by H. S. Cross
—I’m sure you haven’t.
—Quit rootling around in the entrails of the past, my father always says.
—Oh, dear.
It was the first Morgan, the one spilling confessions in the middle of the night. John sat back to listen, and Morgan gushed as if he’d never been allowed to confide: the whirlwind of the past months, leaving Oxford, cricket, New Zealanders; his father’s patience, cheering him on and introducing him at the club, the New Hope of Middlesex; the position awaiting him at the firm, the welcome in every good circle.
—And yet? John said.
There was no yet. Morgan rejoiced in all that. What annoyed Morgan, what he found grossly objectionable, was the unforgiving … what to call it? The long line the Academy cast, releasing him—or so he thought when he left for Oxford—only to draw him back when he’d got used to being free. First Patron’s Day and now this? What kind of sinister hand took an unplanned lark of a day, beginning with a funeral, and lured him back into business not his own, consigning him for the night to his Housemaster’s Chamber of Death?
—I’ll try not to take that as an insult, John said.
—I didn’t mean that, sir, I …
Morgan tried to conceal his distress by devouring a piece of dry toast.
—You know, John said, if you’re ever going to join the Common Room, you’ll have to stop calling me sir.
Morgan stopped chewing:
—I hope you’re joking, sir.
—Life is more than cricket.
—I know.
John managed a smile. He was teasing, but Morgan didn’t realize it. Morgan finished the toast and then began to describe his father’s firm, its opportunities and influence. His father had given him two years to play cricket, after which they both agreed he would set his feet on the ground.
—Or you could climb into the boat, John said, with us fishers of men.
Morgan sucked in his breath, and John wondered if it was teasing after all. He felt a sudden wild excitement, but before he could say more, Mrs. Firth returned bearing butter and jam, more tea, and news: Fardley was going to Sledmere at half past six. He could give Master Wilberforce a lift in time for the early train. John glanced anxiously at the clock. He’d expected Morgan to stay the morning at least. They were just getting to the heart. But Mrs. Firth reported more weather on the way. Master Wilberforce would want to get out while he could. Fardley would make arrangements for his uncle’s car. His clothes were dry. He would find them on his bed.
Morgan dressed and shaved quickly, nicking himself in the process, John noticed. He looked forlorn now, huddled by the fire in mourning clothes, recalling somehow the boy he’d been when John met him, the chirpy Third Former turned bewildered orphan.
—Sir, Morgan said, about Riding.
John added coal to the fire:
—You try your best with them, but it’s never enough.
Morgan sighed in agreement:
—Clever mind, broken heart, a dreadful combination I said from the beginning.
The morning’s dose had not sufficed, and John realized he should have gone back to his bathroom while Morgan was changing. But on his desk were exercise books—two of them Riding’s—and if Morgan would read them, he could slip away for a moment—
—What were these plays of his, sir?
Morgan had set the books aside:
—I couldn’t make head or tail of them.
—Who could? John rejoined.
He gave a précis, which seemed to fill the gaps in what Morgan had heard.
—I don’t suppose Riding told you what was behind the business with Audsley? John asked.
—Getting sacked, you mean? What a frame-up!
—Pardon?
—Audsley getting himself disposed so he could go and play Hamlet.
His knee was hurting and his tongue itched.
—I thought you knew, sir.
John was losing control of the thread. He knew nothing of the sort, he told Morgan. In fact, he had asked Riding—with superhuman patience—what he knew of the affair, but the sullen, contrary, bloody-minded urchin had refused to explain, had looked at him with—oh, he’d tell it to Morgan! He’d tell anything to Morgan, but not to him, not when it was desperate, not when—
—He didn’t tell me anything! Morgan protested. I had to explain it to him.
John struggled to keep up.
—It was perfectly obvious. Honestly, the pair of you!
But there was no call to pair him with Riding, for any reason! The boy was an affliction. In lessons he was fine enough, the Anxious & Pleasing usually, but whenever one got him alone, full-strength Sullen & Resentful, nothing he had tried made a lick of difference—
—He needs—
—A better man than me, to be sure!
John flung himself into the swivel chair:
—I hope you dealt with him last night.
Morgan raised his brow at the bald declaration, issued as if part of their usual chats.
—God knows he needs it, sir, but it’s none of my … it’s only making things worse, pretending.
An unaccountable sadness descended.
—Anyway, sir, I hear your habits have changed in that regard.
Rogue wave—
—Habits? You do a thing twice and it’s habit?
—Twice, sir?
—God help me.
Two boys this week, infernal nuisance. One, Malcolm minor.
—You knew his brother.
—Roy Malcolm? Fly-half on my Colts XV?
—First XV now.
As for the other, perhaps Morgan recalled their soloist last summer?
—Why did I know you were going to say that, sir?
—You know him?
—In a way. He was the one behind that petition.
The sun was bursting all across the room, leaving only a cat’s eye to look through.
—Crikey, sir, I hope you aren’t giving yourself grief over those two. If Malcolm minor is anything like his brother, that’s the only language he’ll understand. As for young Halton, I’d keep him on a very short string.
