Grievous

by H. S. Cross

  Halton edged towards the door.

  —Ash Wednesday, Kardleigh said, turning back to him. We’ll rehearse your piece next term.

  —Sir!

  —It’s too difficult to get up just now, and there’s something agreeably Lenten about it.

  The future swarmed like spiders—if White heard, if anyone—

  —Please, sir! It was only a joke!

  —Meantime, Kardleigh said, we need a descant for “People, Look East.” So, Turtle, if you should discover anything else in the wastepaper basket …

  * * *

  Choir practice had finished, and Gray could hear them departing. Gone, another hour, one of the few left to them. Her fingers were tickling his ear, where earlier her tongue had—he rolled over, pressing himself against the floor, but she drew close and looked at him searchingly.

  —There’s literally no more free time, he said, unless you count the middle of the night.

  She put her mouth to his ear and whispered:

  —I will if you will.

  Hunger, ache—crash—she recoiled. Footsteps clattered down the passage. The noise had come from the choir room.

  —I thought they’d left, she said.

  He put his hand across her mouth, and she kissed it. He felt the kiss there on his hand and also in his root, and then the panel sprang open, sudden and violent like all bad things—the Turtle, eyes wide, his nose streaming blood.

  —Do you mind? she said.

  Gray leapt to his feet, but the Turtle fled. He pursued him across the quad, into the House, and up to the fourth-floor box rooms:

  —Just what in hell—

  The Turtle cringed before him. The blood was flowing not from his nose but from a gash on his cheek. Gray tackled him and pinned his wrists, but when the Turtle began to blub, he let go. Tossing him a handkerchief, he glared as fiercely as he could:

  —If you breathe one word, I’ll make the person who did that look like your best friend.

  * * *

  Grieves’s goddaughter was standing beneath the lightbulb at the end of the corridor. Her mouth was open, and Halton felt her accusation. She looked at that moment ominously like his sister, and he could hear, in the yards that separated them, her chill contempt: Did he fancy himself a composer? Just what sort of drivel had they led him to believe about himself? She coughed into her sleeve and then turned away and clattered down the stairs.

  If she weren’t a girl, he’d go after her, just to teach her some bloody manners.

  * * *

  At tea, the Turtle was chirpy, but Gray thought his laughter too zealous to be genuine. He’d never been one to interfere in other people’s affairs, but something nagging and reproachful was ruining his appetite. Hadn’t it gone beyond ragging with the Turtle, even the sort that could be expected in one’s first term? If, as Morgan claimed, Moss really was responsible for his own escape from such treatment, why wasn’t Moss interfering now with his own fag?

  * * *

  He followed Kardleigh to the Tower after tea to persuade him, to beg him if necessary, not to mention the composition again. If anyone found out that he’d tried writing music—now or ever—his name would be worth less than Pious Pearce. But Kardleigh was repeating his plan to rehearse the piece next term, even going on to suggest that Halton take up organ studies.

  —I shall write your father, Kardleigh said, and ask him.

  —Please, sir! Don’t!

  Kardleigh smoothed his beard:

  —Wouldn’t you like to learn the organ?

  —There isn’t enough time with the choir.

  —No singing next term, Timothy. Perhaps again in a year or so.

  Kardleigh put a hand on his shoulder, but a draft cut in the door bringing Grieves, and that girl.

  —Ah, Miss Líoht! Kardleigh said. How’s the chest today?

  Where was the hand to wake him from this hell? He dodged snowballs in the quad and retreated to the form room before anyone could see his eyes and know his shame. Write them, be damned. Audsley could take his effeminate advice and—

  * * *

  Dr. Kardleigh put a stethoscope to her chest and commanded her to cough. He could tell when she’d sat up late and when she’d gone cycling without hat or muffler.

  —Now a nice, deep breath.

  That boy knew something, too. He’d pounced into the passage the moment she emerged from the chair loft, staring as if to say, I know. In the refectory, he’d followed her with his gaze, and just now he’d been waiting for her, as if to prove that he could find her when he wished.

