The Red Road

by Stephen Sweeney

  “Did you ask him in French?”

  “Yeah, and he ignored me.”

  “Wanker,” I said. “Just as long as I don’t have him for the actual exam next term.”

  “You probably will,” Dave said, dodging around a group of first years coming the other way, who looked as though they were about to pass out from the stress of the run at any minute. “Apparently, they like to keep the teacher the same, so you can know what to expect.”

  “Oh, Christ,” I said. “Well, that’s my French exam failed.” In my mind’s eye I saw my application to BSFC being rejected due to the D grade sticking out on the paper like a sore thumb.

  We continued on, Sam causing us to have to stop a couple of times. He looked as though he was going to vomit. Despite the stops, I was quite surprised to see that there were still a number of boys yet to complete the first leg of the run. Baz and I had clearly been making good time when we started. Most of those yet to reach the checkpoint were first and second years though, so perhaps not.

  “What mocks have you got left to do?” Dave asked.

  “Just chemistry,” Baz said. “I’ve got that tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Me too,” I said. “I’ll get some revision in when we get back.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Someone had taken my towel. I thought that was a trick only played in the first and second years of your senior school. I peeked out the shower room, looking about the changing rooms to see if I could find where it had gone. Perhaps someone had taken it in error and, realising their mistake, had just dumped it out there to save themselves embarrassment. Nothing. It had likely been taken intentionally.

  I didn’t think that Baz would have moved it; he was beyond doing stuff like that. I would have asked someone else to go to my dorm and bring me back a spare, but I was alone. I considered staying in the shower a little longer until another boy showed up, but there was a distinct lack of hot water. It was tepid, and I was starting to feel a little cold. I wondered where Sam was. Probably still passed out on his bed. There was only one thing for it – I was going to have to run for the third year dorm with my hands covering my crotch. I made to do so when the door of the shower room was shoved open and three fully-clothed boys came striding in. Sixth formers.

  “So, you think you’re pretty fucking cool, do you, Crosthwaite?” Craig Priest asked. “Attacking me in public like that?” He was flanked by two others from his year, Justin Murphy and Orson Bishop. Bishop made a show of cracking his knuckles.

  My stomach flipped, and I felt a spike of adrenaline rush through my body, my heart rate increasing. I had never found myself in such a situation before, though it was very clear what was about to happen. That was why my towel had gone missing, and also why no one else had come into the shower block. The three, perhaps even four, one more still standing outside, were preventing anyone else from coming in until Priest had had ‘a word’. They had most likely threatened one of the younger boys into taking my towel, to stall me for a bit. This wasn’t good, not good at all. I made to get around them, but the three were blocking the exit. Windows presented the only other way out, but high up as we were in the main school building, that meant a thirty or forty-foot drop to the ground.

  “Don’t think you’re going anywhere,” Bishop said, grabbing me, turning me around, and shoving me back into the communal shower block.

  “Do you like touching naked boys?” was the only immediate retort I could think of. “You can go to prison for that sort of thing you know.”

  “Shut the fuck up!” Priest said, grabbing hold of my hair and jerking my head about. “That was a really stupid thing you did the other day, and you need to be taught a lesson!”

  “Get the fuck off me!” I shouted at him, raising my voice enough to hope someone would hear without directly calling for help. No one did.

  Priest pulled my hair tighter, his face red, his eyes narrowed and fierce. “Do you think you’re hard, do you?”

  “No, I’m not gay. You might be, though. Touching me has probably given you a semi already.”

  I had no idea why I said that. Perhaps it was because of the conversation I had had on the Road with Dave and Baz. The next thing I knew was that Priest had punched me in the face, hard. I cried out and scrabbled at his hands, to try and stop him from delivering another blow. Bishop and Murphy moved in to help restrain me, and, with my hands held behind my back, Priest punched me twice more in the face.

  “FUCK OFF!” I shouted at him.

