Far, Far the Mountain Peak

by Arthur Clifford

  ‘Now then,’ he said with restrained aggression, ‘I’ve been onto young Steadman again and, frankly, the story you told him doesn’t make sense. You wouldn’t be chucked out for one silly incident in the shower. Not out of a place like Beaconsfield anyway. There must have been more to it than that. So come on, let’s have the truth.’

  John gaped speechless, like a mouse scared motionless by an advancing python.

  The Bishop continued. ‘You’d better face facts, young man. You’re in a mess. I’m what’s standing between you and being taken into care. In case you don’t know what that means, it means being dumped in a home full of Geordie yobbos who’ll beat you up because they think you’re posh, and being sent back to that Greenhill disaster, which is what your father wants. Where, I gather, you had a pretty ghastly time of it.’

  He fixed John with an even more aggressive stare. ‘So don’t start trying to play me along. I can always put you over that sofa there, arse in the air, and lay into you with that rattan cane in the corner. And if you don’t like it, you can always go back to Greenhill. Do I make myself clear?’

  John continued to tremble; he felt himself starting to dissolve.

  The monologue proceeded. ‘You probably thought I would be a pushover, didn’t you? Smile that sweet smile of yours, say please and thank you and all the rest of it and you’d have me. Well you got it wrong, didn’t you? I’m not your usual soggy, wet-necked, easy-oozy, lovey-dovey old vicar. Before I took Holy Orders I was in the Paras; learnt a thing or two sorting out terrorists in Ulster.

  ‘Then I was headmaster in Uganda, in the far north east where the Mburong people live. Warriors. Cattle thieves. Not a proper man until you’ve killed somebody and eaten his genitals. Before you could hope to control them you had to get their respect. And do you know how you did that? By passing their test of manhood. That meant going out into the bush armed with a spear – no guns, please note – and killing an elephant. I know you shouldn’t kill elephants, but I’d no choice. Having passed that test I could begin to get the place in order. No use reasoning with them. Violence was what they respected. Superior physical strength. So it was wield the sjambok. Once I’d got them where I wanted them, I could start on a bit of Christian love. Not before.

  ‘It’s all in the Bible, you know. Shouldn’t scare the kiddies with hellfire, that’s what the line is today. But think what those old Israelites must have been like: crude, violent thugs, many of them. No use talking lovey-dovey guff to them. Had to scare them with hell fire to get them to behave. Even Jesus had to bring in a dose of hellfire when he was faced with bandits and terrorists, and blokes whose idea of fun was to go and gloat at a good crucifixion. Got to make ‘em a bit scared. Then they might start listening to you.

  ‘So, don’t you go thinking that that smile of yours works with me. I’ve dealt with hard men. I know all there is to know about Original Sin. So what exactly have you been getting up to at Beaconsfield? You’ve a choice. Go back to Greenhill and let them beat the living daylights out of you. Muck me about and end up arse in the air over that sofa. Or tell me the truth.’

  The old Greenhill feeling descended on John. It wasn’t like those escape stories he read in which secret agents defied the tortures of the Gestapo. Your whole flabby body swelled up and took over, reducing you to a wobbling jelly. Sobbing like a small child, he spluttered out his story again.

  ‘Please, please. Don’t hit me!’ he snivelled. ‘I did tell Mr Steadman everything. Cross my heart. Swear to God! I want to be good. I hate being bad. But well, it just happened…’

  ‘What “just happened”?’

  ‘I started to think dirty thoughts. About boys, not about girls as I should have done. I don’t know why. And then I had these dreams. It’s like an alien taking you over. You go sort of mad. It all happened so suddenly with Danny in the shower. I’m so ashamed! So ashamed!’

  Complete collapse. The big bold lad exposed as a pathetic little baby. God, what did this man think of him, the man he so desperately wanted to impress?

