In mathematics, soon enough, I was at the head of the class. There is something restful about a theorem when you are far from home and your heart is like a sore chancre. An angle against another angle is like all the universe. The question of it is the relief.
Durrell said you have talent. I said what. Look here, he said. What I want from you is not what they. What I want is you to find a dog for yourself. D’you see? Bring me somebody you can fuck, and show me you can, right here in front of me. Now for a moment I had the oddest feeling. I can’t catch it now as I write. It was like an opening up. Like something had opened then like a seam, as if the evening had rupturedalong its centre and had pressed its warm secret heart to me, revealing itself completely. Like suddenly I understood, like I knew. So I said, but how, but I was nodding yes. Durrell smiled and said, you’re a crafty little experimenter, ain’t you? Use your imagination.
My father and mother were always talking. In rooms filled with the grey light of piety they talked. But when I walked away from Durrell with my mission I never asked why.
In an attic, one summer, I found an enormous cross. It must have hung in a church, high and life-size. But there had been some accident perhaps, because now there were only the crossed beams, lovely dark wood, and the nails, heavy black iron. The image of Him was gone, perhaps broken and removed for repair and then forgotten, but the thing that was left frightened me terribly. It affected me to a degree that I cannot explain still, because it was only after all a large but perfectly ordinary cross with the nails intact, lying covered with dust. But it was the heaviness of the wood and the thickness of the nails.
I looked around, examined those around me and there were the usual lady lot you find in any school company. I mean there were a few obvious choices, smooth pretty little boys who looked always a little scared because they knew what they were. However none of these interested me, I daresay precisely because it would have been easy or at least plausible. I felt, you see, a certain obligation to perform well, to do something that would gain my mentor’s admiration. There had been the note of challenge in what he had said, and the gauntlet being flung I did not think it sporting or manly to take an easy slide. No, he expected great things of me and I wanted to do him proud. So I looked around, and waited, and meanwhile the whisper of the house was that I was Durrell’s friend, so naturally I put on side and acted older than my years and took no guff from anyone. He saw all this and I thought I saw a clue of a smile on his face, approving or so I imagined.
Every morning I looked in the mirror hoping the dew, the freshness and the wet would take some of the colour from my skin. I did notlike the cold but I became accustomed to it, and after a while I remembered the glare of India and the endless heat plains with horror. But even relief from that terrible sun and the good chill winds of Norgate were never to remove the swarthiness from my skin, and to the last of my stay there were sniggers and cutting remarks, although by the end they learned to be careful. By the end of it nobody called me Mary.
My mother I never knew. I have a very small likeness in a clasped locket, of a thin dark-eyed woman with dark hair. My father’s second wife treated me well, and as we came to England and I to Norgate through her money, I am grateful. She was a thick, suety woman, very serious, who had displeased and scandalized her family by following my father out to India and marrying him. A candle and tallow fortune, it was, and then later cloth, but they had hoped higher for her than an indigent missionary. I always thought her charmless and stupid, and as I grew older it was her endless and sentimental kindness that was most annoying to me. When I was rude to her she grew sweaty and fatter with hurt, and even more defenceless, which threw me always into a rage.
It’s the Boss, said Durrell, and the lot straightened up, Hodges cupping a cigarette behind his back. Well good morning quoth Dr Lusk, and we chorused back. Except that Durrell drawled Maw’nin, and a look Dr Lusk gave him, but Durrell was ever the cool cove, and gave him back stare for stare. Mr Sarthey you know only the uppers may wear cravats. Take it off and assembly Saturday. You must pay attention to rules, Mr Sarthey, and with that he was off. Six I think for you, laddie, said Hodges. It don’t signify, I said and took a wheeze at the smoke. You’re growing up, pal, said Durrell. He had somehow realized a perfect treasury of cheap American novels and had taken to a lazy drawling affectation of what he called Yankee speech. He may be the Boss, said I, but he can’t do a thing to me. Oh he can’t, can he, said Durrell. And I said, just you wait, just you wait. And the others, who knew nothing of our contest, or wager, or call it what you will, looked baffled at us and our friendly chaffing. They had stopped, by now, calling me to their rooms, they had. Couldn’t grasp what I was at, and didn’tunderstand their god Durrell’s interest in me. He’s the Boss, I said, but I’ll settle his hash.
