by H. S. Cross
Jamie took her hand, and she took his, this life touching that one.
—How do you do? she said.
—Much better now I’ve made your acquaintance.
She broke into a grin, which spread to Jamie, flagrant sunshine. John cleared his throat.
—I’ll find you in your room, darling.
Mock seriousness wiped the grin from her face, and from Jamie’s; she wished him good evening and bounced from the room.
—I’d no idea, Jamie said when the door had shut. This is what you’ve been keeping from us all these years?
—I wasn’t—
—She’s charming, John. But it’s awful timing.
—I told you, she won’t—
—Not her. Your boys. My train’s at eight tonight. The conference?
—Can’t you go tomorrow?
—My address is tomorrow.
—Bollocks!
—It isn’t bollocks. I’m chairman of the hymnbook—
—I didn’t mean— Here it is. Shetlands from the fifteenth. Met by aunt in London. School train on the twenty-eighth.
—What?
—Riding. No names, no forwarding address. Beastly woman.
12
The food was appalling. The mutton looked like something Mrs. K’s cat had thrown up. The cabbage was gray. The forks weren’t clean. The other masters looked too cross to care. They put things in their mouths and washed it down with claret. Except Uncle John, of course, who’d drink tea if he were there. The whole room smelled of a steamy, sweaty toilet.
But Dr. Sebastian said grace as if he meant it, a prayer that rhymed about bread and fishes, his voice, his accent, not like the grown-ups she knew, almost like Uncle John, but brighter. He made announcements about bedtimes, and then he introduced her, his hand on her shoulder as if picking her for Games. They all stopped rustling and gawped. They didn’t look like the boys at her school. Their hair was shorter, more cruel.
The air outdoors cleared her nose with the smell of coal. The little man was closing the gates and lighting the lamp. The doorknob of the House, when she touched it, was sticky, handled by all those boys.
* * *
—Half the common room just buttonholed me at tea, Jamie complained.
—I thought you said it was inevitable.
—The point, John, is they’re right. Goings-on at that barn almost destroyed the school before.
—Amongst other things!
—And being asked to speak at the Headmasters’ conference is a vote of confidence for the school, rebuilding from the ash, living it down.
—Jamie.
—Maudlin?
—This time isn’t that time. These boys aren’t those boys.
—What if you’re wrong?
—I give you my word.
* * *
Mrs. Firth let him into the changing room while everyone was at tea. The Headmaster would see him during Prep. Gray had better eat the sandwiches. He’d get nothing else, and she wouldn’t do with wasting.
He got under the showers. Night, mud, blood, drain. We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness. He hated the Sunday Confession. It was overdone. He might have broken rules, but wicked? Provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us. If they disposed him, he’d be gone in the morning. No goodbyes, not even to Trevor. Mrs. Firth called from the door, told him not to dawdle. Towel, toothbrush, comb. Shirt, collar. There was no later to think things through. It was now or naked. Think.
If they believed the walk, why Chamber of Death? He could insist the walk was true, but what else did they know?
If they had the box: stolen, from his cupboard oh terms ago, not his hand, not even much like.
No time to polish the shoes, only spit and rubbing.
If they didn’t have it: walking. Who got disposed for walking? You got disposed for … they didn’t even say why those chaps were sacked last year. Henri of his two had said il faut mieux, and Burton of his had said nothing. Trevor declared they were beasts all along and the Academy was better off without them.
So what if they expelled him? He’d be free! No more fists in the scrum, no more puke-on-toast, snot-and-jam, JCR. Home, free, and peace. But they’d drag her back from Shetland. Tell her some, tell her all. Morning and night, her tears hidden and shown. The remembrance of them is grievous unto us— A walk. Just a walk. Uncle John working to save. He’d been first in his form nearly three years. A walk, Uncle John, slipped on flat ground.
His handkerchief needed folding, his pockets vetting: broken pencil, rubber, nib, stone (amulet, Valarious), paper torn, paper inked, paper … blue, unknown. LOOK IN YOUR PIGONHOLE.
* * *
Cordelia had promised to ring the hospital at half past five, but when her call reached the ward, they said her mother was taking a bath: call at seven and ask for the Sister.
Uncle John had said she could ring from his study. He had his hands full and would be in the Headmaster’s study, but she should sit herself at his desk and speak as long as she wished, even as long as ten minutes. But now, at almost seven, he said she’d have to wait. The hands-full matter had been moved to his study. Dr. Sebastian was due and Mr. Burton-Lee. Yes, with the moustache, but he wouldn’t call it noodley. She’d promised on the train to obey him when he asked, and now he asked that she go to her room. Here was a book. Here was another. He would fetch her shortly, as soon as he could. He knew the ward hours just as well as she did, and they’d reach her mother before the night was done. The corridor was warmer than his study, and its smell brooked no compromise, orange, nearly brown, like things smelled in other times. The books he’d put in her hand were dry, almost as bad as touching day-old newsprint. The clock there started clanging like an out-of-tune gong. She never thought before how much a clock looked like a coffin. The glass was fogged, and the time was off. The bell outside had just tolled seven as this one finished its three-quarter tune.
