by H. S. Cross
He sat where he used to, in the red armchair before the grate, John in the brown. Morgan was expected in the dorms, but John had him for a little while yet.
—Who was that soloist? Morgan asked. And when did we get soloist material?
—The name’s Halton, and as it happens, he’s one of mine.
—So it’s to be musical prodigies as well, Grieves Sahib?
His chest tightened at the old nickname, the thing Morgan began calling him once they entered the second age. After Jamie had come and Morgan became a prefect, they’d sit at night in John’s study speaking of the boys, their disasters and conquests, the levers to their affection, the medicines for their faults. Morgan began calling him Grieves Sahib after the Headmaster in Kipling, an unmerited tribute, John always thought. Still, it was a name Morgan used only with him, which meant there was a part of Morgan reserved for him, too.
—Kardleigh discovered him, John continued.
—Is he as much trouble as … our former project?
—Perhaps, John said. In time!
Morgan grinned as if in gratitude and relief, and John saw that Morgan was as shy of the subject as he was, the subject of Riding. They’d sat in the same chairs that day, the day John presented the newest in their series of projects: Riding, TG, aged eleven almost; father dead; too young, too small, too clever by half. Orders of magnitude, Morgan used to joke. He’d stride into the study, dressing gown over shirtsleeves, pour himself a brandy, and plop into the chair: About our project, Grieves Sahib.
—And Pearce? Moss?
—They’re half my JCR, John said.
—So I hear. How’s Pearce taking it?
—Oh …
John rolled his eyes.
—Comes in here and burbles? Morgan said.
—Moss curbs the excess.
—And I suppose Pearce keeps him from complete frivolity?
It was easier then to speak, of the school and other things. When they came round to John, his efforts to manage family abroad, his manuscript and the offer of publication, Morgan understood, or seemed to.
—Don’t do it, he said of the book. You’ll work yourself into the grave if you’re not careful. I know you, sir.
John finished his soda, wondering idly if that wouldn’t be the worst thing. As the clock tolled midnight, Morgan, too, drained his glass and stared past John into the night.
—How is he? Morgan asked when the bells fell silent. Our former project?
John rubbed his eyes:
—Sat his Remove this term, placed into the top Fifth.
—Bless me.
—Otherwise …
John’s voice trailed off, until he realized he was holding his breath. Morgan stood and brushed his trousers.
—So soon?
—I’m expected, Grieves Sahib, and if I don’t go soon there won’t be a lick of sleep.
John found him a torch and walked him to the dormitory stairs.
—I meant to ask, John said as Morgan started up, in your wire you mentioned a letter?
—Yes, sir.
—I was wondering what you meant by it.
Morgan turned:
—You mean you didn’t…?
John knit his brow, and Morgan groaned. Switching off the torch, Morgan reached into his jacket for the letter in question. John scanned the contents.
—Well!
—Ye-es, Morgan said.
—All these signatures, but who on earth sent it? Handwriting’s odd. Masked.
—I’ve been wondering all month, Morgan said. I don’t know most of this lot, but I can’t help notice one signature missing.
John scoured the columns:
—But why would Riding…?
—I wish I knew, sir. I wish to God … there are so many things I wish I knew.
John didn’t tell him that the wish would persist, no matter how wise he grew.
—And I haven’t seen him all day, Morgan complained.
—In the Tower. Go see him in the morning.
Morgan rubbed knuckles through his hair:
—Fifth aside, how is he? Honestly.
John’s eyes flittered.
—It hasn’t been an easy—but did I tell you? His mother is remarrying.
Morgan frowned:
—First sensible thing the woman’s ever done.
* * *
Moss let the other dorms crowd in to see Wilberforce. He captivated them, of course. Oxford, cricket, the ancien régime. The atmosphere was light, but for Moss, strained. Was it so much to ask that Morgan sit there always, pajamas wrinkled, banter flowing? It had gone one o’clock before Moss could peel him away. Down in the study, he uncapped the stout Morgan liked.
—What’s this rubbish you’ve pinned on the walls? Morgan said.
It was only banter, but there was no escaping the sense that the study belonged to Morgan and always would. Morgan’s eyes looked tired, and Moss wondered, with a sudden alarm, if Morgan would propose sleep after one drink. Morgan hadn’t warned him he was coming—not that he should, they didn’t write—but yesterday Grieves had told him and said Wilberforce wanted to sleep in the dorms. To Moss the message was clear enough: Morgan didn’t intend to sleep at all. It would be one of those nights. Now, Moss wondered if he’d jumped to conclusions.
It was hotter indoors than out. Moss shed his pajama jacket, and Morgan lounged on the window seat, pressing a bottle against the back of his neck, talking of Corpus, his tutor, the kinds of friends he’d found. A girl, who was vexed with him for coming to Yorkshire instead of to her fête.
—Dodged a bullet, I’d have thought, Moss said.
But Morgan’s expression said the opposite was true, though he didn’t, it seemed, want to talk about the girl. What he wanted, it seemed, was to defend himself against the accusation, voiced by no one, that he’d shirked duty and loyalty by failing until now to come for Patron’s Day. It always fell at the peak of the cricket, he explained, but he knew he’d been a cad not to come, which was why certain people had been reduced to such gestures.
