Webster sat on a bench all by himself after we’d done his unpacking. He was looking at Smythson practising his batting in the nets that are always put up on the number two play lawn for the summer term. Silly old Smythson showing off. He loves the summer term when he becomes all famous and the Headmaster spoils him.
‘Okay, Giles?’ I said.
‘Yes, thank you, Benjamin.’
‘That’s good. You’ll soon be making friends with lots of other boys in form two… Listen, Giles, I know it’s a silly rule, but you mustn’t call me Benjamin. Sometimes it would be alright if we were in the same form but you’re a nip—that means you’re a new boy. You’ll only be a nip until next term when you go up a form. I’m just going to call you Giles for today, and you must call me Teasdale from now on, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not your friend. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, Benjamin.’
This term I’m in Dorset dorm. It’s high up at the very top of the school with a sloping ceiling because it’s under the roof, and it has three huge dormer windows. That’s the name you give to a window that pokes out of the roof, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that they’re in a dormitory.
From two of the windows, you can see the river ever so clearly. It’s so close that you would think you could jump out straight into the water. It’s very wide with England far away on the other side across the sand banks that you can see if the tide’s not up. When it comes in, there’s a great wave they call the Severn bore which rushes up the river and causes great lapping brown waves that smell of mud and salt and bash against the banks. If you didn’t know better, you’d think that the school was in danger of being washed away. The other window, which is above the washstands at the end of the room, looks out on three massive trees growing in the school grounds. There are hundreds of rooks in them, which sit cawing all day long and squirrels who live even higher up than we are in the dorm. Sometimes I dream about what it would be like to live all snuggled up in one of their cosy nests made out of twigs.
There are only seven of us in the dorm—it’s one of the smallest, and when I went up before high tea and unpacked, I was happy about that, though it worries me when I think about who might be in there with me, and wonder whether they’re good at keeping secrets or not. It’s the very first thing that I have to worry and concentrate about at the beginning of a new term. Not the secret about Mummy that I think only the matrons and Mr. and Mrs. Burston know about, or the secret in Mr. England’s car that no one knows except for me, but the one that I have to make sure doesn’t ever get out of the dormitory. If there’s going to be just seven boys it makes it much easier to stop things spreading.
Henry Pugh is my dorm prefect. He was last term, too, but then we were downstairs in Northumberland, which is one of the very biggest dorms. He’s a very fair person but last term he started coming over to my bed after lights out and trying to put his hand in my pajamas. He’s a very big boy with ginger hair and strong arms, and it took all of my strength to stop him. I just wouldn’t let him, though, and I thought he might get annoyed and tell everyone my secret, but he didn’t. Now I think he knows that I don’t want him to do that to me, and I think he’s not going to try again. The good thing is that he hasn’t got angry about it.
My bed is underneath one of the windows. In the early morning if I’m awake before the bell goes, which is very often, I can hear the house martins who live under the eaves getting their nests ready to lay their eggs. I love to think about what they are all doing only a few inches away from my pillow. Just a few weeks ago, they were far away in Africa where they go for the winter. Now they’ve flown all the way back and are settling down for the summer, almost in the dorm and so close that if the wall wasn’t in the way, I could reach out and touch them! I like to stand up on my bed and lean on the windowsill to watch them busily flying around, catching insects and diving down to the riverbanks to collect the mud to build their nests with. I don’t think they ever stop to rest unless they’re sitting in their nests. Sometimes I’ve watched them flying about for such a long time that without realising it, the sun has come up over the far away Cotswold Hills and has changed the river from murky grey to blue.
I’ve got the best bed in the dorm, and when I saw it on the first day of term I really felt quite happy, like when you get on an aeroplane and find out you’re sitting next to the window and can look out.
I couldn’t wait for the lights to be turned out that first night. After saying goodbye to Mummy, the journey, and the shock of suddenly being back at school, all I want is to be by myself in the dark and have a think about things. But it takes a bit of time because Miss Carson has to come in to check we’ve unpacked properly and put everything away in the wardrobes. Then she looks into our wash bags to make certain that we’ve got all those things we need like toothpaste and shampoo. I had everything this time, because I’d made sure of it before leaving home.
