The Seahorse

by Anthony Masters

  Behind them, sheer chalk cliffs, smooth and dusty, were held in check by a long promenade that ran neatly around the base. Several falls of cliff had broken away a section of protective masonry and the continual battering of the sea had scored and cracked the concrete. One entire fragment had fallen on to the beach–a huge, broken block of concrete that had been shattered by the distant sea, withdrawn now and waiting the sneaking tide. Then the water would move in, eddying around the ragged shape, rusting the iron struts that had been driven vainly through the concrete in an attempt to strengthen it. The cliffs themselves were capped by a smooth sward of grass that ran up to the very edge. In the shallow hollows of the chalk, gulls rested, balancing precariously on the very edge of the descent.

  Eric looked at Adrian, his pale-blue eyes questioning.

  ‘Are you really going to tell him?’ The voice was puzzled, almost wondering. ‘He’ll bash you up, won’t he?’

  ‘No,’ said Adrian firmly, ‘he won’t dare. Not now he won’t–he’ll do everything I say.’

  Alexander felt good. A pleasurable glow suffused him–everything was marvellous. A letter from home told him that Shirley was all right again. This news of his sister made the morning itself radiate his good humour. Tall and thin, he walked the cracked surface of the promenade, aimlessly strolling from side to side, stopping every now and then to jump on to the first ridge of pebbles that formed the beginning of the beach. Then, balancing on top of a breakwater he walked down to the sand.

  Alexander’s progress at Exeter Court had been startlingly accelerated by responsibility. He had been both monitor and prefect and was now head boy. Much admired by the younger element and greatly acclaimed by Storm, Alexander managed to preserve a rigid code of staunch leadership, combining this quality with great prowess on the sports field. From all points of view Alexander was an asset. His clipped, authoritative tones, his directness, his honesty and his strength of purpose was worthy of the most utilitarian picture of the traditional public-school effigy. He was fifteen and was the oldest boy in the school. Alexander had come to Exeter Court at twelve, and was now destined for a large private school where he would be able to work up to G.C.E. level. Of normal aptitude, his neatness and application were exemplary and his diligence went untrammelled. Alexander’s image had remained unscathed and he gave every appearance of having been created as a foil to wickedness and vice, within the pages of a pre-war boys’ school story. There was, however, an incidental discrepancy–unlike these fictional hearties, Alexander was very conscious of his own image and took great pains to ensure that it remained intact. He was sensitive to the detriment of his confidence and was apprehensive of the one possibility that could bring him down from the honoured hierarchy that he shared with the fictional gods of public-school tradition.

  Despite his spareness he had a wiry strength that was to be feared and could hold his own with anyone in the school. His background was Ealing–a grey expanse of baroque suburbia that he had learnt to hate. Alexander was no rebel–yet the years amidst the shoddy gentility of the urban sprawl made the now familiar seascape a consistently registered pleasure. His parents, vague, insubstantial people amidst the setting of sea and salt grass, occasionally intruded into his new-found paradise. They came, pale, worried little people, to ask endless questions and receive monosyllabic replies, and then went, a little more tired and wan than when they had come. Alexander had never appraised his parents in Ealing. They had been above criticism as essential providers; loved, maligned breadwinners whose existence was relevant only to the day-to-day routine of the programmed hours. Yet here, in Sussex, they suddenly developed personalities–a fact that perplexed him. Almost for the first time he was conscious of his father’s nervous throat clearings, his hearty jokes and a new-found man-to-man attitude. Alexander was conscious, too, of his mother’s unremarked echoing of the last six lines of anyone’s conversation, her perpetual ‘Well, I nevers’ and her continuous stream of complaints beginning with ‘I’m never a one to interfere in other people’s lives but really I … !’ Suddenly, these much-loved, familiar figures developed identities that he could compare and associate with other people in his world–his new world that had begun when he left Ealing and came to Sussex. The comparison revealed the flaws, the association the inadequacies, and the memories of his mundane yet love-encircled home faded to an insignificant level. Particularly the reason for his departure continued to goad the spark of bitterness that grew in relation to his parents day by day. Sometimes he hated their very inoffensiveness.

