He seated himself in the Day Room on one of the orange vinyl chairs and looked out at the lawn, parched and brown in patches, but as meticulously clipped as the Major’s iron-grey hair. Beyond it stretched the games fields – rugger and cricket pitches, tennis courts, athletics track. Despite his effusions to the Major, he had never excelled at any sport, except long-distance running, which had given him a welcome chance of being on his own. He gazed beyond the grounds to the surrounding countryside, trying to remember exactly where he had run, but recalling only the tight bursting feeling in his chest as he pounded up a hill or through a wood. The horizon was a blur of bluish-grey; clouds beginning to build; the week of sultry weather threatening to explode in rain. He closed his eyes, feeling utterly wrung out. The strain of being here at all had left him like a rag doll, spineless-limp.
He slumped back in his chair, half-drifting into sleep; memories and images floating through his mind, forming and reforming like the fractured shifting colours in a kaleidoscope. Except the colours were all grey – the grey of ash, of rain. He could hear rain drumming softly in his head, then – suddenly – a different sound: muffled shouts outside the window from the rugger match in progress. He fumbled in his pocket for another square of toilet-paper, mopped his sore red nose. He had been let off games this afternoon on account of his bad cold, and was making the most of being on his own, allowed to sit and read without the usual tormentors snatching his book and calling him ‘Snot-nose’. It was far too wet for games – a drizzly February day with a cutting wind and a dank greyness in the air, making him feel that the English sun (which had scarcely put in an appearance all the term) had now gone for good and been buried in its grave.
He rubbed the misted pane and peered up at the clouds – big bulging mounds of them, like the mounds of stodgy dumplings which sat heavy on the stew each Tuesday, and were covered with a greasy scum. Despite the winter, he wasn’t cold at all today, but boiling trembly hot, as if he’d been simmering in the stew himself, trapped beneath the dumplings. His clammy hands were sticking to the book and little prickles of sweat were making his nylon shirt feel horribly slimy. Perhaps he had a temperature, or maybe the radiators were turned too high (although usually they were only lukewarm). Anyway, the room was stifling – but you weren’t allowed to open windows, not without permission.
He moved closer to the window, laid his forehead against the cooling glass. He was surprised at the power of the rain – not so much today, when it was only really spitting, but other days when it wham-slammed down, flooding drains, overflowing gutters, transforming dull slate roofs to glistening black. He liked to watch the puddles in the quad: fresh rain lashing into them in frenzied hissing circles; puddle merging with puddle like amoeba under the microscope, until tarmac changed to lake. And of course every-one was off games then, a whole herd of them imprisoned, becoming ratty and impatient as rain steamed all the windows, built up a cocooning fug.
He turned another page of his book, a really super story about two boys called Tim and Kipper who lived in the wilds and dressed in animal skins. He glanced down at his own grey-clad legs. Thank goodness he had gone into long trousers. That had happened last September, when he was eleven and three-quarters. Shorts were fine in Zambia, but not here in Wales, where winter ran its icy hands up and down your bare legs.
He skipped a boring passage of description, to get to the exciting bit where Kipper had to fight a wolf single-handed. He continued reading, pausing now and then to blow his nose, but only looking up when an extra loud cheer erupted from the rugger game outside. Then, suddenly, behind him, he heard the door-knob turning and footsteps coming in – the sort of slow and scary footsteps only grown-ups had. A low voice spoke his name.
He sprang to his feet, wondering what new crime he had committed. Perhaps he shouldn’t be reading, or shouldn’t be alone, but Mr Baines had said particularly that he was allowed to read in here, and that he needn’t go to the Sick Room unless Matron decided otherwise. So why had Mr Sayers come to find him? He didn’t like the new chaplain, though he wasn’t half as strict as Hammy-Webb (who had left last year to be a missionary in Borneo). In fact, Sayers tried to be matey and made God sound like a nice kind Uncle who was always shelling out pocket money and ordering ice-creams all round. But since you never saw the ices or the cash, it was all a bit of a chizz, and he almost preferred Hammy’s tight-fisted God. Where Hammy-Webb was beaky-thin, Sayers was flabby-fat, with a loose and jowly neck, and a paunch pushing out the waistcoat of his baggy old tweed suit (which was a nasty dirty-green colour like the mould you got on bread). His voice was flabby, too – a mixture of slugs and hymns – and the hair around his bald patch was straggly-grey and stained yellow at the ends.
