Date: Sat, 9 May 2020 21:12:02 +0100
From: Vincent Appleyard <vincentinanotherlife@gmail.com>
Subject: The Geisenberg Conspiracy Chapter 5

The Geisenberg Conspiracy
by Vincent Appleyard

A story set in East Germany in 1965

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Chapter 5

When Corden had finally roused himself it was still not very much past
dawn. He had loitered rather moodily about the barn until he heard sounds
of activity which turned out to be Rudi leaving the farmhouse to start
bringing in his small herd for milking. Corden felt well enough disposed
towards him still but something held him back and he trusted his instinct
which was to avoid him for the time being. His thoughts strayed briefly
again to the photographs he had secreted and he forced himself to let them
be for now. He loitered a minute in front of a small drinking trough at the
far side of the barn, before dousing his head quickly and savagely in the
cold water, an act which brought him sharply to his senses. He was a
resilient man, well-used to living without comforts and he was perfectly
content to stay a couple of nights in the barn, to live this essential,
vagabond life.

Eventually, he made his way to the house and entered rather tentatively,
suddenly shy at his being a guest, a rare status which he realised would
focus attention upon him to a degree he was unused to. He was in some ways
a highly sociable man, given the right circumstances but here, after the
drama of the day before, his strange encounter with Matthias Berg, he felt
somehow constrained and under scrutiny. He drank some coffee with Anna and
she insisted on his breakfasting properly on what remained of the cold
sausage, cheese and rough chunks of bread that Rudi had enjoyed before
starting his day's work. The children were still asleep upstairs which
pleased Corden somehow, his awareness of their own cool scrutiny of him
being a factor in the strange reluctance that he felt, which was almost a
surliness.

Anna too appeared constrained. She had made brief, rather abstract
conversation and Corden could sense her self-absorption, her need to be
alone. He felt a distance between them and considered himself chided to
some extent as if he were making unreasonable demands on her, which in a
sense, he was and, in fact, had always been doing. She also had work to
attend to around the farm and quickly excused herself from the breakfast
table, bundled up her hair in a brightly coloured headscarf and left. She
told Corden that he should stay there, make himself at home in their living
room but he felt an urgent need for movement as a remedy for the inertia
that he feared might otherwise overtake him. He went back to the barn and
changed into some fresh clothes from a rucksack he kept in the boot of his
car; outdoor clothes, tough and uncompromising as befitted his mood. After
a few more moments of reflection, he set off for the hills, unconcerned
entirely as to his direction, knowing only that the regularity of a long
hike was what he needed most of all. He knew already that he would spend
the next hours going over in his head the implications of his meeting with
Berg and planning in detail exactly how he would present the startling
proposal to London and that only vigorous physical exertion would free his
mind to this necessary contemplation. It was still only 8am but the day
looked promising. It was already warm and would be quite hot by midday. He
had filled his flask with water from the kitchen tap and had stuffed a few,
last pieces of bread and cheese into his pockets before heading off,
anonymous and strangely excited, like a child at the start of an adventure.

He walked for miles, following small roads and random paths that cut across
the fields. He kept mostly to the shelter of the tree-line, occasionally
dipping into more thickly wooded areas, a sense of self-preservation always
keeping him on guard even as he gradually unwound and began to enjoy the
freedom that he felt out in the open. He barely saw another human, only
once when following a rough path out of the wood into an open field, when
he was suddenly confronted by the sight of two middle-aged men working on
an old tractor which had evidently broken down, had been abandoned
even. They had removed the major part of the engine and had laid the
individual components out on the grass like guts spilled from a dead
animal. He passed them by quickly with a curt nod and they watched him for
a moment until he called out to them, making a joke about the state of the
machine and wishing them good luck with their task. He felt their eyes on
him as he walked the length of the field until he disappeared over a stile
which took him back to the woods further on. He was not concerned; he
looked every bit the kind of country rambler that anyone round these parts
might encounter on a late Summer's day. However, he felt his isolation
keenly and he stopped, before he had gone much further, to take a drink and
chew on a piece of bread, perhaps to remind himself of Anna, to
re-establish a connection to her world. He was quite lost in terms of
knowing exactly where he was but at the same time, completely at home and
unworried; he loved to lose himself like this if only to experience the
cheering moment when he found himself again. His sense of direction was
impeccable and he wouldn't need a map to make his way back, although he had
a number of very detailed maps which he had left behind in his car.

