The gush momentarily died down as she recovered her breath. Then she eyed the grubby, soot-smeared John. ‘What have you been doing to him?’ she exclaimed. ‘You haven’t been making him drive trains have you? You know how dangerous that can be! One day there’ll be a terrible accident and we’ll all land in prison.’
‘Well he’s yours now,’ said the Bishop when the tirade eventually fizzled out. ‘I’ve got to get some work done.’
With that he wheeled the motorbike into the garage.
‘You Must Wash Properly’
Isabel frog-marched John into the house, like a little boy who’d been rolling in the mud. Laden with towels and bottles of shampoo, she hustled him up to the bathroom.
‘Now you must wash properly. I mean properly! All over! You must get this filthy coal dust and soot off you. It gives you cancer, you know! Yes, cancer! So get out of these dirty things! Now!’
For a ghastly minute he thought she was going to undress him and sponge him down like a little baby. Even his armour-plated ‘good boy’ act could hardly have survived that humiliation. Fortunately once she’d managed to get the taps to work – as awkward as ever – she swept out into the corridor and left him in peace. Without Cedric hovering in the near distance he was able to enjoy a long and glorious wallow in the warm soapy water.
Eventually he clambered out, dried himself and scuttled along to his bedroom where he found his school uniform, which Isabel had laid out neatly on his bed. Finally, resplendent in his red blazer, white shirt and striped tie, he headed for the dining room.
On the landing he met Jason. He was standing in a ‘commanding’ pose, his left arm outstretched and his right arm making pointed didactic gestures.
‘You!’ he barked. ‘Finland Station! You, Nevsky Prospect!’ He eyed the newly washed and glowing John. ‘Kamenev’s weak! History is looking to you! Yes, to you!’ he repeated aggressively.
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ replied John as he scuttled down the stairs.
‘A Very Civilised Game’
In the dining room Isabel subjected him to a rigorous examination – neck, hair, behind the ears…
‘Yes, you’ll do,’ she finally said. ‘Now tomorrow I’ve got a group of deprived children coming for tea. You will help, won’t you?’
Required answer: ‘Yes.’ So he smiled sweetly and said, ‘Of course I will.’
‘Oh John, you are so good!’
Yet another excruciating hug and kiss followed.
‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked when she eventually released him.
‘You’re to take charge of the game of croquet.’
‘Croquet? What’s that?’ The name stirred distance memories that he couldn’t solidify.
‘Surely they taught you croquet at school?’
‘No.’
‘Good gracious! I thought all proper schools taught croquet. It’s such a civilised game! Well, come outside and we’ll have a little lesson.’
As he followed her into the garden and round to a tree-lined lawn at the back of the house, it came back to him. A history trip in the summer term at Rickerby Hall to some boring old stately home. “Hairy Mary”, the loony Latin master, had been in charge and had tried to contain the growing anarchy by ‘having a game of croquet… A very civilised game.’ It had resulted in a glorious Battle of Hastings with the long wooden mallets acting as swords and lances and the wooden balls as cannon balls fired by an alien spaceship caught in a timewarp. They had been chased back to the minibus by a furious tourist guide, and when they had returned to Rickerby Hall, Mr Cotton, the headmaster, had blown a mega fuse.
A tedious hour of hitting balls through metal hoops ensued. The contrast between that lost paradise and his present dire predicament made him want to go away and cry. He had to fight back his tears and try desperately to appear lively, interested and grateful.
As they went back inside, Isabel issued a warning. ‘The Bishop’s in his study preparing his Sunday sermons. You are not to disturb him. He can be very fierce when he’s in a temper.’
John didn’t need to be reminded of that fact.
In the Kitchen
Saturday morning consisted of helping a frenetic and hyped-up Isabel prepare the ‘deprived children’s tea’: a matter of running round the kitchen with vast tray-loads of meringues, stirring huge bowls of exotic cake mix and putting them into the oven, decorating enormous ice cream concoctions with Smarties, and trying to squeeze them into the small and overcrowded fridge without damaging them.
