Grievous

by H. S. Cross

  What would Morgan do?

  —Oi, you, swot up, he said, rapping Gill on the head with the book.

  Gill took it amiably:

  —All of it?

  —Just the usual.

  Gill turned to the table of contents.

  —Haven’t been to church much, have you?

  —Not at all, Gill admitted.

  —You’re not a…?

  —Father calls me a heathen sometimes.

  Doubt and mistake disarranged him.

  —What? Gill said.

  —Pater.

  —What?

  —Not father. Pater. M’Pater calls me a heathen. Say it.

  He did; the second time sounded natural.

  —Don’t worry, Gill said. I’m a quick study.

  * * *

  That night when the washroom was at its most crowded, Halton took the towel from around his waist and used it to dry his face.

  —Bloody hell! Leslie exclaimed. What happened to you?

  The washroom instantly suspended its business to pay attention to the marks he’d been waiting to show. Imagining Moss at his most unfazed, Halton flicked the towel across his shoulder, wet his toothbrush, and began to clean his teeth. When they pressed for details, he spat into the basin:

  —M’pater took a dim view of last term’s report.

  As he finished his teeth, word spread, and by the time he found it necessary to put on his pajamas, everyone who was anyone had seen.

  Reputation established, he repaired to the dorm. Perversely, he’d been put in Pearce’s dorm with the fags. He’d complained loudly and bitterly about it, but it dawned on him that he may have drawn a long straw after all; the rest of the Fourth were in Mac’s dorm, and Mac promised to be not only a fanatical Captain of Games, but also, already, an aficionado of the slipper.

  —Hear you got the high jump, Pearce said upon entering the dorm.

  Halton pretended not to notice the fear and fascination on the younger boys’ faces.

  —Disce aut discede, or as m’pater says, the third option.

  —Scorchy?

  —Good tennis arm.

  Malcolm tertius went pale.

  —I suppose, said Pearce, he didn’t think much of your JCR Report?

  The fact burned through the dorm, Halton got a JCR Report!, but as Pearce switched off the lights, Halton got into bed less triumphant than he expected, as if his pockets were empty when he had expected them to be full.

  His throat had betrayed him with the solo, jumping places it didn’t belong and refusing to obey his command. Worse, his birthday was next month, fourteen damning years. He was going to have to speak as little as possible from now on unless he could force his voice into submission.

  And then there was Guilford Audsley, materializing as if by power of his own imagination within the gates of the Academy. His parents had taken him and Miranda to see The Messenger at Easter, and at the end of July, they’d returned to the Gaiety Arts for The Lady from the Sea. He knew nothing of what the play ought to be, but he found the production romantic and unnerving, especially the Lieder songs they had inserted into the script, according to the program. He knew one from a gramophone record he had received last Christmas. Mr. Gershwin played the piano as a girl crooned along, much as the young lady playing Bolette had done at the end of the fourth act. The boy who had played the bicycle messenger at Easter had a larger role this time, that of the artist Lyngstrand. It was alluring, if somehow wrong, that the actor, who couldn’t be any older than Moss, should be playing such a troubled and wasting young man.

  When Halton first saw Audsley across the House tables, he thought his mind was playing tricks, that the new boy only looked like Lyngstrand, but soon he’d learned that it was the actor, though no one else seemed to know who he was. He hadn’t been able to speak to Audsley directly, of course. Aside from the fact that the Fourth did not address the Upper School—a convention they in the Fourth scrupulously followed so as to impress it on the fags—Audsley remained firmly attached to Riding’s side. Evidently, they were studymates. Halton knew better than to expect fairness from life, but what sort of justice was it for everything worthwhile to end up in Riding’s ungrateful lap? The brute was arrogant, surly, and came top in everything without even trying.

