‘Okay,’ he murmured, glancing over his shoulder, surprised he wasn’t hovering there behind him, wielding that cruel net. ‘You win. You always do.’
Chapter Twenty One
Daniel was shaking as he got out of the car. He stumbled towards the main building with its lowering granite walls, its grey slate roof, its huge squat chimneys, hungry to incinerate small boys. It was strange to see the school in such hot weather, when he remembered it as always being cold. He supposed there must have been summers, but his memories were of shivering on the games pitch, scratching frost off windows with a flinching fingernail, crawling out of chilly sheets on a raw November morning to face the shock of a cold shower. His first term had been especially bitter, and he was astonished how each day got slowly darker as the term snailed its way to Christmas, until dusk was falling at half past three, when it would still be dazzling hot in Lusaka.
He looked up at the drainpipes, in sore need of a coat of paint; the upstairs windows with their peeling, scabrous frames. The place had always been shabby – ancient buildings in a state of genteel disrepair – yet when he’d first arrived here, thirty-odd years ago, everything had struck him as bafflingly new: new clothes, new food, new words, new games, new tribe. He himself was a ‘new bug’, and new bugs must be broken in by various well-established methods. Live worms were dropped down their necks, and older boys would whip them round the shower-room, bashing them on the head with wet knotted towels (which might conceal an enamel mug or a cricket ball). And then there was his initiation, when he was led blindfolded and gagged through a large expanse of stinging nettles – still in his short trousers, of course. Afterwards, his so-called friends had taunted him unmercifully because he had never heard of stinging nettles, let alone set eyes on any.
Were the nettles still there, he wondered, stealing round the side of the building to see if he could find the site of that and other tortures. Probably everything would have changed after so many years. In fact, maybe the place was no longer a school at all, but had been turned into a hotel or conference centre, or sold to some developer who was about to pull it down. It certainly looked deserted, though of course it was the holidays, so the boys would have gone home. He had hated that word ‘home’, which his classmates used so glibly. They went home not only for the holidays, but each half-term as well, whereas home for him was restricted to the summer break, and so different from the others’ homes that it attracted yet more ridicule. So many aspects of his life were a source of deepest shame: he’d brought the wrong sort of tuck box, wore the wrong pyjamas, spoke the wrong sort of English, asked the wrong questions, and had the wrong sort of parents (who let him down still further by never actually visiting, giving rise to the suspicion that they were dead or even in gaol). Interesting, he reflected wryly, as he ambled down an overgrown path, that to be sent away to boarding school was regarded as a privilege, but to be taken into care was seen as a disaster. Yet both involved the same loss of normal family life, the same upheaval and emotional abandonment.
‘Excuse me!’ someone called – a well-modulated female voice behind him.
He swung round to see a middle-aged woman dressed in a business-like blue linen suit, her greying hair cropped severely short.
‘May I help you, sir?’ she asked, bearing down on him with a not entirely convincing smile, the ‘sir’ tinged with a slight irony. He noticed that the blusher on her face, which gave her cheeks a youthful bloom, was undermined by the age-lines round her eyes.
‘I’m s … so sorry,’ he began, his boyhood stutter instantly returning as he realized he was trespassing and might be ordered to report to the Headmaster for a ‘beato’. He blurted out a few names and dates to justify his unauthorized arrival: he had been at the school from 1960 to 1971, when Dr Robert Hamilton was Head, and had started off in Raleigh House, the preparatory department, under the ex-professional cricketer, Mr Baines.
‘I …’ I do apologize for just breezing in like this, but I happened to be in the area and thought it would be rather fun to pop in and see the place again.’
Fun? His enthusiastic chirpy tone seemed to emanate from someone else – some clown in a sitcom for whom school life was all midnight feasts and jolly-hockey-sticks. But it had evidently paid off: the woman was visibly thawing as she saw that he was a bona fide old boy, rather than an intruder.
‘I wondered if it would be possible to have a quick look round – see my old dormitory in R … R . . Raleigh House.’ God! That infernal stutter wouldn’t help his cause. The woman’s expression had become dubious again, as if she might be content to let him wander round the grounds, but was reluctant to admit him to the inner sanctuary.
