Dangerous Things

by Claire Rayner

  He didn’t answer, not in words, but he risked looking at him. The man seemed relaxed, amiable, happy even. He smiled when he caught the boy’s eye.

  ‘I find it rather amusing, if you must know. That anyone should try such a thing — it’s absurd! And having tried, to fail. Well, what can I say? I can’t be expected to take such antics seriously, now can I?’

  ‘Might have been you,’ the boy mumbled, and the man said sharply, ‘What’s that? Speak up. I can’t stand it when people don’t speak up.’

  ‘Might have been you,’ the boy said more loudly and this time the man actually laughed.

  ‘Oh, do be your age. Or perhaps you are … well, be older than your age. You can be, can’t you, when it suits you? As well we know. No one could do anything to me. I’m not at any risk. It’s not possible.’ He sounded plumply pleased with himself and smoothed one hand over his head. ‘No, no risk for me. I make sure of that, don’t I?’ He laughed again and looked at the boy sharply, but he was brave this time. He didn’t laugh back. He just stood there and looked at him.

  The man sighed deeply and theatrically. ‘I’m getting bored with you,’ he said. ‘Too tiresome for words, the way you carry on. You’re no fun any more. And we used to have fun, didn’t we? Lots of fun.’

  The boy shifted his gaze and stared at the alabaster figures in the mirrored alcove by the fireplace, flicking his eyes from one to the other. They were his favourite things in this room, such wonderful bodies with their curves and hollows, as deep and green as the sea, beautiful enough to drown in.

  ‘Oh, well,’ the man said and got to his feet and began to pull off his jacket. The boy didn’t look at him, very aware of what he was doing, but concentrating on the figures in the alcoves. Long legs, small buttocks with a shallow curve at the sides, flat bellies, rounded shoulders and arms —

  ‘So, what’s the delay?’ the man said. He was down to his underpants now and stood staring down at the boy with an air of quizzical concern on his face. ‘Are we shy? Are we unaware of what is expected of us? Are we, heaven save the mark, suffering from an attack of shame? Oh, chastity, chastity, what a cruel goddess you are …’ And again he laughed and leaned over and began to tickle the boy, running his hands over his chest so that the boy was forced to show a reaction, though he’d promised himself he wouldn’t, had been determined to be remote and cool; but he couldn’t do anything but giggle helplessly, writhing and twisting and feeling the familiar sensations crawling into him. That was the worst part of it all. That he liked it, that it gave him pleasure, that he wanted it to happen. Oh, God, he said inside his head to a god he knew didn’t exist or if it ever had was long since dead; Oh, God, make it quick, let the sickness come. That doesn’t feel so bad, the sickness —

  Twenty-three

  Dilly watched him as carefully he poured milk into her tea cup and then passed it across to her, and nodded her thanks, not taking her eyes off him.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asked abruptly after a long pause during which both of them drank half their tea. He looked up at her, his eyes a little blank. He’d been watching the other people in the café, listening to the loud talk, and he seemed startled when she spoke, almost as though he’d forgotten she was there.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I thought you might still be in a bit of a state over what happened.’ Still he stared at her blankly and that made her snap at him. ‘Tully, for pity’s sake.’

  He shrugged. ‘What’s the use? It’s done. It’s nothing to do with me any more.’

  In spite of herself Dilly shivered a little; he seemed so very insouciant it almost frightened her, and she said sharply, ‘Well, it’s upset me all right.’

  He shook his head at her. ‘No need, is there? Why should you be upset?’

  ‘Why should I — ye gods, Viv, the man was bloody shot! He’s lying in hospital in a mess of tubes and drips and Christ knows what else and —’

  ‘But you don’t like him,’ Viv said with a tone of such reasonableness that she suddenly wanted to hit him. ‘You said you didn’t.’

  ‘I loathed him! But now he’s —’

  ‘Whatever’s happened to him he’s still the same person,’ Viv said. He drank the rest of his tea. ‘I think I want a Coke now. And some chips. You too?’

  ‘No,’ she said shortly, and he smiled at her a little absently and got up and went to the counter, pushing past the knots of black youths who were clustered there laughing and shouting at each other in what were for Dilly impenetrable accents.

