by Freya North
He whistled, a jolly, inane, childlike tune made up on the spot. He took the fob of the zip and it glided upwards, fast and smooth, a layer of dark blue fabric covering up Miranda's flesh. The zip stuck a few inches from the top and Arlo felt enormously relieved. In an instant, he believed that Miranda really hadn't come to him to seduce him, but only because her dratted zip was stuck and she was hardly likely to ask the ever-lecherous Glasper, whose folly was nearer to hers.
‘Bugger,’ she said, putting her hands behind her neck to try and shift the zip.
‘Hang on,’ said Arlo. They tugged fruitlessly. ‘I know,’ he said and he ran the zip down again, and up. And down again and up. Her back, the dip of her waist, the curve of her hips, the contours of her bottom; her bra strap on the middle clasp, a small brown mole on her left shoulder blade. But no need to whistle. No need to think of other things. It's only a zip. Run it down, zoom it up. There, see! All done.
‘Thanks, Arlo,’ she said. ‘See you over there.’ And she said it with a wink. Or perhaps it was just something in her eye.
He was late. Where was that sodding bow-tie? Blue socks would have to do.
A heady scent permeated the proceedings in the great hall. It was a wonderful and warming mix of roast beef and a gravy thick and rich, of beeswax and wine, of old wood polished to maximum sheen and warmed aromatically by the candelabras. Arlo had always felt the scene could be straight from Dickens. It was tradition on such evenings not to use first names so the Messrs Savidge, Garton, Glasper and Hunter bantered across the table to one another like doubles at table tennis, ducking and bobbing every now and then when the vast fruit platter obscured their view. Down the table, meanwhile, Miss Oates retrieved the odd stray comment as if it were a wayward ping-pong ball, tossing it back gamely and mostly in Mr Savidge's direction.
Headmaster Pinder's address was long and theatrical and the parts in Latin were understood more from his inflection and delivery than for precise translation. One didn't applaud at Formal Dinner, one tapped the edge of the table with a small flat spoon laid precisely for this purpose alone.
‘And on to our notices,’ the headmaster said. ‘We have taken delivery of a new mini-bus, the cleaning of which will fall to pupils serving detention. I'd like to keep it sparkling so be liberal with your disciplining of the young fellows. Now, I know it's summer term but it is term-time for another ten weeks and Cook has lovingly tended a crop of peppermint which is for her culinary requirements, not for the jugs of staff Pimm's. News from the maths department: Mr Bierer and his wife have been honing their multiplication skills and are expecting twins in November – our congratulations to you both. We welcome Mrs Goborne as the new librarian. And sadly, we prepare to say goodbye to Miss Oates who will leave us at the end of the year for a prestigious head-of-department position at Cheltenham. Will you please ensure she goes with a bang.’
The double entendre breezed through the great hall like a Mexican wave which wafted right over Headmaster Pinder's head. A few minutes later, official proceedings ended and the staff were invited to avail themselves of brandy and other liqueurs. Arlo loved brandy; it had been his father's favourite tipple and memories of a thimbleful being passed his way on special occasions remained vivid. Brandy always made him feel warm, a little nostalgic; happy.
‘You're pissed,’ Miss Oates whispered to Mr Savidge as she sashayed past him.
‘Am not!’ Mr Savidge protested a little too loudly and he wasn't too pissed to take this as his cue to call it a night and slip away.
He strolled back to his folly through the school grounds which, under the influence of good food and fine liquor, seemed to be cloaked in a velvety silence and lit theatrically by the moon. He spent a while gazing up at the moon, wondering whether it was its phase or the brandy that made it seem just not quite round. The stars were amazing, even if the alcohol had scattered a few more through the sky for good measure. Arlo was struck with the idea for a lesson, a lesson at midnight to focus on the inspiration of the moon, the stars, the night, the darkness for composers past and present.
‘A little Eine Kleine Nachtmusik,’ he said, stumbling and righting himself. ‘“Starry Starry Nights” – a bit of schmaltz never goes amiss. And I can balance it with “The Whole of the Moon” because all boys need Waterboys. “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” – they'll love the LSD connection. And “Blue Moon”. The sublime Billie Holiday.’
