‘’E doesn’t know the ’ouse, Sir,’ one of the boys tried again.
‘I do, so there,’ Roberts croaked, as he came up to the blackboard to collect his delivery.
It was indeed mightily large for him, and he tried to conceal that he had difficulty in manoeuvring it. He held it in front of him, like a shield, and because of his lack of height and the wreath’s length, he was obliged to hold it high, and the strain on his thin little arms must have been appalling. I gave him the address, though he swore that he knew it, and I patted him ever so gently on his back. He put all his meagre strength into leaving the classroom with dignity, holding the wreath high and before him, like a lame Olympic runner. When he had gone, the class crowded round the windows to see him through the playground. After a while, he appeared, struggling with his charge, trying all manner of positions in which to carry it. Then half-way across the playground, he stopped, as if inspired. Then quickly he hung the wreath around his neck and belted across the yard as fast as his matchsticks would carry him. Behind him, he left a coloured trail of pocket-money tributes and I dreaded to think what would be left of the wreath by the time he got it to the Johnson house.
Shortly afterwards, the bell rang for the end of the morning, and I went back to the staff-room to deposit my books. I had plenty of time. The funeral wasn’t until two o’clock. An hour and a half to go. I had generously calculated an hour to put on my Sundays, so I dawdled a little with trivial chat to other staff members. By about twelve-thirty they had all returned to the common-room, and it was a full and chatty house, when the door swung open and Parsons, dishevelled and overwrought, his upper lip spurting blood, blazed on the threshold, eyeing us all with such hatred, I could not help but admire him. My first thought was to question who had been his adversary, but when I saw Miss Price gather herself to her lisle feet, and almost bolt past him out of the door, I knew that Florence Nightingale was on her way to the Cloth.
‘What happened?’ I said. It seemed I was the only one with tongue enough to talk to him.
‘He gave me the push,’ Parsons said, without moving, ‘and I did the same for him. He’s not looking too pretty himself,’ he said. ‘I just came to collect my things. I’m not going to fight it,’ he said, reaching into his locker. ‘I don’t stand much of a chance. But I didn’t do it, no matter what any kid says. I’ve got a fiancée in Brighton. I don’t need any niggers in the woodpile.’
I could have hit him then, but I turned away, as did the rest of the staff as he ranted on into his locker.
‘I’ve got a fiancée in Brighton,’ he kept repeating, as if a fiancée in Brighton, or indeed any other place, precluded any dirty business elsewhere. Why, I myself had a wife, but there was little point in quoting my spouse to Tommy while my hot hand fumbled up his mother’s skirt.
‘Well, you’d better go to Brighton, hadn’t you?’ Mr Gardiner suggested.
‘I’ve got a fiancée in Brighton,’ Parsons said again, as if that were a reason for not going there.
‘So you keep on saying,’ Mr Gardiner said wearily.
By now, Parsons had emptied his locker. His arms were full of exercise books and the odd textbook amongst the piles. He placed them all on the long table, then systematically took each one, textbooks included, and tore them into pieces, casting the shreds like confetti over the common-room floor. We all stared at him, but no one made a move to stop him. We were the sort of crowd that throughout history has indifferently watched the burning of books. One by one, they all left, and I remained for a while, while he shed his demoniac rage. ‘You poor old sod,’ I said, as he tore up the last exercise book. ‘You’d better go and have yourself seen to.’
He turned on me as if he would lay me low as well, but I managed to get out of the common-room before he reached me.
In the corridor, I ran into Miss Price, hot from the Cloth, bearing a bloodied swab in her hand, and I had the feeling she’d lost her virginity.
I went into my house by the back door, trembling with excitement. I had almost an hour left in which to change, and the house was all to myself and my privacy. I went straight to my study and peered through the net curtains. A great black hearse stood outside the Johnson door, the coffin already inside. Over it lay a mound of wreaths, and on the pavement, the overflow. Amongst them, I caught sight of Tommy’s form’s contribution. It was, as I had feared, sadly depleted, but there was more grief in the cold wire armature of the circle, than in all the flowers that had stubbornly held their form.