  She bent her head to stare down at her hands on the red formica table-top, scowling a little. Viv was right in a way, of course; she’d always hated that awful mealy-mouthed thing about being hushed and reverent just because people were ill or dead. If they were bastards they were bastards, no question of that, and it ought to be all right to say so; but he was so very cool — and again she shivered a little and then jumped as a hand landed on her shoulder.

  ‘Well, if it isn’t Dilly Dilly come and be killed! What are you doing hanging around in this low joint?’

  She twisted her head and looked up into Harry’s smooth face and stared at him challengingly.

  ‘I didn’t notice it was all that low.’

  ‘It sure ain’t no honky hideout,’ Harry said and sat down, uninvited. ‘You’re lucky no one started on you. They don’t like people from schools like the Foundation in Watney market and they specially don’t like white ones.’

  ‘They’ve given us no trouble,’ Dilly said shortly as Viv came back and pushed wordlessly past Harry to reach for another chair and sit down with his Coke and bag of chips.

  ‘You too, Arse? No trouble from the denizens of this salubrious establishment?’

  Viv shook his head, not looking at Harry. ‘No. Should there be?’

  ‘You’re a cool one, you know.’ Harry sounded relaxed and normal now, with none of his usual swagger. ‘There aren’t many people from the Foundation’d come in here without thinking three times.’

  ‘I know,’ Viv said. ‘But I’m not them. Was there something you wanted?’

  ‘Mmm?’ Harry said and smiled lazily at him. ‘You are not, surely, dear fellow, trying to give me my congé, are you? I can’t imagine that a man of your breeding would ever commit such a social solecism —’

  ‘Oh, piss off!’ Viv said and Harry laughed and got to his feet.

  ‘Piddle away I shall, dear man, piddle away happily. Not to leave you, you must understand. No indeed. I depart to join the person for whom I have been waiting.’

  And he bowed with an absurd flourish at them both and then went pushing through the crowd to the café door as several of the tall black boys he passed shouted something cheerful and still, to Dilly, unintelligible at him. They watched him go and then as the crowd parted to let him through saw who was waiting for him by the door, and Dilly was startled.

  ‘Well, who’d have thought it?’ she said. ‘That one with Harry? Hardly his type I’d imagine. I’d have expected him to go for the sexpot Gillian at the very least.’

  Viv sighed and pushed the last of his chips into his mouth.

  ‘Sometimes you’re almost as bad as the rest of them,’ he said. ‘Thinking Harry’s some sort of special case. Believe me, there’s nothing special about Harry. I know. Nothing special about him at all. So whoever he goes out with it’s reasonable. Take it from me, it’s perfectly reasonable.’

  And he got up and led the way out and Dilly followed and stood on the pavement outside pulling her coat up to her neck, watching Harry and Genevieve walk away through the market, their heads together as they talked with great absorption. It was surprising, of course it was. No matter what Viv said, it was surprising. How could Harry find someone as dismal as Genevieve Barratt interesting?

  ‘What difference does it make to you, anyway?’ Genevieve said, pushing out her lower lip in the sulky expression that had always been able to make Stella’s belly tighten with anxiety. ‘It’s my life, not yours. It’s my body.’


  ‘I know that, darling! Of course I do! But I’m your mother. You can’t expect me not to care …’

  ‘You can care as long as you don’t fuss,’ Genevieve said. ‘That’s all I ask you to do. It’s not so hard not to do something, surely? Just don’t fuss. You don’t understand anyway. It’s different nowadays. It was all right when you were young to let yourself go and not care what you looked like but we’re a different generation. It matters to us.’

  ‘It mattered to me too,’ Stella said, stung. ‘But I had more sense than to try to starve myself to a stick. Men don’t like sticks. They like women who have shapes, who look like women and not little boys.’

  Genevieve laughed quietly, deliberately, as though she were on stage, acting laughter. ‘How do you know what all men like?’ Where does your experience come from? And you’re wrong. You couldn’t be more out of date. Men like thin women now. Everyone knows that. Anyway, I don’t care what men want; I only care what I want. And I want to be the way I am.’