  Of course his father had taken a dim view of his reports, though he evinced no surprise. Schoolmasters in Nairobi had been complaining of him for years. He’d listened impatiently to his father’s lecture, wishing he’d reach the end of it and get the thrashing over with. He’d never be able to explain to anyone besides Miranda the way letters and numbers refused to stay put, how they migrated like butterflies, making reading arduous, arithmetic absurd. If she had stood beside him, she might have argued his case, explaining to their father how he had read that summer—and without her help—a book called The Riddle of the Sands. Instead, she had accused him of sabotaging her piano practice, sounding as rigid and serious as the horrible Lyngstrand in the scene with Bolette. Guilford Audsley had delivered the lines like a spoiled boy, making Lyngstrand pathetic as he declared himself an artist who required a wife to Think of him as he Became an Artist, intending with this speech to seduce Bolette, who all the while was laughing at him. I suppose, he’d told Miranda, that you expect me to occupy myself Thinking of you while you go off and Become a Musician. She’d stared at him as if at a freak, and he realized not only that the joke was a failure but also that their days together had been left in Africa with the murram that used to stick in the treads of his sand shoes, and with everything else that had once been hopeful and beautiful, true and good.

  * * *

  John sat down almost giddy to the paperwork appointed to his freshly tidied desk. Her letter pulsed in his pocket, but he waited until he’d blotted his last page before taking it out and casting his eyes across it again: her very own hand, the swash of her M enough to give him heat. She wrote directly to him, two full pages. He couldn’t even be unhappy that she’d taken Owain back, so staggered was he by the news that she was home and thriving. The letter had been misdirected to Henri’s House, but this afternoon a prefect had brought it by, transforming life in an instant. John had gone straight to Jamie and demanded an exeat, and while Jamie was not in the habit of permitting his staff to leave the premises during term time, under the circumstances … Date set, letter sent. He would leave the second of October after morning lessons and return in time for Primus four days later. His JCR and his matron would manage. If only time would go faster.

  34

  —We’ll give a play.

  It was the third day of term. Gill had not memorized the timetable. He hadn’t mastered what was to be worn when and how, who could be addressed and in what manner. He hadn’t even purged his vocabulary of bogus slang. The moratorium on dockets would end in a week.

  —We’ll do no such thing, Gray replied.

  —An historical drama about the Wright brothers. You write it, I’ll do the rest. We’ll use the goggles!

  His head spun with objections.

  —We don’t have a theater.

  —We don’t need a theater!

  They’d give a play in two acts, Gill declared, Act One in the woodshop, Act Two on the playing fields. Gray explained that the Academy had never even had a dramatic society, let alone a play. What’s more, clubs were required to apply a term in advance for permission. The more impediments he presented, the more determined Gill became. Gray realized too late that he should have stopped at no, that once debate began, the battle had been lost. Still, he couldn’t stop explaining—habit? desperation?—the stupidity of getting on the wrong side of authorities and the sorrow that a reputation for keenness would bring them both. Never was a discourse delivered more in vain. Trevor had listened to warnings when they mattered, but Gill remained impervious to reason and indifferent to disapproval. Was this what it meant to be Struck, Gill incapable of rest until the idea worked its purpose out?

  To Gray’s dismay, their Housemaster thou
ght it a fine idea. Gray stared at the chevrons on the carpet as Grieves and Audsley discussed it. Gill claimed to have met their Housemaster in the holidays, a tale too far-fetched to take literally. Guilford didn’t strike him as an outright liar, so it was possible that he’d encountered Grieves at the seaside somewhere, but as to the claim that Grieves had played games and laughed to tears … he supposed absurd exaggeration had to be expected from actors.

  Grieves having failed to kill off the idea, Gray resigned himself to short-term humiliation. Obviously the play would never happen, but in the meantime, as Gill tried and failed to roust up a company, they would be pariahs. Gray refused to perform, but Gill assured him they’d be flooded by hopefuls once word got out. Only a painful collision with reality would change Gill’s mind, so Gray decided to leave him to it and meantime to conserve his energies for the other trials of term, such as this evening’s unwelcome errand, parley with the Flea.

