Beneath the Earth by John Boyne Page A

you.’
    â€˜Natural causes, was it?’
    â€˜Yes, thankfully. She died in her sleep.’
    â€˜Not murdered then?’
    I stared at him, uncertain that I had heard him correctly.
    â€˜No,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Why on earth would she have been murdered?’
    â€˜No reason. But there are so many disturbed individuals abroad these days. I’m always nervous of some
Catcher in the Rye
-wielding maniac approaching me in a dark alley late at night and wanting to connect his narrative to mine in some homicidal way. I have no desire to be a martyr to art. When I think of what happened to John …’ He shook his head, pained to the core.
    â€˜John who?’
    â€˜John Lennon.’
    â€˜You call him John?’ I asked. ‘Were you friends? Weren’t you nine when he died?’
    â€˜There’s a connection, you know? It’s hard to explain to someone who isn’t an artist. Any more.’
    â€˜Thanks,’ I said.
    â€˜Trust me,’ he replied. ‘You’re better off out of it.’
    â€˜Am I? That’s good to know.’
    â€˜Anyway, I’m sure it won’t come to that. The chances of me being murdered are slim.’
    â€˜Oh I don’t know about that.’
    â€˜Really?’ He looked up, apparently pleased by the idea.
    â€˜Anyway,’ I said. ‘The evening my mother died, we opened her will.’
    â€˜Was there a codicil?’ he asked. ‘I’ve always loved the word
codicil
. Someday I plan to write a novel called
The Codicil of Agnès Fontaine
. I have no idea what it will be about but it’s a magnificent title, don’t you think? Promise me you won’t breathe a word of it to anyone.’
    â€˜I promise,’ I said. ‘I’ve already forgotten it.’
    â€˜Thank you, darling. So am I to assume that your mother left me something?’
    â€˜No. Why would she do that?’
    â€˜It seemed like a natural deduction from the way the conversation was going, that’s all. And you must remember, your mother and I were very close when I was a child. I stayed in touch with her all those years while you were off inter-railing around Europe or whatever it is that you were doing. In many ways, she was more of a mother to me than my father ever was.’
    This was not as bizarre a statement as it might sound. Arthur’s mother died when he was a baby and in her absence his father had been left to play both parental roles. A hugely accomplished transvestite, very popular within both the club scene and the more progressive elements of the media, Arthur’s father switched between genders every seven days, being a father to his son one week and a mother to him the next. He was a strong believer that a child needed both parents. And he was a magnificent father, as far I recall, taking him to soccer matches and letting him stay up late on school nights, but really an atrocious mother. She suffocated him.
    â€˜That’s nice of you to say, Arthur,’ I said. ‘I know she was very fond of you.’
    â€˜Don’t you hate the way
fond
as a synonym for
foolish
has become arcane?’ he asked me.
    â€˜I didn’t know that it ever was.’
    â€˜Oh yes. You find it throughout Elizabethan and Jacobean literature. Ben, Kit, Will, John – they all used it. Anyway, I’m not surprised. I suppose I was like the son she never had.’
    â€˜Well, she had me.’
    â€˜I visited her book club once, did she tell you that?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Such elegant ladies. Powdered and perfumed. All of a certain age, of course, but still bristling with sexuality. I had offers, you know.’
    â€˜I’d rather not hear about them, thanks.’
    A roar went up from the football table and then there was much placing of heads in hands while one sole traitor to their cause – wearing different colours to his comrades, I noticed – stood up and pointed at