‘Good, good,’ she said when she looked into my wash bag on the washstand. That made me pleased and a bit unhappy all at the same time, because I know that really they’re checking to see if Mummy’s remembered or not. But I’ve got everything this term. The only big mistake was not having the sandwiches for the train journey.
Then Mr. Burston came round to say goodnight. He always does that at the beginning of term, to tell you what he expects of you. It’s called a pep talk, like a little school report before you even start, and he goes round the whole dorm and talks to us one at a time while the others listen.
First he talked to Henry Pugh and told him to keep up with the good work he was doing with the younger boys. He uses a different sound in his voice when he’s talking to the senior boys. It’s not so loud as the one he uses if you’re not a prefect. I think he said something to him about his maths having to be worked on before his common entrance exam, which he’s taking this term. If he passes it, he’s going to go to a school called Shrewsbury. His father’s a Headmaster, and I always think how silly it is that he and his brother have to come away to this horrid boarding school instead of going to their own dad’s grammar school.
Then he went to the end of Jonathan Theodorakis’s bed and congratulated him on playing the piano at the service in the church at the end of last term. He can play the whole of Men of Harlech without once having to look at the music book. The funny thing about Theodorakis is that he can play without any stops, but he has a terrible stutter, which makes it very difficult to follow what he’s saying because he’s always stopping and starting. His mouth gets stuck, but when he’s playing the piano, his fingers don’t. I’m not sure how much he really likes music, though. Theodorakis and Jenkins were two of the boys that were chosen to go to see The Vienna Boys’ Choir in Bristol the day that the secret of Mr. England’s car started. They fell asleep in the middle of the concert and had to be woken up. It was really quite shameful, actually, especially since it was meant to be such a special occasion. This is the third dormitory that Theo—that’s what everyone calls him for short—and I have been in together.
When he went over to Lucky Lorrimer’s bed, Mr. Burston called him by his Christian name, which is Val. I think that was because his mum and dad have just decided to divorce each other, and everyone’s trying to be as kind as possible to him; though actually, I don’t think he minds very much. When he talks about the new house that he’s going to be living in with his mother, he just sounds excited about it. He told me last term that his dad’s got a mistress who lives in a flat called a ‘love nest’ in Cyncoed, which is a posh part of Cardiff, and after the divorce he’s going to marry her. I think that Lorrimer’s glad that his dad won’t be living with them anymore. Trenton in the sixth form started calling him ‘Lucky’ when he was a nip. He said it was because Lorrimer had skinny, weedy legs, and he was lucky that they didn’t snap off. I know it’s not very nice, but he doesn’t seem to mind it very much.
‘Where’s Simon Chirl?’ Mr. Burst
on said when he saw one of the beds was empty.
‘He’s in surgery with Matron, Sir, because of his collarbone and knee,’ Pugh said. Chirl’s from a farm near Ross-on-Wye, and he’d fallen off his horse the day before the beginning of term.
‘Yes, and we’re expecting young Mr. Whickham back at any moment, I think,’ he said when he saw another empty bed.
Mr. Burston’s a very tall man; so tall that he nearly doesn’t fit in the dorm because of the sloping ceiling. He walks very slowly swaying from side to side with his hands behind his back. Sometimes he sways so much I think he’s going to fall over, and once, when we were in class he swayed into the blackboard, and it fell over. I thought that perhaps he was like Mummy and had had too much sherry, but really he’s just very awkward and clumsy on account of being too tall. While he talks to us in the dorm he bangs his knees up against the end of the beds. He always does that, and sometimes when we’re in class we pretend that we’re him and do it to the desks. Reynolds is very tall and is always imitating him—he’s quite a good actor and can do his voice as well. Everyone falls about—it makes us laugh so much.
