Once Again Assembled Here

by Sean O'Brien

  ‘I dare say. Why did you touch the body?’

  ‘I don’t know. I thought I had to do something. You seemed to think it was all right before. I suppose there was a slim chance Captain Carson might still have been alive.’

  ‘So you made sure he wasn’t.’

  ‘Sergeant Risman was there with me. He helped.’

  ‘I see. So it was the two of you. Taking the initiative.’

  The bell rang for change of lessons. The hall outside began to fill with voices. Eventually, Smales rose and turned to Gammon.

  ‘There may be more questions. We’ll have to see what the post-mortem says.’

  ‘A tragic accident,’ said Gammon.

  ‘Very likely,’ Smales said, looking at me again.

  ‘Captain Carson was a great teacher,’ I said, as if this would change things.

  ‘Oh, I know,’ said Smales. ‘Mr Gammon and I were in the same class. We know all about Captain Carson, believe me.’

  ‘Is that it, then? Are you finished with me?’

  ‘For the moment, Mr Maxwell. We know where to find you now, anyway. Until then, try and stay out of the woods, eh?’

  ‘Maxwell will continue to make himself available,’ said Gammon. ‘Do you wish to be excused teaching for the rest of the day, Maxwell?’ he asked. His tone indicated his view of this possibility. And the idea of going back to the empty flat was intolerable. What would I do there but think?

  ‘No, thank you, Second Master. I think it would be better to get on with things. That’s what the Captain would have done.’ I could see that Gammon didn’t like me allying myself with the dead man’s authority. ‘I’ll go and get my stuff from home and come back. I’ve got a free, then the upper sixth.’

  ‘Very well.’ Gammon turned away to talk to Smales.

  When I returned from the flat I found Maggie alone in the staffroom. She recognized that something was amiss.

  ‘Should I go away again?’ she asked. ‘Is something wrong? I’ve only just got in.’

  I turned back to the room. ‘Where were you this morning?’ I asked. ‘I woke up and you were gone.’

  ‘None of your business,’ she said, producing lipstick and a compact from her bag. She opened the compact and began to apply the lipstick, though her appearance was already immaculate. ‘Well, what’s got Gammon so excited? Who’s that horrid little man sneaking about with him?’ When I didn’t reply, she asked, more quietly, ‘Does somebody know?’

  ‘I think perhaps. But that’s not it. Gammon’s companion is an Inspector Smales.’

  ‘What we get up to is hardly a matter for the police, is it?’ she said. I found myself wanting to laugh.

  ‘It’s Carson.’

  ‘What about him? What’s he done?’

  ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘What? What do you mean, dead? He can’t be. Dear God. When was this?’ She turned pale. She put down the lipstick and continued to look into the compact mirror.

  ‘Not sure,’ I said, looking at the tremor in my hands. ‘Sometime yesterday night, I think.’

  ‘So we’re in the clear, at least.’ I couldn’t quite believe she’d said this. ‘How did you find out?’ she asked.

  I sat down across from her. She resumed work with the lipstick, not meeting my gaze.

  ‘I discovered his body,’ I said. ‘I mean, there was a boy there too, Arnesen, who’d found him first, then I came along. Carson was floating in the lake.’ I wanted her to put her arms round me, but that was impossible – doubly so because just then the bell rang for the resumption of lessons following the mid-morning break. ‘Why didn’t you wake me?’ I asked.

  ‘We can’t speak now,’ she said. She gathered her bag and her folders of work, shaking her head, and went out.

  I went back to the window. Below me the quad began to fill up with boys, all of them scenting the air. School had not been cancelled for the day. To Gammon that would have been a defeat. Better to control and contain. It was madness, but no one at Blake’s would be surprised at this approach. If there were casualties then routine would absorb the fact and move on.

  I watched how, as Maggie passed through the crowd, it turned its collective gaze on her, as if its many eyes and minds were those of a single animal. She seemed not to notice. I found myself aroused by the juxtaposition of the flesh and death. Which just left the Devil. I thought: well, gentlemen, I have seen what you will never see – Mrs Rowan naked but for her nail-varnish, lying on a bed and smoking a cigarette. Then I wondered how I could be thinking about that, given the situation. If I went now I could be in for what remained of a double period with the upper sixth. The prospect resembled madness, but there seemed to be no alternative.

