The Red Road

by Stephen Sweeney

“Who?” Marvin said, as the magazine continued to suffer the attention of Rob and his tussles.

  “Mr Davies, the A-Level economics teacher.”

  I had never heard of the man before. Quite likely, this was because he only taught the sixth form, and so I would have no interaction with him. It was possible that I had met him on the odd occasion, but I suspected that he only visited the school on the days he taught. There were a handful of teachers at St Christopher’s that could be described as part-time staff.

  “So, do you already know who you want to go and work for?” Marvin said, finally losing the struggle over the magazine to Rob.

  “I was actually thinking of working in America,” Carson said with a glance in Sam’s direction. “If I can get in.”

  “You’ll need a work visa or sponsorship,” Sam said.

  “You can’t just go?” I asked.

  “No,” Sam shook his head. “Employment laws in America are really strict. You can’t just fly over there and ask for a job.”

  “That’s the same with most countries, though,” Marvin said. “Except Australia.”

  “Except Australia?” Sam asked.

  “Yeah, there’s no one there. They always want people to come over and work there from what I hear. Especially teachers.”

  “So why do they always come to teach over here?” I chuckled, along with everyone else.

  “Because it’s boring out there. There’s nothing to do. Neighbours isn’t true to life,” Marvin said.

  “Shame,” Rob said, without looking up from GQ. “The girls on there are fit. I’d go tomorrow, if I could.”

  I motioned Carson to continue. “And if you can’t get into America?”

  “I’d work for one of the banks in London,” Carson said. “I’d like to work for Goldman Sach, but apparently the interview process is really hard and takes forever; they want to see you about ten times before they’ll let you work for them. So, I think that either Lehman Brothers or Bear Sterns would be a safer bet. Lehman isn’t as big as Bear, so there’s plenty of room for growth. And if you get in there fast, you can get shares and options that could be worth a fortune in about ten or fifteen years’ time.”

  Carson was sharing knowledge tonight of things I knew little or nothing about. I’d never heard of any of the banks he had mentioned, more common names to me being Barclays, Lloyds, Midland, TSB (the bank that liked to say YES!). I would just have to go with Carson’s explanation that they were safe bets. And if everything Carson was saying was true, then I knew I should take a serious look into this whole trading and economics thing myself.

  “I’ll just get into either of those after I graduate and stay there until I’ve made enough money to comfortably retire,” Carson added, leaning back in his sofa chair.

  “At thirty-five?” Rory joked.

  “Maybe longer, if I haven’t made enough to buy a second yacht,” Carson said with a grin. Now he was being sarcastic.

  There came a knock at the door, causing us all to fall silent. Only a teacher or a younger boy would knock. A prefect or other sixth former would simply barge in, not caring at all.

  “Come in,” Carson said.

  The door swung open and into the room stepped Father Thomas, ducking under the doorframe as he came. He was a tall man, originally from somewhere in Africa. He was somewhat intimidating to look at due to his height and what was often confused as a persistent scowl on his face. Speaking to him, however, one would discover that he was as harmless as a teddy bear. He also liked to laugh a lot. Most boys knew him as The B.F.G. as a result.

  Father Thomas smiled warmly as he saw us all sitting about. “It sounds like you’re all having fun in here tonight,” he chuckled.

  “We were just talking about careers,” Carson said.

  “Oh, jolly good,” Father Thomas said. “Planning on changing the world?”

  “Not as such,” I said as we looked from one to the other. “Making plans for the future, in case the recession never ends.”

  Father Thomas nodded, then said, “I see it’s almost time for evening prayers. Given that the headmaster has received some rather unpleasant news today, I would suggest you get back to your houses on time, so as not to find any reason to further upset him.”

  It was good advice. We left the evening there, heading back to our houses to prepare for evening prayers. Carson reminded us not to return, just in case we bumped into the headmaster on the way back. He also had work he needed to be getting on with. I chose to do some myself, spurred on by new thoughts of success and potential riches to come. I slept well that night, dreaming of lying on a mattress stuffed full of fifty-pound notes.

  Chapter Nine

  It wasn’t until late December that term ended, only a few days before Christmas. We would normally finish about two weeks before, but the discovery on the Road had pushed the end of term back a fair way.

  Christmas at home was a short holiday, the spring term starting in the first week of January, meaning I only had ten days off. My parents weren’t too inventive with their present that year, my mother quite proud of the new black shoes she had bought me.

  “They’ll look smart around the school, while you’re sitting your exams,” she said.

  I forced a smile and thanked her. I had been hoping for a Game Boy, but I guess my parents didn’t want me to be distracted from my studies. Next year, I would be asking for driving lessons as a combined Christmas-birthday present.

  I was pleased to discover that my parents didn’t appear to have ransacked my room since I had returned to school following the impromptu break. The prospectus from BSFC was still where I had left it under my mattress. I couldn’t help grinning as I retrieved it. Most other boys my age hid porn there.