All the while Isabel kept up a stream of exhortations. ‘We must make a very special effort for these children. You see they’ve had so little! They have been so abused! They will be so grateful. You will do your best for them, John, won’t you?’
Expected answer: ‘Yes!’
And when it was given with gusto it was followed by an effusive gush. ‘Oh, John, you are so kind and so thoughtful! Really, that Watson woman…!’
Definite political possibilities here, but tread carefully. Adults are so unreliable: all over you one minute, going up in blue smoke the next.
By mid-morning the dining room table was a gorgeous cornucopia of gastronomic goodies.
The ‘Deprived Children’ Arrive
Morning slid into a fine and balmy afternoon.
‘The children will soon be here,’ declared Isabel, looking at her watch. ‘We must go outside to meet them.’
As they waited by the main entrance, a white minibus with ‘Boldonbridge Christian Volunteers’ emblazoned on its sides came careering up the drive and skidded to a halt amid clouds of dust and gravel. Immediately the back doors opened and vomited out an anarchic bundle of youngsters: tall, short, fat, thin, boys and girls, mostly bejeaned but some in leather jackets, some with shiny shaved heads, almost all with fags hanging out of their mouths. Whooping, yelling and screeching, the tumult poured over the lawn and scattered itself among the trees at the far end near the wall. A huge, brawny gorilla of a youth, fearsome with his shaved head, bare tattooed arms and dangling cigarette, wrenched the head off the stone sundial in the middle of the lawn and hurled it aggressively over the drive.
John felt his bones dissolve into mushy putty as the old Greenhill fear gripped him. These creatures were not children, nor had they ever been. They were dangerous and untamed predators. Did some adults never learn elementary facts?
Twisting her beaky face into what was supposed to be a beatific smile, Isabel marched resolutely up to the driver, a young man in a denim suit who was busily lighting a cigarette.
‘I’m Isabel,’ she cooed. ‘Welcome to Fairfield House.’
The driver acknowledged her presence with the barest grunt and continued lighting his cigarette.
‘Please,’ she said, after an awkward silence. ‘Could you gather the children together?’
More striking of matches was followed by a long inhalation of smoke, which duly emerged from his nostrils.
‘Not my pigeon,’ he eventually condescended to grunt. ‘I’m only the driver and I’m not being paid overtime, you know. They’re your problem.’
Isabel turned to John, her face still fixed in its beatific smile. ‘John, darling,’ she purred, ‘Perhaps you would go and fetch them back for me?’
Which was, of course, the very last thing that John wanted to do. A glance down the lawn revealed terrifying anarchy. While half of the mob seemed to have disappeared round the back of the house, the remainder were cavorting about, shrieking and yelling. Some seemed to be fighting, a couple even appeared to be having sex: openly and in front of everybody and everything without the barest hint of shame. He might as well jump into a pool of hungry crocodiles. He felt himself melt.
But, reality! He needed Isabel and the Bishop to save him from… Greenhill and that seething mob in front of him! No choice but to obey. He felt like a First World War soldier ordere
d to attack an enemy trench. Disobeying orders meant a firing squad and the certainty of death; obeying orders meant only the risk of death. He marched as resolutely as possible over the lawn.
Seeing a gaggle of what seemed to be girls pulling up some daffodils – though with the unisex jeans and the shaven heads determination of gender was not easy – he approached them.
‘Er, please could you come back to the minibus?’
‘Wee’s the posh git then?’ one of them screeched as she (or, maybe, he) continued the work of destruction.
But three of them – a couple of what were probably girls and a dark-haired, pointy-faced creature who was obviously a boy – eventually wandered back to the minibus. Not dead yet! Partial success, even. Feeling slightly encouraged, he walked round to the back of the house to ‘take charge’ of the game of croquet.
When he got there he found that some kind of a fight – play or otherwise – had broken out. The big lump who’d bust the sundial was in the midst of a boiling mass of arms and legs, having what seemed to be a sword fight with the wooden mallets. No possible sense in entering that maelstrom! But three mallets were lying unused on the grass beside the four balls. Screwing up his courage to bursting point, he picked up a mallet and a ball and approached a couple of boys who were slouching round with fags in their mouths and vaguely watching the big fight.