All the time he thought about Berg and tried to work through in his head
the implications of what he had agreed to do. He presumed London would be
highly displeased with him for messing up his chance with Rudi, for blowing
the possibility of developing him as an asset in the future. Perhaps the
photographs would prove to be his own way back in, would provide sufficient
promise for London to keep him in harness in the field and not demote him
immediately to a desk job. In a strange way, he felt genuinely grateful for
Berg's intervention.

And so he wandered through the morning and into the afternoon. He stopped
properly only once and lay down in some long grass, half-hidden like a wild
thing. He ate the rest of the food he had brought and thought of the boy
Markus from the photographs. He knew he was stirred by those images but
didn't care to confront the origin or nature of his excitement. He simply
brought each one into his mind and let it sit there, an object to be
contemplated dispassionately. And yet he couldn't escape the knowledge that
his own passions were aroused by them. He lay in the grass looking at the
bright sky, its scattering of small, wispy cloud and didn't move for over
an hour. By the time he stretched and rose again to head back to the farm,
it was already gone 2pm.

As he neared the farm, Corden took a final diversion, looping round to the
south, a way to extend his return and take him back by a different
route. The day was still very warm. Turning past a little glade of willows
to his right, he slowed and took in the scene. The three boys hadn't
noticed his approach. He was not quite behind them but enough to one side
for them not to be aware of his presence. They were all three naked, having
evidently been bathing in a large, although not very deep pond that
stretched away until it disappeared in clumps of rushes. Karl was furthest
away, holding a towel around his shoulders. Johann was stood next to a boy
of about Karl's age whom Corden didn't recognise. Their clothes and other
kit were strewn carelessly about and more towels were stretched out,
already crumpled and dirty where, Corden surmised, the boys had been
lounging in between bouts of play in the pond.

He gazed at them intently, a kind of shimmering coming off their bodies in
the heat. Karl, he noticed, was properly soaked and must have only just
left the water. He stood there dripping but made no attempt to dry
himself. His head was angled slightly and he was looking down at the way
his little cock had risen coolly in the air, the way it poked up into the
light. He was smiling but only half-heartedly it seemed until he gently
touched himself with a still-wet finger, a gesture that succeeded in
drawing the eyes of all to his erection.

The other boy, blond and skinny bent down in Karl's direction and examined
him close up. His face was twisted with a kind of embarrassed delight and
was reddened both by the sun and by the rush of blood to his cheeks. He was
pale and ungainly as a colt let loose, and Corden studied him, smiling at
the haphazard jerkiness of his movements. He observed the rounded curve of
his thin buttocks as he bent, the way they were indented, the deepening of
colour towards the lad's anus. The youngster shook his short mane of curly,
blond hair and laughed deliciously, a laugh that was prevented from taking
full flight, choked back as it was by the overwhelming urge to repress his
own delight, aware much more than Johann of the mischief, the naughtiness,
the sheer, rude sex of the display.

Corden hesitated a moment longer then stepped forward, smiling, warm and
amused.

"Hello, lads!" he said gently, a fraction of a second before the boys had
noticed his approach.

The unknown boy, his laughter caught up and now thoroughly interrupted,
spun round awkwardly, his limbs making rather ungainly movement through the
air.  Karl was smiling widely, blushing but evidently pleased at this turn
of events. He held the towel modestly to his front and grasped himself
through it. Johann merely stood watching, a smile on his face too.

"Uncle Gunther!" he exclaimed, a greeting which seemed to cause Karl to
double-up, laughing. The other boy whispered something to Johann, no doubt
asking about Corden but Johann didn't reply, just stood his ground,
unmoving. He appeared solid and golden, his flesh somehow clean and
gleaming despite the muddy marks that Corden now could see around his legs,
the smear of pond detritus slicking his bottom.

"Who's this then?" asked Corden boldly, indicating the other boy.

No-one spoke at first, the boy himself suddenly shy and indifferent. He had
covered his own genitals with both hands and stood grinning awkwardly at
Johann.

"He's my friend," said Karl at last. "My friend, Ernst."

Corden nodded to the boy but Ernst ignored him.

"Good day for swimming," said Corden, for want of anything else to say.

"We're not swimming!" objected Karl. "Not proper swimming. It's not deep
enough for that."

