Then suddenly, with no thought at all, he heard himself say: “Teach me to carpent.”
“You what?”
“To be a carpenter.” He laughed nervously; now he had said it he didn’t even know if he wanted to be able to “carpent.”
Mr. Ingilby broke into a slow smile. “Aye,” he said with decision. “By God, so I will! I don’t know what thy father would say, but if such is thy wish—so be it. When?”
“How long d’you work?”
“Till seven as a rule. It all depends.”
“From half-past six, then, to seven, three times a week.”
Mr. Ingilby tousled Caspar’s hair in delight. “Eay! So I’ve gotten a ’prentice, and ’is name is Stevenson, son to Lord John!”
Only Stevenson men were allowed to call his father “Lord” John, which had been his nickname in his navvying days. Caspar felt all at home, and the feeling was warm.
As he left, Mrs. Ingilby pressed a flake of havercake smothered in blue-milk cheese into his hand. It was a banquet. How he envied young Ingilby, too, as he trudged back across the causeway for Latin theme. It was a thousand-mile walk.
He was barely through the yard gate when someone dealt him a vicious thump in the back. It almost sent him sprawling.
“Hi!” He turned around, snarling, and threw a punch before he even knew who his attacker was. It turned out to be Swift mi, who had put that enigmatic note in his pocket for Cossack to find, and had got a Latin impost for his reward. Soon they were fighting as hard as the slippery cobbles and the snow would allow.
Before they reached any resolution, however, Swift major, head of pharaohs at Old School, came upon them. He pulled them apart by their collars, effortlessly. “Barn heating for both of you,” he said as he let go. He walked on without a backward look.
Swift mi smiled at Caspar, as if there had never been the slightest animosity between them. Caspar smiled back; he had enjoyed the fight as far as it went.
“Sorry,” Swift mi said, watching his brother all the way down the cloisters. “He can be hells decent at home, you know.”
“So can my bro,” Caspar said. It seemed to give him a bond with Swift mi. “What’s a Barn beating?”
“Oh, a light paddling with a hairbrush or a slipper by the King o’ the Barn. Only it’s in front of all the other chaps.”
“When?”
“That’s the worst. No set time. They can send for you any time between seven and lockup. Perhaps Trench’ll be decent, seeing it’s his first day. If you want to fight, by the way, all you do is call out ‘Ring! Ring!’ at the top of your voice and everyone gathers around and forms a ring. Then you may fight. They can’t beat you for that. That’s legal. But what we were doing was plain ragging and really we ought to have got a house beating for it. We’re hells lucky, really.”
They were lucky, too, that Trench came out and called, “Baaaaaaaarns!” very soon after seven that evening, so they hadn’t long to stew. Everybody ran indoors and found something in or near the Barn to busy himself with. The tradition was that although a fellow was beaten in full view of everyone, nobody watched. Instead they all sat and pretended to bury their heads in a book, or a letter home, or making a model—any other business but watching the whacks. In reality they found every way to peep without being seen: peering through fingers, staring at concealed bits of looking-glass, beetling their brows, and straining their eye muscles. A casual onlooker would be astonished that thirty or so boys could be so indifferent to the torture of several of their fellows, until he learned that to be caught openly watching was to join the tortured boys, bending bare-bottomed over the top oak table.
Today five bare bottoms gleamed palely in the dark of the winter evening. Five boys bent over, resting on the oak, mutely waiting. Again Caspar had that embarrassing erection, but beneath the table; no one, he thought, would notice. The beatings went from left to right. No one had ever worked out whether it was better to go first or last. The first victim got it over with quickest but the King o’ the Barn’s hand was then freshest. The last got the whacks from the tiredest arm but had to endure the sounds—and the sight, for they were not allowed to look away—of all the previous assaults. The argument was endless.
So, too, was the argument about which was worse, hairbrush or shoe. Opinions pro and anti varied, depending mainly on which weapon the protagonists or antagonists had sampled last.
