Dead Famous

DAY THIRTY-EIGHT. 4.45 p.m.

“Homoerotic, oh, for heaven’s sake,” Coleridge snapped.

“Sounds reasonable to me,” Hooper replied.

“Yes, of course it does, sergeant! So easy to say, so impossible to contradict. Why is it that everybody these days insists on presuming a sexual motive for absolutely everything? Military rituals homoerotic? Why, for heaven’s sake!”

Was Freud to blame? Coleridge rather thought that he might be, or else Jung, or perhaps some imbecile from the sixties like Andy Warhol.

“Whatever you say, sir,” said Hooper.

Coleridge let it go, as he let so much go that bothered him these days. At the end of the day, as the inmates of the house were so fond of saying, it wasn’t worth it.

“I still cannot quite believe that these people actually agreed to do this task. I mean, four hours in that thing, naked.”

“Well, Dervla tried to object, didn’t she?”

“Ah, yes,” Coleridge thought, Dervla objected, the one he secretly rather liked. For a moment he felt glad that she had objected. Then inwardly he cursed himself. He had absolutely no business liking any of them, or being glad about what they did or didn’t do.