12 AUGUST, 2021

Dear Harry,

Okay, this is another one that’s hard to write. It’s time for us to talk about Mr. Ellis. We spoke about this only once, not long after it happened, and you never mentioned it again. Which is odd, because you always insisted that trauma needed to be remembered, not buried and forgotten. I remember, for example, that time that my son Matthew, your grandson, was run over by a car at the age of four—literally, the driver didn’t see him and the car backed right over him—and you told me I should help him to keep the incident in mind and not let it sink back into the unconscious, where it might to lasting damage. You worried that he might end up as a race car driver! (He didn’t. Thanks!)

The advice was based in a sound understanding of the workings of the human mind, I think. Which is why I find it odd that you neglected your advice yourself.

Here are the facts, at least as I remember them. I was about twelve years old. We had not yet had that chalkboard talk that I reminded you about when I last wrote, and I was still ignorant about anything having to do with sex. Mr. Ellis was the math teacher at the first boys’ boarding school you sent me to, and he had inherited from his uncle a property not far from where we lived—in Braughing, at the time. He let you know he would be happy to have me come for an overnight stay, if ever it was convenient, and it so happened you were due to attend a weekend ruri-decanal conference (I remember that term!) and thought it would be nice (I’m assuming, here) to take Peggy with you for the event.

So you dropped me off at Mr. Ellis’s, grateful for his kindness.

I have to say I’m surprised you could be so naïve. Or was it that you were so keen to have a nice weekend away with Peggy that you chose not to worry about Mr. Ellis’s motivations? We never had that conversation. And you never knew, never chose to ask about what actually happened. I don’t know why, but it feels important that I tell you.

After you dropped me off, Mr. Ellis was all charm for his twelve-year-old guest. He took me around the small farm, the chicken run, the duck pond, the pig sties. We ended up in a big barn with all kinds of interesting old stuff—lanterns and horse harnesses, antique pitchforks and gardening tools, a fully stocked shelf of ancient cans of oils and turpentines and other more mysterious liquids.

But the real treasure amongst all these treasures was the old motor car, a survivor of the days when cars still had brass lamps instead of headlights and horns you had to squeeze to produce a delightful farting sound. Mr. Ellis let me climb into the driver’s seat and pretend-drive this fantastical machine with its big wooden steering wheel and its knubby gear shift. For a boy of my age, this was the great treat of the afternoon.

The dusk was falling by the time we were done, and it was dinner time. Inside the house, the lights were dim and the furniture was sparse, as though no one had lived there for many years. Mr. Ellis made us dinner, which we ate together at the kitchen table, and it was soon time for bed.

I was already beginning to be spooked by the strangeness of the house and the rather strange solicitude of the man I knew only as my math teacher. Mr. Ellis was a short man with thinning grey hair and a friendly smile, and eyes that matched the friendliness behind his rimless glasses. He led the way upstairs and showed me the bed that was made up for me in the bedroom we were to share, and had me wash my face and clean my teeth. Perhaps he even had me say my prayers. Then helped me into my striped pajamas and tucked me up in bed.

How do I describe the feelings and sensations as I lay there, still awake and listening to Mr. Ellis’s own preparations for the night? I know there was a feeling of suspense, of something yet to come, of something like danger, perhaps… There was the feeling of being very alone, without you and my mother nearby, because this was the first night I can remember, except for the school dormitory, that I spent away from home. There I was, all by myself in that little bed. And it was cold.

It was a big old drafty house, and the bedroom was unheated. So yes, I felt cold as I listened to Mr. Ellis in the bathroom, getting ready to go to bed himself. Heard his cough, the quiet sound of clothes being shed and draped somewhere, the back of a chair, perhaps. Heard the squeak of springs as he climbed into the bigger bed, across the room from mine. Heard the strange sighs he made as he prepared, I thought, to sleep.

Then his voice: “Peter? Are you cold?”

Yes, I was. I was cold.

“Why don’t you come over here and we can warm each other up?”

It felt more like an order from my teacher than an invitation. I was scared, yes, but I thought I ought to do what I was asked. I climbed out of my own bed and padded across the cold, wooden floorboards to where he held the bedcovers open to welcome me. “There,” he said, “That’s better, isn’t it?”

I was terrified. My heart must have been beating wildly with the strangeness of it all. The strangeness of my body in bed next to my teacher’s. The strangeness of his breathing.

He was doing something. He was doing something down there, but I had no idea what that could be.

Then his head went down under the covers and he slid down, down to the level of my crotch. He felt his way in through the slit in my pajamas and pretty soon he was sucking at that strange, wonderful, irresistible part of me that I had only used, until then, to pee. And that strange, wonderful, irresistible part of me was responding in a strange and wonderful way. I knew this was wicked. I knew that you would never have approved. I was terrified, yes, and at the same time, in a strange way, thrilled. Thrilled in a way I couldn’t understand, in a way I knew was wicked, and I shouldn’t.

Mr. Ellis sucked and sucked and sucked and I could tell that something was supposed to happen, but I didn’t dare to let it. It felt like I was about to pee at any moment in Mr. Ellis’s mouth, so I held it back desperately, held on, refusing to let go. Then finally Mr. Ellis stopped. He came back up from under the covers and lay beside me, breathless, and I now felt something strange and hot and hard against me, down there, where he’d been, something I had never, ever felt before, it was so strange where it was pressed against me. And I knew that something strange was happening down there, something intense and urgent, but I didn’t know what it was.

Next thing I knew, Mr. Ellis breathed what seemed like a great sigh of relief, and he lay there a few moments longer, as if almost unaware that I was there. Then he turned to me and told me that I’d better to back to my own bed.

I did. I must have gone to sleep, finally. I must have woken in the morning, fearful that Mr. Ellis would be angry with me for the night before. That I’d done something wrong. But no, he was perfectly cheerful as he made me breakfast, as though nothing at all had happened. And then later you arrived, to pick me up, and had me say goodbye nicely, and thank you nicely to Mr. Ellis. And chided me in the car, on the way home, that I had not been nice enough.

That’s it, for now. I’ll need to talk about this some more. But for now, it feels like it’s enough to have told you what happened as exactly as it happened, more than seventy years later. Why do I need to tell you? Is it punishment? Revenge, after all these years? I have talked about it, written about it several times before, but you and I have never mentioned it, except for that one time, when you asked me if I wanted to talk about it and I said, No. But yes, I did need to talk to you about it. To you, specifically. And I never did.

More about this when I write to you next. In the meantime, please forgive my need to have shared this with you. With, specifically, you.

Your son, Peter