Caspar was to be whacked third. Boy (for failing to reconcile Malaby’s carpet and Euclid) was last. And Trench was to let them sample the arguments in favour of the hairbrush. Caspar was soon glad not to be next to Boy, for there was one further refinement to the ritual. Before each thrashing Trench called out “Turn!” whereupon the boy about to get it turned to face the one whose thrashing would come next. And there they lay, present and proximal victim, eyeball to eyeball, proximal seeing in present’s face an augury of his own punishment, blow by blow.
A Barn beating was a standard four whacks, unless the offence would normally have merited a house beating and only the caprice of the pharaoh had made it otherwise; then the boy got six. Today Swift mi and Caspar were getting six, the other three would have the regular four apiece.
“Turn!” Trench said.
Caspar saw a flurry of hair beyond the back of the head of the fat boy next to him. The whacks sounded very distant. The victim made no sound.
The hammering of his heart at the pit of his neck drowned everything. Surely, he thought, it must be ringing around the Barn? Surely, at the very least, it must be making the table shiver? His midriff felt very cold without the trousers.
“Turn!”
The fat boy turned, looked in mortal anguish at Caspar, then shut his eyes so tightly they vanished into twin craters of puckered flesh. Was it worse to be whacked if you were fat? Were there more nerves? Or was it better because of more padding?
Whack! That didn’t sound distant. And if the fat boy’s response was any guide, it was worse to be fat. “Hooooo!” He let out a draught of foul breath into Caspar’s face, stopping him from daring to inhale for a moment. As the other three blows followed, Caspar saw him blanch, bite, and bare his teeth like a death’s-head, shiver, and rise to the edge of whimpering. Caspar could have done with someone bolder to his left. How he wished there was some magic phrase that would make the clock slip a bit. Please, he thought, I don’t want to escape it, but I do want it to be so that I’m walking away, rubbing my bum. Please! Now!!
“Turn!”
Swift’s face. Swift mi. Swift winked. He winked back. Youch! Pain, pain, pain. A stinging radiated from high on his right buttock. Nothing existed now but the skin on his bottom. It strained for the next. His ears, too, strained for every little clue that would tell of the descent of that fierce arm. Couldn’t there be some way of—eeek! That was worse, that was worse. Lower down, same side. The stinging area was doubled. Concentrate on your hands; they’re not in pain at all. Lucky hands. Think of them. Lucky, lucky—wham! Oh my God, what has happened to time?
The whole of his right buttock was like flesh in the aftermath of wasps. If his had been an ordinary offence, the next whack would have been the last. But this was only halfway! For the next three he lay as still and unreacting as possible, deliberately thinking of nothing, concentrating on staring blankly into Swift’s mask—which he purposely put out of focus—and on not twitching a muscle.
Trench laid them the same way—top, middle, lower buttock. Not a square inch of skin there did not shriek its protest as he walked away. Trench then stood where Caspar had bent, and gave Swift his six.
Down in the study passages Caspar was surprised how soon the sting went. It wasn’t so bad, really—except for those actual moments and the waiting, bent over and bare. “A light paddling”—Swift mi was right, actually. He wasn’t a bad sort, Swift mi. Caspar began to feel brave. Nothing at home had ever prepared him for this. His father
had never raised a hand to them; he could be terrifying enough without any violence. So all this hitting and pain had been novel and frightening. He thought he had come through it rather well.
Then he saw Blenkinsop standing in the open door of his own study and smiling. “Hello, young ’un. You took it pretty well, I thought.”
“Did you see?” Caspar asked. He felt very manly to be talking so to a senior fellow.
“Every stroke. How d’you feel? Does it hurt much?”
He was being very pleasant. For a moment Caspar forgot how bestial Blenkinsop had been to Boy. “It stings a bit.”
“Ah!” Blenkinsop gripped his arm and pulled him into the study. “I’ve got the very stuff for that. Rub it on now and by this time tomorrow there won’t be a mark to show.”
“No, honestly, Blenkinsop. I’ll be all right. Don’t bother.”
“No bother at all, young ’un. As a matter of fact, I’ve taken a liking to you. A great liking. So it’ll be a pleasure. Let’s see now.”
Caspar stood awkwardly, wishing he could just turn and run away.
“Come on!” Blenkinsop squatted jovially in front of him and began undoing Caspar’s flybuttons.
