Disclaimer – See part one.
Breaking Away
I arrived back in London just three days after Christian. His father was already furious with me for spiriting the boy away – hard to start some one off as a bank clerk when they are hiking in the highlands. So I reasoned that letting them have more than a day or two alone would be disastrous. Upon entering his father's study, I was not at all surprised to see Christian standing off to one side, staring at the wall, while his father stood behind his desk, glaring at the young man's back.
His gaze shifted to me immediately and I was amazed to discover that the wrath coming from his eyes could chill even my jaded self. It was only for a moment of course and I instantly saw the fun I could have with the man. "Calvin! Good to see you again old man!" I charged his desk with guns of wit blazing, "It's been years, how are you?" Reaching out I seized one of the hands he had raised in defense to ward off my attack and pumped it up and down with ferocious good humor.
Pulling his hand from mine as soon as humanly possible without deliberately seeming ill mannered, he retreated a step back from my initial assault. "As well as can be expected my lord, and, ahem, yourself?"
I grinned with enthusiasm, "Capitol my good man, just capitol! But please, none of this 'lordship' business Calvin, you know I'm Leonard to my family." For a moment he turned pale and looked about to faint. Then he recovered himself and nodded seriously, hands behind his back and willed himself to show only a calm grave expression – I was impressed. I could not however, allow such a repost to have any visible effect on me and only retained my genial smile. "Good then, I'm glad we are on such excellent terms."
I turned to Christian, "And how is my young nephew doing? Get bored with the highlands and come home where its much more exciting my lad?" The boy turned to face me and I saw that my best hopes in taking him north had been realized. Where before he had been all skinny limbs and moody glances, the time away from this gloomy house had restored him. Gone entirely were his brooding looks, childish manners and scarecrow appearance to be replaced by bright eyes, fierce determination, and glowing health that made my heart nearly burst with pride.
"Uncle!" He cried, seizing my hand and shaking it heartily, leaning in to embrace me, "I'm so glad to see you, and I was very grateful to receive your letters, did you get mine?"
"Yes, every one, thank you." I couldn't get over my pleasure at seeing him looking both so grown-up and so cheerful at the same time. "So what are you going to do with yourself now? Ready to take over the world yet?"
"With no education to speak of and no trade? This wastrel won't be taking over anything, much less a world." Calvin sneered, his thin upper lip curling up, making his hawk nose even more pronounced, if that were possible.
Christian lifted his chin and holding his arms straight at his sides, his hands clenched into fists, stepped up to take over the battle I had been waging. "I have a trade Father, I'm going to be a writer."
"Oh yes! A writer! A trash novelist writing about useless fantasy!"
"Nothing of the sort! I'll write about truth, beauty, freedom, and something you have no concept of, love."
Calvin came stalking out from behind the desk, really incensed, on the attack now that an apparently weaker adversary had taken the field. He flung up his hands in a true rage, looming over the boy in an attempt to intimidate him as he had so many times before. "Love! Always this ridiculous obsession with love! You are a fool, you will end up as nothing, a penniless nothing, forgotten and poor."
I expected Christian to quail at this assault, but his sterner side now appeared. He didn't back down an inch, but glared back at his father. "I will not! I shall be famous and admired and even if I'm not rich, I will have lived a little instead of rotting away in some tomb of an office." He whirled suddenly to me, "I want to go to Paris Uncle! That's where all the true bohemian revolutionaries are. There I'll be able to – "
"Absolute rubbish, I forbid it! You'll end up at the Moulin Rouge, wasting your life with a can-can dancer!"
"And it would be a waste if I met a woman I could love and lived a happy life?"
"Happiness? With a whore? With a can-can dancer from Montemartre – that village of sin, who will seduce you, make you believe that she loves you, then take your money and leave you with nothing?" Have you gone completely mad?"
"How could she take all my money? You've said I'll go without a cent from you father, so there's nothing to fear." Christian folded his arms across his chest and looked his father right in the eye; his jaw firm and I nearly gave myself away by whooping with joy.
Instead I decided to defuse the situation. To this day I'm not entirely sure why, perhaps I hoped that Calvin might some day wish to reconcile with the boy or visa versa and I didn't want to block any of Christian's options. And while it is often true that I'm a thoughtless bastard, I don't believe in actually ruining a person's life if I don't have to.
"Now lad! Please, let's not get into a shouting match." I put one arm around his stiff shoulders, slightly disconcerted to realize that I had to reach up to do so, "I came over to invite you out to see the opera with me this evening. Why don't you and I go out, see the show, eat something, and by then you and your father will be able to calm down and talk this out rationally?"
To my surprise, the boy didn't relax one bit. He turned his back on his father and kept his shoulders stiff, dropping his hands to his sides. "I'd love to go out Uncle, thank you for the offer, but father and I have had this talk before, there is nothing more to say, so there is no reason to come back." He turned back to regard his father calmly, "I've some money saved up and some from mother, so I'll leave in the morning and you won't have to worry about me taking up space anymore." I saw a flicker of emotion in Calvin's eyes that might have been sorrow, but I couldn't be sure.
"Fine then!" He closed the distance with his son and shouted in his face, "Go, and don't think you can come crawling back here to me when you destroy yourself with women and drink!"
"Ha! Not a chance! You'll not have to concern yourself with me ever again Father!" So saying Christian whirled about and marched from the room and we heard him climbing the stairs just seconds later.
Turning my eyes to Calvin, I could see he was still seething with rage, but I could see pain there too. It's never easy to live your life as a regular person with some one like Christian around. I imagined that for Calvin it was like having a nice ordinary garden where plain, easy to maintain plants grew and waking up one morning to find an enormous wild rose right in the middle of everything. You could prune it back and train it somewhat, but you never knew when it would decide to take over half the garden in one night. The worst part was that after a time you came to love it because it was wild and beautiful. Calvin could not help from trying shape Christian as he had his other sons, but at the same time he wanted the boy to be himself. It was an impossible situation; one which I'd had no small part in creating. "Listen old boy, I'll talk to him, get him to calm down." I patted Calvin on the shoulder, "Some young men need to go and sow some oats you know, he's just one of them."
Christian's father shook his head, "Not that one, never. It is a wonder he lived here as long as he has." He pulled away from me and walked around his desk to stand at the window, looking out at the garden with his hands folded behind his back. I watched him for a few minutes, letting the scene implant itself in my memory. Slowly I turned and left, shutting the study door gently behind me and heading up the stairs to speak to Christian. I never saw his father again.
++++++
I found Christian nearly finished packing his battered valise with his few clothes, his typewriter already covered. "You really want to leave tonight lad?" He sniffed loudly and nodded.
"I won't put up with him trying to drag me down anymore, trying to fit me into his picture of what I should be." He cleared his throat and turned to look at me.
"I understand, but do you have a plan? You can't just leave the country with no idea of what you are going to do."
He nodded, "That's true. Can you help me? Where should I go Uncle Len?"
I couldn't have asked for a better opening, "As a matter of fact, I know just the place for you Chris."