The Red Road

by Stephen Sweeney

  His eyes flickered over each boy in the classroom, ensuring that we had all heard that last part. He continued on, “Paper will be provided for you, but you must provide your own pens and pencils, so make sure you have enough. You will not be allowed to get any more if you run out.”

  I saw others starting to immediately check their pens to ensure they were full, as well as ensuring they had adequate spares. Sam laid out a number of ink cartridges for his fountain pen, far more than were actually needed. I had stopped using fountain pens myself the previous year. In my opinion, they didn’t last as long as ballpoints. I also found that the ink was often too wet and fresh, dramatically increasing the smudge potential while writing. They also made my lettering come out a little too thick for my liking. But then, maybe I was just holding the pen wrong. It mattered little – ballpoints served me just as well.

  “If you need more paper, hold up your hand and ask,” Mr Hancock went on. “Please submit all the paper you use, even if you were just writing on it to make notes. It could be the case that your final answer is wrong, but your working out was partially correct. In some subjects, you would receive credit for that. Questions?”

  Anthony Simmons raised his hand. “Are we allowed to go to the toilet?”

  “I would suggest once only,” Mr Hancock said, with an edge of finality to his voice. “If you go too often, then you might be deemed to be cheating and fail.”

  “That’s not fair,” Simmons said, already with a trace of arrogance to his voice. “What if I have a weak bladder?”

  “Do you?” Mr Hancock growled.

  “Well ... I might do from nerves.”

  “As I said,” Mr Hancock reiterated, “you should go to the toilet only once. I would suggest that you go now if you need to, so that you don’t have to go at all during the exam.”

  “How long is the exam?” Ben Wild asked.

  “An hour and a half.”

  At that, a number of boys – mostly the Clique, I noticed – pushed back their seats and started out of the classroom. “Going to the toilet,” they all muttered as they went.

  “Can we bring our own notes?” Sam asked once everyone had returned.

  “No,” Mr Hancock said.

  “Can we use calculators in any of these exams?” I asked. Such things could come in handy when working out gradients.

  “Only if it says so on the paper. And you can’t use one today. If any of you have brought notes or calculators with you today, please hand them to me now. Again, if I see you with them after the exam has started, you will fail.”

  “What if we just leave them in our pencil cases under our desk and not use them?” Simmons asked.

  I wondered if he was attempting to wind Mr Hancock up and be awkward on purpose. Perhaps he was feeling exceptionally nervous.

  “As I said,” Mr Hancock rumbled, “if you do not hand them over now, you will fail. It doesn’t matter if they are in your pencil case or not.”

  At that, a number of boys began to unzip and open pencil cases, handing over their calculators and notes to the teacher to hold on to. A handful of other questions followed, before Mr Hancock prompted that it was time to get things underway. He handed out the exam questions, telling us not to turn them over until we were ready to begin. He then took his seat at the front of the classroom, declaring the exam start and end times, before finally telling us to start.

  I turned the paper over (more a booklet of about twelve pages, in actuality) and started to read. There were three sections. The first was a series of multiple-choice questions, something I hoped would prove a breeze. The second section contained a number of short questions. I caught a sample of an Ordnance Survey map, as well as the questions below:

  A) What is at grid reference 212452?

  B) How high is the highest point at grid reference 2043?

  C) What is the relief at grid reference 2244?

  D) What do grid references 2145 and 2341 tell us about the past activity in the area? Explain your answer.

  The final section was a choice between two different essays:

  1) Discuss the positive and negative impacts of tourism on an area.

  2) Describe the two main types of ecosystem, illustrating your answer with examples.

  I had a feeling I already knew which essay question most in the classroom would be answering. I cast my eyes briefly in Sam’s direction, seeing him looking fairly confident with what we were being tested on. At least one boy in the room, Francesco Reed, didn’t look at all confident, though. This didn’t surprise me. Despite it being his best subject, he had still always struggled with geography, being threatened with being lowered to the B stream a lot of the time. In fact, the poor guy seemed to struggle with most subjects.

  I knuckled down for the next ninety minutes, getting the multiple-choice questions out of the way, before plunging on into the second section and finally starting on the essay question. I finished about ten minutes early and sat spinning my pen around my fingers. I heard loud voices out in the corridor as a trio of sixth formers passed by. Two of them stopped to look through the window into the classroom, and I made eye contact with Craig Priest. He glared as he saw me.

  “You’re dead,” he mouthed through the glass.

  I made no reaction, even though I felt my stomach knot.

  ~ ~ ~

  “Who did you have for your French oral?” Baz asked me as we jogged along together.

  “Mr Bertrand,” I grated.

  “Oh, bad luck,” Baz said.

  “Yeah, he was being an even bigger twat than normal. I hope I don’t have him for the actual bloody thing. I swear that he speaks fast on purpose, just to piss us off.”

  “He’s actually French, isn’t he?”

  “They all are,” I puffed.

  “No, Mr Morin—”

  “Ha. It always sounds like you’re saying ‘moron’ when you say his name,” I laughed.

  “He is a bit thick though, isn’t he? How the hell is he a housemaster? Anyway, he’s not French. He can just speak it fluently.”