  Recalling the advice Mr Finn, my personal tutor, had given me, I decided that now was the right time to tell my parents that I no longer wanted to attend St Christopher’s. How to go about it, though? For a time, I mulled telling them directly – just walking up to them while they were drinking coffee and letting them know. It felt a little blunt, though, and that wasn’t my style. But as I sat on my bed, trying to make up my mind as to how to approach the subject, my mother solved the problem for me.

  “Joe, I’m just popping to Waitrose. What would you like for dinner?” she said breezily, coming in with a glass of orange juice. “What are you reading?”

  At that moment, I felt that perhaps it would have been better if I had been caught with a copy of Club International in my hand. The feeling then passed, and I chose to state it as it was. “It’s the prospectus for the local sixth form college,” I said.

  My mother paused as if not hearing me. “What for?”

  “The prospectus for the local sixth form college,” I repeated.

  “Why do you have that?”

  “Because I want to go there next year,” I said.

  Again, my mother said nothing, clearly trying to work out if she was hearing me correctly or whether I was joking.

  “But you go to St Christopher’s,” she said.

  “I know,” I said, feeling a little more confident. “But I don’t want to go there any more. I want to do my A-Levels somewhere else.”

  She came over, taking the prospectus from me and beginning to leaf through it, already appearing thoroughly unimpressed. She paused on the pages where I had made notes and circled various items.

  “Is this because of the murder?” she asked. “Because the headmaster has assured us that the school is safe.”

  “It’s nothing to do with that, no,” I said.

  “So why do you want to leave?”

  “Because I’m bored of it.”

  “Bored?” She stepped back as though I had slapped her.

  “Yes, bored,” I said, a little more forcefully than I intended. “I’ve been there nearly seven years now, and I need a change.”

  “Oh, nonsense,” she said, though she continued to flip through the pages, scanning the timetable and course list at the back. “Don’
t be stupid, Joseph,” she eventually handed the prospectus back. “You go to a very good school, and you can’t leave.”

  This was exactly the situation that I wanted to avoid – one where my parents wouldn’t let me leave. It wasn’t as though they could physically force me to attend St Christopher’s. They were hardly likely to bind and gag me, shove me into the boot of the car and dump me at the school gates, along with my possessions. But with my mother’s immediate refusal to entertain my desires to move on from the boarding school I had attended since I was nine, it sure felt like it.

  “Catherine?” I heard my father then coming up the stairs. “Catherine, where are you?”

  “In here,” my mother replied, doing little to disguise the irritation in her voice.

  “Something wrong?” my father asked, as he saw the look on my mother’s face.

  “Ask him,” my mother said, nodding to me.

  “Joe, what have you done now?”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “He says he wants to leave the school,” my mother growled.

  “You don’t want to go back next term?” my father asked. “But we’ve already paid the fees. We’ve also been assured that that incident was a one off and won’t happen again.”

  “No, not next term,” I said. “I mean after I’ve done my GCSEs.”

  “After you’ve finished your exams?” my father said, looking to my mother.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You can’t.”

  “Why?” I asked, somewhat incredulously.

  “Because you can’t.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  “If you quit school now, what are you going to do? Get a job working the tills in the supermarket? Because that’s all you’re likely to get at sixteen.”

  “No, Dad,” I said, now offering the prospectus to him. “I want go here.”

  The look on my mother’s face remained one that could sour her orange juice, watching wordlessly as my father took the prospectus and began to study it.

  “Why do you want to go here?” my father asked.

  “He says he’s bored,” my mother quipped.

  “I am bored there,” I emphasised.

  “You can’t come and live back here,” my father said.

  “Why not?” Why the bloody hell not?! was what I really wanted to say.

  “Look, Joe, we don’t have time to talk about this now. Your mother and I are very busy today. You’re staying at that school until you’ve finished your A-Levels.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “No, I’m not. I’ll have been there nearly seven years by the summer, and it’s about time I went somewhere else.”

  “Joe, you’re staying at St Christopher’s until you finish your A-Levels,” my father repeated.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Joe, yes, you are.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Oh, Jesus Christ,” my mother said before stomping out of my room. “I’m making pork chops for dinner,” she said over her shoulder. “Tough if you don’t want them because that’s all I’m cooking.”

  “Thank you, Joe,” my father said, watching her leave. “Now it’s me that’s going to get it in the neck for the rest of the day.”

  “I’m going to let the school know I’m leaving at the end of the year,” I went on. “They only need a heads-up at this point. At least half of the third years leave when they finish their GCSEs, too, so it’s not unusual.”

  “You can tell them if you want,” my father said, handing back the prospectus, “but you’re not going to a different school, and that’s the end of it. Now, I have work to be getting on with.”

  Do you never switch off? I wondered as my father left me sitting in my room by myself. It was Christmas week, and they were both ploughing on as if it would kill them to stop for just one day. That was about as much as I was going to get out of them for now, I knew. I chose to let the subject lie and not bring it up again while I was at home. Sadly, it had put my mother (and subsequently my father) in a bad mood for the remainder of my holiday, and, somewhat ironically, I couldn’t wait to get away from home and back to St Christopher’s.

