Holy Terrors

by D M Greenwood

  The room occupied by Mr L. Springer, B. Ed., was large by the standards of the school, carpeted in durable squares of man-made fibre in mud colour. Some of the squares had worn a bit. A huge desk, a wall full of filing cabinets and a table of computers filled the rest of the space. On the wall was a blown-up aerial view of the school in black and white. A single small shelf of paperbacks behind the desk was the only concession to the academic life.

  Amongst the fashionable litter, it was, at first, hard to pick out the small figure of the head. He was sitting on the front of the desk, his back to Geoffrey, his feet on his chair, his ear clamped to a telephone.

  ‘As far as I’m concerned that’s a complete no-no.’ He paused without listening and went on. ‘OK. OK, I hear you. Look, I’m going to have to get back to you on this one. I’m up to my eyes right now.’

  He swung round to face Geoffrey, cradling the phone in his lap. He reminded Geoffrey less of a teacher than of some sort of guerrilla leader, fresh from jungle warfare and only recently precipitated into civilian life. Springer would have been happy to accept the description. He’d worked hard at the image. Clothes, language, demeanour – which he called ‘body language’; nothing was accidental. He’d started his professional life fifteen years earlier in flannels and tweed jacket. Now his grey polo, black denims and white trainers equipped him for the corridors of his sort of power.

  Or so he had thought. Recently, however, Springer had begun to wonder if he had got it right. He had been trained in education at a time when old goals were being deserted and new, equally rigid ones put in place. When he had entered the profession, academic ends for schools were being abandoned and social work and interpersonal skills were in. A basic diet of elementary sociology and integrated sciences delivered cross-curricularly had been the fashion, and Springer was ever in touch with fashion; he had indeed, no other criterion for his selection of values. He had no vision of education as familiarity with the best in human achievement, only of socialisation, an ability to fit into a prevailing culture. But over the last couple of years his political masters had ceased to allow fashion, or indeed teachers, to continue down that route. The changes had hit the inner London area later than the rest of the country. Now they were here, however, Springer, for the first time in his career, was uncertain where the bandwagon lay.

  He was, therefore, less at ease with Geoffrey than he would have liked. He couldn’t quite make up his mind whether the Church might be useful to him or whether it was a hopeless back number (‘a complete nono’), association with which might mark him out for failure.

  Ten years ago he’d thought he’d got the Church taped. It was useless to him. The odd West Indian baptist, a demure Chinese or two and a courteous Hindu he could cope with. Even the Turkish and Greek Cypriots had caused no problem. Then the Sikhs had come in force. The Muslims had followed. Suddenly he’d been less sure of his line.

  Always alert to social change, never less than professional in his responses, he’d gone on a course and emerged an expert. He’d learnt the jargon and told his secretary to rename the ethnic minorities files ‘multi-cultural’. By the time they’d been ready to computerise the records, the roll was thirty per cent multi-cultural. At times Springer felt all this was a bit unfair. He’d been trained to attend to all types of deprivation: cultural, linguistic, economic, emotional. But the multi-cultural communities didn’t seem quite to fit into his categories of deprivation. They had a dignity, a culture, a set of skills which at times seemed almost threatening. Still, he was young yet. If the name of the game was making changes in the menus of school dinners, he was up to that.

  But he’d been shaken, he had to admit, by a pretty terrible session with an ancient and very strong-looking Sikh who, through his grandson as interpreter – a bright lad in the ninth year who’d clearly enjoyed his role

  – had intimated he was not happy about assemblies. Springer thought he’d placated him by pointing out that there weren’t that many held. This apparently was what the grandfather was unhappy about. He wanted for his grandson – here he’d laid a hand on the lad’s head in a gesture which Springer had only seen in the cinema – a place where God was honoured. Springer was genuinely shocked. Not long after that had come the 1988 Education Act with its quaint requirement about mainly Christian assemblies. It was all so unfair, Springer felt. In fact, he was still worried about the religion bit.

  ‘Geoff, I reckon I need your help. I’m worried about the religion bit.’

  Geoffrey raised an eyebrow. ‘How can I help?’