He began to whistle the iconic tune. His good strong whistle picking out the phrases of having no dream in his heart, no love of his own.
And as he neared his folly, a soft voice filtered out from the shadows, singing the words to his tune.
Miranda.
‘Mr Savidge,’ she said.
‘Hi,’ said Arlo, with an unnecessary little wave for emphasis.
‘My zip is caught,’ she said.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Again?’
‘Will you do the honours?’ she said. ‘Again?’
‘Sure,’ he said, opening up the folly, trying to whistle Holst. ‘That's one for the boys to …’
‘Pardon?’
‘Just thinking about lessons.’
‘Not my zip?’
‘Sorry?’
‘My zip, Arlo.’
She didn't take off her heels and in them, she was pretty much his height which he found both mildly unnerving and titillating. She turned from him and scooped her hair up. Arlo jiggled the zip down with ease. ‘There you go, Miss Oates.’
She turned to him and he tried to focus on her level gaze. ‘But Mr Savidge,’ she said, ‘are you not going to ensure I go out with a bang? Headmaster's orders – I'd hate you to lose your job for failing to comply.’
He tried to focus on her words and her wit. ‘I'm drunk,’ he said.
‘Not too drunk,’ she told him, stroking her finger up and down his flies as she flitted her lips across his. He didn't feel his zip go down and then he kidded himself that he didn't realize his trousers were down too. But he couldn't deny the feeling of his cock springing up, nor could he ignore a cool slim hand encircling it.
‘Shit,’ he said, closing his eyes. He felt dizzy from drink, so opened them. And got an eyeful of Miranda squatting down, about to take his cock in her mouth. He told himself to pull away after a few sucks. Then he told himself, What the hell it's only a blow-job and ignored memories of his twenties when even a simple blow-job had made life complicated. He attempted to say, Stop, but couldn't find his voice and soon enough the hot moist feeling of her mouth encircling the precise point of his pleasure emptied his mind as it emptied his balls.
As soon as he'd come, he prayed that she'd go. For Arlo, it was a feeling similar to a takeaway curry or a porn film. As soon as he'd had his fill, he didn't want to see any more of it in front of him.
‘I—’
‘See you tomorrow, big boy,’ Miranda said. ‘And tomorrow, it's my go.’
The boys piled back, most armed with leftover Easter eggs. It was the first time Arlo had thought of Petra in days.
I owe her ten quid.
My almost Easter bunny.
And then he told himself that all chocolate has a sell-by date, that Easter eggs are seasonal, that Easter had been and gone and Petra with it.
And he told himself it had been just one of those strange, strange things, that's all, that day in Suggitts before Easter.
* * *
However, another strange thing had happened in Suggitts, or so it seemed to the proprietor. That lass came back – the one who had visited almost daily up until Easter. She popped up again, came in for a single cone and a quarter of liquorice toffee. And she dithered and dallied long after she'd paid. And finally she came out with it.
‘I don't know if you remember – just before Good Friday, when it was chucking it down with rain? When I came in and bought a chocolate rabbit and it was pouring outside, really hammering down? And a chap came in and he stood by me and I don't know if I told you but I knew him years ago? And I paid for his cho
colate – do you remember? Because you said, well you said, actually you called him a soft lad for forgetting to pay. Well, the thing is, you also said that you knew where he lived.’
‘Yes, pet?’
‘Do you? Do you know where he lives?’
‘I do, love.’
‘Please – could you tell me?’
‘He lives at the school – the posh one. Roseberry Hall. He's a teacher. Been there years. That'll do you, pet?’
Chapter Twenty-seven
‘Monday Monday,’ Arlo sang to his class, ‘so good to me.’ And he meant it. Summer term and the living seemed easy. It was a pleasure to be standing there again, perusing their eager little faces, holding court, doing what he felt he did best. ‘And talking of Mamas and Papas, I hope you all had a great Easter with your families.’
Nathan's arm shot up, the full stretch of which pulled the right side of his shirt clean out of his trousers.
‘Yes, Nathan?’
‘Mamas and Papas – I get it, sir! They also did a song called “California Dreaming”, didn't they!’