  But this morning Alexander was thinking only of bathing and, allied with the good news about Shirley, his mind was clear and content. Quickly he slipped off his clothes and, shivering in the gusts of wind, struggled into a clammy bathing costume that he had forgotten to dry the night before. Then he ran over the firm wet sand, the blood beginning to tingle delightfully in his veins, the sudden warm patches of tepid sun filling him with the joy of complete freedom. He jumped the pools and splashed into the shallows. The first shock of the water was so cold that he leapt out again and stood shivering by the edge. He had only bathed a few times this year and the sudden numbing feeling was still hard to conquer. Alexander hopped about on one foot as the circulation returned and then made a second blind dash into deeper water, falling into it headlong with a shriek and a gasp. He was breathless in a few moments and began to swim jerkily towards the pier. His arms and legs felt heavy as he struck out and the pale water was ice clear. He could see the smooth runnels of sand beneath him, broken now and then by a shell or scattered pebbles. They were slightly magnified and appeared almost opaque. After a few moments he was out of his depth and was nearing the seaweed-hung piles of the pier. For a moment he trod water and looked downwards to see his legs flailing, pale and misshapen, below him. The intricacies of the weed-hung columns almost dazzled him, so vivid was the colour in the early morning iridescence. Their draped ornateness, their eerily clad majesty seemed a delusion of some undersea palace, and the water slapped dully against the livid sheaf that encased the rusting girders, changing key as it rushed underneath the pier to a cadence of tremulous orchestration, diffused, indistinct, and rather frightening. Alexander was always trying to summon up enough courage to swim underneath the structure, through to the other side. Each time he approached the pier he was determined to do it, but each time an onrush of fear dissuaded him. Somehow it required more stamina than he had to swim amongst the mottled piles, through the dank swell to daylight beyond. He turned back towards the beach and swam into the shallows. He stood up, the water lapping icily round his waist, and then threw himself into it again, rising in a few seconds, breathless and shivering. He then began to run towards the shore, where he was met again by the buffeting wind. For a moment he paused, searching for the breakwater where he had left his clothes. In a moment he saw it–and alongside his scattered shirt and shorts he saw the two figures waiting patiently for him. The humped shoulders of the larger boy turned towards Alexander and the sun flashed for a second on the pebbled lenses of his glasses. Slowly Alexander walked towards the breakwater.

  ‘Well?’ Alexander’s tone was ungracious in the extreme.

  ‘What’s the water like?’ Eric asked tentatively. The remark was ignored and the three of them stared at each other uncompromisingly.

  ‘What do you want?’ Alexander assumed the right tone of command that suited his authority. He met Adrian’s eyes for a moment and then looked past him, towards the headland and the broken concrete slabs.

  ‘Oh–nothing much–’ Adrian glanced at his watch and Eric said, ‘They’ll be here soon.’

  ‘Shut up.’ Adrian shot a vicious glance at him and Eric retreated, confused, his timid face screwed up in an effort to placate.

  ‘Who’s coming?’ Alexander towelled himself vigorously. ‘Shove over my shorts, will you?’

  Eric threw them over, missing him by a few yards.

  ‘Clod!’ Alexander’s voice was sharp and his impatience grew.
What on earth did these kids want?

  ‘Shirt,’ he rapped and Eric meekly handed it carefully to him. He was warmer now and he drew on a pullover gratefully.

  ‘Why don’t you kids buzz off?’

  Once again he met Adrian’s eyes and held them for a little longer. Then he glanced away, impatiently shrugging off their intensity and ignoring the confidence of their mockery.

  ‘We want you to be President of a Secret Society.’ Adrian enunciated each syllable with a melodramatic clarity. Alexander burst out laughing–so it was as ridiculous as all that. Somehow he had expected something much worse.

  ‘Don’t talk such a load of shit–find someone with your own potty ideas–now clear off.’

  ‘But you’re going to be President.’ There was a finality to the tone that was suddenly disturbing.

