Shadows On the Grass

by Simon Raven

  ‘You,’ said Giles, ‘are not Walter Hammond.’

  Oh, how the ghost of you clings,

  These foolish things,

  Remind me of you.

  James came back from the bar with the drinks – his and mine. Giles scowled.

  ‘This is a serious match,’ he said. ‘It is the nearest either of us will ever get to playing in First Class Cricket. A Mysore State Trial. It would be frivolous, it would be impertinent, it would be degrading, if, halfway through the afternoon and just before you were due to bat, you drank that Tom Collins. It would be letting down the side – no, worse, far worse, it would be letting down the Raj itself.’

  A tinkling piano in the next apartment,

  That secret look which told me what

  your heart meant…

  James, with the perspicacity of a future politician, realised, as I did not, that Giles was deadly serious. His pompous tone could easily be taken as having been ‘put on’ for purposes of teasing or irony; but then, as I should have known, Giles did not go in for teasing or irony; now as ever he was sincere, relentless, totally assured of his rectitude and his mission – which was, in the present instance, to prevent me from drinking my Tom Collins. James knew this, scented danger, and removed my drink with the remark that he would have it kept cold for me till after my innings. I myself, on the other hand, refused to believe anyone could be in earnest over anything so trivial, did not care to have my pleasures interfered with, snatched the drink back from James, and drank down half of it at a swallow.

  At this moment a wicket fell. Giles rose, checked the straps of his pads and collected up his gloves.

  ‘I’ll settle with you later,’ he said to me, then clumped down the steps from the verandah.

  Oh, how the nightingale sings,

  These foolish things

  Remind me of you.

  ‘You fool,’ said James as Giles marched to the wicket. ‘Why do you have to make things so difficult for yourself?’

  ‘He surely won’t do anything. My drinking habits, off duty, are none of his business.’

  ‘Haven’t you got his number yet? My dear Simon, Giles Peregrine is a busybody – a man of moral principle. He applies those principles to every little thing that happens, and whenever he can he will ensure that what they enjoin is strictly practised. It will be interesting to see how he punishes you for defying them.’

  The next wicket fell, and I went out to join Giles while ‘These Foolish Things’ sighed and faded behind me.

  In the event I batted very well. Whether it was that I was in luck, or that the Tom Collins had given me just the little lift I needed, or that I was determined to show Giles how fatuous had been his injunction to abstain; whatever the reason, form, fitness or a kindly mood among the gods, I batted smoothly, stylishly and swiftly, and in no time at all I had made 18, which included a beautiful six over extra-cover’s head. Eighteen: a handy little score, but in no way remarkable: to be noticed one must achieve 40 at least, preferably 60 or 70. Well, I thought to myself, and why not? I played the ball firmly between cover and extra and called Giles for an easy single. He responded, or appeared to, until I was nearly halfway down the wicket. He then turned abruptly, without a word, and went back to his ground, leaving me stranded. A second later I was run out. For 18; handy but not remarkable: forgotten by all in five minutes…when I might, just might, have shone as the star of the Mysore State Trial.

  ‘You see,’ said James, ‘what men of moral principle are made of.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘He probably had no malice against you personally; but he was determined to show you that his principles are not to be flouted, that his God is not to be mocked.’

  ‘Fuck him and his principles and his God. Fuck them all dead.’

  ‘Never mind,’ said James in his deep, kind voice. ‘I’ll take you out to dinner.’

  ‘May his bowels and his balls rot and stink in his nose for ever.’

  ‘If you promise not to refer to this dismal affair any more, I will buy you Champagne at dinner.’

  Champagne was not cheaply to be had in Bangalore.

  ‘Dear James,’ I said, ‘you always did know how to comfort a fellow.’

  And more than that, I thought, as I remembered how generously and wisely he had behaved, about a year and a half before, during a volcanic crisis that had suddenly bubbled out of nothing one drowsy summer’s afternoon, when we were both still boys at Charterhouse.

  II

  CHARTERHOUSE PINK I

  It had all started at a House Match.

