And now that Ronnie was away, the studies didn't seem to mean much. The school holidays last for a week before and a week after Christmas. There had been no letter from Ronnie before Christmas and on Christmas Day I sat, trying to read Troilus and Cressida. The bell had rung.

I had been so sure (for no reason) that it was the postman with a Special Delivery letter. But it was Kusaki-a friend of Ronnie-who I hardly knew. He was returning a book he had borrowed from Ronnie.

He saw my Troilus and Cressida and, sitting down, embarked on one of those short precise essays that I was to know and love so well, this one being on faithful and unfaithful lovers.

I smiled and wondered-what every gay person wonders-if the other person

is too.

It was impossible to tell.

Kusaki had gone on into a discussion of Tristan and Isolde, which I knew more through the Bedier version than the Wagner opera.

"It's love of death," I'd said viciously, "a suicide pact."

"No," he said, "its love through death, love strong as death."

"Yes," I said, "but in the Song of Songs the lovers escape-alive." Kusaki had nodded.

"Yes," he said, "sometimes we are that fortunate."

We? He had gotten up, as abruptly as he had sat down, as if-quite purposefully this was the message that he had come to deliver and then said as he left, "I'll stop by on New Year's Day."

There was no Special Delivery letter that came after he left, and no letter from Ronnie, or even a card on any day that followed.

Kusaki's talk had made me interested again in the Troilus but this interest flagged when there was no mail, and only growing, increasing doubts. I took Ronnie's records of the Tristan and Isolde out and, for the first time, played them. Listening to them, I found myself overcome by a strange, almost insane, mystical conviction that somehow my own love would save us both, that the black thoughts hanging around me, would, if kept away, not bear fruit.

But I knew. If I had felt my voice, or presence was wanted or needed by Ron, would I not have phoned him? Even the daily letters I sent him seemed to need an extra prodding to get in the mailbox, as if they knew that they would be unwelcome guests at their destination.

I went to a party New Year's Eve, got very drunk, or tried to, but couldn't. The drunkenness of sadness had crawled into me deeper than any alcohol could reach.

I had sat sour-tongued, listening for Kusaki's ring, and also, wondering, if he knew about Ron and me.

When I let him in the room I had said, "I hope you don't mind. I'm playing the Wagner Tristan. Ron sent it to me

Kusaki did not talk at length as we had last time. He never competed with records. He had sat and smoked and left.

The next day Ron had returned. I asked him if he had received my letters. He had. . . As for him, he had not written because . . . there was no reason.

There doesn't have to be. It is only writing that needs a reason, not non-writing. I can answer hate, as I can accept love, but the wastes of waiting, boredom, indifference, are for me impassable, unknowable, unbearable barriers. I had been under a delusion, that this numbness of Ron's was strength. When the new term began I changed rooms. I lived alone, and slept alone, feeling that the touch of another lover would only recall the defeat of Ronnie.

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