He approached carefully and placed himself, almost strategically, between
Corden and Ernst. Without any kind of show at all, he dropped his towel to
the ground and stood on it, drying his feet. His cock was still sticking up
at a curious angle, writhing almost in the freshness of the air, its little
tip only partially disclosed, shrouded tightly in the boy's foreskin. His
small, elegant balls were tight and delicate as if held out, breathlessly,
for inspection. Corden stared hard, any fierceness he might have felt from
the day's exertions, from the hot sun, from the remnants of his convoluted
mental state, melted away entirely before the implacable, unyielding
simplicity of Karl's hard-on, the candour of such an innocent, involuntary
statement.

Karl finished drying his toes and stood motionless before the little group,
firm and quivering like a reed and as natural as the reeds beside the
pond. There was an intensity now in his expression as he focussed on
Corden's face, gauging his reaction. He smiled widely, a sweet,
conspiratorial smile that both challenged and encouraged. There was
something like electricity flashing from his eyes, a brazenness, igniting a
dim memory in Corden's mind, which he couldn't quite place. The moment
amplified, like a buzzing of insects and for a second, Corden felt faint as
if the sun were rippling across his eyes, scorching him. He experienced a
moment of sublime, almost painfully acute, self-knowledge, which flared in
an instant and then instantly dissipated, like the stuttering after-image
of a shooting star reflected on the choppiest of seas.

It was Ernst who broke the spell, moving in his quick, ungainly motions and
placing himself, giggling, at Karl's rear. He draped his long, thin arms
around his friend and pushed himself close, so that his own penis brushed
momentarily against the curve of Karl's wet backside. He then manoeuvred
Karl clumsily around and led him back a few yards as if to protect him even
from himself, from the incalculable consequences of his own delighted
recklessness. Corden watched the pair retreat, their limbs entangled,
Ernst's behind moving up and down suggestively as he frog-marched his
companion away. His buttocks were small, distinct, white orbs which danced
about, delicate and petite, like those of a ballerina. Corden's eyes
focussed steadily on the boy's backside, admiring its mobility, the
neatness of its form and admiring too the unselfconscious glee that was
implicit in its movements. Through all of this, Johann stood immobile,
watching everything, rather bored, as remote as a statue. He picked rather
absent-mindedly at his own bottom.

Ernst had by now overcome his initial shyness and stood as if on guard in
front of Karl. He had taken up a towel from the ground and partially
covered his nudity except that he held the towel carelessly, with just one
hand so that whilst it draped over his thighs, his cock was tantalisingly
revealed, half-hidden, then revealed again. He teasingly allowed the towel
to drop and then rise again, catching himself in it with each upward
movement and stiffening himself a little by this action although not to the
extent of Karl's persistent erection. Having caught his penis in the edge
of the towel he would hold it there, as if pointing it out to Corden,
before it was half-covered again and only a few, mere, golden curlicues of
hair were visible above the towel. Corden smiled at the display. He liked
the boy immensely; his cheerful, protective manner towards Karl and his
easygoing playfulness. He had larger testicles than Karl and they were
softened by the light, silky hair that Corden could see even from a
distance. The wisps of pubic hair around his penis were strangely haphazard
in comparison, an insubstantial blond fuzziness that seemed to blur his
outline and brought a kind of soft-focus to him. He stood there with a
slightly awkward lopsidedness which suited his coltish demeanour and
endowed him, rather charmingly, to Corden's eyes, with an air of
familiarity, of approachability. To Corden he appeared like a wild young
horse that was longing to be tamed; a colt that, in pursuit of that one
dream, had positioned himself boldly to one side in order to be noticed and
picked out; to be chosen and taken and mastered and loved.

Karl pushed his way past Ernst and stood directly in front of Corden, the
towel now wrapped securely round his middle. He gazed up at the man, still
dripping from his dip in the pond.

"Where are you going?" he asked, boldly.

"Back. Eventually. I'm going back."

"Back to Nuremberg?"

"Back to the farm. I'll be off tomorrow though."

"Where 'ave you been then?"

Karl scrutinised him, squinting against the sun. He let the towel unravel
from around his waist and stood, his nakedness on display once more, not in
challenge but accepted, natural as if no longer significant. His penis was
now more or less soft again, though still vibrant somehow. It waved gently
in the breeze, a kind of soft, twitching motion that would not be stilled.