—What are you on about?
When Morgan produced Halton’s petition, Moss laughed:
—That wasn’t desperation. It was cheek!
Seeing Morgan’s confusion, he explained: Riding had not sent the letter. Another boy had, name of Halton.
—Halton? Morgan balked. The pretty thing who sang today?
—The very one.
—Whatever for?
—Do you know, Moss said, I’ve no earthly idea. Shall we fetch him and see?
Morgan set down the bottle and gave him that grin that always made him—
—You’re a piece of work, Morgan said. And madder than ever, Bastable.
* * *
Pearce switched on his torch to find the catch in the panel. It knew his penknife as people knew him back home, no matter how long it had been or how much he’d grown. The balcony above the chapel was full of broken chairs, but it knew him, too, kept a place for him, asked him how he’d been. How went the world? How went his project? He aimed to memorize the Bible and had begun last term with Jonah. This term, Malachi, wasn’t much longer, but it lacked plot and made him afraid.
They rise and needs will have my dear Lord made away. When they came to that part of the hymn today, there had been a different arrangement that made his chest hurt. Why an execution so gruesome and so shameful? Why crucifixion and not some other death? His slippers were covered in dust after only minutes in the balcony, as if they were made to draw dust to themselves. Was that what God had been doing, drawing out the worst of them, the very worst of their cruel and shabby selves, drawing it out, from the shadows into light, so he could defeat it?
He hadn’t been able to talk with Morgan that day beyond the formal put-and-take in front of other people. Lifetimes since they had their little chats. He was not even remotely the same person, and Morgan had never been one for theology. Still, the thought, the hymn, the vision behind his eyes when he’d knocked Moss into t
he pigeonholes—vision of a priest on a little green island, shepherding its people—it was acting inside him like fizzy drinks in bottles. Start at the top, Simon. Don’t burble. Morgan would listen, arms crossed in the armchair, and by the time he’d finished explaining, Morgan would be sitting forward, elbows on knees, making it clear he was with him and he wasn’t alone anymore. Morgan never said much. He’d nod, repeat a phrase, nod again. By the time the little chat ended, traditionally or not, he’d be calmer, sure.
* * *
They’d been at him, two on one, but Halton stood his ground, sweating into his dressing gown.
—Listen here, you little nit.
Wilberforce was annoyed.
—Do you expect me to believe you organized all these signatures—
—I had help—
—Thank you, I’m doing the talking—without discussing it with Grieves or the Head? Then you posted them on and whistled me up here because you read things and thought I sounded interesting? Are you completely off your nut?
—Took a JCR whacking for it, Moss said.
—Did he, indeed?
His throat was crammed with rocks. Wilberforce got up from the window seat.
—Listen to what I’m saying, boyo, because I’ll only say it once.
His stomach dropped at the name. Wilberforce brought bare toes against his slippers, pajama top tickling his nose:
—I don’t think you’re telling the truth.
He smelled of sweat, beer, and somehow of Mr. Grieves.
—And you aren’t leaving until I hear it. Understand?
He nodded.
—Good.
Wilberforce scraped a chair across the floor and placed it where he’d stood.
—Bastable, drink.
As Wilberforce straddled the chair, eye to eye with him, Moss popped open two bottles. Without releasing his gaze, Wilberforce took a long swig from one and then handed it to him:
—Go on. Guinness is good for you.
A gust blew in the window, and moonlight flooded the room. Wilberforce’s eyes looked dark blue. His nose was sunburned. Halton drank, and his voice came in a whisper:
—The moon shines bright, and on such a nightly night—
—What’s that?
—from yonder window above the earth, Wilberforce, methinks—
Wilberforce touched the bottle, but didn’t take.
—stands full of mirth, awaiting at last the lustrous birth of thee—
Hand on top of his.
—thou ravished bride of quietness.
—You have been reading, Wilberforce said.
A noise, and Moss had his arm:
—Where did you hear that?
Squeezing hard, but he was silent.
—You were asked a question, Wilberforce said.
To hold such a one in his power, in his silence.
—Answer, Moss hissed, or so help me I’ll—
—What?
—I’ll make you wish you never—
Wilberforce pulled Moss away:
—Keep it down.
But then took up Halton’s arm and twisted it behind his back:
—D’you know, boyo, there’s not a string of muscle in your body? I could squash you like a bug.
The words sounded different spoken out loud.
—I could kill you.
Real.
—One squeeze around that neck, one blow in the right place, you’d be dead. We’d tell them you went mad and killed yourself.
Not a joke.
—They’d believe us.
—They’d want to believe you, he whispered.
Then Moss was on him and he was on the floor. Fists.
—That hurts!
—It’ll hurt a lot more, you sneaking bloody cunt!
He yelped. More fists, feet, but then—
—Cunt!
—Keep it down!
Wilberforce dragged Moss to the window seat:
—You may be a prefect, but you aren’t too old to have a licking off me. Understand?
