by David Rees
‘Working. Ted is in a bad mood; he’ll give us some very long, very boring essay to write at home.’
‘Come round to my house if you need a break.’
‘I’ll… think about it.’
‘Helen … what’s the matter?’
I looked him straight in the eye. ‘I’m not sure that I like you as much as I did once upon a time.’
He was amazed. He opened his mouth to speak but could not, as the Headmaster arrived in the Hall at that moment. Assembly began.
THREE
The poem Ted inflicted on us was by A.E. Housman:
Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists?
And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists?
And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air?
Oh they’re taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.
‘Tis a shame to human nature, such a head of hair as his;
In the good old time ‘twas hanging for the colour that it is;
Though hanging isn’t bad enough and flaying would be fair
For the nameless and abominable colour of his hair.
Oh a deal of pains he’s taken and a pretty price he’s paid
To hide his poll or dye it of a mentionable shade;
But they’ve pulled the beggar’s hat off for the world to see and stare,
And they’re taking him to justice for the colour of his hair.
Now ‘tis oakum for his fingers and the treadmill for his feet,
And the quarry-gang on Portland in the cold and in the heat,
And between his spells of labour in the time he has to spare
He can curse the God that made him for the colour of his hair.
Ted’s stratagem never altered: he would invite us to make comments, and wait in silence until the comments came. This could be extremely disconcerting if nobody had anything to say because Ted refused to give in and do the work for us; he just sat there. The class couldn’t put up with this for too long ― thus illustrating, I suppose, the law about Nature detesting a vacuum ― and someone would eventually be driven to open his or her mouth. Ted wouldn’t answer. He’d just nod, negatively or positively, or say ‘Uh-huh’ or ‘Mm-mm’ and wait for the next comment. This usually went on for about half an hour ― it could be slow torture ― then he’d make an analysis of the poem, often with rude remarks for those students who had contributed nothing. As a teaching method, it was pretty effective.
Sometimes we would imitate his uh-huhs and mm-mms out loud, which he didn’t mind; he’d just grin. He had all sorts of mannerisms ― touching his lips with his forefinger, blowing his nose when he didn’t need to, scratching the back of his neck, raising his thick bushy eyebrows until they almost disappeared. We often wondered how he managed to keep order; it would be easy, we felt, to reduce his lessons to chaos if we wanted to. But it never happened.
His first sentence of the day was in answer to the girl sitting next to me, my friend Joanna, who wanted to know what ‘poll’ meant. ‘Look it up in the dictionary,’ he said, ‘and read it out to the class.’
She did so. ‘ “The head, or the hair of the head,” ‘ she announced. ‘Uh-huh. I might as well look up oakum too while I’m at it. Mm-mm … here it is: “old tarred ropes untwisted and teased out for caulking the seams of ships.” Was that prisoners’ work in the old days?’
Ted nodded.
A picture came into my mind of slaves in Roman galleys, straining at the oars. Then I thought of Donald, who had recently taken up rowing for the school’s somewhat incompetent first eight.
‘Is Portland the Isle of Portland in Dorset?’ Peter Thomas asked. ‘Is there a prison there?’
‘Uh-huh.’ Ted murmured.
‘I don’t like this poem,’ said Mark. ‘It just isn’t very good. It’s doggerel. No word or phrase in it that’s outstanding.’ There was a mutter of agreement from the whole class, and Ted’s eyebrows vanished. ‘It makes me feel uncomfortable,’ Mark went on. Ted looked at him for a moment, then nodded in approval.
‘Why does he say “beggar”?’ Kelvin Burnett asked. ‘Why doesn’t he say what he obviously means ― bugger?’ Everyone laughed at this, and Ted vigorously blew his nose.
‘You can’t put things like that in print.’ Alison objected.
‘Why not?’
‘It isn’t nice.’
Several people protested that it was merely a word, and that if you wanted to say it in print, then you should be allowed. ‘Get back to the poem.’ Ted said.
‘Perhaps he is a bugger,’ said Jason Smith, a small, impish boy with mischievous, dark eyes, one of the more thoughtful members of the class. ‘Perhaps that’s why he’s going to prison.’