  ‘What we absolutely must do, top priority, is stop talking, stop thinking negatively, and start talking, start thinking positively.’

  The heads’ course had left its trace.

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘What I’m really saying is, what we have here aren’t problems.’ Springer’s voice dropped a tone and he sought steady eye contact. ‘They’re not even challenges.’ He paused, ‘They’re opportunities. Do you hear me?’ Geoffrey thought this was really rather an uncouth thing to ask until he realised that perhaps what Springer meant was, ‘Do you take my deeper meaning?’ though Geoffrey did not think that there was any very deep meaning in this prattle. Springer was simply manifesting anxiety symptoms, and Geoffrey was an expert in fielding and coping with those. His pity and sympathy were perfectly genuine.

  ‘What have you in mind?’

  Springer ceased to swing his legs from the desk on which he was sitting and dropped athletically fully six inches to the floor. Then he squatted down opposite Geoffrey’s low chair, exactly on a level with him, swinging his arms inside his legs, reminding Geoffrey of a monkey.

  ‘What we need is to positively affirm the identities of all our pupils, whatever their faith community.’ He rattled this off – slogan rather than reflection.

  Geoffrey had no trouble concurring with this, but Springer’s tone was very serious, almost threatening, as though Geoffrey had dissented instead of agreeing with him.

  ‘I’m in favour of religion,’ said Geoffrey gently. And it was true. There were few religions with which Geoffrey did not feel in sympathy, detect the good in and welcome as the most curious, most valuable expressions of the human soul.

  ‘I think my contacts with the Sikh and Muslim communities are strong enough to get in people to help with assemblies, if that’s what you had in mind.’

  ‘That’s absolutely marvellous, Geoff,’ Springer exclaimed with too much enthusiasm. ‘But,’ his tone dropped to a minatory note as though Geoffrey had made a serious but forgivable mistake, ‘I have to remind you – ’ here he pointed a finger like General Haig in the recruiting poster – ‘the new Education Act requires us to deliver assemblies which are “for the most part Christian”.’

  Geoffrey had had enough of this. ‘I dare say I might manage that too, if you want.’

  The head’s relief was, for him, palpable.‘Great. Just great. I leave it with you then, Geoff,’ he said, rapidly rising to his feet and reaching for his telephone again. ‘Get Cherry to give you some dates and keep me in the picture.’

  He seemed to see from Geoffrey’s surprised expression that he was being peremptory.

  ‘I’m up to my eyes just now. I keep telling these publisher boys I’m the one who makes the deadlines.’ He gestured to the set of proofs spread out on his table. ‘But they reckon they can’t wait. See you. Ciao.’

  Outside the cutting sleet was slanting evilly across the car park, attacking Geoffrey as though it would like to kill him. He’d nearly reached his bike, when Cherry caught up with him. She seized him by the arm in her agitation.

  ‘Reverend Brighouse, can you come back? Please. There’s been … There’s a boy dead.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  Innocent Subjects

  The hush which hung over St Veep’s at two o’clock on Monday afternoon was as thick and heavy as the soup served at luncheon. In the distance a piano could be heard tinkling out some utterly appropriate afternoon music. Scarlat
ti, would it be, or Couperin? Theodora worked away methodically at the bibliography for her Oxbridge candidates in the corner of the staff common room. The late afternoon sun illuminated the polished mahogany of the working tables and caught the grey and pink rugs on the waxed floor. The view from the window at her back gave out on to a surprisingly large garden. Two well-grown blue cedars and a fringe of copper beeches enclosed a large lawn which, even at this time of the year, looked green and manicured. The two gravel paths which ran from the house to the shrubbery two hundred yards away were neatly raked, the basin in the middle glittered with khaki-coloured water.

  Theodora fleetingly recalled the garden of the south London vicarage at which she was presently lodged. There the rough, tussocky grass contained many a hidden hazard: rotting wheelbarrows, abandoned bicycle parts and an ossuary of ancient grey dog bones with frayed ends. The feeling was of a municipal adventure playground recently abandoned. And indeed the last curate’s youth club had had a vigorous hand in its air of devastation.

