The Red Road

by Stephen Sweeney

  “All good, thank you,” Baxter said in his practised diplomatic tone.

  “Good, good. Are you guys all nearly ready to go to tea?” the opposing captain enquired, looking around.

  I looked about the changing room as Baxter did. The last of the team was out of the shower, most of the others having already dressed and were now sitting around on the benches lining the wall. The derogatory remarks about the other team’s performance on the pitch had stopped abruptly at its captain’s appearance, and everyone was now waiting for the prompt to leave.

  “Yes, we’re all ready. Just a few still changing,” Baxter confirmed, his eyes flickering to Sam and a couple of others.

  “Good. When you’re ready, I’ll be waiting for you just out the front,” the opposing captain said, before departing.

  “Um, Joe,” Sam said. “Could you help me with my tie?” He held it out to me to fasten, unable to do it himself with one hand.

  “I’d leave it off if I were you,” I said. Tying someone else’s tie felt weird to me for some reason, and I preferred to avoid doing it. “But let me get that for you,” I offered, picking up his bag.

  “Thanks,” he said. “What do you think they’ll give us for tea?”

  “Judging by the cost of this place, I’d be hoping for either a steak or a big rack of ribs, with all the trimmings. But they’ll probably just give us hamburgers and chips,” I smirked.

  We started off away from the sports complex, across the grounds of Mayfield College, a couple of members of the opposing team joining us and engaging in friendly conversation. I saw Ben Wild fall to the back of the line, walking with Rupert Daniels, one of the boys on the fringe of belonging to the Clique, where he continued to chew on the bone of our defeat. I made no comment. The game was done, and it mattered little to me whether or not we won or lost. Winning was always good, of course, and there was a great feeling of returning to St Christopher’s and telling everyone that you beat your opponents on their home turf, but it wasn’t the end of the world if we didn’t. Instead, I listened to what the other boys were saying, as well as taking the opportunity to look around the grounds and see how everything differed from what I was used to.

  There were certain aspects that always remained consistent at other boys’ schools – the division in the junior and senior school, the ten, eleven and twelve-year-olds living and studying in separate buildings to those in the senior school, including their classrooms and dormitories. Our escorts to the post-match tea would usually answer questions that we had about the campus and the lifestyle, posing their own about what it was like studying at St Christopher’s.

  Today, however, my attention was on something else all together, as was everyone else’s – the girls.

  I passed several groups as we made our way to the coach, to offload our kit, before heading to the huge dining hall to eat. This wasn’t my first time at Mayfield, and I knew what to expect. I would often hear the girls before I saw them, their giggles and voices catching my ear well before they came into view. None of them were ugly; all goddesses in my eyes. Not even the act of regularly indulging myself in the beauties that adorned the pages of FHM, GQ, Club International, Penthouse, or Playboy had raised my expectations unduly. I tried not to stare. Failed. But there again, so did everyone else.

  Some of the girls waved and said hello to us as we passed them, the captain of the team we had played (and lost to) receiving the most attention. He was being earmarked to become a prefect when he moved to the sixth form, that much was clear to me, most likely also being considered for either head of house or head boy. I generally cared little for the power and purported grandeur that usually came with such a position. Here, however, I could appreciate the attention it would bring with it. To wear that scarf and badge that were presented to the head boy would surely prove a tremendous draw to the opposite sex.

  But there again, I intended on having my own attention-grabbing item once I left school – a car.

  ~ ~ ~

  “Are there only sixth form girls here?” Jeff Armitage, our fly-half, asked as we tucked into the hamburgers, chips, and beans that we had been served for tea. I saw too late that there were cheese slices available. Halfway through my burger, I would just go without.

  “No,” Tim, a redheaded Mayfield boy sitting opposite, said. “They’re here from the same ages as the boys – six till eighteen.”

  It was usual for us to sit mixed in with the team we had just played against, the teachers likely expecting us to talk about our studies and what we were aspiring to become when we eventually completed our education and embarked on a career. Talking shop, basically.