  Burton-Lee had invited each boy in the Lower Sixth to his study by appointment to retrieve their holiday tasks. There, according to Legs, who had gone after lunch, they received their Virgil translations, scarred bloody with markings, and were subjected to a harangue on the subject of the Sixth Form. Gray braced himself, but instead of the promised assault, Burton-Lee launched into a tirade about Gray’s studymate, whose acquaintance he had already made. The Flea thought very little of Audsley’s skill in Latin—

  —If such gross ignorance could be called skill!

  And he entertained himself detailing Gill’s shortcomings. Gray saw that his studymate had already become known to the Common Room in a way it was never good to be known.

  —Kindly remove that expression from your face, Riding. Audsley is your responsibility, is he not?

  He was, but what Gill’s attainment in Latin had to do with his Keeper was a matter beyond Gray’s comprehension. Did the Flea expect him to tutor the Messenger? Or had he bored himself with the usual diatribes and turned to Gray’s studymate as a sort of novelty?

  —And now I hear the rumor, surely false, that you and Audsley propose to mount some sort of music hall extravaganza?

  There it was.

  —A play, sir.

  Why hadn’t he seen it coming?

  —I beg your pardon, a play. A comedy?

  —Drama, sir.

  The Flea received the information like a box of chocolates.

  —A drama. Fascinating!

  The Flea occupied the remaining minutes before Prep in florid contemplation of the scheme. (Would he never learn? Though, should he have denied it?) The man’s tactics were calibrated to perfection; he’d used them for years, on Gray and everyone. Each twinge felt idiotically familiar, and as he stood on the Flea’s carpet, his mind regarded the scene from a distance. This man knew nothing of who he really was, of who wrote to him and what she wrote, of who shared his study and where he came from. Grieves had given permission for the play, so this man had no power to stop it. His barbs fell to the floor like needles hurled at granite. He, Gray, was bigger than this man. He would leave the school one day, and he would write what he would, stories, plays, even poems if Struck. Tonight the Flea laughed him to scorn, but every word fueled a resolve newly lit: to do what this man hoped to shame him from doing, to write this play, to stage it, and even, if necessary, to play a role himself.

  The Prep bell rang, and he departed. There were urgent things to discuss with Gill: scenes, casting, lists material. He found him by the chapel in conversation with cheeky Halton. Gray told Halton to bog off and reminded Gill not to speak to the Lower School. More important was the play. He knew how it should start. He knew who to recruit and how.

  —I’ll tell you what! Gill exclaimed. That boy is perfect for Icarus.

  —No!

  —Yes! You know it’s true … Yes.

  * * *

  —Tread the boards? Crighton balked. What’s that supposed to mean?

  Moss explained Audsley’s proposal. Their Housemaster had, ludicrously and without taking his JCR’s advice, given Audsley and Riding permission to stage a play. This much Crighton knew, and his views on the folly had been aired. Nevertheless, Moss noted that Audsley had already persuaded thirteen boys to join the project, thirteen from diverse years and Houses. The only thing Audsley lacked was two men of their stature to play Orville Wright and Daedalus.

  —I hope you didn’t encourage him, Crighton said.

  —You’ve got to admit it’d be a lark.

  Crighton set aside the rota he was drafting and fixed his attention on Moss.

  —Oh, don’t start, Moss said.

  But Crighton began to lecture, in the way they’d always lectured one another in the firm loyalty of friendship: Moss was not to consider touching Audsley’s play. In the first place, his duty as Head Boy forbade it.

  —Don’t see how. It’s licit.

  —It’s vulgar.

  And in the second place, there was the dignity of office.

  —Audsley promised the parts would be dignified.

  In the third place, Moss should on no account entangle himself in anything that might later become awkward in a personal sense.

  —Don’t be pi. I’m only looking.

  Crighton had nothing against looking, and no one denied Audsley was worth looking at, but looking could be done from a distance, a distance Moss would do well to keep. Especially given the alleged enrollment of Halton, T.