"Just walking," said Corden. "I like walking."

He smiled down at the lad and glanced quickly over at the other two boys
who were now leaning together in companionship.

"Look, get yourself dry. Your mother won't want to catching cold, d'you
hear?"  With this, Corden took a step forward, moving directly into Karl's
space. He took the towel gently, which the boy let him have unresisting and
bunching it in his hands, he began to rub Karl's glistening hair which fell
around his ears even to where his shoulders started. Karl let him stroke
his head with the towel and smiled when Corden took one corner of it
delicately and wiped at the dampness on his face, clearing off the drops of
water as if tenderly drying the lad's tears. His tenderness might perhaps
have been unexpected in such an otherwise gruff and forceful-seeming man
but Karl appeared to understand the terms of their exchange; that he would
present his vivid, boyish, beauty to the man and in return the man would
treat him with the highest degree of loving kindness. There was something
utterly masculine in the gentleness with which Corden's fingers traced the
contours from brow to chin of Karl's little face and Karl responded with a
gesture of undisguised invitation, holding his arms up above his head for
Corden to continue drying him.

He rubbed more vigorously at his arms, even to the fingertips and then
wiped at the hairless armpits, feeling how deep they were, the strength of
the musculature beneath the skin. He carried on down the boy's thin chest,
teasing the little nipples, making Karl smile. He felt the narrow ribs and
dried them thoroughly before making the boy squirm by easing a finger
gently round his navel. Finally, still smiling, replicating Karl's own, now
gravely-serious smile, he crouched and began to work the towel upwards from
the boys ankles to his knees. Karl giggled and turned to Ernst and Johann,
still lolling, watching together from a short distance away, all knowing
where this process ended, the ultimate focus of Corden's touch. His hands
reached higher, moving the towel around Karl's inner thighs, rubbing him
quite hard. The lad's thin penis waved mere inches from Corden's nose.

"Come on," he said, smilingly. "You can't go round with a wet bum!"

At this, he finally placed one hand on the lad's dainty little rear, the
other in front and dried him from both sides, rubbing up and down, brushing
his cock and his little nuts and feeling the towel push slightly into the
boy's crack, making Karl giggle with delight and blush with
excitement. Corden could sense the delicate trembling of the boy within his
grasp and held him briefly in a kind of embrace. There was something very
poised about the way Karl gave himself up to the man's attentions, the way
he offered himself to be attended to almost as if making of himself a
gift. There was a coolness too about his manner in accepting Corden's
touch, allowing it, demanding it even; his awareness of a rightness, an
equality, inherent in the exchange. Finally, Corden stood and tossed him
the towel. Karl caught it but didn't use it to cover himself. He held
briefly onto his little penis with two fingers, feeling it pulse and rouse
again in response to his body's memory of Corden's agitating hands.

"Go on, get dressed!" Corden said, giving Karl a light slap on the bottom
as he turned away. Ernst had removed himself to where their clothes were
piled and had already begun fishing round for his underpants. Johann
stretched himself, his arms held aloft, maybe in imitation of his brother.

"You don't need to do me. I'm already dry!" he declared. "I got dry just
standing there in the sun."

He beamed at Corden and skipped off merrily to dress himself alongside
Ernst.

"Are you coming back with us?" asked Karl.

Corden considered this for a minute but decided that he still had things he
wanted to think through before returning to the farm.

"No," he said eventually. "I'm going back a different way. I'll see you
there."

He paused for a second and added: "Nice to meet you, Ernst."

The lad said nothing but raised a hand in gesture of goodbye as he pulled
his Y-fronts up with the other.

When Corden had walked on another hundred yards or so, he stopped and sat
down on the grass. He could see the farmhouse in the distance. After a few
minutes, the three boys could be observed trudging back by another path on
the opposite side of the field. Corden watched them, smiling inwardly at
the strange mixture of knowingness and innocence they all, to some degree,
exhibited and was for a few moments entirely happy. He remembered the feel
of Karl's young, thin body beneath his fingers, the trembling certainty as
he accepted his touch, the way he had exposed himself to being cared-for,
exposed his vulnerability but without shame, deliciously in front of his
friend's eyes; a gift for his friend, the trigger, no doubt, for some
shuddering, nocturnal explorations which would become a treasured part of
their shared fantasies in nights to come. For an instant, Corden wished
that he were twelve years old again but quickly dismissed the thought as
useless, sentimental and self-indulgent. He was firmly set in the adult
world and had, moreover, what would appear obvious to any 12 year old; an
adult's inconceivable responsibilities.