  “You start here at six?” I asked.

  “Yep,” Tim replied.

  “Damn, that’s a long time,” I said.

  “Some of the parents send their children here when they’re still only five,” Roland, a blonde, chubby-faced Mayfield boy, added with a chuckle. “Can’t wait to get rid of them, apparently. No, it’s mainly because of if their parents are in the army, who actually pay most of the fees.”

  I appreciated what was being said. There were several boys at St Christopher’s whose parents were in the army. The fees were paid in full by the service every term, leaving the family with but a small bill for any optional extras. Such as the World Film Club.

  “But some just send their children here early, so they can get back to work,” Tim said.

  I nodded at that. That had been my parents’ own reasoning.

  “What’s happened to your fingers?” Tim asked, looking at Sam, who was attempting to eat and cradle his hand at the same time.

  I glanced at Sam, and then to the boy who had apparently carried out the deed, a thick, stocky-looking guy. He was sitting on another table, with his back to me. I could hear his booming chuckles from across the spacious dining hall. I got the impression that he had almost certainly done it on purpose. He looked the type.

  “Oh, I think they might just be badly bruised,” Sam said, sounding reluctantly dismissive of the injury. “Just got bent in the scrum.”

  “Look broken to me,” Tim said. “Do you want me to take you to the nurse?”

  “No, it’s okay,” Sam said. “I showed it to our coach, and he said it wasn’t anything bad.”

  “If he’s anything like ours, then he probably hasn’t got a clue,” Roland commented. “Show it to your nurse or sister or whoever when you get back. They’ll probably have more of an idea.”

  “Thanks,” said Sam.

  Tim saw me once again glance in the direction of the apparent perpetrator. A few others on the table who had been paying attention to Sam’s injury also looked in that direction, Wild included.

  “Yeah, Bullock does that,” Tim said. “Doesn’t care as he normally gets away with it. Openly punched a guy in the face the other week, caused a nosebleed and everything. Said he was going for the ball.”

  “While playing against another school?” Wild asked.

  “No,” Tim shook his head. “During training.”

  “Jesus, what a twat.”

  “Are there more girls here than boys?” I asked, deciding to change the subject in case it should unexpectedly become heated. Wild could sometimes be true to his name and was something of a hothead. I had known him in the past to quite happily seize on the chance to start something.

  “A few more,” Roland answered. “There used to be more boys, but I think it’s about fifty-five to forty-five in the girls’ favour now. All the parents want to send their girls here now, and some of the boys’ dorms have become girls’ dorms as a result.”

  I saw the intrigue in my fellow team-mates’ eyes. Likely, they were thinking the same as me – more choice. While the idea of being in the presence of so many girls was novel to us, our hosts spoke as if it were quite normal. They seemed almost quite indifferent to be studying with girls. With all the questions we had been asking so far, we must have seemed quite desperate by comparison.

  “Do you all have girlfr
iends and that?” Wild wanted to know.

  “Some of us do,” Tim said.

  “Are you dating one of them?”

  “Sort of,” Tim said, again with the same air of nonchalance. “But it’s not really going anywhere. I’m leaving next year, too, so it’s sort of pointless.”

  “Why?” Wild asked, a little aggressively. “Why on earth would you leave here?”

  “I’ve been here since I was eight, and I want to go somewhere else. Oh, don’t get me wrong – it’s a good school, a very good school, but I just don’t want to be here any more,” Tim said with a shrug.

  I nodded again. I could tell that he and I would probably get along quite well if I had been at Mayfield.

  “What benefits do you get when you move into the sixth form?” I asked.

  “Probably the same as you,” Roland said. “Separate room, later bedtimes, an exclusive social centre, use the computers, that sort of thing.” He looked to my team-mates, who nodded.

  “The dormitories aren—” Armitage started.

  “HA HA! HO HO HO!” came the sound of Bullock’s booming laughter from the other table, drowning out what he was saying.