  ‘Are you looking for a thumping up or something?’ Alexander’s voice sounded bewildered. He wasn’t used to having his authority usurped. He advanced threatingly a few paces towards Adrian, who held his ground. Eric wavered in the background.

  ‘There’s going to be a meeting in a moment and I’m going to tell them all that you’re President.’

  Alexander raised his hand and lightly cuffed Adrian round the ear. Really this was taking it all a bit too far. Vaguely he wondered if Adrian had really gone quite mad.

  ‘That’s a taste of what you’ll get if you don’t buzz off. Now get out of it. I’ll give you ten. One … two … three …’ He stood with his feet apart and his hands on his hips. He was still cold and was shivering slightly.

  ‘And I’ll tell you why you’re going to do what I say.’ Adrian’s voice still held the steady confidence that was so disturbing.

  ‘… four … five … six …’ Alexander continued to count, moving menacingly towards them.

  Eric backed even further away.

  ‘You see, you’ll have to do what I say–’

  ‘… seven … eight …’

  ‘–and whatever I want–’

  ‘… nine …’

  ‘–because–because of this.’

  ‘… ten–what?’ Alexander started and an incredible feeling of despair overtook him very suddenly.

  Adrian had thrown something on to the pebbles and it blew along a few yards in the wind. Alexander ran towards it. He bent over and tried to pick it up. The photograph showed a girl with large breasts trying to balance something on a shelf. The nipples were very large and her skin ran away, under the heaviness, in dry wrinkles.

  ‘What a pair of threes,’ said Eric boldly, from a safe distance.

  ‘He likes big tits,’ said Adrian, watching Alexander scrabbling at the drifting print. Finally he captured it and crammed the photograph into his pocket. His face registered certain emotions that played across his features fleetingly, each a fragment of concealed or half-concealed fear.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing–where did you find this–this rubbish? It’s disgusting–no one should have these things–who had it?’ His voice was high and slightly tremulous. He asked the question defensively and with a dogged persistence.

  ‘We found it in your locker–at the back by the torch.’

  ‘Don’t be so stupid.’

  ‘There were some more–and there was an advert there, all cut out–about sending up for more–something Studios–don’t you remember?’

  ‘Don’t be so bloody stupid–they’re not mine. Where did you find them? Some fourth-form kid been circulating them or something? I’m going to have a go at finding out who these rotten things belong to–’

  But Alexander was blustering. Adrian turned to him and said, ‘Now this is what we want you to do.’ And he took Alexander’s arm and they sat down in the lee of the breakwater. A man walked across the sands some twenty yards away from them, a net in his hands, and a large bird of some kind settled on the end of a rusty pipe that ran over the sand, streaking it with a dull red ochre.

  Slowly the beach filled with boys. They came in twos or threes, towels slung over shoulders, shivering a little in a darting wind, which had suddenly sprung up. The sun began to lose strength and broken clouds scurried across its face, folds of unwashed linen through which the now pale glare barely penetrated. Lying across the deepest of the briny pools was the old hulk of a dinghy which rested, graciously, amongst the rocks, its back broken and its timbers rotting with the encroaching of each tide. But apart from the gaping hole in its bottom the structure of the boat was complete and seemed to have withstood the continual erosion of the sea. The stern was raised a little and served as a platform for Alexander and Adrian, who stood self-consciously surveying the arrival of their fellows.

  Gradually about twenty boys walked across the sand and took up position around the improvised stage. The smooth, wet sand was pitted by their footsteps and some of them had sliced great grooves in it, which were gradually filling with water. A crab, startled by the sudden invasion, ran from behind a rock in a wild attempt to make the shelter of the nearest pool. With a shout the nearest of the group rushed after it and encircled their victim. The unfortunate crab scuttled in decreasing circles to avoid them and finally tried to dig itself into the sand. Its miseries were abruptly terminated by Adrian, who shouted raucously:

  ‘All right, you lot–this is a meeting. Please listen to Alexander.’ He barked out the command but it was some minutes before they had all finished shoving, pushing and fighting for position.