When Mr. Burston got to Nick Earl, who’s in the bed next to me, I could see that every bang against the end of the bed made Earl’s head move, and for a terrible moment, I thought that I was going to start laughing and get myself into trouble. I was relieved when he got to Earl, though, because after him, there was only me to talk to and then the lights would go out, and I’d be by myself.
‘Nick Earl, Nick Earl, Nick Earl… What on earth are we going to do about you, eh?’ Mr. Burston said to him, ‘Laziest boy in the school. I don’t know, I really don’t. You drive us all to despair.’
He is lazy, Earl. He’s always in trouble for it. He gets detention after detention on account of his laziness, but it never makes any difference. It’s like he’s purposely decided not to learn anything at all. In prep he usually just stares out of the window. In class when he’s asked a question and he doesn’t know the answer, he moves his fingers through the air as though they’re crab’s claws looking for an invisible bit of the right answer that he might be able to catch. Everybody has a giggle whenever he does that.
But the thing is he’s very clever. He can make radios after lights out with his torch on under the blankets; he knows the names of all the stars, how the combustible engine works, and why feathers on birds make it possible for them to fly—in other words all sort of things that we haven’t got to in class yet and probably never will. He can tell you things that I bet some of the teachers don’t know.
‘What to do with you? What to do?’ the Headmaster said to him. He was nodding his head and staring at him and then after a long silence he said, ‘You know, Earl—Ben Teasdale here’—and he nodded at me then—‘would give his right arm to have half your intelligence. Isn’t that so, Teasdale?’
‘Yes, Sir,’ I said.
Just as the Headmaster was beginning to bang his knees up against the end of my bed to start my pep talk, Simon Chirl came in from surgery with his arm all wrapped up in a big white bandage with a huge bow behind his neck and a sulky look on his face. Mr. Burston started making fun of him falling off his horse and saying stuff about the Lone Ranger falling off Silver and best to leave the hard work to Tonto. I think Chirl expected him to say those things, which is why he looked so fed up. Actually, he’s a very good rider and doesn’t fall off much. I know that for a fact because I’ve been home twice with him for weekend exeat, and I’ve seen him racing around on his huge horse, whose name is Stevie, as though he really is a genuine cowboy. Mr. Burston doesn’t know anything about it, so it’s completely silly if he’s teasing Chirl. Everybody who rides a horse falls off now and again. It’s a natural thing. Anyway, the teasing meant that Mr. Burston forgot to give me my pep talk, which was jolly good and a relief.
When he said goodnight and turned the lights out, it went quiet very quickly. Of course there’s meant to be absolute silence—you can get the slipper for talking after lights out—but actually it usually takes a few minutes and sometimes a warning from Matron before it is completely quiet. Usually, once there’s been dead silence for about five minutes, everyone falls asleep quite quickly. This was the beginning of term, and everyone was actually quite pleased about the very quick silence. It wasn’t dark in the room being that it’s the summer now, and the curtains were letting in the light from outside. I could see everyone in their beds. Henry Pugh was sitting up writing his diary which is a thing I remember him doing last term, holding the edge of the pillow up so that if Matron comes in he can hide it quickly. Simon Chirl was staring straight out with a funny expression on his face. I think his arm was really hurting him. Lucky Lorrimer had turned over and was facing the wall; he was already halfway to being asleep, I think. I couldn’t see Theodorakis because Earl had his hands in the way. He was making funny shapes with them in the air as though he was trying to count something—probably reminding himself about how many seas with no water are on the moon, or something like that.
Very soon after, while Pugh was still writing his diary and Lorrimer was just beginning to snore, Tom Whickham came in. He’d been driven from London airport in a taxi all by himself. Imagine how much money that cost! His dad’s in the RAF, and he’d come from his home in Hong Kong.
Pugh said, ‘Straight to bed, Whickham—you can sort out your stuff in the morning.’