  —Is that what this is about? It’s finished, Crikey, done and dusted.

  —That’s what you said last term, and then we had the pot-mess with Wilberforce.

  —Shut up.

  —After which he tried for dockets every day.

  —And this term? Not one.

  —Yet, Crighton said.

  Moss fetched their flask:

  —All right, yet.

  They drank and spoke of other things, of others worth the look, of Mac and his tiresome fervor, of their Housemaster and his unwonted good cheer, of their rivals and enemies, of every wicked force impeding life’s enjoyment. The school was different that term, they agreed. Not as different as it had been when Dr. Sebastian came, yet different nonetheless. Crighton discoursed on borrowed robes not cleaved to their mold, but Moss thought the change went beyond their new posts and belonged to the atmosphere general. They had a pretty fag who knew how to make toast. Grieves had begun to smile as though he meant it. And now the creature Audsley wanted to stage a play. Something in their midst, or in the flask, gave force to the truth, that a play would be a winsome diversion and furthermore that it would offend those they both enjoyed offending. For example, the Flea. For example, Mac, who resented anything that took time from Games.

  At the bottom of the flask, Crighton wavered: Everything Moss had said was true, but could they really afford to partake?

  How could they not? Moss retorted. It was the only way to stop Audsley and Riding from going overboard with the thing. The reputation of the House was at stake.

  —Oh, all right, Crighton said, I’ll do it. But don’t think you can have Audsley all to yourself.

  —Where would be the fun in that?

  But Audsley, as it happened, seemed impervious to lust, so fervent was his devotion to the play. He spoke of Rehearsal as Pearce spoke of the Mass. Not satisfied with the mere memorization of parts, Audsley demanded that they respond to unexpected provocations in the manner of their characters. This he termed Improvisation, and at this they labored, almost as Morgan had taught them on the Colt’s XV—rigorous practice and anticipation of any play, all put out of mind for the actual match. Moss felt Morgan and Audsley would see eye to eye on many things, not least that practice tilled the ground for something new.

  Audsley illustrated the point—if reports could be believed—on the night of the Fourteens’ Health Lecture. Tradition dictated every boy at the Academy spend one gruesome hour per annum listening to Kardleigh explain the facts of life. Tradition also dictated they be segregated by age, not form, a point Riding protested bitter
ly, if vainly, each year. Thus, Audsley had attended the lecture with the Fifteens on Tuesday, while Riding, who was still fourteen, had to wait until Thursday. That night without his Keeper, Audsley had come under attack. (Moss was surprised it hadn’t happened sooner; Audsley’s eccentricity and lack of shame were two sins the Academy never failed to punish.) Several of the House XV had swarmed Audsley, boxing him into a storage cupboard and going at him with a cricket stump.

  —But then, Leslie said, he wriggled free with some double-jointed mumbo jumbo, coveted another stump, and whacked his way out to the gym.

  It sounded flamboyant, leaping across benches with arcane exclamations, but not only did it beat off the XV, it seemed also to have won the House and the entire Fifth to Audsley’s side.

  —Prout’s always thought a lot of his fencing, Leslie said, but Audsley showed him a thing or two.

  It was a crying shame the Wright brothers had no swords … But now that the play had become chic, the only difficulty was when to rehearse. Audsley squeezed minor characters into their breaks, but as the performance neared, it became clear that the principals needed more time, a problem Moss had been asked to consider.

  —God only knows what Wilberforce would say, Crighton quipped.

  —He’d have everyone down to the study after lights-out.

  Crighton laughed. Moss didn’t.

  —I dare you! Crighton said.

  He was Head Boy; he could hardly dare. But Audsley and Riding were in his dorm, so no one would object if they came to bed late. The only difficulty was Pearce, who had Halton and the Turtle in his.

  —If you do it, Crighton said, I’ll get us a bottle of Usher’s next exeat.

  It would take dedication to convert Pious Pearce, but an easy dare was no dare at all, and the stuff in their flask tasted like turpentine.