‘Would you like a game of croquet?’ Invitation to suicide. Stick your head into the hungry crocodile’s mouth.
To his gratified surprise they didn’t immediately react to his alien accent.
‘Reet,’ one of them said, ‘Whadder yer dee with them things like?’
‘Well, you hit the balls with them and try to get them through the hoops. Like this.’
He gave the ball a smack. Mercifully it went through the requisite hoop. It seemed to arouse a modicum of interest and a desultory approximation of a game began with the sword fight providing a noisy backdrop. After a while it petered out. ‘Dead borin’ this.’
Suddenly, something seemed to happen. The cacophony of voices – the deep male bellows and shrill female screeches – rose to a crescendo and the whole adolescent tsunami went surging round to the front of the house.
A bewildered John was left standing alone amid a debris of uprooted daffodils, empty fag packets and even the odd broken beer bottle. God, the Bishop would go apeshit when he saw this mess! And he wouldn’t half cop it, too! ‘You’re in charge of the game of croquet.’ Those two broken croquet mallets were his responsibility! ‘I can always put you over that sofa there… lay into you with that rattan cane.’ The pain! The sheer humiliation. Could he stand it without crying like a little baby? Only one solution: find Isabel and set to work on her before that great God of Thunder – or whatever it was – descended from the clouds!
He scurried round to the front of the house. There was nobody there so he crept inside. Opening the door of the corridor that led to the dining room, he froze. A colossal din hit him with an almost physical force. Bovine bellows, piercing screeches and great volcanic eruptions of wild, uncontrollable laughter; that ‘yob laughter’ of Greenhill, which was the Devil breaking loose. Above the hullaballoo Isabel’s voice could be heard squealing with anguished pleas. ‘Do stop it, boys and girls! Please sit down!’
He was going to have to enter that boiling cauldron. It was back to being the First World War soldier who had to choose between the certainty of death or the mere high probability of it. He felt his insides twist into knots as he opened the door and plunged into the seething chaos.
The whole artistically arranged table of gastronomic goodies – the fruit of all that diligent morning labour – was a bomb site chaos of squashed meringues, half-eaten doughnuts and gobbets of tipped-up ice cream lying around looking like polar islands in a brown sea of spilt Coca-Cola. Around the wreckage the heaving mass of youngsters seemed to have split into two rival teams, busy pelting each other with lumps of jelly and the remains of the trifle, so lovingly created by Isabel the previous night.
Seeing John, Isabel rushed over to him. ‘John, darling, please can you tell them to behave. They just won’t listen to me!’
Kamikaze mission. The Polish cavalry ordered to charge the German tanks. He approached the big skinhead who’d bust the sundial and the croquet mallets. ‘Please could you sit down?’
Entirely predictable response: ‘Aw fuck off yer posh twat!’
To an accompanying explosion of yob laughter, the bowl containing the remains of the trifle was dumped on his head. Unable to see where he was going, and with the cold slime seeping down his neck and under his shirt, he lurched around like a drunk. At the mercy of the unbridled savagery of the mob. What next? Punches? Kicks? Even stripped naked? Oh God!
Suddenly he felt himself blunder into a massive body. As if he had pressed the plunger of a detonator an enormous bellow exploded out, ‘Gee ower the lotta yers!’ Pure, coarse Geordie. Silence followed.
Removing the bowl from his head, John found himself staring up at the colossal figure of the Bishop. Immediately he cringed.
He watched, awestruck, as a gladiatorial contest began. At stake was the control of not only the dining room, but of the whole house. Seeing his dominance threatened, the big skinhead flung a handful of jelly against the wall in ostentatious defiance.
The Bishop responded in a soft and gentle voice. ‘Ah telled yer ter gee ower, didna?’
‘Fuck off!’
‘Tharz naebeddy tells us ter fuck off, son.’
The skinhead’s face twisted up into an ugly leer. ‘Ah will an’ all an’ wet the fuck are ye gannin’ ter dee aboorrit?’
‘Reet! Let’s ’ave yer then!’
Before an avidly expectant audience the Bishop’s massive pile-driver fists laid into his opponent. One! Two! Three!
