The thing about pain, Mousey, is that we build over it. We bury it, we mourn it, we copy it in marble. And it becomes a monument, carved with weeping angels, inscribed with words in Latin, bearing so little resemblance to the thing we put into the ground that even the memory of it fades, to be replaced by the memories of polished stone; stained glass; the bitter scent of lilies.

It started in his form room. I used to go there at lunchtimes. He used to sit at his own desk, marking, or listening to music. One day, we were alone. He came and stood right next to me. And then he put his hand on my leg, and left it there for a long time. I didn’t know what to do. He was a teacher. I trusted him. And so I didn’t do anything. I just sat there and waited. And because it felt weird, I didn’t say anything either. Instead I just sat there, pretending nothing was happening, and closed my eyes, and drifted, and listened to the music.

That was a mistake, of course. Now we had a secret. And when it happened again, then again, I found it even harder to say anything. After all, he’d done it before. And he didn’t seem to think it was weird, which made me think I might be to blame. And anyway, what harm had we done? And how could I even describe it?

And so I never said a word. Not even to you, Mousey. That’s why I never wrote it down in my St. Oswald’s diary, because that would have given the monster a shape. That would have made it real to me. I think perhaps I was wondering if it meant I looked different; if somehow he could tell that I wasn’t like other boys. I used to look at myself in the mirror, and try to see what he could see. But there was nothing. No special sign. No sign we had a secret. And when he pushed me onto the desk, with his hand on the back of my head, and whispered to me: Good boy—I did what I’d always done, and turned my mind to other things: to Ziggy and his left-handed guitar; to Crow, and 1984; and the clay pits, and Diamond Dogs.

This is where those memories start to become fragmented. It’s not that I don’t remember—how could I forget that? The smell of him, the sound of him, there in the chalky darkness. The way I had to close my eyes so hard that when I opened them, all I could see for a moment or two was a brown, swirling nothingness.