by and they waited and waited to learn their results, they became less sanguine.

  The Hamilton Memorial Mathematics Scholarship to Harvard was based entirely on the final examination results, and was open to every schoolboy in America. William had no way of judging how tough his opposition might be. When, a month later, he’d still heard nothing, he began to assume the worst, and even wondered if Harvard would offer him a place at all.

  William was out playing baseball with some other seniors who were trying to kill the last few days of term before leaving school when the telegram arrived; those warm summer evenings when boys are most likely to be expelled for drunkenness, breaking windows or trying to get into bed with one of the masters’ daughters, if not their wives.

  William was declaring in a loud voice, to those who cared to listen, that he was about to hit his first home run. ‘The Babe Ruth of St Paul’s!’ declared Matthew. Much laughter greeted this unlikely claim. When the telegram was handed to William by a second-former, home runs were quickly forgotten. He dropped his bat and tore open the little yellow envelope. The pitcher and fielders waited impatiently as he read the communication slowly.

  ‘Are the Red Sox offering you a contract?’ shouted the first baseman, the arrival of a telegram being an uncommon occurrence during a baseball game.

  Matthew strolled across from the outfield to join his friend, trying to make out from his expression if the news was good or bad. William passed the telegram to him. He read it, leapt high into the air, dropped the piece of paper on the ground and accompanied William as he raced around the bases even though he hadn’t actually hit the ball. The catcher picked up the telegram, read it and threw his glove into the bleachers with gusto. The little piece of yellow paper was then passed eagerly from player to player. The last to read it was the second-former, who, having caused so much happiness while receiving no thanks, decided the least he deserved was to know the contents.

  The telegram was addressed to Mr William Lowell Kane. It read: ‘Congratulations on winning the Hamilton Memorial Mathematics Scholarship to Harvard, full details to follow. Abbot Lawrence Lowell, President.’ William never did get his home run, as he was heavily set upon by several fielders before he reached home plate.

  Matthew looked on with delight as he revelled in his closest friend’s success, but he was sad to think that it meant they might be parted. William felt it, too, but said nothing; they had to wait another nine days to learn that Matthew had also been offered a place at Harvard.

  Upon the heels of that news, another telegram arrived, this one from Charles Lester, congratulating his son and inviting him and William to tea at the Plaza Hotel in New York. Both grandmothers sent congratulations to William, but as Grandmother Kane informed Alan Lloyd, somewhat testily, ‘The boy has done no less than was expected of him and no more than his father did before him.’

  The two young men sauntered down Fifth Avenue on a balmy afternoon. Girls’ eyes were drawn to the handsome pair, who affected not to notice. They removed their straw boaters as they entered the Plaza at three fifty-nine and strolled nonchalantly into the Palm Court, where the family group was awaiting them. William’s grandmothers flanked another old lady, who he assumed was the Lesters’ equivalent of Grandmother Kane. Mr and Mrs Charles Lester, their daughter Susan, whose eyes ne