We all looked at Ted for confirmation of this, but his face was absolutely blank for a moment. Then he stared at Jason, rather intently, as if he was asking himself a question.
‘Buggery isn’t a crime,’ Tom Harding said. ‘Is it?’ He was the dunce of our group, the one we all considered most likely to fail the exam.
‘Maybe it was when the poem was written. ’ Jason said.
I glanced at Mark. His jaw was set, his face as blank as Ted’s.
‘He’s going to prison for the colour of his hair,’ Tom said. ‘Which doesn’t make sense. It’s rather a silly poem. Why should anybody be chucked in the nick because of their hair? It doesn’t even say what colour it is!’
‘Green,’ Mark said. ‘Like you.’ I looked at him again, in surprise this time; he sounded angry.
‘It’s nameless and abominable, his hair,’ Joanna said. ‘Verse two, line four.’
‘It’s silly,’ Tom repeated. ‘He’s writing it just for the sake of writing it. He’s letting himself get carried away. Words, words, words.’ He pushed the poem across his desk, and leaned back in his seat, hands behind his head.
Ted wriggled as if a bug had got inside his shirt, and he scratched the back of his neck. Then he stared at Jason again.
The discussion continued for some time; nobody thought the poem particularly memorable ― the language was ordinary, and the rhythm too diddly-dee to suit the subject matter. Tom was wrong, Jason said, about why the man was being jailed; ‘the colour of his hair’ was a metaphor. ‘The poet could have written,’ Jason said, ‘ “But they’ve pulled the beggar’s hat off for the world to see and grin, And they’re taking him to justice for the colour of his skin.” ‘
‘Why didn’t he?’ Tom asked. ‘Tell us that.’
Jason thought for a moment, then said, ‘I don’t know.’
‘Not bad, not bad at all,’ Ted said. ‘You’re not quite such a dreary crowd of imbeciles as I’d begun to imagine. In fact you’ve left very little for me to say. It certainly isn’t a great poem, maybe not even a good poem. But it puts its point forcefully. Sarcastically. I wouldn’t criticise the diddly-dee rhythm ― dreadful word, diddly-dee! Where did you drag it up from, Helen? The rhythm is that of a song, the kind of song that used to be written for occasions like public hangings. Perhaps it’s meant to reflect the shallow, vindictive nature of the people singing the song, the bystanders watching him go to prison, who think being flayed alive is the correct punishment for a person with that hair colour. Now Jason’s point about hair colour being a metaphor: he’s quite right, of course, and to say the poet could mean skin colour is a perfectly reasonable interpretation. Plenty of men and women the world over are in prison because of the colour of their skin. Nelson Mandela, for example, and hundreds of other blacks in South Africa. But Tom asked why Housman didn’t say skin colour, which is just as reasonable as Jason’s comment. The answer is, perhaps, that he didn’t want to nail the supposed crime to any one social injustice in particular. So the poem refers to more than skin colour ― people are incarcerated for their religious beliefs, for their political affiliations, and so on. I said perhaps that’s the answer. I think, myself, that Housman is referring to one particular social injustice. The nameless and ab
ominable colour of his hair, as Joanna rightly said ― “the love that dares not speak its name.” Have you any thoughts on what that could be?’
No one had any idea.
‘I’m not surprised you can’t guess,’ Ted went on, ‘though Jason came pretty near it. There are social injustices that stay hidden. You can see a black, can’t you? But what colour is a homosexual?’
That word ― I couldn’t recall a teacher ever using it before in a class I was in ― produced an immediate tension. Would any other word have done so? I doubt it. The strain, however, collapsed as soon as Tom answered Ted’s question: ‘They’re effeminate,’ he said. People grinned and laughed. ‘Well, they are,’ he mumbled.
