The Lying Tongue by Andrew Wilson Page A

creature—never engaging with anyone, never experiencing anything, forever locked into my own little world, surrounded by my books and my art, remnants of another age. But I’m happy, whatever that really means. Well, as happy as I’m sure I could ever be.”
    He paused and took a deep breath before he shifted in his seat.
    “Listen to me, circumnavigating the main issue as usual. Sorry, Adam, it’s just that I haven’t talked like this for such a long time. You’ll have to forgive me if I digress or wander off down some conversational pathway that looks like it’s leading to nowhere. But the only reason I’m doing this—the only reason at all—is because I feel it might help you. There was a time in my life when I felt confused and unhappy and… uncertain about what and who I wanted.”
    I waited for him to continue.
    “I was young, like you. After Oxford I started work as an English master, and one of my first jobs was at this school in Dorset. Again like you, I had ambitions to write. I had an idea for a novel, and I worked on it when I wasn’t teaching. It all seems so long ago now. In a way, I can’t believe it’s me I’m talking about. Anyway, soon after starting at the school, I became very friendly with another teacher, Ruth Chaning, who taught art on a part-time basis. She was about my age, in her early twenties, and as both of us were new to the school and did not know many people in the area, it was only right and proper that we should spend time together. Throughout our friendship I waited for the right moment to tell her that… that I was not attracted to women. But when, one night, walking back from the village pub, she reached out and pulled me toward her and kissed me, I felt like it was too late. The right moment had passed. It wasn’t that I felt sorry for her, but looking back it was terribly immature of me not to say anything.”
    He roused himself as if suddenly waking from a dream. “Sorry. This is far too much. You don’t need to know all this. I don’t know why I’m telling you. All I meant to say was that I know what it’s like to be in your situation.”
    It was the first time I had heard Crace say anything in detail about his own personal life. And I made sure to memorize every single word.
    I wanted to know more. I steeled myself to ask a question. “Did you feel attracted to any other members of staff, besides her, besides this Ruth?”
    “I did feel drawn to another, but he… they… were not members of the faculty,” he said.
    “Someone who worked in the village? Someone you met outside the school?”
    The question was too much for Crace. It was as if the conversation we had been having had never taken place.
    “I thought I told you never to probe into my life, my personal life. That was one of the areas we went over and over in the interview, and you said that you would abide by my rules—”
    I had to interrupt him, to make him see sense. “But, Gordon, it was of your bidding. I didn’t ask you to talk about the past. You initiated it, don’t you remember? You said it might help me…with my dilemma…my attraction to other boys.”
    I stared hard at him. His lips worked silently, as if trying to form ghost words, phrases and expressions he would have used if he had continued in his attack on me.
    “Sorry. I didn’t mean to raise my voice,” I said. “It’s just that you started it all off. Talking, I mean.”
    He frowned and his eyelids flickered. He concentrated so hard that it looked as though he was trying to untangle a piece of memory tape that had knotted itself inside his head.
    “Oh, yes, so it was. How silly of me.”
    “Obviously I wouldn’t have asked you anything, but I thought you wanted me to. I thought you wanted to help me…help me understand.”
    Surely there was no harm in trying. After all, a little self-pity might elicit some more information.
    “You’re right. You’re perfectly right,” Crace said. “Perhaps it’s time I got