“The book made a great impression on me at the time,” I said, “especially the descriptions of the abbey, the school and the landscape. A few years later, my family came down to the Isle of Pur-beck for a summer holiday, and I pleaded with my parents to make the drive over to Winterborne Abbey to see it. I was astonished by its beauty and I suppose I never forgot it.”
I laughed at myself for being so foolish, but the headmaster’s stern expression did not soften.
“I had rather hoped the world had forgotten about that silly book,” he said, sighing. “In fact, I think the less said about it the better.”
The headmaster rose to his feet.
“But come to my office in the school on Monday morning, and we’ll see what we can do,” he said. “Mrs. Fowles, the librarian, is bound to be of some help.”
As he led the way out of the room and to the front door, I got the impression that he couldn’t wait to get rid of me, as if the mere mention of Crace’s name had polluted the air.
“I think that is the last of them,” said, the librarian, a sad-eyed, gray-haired woman, as she placed three slim, green, leather-bound books on the table. “If you want anything else, just let me know and I’ll be glad to bring the volumes over. I’ll be in the library if you need me. You do know where that is, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I said. “Mr. Peters pointed it out to me. Thank you.”
Earlier that morning the headmaster had offered me the use of the records held at the school and had informed the librarian of my project, suggesting that it might be best if she brought the material to the anteroom outside his office so that I would not be disturbed. The headmaster had also promised to give me contact details of former members of staff or old boys, but, of course, I couldn’t ask for these straightaway. So for the next few hours, I looked through the books, noting down details about the provenance of the various relics, sculptures, statues and paintings displayed in the abbey. I knew I might need this kind of information if questioned about my project.
Through the door that separated the anteroom from the study, I could hear the occasional ringing of the telephone, followed by the headmaster’s low voice. Sometimes I heard him open the door to staff members or pupils, but I could not make out their muffled conversations.
I closed the last of the ledgers, picked up my notebook, and walked out of the headmaster’s anteroom and back to the library. The corridor had filled with boys—some fresh-faced, others who had greasy skin, spots and lank hair—who eyed me with a mixture of shyness and curiosity. I knocked on the door of the library and stepped into a grand and spacious room that had an elaborate fretwork ceiling and an imposing marble fireplace. Through an open door I saw a smaller room where Mrs. Fowles was sitting at a desk, reading. She looked up as I entered.
“Can I help you, Mr. Woods?”
“Yes, I wondered if you might. I’ve finished with the ledgers now—they were extremely helpful, so thank you.”
“I’m pleased they could be of some use. Is there anything else you’d like to look at?”
“I wondered whether it might be possible to see anything that might help me track down some former staff members or old boys.”
“As Mr. Peters probably explained, we would need a list of names from you first. Then we could check the records to see if we have any details for the boys in question.”
“Yes, Mr. Peters did mention that, which is why I thought it might be a good idea to start with, I don’t know, school magazines or a list of the boys in each particular house.”
“There are a number of magazines, the production of which was overseen, I think, by the English department, but I must warn you that we don’t have them for every year. It disappears completely for a couple of years here and there. But we do have a list of the boys in each house dating back, I think, to when we first became a school in the early fifties. And there’s also a few scrapbooks, odds and ends really, photographs, reports of certain achievements and the like.”
“That sounds perfect,” I said, smiling.
“I’m sorry I won’t be able to help you straightaway as I’m expecting a class of thirteen-year-olds at any moment,” she said, looking at her watch and pausing for a second. “But if you can do without my help, you’re very welcome to start browsing through the books in the back room, if you like. The actual school records aren’t kept there, of course, just an assortment of books relating to the school. The boys are only allowed in the back room if they have permission, so you’d be quite private, and there’s a little table and chair you could use if you like.”
Mrs. Fowles looked down at the desk and started to play with the corner of a blue-colored folder, as though she were slightly embarrassed by her act of kindness and half-expecting her suggestion to be met with an outright rejection.