We had a fair for Merrie England. The Third Form were peasants. The Fourth tradesmen. Some of the Fifth got to be minstrels, and other diplomats. The Sixth were knights and barons. There were tents on the green, strolling players, theatricals and tableaus. All this was for parents’ weekend so Dr Lusk gave a speech on chivalry. What we try to do here is to produce Englishmen he said, and what is it we expect of an English gentlemen? We expect application, but I do not expect my boys to be clever, there is nothing worse than a clever boy who hangs back from his fellows out of pride, who shirks his responsibilities and splits fine hairs over the truth. Were one of my charges to become a cabinet minister but a sophist and an atheist, I should think worse, much worse of him than one who never achieved fame, or wealth, or land, but who told the truth always in a forward manly way, who kept his body unsullied and strong, and who performed his duties as a Christian and a loyal subject of his monarch. We live in a curious wintery age, and although we feel the promise of spring we feel the darkness close around us, for the old times were best, when spears clashed on shields, and hardy knights rode out to give battle to the foe. Here there was honour, and trust, and fellowship, and true faith, a Christianity not weakened and effeminised, but strong and potent, that one might fight the good fight, and bring light to the world. Around you today, as you look at your sons, see not the tender faces of your offspring, but the frank, fearless and forthright visages, loving and stern under plumed helmets, of those who ride by St. George for the cross and the crown.
His voice rose and there was never such a wonderful thing as the flapping of the flags, the colours of the coats of arms and the pages’ uniforms, all against the dark sky, and all the boys’ faces as they looked at each other with eyes afire, and there was indeed there a band of brothers, and there was not one of us who could have said afterwards that he did not almost weep. All agreed it was the most splendid Parents’ Day that had ever been.
The Sixth were doughty knights, and they paid their allegiance to a king, and this was Haliburton, a favourite of Dr Lusk’s, a large andlumbering sort of fellow who got red in the face in the games of cricket and through his weight and momentum played a tolerable sort of football. He was good at everything but outstanding in nothing, generally kind to his juniors and sincere in prayers. I liked him, and it was known that Dr Lusk liked him, since he was made the ruler at our revels, and with his height he made a picturesque king. During the speech he sat at Dr Lusk’s side and I can see his face plain even now, believing and stirred as all of us. He had fine yellow hair and a trick of holding his head to one side when he smiled, which he did even with his cardboard crown on and his eyes fixed on the doctor. Aye the doctor moved us that afternoon with his vision of what we were, and what we could become, and I believed him as we all did as we must, but the day was not over yet, for I was to find yet the other half. After the speeches and the prizes there was a tea, buns and polite chatter on the lawn in front of Dr Lusk’s house; I stood with my parents, feeling shunned. Nobody was about to associate with them, she being scandalous still from the marriage, and he nobody; but them, he and she, exclaimed about the fragrance of the damn buns as if nothing was happening. I suppose they
were accustomed to it, or rather judging from their panache they expected it and saw it as a martyrdom. But it was horrid, no introductions for me or them, no invitations to visit, and finally my father decided he had enough and looked around for the doctor. Must thank the doctor, said he, and bustled around, me in tow (she standing alone like Boadicea) until a flunkey told us the doctor had retired, very temporarily, to his study. So what must we do but go thumping into the doctor’s house, he had the confidence of the devil, my father; and we proceeded without hesitation into the domain of Dr Lusk, where I had never been, and no mortal boy as far as I know. And a dark place it was, full of enormous heavy furniture hideously carved and ornamented, all stuffed together until you couldn’t move without knocking your shins, samplers on the walls and a yellow light about it all. We found the study, murmuring inside, and my father knocked on the door, polite tap-tap-tap, and the wood slid aside, and there was Dr Lusk, sitting still with his arm out, and hunched across from him, the