‘Really, Tom! You’ve been watching too many stereotypes on second-rate television programmes! But to return to the poem ― it’s about attitudes to homosexuality. One in ten people is gay or partly gay, which means there is at least one in this room, and I’m talking of you lot. I’m not including myself ― interpret that how you will.’ He smiled, which was daring of him, I thought. ‘Nowadays they don’t have to pick oakum for years just because of their sexual behaviour. Nevertheless, they’re often persecuted. Subtly persecuted. Discriminated against. Why am I telling you all this? Because it goes on in this school. Right now. When I came in here this morning there was something written on the blackboard. It isn’t the first time it’s happened this week, though not previously in this room. Messages have been scribbled on various blackboards throughout the school, referring all of them to the same two people. I want it stopped. I want you to see that it’s stopped. My sixth-form English set ― you’re some of the most intelligent and decent kids in this jungle: if anyone can do it, you can.’ The bell rang for the end of the lesson. ‘O.K.,’ Ted said. ‘Clear off and think about what I’ve been saying.’
Mark and I were the last to leave. When all the others had gone, he said, ‘I suppose one of the names was mine.’
Ted was fiddling with some papers, rather deliberately. Then he blew some non-existent dust off the top of a pile of books. ‘Why should you imagine that?’ he said, eventually.
‘Was it? Or wasn’t it?’
Ted looked at him, then at me, then at Mark again. ‘The second name was Helen’s brother,’ he said.
‘Can we talk to you?’
There was another long pause before Ted spoke. ‘Not now. I have a class.’
I left the room hurriedly. I couldn’t face being alone with Mark; what was happening, I was sure, was my fault because I’d told Brian. Not that Brian, despite what he had said about his feelings on the subject, would have gone around the school scribbling on blackboards; he wasn’t so juvenile ― but who had he told? And who had that boy ― or girl ― told?
‘Keith. That’s all. Helen, I didn’t want this ―’
‘No, I don’t suppose you did. But one person tells one other, strictly in confidence ― naturally! ― then that person tells his friend, strictly in confidence too, then that person… It goes on like a game of Chinese Whispers. In less than a week it’s all public knowledge.’
‘You’re a fine one to talk!’ Brian said. ‘You started it, didn’t you!’
‘You’re absolutely right. I’m guiltier than anyone else. I feel… awful.’
He put his arm round me. I wanted to shrug it off, but I didn’t. I needed him ― someone, anyone ― at that moment. I wasn’t very pleased with myself. ‘I don’t know who’s doing it,’ he said. ‘I’m not. And I’m sure Keith isn’t. We’re far too old for stupid things like that! It’s the work of … second years, third years…’
‘Or someone who has a grudge. An idiot who thinks hanging isn’t bad enough and flaying would be fair ‘
‘What?’
‘Oh … a poem we were doing with Ted, first period. Brian … it’s got to be stopped!’
‘I don’t see how you’re going to do that.’
‘Find out who’s been told,’ I said.
‘What was actually written on Ted’s board?’
‘He didn’t say, apart from the names. I saw him rubbing it out, but all I noticed was a bleeding heart’
We were in a corner of the sixth-form common room, which was in the newest wing of the school, built last summer: our year was the first sixth form to occupy it. I had felt proud of that once upon a time, but not now; it had quickly become a shambles. Too many of us didn’t know how to treat it properly. The furniture was coffee-stained; there were cigarette butts ground into the floor; the kettle didn’t work because someone had used it as a football, and the sink had no taps ― they had been unscrewed and stolen. A jungle, Ted had called the school. Not the right choice of word: the animals in a jungle look after their environment.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ Brian said.
‘You could be friendly to Mark,’
‘I’m not unfriendly. Listen … are you busy tonight? Why don’t you come round? My parents are going to a film … we can have the place to ourselves. I don’t seem to have seen you recently.’
‘You saw me yesterday.’
‘I mean outside school.’
Perhaps I should try and patch things up with Brian, I thought. I needed a sympathetic ear, and it was absurd to make an enemy of him. ‘O.K.,’ I said.
It was similar to other evenings I’d spent alone with Brian, but it didn’t work, not this time. Because as I’d already said to him, I wasn’t sure I liked him as much as I did once, and you can’t respond physically or emotionally to a boy you don’t like. Well … I can’t.
