Out of Shadows

by Jason Wallace

  Bully waited, then sighed.

  “ ‘Unclever’ isn’t a word. Turn to chapter four and copy out paragraphs one to five, then eight, ten, and twelve. I seem to remember there’s some good information there. If you finish, get on with some reading. No talking, Osterberg. Yes, Hascott?”

  Beside me, Ivan had raised his eyes from his desk, though only just. His skin was pale.

  “Can I be excused, please, sir?”

  The same question at any time in the past would have got Ivan a task, maybe two strokes. Now Bully simply wafted his hand in the air and told Ivan sure, he could do what he wanted, and we didn’t see Ivan again until I found him deep into the afternoon.

  He was down at the Cliffs. I hadn’t doubted for a second I’d find him there. He was sitting right on the edge in a patch of sun with his feet dangling over, occasionally throwing stones out into the drop.

  He didn’t acknowledge me. In the end I had to say something.

  “Are you okay?”

  He made me jump by snatching two envelopes from his pocket. One of them had, I thought, Mr. van Hout’s handwriting on it. He put that one quickly back and showed me the other.

  “I got this from my folks this morning,” he spoke into the open air. “My Old Queen says the sale has gone through. They’ll be packed up and gone to my aunt and uncle’s in ’Maritzburg by the end of the month.”

  He let that hang.

  “Blacks have stolen our home and no one gives a shit, because Mugabe made it legal.”

  I could find absolutely nothing to say.

  In the end the best I could do was, “Are you going with them? Is that it, then?”

  To my relief and amazement he shook his head.

  “I told you, I’m staying for as long as I can. I have to. Don’t you see?”

  See what? I thought.

  “What will you do? At exeat weekends, I mean.”

  “I’ll have to become a sad-o like Button and drift around here like a lost fart. I don’t care. And I can stay with Klompie sometimes. His aunt and uncle are loaded. Maybe I’ll even come out to the sticks with you and your old man, if you ever ask me. Come stay in your spare room and keep you two company. I guess it must be lonely for you guys. You know, since your mum died.”

  But Matilda now lived in our house, and the thought of Ivan finding out about that terrified me. I was scared for myself. More than that, and despite everything, I suddenly felt an overpowering need to protect my father. So I acted like he was cracking a joke.

  “What do you reckon will happen to Sir?” I asked.

  Ivan threw a big stone and we watched the rings it made fan out across the water. His eyes were intense.

  “That guy’s an idiot. Pulling a stunt like that, after everything he taught me. He might have ruined everything.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I won’t make the same mistake.”

  He wasn’t making any sense.

  His voice softened. “Jacko?”

  “Ja?”

  “How do you know if you’re ready for something? If there’s something you know you want to do, only you’ve never done it before, how do you know you’ll see it through when the time comes?”

  I could only imagine he was talking about exams.

  “You just have to tell yourself you can do it,” I told him, pleased to be offering him help for once. “And test yourself, of course, that’s the most important thing. The more you do it the easier it gets.”

  And with that I saw the trace of a smile.

  “Ja. I thought so, too.”

  I couldn’t have known it, then, but he wasn’t talking about exams at all.

  From my first days in the house I was often plagued with a dream I never told anyone about, in which I would wake up in the dead hours and see a load of seniors, all of them looking like Greet, rushing into the dorm and beating people up, and I’d be powerless to say or do anything except wait my turn.

  On this occasion the nightmare was disturbingly different.

  The shapes came slowly this time, smooth and silent, drifting like ghosts. I had to blink to make sure I’d seen them, but when I looked directly at them they seemed to blur and appear somewhere else. I knew on some level that this was another dream, but a bit of me wondered.

  The intruders spread through the dorm, hovering over the sleeping shapes of the other boys. Something about them terrified me so I hid and lay still, praying desperately they wouldn’t come to me. When the fear got too much I dared a peek over my blanket.

  The shapes knew at once and turned where they stood, and I saw faces I recognized: my father, my mother, Matilda, Mr. van Hout, the ambassador, Mr. Bullman . . .