  Actually, had he known it, he had impressed the Bishop. Don Macnab was a man out of his time. The wild frontiers of the Victorian Empire were where he really belonged. Of his choice, he’d spent his life among hard and desperate men. The world of the Bible can’t have been very different: wild, warlike tribes, rapacious amoral tax collectors, brutal warlords; no use being all lovey-dovey with a seasoned thug like King Herod. His mentor was that old warhorse of the Raj, General Charles Napier who’d conquered Sind: flog ’em first, let ’em know who’s boss, and then ladle out the kindness. Worked in Ulster; worked among the Mburong. But this kid wasn’t like that. He wasn’t basically violent. A little firmness, yes, but be kind to him and you’ll have him. No need for sjamboks or the third degree with him. He’d learnt that much. He was desperate for a bit of help. So help he’d get. A practised interrogator, he switched personalities and became a kindly old uncle.

  ‘All right! All right! I believe you. I know you’re telling the truth. You’re not daft enough to lie. You know which side of the bread the butter’s on.’

  He leant back and the great craggy face broke into a warm smile. ‘We’ll get you back to Beaconsfield, never fear. But first I’ll have to sort that ridiculous Watson woman out.’

  God Almighty, was he going to lay her over the sofa and set to work with the rattan cane? Quite possible.

  ‘You a problem!’ he continued. ‘I wonder what she’d make of poor old Cedric? Incidentally, young man, I set that business in the bathroom up specially for you. Just to let you know what it’s like to be chased by a sex-mad freak. You didn’t like it, did you? You were scared stiff, weren’t you? So think what it must be like for your victims. No use just telling you. Got to learn it at first hand. Then it really sinks in.’

  John’s degradation had made him ready to confess everything. It was a sort of catharsis, a cleansing. ‘I wasn’t expelled from Greenhill for hitting a teacher like I told them at Beaconsfield. I ran away because of what Freddy Hazlett and his gang did to me. It was horrible.’

  ‘Yes,’ nodded the Bishop, ‘I heard about that. So let it be a warning to you. And, whatever you do, don’t end up like Cedric.’

  ‘But can’t anybody help him?’

  ‘Not really. You can only help those who want to be helped. Cedric doesn’t. He’s very clever, you know, a philosophy and mathematics student at university. But he’s totally without willpower. God doesn’t put you into Hell, you know. It’s where you put yourself. Still, you’ve got to love ‘em all, even when they don’t want to be loved and can’t see the point of it. Like being a soldier under orders. Anyway, all that’s by the way. You like steam engines, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, today’s my day off and we’re going to drive one. Mind you, any rubbish out of you and I’m perfectly capable of throwing you into the firebox. Could pass it over as just a sad accident!’

  ‘You’ve driven steam trains before?’

  ‘Yes, while I was in Africa. I wangled my way on to one of the big garrets that went up the line from Mombasa to Kampala. Getting them up the gradients out of the Rift Valley, that was engine driving! Well, tempus fugit as they say. We’d better get going.’

  ‘But what am I to wear?’ said John. ‘I mean, I’m still in my school uniform.’

  The Bishop eyed the neat little mannequin in his bright red blazer, white shirt and clean grey trousers. ‘No, we can’t have you going dressed like that. Wait a minute, Isabel’s got a lot of stuff she’s collected for her “neglected children” jumble sale. I’ll see what she can find.’

  ‘Just the Picture You’re Looking for’

  On cue, Isabel went into a fluttery action. After a prolonged session of rummaging in boxes at the far end of the workshop, punctuated with more excruciating hugs and kisses, John finally entered the dining room draped in a pair of oversize jeans, held
precariously in place by an old leather belt and half hidden in a tattered red sweater that reached down to his knees – some of the fruits of her ‘good works’ on behalf of ‘the despised and neglected of capitalist society’.

  As she delivered the finished product to her husband, she noticed John’s tear-stained face. ‘Don,’ she said in an accusing tone. ‘You haven’t been bullying him, have you?’

  ‘Nothing out of the ordinary, dear. Just straightening a few things out.’

  ‘That’s your word for it, is it? One day you’ll go too far and get into trouble with the law!’

  The Bishop eyed the scrawny rag doll in front of him.

  ‘I must say he does rather fill the bill as one of your neglected children, doesn’t he?’ he said. ‘He could be just the picture you’ve been looking for.’