Arlo smiled. ‘Very good, Nathan, but it's an absent “g”. Dreamin'. Can you sing it?’ Nathan had a go. ‘Good stuff. And it's certainly one occasion when I'm happy for you to rank the Mamas and Papas higher than the Boomtown Rats who didn't much like Mondays at all.’ This went straight over the boys' heads but they were used to Mr Savidge's tangential and slightly obscure musical references. In fact, most of his pupils stored such information carefully, regurgitating at a later date to enhance their personal hipness.
Excited chatter filtered up from outside where Miss Oates was leading her Year Nine class to a patch of lawn. They flopped down and opened their poetry books. Arlo and his class were momentarily distracted.
‘Sir?’
‘Lars?’
‘Can we do that, sir? Have a class outside? You know, maybe listen to the music of birdsong and the rhythm of the trees and stuff?’
‘I can offer you one better than that,’ Arlo said. ‘Next week, we'll have our class outside at midnight.’
A murmur of approval travelled the desks.
‘Or at least, once it's dark. I was thinking about it over the Easter break. The night – the moon, the stars, darkness and dreams – has inspired musicians over the centuries. It seems only right to consider such pieces during the hours which they sought to exemplify.’
The boys looked flushed.
‘Anyway, tear your attention away from Miss Oates's alfresco teaching, steer your minds away from thoughts of midnight, and wipe from your ears the polite harmonies of mid-sixties San Francisco. Forget about darkness. You lot are coming on a psychedelic trip with me.’
He stopped and wondered the best way to continue. He had responsibilities. ‘Drugs are bloody bad for you, gentlemen. Just say no!’ he announced. ‘But I have to say, they certainly added unique layers to the musical swirls of the late 1960s. Psychedelia.’ And with that he spun around and pressed Play on the stereo. ‘All aboard Jefferson Airplane,’ he said and the boys were soon a little lost but pleasantly surprised by “Somebody to Love” and “White Rabbit”.
‘Well, this next song wasn't so much written on drugs, it was actually written on the loo. The songwriter took to the toilet for some peace and quiet from his wife and this was the result.’
Arlo scoured the CD shelves. Then remembered he'd taken the disc to his folly over the weekend when he was preparing the lesson. The song was essential, the boys had to hear it. In the corner of the class, a guitar was propped. He clicked his fingers and pointed at it and Troy rushed to fetch it. For his students, such impromptu performances were the highlight of lessons with Mr Savidge. Arlo tuned the instrument quietly, then gently slapped the palm of his hand down over the strings to silence them, cleared his throat and seemed to look right through the class. Gently, his fingers appeared to tickle the strings, eliciting a melody, feminine and pretty. Suddenly, he crashed through it, strumming chords hard, his foot and often his hand too beating out the rhythm.
When I look up to the skies
I see your eyes a funny kind of yellow
Despite the boys hearing the song played only acoustically on a single guitar, Arlo's passionate delivery gave them “Pictures of Matchstick Men” perfectly. He sang the song the whole way through, the boys tapping their toes, nodding their heads, loving the lesson.
When he finished, the applause the class gave him was matched from outside. Arlo glanced. Miranda and her class.
‘Written on the loo, finished in the lounge,’ Arlo announced, turning his back to the window. He felt high but suddenly tired.
‘Who's it by?’ Troy asked, as Arlo handed him the guitar.
‘If you guess, you can have the rest of the lesson free.’
Even if they could have guessed, the boys didn't much want the rest of the lesson free. They'd prefer to listen to Mr Savidge play. His lessons were so cool you could almost forget it was school.
‘Jefferson Whatsit?’
‘Someone from Woodstock?’
‘No, Lars. The song came from an album whose title itself typifies the psychedelic vibe of the late 1960s. Picturesque Matchstickable Messages from the Status Quo.’
The boys looked bewildered. ‘But my dad has Status Quo stuff,’ Troy said with a slight frown, ‘and it doesn't sound anything like that. He plays air guitar to it with his legs spread like he's doing the splits. Sometimes Mum has to help him stand properly afterwards.’
