Lessons in Discovery by Charlie Cochrane

that he couldn’t bear to be away from Jonty in his illness, only leaving the room for calls of nature and surreptitious visits to the porters’ lodge. He kept his sleep to the minimum that Miss
    Peters, who tended him with almost as much care as he tended his friend, allowed him to get away with. He would rarely let anyone except the doctor touch Jonty and the thought of anyone else
    dealing with his most intimate needs was untenable. He’d bathed, washed and wiped as if his friend was a helpless babe.
    As he performed these acts of service, he’d realised that
    Jonty didn’t just possess a beautiful face, he was beautiful all over. Even what Orlando’s mother had constantly referred to as
    one’s “shameful parts” had proved to be attractive. It saddened
    him to think that he’d had it drummed into his head for so long
    that the body was a vile and wicked thing, the flesh something to be tamed and mortified if possible, the functions of reproduction dirty and shameful processes that should never even be alluded to.
    Jonty naked was exquisite, like some marble effigy of a
    Greek god, especially so in the pallor of his illness. Orlando
    recalled some of the words of the wedding ceremony which he’d
    once read in the prayer book while bored during a sermon. “With
    my body I thee worship.” If it was written there in the chapel, in black and white, then it couldn’t be blasphemous for Orlando to
    want to pay homage at the temple Jonty represented.
    The possibility of anything happening to his friend filled him
    with dread. This had to be more than a tentative romance, this had www.lindenbayromance.com 77
    Charlie Cochrane
    to be the beginning (or reawakening) of true love. He held Jonty’s hand as often as he could decently get away with, often lying in his own bed with arm outstretched so that he could maintain some degree of contact. And all the time he talked to his one-time lover, imploring him not to go where he couldn’t follow, promising
    anything if he were only to regain consciousness and look into his eyes again. He even prayed, which was completely out of
    character, beseeching God to spare the life of the only person who had, in his experience, truly loved him. And asking to remember
    even just a minute of those—surely blessed—times.
    A year ago, the possibility of a plagiaristic scoundrel getting
    his contemptible paws on papers concerning The Woodville Ward
    would have been as great a crisis as any Orlando could have
    imagined. “College honour, academic rigour” had been the creed
    he lived by, nothing more important to him than a beautiful thesis perfectly proved. Now, Owens could have all the coded letters,
    tied up in tinsel with a bow on top, if he could only have his
    friend well again.
    The crisis came the third night that Jonty lay on the little bed that bound all Orlando’s hopes and fears. His fever seemed to
    deepen and no amount of sponging could stop the sweating. Miss
    Peters had sat with them until the wee small hours, bringing
    drinks for both men, trying to coax the patient and his carer into taking at least a little water in.
    “Tonight will see a resolution one way or another , ” she’d said with an honesty and simplicity that Orlando appreciated. The odd occasion when she was out of the room had seen him take the
    opportunity of grasping Jonty’s hand, of whispering urgent pleas in his ear. Once he’d just leaned over and kissed his brow,
    demanding that he come back to him. On this occasion he hadn’t
    let Jonty’s hand out of his grasp even when Miss Peters returned to the room.
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    Lessons in Discovery
    As the bells of Bride’s chimed three o’clock, the fever broke
    and subsided, leaving Jonty’s breathing clearer and easier than it had been these last few days. At last Orlando could be persuaded into his own bed for a well-earned rest.
    Orlando still managed to be awake early enough to watch
    Jonty regain consciousness. He felt