Gentlemen and Players

by Joanne Harris

  St. Oswald’s continues to specialize in sententious titles. Here the Deputy Head is the Second Master; the staff room is the Masters’ Common Room; even the cleaners are traditionally called bedders, although St. Oswald’s has had no boarding pupils—and therefore no beds—since 1918. But the parents love this kind of thing; in Old Oswaldian (or Ozzie, as tradition has it), homework becomes prep; registration, appel; the ancient dining hall is still referred to as the New Refectory; and the buildings themselves—dilapidated as they remain—are subdivided into a multitude of whimsically named nooks and crannies: the Rotunda, the Buttery, the Master’s Lodge, the Portcullis, the Observatory, the Porte Cochère. Nowadays, of course, hardly anyone uses the official names—but they do look very nice on the brochures.

  My father, to give him credit, was extraordinarily proud of his title of Head Porter. It was a caretaker’s job, pure and simple; but that title—with its implied authority—blinded him to most of the snubs and petty insults he was to receive during his first years at the school. He’d left school at sixteen, with no academic qualifications, and to him St. Oswald’s represented a pinnacle to which he dared not even aspire.

  As a result, he regarded the gilded boys of St. Oswald’s with both admiration and contempt. Admiration for their physical excellence; their sporting prowess; their superior bone structure; their display of money. Contempt for their softness; their complacency; their sheltered existence. I knew he was comparing us, and as I grew older I became more and more conscious of my inadequacy in his eyes, and of his silent—but increasingly bitter—disappointment.

  My father, you see, would have liked a son in his own image; a lad who shared his passion for football and scratch cards and fish and chips, his mistrust of women, his love of the outdoors. Failing that, a St. Oswald’s boy; a gentleman player, a cricket captain, a boy with the guts to transcend his class and make something of himself, even if it meant leaving his father behind.

  Instead, he had me. Neither fish nor fowl; a useless daydreamer, a reader of books and watcher of B movies, a secretive, skinny, pallid, insipid child with no interest in sports and whose personality was as solitary as his own was gregarious.

  He did his best, though. He tried, even when I did not. He took me to football matches, during which I was heartily bored. He bought me a bicycle, which I rode with dutiful regularity around the outer walls of the School. More significantly, for the first year of our life there he kept reasonably and dutifully sober. I should have been grateful, I suppose. But I was not. Just as he would have liked a son in his image, I longed desperately for a father in mine. I already had the template in my mind, culled from a hundred books and comics. Foremost he would be a man of authority, firm but fair. A man of physical courage and fierce intelligence. A reader, a scholar, an intellectual. A man who understood.

  Oh, I looked for him in John Snyde. Once or twice I even thought I’d found him. The road to adulthood is filled with contradictions, and I was still young enough to half believe the lies with which that road is paved. Dad Knows Best. Leave It to Me. Elders and Betters. Do as You’re Told. But in my heart I could already see the widening gulf between us. For all my youth I had ambitions, while John Snyde, for all his experience, would never be anything but a Porter.

  And yet I could see he was a good Porter. He performed his duties faithfully. He locked the gates at night, walked the grounds in the evening, watered plants, seeded cricket lawns, mowed grass, welcomed visitors, greeted staff, organized repairs, cleaned drains, reported damage, removed graffiti, shifted furniture, gave out locker keys, sorted post, and delivered messages. In exchange some of the staff called him John, and my father glowed with pride and gratitude.

  There’s a new porter now—a man called Fallow. He is heavy, discontented, lax. He listens to the radio in his lodge instead of watching the entrance. John Snyde would never have stood for that.

  My own appointment was made St. Oswald–style, in isolation. I never met the other candidates. I was interviewed by the Head of Section, the Head, and both the Second and Third Masters.

  I recognized them at once, of course. In fifteen years Pat Bishop has grown fatter and redder and cheerier, like a cartoon version of his earlier self, but Bob Strange looks just the same despite his thinning hair; a lean, sharp-featured man with dark eyes and a poor complexion. Of course back then he’d only been an ambitious young English master with a flair for administration. Now he is the School’s Eminence Grise; a master of the timetable; a practiced manipulator; a veteran of countless INSET days and training courses.