‘Ah, Hughson, there you are! You’re off games, today, I gather. I thought we could take the opportunity to go through your Divinity prep. You did jolly well, by the way, but there are just one or two points I’d like to go over in more detail.’
Daniel shut his book. Shouldn’t he have known that being allowed to read in peace was too good to be true? The last thing he wanted was to talk about Saint Paul and his crummy Missionary Journeys, which he’d heard more than enough of in class. Saint Paul had been born round about AD 5, which was such yonks and yonks ago, it was hard to get worked up about him. And, anyway, he seemed rather a crotchety person (like most of the masters here), who would insist on going to places which were impossible to spell – Laodicea, Bithynia, Beroea – where all the e’s and a’s and o’s got muddled up.
‘Fetch your coat, Hughson, and we’ll go up to my study. How are you feeling, by the way?’
‘Fine, sir.’
‘Well, you look rather flushed to me. Has Matron taken your temperature?’
‘Yes, sir. And she’s going to take it again this evening, sir.’
‘Good, good. She’ll sort you out. Now, do up your coat – we don’t want you getting wet. I think we’d better make a run for it.’
He dashed across the quad, the chaplain lumbering beside him, out of breath and wheezing. Daniel shook the rain off his hair as they entered the main building, noting how the chaplain’s suit was flecked with little damp spots. His clothes all looked grubby anyway, as if he dribbled down his front. His spittle was probably yellow from his pipe. He had fourteen pipes in all. He’d told Blake Major so, in confirmation class. Daniel wasn’t sure what confirmation had to do with pipes, but he had decided he’d never smoke himself, because it turned your fingers yellow, and your hair and eyes and spit, and probably your insides as well.
Blake called Sayers ‘St Bruno’, after his tobacco, which came in small cream tins that were awfully hard to open. Yet shreds of the tobacco seemed to be constantly escaping, and would scatter on his books and clothes, or get caught in his moustache. The moustache was two-tone grey and yellow, like his hair, with the same sad straggly ends.
‘Buck up, Hughson! You’re walking in a dream, boy.’
‘Sorry, sir.’ Daniel trotted to catch up, following the chaplain up the staircase. It was deserted at this time of day – everyone was either out on the games field, or still in class, waiting for the bell.
‘Right, shut the door and I’ll fetch your book. I was very pleased with your piece, Hughson. You’re showing great promise in Divinity, you know.’
Daniel squirmed with embarrassment. He wasn’t used to praise. He was also having trouble with the door – or rather doors. The chaplain’s study had an outer and an inner door, both difficult to close. On Mr Sayers’s first day at the school, a boy called Mycroft, a famous practical joker, had placed a long-dead bird in the gap between the two. The chaplain had tripped over its rotting smelly carcass and banged his head badly on the door-frame. (Mycroft was expelled.)
‘Is that door playing up again? It never seems to shut properly. Hold on, I’ll turn the key. We don’t want you sitting in a draught, with that bad cold of yours. Right – take a pew by the fire, and let’s have a look at what you’ve written.’ The chaplain
eased his bulk into a shabby leather armchair, drew it up beside Daniel’s chair, opened the small blue exercise book and gestured with his pipe to the page.
‘This Second Missionary Journey needs a bit more detail. You wrote quite a lot on the first and third, but tended to skimp on the second. That’s the one where Saint Paul had an important dream, remember, instructing him to cross to Macedonia?’
Daniel nodded. He never had dreams like that himself, where God told him what to do or where to go. He only wished He would – instruct him to leave for Zambia right now; not even pause to pack his trunk or return his library books. It would be warm and bright in Lusaka and he wouldn’t have a cold, and perhaps he’d go for a swim in the dam with the geese and cranes and heron, and float on his back and look up at the huge shining space above him – sky and sky and sky.
‘Hughson, are you listening?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well, what did I just say?’