  THIRTEEN

  Most of the group were talking in a subdued way when I arrived, standing looking out across the field towards the woods and the lake. Arnesen was missing, presumably closeted with Gammon and Smales. Feldberg was making notes on whatever he was reading. The boys looked at me. What could I tell them? Nothing, for the moment. I had no instructions on the matter. We turned to Gladstone and the Irish Question, though nobody’s heart was in it. As the lesson neared its end Rackham came in without knocking. He approached my desk.

  ‘I need to speak to the boys, Mr Maxwell.’ I nodded. He turned to the group. ‘I have in my hand an announcement from the Acting Headmaster.’ He brandished a sheet of paper. ‘Many of you will have heard that there has been an unfortunate incident. There will be a special assembly after lunch, when further information may be given. Until then the field, the woods and the lake are strictly out of bounds. You will co-operate willingly with the school and other authorities.’

  Feldberg raised his hand. I shook my head but Rackham spotted him.

  ‘Did I not make myself clear?’ he asked.

  Feldberg did not look at him. Instead he spoke to me.

  ‘Does this mean there will be no more European history, sir?’ I glanced at Rackham, who smiled sourly, as though at the wit of this.

  ‘There may be a temporary interruption,’ I said. Now the group looked at one another. The rumours had been confirmed. ‘You may go to the library during that period.’ The bell rang. Rackham had been about to speak again but thought better of it and stalked from the room, still looking at Feldberg while the boy packed his books away. Rackham seemed to have undergone an elevation in rank in the light of the crisis. I thought ‘crisis’, then I thought ‘death’.

  The classroom emptied. The noise in the Main Hall beyond seemed louder than usual, the silence that followed the last door-slam more complete. It was as if the clock had stopped. Then I imagined the hands of the great clock over the dais in the Main Hall stirring and beginning to run backwards.

  I blinked. Carson was still dead. It was as if one of the walls of the world had gone missing. The word ‘accident’ presented itself for inspection, in the guise of the only reasonable conclusion, given the circumstances and the setting and taking all in all. But it was a lie, of course, or I would not be writing this; and Carson was wrong about conspiracies.

  The post-lunch assembly was brief. There had been a tragic accident in which Captain Carson had died, said Gammon. There was almost no audible reaction from the boys. By that stage most of them must have known anyway, and rumours of how and why Carson had died would have begun to circulate. The story element would be coming to the fore, as a way of fending off what the event might mean. But Carson had been admired, particularly by the older boys, and there was an atmosphere of subdued shock. Everyone, Gammon went on, was to conduct themselves as usual and to co-operate as and when required by the police (here he indicated Smales, who sat among the senior masters) and the school authorities, who were investigating. The woods and the lake were to remain out of bounds until further notice. The production of Ruddigore was postponed. I saw Topliss blink at this. Evidently he had not been consulted. Further arrangements would be announced in due course. The less people talked about this episode, the better, especially outside the s
chool. Everyone knew how much Captain Carson had cared about Blake’s, and so on. For a second I thought Gammon was about to add that careless talk cost lives, but he dismissed the assembly with an instruction to treat the afternoon’s lessons as normal.

  I did my best. The boys were by turns listless and excitable. The fog returned by three o’clock over empty fields and woods. ‘Blake’s,’ Carson had written in A Firm Foundation, ‘inculcated a profound loyalty among its pupils, one whose influence remained active long after they had moved on into the adult world.’ Carson gave no indication of whether this was a good or a bad thing.

  At the end of school I looked for Maggie in the art room and backstage in the Memorial Hall, but she was nowhere to be found. I needed someone to talk to, not so much in order that I could put words to what I’d seen by the lake as to be in ordinary human contact. In which case, why choose Maggie? Sympathy was not what she offered. So when I went home I rang Smallbone. His mother answered suspiciously. She had, inevitably, already heard about Carson via her numerous contacts.