I dropped the curtain, and on turning back into the room, I saw a letter that had been pushed under my door. It was my wife’s habit to deliver my mail in this fashion, and on entering my study on my return from school, it had become automatic with me to take a high step over the threshold so as not to damage any correspondence I might have received. I had seen the letter when I had first entered the room, lying under my raised foot, but recognizing the postmark, I had pretended it wasn’t there. Now, with my back to the window, it stared at me and could not be denied. Over the course of relating this narrative, and indeed long before, I have received many similar letters, all with the same threatening Irish stamps, usually franked with some Emerald Isle jingoism. I delay opening them, for I know the message inside. It is always the same. The letters are from my mother. I haven’t spoken of her before, except in passing, because I’ve given you enough to put up with, with that rotten father of mine, without burdening you with my mother as well. But I should tell you that since my mother remarried some years ago, she has had but two words to say to me, and they arrive regularly, once a week, under these green stamps. The message never varies, like a monotonous litany.
She married an Irish churchgoer, with all the trimmings. Massing and confessing together, she found herself once more in the church. Well, that was her problem and I rather resented the fact that each week I was the recipient of her green stamp neurosis. I picked the letter up. Even now, after years of weekly missives I nourished the hope that perhaps one day her theme would allow itself a slight variation. And on this day, which had already been fraught with incident, and threatened much more, the letter that I opened was indeed other than the rest. I spread it out on my desk. She wrote in purple ink. Always, for that was the colour of her sermon. ‘CONFESS, CONFESS,’ it read, as it had shouted in capitals once a week over the past twelve years. And then, almost as a postscript, she had made the additional plea of, ‘My son.’ I was moved by this sudden appellation, seeing myself gloriously in my filial role, and she in her maternal, but then it occurred to me that she might so totally have joined the ranks of the church, that she saw herself as a priest, and myself as one of her flock. Was she coming closer to me, or drifting apart? The codicil to her message could have meant either. I decided that either way she must be going off her rocker, and I gave her letter the same treatment as I had given all the others. I took my red pencil which screamed against her purple and wrote BALLS in large capitals across her plea. Then I screwed it up into the wastepaper basket, and tried to forget about it. Over the years, it had taken me the better part of the week to get her admonishment out of my mind, and barely erased, yet another would arrive. As if I needed any reminder of my rotten father.
My new Sundays lay on the couch, and it was all I could do to recapture my excitement. Ignoring my mother, or my father for that matter, was no way of getting rid of them. That was becoming abundantly clear. If they would not pass out of my life, then I would have to disappear from theirs. And once again I had the feeling that a radical change was due in my existence. The thought gave me new hope, and I started to undress. I took off all my clothes, and after washing, put on my dressing-gown. I felt that it was the last male garment I was to wear for a long time. Then I started on my maquillage. Although it was going well, I took my time. My hand occasionally shook with excitement, so that I had to re-do my eye make-up a number of times. Even so, I was finished early, and all that remained was my clothing.
As I put on the first garm
ents, the frilly petticoat and panties, my excitement gave way to fear, and I kept crossing to the window and lifting the curtain, as if in continuous dress-rehearsal for what had now become a dreaded debut. I trembled as I put on my stockings, and ham-fistedly hooked them to my belt. Occasionally I thought of foregoing the whole business. In my anguish I was aware that my sortie had assumed the status of an imperative, and that perhaps it might even be without pleasure. I was terrifyingly near ready. All that remained was the dress. I hesitated before putting it on, because I knew somehow that it was the final commitment. I looked at my open wardrobe, the trousers, jackets and shirts, my life’s fiction. And I knew that whatever happened that day, that forged part of me had gone for ever. It was a terrifying revelation.
When I was fully changed and bewigged, I confronted my reflection and found it undeniably fool-proof. I was slightly disappointed. I had hoped perhaps for a loop-hole of giveaway. I had hoped perhaps to run a greater risk. But as I looked at myself, I knew that without doubt I was going to get away with it. My excitement was mixed with a slight vexation of spirit.
