Clive had put up two shelves inside for their luggage and, at the end of the walkway, he had constructed a screened enclosure, so it was possible to pee over the edge in private. Inside the hut Clive had put up pictures of Jack and Clive. A friendship spanning eight years, where a child had become a boy and a boy had become a man. You could see it in their faces. The softness had left Clive’s, who was now twenty-eight years old, but it was more noticeable in Jack’s. His gaze was intelligent, his face slimmer, and his hair longer. The little boy was fading away.
That evening, they fried sausages in a pan Clive conjured up from his backpack and, for dessert they shared a bar of chocolate, which turned out to be cooking chocolate, but it tasted good all the same. They huddled together to keep warm and heard the owls hoot and the wapiti deer roar.
Early the next morning, while the moon still hung suspended in the sky, a nightingale sang very close to them. Jack was asleep and Clive looked at the boy’s lips, which were sharply outlined in the moonlight. He wanted to reach out and touch Jack. At that moment, Jack turned over in his sleep and was now facing Clive. Clive could smell his breath; it was strong and alien, and he was hit by an unfamiliar surge of arousal. Not like the feeling he got when he thought about Jack’s mother or the girls from college, but something infinitely deeper, as if unbridled lust had risen in him like an atoll from the sea. Clive struggled to breathe calmly and inched himself closer toward Jack’s warm, sleeping body.
Jack jerked upright and moved away.
“What is it?” he murmured. “What’s wrong?”
The light inside the tree house was still gray. Clive said nothing and pretended to be asleep. He was wide awake, but it wasn’t until it was daylight, at least an hour later, that he stretched out and said he hadn’t slept this well in a long time. Jack was already sitting on the walkway surveying the forest. They made oatmeal on the stove before they packed up and walked home. They said good-bye to each other by the garden gate outside Clive’s house, and Clive could feel his legs shake. Jack moved in to hug Clive, like they always did, a brief meeting of their chests and a friendly pat on each other’s back meant thanks for today and see you later. Clive shot out his hand to stop him. A surprised Jack shook it.
“You’re a man now,” Clive said. “Thirteen years old.”
Jack beamed with delight, and his surprise evaporated. Clive picked up his backpack and walked down the path.
“See you,” he called out over his shoulder.
Clive couldn’t sleep that night. Breathless, he lay in his bed, his body throbbing.
Three months later, Jack’s mother got a job in another city and they moved. Clive stood behind the window, watching the moving van being loaded. He heard the doorbell ring, he heard his landlady call out for him, and he watched a disappointed Jack walk back to the waiting van. When the van had disappeared around the corner, Clive uttered a deep cry of despair. Then he thought: it’s better this way. Jack had changed recently, the little boy had gone completely. Clive missed him and had no idea what to do with the new Jack. Since the birthday camp out in the forest, Jack had canceled their Saturday arrangement twice, and the previous Saturday he had failed to show. He hadn’t appeared until later that morning, his hair crumpled with sleep and a pimple on his cheek. Clive was sitting on the steps, carving a stick.
“Sorry, overslept,” Jack mumbled. He was wearing Bermuda shorts and no shirt and stretched languidly. Clive muttered something and carried on carving. He felt as if Jack had died. The boy Clive had protected and looked after was gone, and a young man had taken his place. Jack glanced at him from under his curly bangs, and his downy upper lip pointed at Clive.
It’s better this way, Clive told himself again long after the moving van had left. The way he felt about the new Jack was forbidden.
The next time Clive saw Jack, he could hardly believe his own eyes. It was 1993. Clive had married Kay, they had two children, and he had been appointed the youngest ever professor of the department of Bird Evolution, Paleobiology, and Systematics. Clive recognized Jack immediately. He was standing to the left of the entrance, glancing at his watch, a worn briefcase by his feet. He was tall with very dark hair, and he had the face of a grown man, but Clive recognized the sharp line of his upper lip. His eyes were still guarded, and the movement with which he swept aside his hair was the same it had always been. Clive felt flushed all over as he held out his hand to Jack. At first, Jack failed to recognize him, but then his eyes penetrated the soft beard Clive had grown and his face lit up.
“Clive, right?” he exclaimed, smiling. Jack was taller than Clive and, for a few seconds, they simply looked at each other.