‘Well, I’ll have to ask Major Potts. He’s the assistant bursar. We’re the only two here at present, and I’m afraid we’re very busy.’
He apologized again, feeling afresh that sense of being perpetually in the wrong, which he was sure the school would have managed to instil in Albert Schweitzer himself. He followed the woman back along the path, stopping abruptly as she stepped through a small side door and motioned him to follow. She could have no idea how intimidating it was for him to step over the threshold. He was the rabbit approaching the trap, the bird fluttering into the snare.
‘Do come in. The office isn’t far, and it’s much cooler inside than out.’
He returned her still half-hearted smile, steeling himself to walk inside. In a flash the season changed. It was winter again and everything was cold – cold stone walls, cold floorboards underfoot, cold north light filtering through cold uncurtained windows. He was assailed by familiar smells of chalk, boiled cabbage, wintergreen, and it was some moments before it dawned on him that he was actually smelling nothing more than a faint whiff of sweetish face-powder. The woman had come back for him, frowning impatiently as he stood frozen in the doorway. How could he explain to her that he was petrified by those long-dead headmasters, sneering from their elaborate gilded frames? He had forgotten how they patrolled this stretch of corridor; their gimlet eyes swivelling round to follow any unfortunate wretch who dared to have his tie askew or his socks around his ankles. He kept expecting to see the boys – not one, but tramping hordes – to experience that panic at being herded along in a scrum of jostling strangers, all bigger, brasher, louder than himself. But the place was utterly deserted, only the woman’s brisk tap-tapping footsteps disturbing the grey silence.
She seemed to be pulling him in her wake, compelling him to march along at her own no-nonsense pace, when he needed time to let his fears disperse. And so many half-forgotten things were diverting his attention – these ornate wooden scrolls listing all the school prefects since 1886; those chilling rolls of honour inscribed with the names of old boys killed in both world wars. He remembered other names: of torturers, of cronies, of sadistic masters now rotting in their graves. And he was still smelling smells not there – sweaty plimsolls, tepid watery cocoa, spilt ink, wet beds; the smell of cold and fear.
He made himself walk faster. The woman was waiting for him to catch up, and had stopped at a wood-panelled door further along the corridor.
‘This is Major Potts’ office. Would you wait outside a moment please, while I go and have a word with him.’
He nodded deferentially, feeling the self-same surge of guilt which used to churn his stomach as he stood outside the Headmaster’s study waiting for a caning. He paced up and down, up and down, trying to distract himself by studying the school photographs arranged in serried rows on the wall, and dating from the 1920s. The boys themselves were also arranged in rows, and all reduced to conformity by identical grey blazers, uncompromising haircuts and expressions of dazed solemnity. In the more recent years, black and white gave way to colour, but there were still no individuals – no spiky-haired punks or oddballs – and not much colour anyway beyond that sea of grey, grey, grey. He returned to the older photos and found himself aged twelve, looking ridiculously young: skinny legs, childish rounded face, dark unhappy eyes.
He drifted to the window and glanced at his reflection in the pane, noting the changes wrought by almost thirty years. The eyes were still unhappy, but the face – thank God – had lost its vulnerability, its unhealthy, haunted air. Indeed, he was relieved to see he looked reasonably presentable, and not the tramp of several hours ago. If he had turned up here unshaven and unwashed, he would have been turfed off the premises without any more ado. Perhaps JB had stage-managed that as well. After all, it did seem rather odd that a waitress in a pub should offer him the use of a room with so little prompting. He had accepted it at the time as an opportunist bid for custom, but now he was less sure. If the healer had the gift of restoring sight, then luring him to Greystone Court in a salubrious and well-groomed state would scarcely tax his powers.
‘Mr Hughson?’ a voice boomed from the door. Daniel straightened up instinctively when confronted with the imperious figure stepping out to meet him. The Major’s cursory handshake was no more than a formality. In the fleeting moment of contact with the cool, dry, bony hand, Daniel registered how hot he was himself – his palm unpleasantly clammy, his shirt sticking to his back.