  It happened that year (1945) that my House (Saunderites) could field five members of the School XI, two of whom, Peter May and myself, had already got our 1st XI Colours. Then there was a particular friend of mine called Ivan Lynch, who was Captain of the House XI, James Prior himself, and one now dead, alas, called Hedley Le Bas, who was Head of our House and, incidentally, of the whole school as well. As may be supposed, Saunderites, with such supplies of talent, had started clear favourites to win the House Cricket Cup, and Hedley, Ivan and James were exceedingly keen we should do so. Myself, I did not care very much, so long as I had some fun and cut a creditable figure; and what Peter May thought in the matter no one ever knew, as he was not, at the age he was then (something over fifteen), much given to utterance. Judging by his later form, I should say that he was determined to do his level best to help us to win without being inclined to recrimination or resentment if we did not.

  All that aside, however, the thing had turned sour on us. Talent notwithstanding, we had performed pathetically in the first two rounds (a heavy loss and a shady draw); and in order to retain any chance of winning the Cup we absolutely had to win the match in which we were presently engaged. We were no longer favourites, though in some quarters, so it was said, a recovery was still expected of us. If so, such expectation was fast fading; for now, on a languid evening in mid-June, our situation was desperate.

  Our opponents had made 130 all out, a score we should have passed blindfold. Peter May was already the best schoolboy batsman of the century; James and Ivan both purported to bat at 1st XI level; so did I; and there were some promising younger players in the tail. But Peter had been bowled by a vicious shooter; James had been unluckily run out by Ivan; Ivan had been caught on a short boundary having tried to hook a six; and I myself had been stumped off my first ball, having leapt out like Trumper (or so I conceived) to drive the thing over the bowler’s head. Our score was now 47 for 4, and Hedley Le Bas, a bowler and a reserve wicket keeper, was going in to bat at No. 6.

  ‘An irresponsible stroke of yours,’ said Ivan to me pompously, ‘considering the state of the match.’

  ‘I didn’t think much of yours,’ I said.

  ‘I had at least made 17 and it wasn’t my first ball.’

  ‘Well at any rate,’ I said, ‘I didn’t run anyone out.’

  ‘You weren’t there long enough to run anyone out. Though your stroke was so ridiculous that you could almost be said to have run yourself out rather than to have been stumped.’

  ‘Stop squabbling, you two,’ said James.

  It was about then that the trouble started.

  ‘Sorry, old man,’ said Ivan, and nudged my knee with his.

  ‘Sorry, Ivan,’ I said, returning the nudge. ‘And now I must go and have a pee.’

  ‘I’m afraid you can’t, Raven,’ said one of the younger boys who was waiting to bat, ‘the rears in the pav are out of order. There’s a notice.’

  ‘Then I shall have to go behind the pav.’

  ‘You can’t, Raven,’ said another boy with infuriating smugness; ‘the Scouts are practising putting up their tents behind the pav.’

  ‘Then I shall have to go back to House. What a slog.’

  ‘You can’t do that,’ said Ivan. ‘People will think you’re sloping off in a sulk because you’ve made an egg and we’re losing.’

  Losing we were worse than ever. Hedley Le Bas was out the next secon
d to a drooping full toss which he fatuously tried to scythe away to leg.

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry, but I must have a pee. The only place left seems to be at the side of the pavilion.’

  ‘All the players will see you,’ said a pert little blond of thirteen who was keeping the score book.

  ‘I’m too desperate to care.’

  So I had my piddle on the side of the pavilion. The only person who noticed was Hedley Le Bas, who was walking in from the wicket and was thus pointed straight at me.

  ‘You oughtn’t to do that,’ he said, as soon as he’d taken off his pads. ‘It makes a bad impression on the younger boys.’

  ‘It’s not my fault that the pavilion rears are fucked up. They all understood.’

  ‘Did they?’

  ‘Well, James didn’t mind. If there’d been anything wrong he’d have said so.’

  Even in those days we all had enormous faith in the wisdom and equity of James Prior. Hedley grunted in what seemed to be assent.

  ‘Forgiven, Hedley?’

  ‘But not quite forgotten. I do not like my monitors to make a public spectacle of themselves, with or without the approval of James Prior.’

  ‘You’re the only one that actually saw.’

  And this, of course, was the trouble. As a result of being out, Hedley had seen. Hedley was in a bad temper because he had only made 3; Hedley was in an even worse temper because we were going to lose the match and with it our last hope of the House Cup; and all this rankled to such an extent that Hedley, although an easy-going and intelligent man, was making a production out of an episode which he would normally not even have noticed.