  I squeaked and ducked back under the covers. My breath swelled.

  Then I heard it, the first whump of someone getting it. Hard and heavy. And again. And another.

  But then came a different noise, a soft sliding across the polished floor. This sound of dragging followed every hit, and when it had all gone quiet I ventured another look to find the shapes had gone. All the other boys had vanished, too, their bloody sheets and blankets ripped and strewn on the floor. I was completely alone.

  I woke with a gasp.

  The night was deep and black. That time where people shouldn’t be.

  Only someone was. I heard movement in the corner where Ivan’s bed was. A rustling of clothes, the indistinct glow of a white shirt being removed.

  “Is that you?” I whispered.

  He paused, and then came a step closer. Now I could see his face through the gloom. I thought, though couldn’t be certain, there was a smudge down the side of it.

  “Ja, it’s me,” he said. “Go back to sleep.”

  “Where’ve you been?”

  “Nowhere. Shut up and go back to sleep.”

  In the morning, a sleep-drugged Anderson ambled down the line, calling out names and warming his balls with his spare hand.

  “Ginn.”

  “Yes.”

  “Hodges.”

  “Yes.”

  “McGill.”

  “Yes.”

  About halfway down there was a pause. A gap.

  “Ndube,” he repeated, irritation quickly replacing the boredom in his voice.

  He glanced up. Nelson Ndube wasn’t there.

  “Someone go upstairs and kick his lazy arse and tell him he’s got a double task.”

  “He’s not there,” one of the Agostinho cousins told him.

  “Well, where the hell is he?” Anderson demanded to know.

  Christos Agostinho shook his head. No one had seen him, his bed had been empty at rising bell. Nelson had just gone.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  At first everyone thought Nelson must have headed out for an early run and lost track of time—his watch was still in his locker.

  By start of breakfast he still wasn’t back, and Mr. Craven worried he’d gone for a run and hurt himself so he sent a group of boys to go looking along the usual cross-country routes. There was no sign, and when chapel had finished and the start of classes had failed to bring him back it was decided that he must have simply run away.

  If that was the case he deserved all the ribbing he was going to get for turning his back on the school, we concluded.

  All through break time, Ivan sat reticently in his cubicle. After ten minutes he threw his pen down and swatted his mug to the floor.

  “Can’t you guys talk about anything else?” His feet crunched over the pieces. He was self-consciously touching his face. What I’d thought had been a smudge was actually a fresh scratch running two inches down his cheek. He said he’d done it to himself in his sleep. “Jislaaik! I’m trying to write to Adele and all I can hear is your jabber about Nelson bloody Ndube. Just lorse it, okay?”

  He slammed the door behind him.

  We thought it must have been because of the guilt, seeing as it was Ivan who’d picked on Nelson the most.

  We didn’t hear anything more and assumed we probably wouldn
’t, that Nelson had made it home and his parents weren’t going to force him back like some did. But eight days later we saw his folks going into Mr. Craven’s.

  Was Nelson back?

  Apparently not. His mother cried constantly, occasionally breaking into a wail, while his poor father had gained a decade.

  So where was he?

  “Who gives a monkey’s?” Although Ivan looked nervous as he said it and for some reason he wanted to stay in the dorm that afternoon. “What’s with all the concern? He ran away and got lost, and now they can’t find him. It’s his fault. Was he your bum chum or something?”

  The winter dragged on through July, day after day of an insipid sun in clear skies that pulled at our shadows.

  Bully was a fresh-air freak who insisted on opening all the windows for class so we had to sit shivering. If that wasn’t bad enough, his lessons were a mountain of boring. He didn’t do anything, just made us read while he sat and stared out the window. When the bell eventually rang, Fairford or Rhys-Maitland or someone had to break his trance and ask for dismissal because it was like he hadn’t heard and would keep us in there forever.