  ‘Absolutely!’ declared Isabel, ‘You’ve given me an idea. Wait till I get my camera.’

  ‘What’s all this?’ asked a bewildered John as she scuttled out of the room.

  ‘Just one of her obsessions. She needs a suitable photograph to illustrate her appeal in the parish magazine.’

  ‘But why me?’

  ‘When she tried to photograph some street kids from Greenwood all they did was stick their tongues out and make obscene gestures with their fingers. Not very appealing, but you, Jonny boy, look the part and you play the part.’

  ‘But that’s cheating.’

  ‘Not really. It’s just the way propaganda works. Most of the pictures you see in your history books have been faked, like the famous storming of the Winter Palace in 1917.’

  Isabel returned, brandishing a large, and obviously very expensive, camera.

  ‘No, John darling, don’t try to comb your hair. Ruffle it up a bit. That’s right. Wait a minute. We could do with a few tears.’

  She stuck her fingers into a nearby vase of flowers and duly added them to his cheeks.

  ‘Now come into the garden where there’s some light.’

  They walked out onto the lawn.

  ‘We’ll have you standing in front of the brick wall, there. A suggestive background, don’t you agree, Don? No! No! No! Don’t smile! Look sad. That’s it.’

  Click. Click. Click.

  Throughout it all John squirmed. It was so embarrassing! If the lads at Beaconsfield find out…! And what if Cedric were to get hold of the photos and start masturbating over them? Or send them to Gay News or something? Didn’t bear thinking about! But, since Thursday’s catastrophe he just had to go with the wind – wherever it blew him. So do as they say and keep smiling.

  A Hell’s Angel Now?

  ‘All right, Isabel, that’ll do,’ said the Bishop. ‘Time to start, Jonny boy!’

  They walked round to a red brick hut on the far side of the house that served as a garage.

  ‘Wait here,’ he said as he disappeared behind the brown-painted double doors.

  A moment later he emerged dressed in black leathers and wheeling a vast red motorbike. Once more, John gaped. Just what was this extraordinary man? A Hell’s Angel? Or a sixties rocker escaped from a time warp? Who knew?

  ‘Ever had a ride on one of these before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well here’s a new experience for you. Great things, motorbikes! Get the adrenaline going. I may be a bishop, but I can’t be holy all the time. Drive me mad.’ He became conspiratorial. ‘And here’s another thing, young man. It’s a good way of burning up all that testosterone which makes lads like you go and do daft things in showers. And, by the way,’ he added with a wink, ‘when we get to the Radmore Railway I’m not the Bishop of Boldonbridge, I’m your Uncle Don, a retired engine driver. If some of the blokes there knew I was a bishop, one half would get all deferential while the other half would get all class-conscious and resentful. I can do without the proles versus the toffs show. I get too much of it in my work.’

  He began to reminisce, becoming oddly confidential, as if he needed to unburden himself to a sympathetic listener. Why me? thought John, why me?

  ‘Got to be able to change your identity from time to time, you know. That’s how I wangled my way onto the footplate of those big East African Railways garrets. Wouldn’t have done for a headmaster out there to have been seen driving a train.’

  ‘Why not? I thought that it would be the thing to do.’

  ‘Not among the Mburong. Headmaster there’s the big magician who gets you the good exam results that get you a cushy office job. Can’t be seen to do manual work or he stops being the intellectual with magic. So I turned myself into a Boer – helps being a good linguist, you know – white farmer up from the dreaded South Africa. Went down a treat with the Hindu engine drivers. World’s greatest snobs. Caste system. White man higher caste than black man..’

  ‘And another thing,’ he added as he donned a big red crash helmet and handed a second one to the awe-struck John, ‘I believe there’s some damned silly law about not letting kids ride behind you on motorbikes. So, if the police see us, you’re my wife; get it? Right, on you get. Hang on tight. Don’t worry if you’re a bit scared. You’ve every reason to be!’

  With that the big machine burst into a thundering, vibrating life and they roared off into the weak spring sunshine. Wind, fear, wild excitement, the adrenaline of pure speed. Hanging on desperately, John was vaguely aware of hurtling through tree-lined suburbs, over the river, up through the steep terraced houses of Southside and away over the green hills beyond. Soon he glimpsed the untidy industrial city sprawling down the valley beneath them like a ragged old tartan rug.

