Shadows On the Grass

by Simon Raven

  ‘They’ made a very good job of hushing it all up. The evident approach of war was cleverly exploited in order to arrange that Killock should rejoin his old regiment, which was only too pleased to have a good man back before others grabbed him. It could therefore be egregiously announced, when Colonel K did not appear among the Surrey pines next September, that he had been requested to return to military duty in India. It is a matter of record that he had a ‘good war’, after which he and his wife started up a ‘pre-preparatory’ school for boys aged between six and ten. He must have died (which he did suddenly some fifteen years later) an exceedingly happy man.

  As for the rest of us, we were dealt with by a combination of enlightenment and threat. In the first place, we were told the full ‘facts of life’ from Alpha to Omega, in order to straighten us out about the precise (and perverse) nature of our recent experience. We were then told that if ever it all got out none of us would be allowed to go on to his public school. Because we were all so young, ‘they’ said, ‘they’ were prepared to forgive us: others would not be so accommodating, so from now on just keep your dear little hands to yourselves and hold your busy little tongues, or else…

  Mr Crawford and Master Crawford were full of nuisance, Master C because his pleasure in the role of principal delator had made a strutting little monster of him, and Mr C because he was the only parent in the know and was constantly threatening to tell others if the affair was not handled exactly as he thought it should be. Since this would involve calling in the police and the public burning of Colonel K, ‘they’, who abhorred the idea of publicity and incidentally liked Colonel K as much as the rest of us did, had a problem on their hands…which ‘they’ managed to solve by agreeing to educate young Crawford free till the end of his time. Thus Crawford père was silenced and the boy perforce tolerated. Since he was, au fond, a thoroughly decent boy, he returned before long to his natural and agreeable self, from which indeed he would never have departed, had it not been for his father’s malice at the Oval. Although Crawford and I often discussed the possibility of ‘doing it together again’, we decided that ‘their’ warning was too savage to be neglected. From now on, pleasure under the pines was strictly solitary.

  Thus and thus it came about that I was competent to inform Lotty Loder of the full facts of life and to reassure him that his experience in the dunes on that afternoon of the Scholars’ Picnic had been, physically at least, entirely en règle. ‘They’ would certainly pass a wet orgasm: what ‘they’ would not care for, I said, was the idea that young Hayward’s ministrations had brought it on. For the rest – well, now he knew.

  I had, on the whole, a satisfied client. Lotty’s initial incredulity about the facts I offered him had been overcome by the evident sincerity of my tale of how I came by them.

  ‘It must have been fun at your first school,’ Lotty said wistfully, ‘before it all came out.’

  ‘It was. Tremendous fun.’

  ‘I can’t see it happening here.

  With Wally or Pittifer Joe.’

  ‘Pittifer Joe would have had a fit if he’d caught you and Hayward.’

  ‘Gosh, it was lovely. When that stuff started coming out…’

  ‘I haven’t seen that – not since Colonel K. Come on, Lotty; show me.’

  And good-natured Lotty obliged.

  IV

  CHARTERHOUSE PINK II

  I did not achieve such emission myself until the following October, by which time I was at Charterhouse. Though agreeing with Lotty that it was very delectable, I could not agree that it was anything to faint about. However, I repeated the process with huge enjoyment and almost daily until the following March, when a rumour was put about that ‘shagging’ (the elegant Carthusian vernacular for masturbation) gave you a terrible disease called syphilis. The story had been started by a boy whom I had scarcely met at the time but was later to know well: William Rees Mogg.

  Our first encounter of any consequence occurred entirely by accident a few days after the ‘shagging’ rumour had started. During those days I had been continent for very fear, and I was now canvassing the opinion of my friend, Conrad Dehn, in the matter, while we walked on the boundary of a pretty little cricket ground where ‘Maniacs’ (the 4th XI) would play in the summer.