  —You’ve been naughty, I think, Dr. Kardleigh said. Have you taken that mixture?

  —Sometimes.

  Uncle John pursed his lips. He was trying to give her the grim look he gave the boys:

  —Shall I write her a docket?

  He was teasing. She tried to smile. Being a girl was a passport to nothing. Her father once told her about a lady archaeologist who’d traveled solo through Persia. Eventually he revealed the woman’s ignominious end, death from an overdose of sleeping tablets, which proved the point exactly.

  They were talking now about one of the boys, which was all any of them ever discussed. Her father might be thinking always about the contents of the liquor cabinet, but these men were even more single-minded. Now, for instance, the doctor was blending her cough mixture almost absentmindedly as he asked Uncle John to shed light on some boy’s obstreperousness with organ lessons:

  —Isn’t his sister some sort of awful prodigy?

  —Is she? Uncle John replied.

  —His twin. She’s won a few piano competitions, according to him, and a scholarship to St. Paul’s Girls.

  —How tiresome.

  The doctor gave the mixture to Uncle John, who carried on as if she weren’t there:

  —Moss says the father is hard on him. Quite hard.

  If she were a boy, she’d be punished as a boy. Then he would abandon his cloying concern and talk of her with the same warmth and interest that always gripped him when talking about them.

  * * *

  John peered over Kardleigh’s shoulder as they spoke. The dispensary door stood open, revealing neat regiments each containing its own mercy, and as Kardleigh lectured the girl on the importance of steam inhalation, John began to think of burglary, slipping from his quarters in the middle of the night and borrowing the dispensary key Kardleigh had just fetched from the top right drawer.

  A violent retching came from the ward.

  —That’ll be McCandless, Kardleigh said. Just a moment.

  He disappeared behind the curtain. Cordelia drifted to the window and pressed her face against it. His feet moved, his fingers snatched a vial, and his body returned to its place before a visible second had passed.

  * * *

  An unnatural quiet hung over the studies. Only coughs, the blowing snow, and the occasional hum of conversation disturbed the ringing in Gray’s ears. He huddled under a rug, coal supply exhausted. His eyes scanned passages for the Latin exam in the morning while his mind hearkened to the corridor, where some miscreant was emerging from the JCR, and to the chair loft, where he’d promised to meet her tonight, if he could bear it after the Turtle’s invasion.

  It wasn’t for him to intervene with fags. Or rather, if he truly objected to their treatment, he ought to interfere directly, corner Halton in some unfrequented spot and apply a Stalky-like persuasion. The proposition was absurd, of course—any contest between them was more likely to end in Halton’s favor—but the problem of the Turtle remained. Gray didn’t peg him for a sneak, but the Turtle had seen them, and he was desperate. Never peach, Moss’s rules, but what would Moss say about such a sticky stitch? This wasn’t the House Moss thought he was running.

  That night after Prayers, he followed Moss and Crighton back to their study.

  —A word?

  —Can’t it wait? Moss said. We’ve got Greek all bloody morning tomorrow.

  When he said it couldn’t, Moss adjourned
with him to study number six:

  —Make it quick.

  Gray twisted the cap of his fountain pen.

  —Riding!

  It didn’t come out the way he intended:

  —When are you going to stop it? That’s what I want to know.

  Moss boggled.

  —The Turtle, Gray said. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.

  —He’s a careless little boy, that’s what I’ve noticed.

  —Careless? How?

  —Can’t make it through a day without losing something, wrecking something, or wrecking himself.

  Countless dockets. God-awful bore.

  —Ever wonder why? Gray said. Oh, come on, try. Seen him in the changing room lately? He didn’t get that banged up at rugger.

  —Didn’t he?

  —Where d’you think he got the gash on his face?

  —He walked into the corner of our bookshelf.

  —Did you see him before he did it?

