The Rotters' Club

by Jonathan Coe

  “You mean you’ve never tried it this way before?” Ffion would ask, with bright incredulity, having arranged herself into some implausible position which like as not required her to address him through the crook of her elbow or from beneath the arch of her left knee. “You’re not a virgin, are you, Duggie?”

  Some hours later, as she clung to him by a tuft of his hair and locked his head firmly between her legs, his tongue working at her clitoris with steady, unflagging enthusiasm, she suddenly let out a high whinny like a thoroughbred pony and said, with a delighted sigh: “Oh Duggie, isn’t this topping? I think I could keep going all weekend.”

  “Me too,” said Doug, truthfully but indistinctly.

  “What a . . . bother,” Ffion added, forming the words as best she could through the ripples of sensation that his labours were continuing to stir up inside her, “that I’m expected for lunch tomorrow . . . in Gerrards Cross.”

  “Cancel it,” came Doug’s muffled voice.

  “But it’s with my—oooh!—fiancé’s parents.”

  He stopped abruptly, and looked up. His face wore an expression of profound astonishment that would have been comic even if his hair hadn’t been pulled wildly out of shape, and his mouth smeared with pubic hair and vaginal juices.

  “You’re engaged?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Ffion answered glumly. “And to the most frightful bore.”

  “When will you be back?”

  “Not till Sunday night. I think we’re going riding.”

  Doug raised himself on to one arm and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. In a flash, he realized that he would never see Ffion again. In another flash, it occurred to him that he didn’t really mind.

  “That’s all right,” he said, and kissed each of her nipples in turn before beginning to trace a line with his mouth back across her stomach and her belly-button and towards the wiry haven beyond. “I’ve got masses of homework this weekend anyway.”

  Ffion grabbed him by the hair again and yanked him back up into her line of vision. Now it was her turn to look astonished.

  “Homework?” she said. “You mean—you’re still at school?”

  “That’s right.”

  Their eyes met, and all at once it seemed to both of them that they were sharing the most exquisite hash- and music- and sex- and alcohol-fuelled joke. They burst into laughter, and laughed and laughed until the breath had left them and their entangled naked bodies were helpless and heaving. Doug was the first to recover his speech, but all he managed to say, in a high-pitched mockery of her own perfect vowels, was “What a hoot !,” and that set her off again, shrieking like a nervy adolescent, so that anyone passing in the corridor outside might have thought that Doug had started to tickle her, instead of returning one more time to the succulent exertions that waited for him between Ffion’s sheened and glistening legs.

  5

  “So—are you ready to go out?

  “I’m just going to put this record here, for now. I wanted to talk to you about it, but we’ll do that later.

  “I think you’ll need a coat. It’s really been getting wintry out there, the last few days.

  “All set? You’d better lead on. I keep getting lost in this place. All those corridors.

  “Hang on, hang on, we don’t have to go quite that fast. We’ve got all afternoon, you know.

  “That’s better.

  “I suppose you can’t wait to get out.

  “There—I told you it was going to be nippy, didn’t I? Come on, let me tuck that scarf in. Give your neck a bit of protection. That’s it. This coat’s lasted you a little while, hasn’t it? I remember you wearing that in the fifth form. This one’s new. Mum got it for me last month. Said she was sick of me wearing Uncle Len’s old greatcoat. It went off to the jumble sale, in the end.

  “I thought we’d go up to the Beacon again. Would that be all right? Or the duck ponds, maybe?

  “OK, the Beacon it is.

  “I thought you might get tired of doing the same thing every week.

  “You’re looking better, you know. Much better. Mum said that, after she’d been to see you on Wednesday, and it’s true. Much fuller in the face. You must be eating more.

  “I bet the food in that place is pretty grim, though, isn’t it?

  “Look out for the cars, now. They tear down this road at about fifty miles an hour, some of them. The police are never there when you want them. There, it’s safe to cross.

  “Funnily enough, we came to these woods on Wednesday ourselves. Me and Harding and some of the others. I don’t know if I told you, but Mr. Tillotson persuaded the Chief to set up this new option on Wednesday afternoons. It’s called the Walking Option and . . . well, that’s what it is, really, it means that people like us who tend to get beaten to a pulp when we go on to the rugby field, and are hopeless at running and all the other things, well, we don’t have to do any proper sport any more, we can just change out of uniform and we pile into the minibus and we come out somewhere like this and we just wander around for a couple of hours. So we get some fresh air and a bit of exercise and at the same time we can improve our minds with a bit of fine conversation, that sort of thing.