‘The dream, sir. I think you said in class last week that Saint Paul called it a vision.’
‘Very good! He did. Mind you, I must admit you don’t look at all well today, so perhaps I’m being unfair.’ He smoothed back Daniel’s hair and placed a hand on his forehead. ‘Yes, you do seem rather feverish. We’d better put the work away. I’m sure we’ll find some time tomorrow to go over it again.’
‘Thank you, sir. Can I go back to Raleigh now?’ Daniel didn’t like the feel of the pudgy hand clamped against his brow, or the smell of the gas fire (which made a little snarly noise, as if annoyed that he was there), or the dingy room, stuffed with hulking furniture, or the books in the bookcase, which all looked old and boring – the sort with no pictures in, about people who were dead.
‘Not so fast, Hughson! I’ve been wanting to have a chat with you, to find out how things are. It’s part of my job here to make sure each boy is happy, and that there aren’t any little problems which might need sorting out. Mr Baines says you’re doing very well, but I realize it must be difficult with both your parents abroad. I’ve lived in Lusaka myself, you know. I was there just after the war, though I expect it’s changed completely since the forties.’
Daniel didn’t answer. The forties seemed as long ago as Saint Paul and AD 5. The chaplain had removed his hand, which now rested on the chair-arm. It was very large and fleshy, with long sandy hairs tangled on the back of it. Perhaps his head-hair had been sandy once, back in the age of dinosaurs, or whenever he’d been young. Daniel wriggled in his seat, thinking enviously of Tim and Kipper, who never sat in chairs, but swung from trees like Tarzan, or crawled through the undergrowth in pursuit of man-eating lions.
‘You’re fidgeting a lot, Hughson. Are you uncomfortable in that chair? It is rather lumpy, isn’t it? Why not sit on the sofa? Come along, we’ve got to spoil you a bit this afternoon!’
The chaplain heaved himself to his feet, offered a hand to Daniel and led him to a huge broad-shouldered sofa, which was also shabby leather, but a different colour from the chairs. Having ensconced him at one end, he shambled to the bureau, opened the bottom drawer and extracted something from it. He returned to Daniel with a large box of Black Magic, its lid embellished with a scarlet satin bow.
‘I expect you’re fond of chocolates, aren’t you?’
Daniel nodded, though his experience of them was limited. Sweets were restricted to Saturdays and Sundays, and then it was mostly acid drops or humbugs, never swanky boxes. Even now, he felt he shouldn’t take one. The rules were etched so deeply into his brain, he feared instant retribution if he reached out for a strawberry cream. Actually none of the creams were there. The whole top layer had gone, and all the nicest centres on the second layer. He took the smallest chocolate left – a long thin one with a squiggle on the top, which looked almost like a D.
‘Go on – tuck in! Have two or three, if you want.’
Daniel took a nougat and a caramel, wondering if there was some mistake. No one urged you to tuck in at Greystone Court. Anyway, it was difficult to eat them because the chaplain kept on asking questions and expecting instant answers. He had lowered himself to the sofa and was sitting so close that one fat thigh was nudging against his own captive grey-serge leg.
‘Now tell me, Daniel, are you having any problems with the older boys at all?’
‘No, sir,’ Daniel mumbled through his mouthful of sticky nougat. He was confused by the reappearance of his Christian name, which had been kept strictly under lock and key since he’d arrived at Greystone Court.
‘I know when I was at school, there were certain boys who used to get up to all sorts of things – especially in the dormitories at night. I expect that happens here, does it?’
‘Er, no, sir.’ Daniel blushed as scarlet as the ribbon on the chocolate box. He stared down at the carpet, which was faded-brown and stained.
‘You don’t have to call me “sir”, Daniel. This is just an informal little chat between the two of us. And there’s no need to be shy. You can tell me anything you like.’
Daniel sat in rigid silence. The nougat was lodged like an obstruction in his mouth, refusing to be swallowed.
‘I mean, if another boy has approached you, or done anything you found a bit confusing, perhaps you’d like to talk to me about it. It’s always better to share such worries with someone more experienced, who knows about these matters.’ He leaned down with a encouraging smile, his face looming into Daniel’s. Daniel could smell his breath, see the tiny dirty craters in his skin, the black hairs in his nostrils.
