‘He’s in there with Dr Markowicz,’ she said, consulting her diary. ‘Could you see Dr Blakely instead? He’s free after School on Thursday.’
I informed her in cogent terms that I had no desire to deal with Thing One.
‘In that case, he could do Friday Break,’ said Danielle. ‘Unless it’s really urgent—’
‘It is.’
We finally agreed that the Head might see me tomorrow morning. ‘He comes in very early,’ she said. ‘If you could get here at seven fifteen—’
‘Seven fifteen? He must sleep here.’
Danielle gave me the kind of smile she reserves for boys who have missed their bus, lost their lunch money or skinned their knees in the playground.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘He’s wonderful.’
Oh, gods. Not you, too. But I refrained from comment; knowing from past experience that to argue with a School Secretary is as futile as it is dangerous. Instead I went to the Quiet Room to calm my nerves with a cup of tea.
I found Eric at one of the Head’s new workstations, glumly trying to access his e-mails at the computer.
‘Bloody Harrington,’ I said, filling my mug with tea from the urn. ‘Who does he think he is, eh? My door’s always open. Yes, as long as you’re here to complain about some poor sap doing his job, but when it comes to a dying man’s last wish—’
Eric looked up from the screen. ‘You’ve heard about old Harry, then?’
‘Yes. And if Harrington—’
He made a hushing gesture. ‘Please, Straitley. Not so loud.’
‘What? You’re taking his side?’
He looked vaguely distressed. ‘Look, Straitley, it isn’t that. I just think maybe the Chaplain’s right. What good can come of digging things up? Especially now, after all this time.’
‘Harry deserves better than this. We owe him that memorial.’
‘Now you’re just being stubborn,’ he said, still keeping his voice low. ‘I know how you felt about Harry. But all that was such a long time ago, and we still have a job to do. In medio stat virtus – no? Virtue takes the middle ground. There’s no point in sticking your neck out, now. Not for ancient history.’
I should have known. I do know – Eric is no hero. When we were boys, he was always the one who liked to play the percentages; who knew when to fight and when to run, while I always stayed, whatever the odds, whatever the size of the enemy. It has made me the Master I am today – that all-or-nothing mentality, that teaches boys not to mess with Straitley because he’s crazy and never gives up – while Eric, for all his gruffness, has a tenderness inside, a weakness all too evident to boys trained to go for the jugular.
Still, I’d hoped for more loyalty – to Harry, and St Oswald’s. I’d hoped that, this time, Eric might have chosen courage over self-interest. I poured another mug of tea and took it back to my form-room, once more feeling the imperious digit of my incipient heart condition moving along my ribcage, as if selecting the best place to strike. I tried not to take it personally, but – and not for the first time – Eric had disappointed me.
I found the new cleaner in room 59, watering my spider plants. He looked up as I opened the door.
‘I hope you don’t mind, Mr Straitley,’ he said. ‘But I noticed your plants needed watering.’
‘You’ll only get them used to it. Before we know it they’ll be going on strike, demanding more sunlight and a better grade of compost.’
Winter shrugged. ‘I don’t mind. I’m already looking after the Chaplain’s orchids.’
‘He trusts you with his orchids?’ I said. ‘You must be some kind of a hypnotist. No one touches those orchids. They’re like the children he never had.’
Winter smiled. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘But those orchids and I are old friends. The Chaplain gave one to my ma when she left St Oswald’s.’ He went on to explain: ‘Ma was one of the cleaners here. She used to bring me with her, sometimes, when I was a little boy.’
I looked at him more closely. Brown hair; blue eyes. Late thirties, at a guess. A face that could easily pass unseen, and yet he’d looked oddly familiar. Given he lives in White City, I’d thought that maybe I had seen him around. But if he’d come here as a boy, thirty years ago, give or take—
I said: ‘I do remember you. You’re Gloria’s boy.’
‘That’s right,’ he said.
Gloria Winter, she must have been. I remember her rather well. In those days, the cleaners were all women, and we called them by their Christian names – not from any sense of superiority, but simply because it gave us the illusion of female companionship.
