Sharples is the worst. He’s the biggest of the four. Big and heavy at the shoulders, with big fat legs, and trousers too tight for them. He has long hair down over his forehead, flopping into his eyes, and patches of red on each cheek. His hands are big, with dull red swollen knuckles as though he’s just hit a wall with them. Billy saw him do this once, over and over until they bled, his gang of friends clapping in time to egg him on, to cover the grunting noise he made each time he did it. There was plaster on the floor, like crusted snow. He wiped the blood off on Horton’s shirt. Horton told him to bugger off and Sharples punched him so hard in the stomach Horton crumpled to the floor. He rolled around for ages, holding his stomach, sucking in air. When he stood up, Sharples laughed. Everyone laughed. Horton had snot all over his chin. I’ll fucking kill you, he said. They were friends again by the time the bus came.
Horton is small and thin, with a pinched nose and lips, and curly blond hair cut shorter at the back and sides than other people. He looks like a poodle, Billy thinks but doesn’t dare say. Horton likes to walk around the classroom as if he owns it until Sharples tells him to sit down or a master comes in. Mad Millie grabbed him by his curls once when he was caught talking and banged his head on the desk. Horton just sat there afterwards, pulling loose hair from his head until he had a little pile of golden curls on the desk. Billy thought and hoped Mad Millie would hit him again but he didn’t. At the end of the lesson he told Horton to stop playing the fool and to throw the hair into the bin. ‘Oh,’ said Horton, ‘but I wanted to give it to my mother, to stuff a pin cushion.’ ‘That’s enough insolence from you,’ said Mad Millie. After that, some boys called Horton Pin Cushion until Sharples bollocked one of them. Billy was careful not to laugh. The Lees twins already had their eyes on him, and their mouths ready to tell tales, and their hands ready to hold him down. They were the ones who picked him out from the others. Billy had thought they might be friends at first, after they’d all been introduced to George, but he was wrong about that.
That was months ago now, when they were all new boys. They came before him in the alphabet. It was Messerschmitt’s fault, and George’s.
First day. Trooping from room to room. They copied their timetables into their new beige exercise books, and taped in a map of the school on shiny paper, all before morning break. Billy was scared of every corner, every face and door, looking for somewhere safe to hide himself. But the world was in motion, no place stayed put. Each teacher had his own name, Reynolds (harelip), Wilkinson (tall, bent, big nose), Martin (short, shiny black hair, moustache). Billy tried to remember them all, but already the other boys were coming up with other names. Foxy. Konk. Mad Millie. Some made sense to Billy, some not. He stared at the twins until they noticed him, then hurriedly looked away.
The first lesson they spent in their own room, the last in a row of rooms built out of wood, windows at each side, sticking out from the old redbrick body of the school. Their form master’s name was Mr Wolf, and that was what they called him, but without the Mr – Wolf was enough. He had a bald head, smooth and white as a peeled egg, and bright blue eyes. He was all smiles, sitting on the edge of his desk, one hand holding an ankle while he told them what they would do with him. English and cricket. He called them his little men.
Billy had started to relax, when a boy behind him interrupted. Wolf bared his teeth, and growled. He had canines that caught on his bottom lip. ‘Stand up, boy,’ he said. The boy stood up, giggling nervously. No one knew if Wolf was putting on an act. ‘Come here,’ he said, wiggling his finger. ‘That’s my little man.’
The boy walked past Billy’s desk. Billy saw his bare knees shake. They were all wearing thick brown shorts, like felt; they would wear them until the Christmas holidays had finished. Easter term, the taller ones would move on to long trousers. Billy didn’t expect to be tall enough for that, although he dreamt he might be. One of the boy’s socks had slipped down, the brown and orange stripes round his ankle like a ruff. Billy checked his own as the boy stood in front of Wolf, waiting. The boy was Horton, but Billy didn’t know that until Wolf asked him. Wolf told Horton to pass him the board rubber. When he had it in his hand, with Horton standing in front of him, Wolf passed the rubber from hand to hand, as if he was weighing it, back and forth, back and forth, his eyes on Horton’s eyes, until, when Horton was looking down at his feet, the blood gone from his face, Wolf slipped the soft part of the board rubber under his chin to lift his head.