Eye opening briefly?
—Leave it to Riding to get the wrong end of the stick, Morgan said.
—I beg your pardon?
—The way he tells it, you’ve gone up the pole.
The floor was pitching. He excused himself.
* * *
The light was smoother when he returned, blood looser, Morgan brighter and softer.
—Sir, is everything all right?
—Perfectly.
He poured out the rest of the tea. His mouth was speaking, words proceeding in an order that was right:
—I went to considerable trouble, personal trouble, to persuade Sebastian to keep the boy on.
—Not Riding, sir?
—You know how Sebastian’s always been about that barn.
Morgan sat forward:
—You mean McKay’s barn, sir? That business with his friend Mainwaring, and Pearce and—
—It did begin with Pearce. He collared some juniors there, the same lot, in fact, I had to deal with this week, but—
—Hold on a second, Grieves Sahib—
—Sebastian was annoyed, and then, bad to worse, night prowling, Mainwaring injured, so on and so forth.
Morgan was setting his cup aside.
—But when it came to it, Riding lied. And when the damage was done, he turned around and told the truth.
Morgan shook his head:
—He’s always had a talent for making things worse.
—And I’d interviewed him, petitioned for him, vouched for him, convinced Sebastian it was nothing to do with that wretched barn.
Morgan groaned.
—And then, well, Sebastian gave his orders.
—Snails, sir, what did he get for that?
He told him.
—Cri-key. Hard?
—I’m afraid so.
Morgan gave a low whistle:
The book on the shelf was covered in dust.
—I thought you said he told you everything.
—Sir?
—The Head didn’t give it.
He removed the book and blew the dust into the fire.
—If the Head didn’t give it, sir, who on earth did?
The whole row needed to come down.
—His Housemaster.
He dumped the books on the floor and went to work with his handkerchief. The room needed dusting top to toe.
—Hang on a minute, sir, was there a box involved in this?
—A box?
—Or a letter?
The dust was in his eyes.
—He did mention something in the end, a box of stories? Not that we ever saw it, mind you.
There wasn’t a lot of breath to breathe.
—It’s all my fault, sir. From beginning to end.
John’s handkerchief was ruined; he threw it in the grate, where it blazed and fell to ash. Morgan’s declaration, as irrational as it was, had de-stifled the air, leaving behind that close-shave feeling. And then, before anything could spoil it, Mrs. Firth was at the door, and it was time for Morgan to leave.
—Do you have everything? John asked, looking around the room.
Morgan seemed lost, and when John handed him his coat, he took it with an air of one who’d been jilted. The radiators clanked, and outside the cold hit like a scream. At the gates, Morgan stopped short, casting his gaze back at the school, looking almost homesick, as one facing banishment. But the motorcar was belching petrol fumes, and as Fardley swept detritus onto the floor, Morgan fumbled in his pocket:
—Sir, I know you’ve got your own now to keep an eye on—
Produced a cigarette case, empty. John reached for his own—
—and I know Riding can be infernally—
Offered one, several.
—Thanks. But you’d give me a good night sleep, sir, if you’d—
—Just what do you propose I do with him?
Morgan flinched.
—Sorry, sir. I’ve said too much already.
He knocked one cigarette against the car:
—And there probably isn’t much you can do, unless you’re prepared to marry his mother.
John reached for the wall.
—Only, whatever happens, sir, please don’t overreact.
—What can you mean?
—Nothing that I’m prepared to divulge.
Morgan grinned. John forced himself to grin in return:
—If that’s your line, at least promise you won’t let another three years go by.
It was still dark, but John thought Morgan looked unwell, his eyes choked, as if he might begin to—
—Whatever is it?
Morgan ducked into the car and ran a sleeve across his face:
—It’s this beastly cold, sir, and the soot from this blasted …
48
The bell fag came through again, dragging him into Sunday, last of the term, last in every way that mattered. His throat felt scoured, and he could still taste Morgan’s cigarettes, but the circus of Sunday morning baths washed the night from his skin, and by the time he poked Sunday studs through Sunday shirt, he felt he was landing on the sands of the present, having forgotten how warm they were. Three hours free for the chair loft today, this afternoon before Divinity, and then again this evening. Morgan Wilberforce could never spoil this.
* * *
The match against Burton-Lee’s was in its death throes. Mac was full of venom, and when Halton dropped the ball, Mac sent him off and put the smallest fag in, on purpose to shame him. That morning Kardleigh had given the solo to the Turtle, and now Halton’s humiliation was complete. If he’d slept properly, instead of being forced from bed by feeble ideas, none of this would have happened. He ducked behind the sheds and kicked the siding until it splintered.
—Rotten luck with that knock-on.
The Turtle appeared like a jinn. Some things were better to kick than the sheds.
* * *
He read her the opening of Valarious as he’d planned to do yesterday. She begged for more, the whole story, but he said it wasn’t finished. He wasn’t sure she believed him, but she let it drop and took out the book she’d selected to read to him. It was stripped of its cover, and she said she’d got it from a shop where all the books were stripped. You never knew quite what you were getting, she said, but the books were wonderfully cheap. Upton-on-Severn, Morton Hall, a couple who gave birth to a girl they called Stephen.