The young boy giggled in embarrassment. “I’ll do it,” he said. “You’re tickling.” He turned around and finished unbuttoning himself.
Blenkinsop tore his trousers down and breathed heavily inward between his teeth.
“Is it bad?” Caspar asked, trying to crane around and look over his own shoulder.
“It will be if we’re not quick.” Blenkinsop swept a pile of books off the table. “Lie down here. No, no. Face down!”
For the second time in less than an hour Caspar found himself face down on oak and wondering exactly what was about to happen. He wasn’t a bad chap, Blenkinsop. It was jolly good of him to take all this trouble.
Blenkinsop tipped something cold and creamy out of a bottle onto his buttocks and began to rub it in with a slow, hypnotic relish. It was very soothing, Caspar had to allow.
“Tchah! Trench puts them all over the shop,” Blenkinsop said scornfully. “He’s no craftsman, I’ll vow. I can lay down six and not vary it by the breadth of a hair. You’d have a six-week shiner if I’d done this.”
“I’m lucky, then.” Caspar giggled.
“You ask Gordon what I did to that boil on his bum!” Blenkinsop was relishing the memory. Then he came back to the present. “Oh, I wouldn’t hurt you, young ’un. I’m hells fond of you.” He massaged on into the silence. Caspar thought he could detect a shiver in him, in his hands and voice, just the same as under the blankets last night. When Blenkinsop spoke again his tone was a lot softer. “Did you get stiff today, too, eh? Did you get the bone?” When Caspar didn’t answer, Blenkinsop laughed. “I see you did. Your little bottom is blushing, you know. Have you got a bone now?”
“No,” Caspar said.
“Do you know how to get one?”
“I don’t want to know. I wish you wouldn’t talk about it so. I don’t like it one bit.”
Blenkinsop gave a tolerant laugh and patted him on the bottom. “I thought you’d be grateful to me for stopping these bruises. Go on, up you get!”
Caspar stood, now feeling sheepish. He didn’t want to seem ungrateful. “It’s kind of you, Blenkinsop. I am grateful, really.”
“Perhaps you’ll do me a little favour, then?” Blenkinsop asked casually.
“If I can.”
“Cut over to Crecy and give this book to a chap there called Garrett, would you?”
Caspar was delighted to get out of Blenkinsop’s study so easily; he had feared something more was about to happen, though exactly what he could not say.
“It’s hells cold out. You’d best take my scarf, young ’un.”
It was cold outside. Caspar had to ask the way to Crecy and was told to go through a small triumphal arch, past the boghouse, and over the games field. He found his way easily enough; the snow brightened everything outside. Crecy was nothing like Old School. Everything looked clean. Everyone had studies. It all seemed very organized.
He felt the hostile, polite gaze of the Crecy boys upon him as he stood inside the door and waited for someone to fetch Garrett. Like bees in the same apiary, the boys did not venture any depth into neighbouring hives. He marvelled that he had so soon become an Old School man; if he and Boy hadn’t been delayed by the quarantine, they might have been in Crecy, perhaps. Then they’d feel like this about going inside Old School. What made people one thing or the other like that? Could you tell one person he was a…a glash, say, and another that he was a glish, the deadly foe of all the glashes, and would they then fight each other? That would be quite funny.
Garrett came and took the book, looking at it a little mystified. He told Caspar to thank Blenkinsop. Caspar ran all the way back over the snowy playing field, dancing, leaping with sheer joie de vivre that he had survived so much and felt so good. Even old Blenkinsop wasn’t so bad, really. It was hells kind of him to do that thing about the bruises.
He was rather surprised to bump into Blenkinsop just as he was about to skip through the triumphal arch.
“Hello,” he said. “Do you want your scarf?”
Blenkinsop shoved him roughly back into the dark. “You know what I want,” he said. He gripped the little boy firmly by the arm and hustled him over to the boghouse. Christ, Caspar thought. Am I going to get whacked again? What for now? He felt like giving up all attempt to understand.
When they reached the boghouse Blenkinsop shoved him just inside the door. “Here,” he said. “There’s a bone for you!”
