The beauty of young boys now, that isnt an easy thing. Girls, yes, full of their enticing eggs, the mothers of us all, that makes sense, they should be beautiful and usually are, even if only for a year or a day. But boys why? What for? There is a time, a short time, at about sixteen, seventeen, when they have a poetic aura. They are like young gods. Their families and their friends may be awed by these beings who seem visitors from a finer air. They are often unaware of it, seeming to themselves more like awkwardly packed parcels they are trying to hold together.
Roz and Lil lolled on the little verandah overlooking the sea, and saw the two boys come walking up the path, frowning a little, dangling swimming things they would put to dry on the verandah wall, and they were so beautiful the two women sat up to look at each other, sharing incredulity. Good God! said Roz. Yes, said Lil. We made that, we made them, said Roz. If we didnt, who did? said Lil. And the boys, having disposed of their towels and trunks, went past with smiles that indicated they were busy on their own affairs: they did not want to be summoned for food or to tidy their beds, or something equally unimportant.
My God! said Roz again. Wait, Lil She got up and went inside, and Lil waited, smiling a little to herself, as she often did, at her friends dramatic ways. Out came Roz with a book in her hand, a photograph album. She pushed her chair against Lils, and together they turned the pages past babies on rugs, babies in baths themselves, then her first step and the first tooth and they were at the page they knew they both sought. Two girls, at about sixteen.
My God! said Roz.
We didnt do too badly, then, said Lil.
Pretty girls, yes, very, all sugar and spice, but if photographs were taken now of Ian and Tom, would they show the glamour that stopped the breath when one saw them walk across a room or saunter up out of the waves?
They lingered over the pages of themselves, in this album, Rozs; Lils would have to be the same. Photographs of Roz, with Lil. Two pretty girls.
What they were looking for they did not find. Nowhere could they find the shine of unearthliness that illuminated their two sons, at this time.
And there they were sitting, the album spread out across both their stretched-out brown legs they were in bikinis when the boys came out, glasses of fruit juice in their hands.
They sat on the wall of the verandahs edge and contemplated their mothers, Roz and Lil.
What are they doing? Ian seriously asked Tom.
What are they doing? echoed Tom, owlishly, joking as always. He jumped up, peered down at the open page, half on Rozs, half on Lils knees, and returned to his place.
They are admiring their beauty when they were nymphets, he reported to Ian. Arent you, Ma? he said to Roz.
Thats right, said Roz. Tempus fugit. It fugits like anything. You have no idea yet. We wanted to find out what we were like all those years ago.
Not so many years, said Lil.
Dont bother to count, said Roz. Enough years.
Now Ian captured the album off the womens thighs, and he and Tom sat staring at the girls, their mothers.
They werent bad, said Tom to Ian.
Not bad at all, said Ian to Tom.
The women smiled at each other: more of a grimace.
But you are better now, said Ian, and went red.
Oh, you are charming, said Roz, accepting the compliment for herself.
I dont know, said the clown, Tom, pretending to compare the old photographs with the two women sitting there, in their bikinis. I dont know. Now? and he screwed up his eyes for the examination. And then. He bent to goggle at the photographs.
Now has it, he pronounced. Yes, better now. And at this the two boys fell to foot-and-shoulder wrestling, or jostling, as they often still did, like boys, though what people saw were young gods who couldnt take a step or make a gesture that was not from some archaic vase, or antique dance.
Our mothers, said Tom, toasting them in orange juice.
Our mothers, said Ian, smiling directly at Roz in a way that made her shift about in her chair and move her legs.
Roz had said to Lil that Ian had a crush on her, Roz, and Lil had said, Well, never mind, hell get over it.
What Ian was not getting over, had not begun to get over, was his fathers death, already a couple of years behind, in time. From the moment he had ceased to have a father he had pined, becoming thinner, almost transparent, so that his mother complained, Do eat, Ian, eat something you must.
Oh, leave me alone.
It was all right for Tom, whose father turned up sometimes, and whom he visited up there in his landlocked university. But Ian had nothing, not even warming memories. Where his father should have been, unsatisfactory as he had been with his affairs and his frequent absences, was nothing, a blank, and Ian tried to put a brave face on it, had bad dreams, and both womens hearts ached for him.
A big boy, his eyes heavy with crying, he would go to his mother, where she sat on a sofa, and collapse beside her, and she would put her arms around him. Or go to Roz, and she embraced him, Poor Ian.