  “The only problem is, I don’t seem to have much to say to Harding any more. I don’t know why. He thinks I’m boring, probably, and I think he’s . . . Well, he’s strange. There’s no getting away from it. He’s becoming strange. So we don’t really know what to talk about. Those scripts we were going to write together . . . Nothing seemed to come of that, anyway.

  “God, Lois, you’re shivering. You really do feel the cold these days, don’t you? It’s because you’re just sitting around all the time, I reckon, and they keep that room of yours too warm. I know it’s better than being too cold, but it means that when you come out on a day like this—you feel it, don’t you? Look, I’ve got this terrible bobble hat in my pocket. Grandma knitted it for me, and I have to carry it around in case she asks me what I did with it. Here you are, put it on. Get those ears covered. They’ve gone all pink. Just feel your cheek! There, that’s better.

  “On the subject of rugby—which isn’t a subject that preoccupies me as a rule, I know—it’s all about suppressed homosexuality, if you ask me, and not so suppressed either, some of the time, if you see what goes on in the showers after some of those games—anyway, sorry, I’m wittering, it’s nerves, don’t worry, only sometimes I don’t even know if you can hear me, but of course you can, they’ve told me that, so I should just carry on, that’s what they said, just carry on as if I was having a normal conversation, except that with most normal conversations the other person says something back occasionally, but anyway, that’s not the point . . . What was I saying? Oh yes, rugby, on the subject of rugby, well, there was a bit of a scandal this week, because Astell House were playing Ransome House, and Richards was playing scrum-half for Astell and Culpepper was playing for Ransome, on the inside right or silly mid-off or whatever those stupid positions are called—and nobody really knows what happened but there was some sort of tackle, and the next thing you know, Culpepper’s down on the ground screaming in agony—and I mean literally screaming—and it turns out he’s broken his arm. Well, Richards is very contrite, as you might expect, and very upset about it, actually, because he’s a gentle sort of bloke and doesn’t like to hurt anybody, but now Culpepper’s going around telling people that he did it on purpose. Which is rubbish, anyone’ll tell you that. The fact is that he just hates Richards and he’ll do anything he can to make life hard for him. He’s hated him ever since he first came to the school, some people say it’s because he’s black but I don’t think that’s the reason, I think he just hates him because he’s a better athlete than he is, a better sportsman, better at everything really. But it just seems to get worse and worse. He seems to hate him more and more every day and nobody can see where it’s going to end.

  “Anyway, Richards is going to add another string to his bow soon. We just heard about it yesterday. H
e’s joined the drama society. Or not joined it, exactly, but . . .

  “Sorry, I thought we’d take a bit of a detour, there. That was Mum’s friend Mrs. Oakeshott, from the W.I., and the last thing we want is her talking to us for half an hour. I don’t think she saw us. Anyway, this way’s probably quicker, now I come to think of it. Nearly at the top, now.

  “Oh, yes, Richards and the drama society. The thing is, he’s never acted before in his life, but he’s just landed the lead in the Christmas production. Which is Othello, naturally. Well, they don’t have a very extensive pool of black actors to choose from, do they, at our school? Harding offered to do a Laurence Olivier and get to work with the boot polish again, but that suggestion didn’t go down too well this time, for some reason. As for Desdemona . . . well, I don’t have to tell you who that’s going to be. Cicely, of course. Now all they need to do is cast Culpepper as Iago and we’ve really got a production on our hands.

  “And yes, I’m still mad about her. I know, I know, it’s been going on for years now and I haven’t even said a word to her yet. It’s getting ridiculous. I’ve practically written four symphonies and half a dozen verse cycles about the woman and still she wouldn’t know me from Adam if we were to meet in the street tomorrow. But . . . Nothing ever seems to happen, at school, that would make our paths cross. It’s almost as if the gods were against me, on this one. I mean, the main reason I started working for the magazine was because I assumed she was going to be one of the editors, too. But then she never showed up to the first meeting. Then they decided to set up joint English lessons with the Girls’ School, and she and I were put in different classes. I can’t act, so I can’t get to know her that way, and I’m no good at public speaking, so I can’t join the debating society . . . I don’t know what I should do. The only way I could get to know her is through Claire, because Claire sees her all the time, but Claire . . . well, she’s the last person I could ask to do something like that. The last person on earth. For obvious reasons.

