Grievous

by H. S. Cross

  Her next letter, from the foreign postage place, began again in medias res.

  It wasn’t wrong to cross the Channel either!

  They’d come somewhere new, somewhere fresh, the last port, her mother promised, before home.

  The Emerald Isle! County Clare!

  The one place her father had vowed never to return.

  There’s a story about the Burren. Do you know it, Tommy Gray? Finn McCool and his warrior friends, the Fianna, are told by King Angus to fetch some eels for a feast he’s having. On their way to Doolin, they’re stopped by some bandits who’ve taken over Ballykinvarga Castle. The two groups get into a quarrel and start throwing rocks. The Fianna collect boulders from all over Ireland and throw them at the castle, hoping the bandits will start tearing down the walls for ammunition. To make a long story short, the Fianna defeat the bandits and then chuck the boulders across all of northwest Clare, which tells you everything you need to know about what it looks like here.

  Limestone, boulders, underground rivers.

  The Burren is a peculiar spot, and Kilfenora is full of crosses.

  Orchids, forts, ferns in clefts of rocks.

  Lisdoonvarna is a spa town, but they say it’s famous for matchmaking. I don’t know whether they mean matches you light or marriages.

  A wild, stony place where the Atlantic crashed into Galway Bay.

  The Cliffs of Moher drop straight to the sea. Mum hates going there. She thinks I’ll fall off.

  Rain all the year, ivy and holly and moss.

  The high roads pass by dolmens and wells.

  And everywhere music, reels sliding into each other, notes pattering on like the rain.

  There’s a lady chapel at the top of the road.

  Open for petitions. Candles in alcoves, veiled heads, a Quaker girl kneeling down.

  The only Mary prayers I know are in French.

  Could prayer cure her mother? If it were so easy, who would die?

  She met a woman, older than Moses with no teeth, and the lady told her about a well. Not like Lourdes! There weren’t even any people there, just pure and true water from the heart of the Burren.

  There she took her mother, up and out to an X on a map, six limestone steps down to a spring. She bathed her mother’s hands, and her mother said,

  I am healed.

  The last parcel, posted from Dublin, contained the brown letters addressed only Mrs. Líoht. On the back of the parcel, she’d whispered in pencil:

  She told me to burn these, and I said I did. But still, it’s proof of what I always said was true.

  Her letter to him was seven pages long, divided up by days like a secret journal. (Like?) After the well, her mother went to bed so the cure could take. Next day, he rolled in with the tide:

  My darling little girl, how proud I am to call you my wife.

  He came, Tommy Gray, just like I wished he would!

  The man would be shot if he showed his face there again, but show his face he did.

  I gave up Rome to have you. I’ll give up my life if it lets me have you back.

  He came while we were finishing lunch, just as I always imagined.

  I’m so happy, my girl, I’m sure my heart will break.

  He gave us kisses and presents, and soon he had her laughing so hard she got the hiccoughs. He looked so debonair in a flannel shirt and Irish cap, acting the suitor with her.

  Sometimes I think I’ll have to start a quarrel with you just to remember how forgiveness feels.

  There in their chair loft, like an avalanche, he saw. Not what the girl wanted him to see, but the players behind the curtain, a man and a woman who loved battle more than anything. Fighting, running, chasing, catching.

  What could be sweeter than forgiveness from my love? Ecstasy, my girl, worth any pain at all.

  Could she not see what was so plain to him? The woman’s mad dash to Lourdes, and then, madder, Ireland, reading his letters all the while.

  I’ll come for you at seven. The shore is at its finest then.

  Her flight a gauntlet, thrown down by a woman wanting capture, before a man who couldn’t refuse.

  He brought us turquoise, a necklace for her, and for me a bracelet carved like a goddess.

  I never want to leave my little girls again.

  We went bathing and Mum got in for the first time. They kissed in the waves, and he stayed here tonight. He says he’s going to buy her—

  A fine new house.

  In Ely, near Cambridge on the Great River Ouse.