I told you I remember distant events far more clearly than recent ones: I reached into my pocket for my Liquorice Allsorts, having forgotten that I’d slipped them into my desk drawer; and yet her face came back to me with remarkable clarity. A rather attractive woman, if a little hard-featured, with crow-black hair and those Spanish eyes. And now I think I remember him too, a solemn boy of seven or eight, who would sit and watch from the stairs while his mother walked the polishing-machine up and down the parquet floors of the Middle Corridor.
He looked at me now – with amusement, I thought, perhaps remembering Straitley as was, in the days of my empire.
‘How is Gloria?’ I said.
‘Oh, Ma died a long time ago.’
‘I’m very sorry to hear that,’ I said.
He shrugged and emptied the waste-basket into a black bin-liner. ‘You never think it’ll happen,’ he said. ‘You think they’ll live for ever.’
I nodded. He was right, of course. I’d learnt the same lesson when I was his age. I remembered my own parents, side by side in the Meadowbank home, like the world’s oldest pair of Babes in the Wood. I said: ‘Certain people seem to project something of immortality.’
He looked surprised at that. He said: ‘Yes, that’s right. Exactly right.’
Quite an unusual young man, I thought, as I left him to his work. Not like a regular cleaner at all, though it still remains to be seen if he will prove as efficient as Mary. But Gloria’s boy is no stranger here. He knows these walls and corridors. Unlike Johnny Harrington, who after less than a year at St Oswald’s when he was a boy of fourteen, thinks he’s an Old Centurion.
I walked back home through the park again. I like the way it clears my head. The wind had brought down the horse-chestnuts: broken shells lay on the ground, with the occasional fat brown nut rolling out as I kicked through the leaves. I couldn’t resist picking one up and slipping it into my coat pocket. Talismanic, it will remain there until the gloss has faded.
Once more, I considered Harrington. Has he ever deigned to pick up a handful of conkers from the ground? Did any of those three boys? The three of them were always so clean; so impeccably virtuous. Or at least, I thought they were. Later events made me question that. Of course, young Harrington wasn’t the cause of that sorry business. But he was there. It began with him. And now he’s the one releasing the ghosts, like a child with a magic lamp that, instead of casting light, releases nothing but darkness . . .
2
Michaelmas Term, 1981
My conversation with Harry Clarke did little to solve the mystery of Johnny Harrington’s troubled ‘friend’. Charlie Nutter was absent that week, apparently with some kind of stomach bug, which meant that neither Harry nor I had the chance to talk to him. Harrington, whatever his motives in confiding in me, was once more his uncommunicative self, and Spikely, as always, annoyingly slow in spite of his intellectual’s brow – rather like my own Anderton-Pullitt, in fact; middle-aged before his time, and given to odd little habits, but showing no visible sign of distress, or concern for his absent schoolmate.
I did see him once after Chapel, though, outside the Chaplain’s office. This was traditionally where boys went to discuss their problems, although there was usually more sympathy to be had from the School Secretary than from the ingenuous Dr Burke. I contemplated asking Spikely whether he, too, had a friend who might be possessed, bu
t thought better of it when the Chaplain himself emerged from his inner sanctum, carrying a stack of rugby shirts and looking, as always, slightly harassed.
‘Straitley!’ The Chaplain has always had a somewhat peremptory manner.
‘Chaplain,’ I said politely.
Dr Burke and I were not quite friends, he being more on the side of rugby and cold showers, while I preferred the comforts of Liquorice Allsorts, Catullus and the odd Gauloise. But I liked to think we got along, even though, to him, I suppose I represented the worst elements of Roman civilization.
The Chaplain gave me a meaningful look. ‘A word in my office, Straitley,’ he said.
I followed him into his sanctum, lined with rugby-team photographs and predatory with orchids. There was a teapot on the desk, from which he helped himself to a cup of his special formula – the Chaplain famously believed that caffeine was harmful to body and soul, and instead swore by an undrinkable blend of something that looked like grass clippings.
‘Been hearing about your form,’ he said. ‘Seems they’re a bit of a handful.’