* * *
Mrs. Firth walked like his mother, footsteps full of blame. Outside Grieves’s study, she began to scold someone else. Which might allow a moment for his pigeonhole …
—What do you think you’re doing, boy? Get on!
He turned and there was the girl, books in hand, wearing shoes, not skates. He looked at her and she looked back straight. Mrs. Firth behind him, he mouthed his prayer: Help. Secret ally, secret friend, her eyes went wide, heart, chin, yes.
* * *
John knew he needed to pull himself together. He hadn’t eaten much solid food (had he eaten any?), and the tea was making his thoughts go too fast. He needed to breathe to a deeper depth and slower.
He cleared his desk to the letter table. There, wedged in the blotter, was the bill from his tailor he’d sworn he didn’t have. There wasn’t time to get Mrs. Firth in with a cloth, so he used his handkerchief on the desk and then arranged the chairs. The window he pulled closed, wondering where the piece of twine that held it had got to.
He was mentally reciting a jeremiad against Burton, and if pushed to it later, he would stop proceedings in their track, dispatch the boy to the corridor, and speak unbridled. Yes, in a general sense history could repeat itself, but this wasn’t history. If Burton raged, John would not care. If Jamie raged, damn him. John would speak the truth. But he had to stop rehearsing or he’d sound like some trade-union firebrand.
He checked the glasses on the mantel for dust. Would it be too much to pour out their drinks ahead of time? He decided that it would. The soda was charged, the coasters in their place.
It was impossible not to think of the outcome. The penalty was Jamie’s to dispense, John’s to negotiate. Jamie flogged less than average. Still, a caning from the Headmaster was always a salutary affair, even if the JCR hit harder, which John supposed they did. The previous Headmaster, S-K, had occasionally caned boys before the whole school, but it was a risky tactic. Even John could see (though he despised the whole thing) that unless you could visibly discompose the culprits, you’d turn t
hem into heroes. Wisely, Jamie had never attempted it. Burton was known periodically to cane his own boys before the House, but as for Riding, his fate was oddly straightforward: expulsion, rustication, or six from the Headmaster’s arm.
There were canes in every Housemaster’s study, and John’s predecessor had left three. If he’d become Housemaster under the old Head, he would have taken the things immediately to S-K and refused, but under Jamie—why bother with gestures?—he’d put them away in the back of the cupboard. Now, with Jamie whimsically deciding to conduct the interview in John’s study while also leaving it until the last possible moment before departing for his conference, why not be blunt? Six was the most favorable outcome for Riding, and Jamie could use what was in the cupboard. No, Burton would not have to do it in Jamie’s stead. No, they wouldn’t have to send for one. The object on the hook by the filing cabinets would serve perfectly well. It was possible John had once tried it—on cushions only—in the interests of research: Had his predecessor used poor tools? Too heavy or too rigid, apt to injure or break? Or too whippy, apt to go every place except where you aimed it? No. Length average, weight average, give average, it did just what he told it—at least to judge by the lines on the cushions. If it came to it, they wouldn’t need palaver. A matter of one minute, and Jamie could catch his train.
There was nothing else in the room to prepare. He took the key from his desk and went to fetch Riding.
* * *
Cordelia had climbed out her window and now stood below his. His hair was combed, his clothes were neat, the light in the room made his eyes look bruised. He bit his lip, as he had bitten it when he pretended to interview her. He, more than any cloud bank, was bringing new weather.
—Miss Líoht, he said, please.
The sick feeling he’d given her this morning, butter turned bitter, seemed only a mistake. She asked what he needed. He showed her a slip of airmail paper.
—What are the pigeonholes?
* * *
Jamie and Burton were in the corridor when John emerged.
—Ah, good, Burton said, there you are.
He shouldered past John into the study, and Jamie followed. The Headmaster took a seat at John’s desk, and Burton installed himself in the chair John had planned for himself.
—I was just fetching Riding.
—Let him wait, Jamie said.
* * *
Fourth hole from the left, top row. Boys clomped like barbarians down the stairs. She hung back until they finished rifling the mailboxes, and then she stood on the bottom shelf to reach. Wood, dust, an envelope sealed without writing or stamp. She held it up to the light. There wasn’t even a letter inside.
* * *
—We’ve been through all this, John said.
—Go through it again. Beginning with Mainwaring.
* * *
Opening a letter with shaking hands was harder than he imagined, and then it turned out to be empty.
—Is it a joke? the girl asked.
But there, she pointed, even there, inside the flap.
Box is safe. Will return when cost is clear. No one knows. T.
—They want a ransom? she said.
Safe.
—What box?
No one knows.
—What do they mean, cost is clear?
—Miss Líoht, he said, about the other chap—
—Or do they mean coast?
—You said he was—
—In the sanitarium. Uncle John’s just been to see him.
Trevor still in Tower, no way to put notes in trousers or pigeonholes.
—Then who the … bally heck is T?