“That is extremely kind of you,” I said, really meaning it. “Thank you so much.”
She looked up. The noise of boys walking down the corridor moved closer toward us.
“Gosh, they’re almost upon me,” she said, moving toward the door that led into the back of the library.
I followed her into the narrow, cramped room, and as we maneuvered our way through the tightly packed shelves, she began to blush.
“I think it’s all quite self-explanatory. Books about the school are mainly on this shelf here,” she said, gesturing toward a tall wooden bookcase. I heard the door to the library open and the boys walk into the room. “The school magazines are in the box files on this shelf there and the scrapbooks begin,” she said, pointing to the bottom of the shelf, “yes, around here.”
“Thank you again,” I said.
“I’ll be with you in an hour,” she said.
As she turned to leave, she smiled and her eyes, so sad earlier that morning, lit up with something approaching delight. It was obvious that not many people appreciated her. It felt good to bring a little bit of joy into another person’s life.
I scanned the shelf of books in front of me, running my fingers over the surfaces of the spines as I read the titles: History of Winterborne Abbey; Winterborne Abbey, the School and Abbey; Capability Brown and the Eighteenth-Century Landscape; The Architecture of Dorset Churches and Abbeys; and Pevsner’s The Buildings of England. After my morning studying the ledgers, I had had enough of dusty archives detailing the abbey’s architecture and its collection of art. I wanted to get on with my real job, the unearthing of material that would give me a clue into Crace’s time at the school or anything about Chris that would offer an insight into his state of mind prior to his suicide. I wasn’t sure what I would find, or even whether I would discover anything at all.
I bent down to study the untitled, oversized volumes bound in pale blue leather on the bottom shelf of the bookcase. I pulled out one by random. On the front of the cover were the words “Winterborne Abbey School in photographs, 1957” embossed in gold letters. As I opened the book, a couple of black-and-white prints fell out, a photograph of a group of what looked like sixth formers standing in front of the school entrance and another of a curly-haired boy smiling widely as he clasped a trophy to his chest. I placed the two pictures on the floor beside me, intending to put them back when I found where they had come from, and began looking through the album. Under each of the photographs, someone had written, in neat handwriting and in black ink, a small caption explaining the subject above. There were details of the appointment of the head boy, the scores of each of the houses, photographs of sporting, musical, and dramatic triumphs, and at the very back a reduced-size print of the staff and pupils gathered on the lawn, with the house serving as a backdrop.
I scanned the photograph, searching the dozens of faces staring out at me, running my finger slowly over the matte surface of the photograph. There, at the very end of the first row, sandwiched between a thin elderly man in wire-rimmed spectacles and a portly woman in tweed, was Crace. It was hard to reconcile the fine features of the man in the photograph, with his full head of hair, handsome face, youthfu
l skin and playful smile, with the man I knew in Venice, but there was no question it was him.
After easing the album back into position, I pulled out the volume next to it, for the year 1958, and found a similar selection of photographs: rugger wins, cricket victories, musical recitals and dramatic performances, including A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Journey’s End. There was a typed cast list for Sherriff’s play that showed that it had been directed by Crace, yet the only image I found of him was the one in the group photograph, again stuck onto the last page of the book, looking more or less the same as he did the previous year.
I turned to the back of the 1959–1960 scrapbook and scanned the faces looking for Chris, my other self. There was Crace, again, staring out with an amused expression, but there was no sign of Chris, nor was there any sign of his father. I looked at the date of the photograph—6 June 1960. John Davidson would have been dead for seven months.