‘Put this back where it was,’ he said. Horton took it from his hand and put it back. He had blue chalk on his chin, like a beard. Walking past Billy’s desk, he saw Billy see the chalk, and smile.
‘I’ll get you,’ he said, under his breath. ‘I’ll get you outside.’
But he didn’t. Billy sneaked out behind the backs of other boys and into the old school. No one saw him. He didn’t know where he could go and where he couldn’t; he didn’t have the map they’d given him after assembly.
He came to an open door that led onto the drive at the front of the school. Sunlight was pouring into the dark place where Billy stood. He stepped back as a bunch of older boys, men almost, jostled in through the door, legs caked with flecks of dried mud, rugby shorts, boots, shouting, pushing against one another, the smell of them, sweat and something stinging, medicinal, new to him.
The last boy to come through the door was detached by a matter of seconds from the rest of the bunch. He was silent, different from the others, bigger and brighter. When some voice called from the drive behind, he paused, only inches from Billy, to answer. The sunlight on his legs was gold, the fine hairs one shade lighter than the gold of the skin, gold woven and spun, silkier than thread. Back pressed against the wall, Billy lost his breath. When he found it the boy was gone and there was a bell ringing to remind him of the world. He would have to run hard to get back to where he’d been, where he was supposed to be, along a corridor where running was forbidden. He thought he might never get there, never again be where he had been only moments before.
*
General Science began with the compilation of the register. They were told to sit on high stools behind long wooden desks with deep white sinks and gas taps for Bunsen burners. Messerschmitt (bull-necked, glasses) told them to stand up one by one and call out their names in alphabetical order. Billy waited. Someone called Lawson stood up, said, ‘Lawson,’ sat down. Billy stood up, said, ‘Lender.’
When the register was finished, Messerschmitt counted the names. ‘Two short,’ he said. He looked through his glasses, great square face screwed into a scowl. He had big hands; he rubbed them together, like someone who needed warming up. Nobody moved until one of the twins put up his hand.
‘Lees, sir. My name’s Lees.’
Messerschmitt nodded. ‘Stand up, boy.’ He turned his head to nod a second time. ‘You too, boy.’
The twins were three rows in front of Billy. They stood up together. There was a space between them as they moved away from each other. Messerschmitt looked down at his register, then sighed. ‘You’ve made my register untidy,’ he said. ‘That won’t do at all.’ He beckoned them with a curling finger. ‘I think it’s time you two met George.’ He looked at the register a second time, whistling quietly. ‘And who, I wonder, was the over-precipitate boy who jumped into the breach?’ He looked up. ‘Which one of you sorry lot is Lender?’
George was a piece of polished wood. Two inches by two inches by eighteen, Billy found out later. First one Lees bent over, and then the other, hands on the edge of Messerschmitt’s desk while Messer lifted their blazer, then stepped back. Neither of them cried until the third and final blow. And then it was Billy’s turn. When it was over, the three of them had to say, together, ‘Thank you, George.’
The other boys treated the Lees twins and Billy like heroes after that. For a while, at least.
Lees and Lees were sat at his table for school dinner that first day, after they’d been introduced to George. The dining hall had seven long tables,
one for each form, with thirty boys on each, and a teacher at the head, to dish out the food. Billy looked along the line of teachers. They were all there, standing behind their chairs, the ones he’d seen that morning. Messerschmitt and Wolf and the history master, Mad Millie, and Konk, tall and bent over with a bony nose, who promised he’d not speak French to them until after the Christmas holidays, and then laughed.