  Needless to say, I recognized the Head. The New Head, he’d been in those days; late thirties, though prematurely graying even then, tall and stiff and dignified. He didn’t recognize me—after all, why should he?—but shook my hand in cool, limp fingers.

  “I hope you have had time to look around the School to your satisfaction.” The capital letter was implicit in his voice.

  I smiled. “Oh yes. It’s very impressive. The new IT department especially. Dynamic new tools in a traditional academic setting.”

  The Head nodded. I saw him mentally filing away the phrase, maybe for next year’s prospectus. Behind him Pat Bishop made a sound that might have been derision or approval. Bob Strange just watched me.

  “What struck me particularly—” I stopped. The door had opened and the secretary had walked in with a tea tray. It stalled me midphrase—the surprise of seeing her more than anything else, I suppose; I had no real fear she would recognize me—then I carried on: “What struck me particularly was the seamless way the modern has been grafted onto the old to create the best of both worlds. A school that isn’t afraid to give out the message that although it can afford the latest innovations, it hasn’t merely succumbed to popular fads but has used them to strengthen its tradition of academic excellence.”

  The Head nodded again. The secretary—long legs, emerald ring, whiff of Chanel No. 5—poured tea. I thanked her in a voice that managed to be both distant and appreciative. My heart was beating faster; but in a way I was enjoying myself.

  It was the first test, and I knew I had passed.

  I sipped my tea, watching Bishop as the secretary removed the tray. “Thank you, Marlene.” He drinks his tea as my father did—three sugars, maybe four—and the silver tongs looked like tweezers in his big fingers. Strange said nothing. The Head waited, his eyes like pebbles.

  “All right,” said Bishop, looking at me. “Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty, shall we? We’ve heard you talk. We all know you can spout jargon at interview. My question is, what are you like in the classroom?”

  Good old Bishop. My father liked him, you know; saw him as one of the lads, completely failing to see the man’s real cunning. Nitty-gritty. A typical Bishop expression. You can almost forget that there’s an Oxford degree (an upper second) behind the Yorkshire accent and the rugby player’s face. No. It doesn’t do to underestimate Bishop.

  I smiled at him and put down my cup. “I have my own methods in the classroom, sir, as I’m sure you do. Outside it, I make it my business to know every bit of jargon that comes my way. It’s my belief that if you can do the talk, and you get the results, then whether or not you’ve been following the latest government guidelines becomes irrelevant. Most of the parents don’t know anything about teaching. All they want is to be sure they’re getting their money’s worth. Don’t you agree?”

  Bishop grunted. Frankness—real or faked—is a currency he understands. I sensed a grudging admiration in his expression. Test two—I’d passed again.

  “And where do you see yourself in five years’ time?” That was Strange, who had remained silent for most of the interview. An ambitious man, I knew, clever beneath his prissy exterior, eager to safeguard his little empire.

  “In the classroom, sir,” I replied at once. “That’s where I belong. That’s what I enjoy.”

  Strange’s expression did not alter, but he nodded, once, reassured that I was no usurper. Test three. Ano
ther pass.

  There was no doubt in my mind that I was the best candidate. My qualifications were excellent: my references first-rate. They ought to be; I spent long enough forging them. The nicest touch was the name, carefully selected from one of the smaller Honors Boards on the Middle Corridor. I think it suits me, plus I’m sure my father would have been pleased that I’d re-created him as an Ozzie—an Old Boy of St. Oswald’s.

  The John Snyde business was a long time ago; not even the oldsters like Roy Straitley or Hillary Monument are likely to remember much about it now. But for my father to have been an Old Boy accounts for my familiarity with the school; my affection for the place: my desire to teach there. Even more than the Cambridge first, the reassuring accent, and the discreetly expensive clothes, it makes me suitable.

  I invented a few convincing details to carry the story—a Swiss mother, a childhood overseas. After such long practice I can visualize my father quite easily: a neat, precise man with musician’s hands and a love of travel. A brilliant scholar at Trinity—that’s where he met my mother, in fact—later to become one of the leading men of his profession. Both killed, tragically, in a cable car accident near Interlaken, last Christmas. I added a couple of siblings for good measure: a sister in Saint Moritz, a brother at university in Tokyo. I did my probationary year at Harwood’s Grammar School in Oxfordshire, before opting to move north into a more permanent post.