  Theodora basked in the healing silence. She contemplated her lot: Dame Alicia had suggested six hours a week for two terms cramming a couple of sixth-formers who had conceived the curious wish to try for theology at Oxbridge, and two fifth-year classes. It would bring her into school two mornings and one afternoon a week. It would make it economically possible for her to continue her curacy at St Sylvester’s Betterhouse without bankrupting the parish’s finances. Geoffrey, embattled between the demands of his too-numerous parish and his too-porous church roof, had scarcely paused before giving his consent. ‘Gift of God, dear,’ he’d said briefly, as she’d caught him, just, in the vicarage hallway, to put the school’s proposition to him.

  ‘Shouldn’t be surprised,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘if some of your youngsters didn’t speak in complete sentences.’

  His own group once a week at SWL comprehensive didn’t do that on the whole. Not that he didn’t love them, he’d told Theodora, but he noticed it had rendered his own teaching vocabulary narrower, more monosyllabic.

  ‘Yes,’ Theodora had replied to his retreating back as he took the stairs two at a time.

  At five to four there was a light tap at the common-room door, then the rattle of crockery and the sound of wheels squeaking on the parquet and a maid in a black dress had backed into the room drawing a tea-trolley behind her. The cups were china. A couple of plates of fresh-looking scones invited on the lower tray. Theodora relished this spectacle. The maid smiled kindly. ‘Shall I serve you, miss, or would you like to wait for the rest.’

  ‘I’ll wait,’ murmured Theodora.

  At four precisely, the discrete gong boomed in the hall. There was a moment’s pause and then a subdued noise as of a dozen hives opened. Classes had ended. The staff returned.

  Oenone Troutbeck, whose sense of drawing-room etiquette was second only to Miss Aldriche’s of team management, converged on Theodora at the same moment. Oenone gracefully allowed her senior to bat first.

  ‘How very nice to have you with us. It’s good of you to help us out at this time in the term and at such short notice. We’re awfully grateful to Barbara for finding you for us. Are you finding your way around?’

  Miss Aldriche’s manner was exactly right. She had been running things all her life. As the eldest child of a country doctor widowed early, she had run, first, her father and brother and sister. Later, as head girl, she had, naturally, run her school, and likewise, in due course, her college junior common room. Finally, as second mistress, it was averred by those in the know that, whatever the hierarchical niceties, it was she who ran the best girls’ school in the country.

  She had entered teaching because, at that time, it had offered power, scope for female talent and opportunities for scholarship. If she had been born a little later she would have run the country. Her expectations were that women would lead. She had no use for modern interpretations of feminism, finding their analyses of fundamental concepts insufficiently rigorous and at times too coloured by emotion. She herself never needed to insist. It was apparent that she was rational, intelligent, immensely competent and altruistic. She had, moreover, one extremely useful skill. As a modern historian with an interest in genealogy she had at least a scholarly acquaintance with most of the important families in England. She ranged widely; the more modern noblesse from journalism, politics and the media were as well known to her as the scions of nineteenthcentury academic dynasties. So when Barbara Brighouse had said to her in her downright way, ‘Mere is wasting his pupils’ time,’ Miss Aldriche had put her administrative mind to work out the permutations. It was not desirable that there should be a row with the clerical governors. What was wanted was a solid woman, academically competent, who could replace the Reverend Robert little by little almost before he himself had noticed it.

  A little inquiry, the odd phone call to old college acquaintances, indeed a courteous sounding out of the episcopal governor, and finally Barbara Brighouse’s acquaintance with her brother’s curate, had discovered Theodora Braithwaite, granddaughter of an old girl whose portrait hung in the library, of impeccable clerical ancestry, possessing a respectable degree in Lit. Hum., just waiting to be scooped up.

  So it was with genuine pleasure that she approached Theodora to welcome her into their midst. She had no misgivings.

  ‘Thank you,’ Theodora replied. ‘Yes, people have been most kind.’

  ‘Is this all very strange to you?’ Oenone glided into the conversation, ‘or are you – ’ Theodora thought she was going to say ‘one of us’, but she ended – ‘an old hand?’