  ‘It’s all a great lot of nonsense,’ Conrad said. ‘Syphilis, or the Great Pox, is contracted from sexual congress with an infected person – usually, though not necessarily, a woman. How many women have you had lately?’

  I shook my head and tittered.

  ‘If you should get it,’ Conrad continued, ‘you’d certainly know all about it. Bloody great spos (sic: another piece of Carthusian vernacular) all over your apparatus – and then all over the rest of you. Have you had any of those lately?’

  ‘No, thank God. But everyone says that Rees Mogg says –’

  ‘– I know. There he is, sitting on that bench. Let’s settle this.’

  William was sitting alone, surveying the empty cricket ground with a poetic look. We sat down on either side of him.

  ‘There’th thomething tho forlorn,’ said William, ‘about an empty cricket ground.’

  ‘What else would you expect it to be in March?’ said Conrad the realist. ‘What we want to know is this: what is all this balls you’ve been putting round about shagging giving people syphilis?’

  ‘My motive is twofold,’ said William, ‘first, to see how many people are stupid enough to believe it; and secondly to discourage shagging, since my Church holds solitary vice to be a mortal sin.’

  William was a Roman Catholic.

  ‘Come to that,’ he went on, warming to the theme, ‘my Church holds that any sexual act, unless conducted within lawful wedlock and intended for the procreation of children, is a mortal sin.’

  ‘So even husband and wife can’t do it just for the fun of it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are they allowed to enjoy it if they are genuinely trying to have children at the same time?’

  Conrad, later a formidable QC, enjoyed going into subtleties of this nature.

  ‘They are allowed to rejoice in it,’ said William, ‘as an act of union under God and in the furtherance of His will.’

  ‘And are they allowed to do…amusing little other things before they do it properly?’

  William thought not.

  ‘Thank God I’m a Jew,’ Conrad said.

  ‘Jewith law ith pletty thtrict ath well.’

  ‘Thank God I’m not a proper Jew,’ Conrad emended.

  ‘Let’s get back to the point,’ I said. ‘You admit, Rees Mogg, that this story about shagging giving you syphilis is only a spoof which you’ve got up to annoy people?’

  ‘To test people. And to deter them.’

  ‘Well, it won’t deter me any more,’ I said.

  ‘But you did believe it – just for a time?’

  ‘I thought it as well to be cautious.’

  ‘If there is one kind of sinner,’ said William, ‘who will be thrust into the Seventh Circle of the Inferno, it is the kind who is deterred only by motives of wordly caution. You are both destined for Hell. Dehn because he is a Jew who scoffs at Jewry; and you, Raven, because you are an Onanist.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Someone who spills his seed upon the ground.’

  ‘Then I’m not the only one round here.’

  ‘Do you know what Hell is?’ enquired William. ‘It is like an abscess in the gum, getting worse every minute forever. Once in a hundred years it stops, to remind you how lovely it is not to have it, and then, after five minutes or so, it begins again.’

  ‘If there is a God in Heaven,’ remarked Conrad, ‘He will certainly send you to Hell, Rees Mogg, for spreading false rumours and frightening your fellow human beings.’

  And with this we rose and went on our way.

  But there was something about Mogg’s discourse, frightening or not, that I found pleasing. To begin with, it was succinct; and whatever else it was, it
was not trivial. It turned on serious issues which were seriously, if sometimes rather grotesquely, presented and illustrated. It was also polymath. William, under the pretext of being delicate, spent much of his time, while others were doing disagreeable things called ‘War Work’, reading volumes of history, philosophy and literature, particularly those of the English 18th Century. Not only, then, did he know a lot, not only could he ‘tell you things’ if he chose, but he also had the fascination of someone who had used his wits to better his lot and in general to lead a more interesting and comfortable life than the rest of us.