—Oh, come on!
—Really! she said. Look for yourself.
She wasn’t teasing. The atmosphere of the story was foreboding and full of longing, all the more so as she read on, recounting this girl who dressed sometimes as a boy, who pretended to be Lord Nelson, who hungered for love, the daughter of an Irish mother who didn’t quite love her, and a cleft-chinned English father who doted on her although he had wanted a boy.
* * *
Halton wasn’t always that way. In play rehearsal, he had been sensational. In the dorm, he told filthy jokes, more filthy than the Turtle had ever heard. He knew about Africa, and in a way the Turtle couldn’t put his finger on, Halton knew things about people, as if he might be the keeper of a hundred secrets. He had a temper, but also courage. The Turtle had known from the first quip in the dorm about his father’s tennis arm that Halton possessed a fortitude that he, the Turtle, could never attain, try as he might when undergoing Halton’s brand of humor. Halton was that rare class of person who could sing in the choir, appear in dramas, perform indifferently at Games, and yet never have his mettle questioned. And he was the only person who could understand what was happening in choir, and what had happened with Audsley. Even when Halton went berserk, it was worth it for the aftermath. Sunday behind the sheds, Halton had been scared, and sorry. After sending someone to find Kardleigh, Halton had pressed his own shirt against the Turtle’s leg to stanch the bleeding. He’d come with him to the Tower, brought him sweets and a book, and looked at him in a way that made the Turtle wish it had been more than four stitches after all.
* * *
What lay beneath his trousers? She’d glimpsed, when he sat cross-legged, the skin above his socks, but what did the rest of him look like? She’d come to know the callus on his right middle finger, where the pen pressed and ink collected. In lessons they used nibs and inkwells, but otherwise he relied on a temperamental hard-rubber Dinkie. The few times he’d written in her presence, he’d required a handkerchief for the blots. If she were ever chained to such a thing, she at least would designate a cloth for its maintenance rather than staining every handkerchief in her possession, not to mention shirt cuffs and trouser knees. And she wouldn’t carry it as he did, jumbled in his pocket like a box of matches. If she had the pocket money, she would buy him a proper pen, like her own Parker Duofold from America, and perhaps a bottle of quick-drying ink. Her form teacher in Saffron Walden would have suggested a finer nib to improve his penmanship, but she felt that even then, his hand would still rush urgently across the page, too entranced by what it chased to do more than scrawl the ending of one word before plunging into the next. It was the only time he let himself go, telling her a story or writing it down; otherwise, he held himself in, always warm but never free. She knew that he possessed a secret island and that if she could ever reach it, the volume knob on life could be turned past the thickest mark.
She’d always associated such a hunger with maps. Yorkshire NE 46 had been her first, purchased for her when she was small so she could see where Uncle John went when he left them. It showed contours, populations, cities and hamlets, but not the Academy. Their chair loft—a place seemingly forgotten in that unmapped school—had the properties of magic. Whether it was invisible because it was insignificant or because it had been protected by the spells that twisted through his stories, the result was the same: it was safe fr
om every vandal, every rule.
* * *
Kardleigh was not amused. How had the Turtle lost his music between the beginning and end of choir practice, and the second day in a row? The Turtle scanned his mind for places it might be found—form room, drying cupboard, toilet tank—but Kardleigh was commanding him to search the choir room again, from top to bottom. He picked through the wastepaper basket for form’s sake, but it contained only balled-up pages. Uncrumpling one, he found not “Once in Royal David’s City,” but a staff and notes roughly sketched, and beneath them words broken by syllable: Nay, hush thee, an-gry heart! An An-gel’s grief ill-fits a pen-i-tent.
—Found it, have you?
Someone had set that poem from confirmation lesson to a wild tune. What key was it, even? He recovered two more pages as Kardleigh scanned the first. Welcome the thorn, it is divinely sent—a mad counterpoint—And with its wholesome smart shall pierce thee in thy virtue’s palmy home and warn thee—where was the breath?—What thou art—high C!—And whence thy wealth has come.
* * *
Halton had finally said something that made White laugh when the Turtle materialized and demanded he return to the choir room. Upstairs, Kardleigh sat at the piano, spectacles on his nose:
—Ah, Halton. I’d like a word with you.
—Please, sir, I don’t know where the Turtle’s—
—About this.
Kardleigh lifted a wrinkled page. His excuses and confusion resolved into the home key. He said he’d no idea what Kardleigh meant.
—Come, come. Words, Newman; tune, St. Stephen’s?
Kardleigh couldn’t prove a thing. His name was nowhere.
—It’s your handwriting, Timothy.
—No, sir.
—It’s your spelling. The illumined sprit? Plamy? Thron?
One expected it from the Flea, but not from—
—When did you write this?
It was worse than clothing nightmares.
—I found it, sir! cried the Turtle.
He burst in clutching a sheaf of music.
—Well, Kardleigh said, put it away properly, and as penance you can sort out those blue books.