  “Sorry,” Armitage said. “So, are the dormi—”

  “HA HA HA HA HA!” Bullock’s laughter came suddenly again, the already loud noise added to by the boy slamming his hand down hard on the table he sat at, drawing the attention of all.

  Tim rolled his eyes. “No, the dormitories aren’t mixed,” he said, correctly guessing at what it was that Armitage wanted to know. “Girls and boys sleep separately. Although they’re mixed at Stormbridge ... have you heard of Stormbridge? Well, anyway, they’re mixed there until they’re twelve.”

  “Just before the girls start getting tits,” Roland grinned.

  We all laughed at that.

  “Do you play Stormbridge at all?” Tim asked.

  I looked to the others at the table, seeing the uncertain expressions on their faces. I had never heard of Stormbridge.

  “I don’t think so ...?” Armitage said.

  “They’re in Kent,” Roland said.

  “Oh, I don’t think we travel that far for our matches,” I said. “Usually just Sussex, Surrey, and Berkshire.”

  “So, it’s okay for you to get into a relationship, then?” Armitage asked.

  “Sure, as long as it doesn’t interfere with your work, then you’re okay.”

  “And the teachers don’t mind you snogging or anything?” Wild asked.

  Tim frowned, thinking of how best to answer the question. “Yes and no. As long as you’re not doing it where it’s obvious, if that makes any sense? They say the last thing they want is to be showing prospective families around the school and seeing us with our tongues stuck down each other’s throats.”

  “And your hand up her skirt,” Armitage smirked.

  “That’s a definite no,” Roland said, finishing what was left of his chips. He glanced in the direction of the servers, trying to get an idea of what was left and considering going up for seconds, if he was allowed.

  “You been caught?” I asked.

  “Not me,” he answered. Tim remained suspiciously quiet on that point.

  “Being seen snogging out in the open is bad for the school’s rep,” Roland finished.

  “That’s the same reason we get given for not smoking,” Sam said.

  “What happens with you if you get caught smoking?” another of the Mayfield boys, who had, up until that point, been concentrating on eating, asked.

  “We get fined about twenty-five quid, and they send a letter home to our parents,” Wild said bitterly.

  “Same here,” our hosts said, nodding to one another.

  “Actually, I think it’s thirty-five or forty now,” the previously silent one added.

  “Not sure,” Tim said.

  “It’s worse if we get caught with a porno,” Kerry Oldman, one of our team’s wingers, said. “They fine you, and then send a letter and the magazine home.”

  “They send the magazine home?” our hosts exclaimed. “Shit! That’s not good! I don’t think that’s ever happened here. Has that happened to you?”

  “Several times,” Oldman chuckled. “Not that my dad cares; he’s just happy to get back the part of his collection I nicked off him.”

  I chuckled while our hosts gaped, as they tried to fathom what Oldman was openly implying. Kerry often made me laugh. He was the self-confessed Porn King of St Christopher’s, having smuggled enumerable qualities of magazines and films (in one case hardcore) into the school, ever since the summer term of his first year. He had no problem with other boys knowing about his habit, but would attempt to keep it well hidden from the teachers. I was sure they knew about it, too, but they apparently always had problems catching him. The times he had been caught, he was exceptionally blasé about it. Despite the quip, I had to wonder what his parents really thought about him. Hell, for all I knew, perhaps they actually worked in the adult entertainment industry.

  “So, do you do dance nights with girls’ schools?” Tim asked. “One of the other schools said that they do.”

  “We don’t get to do that until next year, when we get into the sixth form,” Sam answered. “We get to drink beer then, too.”

  “But when you do get the dances, the teachers practically walk around with a metre stick all night and make sure you stay a certain distance apart from the girls,” Wild added bitterly. “I think Handjob gets really pissed if he sees you so much as holding hands, too.”

  “Wait, you get to drink beer next year?” Tim asked. “How old are you?”

  “Fifteen, sixteen,” Sam said.

  Tim looked a little baffled. “How are you allowed to drink beer when you’re sixteen?”