‘Look, you mustn’t be ashamed, my boy. These things are only natural. In my day we were taught that everything was wrong, and that God would come down on us like a ton of bricks if we ever touched ourselves. But God’s not like that, Daniel. He understands. He had a body just like ours, so He knows exactly how we’re made and what our needs are.’
Daniel found it hard to listen. He was transfixed by the plump hand, now advancing in his direction. He felt it latch on to his own hand and remain glued there, hot and heavy. He prayed the chaplain would light his pipe again, then he’d need both hands, and would be so busy puffing and sucking he wouldn’t be able to carry on with this creepy conversation. But the pipe sat in the ashtray, cold and dead.
‘And you mustn’t worry about size. That’ll come – just give it time. You probably think you’re small for your age, but boys come in a whole variety of shapes and sizes, and there’s nothing wrong with any of them.’ He squeezed Daniel’s hand confidingly, gave a throaty little laugh. ‘I expect you’ll find this hard to believe, but when I was twelve, I was quite a little tiddler. I used to think I’d never grow. But I did grow, Daniel, and you will, too, believe me.’
Daniel felt his hand (which was still clamped inside the chaplain’s) being manoeuvred slowly down between the private folds of the baggy mould-green trousers. The tweed was thick and prickly, and the shiny little fly-buttons were pressing right into his fingers. Sayers’s voice had changed – no longer the voice he used in chapel, but a soft and sort of fluttery voice, like moths’ wings. Daniel hated moths, but his hand was trapped, the whole of him was trapped – walls and bulky furniture closing in on him.
‘There! Would you like to be as big as that?’
Daniel couldn’t speak. The bulge felt hard and solid, unimaginably huge. And he knew he shouldn’t be touching it at all. God’s cold blue eye was peering through the ceiling – Hammy’s God, not Sayers’s – a furious God who would send him straight to Hell.
‘All I’m trying to do, Daniel, is to show you that any fears you may have are totally unfounded. It’s just a question of confidence, you see, of believing that a young boy like you can grow into a big man like me. Let’s take a little look, shall we, and then you’ll see exactly what I mean.’
He fumbled with his fly-buttons, then slipped Daniel’s hand down inside his underpants, guided the boy’s fingers up and out again, still clasped around the bulge, which was now on public view.
Daniel stared in horror.
It seemed not just huge, but ill: hideously swollen, with its blue veins standing out, and inflamed and awfully flushed around the tip. It was rooted in a nest of coarse brown hairs; straggly hairs sprouting through the limp white underpants. It looked all the more alarming because nothing else in the cluttered room was naked or exposed. The windows were concealed behind dark and heavy curtains; the desk was covered with a cloth, and the people in the pictures on the walls were wearing layers and layers and layers of clothes – crinolines and wraps and shawls; waistcoats and long overcoats; boots and hats and gloves.
‘There, that’s more comfortable, isn’t it, and it’s important we’re both comfortable. Come on, my lad, relax. You need to loosen up a bit, that’s all. I promise I shan’t hurt you. All I want you to do is rub your fingers up and down like this.’
Daniel wished his hand would shrivel up and die – anything to prevent him having to touch that ghastly thing. God was in the room with them now. He’d just glimpsed His picture on the wall – eyes so sad he could hardly bear to look at them; crown of thorns skewered into His bleeding head. Hammy-Webb had said that every time you committed a sin, especially those called ‘sins of the flesh’ (which were never fully explained), you put Christ on the cross again, hammered in the nails yourself.
‘Come along, Daniel, you can do better than that, I’m sure. Keep your hand much firmer, and go right down to the bottom, and then slowly up again. That’s it! You’re learning fast. Now put your other hand just there. No – further round, like that. And move in a bit closer. I promise I won’t bite!’ He gave a jovial smile, and Daniel noticed tiny gobbets of moisture on his lips, as if the inside of his mouth was sweating. ‘Clever boy! You’re doing jolly well, really beginning to get the hang of it.’
Breaking and Entering Page 32