I shrugged. A bit of a handful covers every Middle School form I’ve ever taught. But that year, there were no characters in my form; no exuberant pranksters. Only that feeling of something sly, just below the surface.
‘Has anyone complained?’ I said. ‘And if so, why complain to you? Why not go to the form-master?’
The Chaplain cleared his throat. I could see he was uncomfortable. ‘Delicate nature,’ he said at last. ‘Didn’t want it getting out.’
‘Ah.’ That meant self-abuse, perhaps, or some other sexual problem. The Chaplain, though priding himself on being friendly and approachable, was peculiarly sensitive to what he called problems of a delicate nature, and took them very much to heart – another reason for the boys to avoid confiding in him.
‘Fact is,’ said the Chaplain, ‘one of your boys seems to think that a member of staff – a member of St Oswald’s staff—’ He paused to drink his herbal brew, looking increasingly flustered. ‘I mean, it’s probably nothing. But the boy seems to think he’s promoting a – homosexual agenda.’
Well, there was only one member of staff who might fit that description. And the pupil— ‘Let me guess. Johnny Harrington, perchance?’
‘He came to me in confidence,’ said the Chaplain admonishingly. ‘Of course I wouldn’t reveal the name. But if there’s a Master involved in – well, that kind of activity’ – he shrugged – ‘I’d have to inform the Head. And, of course, the Chairman of Governors. Can’t have a Master corrupting the boys. Letting down the School, and all that.’
‘Chaplain,’ I said firmly. ‘I’m afraid you’ve been the victim of a practical joke. A couple of boys in this year’s 3S specialize in making complaints. You’re not the first to be taken in, but in future, if you could refer the boy in question back to me, we could save time and embarrassment.’
I thought the Chaplain looked relieved. ‘You think it’s a hoax?’
I nodded.
‘Yes, I mean – I thought it was odd. I mean, respected member of staff—’ He sighed. ‘Nothing in it at all, then?’
I thought of Harry; his innocence; his genuine belief that telling the truth was always the best solution. Then I thought of Harrington, and Spikely, the tattletale. I’ve always hated tattletales.
I squared my shoulders and looked the Chaplain firmly in the eye.
‘Nothing in it at all,’ I said.
3
Michaelmas Term, 1981
I thought of talking to Spikely, but decided against it. I had no doubt that it was he who had made the complaint against Harry. I was equally convinced that Harrington had set him up to it: and bearing in mind the amount of time that the three boys spent in Harry’s room, and knowing Harry as I did, I was sure that if Charlie Nutter was having doubts about his own sexuality, Harry would have given him any reassurance he could.
Harrington, with his narrow views, would hardly have been expected to approve. Spikely, I guessed, was easily led. And from that to the two boys lodging a complaint against Harry with the Chaplain – a complaint that, without my intervention, the Chaplain would have duly passed on to the Head, and to the Governors—
Yes, I misled him deliberately. I don’t regret that, even though it caused me some trouble later. What I regret was not seeing the signs. But my mind was taken up with other things; and once the crisis was over, Harrington and his two friends faded once more into the background.
It had been a busy few weeks. Over the second half of the Michaelmas term, I’d been engaged in a number of domestic affairs, including some Sixth-Form Latin coaching, the impending arrival of twenty French Exchange students from La Baule, with all the disruption that would entail, another untimely fall of snow and that School production of Antigone, which, aside from having claimed the souls of two of my brightest fifth-formers, also meant that Harry was taken up with rehearsals every lunchtime and every night till the end of term.
Then there were the rabbits. A rather nasty incident involving a half-dozen rabbits in a run at the back of the School and cared for by members of my form as part of a science project – all of them found dead one day by the boy assigned to feed them.
At first I assumed that a fox had got in. But there were no marks on the rabbits, which were discovered neatly laid out side by side in their little pen, damp, but otherwise intact. Rumours of black magic instantly ran through the Middle School. The boy, a susceptible youngster by the name of Newman, was very upset by the whole thing, and was duly offered counselling by the Chaplain and the Satanic Mr Speight, the combined influence of which froze him into a rigid pillar of misery – rather like a rabbit himself, caught in two sets of headlights.