  Lent Term

  January 1992 – March 1992

  Chapter Ten

  I returned to St Christopher’s in the first week of January, to spend the spring term in the third year dormitory along with Baz, Sam, Anthony Simmons, Charlie Smith, Darren Smith (no relation), and Sebastian Silverman. Simmons and Charlie Smith were part of the Clique, and I generally had little to do with them. Darren Smith and Silverman were on the fringe, but stayed decidedly neutral in the Clique’s affairs. They were the type who would rebel in their own way, but were actually quite laid back. Simmons I was sure was in the school’s sights for becoming head of house when the time came; both the Smiths and Silverman would become prefects for sure.

  “How was Texas?” I asked Sam, as I made up my bed.

  “Hot compared to here,” he said. “About sixty-five degrees.”

  “Jesus!” Baz said. “That’s hotter than the Sahara!”

  “That’s Fahrenheit, you dickhead,” Simmons said. “It’s about sixteen over here.”

  “All right, calm down,” Baz snapped back at him.

  “Eighteen,” Silverman said, working out the difference as he continued toying with his scientific calculator.

  “Was it nice to be home?” I looked back at Sam, keen to avoid any arguments from breaking out already.

  “Cody was home,” Sam said, fiddling around with an AC adapter, so that he could plug his bedside lamp into the wall socket. “Rare that he gets any time off right now.”

  “Are they going to send him back to the Middle East again?” I asked.

  “Your brother’s in the Middle East?” Simmons said, somewhat indignantly.

  “Yeah,” Sam replied.

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s in the army, and that’s where they’ve sent him,” Sam said.

  “Fuck that!” Simmons scowled, trying to plump his pillows as Charlie and Darren sat on his bed, getting in the way. “I wouldn’t go.”

  “You can’t really refuse unless you quit.”

  “All right, well he could just quit.”

  “He wants to go there,” Sam tried again.

  “Why?”

  “To defend the country from Saddam Hussein,” Sam replied.

  I wanted to tell Sam not to bother arguing with Simmons, as it was clear to me that he was doing it just to wind Sam up. The Clique tended to have very high opinions of themselves, and generally considered things such as military service to be something that only stupid people did.

  “By going over there?” Simmons said. “Saddam Hussein’s not invading the US.”

  “Ant, give him a break,” Silverman said without raising his eyes from his calculator, which he was feeding equations into to generate a graph for his own amusement. “That’s his job and what he wants to do.”

  “Stupid job,” Simmons muttered. “Invading someone else’s country and getting shot at.”

  “Did you get nice presents?” I asked Sam, eager once more to change the subject. I didn’t want to put up with twelve weeks of tension on account of Simmons’ lack of appreciation of other people’s views, cultures and politics.

  “A Discman,” Sam said, picking up the device off the bed and offering it to me to look at. “It’s got an ESP of ten seconds and has a bass boost.”

  “ESP?” Baz asked.

  “Electronic Shock Protection. It means that if you jog it, it won’t skip.”

  “Cool,” I said, handing it back.

  “It’s sort of pointless given that I’ve got a stereo here that plays CDs,” he admitted. “But it’s what my folks bought me.”

  “Sure, but you can listen to it in the library, and it’s easier than stretching the headphone cord from your stereo to your bed,” I said, nodding to the distance between them.

  “So, they
’re definitely sending your brother back to the Gulf?” Baz then wanted to know, realising too late as I shot him a look to say it was a subject we should avoid for now.

  “My folks don’t want him to,” Sam said. “But he wants to go. He says he misses all the other soldiers when he’s not with them. He says he does get a little bored when he’s out there though, but he doesn’t really get on with being back in the everyday world right now.”

  “There’s a term for that, I think,” I said, clicking my fingers to try and remember. “Stockholm Syndrome?”

  “That’s the hostage thing,” Silverman said, without looking up from his calculator.

  “Institute something,” Baz ventured.

  “Institutionalised,” I said.

  “I’m not sure it’s that,” Sam shook his head. “Anyway, my mom and dad don’t want him going back because they say it’s far too dangerous out there. He’s been shot at a few times and was quite near an explosion that went off late last year.”

  “Did you tell your parents about what happened here? I mean, what really happened?” I asked.

  “They already knew, and they weren’t too keen on me coming back here this term, to be honest.”

  The statement got the dormitory’s attention, Simmons and the two Smiths paying Sam some attention, even Silverman looking up from his calculator.

  “Really?” I asked.

  Sam nodded. “They said they didn’t want me to be over here if that sort of thing was going to be going on.”

  “Yeah, but it was probably done by someone who likes little boys. Not something that’s going to bother us,” Simmons said, though he glanced to the two Smiths as he spoke.

  I found it odd how some talked about the murder as if it wasn’t a big deal, especially those in the Clique. That was the problem with those sorts of people – so long as it didn’t directly affect them or anyone close to them, they didn’t care; it was more of an inconvenience than anything else.

  “Do they know who did it yet?” Charlie Smith then asked, as Simmons turfed him and Darren Smith off his bed, so he could finish making it.

  “I don’t think so,” Darren Smith said. “I don’t think they’ve even got a suspect.”