  The three said nothing, and Priest punched me again in the face, my vision starting to blur, my head spinning. I slipped on the wet floor, lowering my head to try and avoid further blows, feeling my legs become wobbly. Another blow came, striking the left side of my face, followed by a punch to the stomach that immediately winded me. I then felt one of my arms slip free, whichever of the sixth formers holding me unable to maintain a grip on my wet skin. The second arm followed, and I leapt out of the way, stumbling and skidding along the floor. A kick meant for my groin missed, the shoe scraping up my thigh and razing the skin there, leaving a dirty black print in its wake. I could have made a run for the door, but instead I rounded on the three. My face was burning, blood running down my nose and out of my mouth, where I had split and bitten my lip. Anger had made me choose fight over flight.

  “Get him!” Priest instructed Bishop and Murphy.

  At that moment, I pounced directly for Priest, knocking him down. His head smashed against the wall of the shower, with a loud crack.

  “Arghh!” Priest cried.

  I was on top of him the next instant. He appeared dazed for a moment, only just focusing on what was happening.

  “Get the fuck off him!”

  “Come here, you prick! We’re going to fucking kill you!”

  I felt Bishop and Murphy again trying to grab hold of me, but they were once more struggling to maintain a purchase on my skin. It wouldn’t be long before they did, however. I looked down into Priest’s face. If he was going to leave me bruised and bloodied in the shower for the rest of Butcher House to find, then I was at least going to give him a bloody nose for his trouble. I drew back a fist to do so, when something else overtook me, and instead of punching him in the face, I drew back both hands and brought down two fingers each directly into his eyes.

  The effect was immediate.

  Priest screamed in agony, and before I knew what had happened, I had trust my fingers into his eyes once more. Both Bishop and Murphy stopped clawing at me and instead jumped back, shock clearly registering on their faces.

  “Arghh! My eyes! My eyes!” Priest started, covering his face and trying to escape. “I can’t see! Help! Help!”

  Bishop and Murphy remained rooted to the spot for a moment, unable to speak or do anything. Bishop then moved forward, pushing me aside and starting to sooth Priest.

  “Craig, are you okay?” he asked.

  “I can’t fucking see! Help me!” Priest responded.

  I watched as Bishop helped Priest up, only vaguely aware that I was lying on the floor of the shower block, bruised, naked, and with blood still running down my chin.

  “I’m going to take you back to Tudor,” Bishop said, starting out the shower.

  “No! Take me to the nurse! Quickly!” Priest wailed, his hands still covering his eyes, his voice quivering.

  “You took it too far, Crosthwaite,” Bishop said, looking back at me before he and Priest exited the shower block.

  “Too far?!” I spluttered, feeling the rage starting to return.

  “Yeah, you took it too far,” Murphy said. “We were just going to knock you about a bit.”

  “So, you guys you were going to knock me out or break my nose or my arms or whatever, and now that I defend myself, I’ve taken it too far?!”

  “You could have blinded him,” Murphy started.

  “Like I fucking care!” I shouted at him, getting to my feet, pushing him aside and starting back towards my dorm.

  There was a gathering
of other boys just outside the shower room, mostly first and second years, who had been disallowed entry while the three sixth formers corrected the case of insubordination.

  “What’s happened?” I heard someone ask as boys looked from me, to Orson, Priest and the expected fourth sixth former, hastening to the school nurse.

  “Just teaching someone an important lesson,” I responded, not caring that I was marching stark naked down the corridors of Butcher House. “A lesson in life.”

  ~ ~ ~

  I expected repercussions in the hours that followed from a group of Priest’s friends, who would have decided to finish what he had started. Repercussions came, but not in the manner that I had expected.

  “So, what was this all about, Joe?” my housemaster wanted to know.

  I looked to Priest, sitting next to me in Mr Somers’ office, his hands near his eyes. They were extremely red, and the pupils were wandering a little. Every now and again, he would touch gingerly at the swollen area and rub the eye socket itself very gently. I could appreciate how much it probably hurt. I had been hit in the eye by the tapered end of a rugby ball once. It had been painful for several days after, and I had been barred from contact sports for two weeks.