He guided Caspar’s hand to his—well, it was more like gristle than bone, Caspar thought. Hot. And gristly-slippery. And lumpy. And very big. Huge.
“Go on, then!” Blenkinsop said.
“Go on what?”
“Move your hand, you fool! Fiend me!”
Caspar let go.
“No! Like this!” And he showed him how to fiend.
Caspar obeyed with fascinated curiosity. The effect his action was having on Blenkinsop was very weird—the noises he made, the change in his breathing, the way he swayed, the jerks of his hips. Feeling nothing himself, Caspar listened and observed these transports in the other.
And that was when he remembered his vow. If ever he could hurt Blenkinsop…well, couldn’t he just hurt him now! He almost giggled aloud.
With the same gleeful curiosity he reached both hands over and, with all the force he could muster, bent that long, gristly stick double, this way and that, just as you would try to break a green branch off a tree.
Blenkinsop’s shriek rang out across the field—a thunderclap of pain and rage that Caspar did not wait to hear out. Its dying fall reached him as he leaped through the triumphal arch and ran to find Boy and bear him the joyful tidings.
The story had a greater effect than Caspar had dared to hope. The two older boys—de Lacy was with Boy—seemed able to imagine the pain much more easily than Caspar had. In fact, its intensity had surprised him. But he only had to tell them what he had done and then at once began to mimic Blenkinsop’s agony, doubling over and saying “Christ!” and “Ooooh!” and—with great relish—“the poor sod!”
“You’d better keep out of his way for some time,” de Lacy warned.
“I know how to deal with him,” Caspar said. “Swift mi told me.”
But de Lacy’s warning was too late. Blenkinsop was already coming down the passage, shouting “Stevenson mi! You little vermin!” at the top of his voice. Caspar darted behind a cupboard, waiting his time. Blenkinsop halted at each cupboard, sure that Caspar was in one of them. He kicked them and yanked open the doors in mounting fury, until at last he reached the one that concealed—though it did not enclose—Caspar. He had been waiting for the moment. He darted out, taking Blenkinsop sufficiently unawares to slip
past him and race away to the Barn. Blenkinsop recovered quickly, though, and was almost out of the passage before Boy said, “Come on. He’ll kill him if he catches up with him.”
When they reached the Barn, Caspar was backed firmly against the bootroom door and Blenkinsop stood over him, panting hard and in no hurry to strike. Boy thought Caspar was going to try to duck at the last minute, making Blenkinsop smash his hand into the door; but Caspar’s scheme was even cleverer than that.
As soon as Blenkinsop drew back his fist, Caspar cried “Ring! Ring!” and ducked out beneath the surprised Blenkinsop’s arm. At once he took up the stance of a bareknuckle pugilist and waited for Blenkinsop to follow. Grinning at this show of pluck—or cheek—the others began to cluster around and form a ring.
“Come on, Blenkinsop,” they cried. “In the ring!”
For a moment Caspar feared he would take the challenge, and then the whole bright plan would shatter. But in the nick of time Blenkinsop realized how ridiculous he would look in a ring with a boy nearly eight years his junior, and so, scowling, he walked away. Caspar had sense enough not to dance and crow.
“Don’t ever let him get you alone,” de Lacy warned. “He’d scatter you abroad!”
Chapter 7
Since neither Boy nor Caspar suffered any deformity, nor laboured under any physical infirmity, nor had his uniqueness stamped upon him in any remarkable way, both settled very quickly to life at Fiennes. A week after their arrival no stranger could have singled them out. They spoke of grunts and villains, beaks and roes, they troughed and said the food was shent—or even hells shent—as if these words had always been plain English. And whenever a pharaoh bellowed: “Roe!” they were not always (as they had been in the beginning) the last to join the line that quickly formed—for the last roe was the one who did the pharaoh’s bidding. Sometimes the pharaoh would want the roe to pick up a fallen book, or open a window, or brew tea; at other times it was “Get me a quart of beer from Ma Webster’s” or “Take this wager to old Purse—and don’t let the beaks catch you.” On the coldest days they would send a roe to go and sit on a bog seat to get it warm before the pharaoh came and used it.
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