  ‘What,’ he said, ‘do you suppose Peter May thought?’

  ‘I suppose he thought that here was a chap who badly wanted a piss… having a piss.’

  ‘Boys as talented as that are highly strung.’

  ‘Rubbish. He’s not Mozart or somebody.’

  ‘He could be Bradman or somebody.’

  ‘Bradman wouldn’t care. Australians don’t care where you have a pee. They’re far too coarse. Anyway, May didn’t actually see me.’

  ‘He must have heard. God only knows what he thought.’

  On this cantankerous note our last wicket definitively fell for a total of 61. Defeated, disgraced, disgusted we trailed back to Saunderites. Hedley said no more about the peeing incident but started to elaborate a theory that a surplus of talent had led to facile over-confidence.

  ‘Anyway, that’s that,’ he said. ‘Now we must concentrate on the Arthur Webber.’

  The Arthur Webster Cup was awarded annually to the best all round House Platoon in the Junior Training Corps. (In those days Public Schoolboys belonged to the JTC, residual legatee of the old OTC, while everyone else was in the Army Cadet Force.) Hedley, as Under Officer and Platoon Commander, had a great deal of personal prestige at stake here, and now sought to hearten the dismal little band of cricketers by persuading them that great things were in store for them on the field of honour. None of this impressed me, as I was immune from military zeal and indeed belonged to the Air Training Corps (a sloppy outfit which wore shoes instead of Ammunition Boots) especially in order to avoid the martial excesses which Hedley was now extolling; but I was delighted to think that the dear fellow had found a new interest so quickly, and fondly imagined that my urinary gaffe (if gaffe indeed it were) would now be dismissed from his consciousness for ever.

  And so I think it would have been, had not Fate decreed a most unlikely and unlucky sequence of events which was put in train on the next day but one.

  The Charterhouse XI was on its way from Godalming to play Tonbridge School at Tonbridge. A change of train had been made at Guildford. The train in which we were now travelling had no corridor and no convenience attached to the compartment in which we were seated…‘we’ being Peter May, Ivan Lynch, Hedley Le Bas, James Prior and myself, the whole Saunderite set, plus my friend and fellow-scholar of the Classical Sixth, a merry-witted boy called Robin Reiss.

  After we had been travelling for about three-quarters of an hour with many halts, ‘You’re not going to believe this,’ I said, ‘but I must have a pee.’

  ‘Oh God,’ said Ivan.

  Hedley looked up sharply but said nothing.

  Peter May looked straight in front of him as if he hadn’t heard.

  ‘Why didn’t you go at Guildford,’ said Ivan.

  ‘No time.’

  ‘Plenty of time if you hadn’t insisted on buying that Lilliput at the book stall.

  Lilliput, Men Only and London Opinion were the three wicked monthlies of my youth, crammed with coloured pictures of nearly naked ladies, decorous indeed by modern standards but in those days passing fierce and inflammatory.

  ‘You liked looking at that Lilliput,’ I said.

  As indeed they all had, except Peter May, who, when offered it, had not lifted a hand to take it or moved a single muscle of his body in any direction.

  ‘Much better,’ said Ivan, ‘that you should have had a pee.’

  Hedley scowled. Peter sat. Ivan pouted. James pondered. Robin Reiss twinkled. I shifted sweatily from ham to ham.

  ‘Does anyone know,’ said James, ‘how long it is before we reach Tonbridge? Robin, you live round here, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Robin, twinkling more than ever. ‘Tonbridge is about forty minutes.’

  ‘Many stops?’

  ‘Lots,’ said Robin gaily, ‘but none of them long enough for anyone to have a pee.’

  ‘That settles it,’ I said.

  I stood on my corner seat, crouching to avoid the luggage rack, took out my piece, and made pretty good shift to aim my jet through the gap between the ventilating panels – a narrow target even though they were open as wide as they would go.

  ‘Bravo,’ said Robin.

  The train slowed and lurched into Tonbridge Station while yet my golden stream showered from the window.

  ‘Mind that Postman,’ Robin said.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me we were almost at Tonbridge?’

  ‘Time to get out,’ James said.