  It was surprisingly mild for January, I thought, many degrees higher than was normal. Hardly a freak heat wave, but a lot warmer than it rightly should have been at this time of the year. The snows that usually came with the season, blanketing the school with several inches of white, were notably absent. Being in the middle of the countryside, it was normally a lot deeper than in towns and cities, too.

  But no, the temperatures were apparently on the up, so much so that the teachers had decided that the running season could begin again. The afternoon’s rugby training had been cancelled in favour of the term’s first jog along the Red Road. The mocks had left me hungry for some reason, and so I had had a big lunch. I therefore wasn’t running too quickly as a result. It mattered little, as today I didn’t care for the time I made.

  “Who did you have?” I asked Baz as we passed by a number of second years who had shot past us earlier. They clearly didn’t have the stamina to maintain the pace.

  “Mr Lambert,” Baz said.

  “Bastard. Easy?”

  “Very.”

  “Gave you several attempts to get the answer right?”

  “Yep.”

  “I hate you.”

  Baz laughed.

  I looked around as I sensed someone moving up behind us and saw one of the sixth formers passing us by at quite a pace. For an instant, I thought it was Priest. Repercussions for the incident on the Marble Stairs were to come, I was sure. Thankfully, I found I was mistaken. I recognised the sixth former, but didn’t know his name or even the house he was in. Cookson, perhaps. He carried on past us without so much as a sideways glance. Maybe he was keen to get back to studying for his A-Levels. Or maybe he just wanted to get this over and with done with, so he could make the most of the free time that would follow.

  “He’s going fast,” Baz quipped. “Do you think that Neo Sesay has finished yet?”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me,” I said. “All the Af
rican guys here run bloody fast. I heard he finished the whole thing in twenty minutes the last time.”

  “Three miles in twenty minutes?” Baz spluttered. “Bollocks! No one can run that fast!”

  “He can,” I answered. “He can do the hundred metres in under eleven seconds.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  “Shit. How fast is the world record?”

  “About a second faster than that, I think.”

  “I wish I could run this thing that fast.”

  We continued on and soon passed the part of the Road where I had first seen the body of Scott Parker. I looked to it as we approached and over my shoulder as we went by. Baz looked to me as we did so, but I made no comment.

  I wondered how much further we had to go to reach the end. I had never really used any landmarks to help me measure the distance, and most of the Road looked the same to me. All I knew was that it ended in a steep incline. We overtook and were overtaken by other boys, some looking to be struggling with the task, others walking. Gradually, I began to see more and more boys coming in the opposite direction, indicating that they had reached the end. It wouldn’t be too much further for Baz and I from here, I was sure.

  “Hey, can I tell you something?” Baz then asked as we came to an empty stretch of road, no one in front or behind.

  Oh, Christ, I thought to myself. You’re not about to tell me that you think you’re gay, are you? That would be all I needed after being stressed out about my mocks.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “I’m probably going to be leaving at the end of next term,” he answered.

  “Really?” I said, automatically starting to slow.

  “Hey, don’t stop,” Baz urged. “I want to get this thing finished.”

  I picked up the pace once more, though I felt absurdly annoyed. One of my closest friends had just told me that he was planning on abandoning me. I knew I had no right to feel this way – I had been planning to do pretty much the same thing to them. At least Baz had had the dignity to tell me now. Though I had planned on doing so, I had yet to inform Mr Somers or the headmaster of my plans. I also wasn’t planning on telling anyone in my year until my departure was set in stone, which probably wouldn’t be until the summer term at the earliest.

  “Why are you leaving?” I asked.

  “Shhh!” Baz said, as Rupert Daniels came running in the opposite direction. The end was close, I was certain. If the often-laidback Daniels was more than halfway done, then we couldn’t have too much further to go ourselves. Baz didn’t say another word until Rupert had passed us.

  “Because I don’t like it here any more,” Baz resumed. “I want to do my A-Levels somewhere else. I want a car and to have more freedom. I also don’t want to do the lower sixth here because that year’s supposed to be a complete doss, and it absolutely won’t be if I’m here. Most importantly, I don’t think staying here is going to prepare you for the real world. We’re pretty sheltered.”

  True that. Other boys might rip into Baz for ‘being a thick cockney boy from South London’, but I often thought he was quite clued up about real life. Maybe that’s why some didn’t like him, because he wasn’t so deluded about what the real world was like.

  St Christopher’s was indeed like living in a bubble. We were told where to go, where to stand, how to stand, what to say, how to say it, when to say it ... All our meals and laundry were prepared for us, our shirts, socks and underwear ironed, sorted and brought to our dormitories, placed on our beds for us to collect. Sure, if I was living at home, then my mother would probably be doing largely the same thing, but still ...

  “Do you see what I’m saying?” Baz asked, picking up on my silence.

  “Yeah, yeah, I do,” I said.

  “You don’t think it’s a bad idea?”