  Eventually they skidded to a jerky halt. Shaking slightly and greatly relieved to feel solid earth beneath his feet, John dismounted. Removing his helmet, he saw a neat, almost toy-like red brick railway station with ‘Radmore Heritage Railway’ emblazoned on it in big gold letters. They marched over to a large red brick shed beyond it. Inside were three glitteringly clean saddle tank engines, one blue, one red and one green, resplendent in their gleaming paint and bright red buffer beams. John’s heart leapt.

  They hung their helmets on a row of hooks and, having removed his leathers, the Bishop led the way into a little office. Immediately he started talking in broad Geordie to the man behind the desk.

  ‘Tick us off, will yer? I’m nummer fower. Yin’s me nephew like. From doon sooth like so he talks a bit posh like. OK if Ah tak ’im wee us on the footplate?’

  ‘Well… the safety regulations, you know…’

  ‘Hadaway, he’ll do nowt daft, him! An’ Ah’ll tek the rap if ’e does owt – after havin’ skelped ’im proper like!’

  ‘OK.’

  They went outside to find Number Four, another immaculate little saddle tank engine, shiny black this time and lined in gold. Bob, the fireman, had been getting it ready and smoke was coming out of the chimney. They climbed up into the cab.

  Trains, Glorious Trains

  What followed was a glimpse of paradise. John was immediately accepted as one of the crew, helping Bob and shovelling coal into the fire at his behest.

  ‘More over there, son! We don’t want no holes or we’ll be sending most of it up the chimney and lose pressure. There. That’s right.’

  The thrill of leaning out of the cab window with everybody looking at you as the engine chugged into the station pulling a single coach. Not a shit-stabber John now. Not pathetic little cry baby either, but an adult member of the footplate crew.

  ‘Now me bonny lad, you can do a brirra drivin’.’

  The excitement of standing, gloved hand on the regulator, looking through the spyglass at the advancing track. The sudden surge of power as you opened the regulator a little. The stream of technical jargon that made you feel that you were part of an elite: ‘A little more cut off now… Watch the slipping. A bit of sand… Gently now.’ That feeling of omnipotence as you, yourself, controlled the live, fire-bre
athing dragon. The dirt. The smell of smoke.

  ‘You’ve Gone and Landed Yourself in it’

  ‘Thanks a bomb!’ he spluttered when it was all over, ‘That was wicked! Mankey!’

  They climbed onto the motorbike and he prepared himself for the adrenaline-filled mixture of fear and exhilaration that was the ride home.

  But before they started the Bishop turned round and glared at him. ‘You’ve had your fun,’ he barked, ‘and now you’ve got to earn your keep. Tomorrow’s work day. Isabel’s grabbed you for her weekly Good Deed. It’s your own fault. You’ve gone and landed yourself in it.’

  A spurt of fear rippled through him and he blushed bright red. What now with this unpredictable gorilla of a man?

  ‘I’m terribly sorry. I, er… didn’t mean it!’

  ‘No! No! No! You haven’t done anything wrong! Quite the opposite. You’ve gone and charmed her. You’re quite a change from the usual bag of dropouts and deadbeats that she collects. She wants you all to herself tomorrow. You’re earmarked for her Waifs and Strays do. Hope you know something about croquet, because you’re in charge of the croquet match. I can only pray that you manage to stay sane.’

  With that bombshell the Bishop’s charger burst into thunderous life and they roared away: wind, speed, fear, thrill.

  ‘He’s All Yours Now’

  They’d hardly skidded to a halt in the Bishop’s drive before Isabel swooped.

  ‘Don, where have you been? You haven’t been driving trains again, I hope? Leaving me to prepare for tomorrow all alone! And I’ve had a terrible time with Cedric! He drank a whole bottle of methylated spirits. I do wish you would keep that garage door locked, darling. I’ve spoken to you about it so many times! Well I had to ring for the ambulance and they’ve taken him into the detoxification unit at the General Hospital.’