This isn’t to say that I forgot about Charlie Nutter, or Harry Clarke; but they were not my only concerns, and besides, I only had Harrington’s word (and Harry’s, of course) that anything was wrong at all. Given his son’s lacklustre results, I expected to see Stephen Nutter, MP, at one of our end-of-term Parents’ Evenings, at which point I thought perhaps I might broach the subject of Charlie’s unease – no, not his sexuality, which I’d decided was none of my business unless it affected his Latin verbs, but maybe his general state of mind. In any case, I wasn’t looking forward to it. Meanwhile, Harrington’s parents were due to see me about their son’s progress, and after the poor start to the term, I was eager to make as good an impression as possible.
They came on a Wednesday evening – the first of three devoted to meetings. In those days, we held these in our form-rooms, at intervals of ten minutes each. Some had allocated times between the hours of six and nine, others just turned up on the night. A row of chairs outside the door enabled the parents to wait their turn. An almost foolproof system, made near-impossible to predict by the fact that St Oswald’s parents, like their sons, are often late for meetings; often rude and badly organized; and anyway, are quite incapable of keeping to their allocated ten-minute slot. As a result, these evenings rarely finished before ten thirty, after which we were all exhausted and in no condition to teach the next day.
I’d taken a break in the Common Room, rather than go home for dinner. The kitchens always sent a tray of refreshments for those who preferred to stay in School, and many of the staff availed themselves of the opportunity. On this occasion, I’d barely started my first sandwich when Dr Devine came into the room, looking pressed and efficient. He gave me a look that seemed to take in every detail of my person, from the crumbs on my tie to the chalk marks on my gown – his own, of course, was immaculate; I suspected he’d actually ironed it – and said: ‘When you’ve finished, Straitley, there are parents waiting to see you.’
When you’ve finished, Straitley. As if a ham and cheese sandwich – and maybe a scone, followed by coffee and a leisurely Gauloise – were some kind of orgiastic feast, which maybe, to Devine, it was.
‘They’re two hours early,’ I pointed out.
Devine just gave me one of his looks.
It was a look that conveyed in a glance everything that was wrong with me: my unruly hair – more of it then, of course, and distressingly curly; my lackadaisical posture; my tweed jacket, which was durable, if not exactly glamorous; even the smell of chalk dust and smoke that seemed a part of my essential being – all of it marked and judged lacking by Dr Devine, the self-appointed arbiter of everything.
I cursed Devine in Latin and went back to room 59, where I found the Harringtons, sitting outside and dressed for church; she in a beige fur-collared coat and a modest string of pearls, he in the kind of charcoal suit that manages to convey both affluence and self-restraint. I shook their hands and invited them in (much as folklore dictates we should invite a vampire before he can feed).
Mrs Harrington sat down. Dr Harrington (MA, Oxon) remained standing, which meant that I was obliged to perch uncomfortably on the teacher’s desk, neither seated nor standing. Not a good position for a Junior Master trying to project a confident sense of authority. Nowadays, his son relies on just the same kind of tactics.
A moment for Harrington Senior. It was the first time I’d seen him. A tall man with dark-blond hair and a striking resemblance to his son. Long, elegant, brain-surgeon’s hands; an obstinate line between his eyes. Five years older than I was, at most; and yet I found myself stumbling through my words of welcome like an ill-prepared schoolboy.
‘Mr Straitley,’ said Harrington Senior, cutting short the pleasantries. ‘Perhaps, as Johnny’s form-master, you could give us some insight as to our son’s lack of progress over the term.’
That took me rather by surprise. Most parents do not initiate discussion on Parents’ Evenings. In fact, most parents do not expect to hear specific concerns from members of staff, but only attend in order to feel (however wrongly) that they are taking an active part in their son’s education. The truth is that most parents are best kept as far away from their sons’ education as possible, while the professionals deal with the day-to-day business of teaching. Parents’ Evenings are simply a means of reassuring parents that they are doing all they can, and ensuring that they do not feel the need to visit the School again. There are exceptions – boys who actually need the School to involve their parents; but for the most part, parents are the least helpful port of call for a Master trying to do his job.
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