The only table without a teacher was his table, the first-form table, the new boys. They had a bony woman in a blue dress, with a white apron over it, and a nurse’s hat pinned on her head with Kirby grips. When one of the big boys said grace, Billy opened his eyes a fraction and saw her staring along the line of boys as if she was fixing them in her head to punish them later. He closed them quickly before her eyes reached his. She told them she was Matron and she’d brook no nonsense. The food she served was a sludge of mincemeat with triangles of fried bread that splintered when Billy tried to cut his piece. His mother never cooked mincemeat; she said it was full of scraps that no one would buy if they knew what went into it. Billy felt sick. He’d have stopped eating, pushed the plate away, but Matron had started to walk round the table, behind their backs. If any boy put down his knife and fork she grabbed him by the shoulders and twisted them back until he moaned. ‘Don’t slouch, boy,’ she said, and stood behind him until he started eating again. One boy shook salt on the food. Seconds later, she had his shoulders in her grip.
‘What’s your name, boy?’
‘Evans, Matron.’
‘Were you brought up in a fish and chip shop, Evans?’
‘No, Matron,’ said Evans, wincing with pain. He was opposite Billy. Billy could see both their faces: Evans almost in tears, cheeks red with shame; Matron’s white lips drawn back from her teeth, eyes bright and dark, like holes.
‘Well-brought-up boys put salt on the side of their plate,’ she said, and gave a final twist. ‘They don’t sprinkle it over the whole plate like confetti at a wedding.’
Evans yelped. ‘Yes, Matron,’ he said, his voice breaking. Billy looked away from them, ashamed for Evans, and along the row to where the Lees twins were stifling giggles. The one on the left pulled a face at him, then grinned.
Outside the dining hall, they came across to him. ‘Does your bum hurt?’ they asked him. He nodded.
‘Matron’s not a proper woman,’ Lees One said. ‘Our brother told us.’
Billy nodded again.
‘She’s had her hole stitched up,’ Lees Two said.
‘Her cunt,’ Lees One said.
Billy must have looked puzzled because they nudged each other, then started to laugh. ‘Our brother’s in the fourth form,’ Lees Two said. Lees Two was taller than Lees One, by an inch at least. You could only tell them apart when they were standing side by side, Billy saw, and thought it was odd that, together, they were separate. Separate, they were one and the same.
‘He tells us stuff,’ said Lees One. ‘That’s how we know what to call them.’ He nodded towards a huddle of teachers smoking outside the dining-hall door. Billy was thinking about stitched-up hole and cunt and what it meant. ‘That Messerschmitt’s a Kraut,’ said Lees One. ‘He’s a Nazi, our brother says, but he got away in time. He should be in jail for being a traitor.’
Together, they took Billy into the toilets and pulled down their shorts and underpants to show him the red stripes on their arses, three stripes each, bright on the bare white skin. ‘Now let’s see yours,’ they said, tucking their shirts back in, turning on him, but Billy shook his head. Lees Two glanced across to the door. ‘No,’ he said, ‘not now.’
Billy breathed out. I’m safe, he thought. He wondered for how long.
The Lees twins left him alone for the rest of the day, and the day after that. Billy began to relax until, one morning the week after, they came across to him at break.
‘Have you got any money?’
He shook his head.
‘Don’t be daft,’ said Lees One, stepping up close to him. Lees Two moved round to his side, between him and the rest of the playground. Both of them were bigger than he was. He started to feel his heart beat, his palms grow damp. ‘We know you have,’ said Lees One. He pushed Billy’s chest with both hands. ‘I saw your dad give you some when he dropped you off.’ He grabbed Billy’s tie and slid his hand up it, tightening the knot. ‘Only it isn’t yours, see.’
‘Leave me alone,’ croaked Billy.
‘“Leave me alone,”’ said Lees Two in a squeaky voice. Lees One reached down with his free hand and grabbed at Billy’s crotch. Billy jerked back, the tie throttling him.
‘Look,’ said Lees Two. ‘He’s dancing.’ He kicked Billy’s ankle. ‘Go on, dance,’ he said, as Billy buckled to the left. ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘Dance for us.’
Other boys began to gather around them, eager for what promised to be a fight, until a wall had formed between Billy and the school. He moved his feet in what might have been a dance. Lees Two kicked him a second time, behind the knee, then grabbed Billy’s elbow and yanked his arm down. With his leg bent after the kick, he was half kneeling, half hanging from Lees Two’s grip. ‘No,’ he said, then, ‘please.’ Before he could regain his balance he was on the floor, his cheek against the concrete. I’ll get my blazer dirty, he thought, as they pushed him onto his back. Lees One – or was it Two? He couldn’t be sure – straddled him, heavy on his chest, his knees pinning down Billy’s arms. Everything hurt. His arms, his legs where he’d been kicked, the side of his face where grit had cut into the skin. He stared up through a blur of tears to see the boy grinning, to see his mouth open, the tongue slide out, a heavy ball of spit roll from the tip of it, hang there, slowly fall. He heard a hoot of laughter before the spit hit his face. The laughter was worse than the spit, warm, so close to his mouth he could reach it with his own tongue, taste it. ‘Gobface,’ someone said. ‘Gobface,’ they all said, together. He closed his eyes.
Things got worse a few weeks later, the first afternoon they had cross-country. The entire school was lined up beside the rugby pitch, the new boys at the front; behind them, grouped by year, the rest. Billy, turning his head as they waited to be told to start, could just see the older boy from the corridor at the very back, chatting with the sports teacher. When the whistle blew, he stumbled and almost fell over as the rest of the form jostled him. Within minutes he was among the last of his group, his own form and older boys overtaking him as they streamed out of the school grounds and along a muddy lane. He had no idea how far they were supposed to be running, nor how long it would take. He was frightened he might not be strong enough to complete the course, or be left so far behind he might have no one to follow and end up lost. His running shoes, which he had never worn before that day, were too big for him; by the time five minutes had passed, before the boys had left the lane and turned into an empty field, the back of the right shoe had begun to chafe his skin. To stop it hurting, he started running in a lopsided way, wincing each time his foot hit the ground. Two of the group of stragglers around him – boys he didn’t know, from the form above his – noticed this and started to laugh. He tried to run faster, to leave them all behind, gritting his teeth against the pain. By this time the rest of the school was some distance ahead, in the neighbouring field or beyond. He couldn’t keep the speed up any longer and suddenly, as if a switch inside him had been flicked, he gave up trying. He was walking now, with three older boys, fat ones he’d seen hanging around together in the corner of the playground, swapping bags of sweets. They glanced across at him, unwelcoming, then broke into a ragged, breathless trot to get away from him.
He only began to jog, wincing at every step, when a distance of fifty yards had opened up. If he lost sight of everyone, he’d have no idea where to go. The route had been shown to them during the final lesson of the day, before they’d been herded into the gym to change, but he hadn’t paid attention. He hated cross-country, he hated changing out of his uniform into his stiff new sports kit, he hated sport generally. He didn�
��t see the point of being forced to run miles through muddy fields, only to end up where he’d started. He hobbled in pursuit of the fat boys, fighting back the urge to call out to them, to ask them to wait for him, knowing that it would be wasted effort. When they stopped to get their breath, bending forward with their hands on their bare red knees, he staggered past them, not pausing to look until they were some way behind. They were sharing something out among them, he couldn’t see what. I won’t be last back at school, he thought, and this relieved him.
He’d been out for half an hour, most of it spent walking to protect his heel, when he saw Sharples and one of the Lees twins half hidden by a hedge, their legs dangling into the ditch beneath it. As he approached, they grinned and beckoned to him to join them. Sharples held up a cigarette. Billy glanced behind to make sure no one had seen him. ‘Get over here, Gobface,’ Sharples hissed. Billy walked over to them, hesitant, wishing he had seen them before they had seen him. The other Lees twin appeared from behind the hedge, tugging up his shorts. He grabbed Billy’s elbow, pulling him over and pushing him down into the ditch. Sharples offered him the cigarette. When Billy shook his head, Sharples flicked ash into Billy’s face. ‘Whoops. Sorry,’ he said, brushing it off with a slap, then held the burning tip as close to Billy’s cheek as he could without touching, while the Lees twins giggled. Billy froze. Sharples stood up, his crotch at eye level. His shorts were so tight Billy could see the packet of cigarettes, a box of matches, in the pocket.
Two Dark Tales Page 9