* * *
Twenty past seven, twentieth March, nineteen thirty-one year of our Lord, his study now crown court, judge at desk, king’s council in chair, John as defense exiled to the land of French windows. In dock, the boy who wouldn’t speak. Jamie let him stand there as he pretended to examine a file. Evidence: one cracked skull, two empty beds, three years good conduct, four years passed since the Great Clear-Out.
—We haven’t much time, Jamie said, and I intend to get to the bottom of this.
* * *
The Head folded his hands and turned needle-eyes upon him:
—What were you doing out of bed last night?
Standing behind the desk, Mr. Grieves nodded at him.
—Walking, sir.
—Walking?
—Yes, sir.
And they were. First rule of lying, hew close to the truth.
Burton thunked his glass on the desk:
—This won’t do, Riding. It won’t do at all. Just where were you walking that you found yourselves barely back in bed at six o’clock this morning, filthy dirty, Mainwaring with a concussion of the skull?
Careful. Careful. Second rule, remember everything.
—In the quad.
—Are you sure? asked the Head.
—Yes, sir.
Pictured in his mind. Should have started picturing before, but better late than—
—You’re aware, the Head continued, that it’s forbidden to leave your bed after lights-out, except in an emergency?
—Yes, sir.
—So?
—Mainwaring couldn’t sleep, sir.
Quad, cloisters, dogged insomnia.
—I advise you to speak plainly, the Flea snapped. We are not, as you suppose, buffoons in the dark. If you fail to be frank, we shall draw our own conclusions.
—But he couldn’t!
Mr. Grieves raised a hand:
—No one doubts you. But it would help, Riding, if this weren’t so much like pulling teeth.
Eyes like the classroom, when he knew you could explain and wanted you to try.
—He couldn’t sleep … Mainwaring, that is … he hadn’t slept. Not in nights and nights. And you know what they say.
—I’m afraid we don’t.
—At least my father used to say, with patients who couldn’t sleep …
Mr. Grieves urging, not doubting.
—Sleepless for five, hard to survive.
And he was a genius. It even rhymed.
—Oh, yes? said the Head.
—Mainwaring knew he had to walk it off, and he asked me to come with him, because it’s dangerous to walk insomnia off alone. You could fall asleep on your feet and knock yourself unconscious.
—And is that what he did?
—Sir?
—Fall asleep on his feet and knock himself—
—Oh, no, sir! He slipped climbing the drainpipe.
—You were climbing a drainpipe?
—Fascinating, said the Flea.
* * *
Burton went to the mantel and poured himself another drink as Jamie led Riding back through his testimony, which was preposterous enough to be true. Unvarying, irritating, unreasonable, it had the ring of adolescent stupidity. Riding described the quadrangle, the cloisters, the moonlight, Mainwaring’s manic exhaustion, the game they played with quotations, Glamis hath murdered sleep—
—And what has been the cause of this insomnia? Jamie interrupted.
Mainwaring hadn’t given a reason, and Riding hadn’t a clue. Apparently Mainwaring was prone to it.
—Has there been anything irregular about the past few days?
—No, sir.
—Quite sure about that?
Jamie had always been ruthless, and now, before John could intervene, he went on the attack. Nothing had occurred, had it? Except a foray out-of-bounds to McKay’s barn? Riding tried to explain, but Jamie peppered him with questions and sarcasm. Assaulted by mistrust, Riding grew flustered. He was a boy too inept to connive, and too innocent, John saw, to defend himself against doubt.
—But other than that, Jamie concluded, nothing out of the ordinary?
Riding’s face had turned red. He was trying to pull himself together.
—No, sir.
—And yet, Burton interjected, he had to be disciplined in Prep last night.
&n
bsp; —Is it ordinary for you to disrupt Prep in such a manner?
—All I did was ask how to spell responsibility!
—What happened? John broke in.
Riding scowled at the floor.
—He had to be caned, Jamie said. He didn’t tell you?
* * *
To have it said baldly about him, as if urgent: he had to be anesthetized, had to be restrained, had to be locked up for his own protection. There was a feeling like water and like lava. Mr. Grieves retreated behind the desk and fiddled with a letter opener. The other two wanted him dead. They thought the worst, worse than he’d ever done. But bully though they might, he didn’t have to crumble. They could bait him all night long and he wouldn’t surrender. If they intended to dispose him, he wouldn’t help. They’d have to do it unjustly.
—One wonders what else he hasn’t told you, the Flea droned. About McKay’s barn, for instance, and how the cries for help—
—Can we keep to the subject, please? the Head urged. We’ve been through this barn business. I shall be meeting with McKay the day I return.
The Flea looked sour. If they were going to turn against each other, perhaps it would even be worth it. Trevor, when he told him, would—
—I must say, Riding, this is not what I was led to expect.
The Head touched the dossier before him.
—You’ve been first in your form the last three years. Your record is exemplary.
—Thank you, sir.
—But don’t imagine that I believe one word of your story. You’re a transparent liar, and it’s abundantly clear that the truth lies elsewhere.
* * *
John’s heart slipped. He put down the letter opener before he stabbed himself.
—It can’t be that bad, Burton was saying. We’ve all done things we regret.
Riding looked defiant. Burton plied the technique. John felt the breathless panic of envy.