  As I said, it was almost too easy. A few letters on impressive-looking headed paper, a colorful CV, an easy-to-fake reference or two. They didn’t even check the details—disappointing, as I had gone to such lengths to get them right. Even the name tallies with an equivalent degree given out the same year. Not to myself, of course. But these people are so easily blinded. Even greater than their stupidity, there’s the arrogance, the certainty that no one would cross the line.

  Besides, it’s a game of bluff, isn’t it? It’s all to do with appearances. If I’d been a northern graduate with a common accent and a cheap suit, I could have had the best references in the world and never have stood a chance.

  They phoned me the same evening.

  I was in.

  3

  St. Oswald’s Grammar School for BoysMonday, 6th September

  The next thing I did after the meeting was to go looking for Pearman. I found him in his office, with the new linguist, Dianne Dare.

  “Don’t mind Straitley,” Pearman told her cheerily as he introduced us. “He’s got a thing about names. He’ll have a field day with yours, I know he will.”

  I ignored the unworthy comment. “You’re letting your department be overrun by women, Pearman,” I said severely. “Next you’ll be picking out chintz.”

  Miss Dare gave me a satirical look. “I’ve heard all about you,” she said.

  “All of it bad, I expect?”

  “It wouldn’t be professional for me to comment.”

  “Hm.” She is a slender girl, with intelligent brown eyes. “Well, it’s too late to back out now,” I said. “Once St. Oswald’s gets you, you’re here for life. It saps the spirit, you know. Look at Pearman, a shadow of his former self; he’s actually surrendered my office to the boche.”

  Pearman sighed. “I thought you wouldn’t like that.”

  “Oh, you did?”

  “It was either that, Roy, or lose room fifty-nine. And since you never use your office—”

  He was right, in a way, but I wasn’t going to say so. “What do you mean, lose room fifty-nine? That’s been my form room for thirty years. I’m virtually a part of it. You know what the boys call me? Quasimodo. Because I look like a gargoyle and I live in the Bell Tower.”

  Miss Dare kept a straight face, but only just.

  Pearman shook his head. “Look, take it up with Bob Strange if you like. But this was the best I could do. You get to keep room fifty-nine for most of the time, and there’s still the Quiet Room if someone else is teaching there and you want to do some marking.”

  That sounded ominous. I always mark in my own room when I’m free. “Do you mean to say I’m going to be sharing room fifty-nine?”

  Pearman looked apologetic. “Well, most people share,” he said. “We don’t have the space otherwise. Haven’t you seen your timetable?”

  Well, of course I hadn’t. Everyone knows I never even look at it until I need to. Fuming, I rummaged through my pigeonhole and came up with a crumpled piece of computer paper and a memo from Danielle, Strange’s secretary. I braced myself for bad news.

  “Four people? I’m sharing my room with four upstarts and a House Meeting?”

  “It gets worse, I’m afraid,” said Miss Dare meekly. “One of the upstarts is me.”

  It says a lot for Dianne Dare that she forgave me what I said then. Of course it was all in the heat of the moment: words spoken in haste, and all that. But anyone else—Isabelle Tapi, for instance—might have taken umbrage. I know; it’s happened before. Isabelle suffers from delicate nerves, and any claim—for emotional trauma, for instance—is taken very seriously by the Bursar’s office.

  But Miss Dare held her ground. And to do her justice, she never left my room in disorder when she’d been teaching there, or rearranged my papers, or screamed at the mice, or commented on the bottle of medicinal sherry at the back of my cupboard, so I felt I’d probably got the best of a bad lot.

  All the same, I did feel resentful of this attack on my small empire; and I had no doubt who had been behind it. Dr. Devine, Head of German and, perhaps more relevantly, Head of Amadeus House: which House was now scheduled, coincidentally, to meet in my form room every Thursday morning.