With the custard and the jelly still dribbling icily down his neck, John became almost analytical as he observed the way that the fists carefully avoided sensitive areas like the face and hit the chest and the sides. After a few minutes the reeling skinhead was picked up and pinned against the wall.
‘Had enough, son? Wanna wee bit mooah like?’
‘Ah reet! Ah reet! Gerroff will yer!’
The audience stared in stunned silence as the defeated gladiator was dropped ignominiously onto the floor. John noticed an immediate change in the atmosphere. It was almost as if a light had been switched on in a darkened room, revealing a whole new scene. Before there had been scornful defiance. Now there was respectful cooperation. Trial by combat again. His fight with Billy Nolan. That school kid world where might was always right. Why couldn’t adults ever see this obvious fact?
‘Now clear the mess off the floor the lottayers.’
John watched in awed wonder as what had only a few minutes ago been a pack of ravenous wolves meekly obeyed, picking most of the debris off the carpet, placing it in semi-orderly piles on the table.
The Bishop became avuncular. ‘Good on yers, lads an’ lasses! Yer can come again like, yer’s always welcome, but mind, divvent ye start geein’ us any shite, else Ah’ll ’ave yers!’
He eyed the crestfallen skinhead, ‘Yer a canny fighter, you, but mind, Ah can take yers any time, son, so divvent mess wi’ us like. Gerrit?’
The youth smiled and shook his hand. ‘We’s is proper mates noo!’ he said.
A speechless John gaped as the Bishop led the motley crowd out to the waiting minibus. The sheer power of this man! The control! Whatever else he did he had to keep on the right side of this elemental force of nature.
Wiping himself down with the edge of the tablecloth, he hurried out to meet him as he came back into the house, ‘Please, sir, I’m terribly sorry about the mess on the croquet lawn. I tried my best. Honest I did! But… well, they just wouldn’t listen to me.’
He cringed, expecting a punch, or, at the very least, an angry bellow. But to his bewil
dered surprise, the ferocious giant’s face melted into an avuncular smile. God! You never knew what to expect from some adults, especially an adult like this one! So unpredictable!
‘No need to apologise! Of course you did your best. Any fool can see that. Only an idiot would have expected you to handle that lot.’
Missile fired in Isabel’s direction? Be careful. Don’t get caught in the crossfire. Try to keep both parties sweet!
Suddenly – and even more unpredictably – the Bishop started confiding in him, seemingly telling him things that he couldn’t tell other people, let alone his wife. Why him, a pathetic little shit-stabber? Most odd!
‘Don’t think I like getting physical, young man. It’s a loss of control. Failure. But it’s a sad fact that the only thing a large part of humanity respects is violence. Taxi drivers know it. They’ve a saying: “String ’em all up! It’s the only language they understand!” Rather more truth in it than some people would have us believe. They just don’t want to face it, that’s the trouble. Isabel doesn’t, as you’ve probably noticed. But I know better. So, I suspect, do you, young man. Your experience at Greenhill hasn’t been a complete waste of time. It’s taught you reality.
‘You saw what happened in the dining room, didn’t you? Two elephants fighting for dominance, just as they do in Africa. Contemptuous defiance at first, but when I sorted that young thug out, I got respectful obedience. I became leader of the herd. Same among the Mburong in Uganda. Only there, those young bloods had fibre and discipline. Not like this lot. Most of them are just pathetic, gutless, slaves to their own craving for bodily sensations. Of course it’s not really their fault: bad genes, poor environment, a deadly mix. And that’s where Christianity comes in: get a grip on your self destructive cravings, aim high. But you’ve got to win their respect first, and that can mean violence, I’m afraid. Can’t get the wife to see it, though. I’ll be getting some stick for thumping that young hooligan. Just you wait!’
They entered the dining room. Ostentatiously John began to attack the mess on the table, spooning up the mounds of spilt trifle with his bare hands and putting the mess into the bowl, which had so recently been on his head, stacking up what remained of the meringues and piling up the plates that weren’t broken. As predicted, Isabel waded into her husband.
Far, Far the Mountain Peak Page 8