  “Philip told me a funny thing about Claire, actually, just the other day. He and Claire see quite a lot of each other, these days, what with the magazine, and her just living a couple of streets away. But apparently—and I don’t know if you knew this, perhaps you did, but . . . no, maybe not, because it happened just after . . . Anyway, apparently, Claire’s sister—who I met once, incidentally, down at the café by the bus terminus, as did Paul, who was particularly rude to her, I seem to remember—Claire’s sister—Miriam, her name was—she’s . . . Well, she’s disappeared. Vanished, completely. I don’t know all the details— don’t know any of the details, to be honest—but there was something about a lover, some affair she was having, and then she left Claire a note, or left her parents a note, and went to join this man, somewhere in the North, and that was it. They never heard from her again. Not a word.

  “I think Claire feels awful about it. In fact I’m sure she does. Anybody would, wouldn’t they?

  “By the way—still no sign of the holiday photos from Denmark, I’m afraid. Dad’s furious with himself for putting them in the post when he could have got them done at the chemist down the road. It’s been two months since he sent them off now but the people at the processing factory are still on strike, apparently. He almost has a fit every time you mention it to him. Says that strikes are going to destroy this country, like cancer destroys the body. I’m sure we’ll get them in a week or two. I hope they came out well. It was an amazing place, Lois. It was such a shame you couldn’t have gone there with us.

  “Well, here we are. I love this view, don’t you? I know that places like Skagen have more beautiful views, but . . . I shall always love this one. There’s the Longbridge factory, see? Where Dad works. And Doug’s father, too. And there’s the university tower. School’s just behind that, do you remember? And this tower here, just the other side of Rubery, the one with the green tip, that’s where we’ve just come from. That’s where you live at the moment. But not for much longer. You’ll be out of there very soon, now. Everybody says so.

  “Oh Lois, I wish you’d say something, just something, I know you’re listening to me and I know you understand everything I say and I know you like it when I give you all this stupid news about school but if only you could just say something again, be like you were a few months ago when we all thought you were over the worst and it seemed like . . . I don’t know, it seemed like you were going to be all right again.

  “You are going to be all right again. You have to be.

  “I pray for you, you know. Every night. And that works. I know it does. I’d never tell anyone else about it because no one would believe me, but it’s true. I’ve told you that story, haven’t I? So you know what I mean. And it happened. It really happened. You believe me, don’t you, Lois? And that means it can happen again. I just have to work harder at it this time, because what I’m asking for is so much bigger. But He listens to me, Lois. I know He does. He listens to me and I know He’s going to put things right. It’s going to happen soon.

  “OK, we’d better get back.

  “Of course, the other big news at the moment is that the band’s going to have its first rehearsal in a few days. Finally, after all these years of talking about it. It was supposed to be last week but now we’ve put it off till next Thursday. The day before bonfire night. And I have to say, I’m really curious to see what Philip has up his sleeve, because he’s been very cagey about—

  “Shit! No! No, Lois, it’s all right.

  “Really, it’s all right, it’s just a dog. Just a dog barking.

  “It’s just a—

  “Come on, hold me, hold me tight.

  “Really, it’s OK, calm down, calm down now.

  “It’s just a—

  “Will you please keep your fucking dog under control!

  “I don’t care about that. Can’t you see he’s scaring her to death?

  “Come on. Come on, now. It’s OK.

  “Come on. Still. Be still. Deep breaths.

  “Hold on to me. Hold on to me, Lois. The dog’s gone. The noise has gone. It’s all right. Everything’s going to be all right.

  “Home now.

  “Back to your room.

  “I have to go now, Lois. It’s been a lovely walk. Really lovely. And you’re looking so much better.

  “I wish I could stay longer. I really do. I wish I could stay with you here all the time.

  “It’ll be your dinner time soon, won’t it?