  We gathered our gear and slouched up the hill to the school.

  That was the first time I ever saw the Head at Tonbridge, a ground on which I have been many times since and come to know as well as any in the Kingdom. Trees and a long expanse of playing fields to the West; a green bank and then a lawn to the North; more trees, with margins of grass to the East, and beyond these the undistinguished yet satisfying nineteenth buildings, which sit so well in their place; and to the South the roofs of Tonbridge dipping to the Weald, the Weald rising to a ridge, and the white clouds scudding along its spine on the bright and breezy days when the Head is at its best.

  But such days were far in the future. That day in 1945 was not bright or breezy: it was grey, still and very damp. Tonbridge, having won the toss, elected to bat and were all out for 37; and the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon was spent by me in watching Peter May and our Captain, Tony Rimell, while they piled up superfluous runs which would not even, once the Tonbridge total was passed, count in their own averages. Still, I had my Colours safe, so it didn’t matter much that I had no chance to shine. No chance to shine, after all, means no chance to be eclipsed. No doubt I should have passed that grey afternoon pleasantly enough, sitting on the balcony of the Tonbridge pavilion, had not Hedley Le Bas arrived up there in fierce remonstrance.

  ‘Disgusting exhibition on the train,’ he said.

  ‘I couldn’t help it, Hedley. If it was going to be forty minutes to Tonbridge –’

  ‘I – It wasn’t forty seconds.’

  ‘But Robin Reiss said –’

  ‘Robin Reiss is a well-known joker. Couldn’t you have used your intelligence? If the train was really going to take forty minutes more to Tonbridge, we should not have reached Tonbridge Station until well after 11.30 – the time at which the Match was due to start. And you know very well that Tony Rimell would never have arra
nged a scruffy performance like that.’

  This was a valid point.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  ‘What do you suppose Peter May thought?’

  I was getting thoroughly sick of this particular question.

  ‘He didn’t seem to notice.’

  ‘And what do you suppose he thought when you offered him that Lilliput?’

  ‘The same. He just didn’t seem to notice.’

  ‘He was probably dazed by shock,’ Hedley said. ‘It was almost as though you were pimping for the girls in that paper. God knows what damage you may have done to Peter.’

  ‘He’s made a pretty sharp recovery,’ I said, as Peter drove the ball up the Northern Bank to complete his fifty.

  ‘Mental damage.’

  ‘Because he was offered a Lilliput? They’re lying about ten inches deep all over the House.’

  ‘The other thing.’

  ‘Because he saw somebody peeing out of a window?’

  ‘Not so much that…though it wasn’t a pretty sight…but because he saw someone whom he is supposed to respect behave with complete lack of self-control and discrimination. You nearly hit that Postman. Someone might have sent for the Police. As Head of the School, I shall have to instruct Tony Rimell, as Captain of Cricket, that you are not a fit person to represent Charterhouse in the 1st XI.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Hedley.’

  ‘I mean it. You’ve put yourself beyond the pale.’

  Hedley departed. James Prior came and sat down next to me.

  ‘You look awful,’ he said.

  I told him of Hedley’s intention.

  ‘Will Tony Rimell listen to him?’ I said.

  ‘He’ll have to. Hedley’s Head of the School. Anyway, everyone listens to Hedley. He has a way with him.’

  ‘I cannot understand,’ I said, ‘what is this endless drivel about Peter May. My crime seems to be that I have shocked or damaged Peter. What nonsense,’ I said, as Peter sent the ball hissing through the trees to slam like a siege missile into the Chapel door.

  ‘Haven’t you understood?’ said James.

  ‘Understood?’

  ‘Hedley keeps wicket – but we have Oliver Popplewell as our wicket keeper, and a bloody good one. Hedley bowls outswingers which swing the whole way from his arm in a slow curve like a slack banana. Hedley bats like an imbecile gorilla. In short, Hedley is only in this side until somebody in the 2nd XI makes some runs or takes some wickets, and very well Hedley knows it. Now, this is his last quarter and he hankers, he yearns, for his 1st XI Cricket Colours. Since he will do nothing spectacular enough to earn them, his only hope is to survive in the side till the end of the season, when Tony will have to follow the custom and make up the number of Colours to a full eleven.’