  ‘You don’t feel safe in your own bed,’ she said. I had to put a handkerchief in my mouth to prevent myself laughing at the idea of anyone wanting to get into bed with her. ‘And of course this doesn’t help with your situation, you being the Captain’s protégé,’ she added, disliking the foreign word but seeming to brighten a little at the prospect of my getting what she had always, according to Smallbone, considered my comeuppance for ‘my filthy exploits’. ‘It will all come out in the wash, mind you, one way or another.’

  ‘Have to wait and see,’ I said, speaking her language.

  ‘Yes, Stephen Maxwell, I dare say you will.’ With this she handed the phone to Smallbone.

  ‘To Carson,’ Smallbone said, raising a first pint in the Narwhal. It was Monday evening and quiet. We could hear the clack of the old men’s dominoes from the bar. Carson was still dead.

  ‘To Carson.’

  I explained what I knew, and described the conversation with Risman and the interview with Gammon and Smales. Smales, it turned out, was, like many people, known to Smallbone’s mother. Smallbone’s impression was that Smales was a vindictive little wanker and thus to be avoided.

  ‘And the reason you were there in the woods is one it would be unwise to reveal,’ said Smallbone. ‘Cherchez la femme and what have you. You need to break it off. Perhaps literally.’

  ‘Shut up. I know. It’s difficult.’

  ‘Follow Smallbone’s Rules for Romance. Find ’em’, fuck ’em and forget ’em.’

  ‘I’m sure any girl’s mother would be proud to have you as a son-in-law. And her father would take you in the yard and brain you with a coal hammer.’

  ‘I’m not the miscreant in this case, am I? Be practical is what I mean. Anyway, you won’t be marrying the lady in question, will you?’

  ‘You can be very literal minded.’ We drank.

  ‘D’you think Smales believed you about what you were doing there?’ Smallbone asked.

  ‘I don’t think he believed a single word I said, up to and including my name.’

  ‘You’ve got to stick to the story now. Otherwise, nasty complications.’

  ‘Actually, Bone, it’s Carson I’m mainly thinking about.’

  ‘I’m not in a position to advise or help him, am I?’ said Smallbone, rising on his stool and leaning across the bar to summon the barmaid for a refill. He waited until we’d been served before continuing. ‘OK. But it must have been an accident.’

  ‘Smales wants to blame someone.’

  ‘He’s a copper. He won’t like untidiness. The world is untidy. Therefore he blames the world, i.e. you. I imagine he’ll get over it.’

  ‘The thing is, Carson recently asked me to be his executor.’

  ‘Yes, well, that is indeed a thing, Maxwell. But why you?’

  ‘He didn’t say. Well, he said there was no one else. I didn’t feel able to refuse the request, given who was asking.’

  ‘No, I see that. Does Smales know?’

  ‘Not yet. It just never occurred to me to mention it, in the middle of the whole business. It never crossed my mind. I was having trouble thinking clearly.’

  ‘Smales will be certainly interested when he does find out. Especially since you didn’t tell him when you had chance. Nasty.’

  ‘I’d have to be an idiot to become Carson’s executor and then do away with him,’ I hissed.

  ‘Well, obviously, but bear in mind that for Smales the world probably consists of two kinds of people. The first kind consists solely of Smales. The second is all the criminals and idiots.’ We drank in silence for a while. ‘But why are you talking about Carson being done away with?’

  ‘I’m not. I mean, that’s what Smales would think. According to you.’

  ‘Leave me out of it. I make a point of not thinking anything.’

  ‘But it is a coincidence, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘He asks me to be his executor. Then he dies.’

  ‘Was he ill?’

  ‘He said not.’

  ‘Eh, well, I dunno. Could have been depressed. Could have slipped. Just have to wait and see. But tell Smales about being the executor.’

  Suddenly I felt sick. I went through into the Gents and splashed water on my face. The coffin-sized urinals looked immovably solid, and the green, wave-patterned tiling around the sink seemed frivolous, as if the death of Carson had not been made known here or was being ignored. I wetted my face again and then leaned on the sink, uncertain whether my legs would keep me upright.