  “He attacked me in the shower, sir,” I said. “I defended myself.”

  “It doesn’t look to me like you were defending yourself,” Mr Hancock rumbled, eyeing Priest once again. The man was standing to one side, arms folded across just chest, just like a nightclub bouncer.

  “Sir, they attacked me and threatened to knock me out,” I countered, looking to both men.

  “I don’t think that’s what they would have done,” Mr Somers said.

  What? “Sir, look at my face!” I said, pointing to my swollen nose and the bruising that was still quite prominent there, it only being four or five hours since the incident. “I’ve got more on my legs and stomach if you want to see,” I added, making to stand.

  “Sit down!” Mr Somers snapped at me. “Joe, what you did is very serious. You could have put Craig’s eyes out and blinded him.”

  “Aren’t you going to ask him why he attacked me?” I snapped back. “Don’t you care? I didn’t do anything!”

  “Don’t answer back,” Mr Hancock warned me.

  “I will get to that in a minute,” Mr Somers said, seeing me glare at Tudor’s housemaster. “But right now, I need you to understand the seriousness of your actions. You pushed both your fingers into this boy’s eyes. That could have left him blind for the rest of his life. You might think that you were just defending yourself, but what you did was totally and utterly inexcusable.”

  “I did what I had to do,” I said.

  “No, you didn’t. There was no need for this.”

  “Yes, there was! There were three of them. They practically had me pinned to the floor.”

  “Joe, you’ve been warned already not to answer back.”

  That was a typical response from a teacher who could see they were already losing the argument. I looked at Mr Hancock, not finding him quite as intimidating as usual. “What would you have said if Craig had broken my nose and my arm? Would you have just let him off?”

  “We’re not here to discuss what I may or may not have done in a hypothetical situation,” Mr Hancock said. “We’re just here to deal with the facts.”

  Another damn typical response. The teachers were infallible in their decisions as always.

  Mr Somers looked to Priest. “Craig, why did you attack Joe?”

  “He attacked me first,” Priest said.

  I forced myself to remain mute. I swore that he was making himself sound a great deal more miserable than he was actually feeling.

  “When and where?”

  “The Marble Stairs, two weekends ago.”

  “That’s because you called me a ‘mistake’ and that my parents didn’t want me,” I retorted. “I only pushed you, too. It’s not my fault that you fell down the stairs because you’re so mal-coordinated.”

  “Joe ...” Mr Somers warned me to be quiet.

  “I thought there was a misunderstanding, and I was worried that Joe was going to attack me again, so I thought I’d go and clear the air.”

  My jaw flapped open. I couldn’t believe my ears. “No, you didn’t!” I glared at him, ignoring the gestures of silence from Mr Somers and Mr Hancock. “You were embarrassed that you fell down the Marble Stairs and started crying in front of the first years, and you thought you would come and ‘teach me a lesson’, as you put it.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Priest said, looking wounded between Mr Somers and Mr Hancock.

  “You did, and you brought Justin Murphy and Orson Bishop with you, too, to make sure of it. Why aren’t they here, too? They hit me as well.”

  “Joe, don’t sneak,” Mr Somers warned.

  “What? Sir, they attacked me as well,” I emphasised.

  “As far as I’m concerned, this is just between you and Craig,” Mr Somers said, as if not hearing me. “Now, is this all resolved? Because I don’t want to find you two back in here ever again, and neither does Mr Hancock want to find you in his office, either. The pair of you have both got very important things happening this term and next that you need to concentrate on. Joe, your GCSEs; Craig, your A-Levels.

  “I’m also still waiting on your UCAS application,” Mr Hancock reminded Priest.

  “I’ll give it to you when my eyesight is better. I’m going to have trouble doing some of my coursework and concentrating in class for a couple of weeks, I think,” Priest said.

  He was exaggerating, as the bullies of the school always did as soon as they turned victim. I wondered whether Mr Somers and Mr Hancock had seen through the feint, quite aware that he was clearly faking it, and were merely humouring him. Mr Hancock nodded but gave no comment.