Mr Savidge had met Troy's father on occasion. He couldn't quite compute this new image of him. ‘Well, long before they were rocking all over the world in their top-to-toe denim, they did “Pictures of Matchstick Men”.’
‘Play us something else!’
Arlo looked through the CDs and made his choice.
The boys listened. It was a lovely song, in a dreamy, woozy kind of way; enhanced by lyrics which spoke of castles and kings and porpoises laughing goodbye, goodbye.
‘Who is it? Anyone?’
‘Beatles?’
Arlo tutted. ‘If you have to wonder whether something is by the Beatles, then it very probably isn't.’
‘Give us a clue.’
Troy handed his teacher the guitar. Arlo played a little of “I'm a Believer”.
‘The Monkees?’
‘Well done, Nathan – you can scoot. Off you go.’
‘Could I just choose a song instead, sir?’
Arlo was taken aback and touched. He shrugged and turned to the CDs.
‘No, sir,’ said Nathan. ‘I mean, you do the music.’
But Arlo suddenly didn't want to play, or at least, not in front of an audience so he touched his throat and shrugged at his class. Then he caught sight of the spine of a CD and thought how he could have saved himself the performance in the first place.
‘Ozzy Osbourne thought “Pictures of Matchstick Men” was good enough to cover. And so did these guys. Listen out for how violin replaces the guitar lead throughout.’ Arlo set the CD playing and cranked the volume up. The melody, now familiar to the boys, belted around the classroom in a more wry and raucous way.
The class grinned.
‘Who's that?’
‘That, Nathan, is the rather wonderfully named American indie group Camper Van Beethoven. You might want to look out Bongwater's version of the “Porpoise Song” too – I have it somewhere, if anyone wants to borrow it. Now go – lesson finished three minutes ago. Mr Glasper will be waiting.’
The boys left the classroom, a certain rhythmic bounce to their step.
‘I preferred your version,’ Miranda said, coming into the emptied classroom and closing the door.
‘Shouldn't eavesdrop,’ Arlo said, re-alphabetizing a few stray CDs.
‘I have a free period now.’ She was perched on the edge of his desk, swinging her leg so that the toe of her shoe just grazed Arlo's calf.
‘I don't.’ A stupid thing to say, because he did and she knew it.
‘You do.’ See.<
br />
A wave of resentment swept over Arlo, as if Miranda was knowingly undermining him; mining under every block of the barrier he'd built around himself over the last five years, furtively picking holes in the mesh of his carefully constructed safety net. It's not her fault, he told himself, I should be flattered.
‘Miranda,’ he began. He backed away and scratched his head.
‘You look like a nervous schoolboy, Arlo,’ she said and he could see by the sudden brave dullness to her eyes that she'd guessed. Instead of making him feel that this made things easier for him, it made him feel all the more wretched.
‘Look, there's a lot you don't understand about me,’ Arlo said.
‘So, show me the whole picture.’
‘I can't really. It's just something that happened. Something that changed me. Something that showed me that none of this,’ and he waved his hand dismissively between the two of them, ‘none of this is worth it.’
‘Arlo, we're stuck here together, in this beautifully manicured but slightly claustrophobic institution, for ten more weeks. It's summer term – why don't we just have a little fun? I don't want anything more. I don't want you for your mind or your musical intellect – I'm happy enough with a fuck-buddy.’
Arlo regarded her for a loaded moment. ‘But you see, I love what you find claustrophobic. This is my home. I've made it that way. I like my metaphorical furniture just the way it is. I prefer celibacy to fucking buddies. I don't want to get involved – on any level. I'm sorry. It's just the way I am.’
‘You're weird,’ Miranda muttered.
‘Maybe so,’ Arlo shrugged, ‘but I'm happy being weird.’
‘You were hardly miserable when I sucked your dick and swallowed.’
Arlo looked shamefaced. ‘I'm sorry,’ he said again. Why was she still lingering? His free period was dwindling. Say something. ‘Look, if I did want to be involved with someone, then you'd be absolutely the person I'd choose. Honestly. You're great, you're gorgeous. But all I want is the status quo I'd previously attained. It's nothing personal. I like my life this way. It's who I've become – which is better than what I was.’