crown on his knee, Haliburton, his shoulders forward and his face serious, stopped in the middle of a sentence. Gratitude, wanted to thank you, said my father, and he and Dr Lusk walked a step or two away to theparlour to confab, leaving Haliburton and I a-staring at each other. Now there was something in his countenance so curious, so odd, anger it was, defiance, and something else, fear, no, terror; and I seeing this clearly said without thinking, I don’t know where it came from —what were you telling him, Haliburton? At this he sprang up, took two steps towards me, and said as if he were choking, shut up, shut up. And now suddenly I had that sensation again, secrets falling warm and fresh into my hands, barriers parting, I understood it all suddenly, all symmetry and perfection, and I said, smile on my face and tears of absolute joy starting to my eyes —Haliburton, you’re a bloody sneak. I mean I comprehended with utter clarity the doctor’s omnipotence, his knowledge; and Haliburton said no, but no, but then back came my father and the doctor, and we fell to good-byes and thank-you’s. Outside my mother waited, chewing pensively on a bun, what an appetite she had, but I was too excited to take offence even at her sticky hug and her farewell exhortations full of Jesus and prayers. No, I went in to breakfast the next day and ate the miserable bloody bread and butter in an absolute excitement at the gift I had received; Haliburton I didn’t see all day until he found me after school and suggested a walk. Now see here, he said, when we were out among the trees, now see here, I don’t know what you thought you were saying yesterday; and he looked as if he were good for a few more minutes of that sort of pap, which I think was supposed to frighten me, but I said shortly, Haliburton, let off with that, because you’re a bloody sneak. And at the word sneak he emptied, as if punctured, and I marvelled at this word I hadn’t even known a few weeks before. I had to learn it, and learn that at Norgate you could be a debauchee, a wastrel, a cheat, a thief, and still the boys would think nothing of it and certainly there were some who would think you a fine fellow for it; but if you were revealed to be a sneak it was the end of your career and your life. You were forever marked, and you were let known it by word and blow; it was the furthest insult to schoolboy honour, and so now the word sneak took the strength from Haliburton like a knife. Now look here, he said, but pleading-like now, Dr Lusk thinks you’re a fine fellow, and I’ve seen you looking at him, you know his task, and he needs to know things, it’s very important, you can’t run a school if you don’t know certain things, what’s going on, d’you see? I see you’re a sneak, Haliburton.There’s nothing dishonourable about it, said he, and Dr Lusk said so. You’re a bloody liar and a sneak, Haliburton, gentlemen don’t peach on their friends and fellows. So now he looked stricken and rushed off, and I let him go; stewing in his predicament, I suppose he was, and he couldn’t tell his mentor, because even if they found a pretext to expel me I would tell, by crook or hook or spite, and there was the end for him. The next day at Assembly he looked frightened, as if expecting the worst, I mean he was walking around looking into everyone’s faces as if trying to conjecture if they knew, and when he saw me he smiled a pursed little smile, and then I knew I had him. I sidled up to him after the talk (Dr Lusk in fine fettle about the field of honour) and whispered, see me in your rooms at four. At four I went up, amidst curious glances, because everybody knew I had been taken up by Durrell, so what was Haliburton about, but inside he was half-delirious with fear. As soon as the door shut he said, quavering, you haven’t told anyone, have you, old fellow? He had a spread laid out, toast and marmalade and tea and fat sausages, and I sat down and took a bite before I shrugged, no. Have some of this marmalade, he said, and coolly I took it, and said, listen here, Haliburton. I’m not going to tell anyone. Yes, he said, yes. He was leaning across the table, holding out a jar, and I put down my knife and reached across, the devil knows where I got the confidence, but I reached across and touched his hair, stroked it you could say, and let my knife-hand knuckle rub across his cheek, and he went from red to white and back. I won’t tell anyone, I said, if you do what I say. He shut his eyes, trembled, the jar still out to me and shaking, and eyes still shut he whispered yes. What, said I, what was that, Haliburton? Yes.