  He stepped forward, his cool clear eye on them, and put his hands authoritatively on his hips. Eric, meanwhile, had been relegated to sitting inside the boat, his feet dangling in the rank water inside. He was happy–a silent member of an exclusive establishment. Accepted, confided in and secure, he splashed around in the water at the bottom of the boat, sending more crabs scuttling for cover. This time they passed unnoticed.

  There was still a great deal of fidgeting but a creeping interest was growing. Alexander was greatly admired and they were surprised to see Adrian standing on the boat with him. Everyone preserved a healthy dislike of Adrian which was composed of both fear and repulsion. As a community they were always wary of him, but he was subtle and it was as individuals that they were particularly frightened of him–a personal terror that could not be shared and could only be exposed at appalling risk. Adrian was aware of certain of their vulnerabilities, and it was because of his knowledge and the way he used it that they preferred not to alienate him. The outer fringe of boys were throwing seaweed at each other and a running fight had developed between two or three of them. But gradually the mêlée subsided as their interest was further aroused and they quietened. Their ages ranged from eight, tots who were looking down at their feet as they dug their toes into the soft sand, to thirteen-year-olds who were standing listening to Alexander. A flock of gulls wheeled above them, swooping low over their heads and then flying on towards the cliffs that gleamed milky-white in the weakening sun a few hundred yards away. The clouds were mounting and the former heady brilliance of the morning was dwindling.

  Alexander began to talk quietly and authoritatively and his voice carried to each boy as they stood curiously around him.

  ‘We’re going to have a Secret Society and I’m President. Anyone who doesn’t join is a rotten coward and they’ll get bashed up if they don’t come in.’

  There was a murmur of dissent at this doubtful invitation and a small boy with glasses came forward to stutter:

  ‘This is outrageous.’

  There was a general laugh, in which Alexander joined. Adrian looked very steadily at the owlish child and he disappeared from view, lost in confusion.

  Alexander was thankful for the interruption and the restored good humour. It had been a tough line to take at the beginning and he had relied on the sheer authority of his position amongst them to carry him through. Already Adrian was whispering to him something about ‘make it sound fun’.

  ‘It’ll be good fun and exciting. Everyone who joins will be tattooed with a secret si
gn and you’ll all have to take the oaths.’

  There was a rustle of interest and those at the front moved in a little closer around him. Someone at the back shouted out something that Alexander couldn’t hear and he asked for it to be repeated. A tousle-haired child of about eight who was standing at the front volunteered to reiterate it. He had trouble getting the words out and was only understood after the third attempt. But directly he had made himself clear he literally flushed with growing pride that he should suddenly be so involved with the remote deity that was Alexander.

  ‘He says, what’s it all for?’

  Alexander lowered his voice confidentially. ‘I’ll tell you, but if anyone tells I’ll get them.’

  There was an expectant hush and he went on with the air of one who enjoys knowing he’s got an audience.

  ‘We’re going to fight a dragon.’

  There was a roar of incredulous laughter, and more or less everyone called out something derisive. The child at the front shrieked out, ‘You’re stupid, you’re stupid, you’re stupid!’ and ended up shaking hysterically and being hauled out of the front lines. Disturbances broke out all over the beach, one half of the crowd immediately becoming virile dragons and the other half erratically-aiming St. Georges.

  ‘Shut up,’ said Adrian.

  ‘Quiet!’ shouted Alexander.

  There was a temporary lull during which more abuse was shouted.

  ‘I’ve seen it–I’ve seen it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Great big purple patches and an elephant’s nose–and it keeps burping all the time–listen, listen.’ A gawky child of about twelve danced round emitting stage belches in rapid succession.

  ‘Haven’t you ever heard of the Loch Ness Monster?’ shouted Alexander hoarsely. ‘Everyone laughs at that but dozens of people have seen it–there are photographs of it and someone took a film. They showed it on the telly–didn’t you see it?’ He felt he was gaining a little ground as the derision subsided slightly, and his spirits rose. He realised that Adrian had set him a near impossible task.