When Corden finally returned to the farmhouse, more than an hour later, he
was surprised to see the same black car that had driven Anna and the
children back from Geisenberg the night before parked discreetly around the
side of the barn. He paused as he reached the farmhouse door, unsure as to
the identity of the visitor and was surprised on entering to find Berg
himself sitting on the large, untidy sofa by the hearth pushing away first
Karl, then Johann as they charged at him, throwing themselves with
increasing abandon into his arms, being repelled each time, only to charge
again, gleefully and with renewed vigour. Berg was laughing out loud and
all the strict, rather pinched narrowness that Corden remembered from their
encounter had been emptied from his face and replaced by a liveliness, a
wildness even, that matched that of the boys. Anna stood to one side,
smiling indulgently but poised, it seemed, to intervene if things got too
boisterous for her guest.

Corden's entrance supplied an excuse to bring the fun and games to an end,
something, he reflected ruefully, that his presence often tended to do.

"That's enough, boys!" Anna cried. "Let's get you upstairs. The grown-ups
need to talk."

Karl was pinning Berg down on the sofa and making comic efforts to hold the
man captive but Berg quickly turned the lad and set him a moment on his
knee, dandling him like a toddler before setting him up again with a light
slap to his rump.

"You need a haircut, young man!" he declared, jovially. "With hair like
that, Gunther here will think you're a girl!"

Karl jumped away from Berg, grinning but turned to his mother, rather
petulantly.

"No he won't!" he exclaimed, hotly. "He's seen my willy!" The lad turned to
face Berg and looked at him earnestly, as if providing a serious
explanation. Anna laughed out loud but Berg gave Corden a strange look as
the boys were ushered upstairs out of the way of any truly serious business
that was to be conducted.

"You've been out all day!" declared Anna. "Let me get you something. Both
of you. You need to talk, I know."

She bustled out and returned shortly with a bottle of cherry brandy and two
glasses and left them on the small table that sat to one side of the
sofa. She retired again discreetly, withdrawing back to the kitchen so that
the men could talk in private. Corden had sat down in one of the armchairs
and was watching Berg carefully. He saw the man's features recover from the
hilarity and excitement of the children's play and settle rather
ponderously until they had achieved a kind of professional
blankness. Corden could not guess at the man's mood or the purpose of his
visit. He seemed to him to be utterly relaxed and self-controlled, his
mouth a thin line of evident satisfaction with things. Berg reached out and
poured them both a large measure of brandy. He raised his glass, almost
mockingly, to make a toast.

"To Scenes from Childhood!" he proposed.

Corden merely grunted in response and they clicked glasses.

"So what d'you want with me now. I take it this isn't just a social call,"
he muttered rather ungraciously.

Berg smiled at Corden's getting straight to the point but still took a
moment to answer, savouring his drink as if he had all the time in the
world. Finally, with a smile, he pulled a small envelope from his pocket
and slid it over to Corden who looked at it blankly. It was a set of stamps
issued earlier in the year to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the
Berlin Zoo. He glanced at Berg, an eyebrow raised in question.

"Under the one in the middle - the giraffe -- there is a microdot
containing photographs of certain documents I want you to have. They are a
follow up to what Rudi was providing you with although I think you will
find -- London will find - that they are beyond what Rudi could ever have
got his hands on. Call it a gesture of goodwill. Good faith, I suppose. I
do want you to be a success in your trip to London and this should grease
the wheels nicely."

Corden stared at the set of stamps.

"What am I supposed to say? I mean, if they're that much higher grade than
Rudi had access to?"

"Tell them the truth! I brought them to you. As I say, it is to show my
good intentions, that my purpose is serious."

Berg took another swig from his glass.

"I'm not in the habit of passing over documents," he added rather
sarcastically.  "So don't think this means you can expect more of the same!
This is strictly a one-off. Just for you. Just to keep you in a good light
with London, yes? I do want you to succeed, you see. I think this will
help. If they don't like it they can go somewhere else!"

Berg had leaned over and rapped on the table to emphasise his point. He
then relaxed again and laughed, refilling both their glasses.

"They are nice kids, no?"