‘Yes, Sir!’ he said and then he did a sort of funny salute. Pugh didn’t seem to mind because I think they’re a bit friendly already because of playing each other in the finals of the table tennis last term. Whickham won although he’s younger, but Pugh was very sportsmanlike about it, and Mrs. Marston had said that he’d accepted defeat ‘gracefully’.
‘Hi Teasdale—nice hols?’ he whispered to me. I put my thumb up to him so as not to break the silence, and watched him get ready for bed. He was in Northumberland with me and Pugh last term, and I remembered him coming in late at the beginning of term then too.
When he comes from Hong Kong he doesn’t wear school uniform, like the rest of us, though he’s really meant to. He was wearing light brown trousers with a crease down the front of each leg, brown tie-up shoes, a blue shirt which is called ‘drip-dry’ and doesn’t need ironing, and a pink tie which shines like silk and has a pattern of wings on it. He’s got a beautiful top called a ‘sports jacket’ which has leather patches at the elbows to make it last longer. After he’d changed into his pajamas he tiptoed to the big wardrobe at the other end of the dorm and got a hanger which he very carefully put all the clothes on as neatly as can be. Then he zipped up his travel bag, which is brown and smells of leather, even from the other side of the dorm. Its tag says ‘BOAC’. That stands for ‘British Overseas Airways Corporation’ and means he comes from a family that travels a very long way. The people at the airport stick that label on your luggage if you’re going very far away. If you’re not going so far they stick on a label that says BEA, which means ‘British European Airways’. Our luggage at home in the attic has BOAC labels on it. That’s something about Thomas Whickham which is the same as me.
When he was ready, he slid the bag under his bed with his foot before he carefully untucked a flap on one side of his bed and got in. He does everything so neatly—he’s got beautiful italic writing that Mrs. Marston taught him and he was able to do straightaway. His desk is always tidy, so is the locker in the basement changing room with his game kit in it. I think it’s just a natural thing with him; even the parting in his hair is always straight and tidy.
It was just light enough for me to see that he winked at me and smiled before he settled his head down onto the pillow after he’d patted it with his hand. I nodded at him and smiled back.
He’s the smartest, handsomest boy in the school, even when he’s wearing school uniform. His grey windcheater—that we all have to wear for everyday when we’re not in class—never gets dirty like everybody else’s. Last term
I tried my best to keep mine clean. I made a firm resolution not to spill porridge or wipe my hands on it when they were grubby, because I wanted to be a bit like Tom Whickham, all clean and tidy, but it quickly got as grubby as it usually does. When I got a huge ink blot on it only one week after the beginning of term, I just knew it wasn’t worth bothering about. I know I’m never ever going to be as smart as him, so I may as well just accept it.
It was beginning to get dark then. Pugh finished his writing, slapped his diary shut and plonked it down loudly under his bed. And then it was absolutely quiet apart from the sound of the wind in the big trees outside and Lucky Lorrimer, who was snoring but not so loudly that we’d have to wake him up like we sometimes do.
I couldn’t sleep, though. I was awake far into the night thinking about Mummy. I was wondering whether if she closed her eyes she might be able to see me lying in my bed so far away across the other side of the country from her, over the Cotswold Hills and across the wide river on the edge of Wales. If she could see me, that means she’s with me all the time, and I’m not really away from her.
Suddenly I thought that I was glad I wasn’t at home with her which frightened me because I love her and miss her so much, and I hate being here at school. I tried to push that idea far away and make it go out of the window to be caught by the wind and drowned in the river, but it wouldn’t leave me alone. If I don’t want to be here or with Mummy either, perhaps I don’t want to be anywhere at all, just by myself, like a solitary squirrel in one of those nests in the trees outside being rocked to sleep in the wind. I put my hand under the bed and unzipped my bag and felt through the blue tee shirt Granny gave me till I found the tissue paper that I’d wrapped my clock in. It was still ticking away. I took it out and wound it up under the blankets very slowly so that no one could hear and then put it back at the very bottom of the bag. Then I found Jollo’s paw and held it in the darkness till I fell asleep.
The House Martin Page 7