I untangled myself from his arms, then went to the door; I had to go to the loo. ‘I… think … we ought to see a bit less of each other for a while,’ I said, as gently as I could. ‘Until this Donald/Mark fuss has blown over, maybe. It’s bothering me too much.’
He looked furious. ‘I’m not having my love-life wrecked by some bloody poufter!’ he shouted.
I felt sad, miserable, small. ‘Then it’s finished, Brian.’
‘I’ll kill him!’
‘We behave absolutely normally,’ Mark said. ‘As if nothing has happened. We go through that playground just as we always do.’ The three of us, for the first time, were walking to school together; it didn’t matter, Mark and Donald had decided, if people saw them now: the nature of the relationship was known ― yesterday Five B had seen the names and the drawings on Doris Hatchett’s board. We were in a glum, serious mood, Donald especially. He had not panicked when he found out what had occurred, but he was more than worried: scared.
‘I didn’t sleep very well,’ he said to me as we left the house. ‘I don’t know … I don’t want to lose my friends. Their esteem … they’re not so important since I met Mark, but even so … I was awake for hours imagining jeers and sneers, being sent to Coventry. Even physical violence.’
We need not have worried. There were no odd looks from anyone, no sniggers, no whispers. Gary called out to Donald: ‘Did you see the game on TV last night?’
‘Yes,’ Donald answered. ‘What a let-down!’
‘Terrible, wasn’t it!’
Tom waved cheerfully, and Joanna said, ‘When did you two start going around together?’ This question was addressed to me and Mark. It made all three of us giggle uncontrollably. ‘Wasn’t aware I had a role as the funny girl,’ Joanna said. She looked puzzled.
‘Hey Donald,’ Andy said, ‘that French translation we had to do for Ernie Pitt ― what does drapeau mean?’
‘Le Drapeau Rouge: the Red Flag.’
‘Oh, God! I said it was a bit of old red doth!’
‘Do you really think,’ said Jake, who was listening to this, ‘that the Russians hang bits of old red doth on the Kremlin walls?’
When we were on our own, I said, ‘Seems strange. Everything’s just as it normally is.’
‘Good.’ Mark heaved a sigh of relief. ‘Perhaps we’ve all been over-reacting.’ He and Donald looked at each other and smiled; it was the first time that day Donald’s expression was other than tense
and grim. He touched Mark’s hand, briefly.
‘See you at twelve thirty,’ he said. Usual place?’
‘Yes.’
Where was that, I wondered, but I didn’t like to inquire. Mark and I turned to go up the stairs to Ted’s room; Brian, coming down, saw us, scowled, and deliberately gazed out of a window until we had gone by.
‘What’s eating him?’
‘We’ve split up.’ I explained what had happened.
The worried frown returned to Mark’s face. ‘I don’t want to be on bad terms with him,’ he said. ‘It bothers me.’
‘I seem to have done just about every wrong thing I could have done.’ I had told him and Donald, on the way to school, that I was the person responsible for their secret being known. Confession did not make me feel any better. In fact I felt so miserable I wasn’t able to add, till now, that I’d ended with Brian.
Mark laughed, and gave me a hug. ‘There are plenty more things I’m sure you can ruin.’ he teased.
Ted was looking out for us. ‘Come over here,’ he said, and guided us to the window, away from the others in his room ― Jason, Kelvin and Alison. ‘You wanted to talk. But you didn’t come back.’
‘I … I thought I’d leave it,’ Mark answered.
‘I’m here if you want me.’ Ted blew his nose. ‘I have to tell you … the phantom blackboard graffiti specialist has struck again. My blackboard. That’s twice this week,
‘Who the hell is it?’
‘We’d all like to know that,’ I said.
FOUR
Saturday night, disco night, but it was something completely new for me ― I was going out with Donald and Mark on my first venture ever into a gay disco, and I was a little apprehensive. ‘Don’t worry,’ Donald said. ‘No one is going to rape you! No one’s even going to chat you up!’ He was much more cheerful now the school week was over, not that anything dramatic had happened in the past few days ― the phantom blackboard graffiti specialist, as Ted had christened him, was lying low, and Five B had evidently dismissed the words in Miss Hatchett’s room as a joke.