In the afternoon, before dinner, there was a furious game of football, the fellows of the Upper House and Gartner’s against the rest. The numbers varied but there were always enough for a huge hacking knot, all elbows and boots and knees, and somewhere the ball. You’d come out of it scraped and bleeding, panting and red in the face, wrung out as if you’d been to a battle. You’d lie down on the grass and feel your chest heave, your team sprawled beside you. Then somebody would say once more into the breach gentlemen and you’d say your mother but all the same you’d spring up, and it was glorious.
* * *
We do not mollycoddle your sons here said Dr Lush. We make them on these playing fields into soldiers.
Durrell is dead now these three years, murdered by a berserk native in Hong Kong where he served as a consular official. But Dr Lusk is still alive.
and Haliburton’s thighs white under his shirt and Durrell’s face half hidden by shadow and pale and perfect. And I said to Haliburton you over there and he bent over the foot of the bed and when I raised up the shirt his face hidden by the sheet which he had bunched up in his fists around his head and his shoulders shaking. Every beat of my heart roaring through my temples but I knelt over him but could do nothing, loosen up, damn you I said loose loose but still I was thwarted, it was not him but me I was too nervous and filled with disgust, and looking up at Durrell’s face like marble, eyes hidden, I was filled with shame and springing up I took a riding whip from the mantelpiece and swung. At the first stroke my frenzy passed clean away and I felt instead a keen interest and curiosity, and the second was placed to the best of my ability and with restraint and complete calculation, and at his groan I was complete. But I laid on better and better and his buttocks tightening and flinching away and then giving way and soft and on I went until the room was filled with the sharp slaps and the blood ran black in the light. Then I leaned over her and her head moved limply on the end of her neck in time with me and the blond hair against the white sheet, and I looked at Durrell who leaned forward an elbow on his crossed knee and his eyes like brilliant knife-points in the dark and he said, no, observe, observe. He turned her face to me and we looked together at the half-open mouth and the stained cheeks and now I understood
Hey Sarthey d’you want to come along to town said Byrd. So we walked together, and far ahead of us on the country road were fellows ambling along, capering and talking. The trees hung over the hedges so that we were in a tunnel of shadow but on the golden fields the sun lay brightly. And locking arms we walked.
When Sanjay had finished reading what he had of Sarthey’s diary he was overcome by fear, and this was a horror he had never known. It was not the fear of the unknown, nor the apprehension of death, nor the pain of blood and laceration. It was a sensation of flying apart, of falling to pieces inside and vanishing, and every moment of holding on demanded an
effort, as if he were on a ladder that slipped eternally from his grasp. It was dark outside, but as Sanjay forced himself to walk in circles around the room he saw and sensed the first light. He made himself think of an immediate problem, which was how to dispose of the pieces of paper on the bed before he had to face Sarthey, as he was certain he must soon in the day. Somehow he felt that he had to hide his knowledge, that it was advantageous to appear ignorant, and so he examined the room carefully but there was no window open, no chink in the wall, no hiding place at all. Finally he stood at the bed again, picked up a tattered piece of paper, trying not to look at the fine script on it, and thrust it into his mouth; it turned into a sticky mass in an instant, elastic and hard to swallow, tasting bitterly of ashes, but despite a quick rush of nausea he persisted and finally forced it down. One by one, one piece after another, walking around the room, sometimes bending over and clutching his stomach, he ate it all, and when he finished he leaned panting on the wall in a cold trembling sweat.
He heard Sikander’s voice before the door opened, and so he stood rather formally with his hands behind his back, facing the threshold.
‘The Marathas lost at Assaye,’ Sikander said as soon as he came in. ‘We just received word by relay messenger.’ Sanjay said nothing, having known this for a certainty during the night, and now feeling as if all this were inconsequential, since he had already decided what he must do. ‘De Boigne’s brigades are destroyed. The Chiria Fauj is gone: they fought like lions. They knew they had lost and they went on. It was no pretty battle of manoeuvre, no flying cavalry, no great movements. It was a great slogging business, the brigades standing firmly and the British moving up and firing and firing. Then the brigades closing ranks over the casualties, and it went on through the afternoon until there was nothing left. It is all gone. It was a butcher’s business, and the English won.’
Red Earth and Pouring Rain Page 50