  A beautiful place for my dearest one, my onliest heart.

  By Drayton Fen, where I was born.

  We’ll start again, no hurting, no lies.

  He wanted to shout at her letter and shake it.

  We’ve booked passage to England.

  I’ll never let you be unhappy again.

  Day after tomorrow we’ll actually be home.

  I’m bringing the ring!

  It’s a play! Can’t you see?

  I’ve wished on every candle,

  My cup is flooding over.

  every cake, every wishbone.

  It’s growing.

  I’ve wished

  It’s bursting

  every eyelash,

  me open,

  every penny,

  my heart,

  every star,

  my mind, all this

  clover,

  all this

  candle,

  all this

  horseshoe,

  all this

  What do you do when your wishes come—

  True? He thought the jangling was a charm.

  My truest, my best, my—

  Only the tea bell, ruthless and sharp, yanking him back into—

  Love.

  Letters under floorboards: hers, the father’s, the one in his pocket from Wilberforce. He set a chair to mark the place, keep it down. Outside: the school, its crowds and clamor. He’d left his jacket in the study and had to run and fetch it.

  What do you do when your life is given back?

  If life was restored, why send him the letters? Would she want them back one day?

  Adieu, my friend, my friend indeed …

  Adieu meant forever. Could this be her final…? No, God, no! Study door ajar, someone perched on the table, swinging his legs and whistling.

  —You?

  —You!

  —Riding?

  —Audsley?

  33

  Rank by rank again we stand,

  From the four winds gathered hither:

  Loud the hallowed walls demand

  Whence we come, and how, and whither.

  Well might they demand, but John wasn’t sure he could answer if asked. Sunday morning, squeezed into chapel, he felt as though he were swirling on a raft somewhere, sans rudder, land in the distance, but which?

  His House had been altered by Audsley, and the past by Jamie. At least that was how it seemed to him the first full day of term. When he’d been with the Audsleys, there had been no space in his mind for Jamie, but when he left them to return to the Academy, strife broke out in his head like snarling cats loosed from a cage. At first, he’d been furious with Jamie for having failed to warn him about the Audsleys. He had spent the train journey composing his resignation in strident, superlative vocabulary, but by the time Sledmere and Fimber rolled into view, the cold truth leaked down his collar: Jamie had neither duped him nor sprung the Audsleys on him. Their walking tour—before the part he refused to think of—had been full of shoptalk: staff news, pupil news, which new boys might be up John’s street. Jamie had indeed told him of Audsley, son of thespians. The family were one of the theater’s dynasties, Jamie had said. In certain circles, Jamie claimed, they were the ones to know, and imagine if the Academy were to become known amongst such people. Jamie had met the family over Easter and found the boy apt. His education had been vibrant but eccentric, which was why Jamie knew John was the one to handle him. At that time, early i
n their trek, John had been flattered, but in the cab returning from the station, he felt ready to curse Jamie a blue streak, if not for this then for something. Back at the Academy, John had gone straight to his rooms, unpacked his rucksack, and sent every stitch of clothing to the laundry. By teatime, he had passed into a state of detachment, almost as if he had taken one of Kardleigh’s drops.

  Jamie appeared the next morning at breakfast, looking more well than a person had a right to look. Obviously, his marriage agreed with him again. John prepared himself for Jamie’s apology—the charming fog that would envelop everything that happened between them, everything done, said, and not said—but Jamie made no attempt to waylay him as they assembled for Housemasters’ meeting, and then after a quarter of an hour, Jamie dashed off, leaving his secretary to address the rest. The other three Housemasters had pelted Captain Lewis with items of business, but John had been so surprised by how embarrassed he felt that he forgot to tell the Captain what he had to tell him. Jamie behaved similarly at the staff meeting, and midweek John received a note from Lewis saying Jamie would forgo beginning-of-term staff interviews unless requested.