  Let me explain. There are five Houses at St. Oswald’s. Amadeus, Parkinson, Birkby, Christchurch, and Stubbs. They deal principally with sporting fixtures, clubs, and chapel, so of course I don’t have much to do with them. A House system that runs principally on chapel and cold showers doesn’t have a lot going for it in my book. Still, on Thursday mornings these Houses meet in the largest rooms available to discuss the week’s events, and I was most annoyed at this choice of my room as their meeting place. Firstly, it meant that Sourgrape Devine would have the chance to poke around in all my desk drawers, and secondly, it meant hideous confusion as a hundred boys struggled to cram into a room designed for thirty.

  I told myself mournfully that it was only once a week. Still, I felt uneasy. I didn’t like the speedy way Sourgrape had managed to get a foot in the door.

  The other intruders, I have to say, concerned me less. Miss Dare I already knew. The other three were all freshers: Meek, Keane, and Easy. It isn’t unusual for a new staff member to teach in a dozen or more different rooms; there’s always been a shortage of space at St. Oswald’s, and this year the conversion of the new Computer Science suite had brought things to a crisis. Reluctantly I prepared to open my fortress to the public. I anticipated little difficulty from the new staff. Devine was the man to watch.

  I spent the rest of the day in my sanctum, brooding over the paperwork. My timetable was a surprise—only twenty-eight teaching periods a week compared with thirty-four last year. My classes too seemed to have decreased in size. Less work for me, of course; but I didn’t doubt that I’d be on cover every day.

  Several people called: Gerry Grachvogel put his head round the door and nearly lost it (he asked when I was planning to clear out my office); Fallow, the Porter, came to change the number on the door to 75; Hillary Monument, the Head of Maths, came to smoke a quiet cigarette out of the way of his disapproving deputies; Pearman to drop off some textbooks and to read me an obscene poem by Rimbaud; Marlene to bring my register; and Kitty Teague to ask how I was.

  “All right, I suppose,” I said glumly. “It isn’t even the Ides of March yet. God knows what’ll happen then.” I lit a Gauloise. I might as well do it while I still could, I told myself. There’d be precious little chance of a quiet smoke when Devine got in.

  Kitty looked sympathetic. “Come down to Hall with me,” she suggested. “You’ll feel better wh
en you’ve had a bite to eat.”

  “What, and have Sourgrape leering at me over his lunch?” In fact I had been planning to pop over to the Thirsty Scholar for a pint, but I didn’t have the heart for it now.

  “Do it,” urged Kitty, when I told her so. “You’ll feel better out of this place.”

  The Scholar is, in theory at least, out of bounds. But it’s only half a mile up the road from St. Oswald’s, and you’d have to be a complete innocent to believe that half the sixth form don’t go there at lunchtimes. In spite of grim lectures from the Head, Pat Bishop, who enforces discipline, tends to ignore the infringement. So do I, as long as they take their ties and blazers off; that way both they and I can pretend I don’t recognize them.

  It was quiet this lunchtime. There were only a few people in the bar. I caught sight of Fallow, the porter, with Mr. Roach—a historian who grows his hair long and likes the boys to call him Robbie—and Jimmy Watt, the school’s man-of-all-work, skillful with his hands, but not much of an intellect.

  He beamed on seeing me. “Mr. Straitley! Good holiday!”

  “Yes, thank you, Jimmy.” I have learned not to tax him with long words. Some people are not so kind; seeing his moon face and gaping mouth, it’s easy to forget his good nature. “What are you drinking?”

  Jimmy beamed again. “Half a shandy, thanks, boss. Gotta get some wiring done this after.”

  I carried his drink and my own to a free table. I noticed Easy, Meek, and Keane sitting together in the corner with Light, the new Games man, Isabelle Tapi, who always enjoys socializing with new staff, and Miss Dare, slightly aloof, a couple of tables away. I wasn’t surprised to see them together. There’s safety in numbers, and St. Oswald’s can be intimidating to the newcomer.

  Putting Jimmy’s drink down, I ambled over to their table and introduced myself. “It looks as though some of you are going to be sharing my room,” I said. “Though I don’t see how you’re going to teach Computer Studies in it”—this was to the bearded Meek—“or is it just another stage in your plan to inherit the earth?”