Something about the way he said it took all the air away, and Moss put his head in his hands.
—Now …
Wilberforce turned and scooped him from the floor:
—No one’s going to hurt you. We were only ragging.
Blood poured warm down his chin. He tried to turn away, but Wilberforce took his own pajama jacket and held it against his nose.
—All right, boyo. You’re all right.
And something about the way he said that, the softness of his voice, the softness of his arm pressing his head back, fingers pinching his nose, the way they answered every wish—down came the stilts, pier crashed into the sea.
—Steady on.
Clinging, face against his chest, tears and blood, allowed to be the wreck he was, out in the open, blubbing like a fool.
Afterwards, Wilberforce sent Moss to put his things to soak, and when the study door had shut again, Wilberforce picked him up and set him in a chair beside the armchair.
—Now, he said, we’re going to have a chat.
He pulled the chair closer and tucked the dressing gown cords around his waist.
—About what you’ve been reading, and where you’ve been reading it.
Knowledge reserved for gods only, but once asked, he spoke, changing in a breath from guard to destroyer. Things written, things hidden, he told them all to the one they concerned. Wilberforce said nothing. After, he still said nothing.
Halton had known bullies and confronted a few. They were never silent. Moss’s reaction proved the box was as damning as it seemed, but Wilberforce … Proved, not proved. All this and clear as mud.
* * *
The potted tongue yesterday had looked dubious. It might also have tasted dubious, but Gray had been too hungry to care. As soon as he awoke, he knew what was wrong. Kardleigh probably thought he was malingering; in the afternoon, he’d tried to get him to come down for the cricket, but Gray had mumbled in the negative and clutched the mattress. That bottom-of-a-well feeling when everyone else was having fun, but all you cared about was when your guts would come up again.
Poor Gracey Pissant, whatever shall she do?
Her parents were devoured by a rhino in the zoo.
He ate her mum, he ate her dad, he quaffed her sisters three
But Gracey followed after crying, What was wrong with me?
The wooden bed, its pillars and roof, closed around his father, the Lord’s anointed temple broke ope’, life of the building stolen. He looked as he had looked when sleeping, but his cheek, when Gray touched it, felt wrong.
People crowded to see him, crushing Gray in their embrace as if death canceled manners. They wept over what the doctor Riding had done for them. Cotton headed, like sitting up all night but lasting the week until they put him in the ground.
They’d get by, his mother said. He could get by without a father, he supposed, people did. (But this was not other fathers! He was not other men!) The truth, he explained to himself in the lane outside the churchyard, was that he’d been doing without him all summer. All summer his father had lain in that bed, waging war, they said, against the thing inside him. The truth: it tore him down, day by day.
The sun did not stop rising. Breakfasts appeared. He lived without the father. Later, he began to realize everything he’d lost.
* * *
—This says late for call-over.
—I was getting the biscuits you asked for.
—We all have duties, boyo. I, for one, have the thankless duty of doing something about your docket. Third this week.
—But—
—Let’s just get it over with.
Stabs turned violent, stomach pouring onto study floor, deus ex machina night in the Tower.
* * *
Ordinary people got buried where they lived. Instead, funeral grotesque: loading the box onto a train, further trains, cart, to mis-locate it north. She said the Ridings were all buried at Sledmere, but they
’d never mentioned it, let alone brought him to see. They lowered the box into mud, vicar alien, umbrellas useless against the gale. A wicked place to leave him, all alone with strangers.
* * *
—Failure to wipe basins properly, this says.
—They were wiped properly when I left.
—And is the House now to be run on your satisfaction?
Never peach. Moss’s rules.
—What if you did the basins … but then someone came along and mucked them on purpose? And you couldn’t do them again or you’d be late?
—Easy.
Peasy?
—Take the late, do ’em again, scrub the bogs with his toothbrush.
—Ha!
—You’re welcome. Now touch your toes.
Laughter turning again to sick—
—Bloody hell, boyo.
Safe again in the ribs of the Tower.
* * *
Later, trains and further trains dragged him to banishment. When they pulled alongside the same platform, he shivered. A bitter joke? Only four months since they’d come there with the box.
—Are we going to …
How to put it, visiting the grave?
—We’re late, his mother said. Another time.
Facts were catching up with him: they’d come to Sledmere and Fimber not for the churchyard in Sledmere, but for the Academy near Fimber.
—Did you pick it on purpose?
—Stop being unpleasant.
In the cab:
—It’s an excellent school. You’ll get on. Thank your uncle.
Who selected schools for their proximity to graves?
Once there was a little funk who couldn’t tie his shoes.
He had no mum or dad to write him an excuse.
—Wherever, Riding, did you learn how to spell?
—Not my forte, sir, I’m afraid.
—Why didn’t you look the words out? the Eagle asked.
He didn’t dare admit that he’d thought they were correct.
—They call me the Eagle not merely for the spectacles, but also, I believe, for a certain predatory drive.
—Sir?
—Spelling test, tomorrow. Page six and onwards, every half holiday until further notice.