  —Look, piss off, Riding—

  —Because I did, and it didn’t happen in your study.

  Moss sat down, looked at his ink bottle, looked at him.

  —You mean … he staged it?

  —Looks like he learned something from Audsley after all.

  Moss blinked, his mind catching up to the evidence.

  —But … who’s doing it?

  —Don’t you know?

  —Do you?

  —Of course, I do! Gray said.

  —Does everyone?

  —I doubt it.

  —But…?

  —Come on! Whose place has the Turtle taken, in choir, with you and Crighton? Who’s back in with that brute White? Who—

  Moss raised a hand. He looked ill. Another realization:

  —Bugger me, I just gave him three.

  The Turtle had been sent out of Prep, Moss said, for allowing, again, his ink pot to spill into his desk and ruin the contents, which tonight included a book belonging to the Flea.

  —That’s steep.

  —I didn’t have any choice, Moss protested. Burton knew what he was doing, and I couldn’t send him on punishment runs in this.

  He gestured to the window. Snow was sticking to the panes.

  The bell rang for Upper School lights-out. Moss got up to leave.

  —He won’t be disposed, Gray said, will he?

  The shadow of the Head’s edict against bullying passed between them, his declaration since the Great Clear-Out that bullies would be expelled. Not that the Head knew half of it, but still.

  —Halton isn’t going anywhere, Moss said at last. He won’t be able to sit down for a week once the JCR have finished with him, but as for disposing, I think we’ve had enough of that.

  * * *

  He spent an animated half hour discussing it with Crighton. As Moss’s own anger towards Halton grew, so did Crighton’s conviction that the JCR should not take the case. If they could do it dispassionately, Crighton argued, that would be one thing, but dispassion was impossible. First, the Turtle was their fag, as Halton had been before. Second, there were the plays. Third, there was Moss’s past with Halton. Fourth, well, they could go on all night, but there was a pig of an exam in the morning, and the right thing, Crighton concluded, was for Moss to speak with Grieves posthaste.

  Moss took exception; once masters were involved, the Head would have to be told, and Halton’s low acts notwithstanding, no one wanted him expelled. Crighton acknowledged the risk, but he reminded Moss that Halton was one of Mr. Grieves’s projects; Grieves, therefore, was unlikely to put the boy’s career in jeopardy. In all likelihood, he would deliver a blistering pi-jaw and dispatch Halton to the JCR, in which case Crighton would be the first to volunteer for inflicting as much pain as legally possible.

  * * *

  John needed two brandies to get through the interview with Moss. He’d always feared this sort of thing, and here it was a cold reality. He’d been unable to shield Morgan from the likes of Silk Bradley, but now, under his very nose for such a thing to occur? How had he so impossibly misjudged Halton?

  Don’t overreact—wasn’t that what Morgan had said? It was possible, he thought as he undressed for bed, that they were all jumping to conclusions. Perhaps he hadn’t misjudged Halton after all. Perhaps a rumor had swirled out of control, exploiting their exhaustion and their fears and making pranks and horseplay look sinister. He splashed water on his face. What were those yellow-and-black streaks beneath his eyes? And when had gray hairs sprouted in his sideburns? What else had Morgan said? As for young Halton, keep him on a very short string…?

  He had another brandy and resolved to sleep on it. First thing in the morning, he’d consult Kardleigh. He had no idea if he could trust Kardleigh not to go straight to Jamie, but refusing to overact had to start somewhere.

  * * *

  Kardleigh, when he told him, took it like a punch:

  —And I believed him. The bookcase, the shin at rugby, that clump of hair he said he’d pulled out in his sleep.

  —Do you think it’s true, then? John asked.

  Kardleigh looked at him pityingly, and John felt the punch himself.

  —What does the Headmaster say?

  —I haven’t even spoken to the boys yet.

  —Surely, you don’t propose to ask the Turtle for testimony?

  —Please, John said. But I do intend to have a close chat with young Halton this morning after exams.