  “Oh, it’s a special agreement with the local council when we get into the sixth form,” I informed him. “We can’t actually drink until we’re seventeen, and even then we’re not allowed to buy it. We have to get someone who’s eighteen to do it for us.”

  “But how?” Roland asked, still understandably confused. “You’re under eighteen.”

  “Oh, it’s completely legal,” Sam said. “You’re not allowed to buy beer in this country until you’re eighteen, but they let you drink it when you’re seventeen. They give us cider at house parties when we’re sixteen, too.”

  “You’re American?” Tim asked Sam. He had clearly picked up on Sam’s subconscious insertion of the phrase ‘this country’ into what he had said.

  “From Texas,” Sam nodded.

  “You can’t drink until you’re ... twenty-one over there, right?”

  “Really?” I asked. It was the first I had heard of it.

  “Yeah,” Sam said. “That’s why I’m glad to be over here. I’m not going to go back home if I can help it.”

  “So, what happens here if you get caught fucking?” Armitage finally asked the one question that was at the forefront of all of our minds.

  “We get expelled,” the once-quiet boy said bluntly.

  “What?” the St Christopher’s side of the table erupted at once. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously,” the boy said, finishing his plate and pouring himself some orange juice, offering the jug to everyone else after he had done so. “They don’t like that at all. They tell you when you start here not to do it. ‘Sexual practices between pupils are forbidden and will result in immediate rustication’,” he added, taking a gulp of his juice and sounding like he was quoting the school rules precisely.

  “What if you’re doing it outside of term?” I asked.

  “Oh, well that doesn’t matter,” Tim said. “They can’t tell you what not to do when you’re at home. They just don’t want you to do it when you’re here.”

  “Has anyone been caught? Recently, I mean?”

  “It doesn’t happen as often as you’d think,” Tim said, looking to the two others at the table, who shook their heads. “I seem to remember it happening a lot when I first started, but that could’ve
just been something said to scare us. One of the sixth formers got caught early last year, though. I remember that a girl got pregnant once and had to leave. One of the third years left around the same time, so we think he might’ve knocked her up. That was ages ago, though. But otherwise, no. I think only two or three have ever been expelling for it since I’ve been here. Just don’t get caught.”

  “I’m not sure where you could go to do it, to be honest,” I said, my mind wandering and thinking back on all the places we had passed. Of course, there would be plenty of places that I didn’t know about, having only seen a fraction of the school and what the grounds had to offer. I was still somewhat staggered by the size of the place. It was easily twice as big as St Christopher’s.

  “Classrooms, after midnight. The sports complex, if they’ve forgotten to lock it,” Tim said.

  “Some of the science labs,” Roland said. “The woods, if it’s not too cold. Your own room, if you’re a sixth former and a lot of people are away for the weekend, so no one can hear. Well after midnight is a good idea, in that case, too.”

  “Sometimes even if you’re not a sixth former, your dormitory is empty and you can get across the quad without being seen,” the previously silent boy said. “Sometimes even if the dorm isn’t that empty and you won’t wake anyone. The toilets, if you’re sure no one is going to come in ...”

  I sat there in silence for a moment, as did all my team-mates, slightly flabbergasted by what our hosts had just said.

  “You seem to know a lot on the subject,” Armitage eventually grinned at them.

  Our hosts said nothing, and merely grinned back.

  ~ ~ ~

  The conversation eventually transitioned to more routine shop talk – comparing facilities, subjects, rules, teachers, and other such things. Usually, I would pay little attention, more interested in filling my belly that would be growling out for food after finishing a game. But today felt different somehow.

  I discovered that Tim was planning an escape much like my own, planning on attending a sixth form college in London, so he could concentrate on his preparations for his law degree. He figured that he would establish better contacts in London, and that would springboard him higher and faster towards achieving rapid success. I made a number of mental notes as Tim spoke, and by the time everything was done and we were getting back on the coach, I had a slightly better idea of what I wanted to do with my life. All I had to do was get through the next two and a half terms at St Christopher’s.