Once again I looked through the net curtain. People were coming out of the Johnson house, Mrs Johnson amongst them, supported by my wife in her black do-gooding gear, and no doubt thoroughly enjoying herself. They all piled into cars that had meanwhile arrived, and I waited for them to drive off before taking to the streets myself. I was full of confidence, so much so, that I did not hesitate to use my front door for my exit. The street was empty, and I was able to pass down it without encounter. The crematorium was only a few streets away. When we had first considered buying our house, I had objected to this factor, but my wife, being a woman poor in imagination, had found this no adequate reason to look elsewhere. So as the crow flew, we were one minute from the chimney, but on foot, as a frail mourning gentlewoman, I could allow for a quarter of an hour. I took my time. Only guilty people hurry, and I did not in my case wish to spend too long outside the chapel before the service began. At the end of the street, I turned the corner and saw a group of people coming in my direction, and for the first time, I was afraid. The full meaning of what I was about spread through me like a sudden fever. I stood for a moment, unable to move. Then I realized, that standing still with no apparent purpose, of loitering, as it were, without intent, was only likely to draw attention to myself, and it was this fear of discovery that propelled my feet forward. It is hard to describe my feelings as I took these next few steps. Perhaps I felt as a child who walks for the first time, with that same mixture of excitement and fear. Of all my clothing, it was the underwear of which I was most conscious. I felt its contours as acutely as if it had been fashioned of straw. I stood still again, and looked around for some justification for stopping.
A taxi came in my direction, and for a moment I thought I would hail it for safety. But I was afraid of raising my voice to a volume stronger than mezzo-forte. Since my visit to the ‘Femina Boutique’, I had undergone a good deal of voice practice, and I had learned my decibel limit, beyond which I would be discovered. My maximum, as I have said, was mezzo-forte, but I was more comfortable and more convincing in the piano range. It was a seductive level, and allowed for a certain authentic lowness in pitch, and a shout for a taxi would have been a certain give-away. So I passed the people by, trying to disguise my faltering step. But they did not look twice at me, and some of them perhaps not even once, and as I walked along the street, gathering more confidence, passing and being overtaken by more and more people, I noticed that I was the object of no one’s attention. On the one hand, this pleased me, but on the other, I was slightly disappointed that no one turned their head to look at me a second time. I felt that my elegant turnout was worth some acknowledgement.
I had reached the end of the street, and now only had to turn the corner that would lead directly to the crematorium. I could already see the cars as they slowed up to turn into the drive. I felt that if I could make that last hurdle, that entrance into the crowded courtyard outside the chapel, if I could worthily acquit myself in that course, then never again would I return to my old way of life. And it was this desperate ambition which steadied my passage, that carried me unnoticed through the throng, that led me straight past my unknowing wife and up to Mrs Johnson, whose hand I dutifully shook while murmuring my mezzo-forte condolences. And I stood to one side, alone in my beating black, and I knew that, for better or worse, I had committed myself to a course of action that would change my whole existence, and I was filled with such a joy, that for the first time in many years, I thought of my father without pain.
My solitary stance in the courtyard was not conspicuous, for there were many who stood alone in what seemed appropriate contemplation of life and death. Even my wife was holding her tongue, and I moved a little to place myself directly in her line of vision, and she stared right through me without a flicker of recognition. My joy was physical, and I wondered how I had managed for so many years to deprive myself of this quality of fulfilment.
Suddenly an intense quiet struck the gathering, a silence more acute, for it crashed not into a great rumour but into a murmuring. I looked around to see what had prompted this sudden stillness, and I could only ascribe it to the highly conspicuous arrival of the Cloth. Not the Cloth of the Chapel incumbent, but that of my very own, fighting a losing battle to retain what dignity the grand old Parsons had left him. His right eye was covered with a ham-fistedly tied bandage. Its tying had been more a labour of love than technique, and I thought it moist with Miss Price’s tears. But despite his appearance, his unstained collar gave him passage, and he strutted through the crowd as if the courtyard were his domain, and that if anybody cramped him, they would be the next for the fire. He managed a condescending smile, for after all, was not every flock his own? Beaten though he was, he looked like a retiring boxer who had made sure of at least half of the purse.