  One day Osterberg finally dared to ask Bully if he was going to start giving us prep. We hadn’t written an essay since Mr. van Hout, the academic year was passing and O levels were at the end of next term in November, and that was less than four months away.

  Bully winced like he’d been stung.

  “What’s the bloody point?” he said, and then perhaps realizing he was speaking out loud: “Yes, prep. Read chapters fourteen and fifteen. Make some notes or something. There won’t be a test.”

  “Are you sure, sir?” Osterberg was apprehensive.

  “I was once.” It was a hollow voice. “Today, I can’t be sure of anything.”

  He worked out a deep breath. “Boys, you need to know I won’t be headmaster of this school for much longer. I think the time for me to retire has come. I always said when I went it would be on my own terms, and I intend to keep it that way.”

  A hush blanketed the classroom.

  Someone’s pen clattered to the floor and it sounded like crashing rocks. It was Ivan’s. He bent down to retrieve it, his eyes unusually open and skittish. I could see he was thinking fast and yet not really thinking at all. To me he looked like someone who was in a strange, panicky place and desperately looking for a way out.

  When lessons were over he didn’t come back with us to the house. Instead, and without a word of explanation, he headed straight for the Admin Block and up the stairs to Bully’s office.

  “Bully’s decided to stay after all. But there are going to be a few changes,” he told us when he returned to the house. “Changes for the good, in the long run, you have to remember that.”

  “What have you said to him this time?” we asked in wonder, but he wouldn’t be drawn on what any of the changes would be.

  “Come. I need some air.” He was already walking up the corridor, wrapping on his scarf. He meant only Pittman, Klompie, and myself, of course, no one else. We followed close behind.

  “Let’s go to the Cliffs,” said Klompie.

  “No!” Ivan snapped. Then more quietly: “No. Not the Cliffs. We’re always going there. Somewhere else.”

  The cold air tugged sharply that afternoon, but there was something about the day that made us believe summer could return. Ivan led us around the squash courts and onto the path that led to the workers’ village. As we got close, some piccanins who’d been playing with toy cars made from wire and Coke bottle tops started running around us, the younger ones laughing hysterically as the older ones showed off and braved it to within a couple of meters before scampering away again.

  “Herro, sah. Herro, baas,” they trilled. “How do you do?”

  We went under the cover of the pines and Ivan took out some gwaais. When we’d all lit up, using the glow of tobacco to try and warm our hands, he started to tell us more.

  “They’re going to be watching us like hawks now,” he said.

  Klompie and I both nodded, understanding. It was Pitters who spoke out.

  “Who?” He looked suspicious.

  “The government, of course. Who do you think? First Kasanka, then Mr. van Hout. Now Nelson. It’s too much. They don’t like us private schools as it is; we remind them of the past. Too many whites in one place, and they have too little control.”

  “So what? Let them watch. What the fuck can they do?”

  “They can close us down,” Ivan said, eyeing Pitters levelly. “Or give us a government-appointed teacher to keep an eye on what we’re doing. I’ve told Bully he needs to get someone in to replace Mr. van Hout quickly. A black teacher. One who’s managed to climb his way out of the township or whichever mud hut he came from and made something of himself. A living example of independence. A white one wouldn’t work.”

  Pitters stabbed a tree with his smoke.

  “Jeez, man, students and teachers? We already have Mr. Mafiti. Whatever happened to standards? What are you trying to do to our school, Hascott? It’ll be more wanked than ever.”

  Ivan threw his own butt at him. Pitters’ eyes flashed angrily.

  “It’s about integrity,” Ivan told him. Told us all. “All I want is to uphold the integrity of the school, and to ensure it remains open. It has to stay open, we mustn’t let them close it. This is the best school in the country. If we have to make a few sacrifices to keep the government happy then so be it.”

  “We should be kicking more blacks out, not letting them in.”

  “Don’t you see? It’s the only way.”

  “Only way for what?”

  “To stop them closing us down, or taking us over. Because of what’s happened.”

  “They can’t do that—it’s not theirs.”