  ‘Even that would be better than nothing,’ Stella said hopelessly, and she let tears show in her eyes, risking it. ‘But go on as you are and you’ll finish up thinner than ever. You’ll look terrible —’

  She knew at once she’d gone too far. Every time it happened she knew it was her own fault, that she should have learned from last time; but it was no use, she’d had to do it, had to talk to her, had to let her see her unhappiness, couldn’t have sat there at the table beside her and watched her deliberately killing herself without doing something. Could she?

  Genevieve opened her mouth and screamed. It was a high-pitched sharp-edged shriek of rage and she had honed it to an intensity that made Stella want to be sick. It seemed to reach down inside her and claw at her and she put her hands to her ears and shrank down towards the table, hunching her shoulders. Anything so that she wouldn’t have to hear it in all its hatefulness.

  The thumping outside reached her through her legs rather than her ears. She felt the vibration as Gordon came hurtling down the stairs, his feet thudding furiously against the steps as hard as he could and throwing the door open with equal rage, and still Genevieve sat there with her head back, shrieking full blast.

  ‘What the bloody hell’s going on in here?’ he roared and came in and went over to Genevieve and took her head between his hands and pressed her face against his belly. Stella tried not to look, but she had to, as she always did. There he stood, holding Genevieve’s face against his body, his hands cupping her head and slowly Genevieve’s shoulders relaxed and the noise stopped.

  And then he did it, and Stella, moving slowly, taking her hands away from her ears, setting them on the table, had to watch it and could do nothing to stop him. He bent and nuzzled his nose against Genevieve’s hair, murmuring at her and with one hand stroked her back as he whispered into her hair, and Genevieve’s own hand came up and her thumb went into her mouth, and it was like ten years ago, when he’d been the only one who could stop little Genevieve’s tantrums, when she, Stella, had had to sit and watch as he cradled his little girl, her little girl, in his arms, her arms, and rocked her to peace again. Stella had been a failure then, and she still was. And she sat there dully, her hands on the table in front of her like lumps of dead meat, as slowly Genevieve lifted her head from her father’s belly and looked first at him and then at her mother, over her fist, her thumb still in her mouth.

  I’ll never be any good at anything, Stella shrieked inside her head. I can’t be good to anyone ever, not to any of them. It would have been so good to have been able to shriek aloud the way Genevieve had done, to be comforted as Gordon was comforting her, but she knew that could never happen. She just had to sit here at her own kitchen table with dead hands and watch it all for ever.

  ‘My dear chap, why on earth should you let that make any difference?’ the Headmaster said. ‘Here you are, just a couple of years to your pension — I wouldn’t dream of suggesting you shouldn’t serve those years and enjoy your just deserts!’

  ‘But the Cadets,’ Staveley said again. ‘I can’t just not do the Cadets.’

  The Headmaster sighed, and leaned across his desk, friendly, concerned, infinitely sensible. ‘Try to see it my way, my dear fellow. Indeed, try to see it the parents’ way. A dreadful thing happened, and though it was entirely accidental, and the police are satisfied of that, the fact remains that one of my staff here lies in Old East Hospital in intensive care, oblivious to the world. It would be a very strange parent who didn’t ask himself first of all who was responsible for such an accident happening, and secondly what has been done to safeguard the boys and prevent such an accident occurring again. You must understand that.’

  ‘You’re saying it was my fault!’ Staveley’s voice, began to rise in pitch. ‘Is that it, telling those parents that it was my fault and that was why you won’t let me do the Cadets any more?’

  ‘What else can I do?’ the Headmaster said with the same sweet reasonableness. ‘I have to make changes in the way the Cadet Corps is run. That has to be obvious. Justice being seen to be done, you know? The natural line is to change the leadership. That isn’t to blame you, it’s just to bring in new blood, a fresh eye to look for problems, iron out anomalies —’

  ‘Anomalies my arse!’ Staveley roared. ‘There aren’t any bloody anomalies! There was a crazy accident which could have happened to anyone, whoever was in charge. A bullet ricochets and you have to make my life misery? What’s the sense in that? It doesn’t help anyone. The only thing worth doing in this shithouse is the Cadets and if you think I’m —’

  ‘Oh, dear, oh dear,’ the Headmaster said, deep in regret. ‘What am I to say to you? When you display such anger and such — forgive me, but I must say it — juvenile profanity, what am I to think but that I have made the best possible decision for the welfare of the boys and the school? If under minimal pressure you descend to such levels, how can we not be certain that it wasn’t under pressure on Founder’s Day that some important detail missed your eye and contributed to the sad state of David Tully? You must see what I mean.’