‘The name’s Potts – assistant bursar. Come in a moment, will you?’
Daniel entered the spacious office with a growing apprehension. Had they been checking on his records, unearthed some heinous crime? In fact, he’d won a scholarship to Cambridge – and scores of other prizes before that – but academic prowess was of minimal importance here. There might be other records: of his secret rebellious thoughts, his plans to burn the school down, shoot the physics master. And what about the notorious Black Book, which, rumour had it, listed all the pupils’ sexual peccadilloes? No one had actually seen it, but it had always loomed in his imagination – every page covered with a scrawling mass of horrendous accusations.
‘Take a seat, Mr Hughson.’ The Major nodded to a chair. Daniel sat obediently, looking down at his shoes, which were dusty from his long day out. An ex-military man would expect highly polished shoes; hair cropped to a well-disciplined length, like those shorn boys in the photographs. He would also highly disapprove of runny noses, and Daniel realized to his horror that he had left his paper hankies in the car. He sniffed surreptitiously, praying that the Major would turn his back or walk over to the window, which would give him a chance to wipe his nose on his sleeve.
‘I believe your father was a friend of the Reverend William Hanbury-Webber. I never knew him when he was chaplain here – before my time, I’m afraid – but I understand he was quite a saintly man.’
Daniel nodded, composing his face into what he hoped was an expression of respectful gravitas. So they had been checking up on him. The Major asked him next about his time in Raleigh House (where the brutal Mr Baines had wielded the cane with as much zeal and professionalism as he’d once shown with a cricket bat). Daniel uttered some inanity about his early love of sport and how Mr Baines had encouraged it. He could see clearly now that this was indeed a vetting process, so it was in his own best interests to answer the questions as politely as he could. He also made a conscious effort not to slouch or cross his legs, and to keep his voice considerately low, to avoid disturbing the woman who’d brought him here. (She must be the bursar’s secretary, since she was working at an adjoining desk – a much smaller and less imposing affair than the Major’s mountain of mahogany.)
‘Anyway,’ the Major concluded, rising from his chair and thus presumably satisfied with the results of his inquisition, ‘I understand you’re keen to see your old dormitory in Raleigh House. Of course, you’ll find a lot of changes, but I trust you‘ll find they’re changes for the better.’
Daniel sprang to his feet on cue, again making the right gratified response. He offered the woman a silent smile of thanks as Major Potts ushered him through the door, but the smile went unacknowledged.
‘I’ll escort you to Raleigh, Mr Hughson, then I’m afraid I’ll have to leave you to your own devices. Unfortunately I’m extremely busy, and I’ve already kept Mrs Austin late. She only comes in part-time in the holidays, and I don’t like to take advantage of her.’
Another reprimand, thought Daniel, as he strode along the corridor, trying to keep up. It was he, not the Major, who had kept Mrs Austin late, ‘taken advantage’ of them both. Yet uppermost in his mind was the terrifying sense of being led deeper and deeper into a dark confining labyrinth, with no means of escape. He became aware that the Major was talking to him, and tried to pay attention; express his admiration for the just-completed art block he was being proudly shown. There had been changes, yes, but they were strictly superficial. A coat of paint here, a new facility there, dwindled into insignificance when compared with what was still the same – the hostile echoing corridors, the lack of any softening touch such as pictures, curtains, easy chairs; the bleak grey quad (with not a tree in sight) which led across to Raleigh.
The Major was frowning at the door, his fingers flicking expertly through the heavy bunch of keys. ‘I shall have to get our caretaker to take a look at this lock. I remember it sticking the last time I tried it. It probably only needs a drop of oil.’
The door creaked as he pushed it open. Daniel, too, gave an inward groan as he stepped into his past once more, hardly daring to look up.
‘You’ll find most of the other doors inside are open. We don’t tend to lock the dormitories or classrooms, because, frankly, there’s nothing in them to steal. We remove any valuable equipment and store it during the holidays in our strongroom.’