He was making for my wife. That was yet another encounter I had not envisaged, but I cared not what complications would arise from it. Yet my need to eavesdrop urged me to move closer. When he reached my wife, he shattered the silence with what I thought to be an inappropriately loud greeting. ‘Afternoon,’ he said brusquely. ‘Your husband here yet?’
‘He won’t be coming,’ my wife said with a little surprise. ‘Pressure of work, he said.’
‘He’ll turn up all right,’ the Cloth said with confidence. ‘Gave him permission myself. Ought to be here by now.’ He wheeled round to scan the gathering. Did he, or did he not pause for just one second on my frail person? I did not blink, but followed his gaze, and when it returned to my own, I managed with the greatest difficulty to refrain from smiling.
I heard a rustling at my side, and I looked down to see an old lady fumbling in her handbag. I noticed that all around me, bags were being opened in search of props, as a sign that the performance was imminent. In all my purchases, I had forgotten to list a handbag, and I resolved at the next opportunity to remedy this fault. I found myself examining the other women’s wear. I already felt one of them, envying a scarf here, a pair of gloves there, offended by a twisted stocking seam, a scuffed pair of shoes. As a man, I had never entertained such thoughts. My indifference to clothing had been sublime. I marvelled that a new dimension of thinking was possible. I had much to look forward to, and I began to wish that they would get on with the business of dispatching my neighbour, to confirm with the fire, his death once and for all, so that I could get on with living.
The Cloth was still scanning the yard for me. ‘I wonder what’s happened to Verrey Smith,’ he said, almost to himself, and at the sound of that name, which over the years had echoed with such noble refrain, I started, for its time-honoured familiarity was suddenly shaken.
‘Verrey Smith?’ I thought to myself. But its echo, which hitherto had resolved itself with sure assertion, now hung on the air like an interrupted cadence. I looked down on my clothes, and whatever name they called to mind, it was certainly not Verrey Smith. I felt no sense of betraya
l, no treachery to my past. Verrey Smith just did not fit any longer, no more than my trousers and jackets. I wondered what name would become me. I was overcome by a vast sense of freedom that I was able to choose my own identity. It was too important a choice to make casually and I decided to give it more thought, preferably in front of a full-length mirror.
The crowd was moving towards the chapel. I placed myself directly behind the Cloth and my wife, a position that heightened my excitement, and I resolved if possible to sit next to them during the service, in order to prolong my joy, while my neighbour, with bogus testimonial, was launched into the fire. The Cloth gave a last look around the courtyard, probably with thoughts of how to deal with me on the morrow, and I innocently followed his gaze, looking for myself, as well I might, for George Verrey Smith had evaporated. Of that, I was almost sure.
The chapel was small, but large enough to make the gathering look like a sprinkling. All of them seemed to concentrate themselves into two or three rows, close as relations, bound as they were by the common factor of mourning. So it appeared quite natural to seat myself between my wife and my Cloth, and my only problem was to conceal my excitement, a display of which, in this pre-oven climate, would have been most inappropriate. No sooner had we all settled ourselves than, at an unseen prompting, we all rose again, as the coffin was carried through the aisle. I cursed myself for having forgotten a handkerchief, and would have used my glove had I remembered to paint my fingernails. Being a woman was certainly a time-consuming occupation and I resolved in future to put aside a certain hour of my day to my grooming. I put my gloved hand to my eye, wiping away an imagined tear. Even my Cloth was armed with a large white square, which he applied to his bandaged eye, rather pointlessly I thought, since, if there were any mopping-up to be done, that part of his face was well catered for. And so we all dabbed and sighed away, all, that is, except Mrs Johnson whom I could see out of the corner of my eye, silent and imperturbable.
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