  There was a bang as Lurch came through the door. He didn’t look at me, but went to the urinal and began to micturate copiously, staring downwards at his handiwork. I went back into the bar. Now I wanted to laugh. Birth, death, copulation. Why did no one mention urination?

  Smallbone had ordered me a brandy.

  ‘I liked Carson too, you know,’ he said. ‘In case you thought I wasn’t bothered. He was the best teacher I ever had. He knew I wasn’t up to much but he never let on. He encouraged me. There’s no one else there like him now and they won’t find anyone like him, and they won’t want to. It’s fucking awful.’ He paused, nodding several times. ‘So, can we leave it at that? I don’t think talking in this way really helps. Unless you’re a woman, in which case it can be a life’s work.’

  ‘Thank you, Bone. And by the way, you’re a monster. Lucky the girl who gets a ring on your finger.’

  ‘I’m a realist,’ said Smallbone. ‘I know myself to be idle and lustful.’

  We toasted Carson and called it a night. It was cold. The fog had gone and the sky was sharp with stars. The edges of the empty pavements glinted with frost. Whatever happened, I would never escape this place. I would keep turning a corner to find these streets there before me, populated by the dead.

  At the railway line we stood on the footbridge while a goods train clanked underneath towards the marshalling yard. We seemed to have been doing this forever, in my case as if some sign would be delivered. As kids we’d loved standing in the plume of steam and ash. But the steam trains had gone now. As we parted at the foot of the steps Smallbone said, ‘Keep it simple, Maxwell. It’s probably not Smales you really need to worry about. Gammon won’t need much excuse to get rid of you.’

  ‘I thank you for this encouragement.’

  ‘My pleasure, comrade. Mind how you go. See you on Friday, I suppose. Unless you’re in jail, ho ho.’

  I was exhausted but unable to sleep. I wrote up my diary in an untidy hand, struggled to concentrate on a book, then switched off the lamp and sat looking across the road at Blake’s. Beyond the woods the tower of the Main Hall rose, spotlit from the roof below, the flag flying at half-mast. As I watched, the lights were turned off, leaving the world ‘to darkness and to me’, as I repeated aloud before trying once more to get some sleep. Some things are coincidences, Carson had said more than once in class. No, I thought, not this one.

  FOURTEEN

  The Coroner, an old boy himself, ordered
a post-mortem, which reported at the inquest held a week later that it seemed that Carson had drowned, probably after hitting his head on the raft. He had been in the water for somewhere between eight and twelve hours, so that whatever befell him had taken place on Sunday evening after the cadets’ exercise was complete. No theory was advanced as to why Carson had been in the water in the first place, but the Coroner observed that the explanation might be that Carson had lost his way in the dark and slipped into the water. The death certificate was issued releasing Carson’s body for burial. Under the circumstances there was little else the court could do. There was no reason to suppose that the death was anything but a tragic accident. The inquest was adjourned.

  This was not the end of the matter as far as Smales was concerned. The fact that I was Carson’s executor was, as predicted, of considerable interest to him when he found out. He asked why I had not mentioned it in our meeting following the discovery of the body. I replied that it had not occurred to me to do so. It had not seemed important. He didn’t like that. What I could not explain to his satisfaction was that the role of executor had never seemed credible to me, since surely it entailed a duty I would never be required to fulfil, because Carson had not been going to die. Smales liked that even less and, in line with his general approach, clearly supposed I was lying for some reason, though what exactly these lies concerned was not something he was inclined to share with me, or even, such was the weaselly mania I sensed in him, with himself. As Smallbone had suggested, Smales probably viewed everyone else as a liar until persuaded otherwise. We spoke several more times. Once he appeared on the doorstep on a Saturday morning as I was leaving the flat.

  ‘There’s something about you I don’t like,’ he said, worrying away at his set of keys. The elderly lady who lived next door went past with her shopping bag, clearly curious about this caller.

  ‘I didn’t know this was personal,’ I said.

  ‘I mean, I know your background and I know about your adventures chasing after fanny down south, but I can’t see why you’re back here now.’