  He had no firm idea of what he expected Jamie to say to him, or what he himself might wish to say back. No words were equal to the occasion. That entire phase of his life—from when he first met the Sebastian family until the war broke out—had been drawn violently into the present, its most important points of reference altered. Events were not as he had understood them; therefore, neither was he. How exactly Jamie had pulled the centerboard up and set the craft adrift, John could not understand, but he had dug up and reinterpreted everything between them, as Woolley did to the Ziggurat of Ur.

  Mercifully, the days before term oppressed him with practical demands. When the Audsleys arrived, John greeted them correctly. He sent Gill away with Moss and made small talk in the quad until Joe pulled his wife away, having noticed that other parents were not lingering. John had not spoken to Gill again that night, but he’d told Crighton to make sure the boy got a haircut. At breakfast Sunday morning, John had been gratified to observe Audsley properly turned out and taking direction from Riding. Now, though, several boys were sniggering at Gill’s confident hymn singing, and John was back to yearning, illicitly, for the Lion Inn.

  Ours the years’ memorial store,

  Hero days and names we reckon,

  Days of brethren gone before,

  Lives that speak and deeds that beckon.

  At least his JCR were also singing loudly, setting the example expected of them. They, too, had come up during shoptalk. At the end of the last term, John had accepted Moss’s recommendations for the JCR, adding his and Pearce’s studymates to the roster: Moss as Head Boy, Pearce as Prefect of Hall, MacCready as Captain of Games, and Crighton as Prefect of Chapel. During shoptalk, Jamie had raised an eyebrow at the last assignment, but John had defended it—in the first place, this year’s Upper Sixth was the smallest they’d ever had (thanks to the depredations of the ancien régime), so John hadn’t much choice. Second, he didn’t think Crighton’s bawdy humor disqualified him from supervising attendance at Prayers and organizing lectors for the three services each week allocated to John’s House. But Jamie, it emerged, had new ambitions for the Prefects of Chapel, and these were linked to his new ambitions for the confirmation class. The Headmaster considered the present program (twelve lessons in Lenten Term) inadequate; he envisioned taking them through the full catechism over two terms, and supplementing his own theology lessons with informal discussions once a fortnight in House, led by Prefects of Chapel.

  —In that case, no to Crighton, John conceded. But Pearce can do it.

  —Isn’t he rather irritating? Jamie had said. And concrete.

  When John suggested Jamie take Pearce under his wing, make him show his discussion topics ahead of time and report back afterwards, Jamie had accused John of flogging his difficult cases off on him. Still, it had been clear that Jamie liked the idea, and when, later, John had presented the revised assignments to his prefects—Pearce as Chapel, Crighton as Hall—Pearce’s joy had been matched only by Crighton’s relief. John wished he could make everyone as happy.

  From the dreaming of the night

  To the labors of the day,

  Now, though not unhappy, his JCR looked young. In fact, the whole Upper Sixth looked callow, not like senior boys in years past, the Morgan Wilberforces, the others whose names now escaped him. It was only last year, surely, that Morgan sat in those same pews with John’s band of brothers, his first JCR, which had turned the tide on the old school; wasn’t it only last year that Morgan was coaching the Colts XV, taking young Pearce in hand, smoothing the edges, bending him to the mold, only last week that Elsa Riding arrived with her son, the youngest he’d had? When had Riding grown out of Eton jackets? Surely he wasn’t long above five foot two, yet here he stood, in the Lower Sixth, wearing tails.

  Brother, if with lure unblest

  Tempter-wise the past betrayed thee.

  And young Halton, was that a tremor as he sang the solo? Surely his voice wasn’t breaking already? And yet, John calculated, Halton would be fourteen now, or soon. When John had first come to the Academy, someone—Burton?—had told him he’d lose track of time, living only for the rhythms of school, terms beginning and terms passing on. John was sure that he’d never be the type of schoolmaster to have trouble recalling a boy’s age, or his form, or when he’d left the school. Now, though, he realized that he couldn’t be sure of anything without consulting his files, and even then memory might deceive him.