  Having said it, he now had to do it. It was the correct first step, of course, but as the Remove sweated over his Reformation exam, his agitation grew, and he rehearsed inquiry after inquiry, one minute feeling full of wrath and another hopeful it could still be a misunderstanding. The Remove groaned for more time when the bell rang, and John groaned along with them, but none of them could stop the tidal force rushing into the courtyard. A fresh powdering of snow had covered the morning’s footprints, and John saw smiles for the first time in days. He spotted Halton four-abreast with White, Fletcher, and Malcolm minor. Halton looked dazed from the morning’s exertions, yet his eyes were casting around (for prey?).

  —I should very much like to speak with you, John said, taking Halton by the shoulder.

  —Me, sir?

  John shifted his grip to the collar and marched the boy away from his friends. Inside the study, he placed Halton in the straight chair. He could feel himself trembling, his joints weak as when he was a boy on the carpet himself, or when he was a prefect, under pressure to execute a perfectly calibrated maneuver. He poured himself a drink, swallowed it, and then rather than take his place behind the desk, he put one hand on the front of the desk and the other on the back of the boy’s chair, boxing him in, invading his air.

  —We are going to have a chat, Timothy.

  Halton was fidgeting.

  —And whatever happens, you are going to tell me the truth. We both deserve that, and if you don’t, I shall know it.

  Please, Lord, let it be so.

  —Is that clear?

  A faint nod.

  —Do you know why we are here?

  No answer. Take no thought how or what ye shall speak.

  —We are here to discuss a boy in this House. A boy who is being treated abominably.

  Halton didn’t move.

  —He is being treated cruelly, by someone he considers a friend.

  Halton began to cast around.

  —By someone cowardly.

  Pink at the cheeks.

  —Someone coldhearted.

  At the chin.

  —Someone who has behaved in a way, frankly, that sickens me.

  —But—

  —Sickens me.

  Flush across the entire face.

  —This boy, and let us call him what he is, this bully, was new to the school himself not so long ago—look me in the eye—and since then, he has had every interest shown to him, by older boys, by our choirmaster, by me.

  Gaze dashed to the floor.

  —Look me in the eye! This is a boy I�
��ve taken time over, cared over, fought over—

  A flicker of surprise, or disbelief.

  —How do you imagine he made it into the Lower Fourth after last term’s disastrous results?

  A wave of understanding received like a toothache.

  —And this boy has now taken it upon himself to persecute someone younger and smaller, someone who idolizes him—oh, yes, he does! This bully has caused, to my personal knowledge alone, three dockets for lost prep, one for a spoiled desk—you can take that expression right off your face—not to mention the loathsome and utterly callous physical treatment.

  A vein pulsed in Halton’s forehead.

  —This story, I am bound to say, not only sickens me, but has betrayed my trust. When I look at this boy, I am ashamed.

  He was about to blub, which John thought would be a relief, but then, instead of crumbling, Halton straightened his spine.

  —One question for you, Timothy. Am I mistaken?

  The boy swallowed. His head moved.

  —I can’t hear you.

  A whisper:

  —No, sir.

  The temperature in the room changed. John began to breathe again. He let go of the chair and crossed his arms. He ought to be congratulating the boy on making it through hourlies and on showing some improvement at last, if a straw poll of the Common Room were to be believed, but now, instead, this monstrousness.

  —The case is the Head’s now, he said.

  —The Head, sir?

  —He handles such matters personally.

  —But, sir …

  The boy’s composure, so fiercely maintained, now began to waver.

  —Sir, I thought you …

  The jaw began to chatter, as if from the cold.

  —This is far more serious than a talking-to, Timothy.

  —I know, sir, but I thought … I thought you’d be the one to …

  This wasn’t going the way John intended. He was out of words. He took Halton by the shoulder and led him to the spare room, the Chamber of Death, Morgan had called it. The boy went in without being pushed, and John locked the door behind him. Sometimes symbolism was best left unexplored.