  “Do you both understand what I have said to you?” Mr Somers asked.

  “Yes, sir,” we both mumbled.

  “Good. Now, Joe, apologise to Craig.”

  This man could not be serious. Priest had attacked me, yet I was expected to apologise to him?

  “No,” I said defiantly. “Not until he apologises to me first.”

  “Joe, I am this close to taking you to see the headmaster and recommending that you be rusticated for the next two weeks,” Mr Somers said, pinching his thumb and index finger close together, his tone growing angrier as the last thread of his patience threatened to snap. I could understand. Mine was nearly all gone, too.

  I looked at Priest, seeing him rubbing at one of his eyes and feeling sorry for himself, begging for sympathy. The act was lost on me, as it always had been; he would be struggling to contain a grin of satisfaction, I was sure.

  “Sorry,” I managed with all the sincerity that I could muster. I added nothing else. Both he and the housemasters looked to be expecting more. I wasn’t sorry to disappoint them there.

  “Okay, thank you,” Mr Somers said. “Anything you wish to add, Dean?” He looked to Mr Hancock.

  “No,” rumbled the big man.

  “Good. Okay, in that case you can go, Craig.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  No apology to me for having to go around the school for the next few days with a swollen nose and a puffy, black and blue face, then. I watched as Mr Hancock walked with Priest out of Mr Somers’ office, closing the door behind them. Mr Somers then looked back to me.

  “Joe, you’re one of the brightest pupils in your year, and I would hate to see things such as this tarnish your reputation. I’ll be honest with you. Up until today, I was strongly considering you for a prefect when you reached the upper sixth. I thought you could be a great role model and inspiration to others. After what’s happened, I’m not so sure.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I’m not planning on staying anyway,” I blurted out immediately.

  “Pardon?”

  “I said, I’m not planning on staying after I’ve finished my GCSEs. I’m going to do my A-Levels at another school, a sixth form colle
ge near home.”

  My housemaster looked a little taken aback. “Your parents haven’t mentioned anything to me about it.”

  “That’s because we’re waiting on the results of my mocks,” I said, telling a white lie.

  I then found some of my anger for Priest turning to anger at my parents for not being fully onboard with my plans to leave St Christopher’s. I wondered whether or not they would care about this little incident, should I tell them about it. Probably not. It was to be expected and came with the territory, they would no doubt say in their diplomatic fashion. Now that I thought about it, they had hardly battered an eyelid about Scott Parker’s murder.

  “I see,” Mr Somers said. “Well, I will have a chat with them about it, then.”

  Probably to convince them to keep me here, so the school can wring a few thousand more pounds out of them, I thought bitterly.

  “Can I go?” I asked.

  “Yes, Joe. And I would suggest you stay away from anything to with Craig Priest for the rest of term, if not the rest of the year.”

  Gladly, I thought as I got up. I paused with my hand on the door handle to the housemaster’s office.

  “So, I don’t get an apology from him?” I wanted to know.

  “As I said, I think it’s best that you keep away from Craig from now on,” Mr Somers said dismissively.

  I bit back the immediate fiery response, counting silently to five in my head as I let my temper cool.

  “Sir,” I said, once I felt I had my angry under control, “are you scared of people like Craig Priest?”

  “Just get out of my office, Joe,” was all that Mr Somers said.

  That basically meant yes. I added nothing more and returned to my dorm.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I found myself standing in a near pitch-black corridor. No elongated shadows, no shrieking voices, no goblins. I wasn’t dreaming, I was awake. I had been sleepwalking again. As with the previous times, I had somehow managed to put on my dressing gown. I was also wearing slippers on my feet. It took me a little while to work out where I was – Tudor House. I had entered through one of the side doors that apparently hadn’t been locked. I wondered if I had checked all the other doors first before coming to this one, or had just made straight for it. Whatever had happened, I shouldn’t be here.