  ‘I see you burning me in a sacrifice, that’s what I see,’ Staveley said passionately but pulling his voice down to a less hysterical level with an obvious effort of control. ‘I see you taking away from me the only thing that makes life tolerable in this place and using me as your whipping boy —’

  ‘If you’re so unhappy here,’ the Headmaster murmured, ‘I ask myself if you will be so very disappointed if you miss the last two years of teaching which will ensure your pension.’

  Staveley sat and stared at him. The room was quiet; outside the long bleak corridors and the classrooms still cluttered with the day’s detritus lay empty, resting in the peaceful hiatus that came between the boys’ departure for the day and the arrival of the cleaners, and he sat and looked at the Headmaster who looked limpidly back at him; and took a deep breath.

  ‘Is that it? If I argue, you throw me out and I lose most of my pension?’

  ‘Not most of it,’ the Headmaster said, sounding judicious. ‘Rather a lot of it though, I fear. They can be so nit-picking, these insurance companies, don’t you find?’

  ‘You won’t change your mind?’

  ‘Why should I?’ Again the picture of sweet reason as the Headmaster spread his hands wide. ‘My dear fellow, you must see how I’m placed. If the Foundation is to survive I have to attract new parents to this school and hold on to those we already have. By the skin of our teeth. I must, as they say, explore every avenue.’

  ‘Including the one which is labelled Kick Staveley’s Arse Avenue.’

  The Headmaster said nothing, and Staveley said savagely, ‘And what if the boys refuse to let you do it? What if they show me loyalty and just drop out of the Corps?’

  ‘I’d be delighted,’ the Headmaster said promptly. ‘It’s regarded by many parents as anachronistic anyway. I can well see the lack of such a Corps may be an inducement to some.’

  ‘Most parents wa
nt their boys to get the discipline and the training,’ Staveley said, his voice rising again. ‘It brings out their leadership qualities, helps them to understand the role of authority, makes them into better citizens —’

  ‘You have a point. Some parents do think that, I dare say. I shall simply have to take the temperature and see where we go next year. It depends on next year’s enrolments, doesn’t it? If they’re up as I fully intend them to be, then I shall assume the new parents are not put out by the presence of a Cadet Corps here. If they’re not …’ He shook his head then. ‘Well, that’s a possibility to be considered. I shall get the enrolments up, never fear. And if at the New Parents’ meeting I find opposition to a Cadet Corps, well then, this whole conversation becomes purely academic, doesn’t it? It would be a pity, then, wouldn’t it, if you went off in a huff, just because I was replacing you on the Corps at present? Yes, a pity. Good evening, my dear chap. I’m sure you want to get home. And I have so much work still to do.’ And, smiling charmingly, he pressed his bell and the secretary came and hovered at Staveley’s side and what else could he do but get to his feet and walk out? Not that there was anything to go out to, he told himself as he shuffled along the lower corridor back to the staffroom. Nothing anywhere, either in front of him or on any side.

  ‘You can’t visit in the Intensive Care Unit.’ The porter was scandalized. ‘Not without you’ve got a special permit. You got a permit?’

  ‘No,’ the man said. ‘But he’s a friend of mine, you see. I wanted to see him if I could. Surely I can just see him? I won’t disturb him.’

  ‘It’s not up to me,’ the porter said. ‘I get my instructions, and I goes by them. And no one visits the Intensive Care Unit, not without they’ve got a special permit.’

  ‘Is there some way I can get one of these permits?’

  The porter shook his head. ‘Not my job, matey. Have to ask the Sister-in-charge.’

  ‘Where is she? How do I find her?’