  * * *

  Malcolm minor had been his Keeper when he arrived, and now the notice boards declared that he, Halton, was Keeper to Malcolm tertius. He found his charge in Moss and Crighton’s new study puffing over kindling that refused to light.

  —You must be the Turtle.

  He’d heard about the Turtle. Malcolm minor had complained heavily of his younger brother last term. Halton couldn’t understand why anyone would undermine a brother, but now that he saw the youngest Malcolm boy—good-looking and confident, even in his Cinderella state—he realized that his friend possessed a talent for survival, riding the coattails of a talented elder brother while suppressing the popularity of the younger.

  The Turtle looked him up and down:

  —I’m also called Nipper, Cod-eyes, and Oliver. Take your pick.

  Halton stifled the urge to cuff him round the ear.

  —Stand up when your Keeper comes into the room.

  The Turtle rubbed his eyes:

  —Are you Halton? Infant Halton?

  His blood raced, first at the insult and then with shame.

  —I’d think a bit less about my name and a bit more about your fag test in a fortnight’s time.

  —That’s all right, the boy said breezily. I know it all.

  His arrogance was staggering, and dangerous.

  —If you get a docket, Halton said, I get whacked. And you can be sure I’ll pay it back to you with interest.

  —I know.

  He tried to collect himself. Of course Malcolm tertius would have learned from his brothers. Of course they had given him the one fag who didn’t need a Keeper.

  —You’re in the choir, the Turtle said.

  —So?

  He was going to thump him, damn the consequences.

  —That solo was jolly hard.

  He kicked him instead, though not as hard as he could:

  —We didn’t get to practice.

  Brat wouldn’t know a major third if it tripped him down the stairs.

  —You’re better than anyone at my old school, the Turtle said.

  Halton bit the inside of his cheek. The Turtle was covered in soot.

  —You’ve got to use paper, he said, for the fire.

  —There wasn’t any.

  Halton took a piece of impot paper from the drawer. Twisted, lit, heigh presto.

  —Tomorrow there’ll be newspapers in the boot room.

&
nbsp; —Thanks.

  He moved towards the door:

  —If you burn Crighton’s toast, don’t scrape it. He can’t abide scraped toast.

  —Right.

  —And careful with the sugar. Anything more than a spoonful gives Moss a headache.

  —Right.

  —They’re decent, but you’ve got to complain about them or you’ll catch it from the other fags.

  —I know.

  —Stop speaking. Really.

  The Turtle made a salute.

  —And wash your face. You look like hell.

  * * *

  Guilford Audsley changed the light and filled the furniture. Under his eye, the study became a stage. The Messenger stenciled vines over the window seat, fashioned a Chinese lantern for the ceiling bulb, and plastered the walls with pin-ups of film stars called Greta, Marlene, and Bela. Above the fireplace, he mounted a sun-and-moon mask that smelled of glue, and when he saw the flight goggles Gray always kept in his tuck box, he begged to be allowed to fasten them on the mask, and then he begged for their story (his godmother’s, lady pilot shot by Bolsheviks, saga would take all term to relate).

  Gray found the task of Keeper quickly daunting as he discovered Guilford’s understanding of school life. He seemed aware of some customs, such as call-over and capping, but he employed a bizarre array of slang. Gray had to explain that no one at the Academy would ever use the word rotter and that there had never been a singing test on tabletops, all while imparting the standard Notions every new boy had to learn. Even he himself had not been such a disaster when he’d landed in Morgan’s hands. He may have been more green, but at least he wasn’t misinformed. Guilford, by contrast, seemed to have swotted from a dismal syllabus of Boy’s Own Paper and Tom Brown’s School Days. Gray felt he would need every hour of the next fortnight to hammer his charge into shape. Recalling Gill’s earlier confusion in chapel, he left him in the study with instructions to rule out his exercise books, but when he returned with a prayerbook, he found Gill laughing in the corridor, ensconced in three conversations at once.