I turned the pages of the album and, a couple of pages into the book, I saw a photograph of a man standing on a stage. Dressed in a badly fitting, cheap-looking tweed jacket, he looked embarrassed, astonished that anyone, let alone someone with a camera, would show the slightest interest in him. Underneath the picture was the caption: John Davidson, organist and music teacher at Winterborne Abbey, after his performance of Bach’s Preludes in October 1959. It was hard to see any similarity between Chris and his father. Whereas the photographs of Chris I had seen at Shaw’s showed him to be quite a handsome boy with a square jaw, blond hair and intelligent-looking eyes, this man looked as if the life had been sucked out of him. Dark circles shadowed his eyes, and his skin looked sallow and unhealthy.
Just as I was about to close the volume and swap it for the next one, I flicked past a notice that caught my eye. I turned the pages back to where I had spotted the words “the debating society.” There was no photograph, but a page had been glued into the scrapbook detailing the victory of the Winterborne Abbey debating society over nearby Pemberton College, together with a list of names, some of the boys Chris had mentioned in his journal—Matthew Knowles, Timothy Fletcher, Adrian Levenson and David Ward. The motion, proposed by Winterborne Abbey, was “this house believes that manners maketh the man.” At the bottom of the page were the words “Mr. Gordon Crace also extends a very warm thank you to Christopher Davidson, who acted as the team’s valued amanuensis.”
I copied the details into my notebook and turned to the scrapbook for the following year. There, at the back, was what I had been searching for: a photograph showing both Crace and Chris, taken after another of the debating society’s wins. Master and pupil stood facing the camera, a few lines apart, Crace looking enigmatic, teasing almost and Chris with a more pained and uncertain expression on his face, as if he were biting the inside of his cheek. The date underneath read 7 March 1961, two years after Chris’s father’s death and six years before his own.
From the library I heard the sound of boys’ voices. I stood up and peered around the shelves to check whether Mrs. Fowles was on her way to see me. There was no sign of her. I took hold of the scrapbook containing the picture of Crace and Chris and eased my right index finger underneath the tabs of glue at each of the four corners of the photograph. Applying a little pressure under each edge I prized the photograph away from the page, leaving behind the trace of four white paper marks. I slipped the picture into my bag, taking care to make sure it was well hidden between the pages of my notebook and an old newspaper. I felt a little ashamed of myself, especially since Mrs. Fowles had been so kind to me, but as I understood it I was just doing my job, gathering evidence in any way I could. It would all count, I was sure of it, every little scrap.
I turned around to the shelf that Mrs. Fowles had said held the school magazines. I took down a box file, opened its cardboard cover, and eased forward the spring mechanism that kept the mass of documents in place. The first few pages were nothing more than loose papers from an old annual report, columns of figures detailing the spending on building work. Beneath this was a buff-colored folder, inside of which was a slim publication dated autumn 1960 and emblazoned with the school’s crest. Somebody, one of the boys, I presumed, had quite cleverly designed the cover arranging the title, “The Blast,” around the crest so it looked as though it was exploding from the coat of arms. I flicked through the pages quickly, past passages of purple prose, including one boy’s sub-Wordsworthian description of wandering through the sublime landscape and another’s poem about loss and death, a sonnet that revealed in its last line that the object over which he was grieving was his dog. There was, however, no trace of Chris, and the only sign of Crace was a two-sentence acknowledgment on the inside cover that thanked him for his help in overseeing production.
I ploughed my way through the magazines, combing them for clues, but came up with little of interest. It was dreary, boring work, almost mechanical in its drudgery. I stifled a yawn as I closed the first box file and sat back down at the table. I suppose at least I had some full names now, ones that could be checked against the official school records. Of course, I would pretend that I had just chosen them at random from the scrapbooks and the like, hoping that no one would see the hidden connection—that the boys had all belonged to Crace’s debating society.