  “No, not at all. What did your parents say? Were they okay with it?” I asked more for my own benefit than his. My initial confrontation with my parents over the topic had resulted in a cold shoulder from my mother, one that was only just beginning to turn. Phone calls home would result in reluctance from her to speak to me. She would have to get used to the idea, though.

  “It was my dad that suggested it,” Baz answered.

  “Really?” I said, somewhat surprised.

  “Yeah. He said that he went through the same thing and regretted not leaving after his O-Levels. He said that he had trouble adjusting to life outside boarding school and thinks we should only do it for a few years. He says it helps you to focus initially, but you shouldn’t do it for too long.”

  “Was he there for the same number of years as us?”

  “No, longer. He was there from when he was eight and didn’t leave until he was eighteen.”

  “Bloody hell.”

  “Tell me about it,” Baz puffed. “But you’ll have been here for almost that long when you’re done with your A-Levels, won’t you? This is your ... seventh year now?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “See? You should consider it, too.”

  I nodded but said nothing. We continued on in silence for a time, and I considered briefly if preparing for the real world was the real reason Baz was leaving. We were still in a recession, and St Christopher’s fees could be deemed an unnecessary drain on most families’ finances, no matter what the long-term gains of such an education might offer. Two boys had departed at the start of my third senior school year – Gareth and James Moyles. Gareth would have been in my year, James, the year below. The two had simply failed to show up for school, and Mr Somers, clearly tired of Butcher House’s constant nagging, had eventually informed us that Gareth and James were now attending a different school. Various theories were banded about by pupils, though all finally settled on the same conclusion – the Moyleses simply couldn’t afford the fees any more.

  “What do you think? Are you going to stay?” Baz asked.

  “Um, I don’t know,” I lied. “I’ve not really given it any thought. Hey, is it much further to the end?” I then asked of a boy coming the other way, keen to change the subject.

  “Just around that corner,” he said.

  We rounded the bend, and I saw at long last the hill leading up to the finish. Or rather, the halfway mark. We jogged up the hill, struggling a little with the incline and taking a short rest at the top. Mr Falcone ticked off our names and urged us to carry on instead of standing around. We headed back down.

  “What did you think I was going to tell you earlier?” Baz asked, as we started the long run back towards the school.

  “Er ...” I started.

  “You thought I was going to tell you I was gay, didn’t you?” Baz grinned.

  “No,” I said. I swear I heard a cockerel crow at that moment.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not gay. I’ve heard that Damien Sanderson is, though.”

  “What? Seriously?”

  “Uh huh,” Baz just smirked.

  “Who told you that?”

  “No one in particular; I just heard it mentioned a few times. It’s pretty obvious, though, he’s really camp. You can tell that he’s going to come out the second he gets to university. He’s always using loads of stuff for his skin, and he speaks really softly. He also looks gay.”

  “How can you ‘look’ gay?” I asked incredulously.

  “Oi, Joe, wait for us.”

  So busy had I been talking to Baz that I hadn’t seen Sam and Dave coming towards us. Dave’s knees were somewhat dirty and a little blooded. Baz and I slowed our pace, so that the two could get their names checked off and catch us up.

  “What happened to you?” I asked, looking at Dave’s knees.

  “Tripped,” Dave said.

  “No one punched you?” I asked again. It wasn’t unusual for boys to be attacked and roughed up on cross-country jogs. Here, on this secluded run, surrounded by woodland and away from the main roads, was an ideal place for a spot of bullying or revenge that would go unnoticed and unreported.

 
That and other things.

  “No,” Dave repeated. “I just caught my foot on a rock. I almost face-planted. Let’s keep going. I think it’s going to rain in a bit.”

  “Are you okay, Sam?” I asked.

  Sam nodded, but said nothing. He was panting quite hard. Usually fine with these runs (never one to ever complain, unlike most others), today he looked as though he was struggling with it quite a bit. I would let him puff his way to the end.

  “Hey, Dave,” Baz grinned, as we picked up the pace once more. “Do you think that Damien Sanderson is gay?”

  “Sanderson?” Dave asked. “Definitely! He’s joining the gay society of whatever university he goes to, for sure. He’s going to be the bottom of the couple, too.”

  “The what?” I asked.

  “The bottom,” Dave repeated. “There’s always two types with gay men – the top and the bottom.”

  “You know how with lesbians there’s always the butch one and girly one?” Baz added, seeing the bemused expression on my face. “Well, with gay men the bottom is the effeminate one, and the top is the big beefy one.”

  “Guys, that’s a stereotype,” I said. “I don’t think it’s actually like that in real life.”

  “And the girl in the couple is always the one that gets fucked,” Dave chuckled. “Damien is clearly the girl.”

  “I don’t really what to know,” I said, looking to move the conversation on to different subject. “Who did you have your French oral with, Dave?”

  “Why did you suddenly think of that?” Dave laughed.

  “Ha ha,” I answered sarcastically. “No, seriously, who?”

  “That bastard Bertrand.”

  “Ah. Me too. Spoke really fast for you too, eh?” I said.

  “Couldn’t understand a damn thing he was saying. I swear he only does that with people he doesn’t like. He’s a real cock. He wouldn’t repeat anything he said either, even when I asked him to.”