Was that a warning, Daniel wondered, in case he himself might be planning petty larceny? He remembered school assemblies when the Head would make an accusation: ‘somebody (and that boy knows who he is)’ was guilty of ‘removing’ a brand new leather sports bag from the junior locker-room. Invariably he would blush to his ears, feeling the finger of suspicion pointing to his own squirming form. He had never actually stolen so much as a toffee or a ruler, but the more scarlet and contorted his face, the more conclusive was his guilt.
Even now, he knew he was flushed, though as much from heat and fear as guilt. Major Potts, in contrast, appeared enviably cool. Despite the sultry weather, he was wearing a three-piece suit with a stiff white shirt and formal tie. Yet he betrayed no hint bf discomfort; his clothes immaculate, his face imperturbably pale.
‘I’ll leave these keys with you, Mr Hughson. Can you please be sure to lock the door behind you, then drop them back to my office? And I’d appreciate it if you could return by half past five. I have to get off prompt today.’
‘Y … yes, of course,’ Daniel stuttered, adding a belated ‘Sir’, and realizing to his discomfiture that he should have called him ‘Sir’ throughout the interview. More black marks – this time for disrespect. Yet, as he watched the lordly figure stride back across the quad, he was almost sorry to see him disappear. Now he was on his own, with no distraction from his fear. Yet how shameful to be frightened of walking into a perfectly ordinary building, which didn’t even look as big as he remembered it, and by no means as oppressive. Raleigh House had been built on a less daunting scale than the main school buildings and the seven Senior Houses, and was definitely less bleak inside. Yes, here was the small entrance-hall, with the staircase leading off it, and the Day Room and the classrooms at the back. He paused to get his bearings, noting the new lino and the almost-cheerful orange walls. The huge noticeboard which covered one side-wall displayed nothing more alarming than games fixtures and duty-rosters, lists of dormitory monitors and details of various school activities and clubs. A portrait of Sir Walter Raleigh, with high-domed forehead and pointed beard, hung on the opposite wall. That was a new acquisition, as was the table-tennis table in the large though shabby Day Room, the television set, and the squashy vinyl chairs in a shade of ardent marigold, which seemed blasphemous in their hedonistic brilliance. Changes for the better, as Major Potts had said.
Further such changes awaited him upstairs: duvets on the beds instead of scrawny blankets; even a
cuddly toy, for heaven’s sake – a goggle-eyed giraffe which must have been left behind by its owner. He remembered some godforsaken new bug turning up, aged seven, with his teddy bear. The bear had lasted half an hour before being ceremoniously dismembered and drowned in the school pond. When the bereaved child howled his protest, he was threatened with a similar fate. But perhaps nowadays it was no longer de rigueur for the under-nines to put away all childish things.
Blast! His nose was running again. He dived into the washroom to fetch a length of toilet paper. The place had been modernized almost beyond recognition – no longer the cesspit he remembered, with its growling water-pipes and total lack of privacy, but a pleasant blue-tiled shower-room which would do justice to a leisure centre.
He walked on to the end of the passage to search out his own dormitory – the one he’d been allocated at the start of his first term, when he, too, was only seven. He stood in the doorway, hardly seeing the brightly patterned duvet-covers, or the prints of ships around the walls. This room could never be brightened, never modernized. The pain and grief it contained would seep through any whitewash like fungus on damp stone. He had realized on his first night here that his life was over. Officially, he had eleven more years – an eternity of wretchedness which would be impossible to endure. He had lain awake, considering how to end it all: he could starve himself to death, or take some sort of poison, or jump from a top-floor window. But all such things were against the rules. You had to eat up every scrap of every meal; all medicines, let alone poisons, were kept strictly under lock and key, and all top windows barred. But although he himself had lived, hope had died within him, and from that day on he had walked around weighed down by its corpse.
God – what pretentious rubbish! He turned on his heel and marched back down the stairs. Children as young as seven didn’t harbour thoughts of suicide. He was merely indulging in self-pity again. Perhaps that was the reason JB had brought him here – to make him see that he’d got the whole thing out of proportion, blown up a few privations into a reign of unadulterated terror.
Breaking and Entering Page 31