He jerked his head back in the direction of the kitchen, the stairs that
led to the boys' bedroom. Corden looked at him, uncertain. He was still
thinking of the stamp, the microdot. It occurred to him that Berg had
already been drinking before he arrived. He took his drink and drained it
and immediately re-filled his own glass. Berg laughed out loud.

"They'll do very nicely for your Young Leaders programme, I'm sure. If
that's what you mean."

Berg seemed immune to the dismissiveness that lay not far behind Corden's
off-hand remark and chose to take the observation at face value, as
something to be put up for discussion.

"Perhaps you are right," he said brightly. "Young Karl definitely. There is
something about him that is always...ready. Ready to take on the
world. Don't you find?"

"I don't know him that well," objected Corden. Berg gave him a confidential
sidelong look, smiling to himself.

"Always ready to give himself fully. I mean completely. I find that very
attractive. In a boy his age; very attractive, very encouraging."

He seemed to want to engage Corden and elicit from him some kind of
agreement or disagreement perhaps. Corden merely grunted and took another
drink. Berg settled back and did the same.

"Perhaps you think it is more the quality of a follower rather than a
leader?" he mused, almost to himself. "I'm sure he would follow someone
like you to the ends of the earth," he continued. "Loyal. That is a good
quality, no?"

Berg was almost rambling now. "It's hard to know what a boy like that
wants. To lead? To follow? To be a hero? To be...,"

"He wants someone to treat him as an equal!" declared Corden grandly. "He
may only be 12 but he knows what he wants alright!"

Berg sat up, slightly taken aback by the forthrightness of this
statement. It was the most definite thing that Corden had said all evening.

"We are a democratic people. I am sure he will have his wish," opined Berg
smoothly.

Corden looked worried. He contemplated his brandy, clutching the glass
tightly.

"What are you thinking?" Berg asked, suddenly.

Corden was slow to reply but when he did, he was quite definite and rather
magnificent in his delivery.

"I'm thinking of that bloody wall of yours," he growled. "I suppose
everyone's equal so long as they agree to stay behind it!"

There was a period of silence between the two men, after that. Neither
drank, either.

"You know," said Berg reflectively, "what my Young Leaders want more than
anything? What they desire greater than - I don't know - winning at the
Olympics for the DDR?"

He looked hard at Corden, intensely as if about to reveal a genuine secret.

"I don't know. What?"

"A tape recording of your Beatles, that's what! 'Love me do', 'Rock and
roll music'. Even your Rolling Stones now -- what is it ? 'I can't get no
satisfaction?'

Corden thought briefly about the lack of satisfaction in his own life.

"I wouldn't know." he said shortly. "Anyway," he added. "I thought you were
more the Schumann-type."

"That's not the point!" insisted Berg hotly. "The point is...the point I'm
trying to make is...I agree! It is no good building a damn wall. A wall
will only keep things in. It can't keep things out. Things always get
through. Always. Your Beatles got through it and now they're everywhere in
all our heads. I tell you, Gunther. One day that wall will come down. And
it will be the Beatles' fault. I mean, their legacy. Their
achievement. Already our youth don't care about walls. They are already
sizing up what's on the other side. And I intend to be there when the walls
come down. Kicking them down myself if I have to and letting in the Rolling
bloody Stones if that's what it takes...letting in freedom. Equality!"

He stopped suddenly, as if exhausted. He knew he'd said too much.

"You think I am crazy, I suppose?"

Again he scrutinised Corden's face with a directness that was
disconcerting.

Corden was silent a moment.

"Well, good luck to you is all I'll say. But you've got a bloody long, hard
road ahead. You go tell that to Erich Honecker, see where it gets you!"

Berg had gone quiet again and Corden realised that both of them were a
little drunk but none the worse for that, he thought. It wasn't much later
that Berg left, departing with a long, apparently meaningful, look which
Corden understood to be an urging and a plea and a criticism all at once.

The next morning, when he had packed everything away, secured the set of
stamps with its precious microdot along with the photographs, Corden bade
the Wagner family farewell. He embraced Anna and shook Rudi by the
hand. Johann waved shyly from his mother's side but Karl stepped boldly
forward and offered his own hand which Corden shook formally. As Karl
stepped back from him, their fingertips still touching, the boy actually
winked, then grinned and stayed grinning as he waved the car off.