  Just how delicate William really was is anybody’s guess. He certainly looked pretty awful, but that may have been due to an aversion from washing and an economical habit of cleaning his teeth with school soap. What was not in doubt was that, delicate or not, he had somehow convinced all the key personnel (House matron, House tutor, even the Headmaster) that he was. He had given it to be understood, and it was understood, that if he was made to do anything in the physical line which he didn’t want to do then the consequences might be dangerous and even fatal. And so, while the rest of us, inexorably coerced, stamped up and down drill squares, cleaned out lavatories, cut down trees and stooped for long hours to gather potatoes from the earth, William sat in front of the fire in the Library (even as a very junior boy he had his own chair which no one dared sequester) becoming more and more knowledgeable not only about books but through them about the world.

  I think, now, that one of the reasons why no one ever challenged or investigated Mogg’s status as a permanent invalid was that he gave such thoroughly good value in return for being indulged. When all the nasty business of the day had been despatched, when parades had been dismissed, gardens weeded and dishes washed, Mogg would appear, fresh from the Library or his bed, to enjoy with the rest of us whatever pleasure was going forward, an evening cricket match, perhaps, a concert, a debate, or just an al fresco gossip, and would so much enhance that pleasure by stringent and witty comment, fantasy and anecdote, or by hilarious personal denunciation, that no one could bear to accuse him of having spent the day shirking while others perspired or froze. He entertained us too well for us to offer him offence or to imperil the leisure from which he derived his power to enchant.

  Consider, for example, Mogg’s acquaintance with Bob Arrowsmith. R L Arrowsmith, who has already appeared in these pages as master in charge of the Under Sixteen Cricket XI, was a brisk and accurate teacher of the Classics, a man of duty who left no chore undone and no stone unturned, a devout Christian who practised what he unofficiously but clearly preached, a hater of idleness or hypochondria. If any man could see through Mogg and detest what he saw the other side, you would have said it was RLA. And yet he took more pleasure in Mogg’s company than anyone. They were constantly to be seen walking the touchline together or criticising some match in the Fives Courts (for Mogg, though he played no game, was an educated aficionado of all). It was even said that Mogg had once had tea in RLA’s lodgings in Pepperharrow Road, an unprecedented privilege. What spell had William cast on this man of iron? There could only be one answer: like everyone else ‘the Arrow’ quite simply accepted, without asking any awkward questions, that William was a weakly boy who must not be pressed into hardship or exertion. Bob was not exactly conned or deceived or imposed upon, he was lulled. For it was, after all, unthinkable that William, spindly, spotty, chesty, learned, lisping William, should go for a Cross-Country run or execute about turns in the rain. It would be deeply and offensively wrong: it would be a crime against seemliness, against harmony, almost against God Himself, to put William into football shorts or ammunition boots. He was to be enjoyed, nay cherished as he was – a literate, civilised and thoroughly amusing boy, matchless company… as indeed was Bob himself. They deserved each other, Bob Arrowsmith and William Rees Mogg, in the best possible sense.

  Or again, take William’s friendship with VSH (‘Sniffy’) Russell. Russell was a fine scholar in a rather different mode from RLA; much concerned with intricacies of meaning, he had a tendency to seek out doubts rather than to proclaim certainties (which was what the Arrow went in for), and he often indulged his passion for semantic theorising or metaphysical speculation, both of them exercises well outside the taste and scope of RLA. Like RLA, however, he was a convinced Christian who acted on his beliefs: though perhaps more tolerant of minor deviance than RLA, he would never have condoned major evasion of daily duties or wartime tasks; and he was quite as shrewd as RLA when it came to spotting techniques of fraudulence. Yet ‘Sniffy’ too accepted Mogg’s role without question. Mogg was there to cultivate his mind, to entertain, to comment, to discriminate, but on no account to take an active part in anything physically arduous or distasteful. In VSHR’s case, however, a certain irony was discernible: this took the form of pretending to believe that Rees Mogg would fain be cured if he could be, would be only too happy to shed debility, were this but possible, to rise up from his bed and walk – and indeed to leap about and caper joyously, like all other healthy boys of his age.