  Theodora took in Miss Troutbeck’s appearance; much thought had been given in order to achieve great simplicity which had nothing of the peasant in it. There appeared to be a great deal of cashmere and Thai silk. ‘I have taught a little but not quite at this level,’ Theodora replied.

  ‘Where would that have been?’

  ‘Africa, Nairobi.’

  ‘Really,’ Oenone hadn’t quite got enough to go on so she pressed on. ‘Nairobi. Did you by any chance know the McDermotts there?’

  ‘Yes. They were members of St Augustine’s congregation.’

  ‘Ah yes, of course. Were you there long?’

  ‘I had three happy years.’

  ‘You may have met my uncle, Henry.’

  Theodora reviewed her acquaintance with the white community and recalled a rather jolly drunken retired diplomat who had diplomatically and drunkenly settled for the new regime. She nodded. ‘Sir Henry was much about.’

  Oenone appeared more or less satisfied. She became more expansive. ‘What did you do out there?’

  ‘I served my first curacy.’

  Oenone was too well-bred to evince surprise.‘Really? You’re in orders?’

  ‘Deacons’. Yes.’

  ‘Anglican?’

  Theodora grinned. ‘Is there anything else?’

  Oenone now had to start all over again. ‘And what are you doing at present?’

  ‘Serving my second curacy at St Sylvester’s Betterhouse.’

  ‘So you’ll be a priest in due course?’

  ‘No, I think not.’

  ‘Isn’t it rather a cul-de-sac then, being a perpetual curate?’

  Theodora forbore to speak of vocation. Instead she said mildly, ‘It has its rewards. Such as a part-time teaching post here.’

  Barbara Brighouse, who had seized and downed her first cup of tea and got to her second scone, strode up, with Miss King at her heels. A red setter and a Jack Russell, Theodora thought.

  ‘Theo, my dear, it is good to see you. I’m so glad Geoffrey felt he could spare you from that dreadful parish of his.’ Her manner clearly indicated a previous acquaintance.

  Theodora felt both loyalty and love for St Sylvester’s, but before she could respond to Miss Brighouse, Miss King broke in. ‘I expect you’ll want to meet our chaplain. Only he doesn’t seem to be around at the moment. I almost feel at times he avoids the common room.’ Miss King’s malicio
us little grey eyes in her little round face went with a low, melodious voice, rather more powerful than might be expected from her small frame.

  Theodora hadn’t realised that the school had a chaplain. Barbara, briefly visiting her priestly brother to look over Theodora, had made no allusion to one. He had not been mentioned by Dame Alicia at their brief interview either. She knew instantly that she would threaten any chaplain. If he’d been any good she would not have been appointed.

  Barbara bounded into the breach. ‘You really ought to see your grandmother’s stuff, I believe you said you hadn’t seen the portrait of her as a young woman.’

  Theodora was quite ready to let people off hooks. ‘No, I haven’t seen it. My Uncle Hugh mentioned it. What’s it like?’

  ‘Chocolate box,’ said Miss King, baulked of her prey and therefore angry. ‘But there are bits of classical stuff which she got on her travels in the Near East between the wars. There’s the Nike at the top of the stairs, and a relief of a male standing figure clasping a spear which derives, I do not know at what distance, from a second-century temple relief in Sicily.’ Miss King was classically exact.‘Also one or two bits of the male physique in the studio, under lock and key.’

  ‘Why lock and key?’ Theodora inquired, startled.

  ‘Drawing from the living male nude is not yet quite acceptable here, but Cromwell likes his examination candidates to have some chance to draw the male figure, so the Braithwaite Bequest’s antique plastercast is regarded as a reasonable compromise.’ Miss Brighouse was dry. ‘Personally I can’t see why they don’t take them down to the Slade and let them do it properly.’

  ‘Perhaps that would be a little daring,’ said Mrs Gulland, who had come up to join the group.

  Oenone was busily adding up the score ‘You’re Lady Helena Braithwaite’s granddaughter then?’ Her relief was palpable. One of us.