  “Now look: I wanted to give you this, before I go. This is the record I was telling you about.

  “Dr. Saunders was telling me they’ve got a record-player in the patients’ room, and sometimes you listen to music there. Yes? He says you’ve been listening to Bach, and Mozart, and stuff like that. Relaxing music. Good for the nerves.

  “Well, I just thought you might want to listen to this. I mean, I thought you might be . . . ready for it.

  “I don’t know if you remember, but just before . . . just before Malcolm died, he took me to see a concert in town. We went to Barbarella’s, and we heard all these weird bands. You remember the kind of music he used to like? Well, the people who made this record were playing that night, and they were his favourite. He liked them more than anyone. And I thought that if you heard it, it might remind you . . . might help you to think a bit about the kind of person he was.

  “And there’s another reason, too. You see the title of the record? It’s called The Rotters’ Club.

  “The Rotters’ Club: that’s us, Lois, isn’t it? Do you see? That’s what they used to call us, at school. Bent Rotter, and Lowest Rotter. We’re The Rotters’ Club. You and me. Not Paul. Just you and me.

  “I think this record was meant for us, you see. Malcolm never got to hear it, but I think he . . . knows about it, if that doesn’t sound too silly. And now it’s his gift, to you and me. From—wherever he is.

  “I don’t know if that makes any sense.

  “Anyway.

  “I’ll
just leave it on the table here.

  “Have a listen, if you feel like it.

  “I’ve got to go now.

  “I’ve got to go, Lois.

  “I’ve got to go.”

  6

  (On Monday, 13th December, 1999, Douglas Anderton, along with five other figures from public life, took part in an event called “Goodbye To All That” at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. To mark the end of the second Christian Millennium, the speakers were asked to write a short piece on a valedictory theme, explaining “what they most regret leaving behind or what they are happiest to see the back of.” This is an unedited version of the text he read on that occasion.)

  BONFIRE NIGHT

  There was a boy at school called Harding. I suppose there’s a boy like him at every school. He was the class jester, the school clown. I wouldn’t say that he had a lightning wit: there are no bon mots that I can recall, and he didn’t crack jokes or anything like that. All I can remember is that he made us laugh, and that nobody could consider themselves safe when he was around.

  To choose one instance from among many, there was the case of Mr. Silverman, the maths teacher. Sweaty Silverman, we used to call him, although come to think of it he never used to sweat much until Harding got hold of him. I don’t know why this inoffensive specimen should have been singled out for persecution, except that he was young and inexperienced, fresh out of teacher-training college. Harding could always sense nervousness in someone and would home in on it ruthlessly. His campaign began, I remember, after just a couple of weeks, when Silverman was pacing up and down the classroom during a maths test and suddenly jumped about three feet in the air when he noticed there was a pickled rat from the biology labs sitting perkily up in the inkwell on Harding’s desk. A couple of days later, further humiliation was visited upon him when he was standing over some other boy’s work, helping him out with a quadratic equation, whereupon Harding and two accomplices began shifting their desks towards him, inch by inch, until the poor man was imprisoned, corralled in on all four sides, and in the end he nearly broke his leg climbing over the desks to get out. That was the first time we saw an outbreak of the uncontrollable perspiration that was soon to give him his nickname. It got worse and worse after that, and the chaos of his lessons quickly became legendary (another time, Harding persuaded us all to turn our desks through 180 degrees before Mr. Silverman arrived, so that he turned up to find the entire class facing in the wrong direction) until in the end the Chief Master decided to attend one himself, to see if the reality was even half as bad as the rumours suggested. All went well at first until Silverman, sweating profusely as he scribbled a sequence of logarithms on to the blackboard with shaking hand, reached into his pocket for a handkerchief, and pulled out Harding’s very own underpants, a magnificent pair of off-white aerated Y-fronts which he must have placed there a few minutes earlier. Sweaty Silverman mopped his brow with them for about five seconds before he realized what was going on, and in the ensuing furore, as the rest of us screamed with laughter, Harding, I recall, just sat back in his chair with a tiny, self-satisfied grin on his face: the smile of the skilled craftsman, the great orchestrator of mayhem, checking that he hasn’t lost his touch. The lord of misrule, surveying his kingdom and noting that all is well.