  ‘Poor William tells me,’ said VSHR to me one day in Mogg’s own presence, ‘that he will not be well enough to attend early morning school tomorrow. He has a cold coming on.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ I said.

  ‘But of course he would like to come if he could because I am setting a test on the accidence of the Greek New Testament, and he would love to beat you all at it and demonstrate his superiority on the subject.’

  ‘But when I have a cold,’ said William, ‘I have palpitationth until ten thirty in the morning. I really think I muth stay in bed.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Sniffy, and twinkled in my direction. ‘I too suffer from palpitations, and my doctor has made up a marvellous new prescription for me. You must try it, William. Two teaspoonfuls with water just before bed. And then tomorrow morning you’ll wake up as fit as a greyhound, which will make a nice change for you, and you’ll come scampering along to do my accidence test at seven thirty.’

  Sniffy Russell produced a medical-looking packet. William examined it.

  ‘I have an allergy,’ he said gravely, ‘to at least three out of the five ingredients listed here.’

  ‘Oh, what a shame,’ said VSHR, twinkling more than ever, ‘would you like me to send the test up to your House so that you could do it in bed? I’m quite sure you wouldn’t cheat.’

  ‘I really think I would sooner be conserving my strength,’ said William. ‘I find the doggerel Greek of the New Testament so repellent that it undermines my religious faith – not a happy matter for a Catholic.’

  They then discussed the ‘Common’ Greek of the original Gospels, Sniffy praising its moving simplicities, William condemning its clumsy pronouns. The matter of the Test itself was apparently forgotten…until the marks were announced the following week.

  ‘Rees Mogg: nought,’ Sniffy read out.

  ‘Why nought, sir? You usually give me an ‘aegrotat’ when you can’t test me.’

  ‘In this case, dear boy, I was able to test you. You remember that conversation we had the afternoon before the Test was to take place? I was convinced, by your repeated vilification of the “Common” Greek use of the pronoun Autos, that you were entirely ignorant of the subject and utterly insensitive to this particular kind of usage – which is every bit as legitimate, in its own way, as the Classical. Let me repeat,’ proclaimed Sniffy with relish, ‘Rees Mogg: nought.’

  Mogg took this with a bow and a smile; but Sniffy Russell was not allowed to get away with it for long.

  A week or so later there was a cricket match between the ‘Yearlings’ (first year boys) of Sniffy’s House (Hodgsonites) and those of my own House (Saunderites). Sniffy, who supported his House with desperate loyalty even in activities to which he was personally indifferent or averse, had been got to understand that if the Hodgsonite Yearling team could win this game they stood a very good chance of finishing the season at the top of the Yearling League. He was, in consequence, frantic for Hodg
sonites to win and, although he himself had never been able to distinguish between a long hop and a yorker, was on the ground ready to watch a good thirty minutes before even the most punctual players.

  While VSHR was eagerly and ignorantly canvassing the opinions of those who now began to join him about the chances of the forthcoming affair, William Rees Mogg was lurking like a spy with a bomb, precisely knowing and patiently awaiting the circumstances which would prove most favourable to its felicitous combustion. At this point I should explain that William, being a nonplayer but exceedingly knowledgeable and accurate about the game, was very much in demand to act as Umpire in the inter-House contests at all levels that went on almost daily (despite the War), and that he was now so well regarded by a grateful Captain of Cricket that he could virtually ‘choose his match’. Today, he now declared, he had chosen this one. There was no complaint by either side; indeed both felt themselves honoured that so veritable a Daniel had come to judgement; and no man was more delighted by the compliment thus paid to his Yearlings than VSH (‘Sniffy’) Russell.

  William was very soon joined by some nonentity allotted from the Umpires’ Pool, and together they swayed out to the wicket. (Since William always swayed when he walked, anyone who tried to keep step with him was compelled, by some rhythmical peculiarity, to sway too.)