  “They can do anything that bloody pleases them,” Ivan said, “and if it’s not the law now they’ll make it the law. They mustn’t close the school. Not until after we’ve left.”

  Pitters had already come forward, but as Ivan spoke he’d backed off again, hands in pockets. “Why do you care so much, Hascott? Why the hell do you care when you want to leave at the end of the year anyway?”

  Ivan twitched a smile.

  “That’s the other bit of news. I’m not leaving, either, I’m going to sort it with my folks and get my A levels here. I plan on staying right to the end.”

  He glared.

  Klompie tried to break the tension with a high giggle. “We’ll be surrounded by them,” he laughed. “I never realized you liked Kaffirs so much, Ivan.”

  Ivan grabbed Klompie by the shirt, holding him firm. Their noses almost touched.

  “Don’t you ever, ever say that again. You hear me?” His eyes, his cheeks . . . his whole face was a storm. He punched Klompie and dropped him. “I hate them. They took my country, they took my home. We lost Sir because of one of them. You will never say that about me again. I . . . hate . . . them. Got that?”

  Klompie mumbled. “Sorry, Ivan.”

  “Got that?” He turned on me.

  His intensity had rooted me, I lifted my hands and surrendered. It was that easy.

  He started hunting for stones. The piccanins were still in sight, playing up by the corner. Ivan launched his missiles in quick succession and the kids squealed with delight, dodging and enjoying the game.

  “Cheeky bloody . . .” Ivan snatched more stones up, bigger ones this time. “They’re laughing at us. Are you just going to sit there and let them take the piss? Look, they think we’re a joke.”

  He dropped the stones at our feet.

  The children howled with glee.

  “Well? Or are you bunch of gays going to stand there and let them do what they like? We wouldn’t have let them get away with it in the Old Days.”

  It was enough. Klompie and Pittman took a handful and started hurling. Ivan clapped approval, and then all three turned and stared at me not joining in, as though I wasn’t one of them. As though I didn’t understand what it
was like to be them.

  I snatched a stone from Ivan’s hand and chucked it hard. It hit one of the little piccanins right in the head. He stopped dead and covered his eyes and screamed while the others scattered. All at once the game was over. For them, at least; for us it had just begun as we chased them through the trees, throwing and cheering and howling like a bunch of fucking animals.

  Upper Sixth

  1987

  TWENTY-SIX

  When I woke, the sun was full on and shooting straight into the backs of my eyes. The sound of U2 gently messed up the inside of my head, tormenting me with images of angels and devils and a burning cross of shame.

  Grimacing, I twisted my head and wiped heat from my chest. The combined effects of weed and beer, which had seemed such a good idea at the time, had worn off but left me with a serious babbelas. My head throbbed, my tongue was dry and swollen and scraped across the roof of my mouth like a slab of biltong. Inside, I was screaming for relief. Outside, the body refused to move and attempted to cling on to sleep, but behind the veil was the faint aftertaste of a nightmare I didn’t want to go back to.

  With a surge of effort I hauled myself upright.

  The sun pounded, ricocheting off pale slabs. A few feet away the cool blue of the pool beckoned but any other movement was too much, so I just stayed like that until I was ready, feeling the jarring rhythm of my hangover beat in time with the music.

  All the other sun loungers were empty now, a couple of discarded towels the only sign that anyone had been here. The pool was calm and flat. For a brief second I wondered if I’d slept through to the next day then dismissed the idea. No, it was still the same.

  Everything was the same.

  Still hiding out at the hotel pool. Still under a hot spring, September sky. Still wasting my holidays when I should have been at home revising for final exams. Home, however, wasn’t a place I liked to spend much time in case Ivan rang again, wondering why I wasn’t with the gang, questioning why I wasn’t there to go out on one of their “walks.” The truth was I didn’t like their “walks.” I never had. Not that first chase through the pines after the piccanins over two years ago, and definitely not when they suddenly started getting worse. But I didn’t see how Ivan would ever accept the truth so it was far easier to stay away and hide.