Then I remembered something: the date of Crace’s novel. I checked in my notebook. The Debating Society was published on 4 March 1962. I took down the next box file along the shelf, prized open the spring and, instead of carefully and painstakingly going through the magazines page by page, turned out the contents on the table and scanned the magazines for the one with the corresponding date. Everything in the box was from 1961. I tipped the lot back into the file, with a promise to myself I would tidy it up later, flipped down the spring, set it to one side and took down another. As I opened it and saw the year 1962, I felt a thrill pass through my body. But then I remembered Mrs. Fowles’s words about the irregularity of publication. Would Crace have bothered to oversee the production of a school magazine just before the release of his own novel? Even if he had, would it have survived?
I turned the pages greedily, quickly finding the magazines published in winter and autumn. There was nothing that bore a spring date, but at the back of the file, its cover creased and torn at the top right-hand corner, was the summer issue. In addition to the explosive graphics emanating from the crest, a boy had fashioned the coat of arms into a sun motif, and below the title someone had drawn the words “Have a blast for summer.”
I opened it at the page that featured a question-and-answer interview with Crace. I couldn’t believe my luck. At the top of the piece was a byline: Interview by Christopher Davidson. Chris started the feature by outlining, in one paragraph, the reason why he was interviewing his English master.
Mr. Crace, for all his merits, which there are many, would normally not be featured in the interview slot in The Blast . But on this occasion, we are making an exception. What has drawn our interest is not his fine ability to teach us how to take apart a poem or analyze a dramatic scene, but the fact that he has written a recently published novel called The Debating Society . After its initial publication in March—and I hope Mr. Crace wouldn’t mind me pointing this out—sales were extremely modest, but recently, thanks to a review in the Times and many other notices, it has won a place on the bestseller list. As we go to press, the book stands in the number-three slot, and there is even talk of it being made into a feature film. Mr. Crace very kindly agreed to take time out from his busy schedule to grant The Blast a short interview.
Q: The news that you had written a novel came as something of a surprise to many of the staff and pupils at the school. How long had you been writing it?
A: I started it in the first few months of 1960, and after I had done the initial plotting, it seemed to write itself. I didn’t mean to keep it a secret at all. I was writing very much for my own entertainment, well, certainly to begin with, and I never dreamed that it would be published. And I have to say it very nearly did no
t see the light of day. You see, after I had finished it, I sent the manuscript off to several different London publishers, all of whom rejected it. But finally a small house bought it for a very small sum of money. Of course, the amount I was paid didn’t bother me in the slightest as I was just delighted someone had accepted it. It astonishes me that the publisher took it on and, quite frankly, amazes me that anyone wants to read it.
Q: What’s your reaction to it being a bestseller?
A: I am shocked. Really, quite honestly shocked. That’s the only way I can describe it. But, of course, I’m delighted that people seem to enjoy it. I think it’s sold in the region of 60,000 copies, and the publishers seem to have high hopes for it when it comes out in paperback next year. They are also in the process of selling it around the world, including America.
Q: How has the book changed your life?
A: Well, not really at all. I know people may not believe me when I say that, but it’s true. I mean, I still teach here, and contrary to some of the rumors, I’m staying on at the school next year. Of course, I will try to write another novel, but I haven’t started on anything yet.
Q: What kind of reaction have you had to the book?
A: Well…[he laughs] I think some of the staff members here weren’t that keen on it when they realized that its subject matter was—how shall I say?—a little dark. They thought it might bring the school into disrepute and all that. Of course, I understood their concerns, but after all, it is a work of imaginative fiction, nothing more. While Winterborne Abbey is, quite clearly, a model, architecturally speaking, for the school, it’s obvious that the classics master could not possibly be done away with by one of the boys. Apart from anything else, I don’t think Mr. Gibson would stand for it. [He laughs.]
Q: What was your inspiration for the book?
A: [A long pause] Inspiration is so difficult to talk about, isn’t it? [Another pause] I suppose the inspiration for the book must have grown out of my time as a teacher here, but as for specifics—the basis of the plot, the line of the story and so on—I have to take sole responsibility for those. Probably grown out of the murk of my imagination. Far from a pretty sight, I’m afraid.
The Lying Tongue Page 17
