Grievous

by H. S. Cross

  To their relief, the flies had not made it to the Sun and Rose, so they were able to sit beside an open window overlooking the river. Cathy admired the baskets of flowers, and Joe declared the ploughman’s lunch the best he’d ever tasted. Gill stayed silent through the meal, but when he’d finished, he sat up in his seat as a Headmaster about to address a refectory.

  —I believe I’ve found a suitable weapon, he said gravely. To repel them.

  His parents gave him their full attention. The boy hummed a note and then sang:

  —I hate flies.

  He sang the words soberly in three descending notes. The other two hummed his final note in response. The boy sat straighter:

  —They are not grand.

  Same three notes, echoed again. He went up a step:

  —I hate flies. I swat them with my hand.

  This time his father repeated the last phrase, roving up and down the scale, in some strange monastic inspiration. When he finished, the three began again, as if it was something they always did. The tune was “Three Blind Mice,” but the pace quickened, and Gill sang stridently:

  —They swarm around till you have a fit, they even sit on your upper lip, they make you feel like a walking gob of—

  —Gill!

  —Spit, Father, spit.

  They laughed.

  —And all you can do is sit and grit your teeth if you’re wise.

  The song was absurd, but they sang in harmony, John joining along as they resumed the walk. Gill led them in other songs, too—“Rule Britannia,” “Keep the Home Fires Burning”—to which they seemed to know all the words, even ones John had never heard. By the time they returned to the inn, John’s throat was sore from singing, and his stomach from laughing.

  —You can’t go! Gill declared. The wind’s picked up and the flies have packed off.

  John groped for a joke, or at least a pun, but his mind was spent.

  —Besides, Gill said, you promised to teach me to use a compass.

  —You did promise that, said Cathy.

  —You can leave Tuesday, Gill pleaded. What’s one more day, Flymaster?

  John tried to be serious but wound up laughing instead.

  —You see, he doesn’t want to go!

  That night Joe took to the piano as Gill and Cathy gave an elaborate rendition of “The Fly Song,” followed by favorites that had the entire room singing (rogue wish: that Cordelia and Meg could join him here, with these people), but then “The Old Kent Road” was finishing, and the music was changing into something plaintive, Gill and Cathy in duet, How shall I my true love know, sending shivers through him, which bewept to the grave did go, with true-love showers …

  The next day, fine and breezy, they took a picnic up Hasty Bank Top and sat amongst the Wainstones. After lunch they dozed in the sunshine, and John felt he’d been stolen away, not by pirates or even fairies, but by the real kind of life other people lived, people who rejoiced in the day and laughed at flies even as they sang of sorrow and love and the end that awaited them all. The rot at the heart of his sojourn there—whether memorial or magic wishing—now seemed antique, turned under leaves to make humus. If Gill could turn abandonment (in a hat or otherwise) into reason for good luck, surely John could refuse to bow down before a memory.

  They drifted down from the tops with the reluctance due a last holiday, but by evening, they were suffering.

  —I am going to die, Gill moaned. I’ve never been so sunburnt in my life.

  They sat far from the fireplace and cooled their skin with damp cloths, and as they complained, the pain came to seem both validation of their pleasure and a final trial they would endure as one. After supper, Gill revived sufficiently to demand a game. He called it Definitions, evidently a family favorite. It involved writing definitions for unfamiliar words and then reading them out along with the true definition while the others tried to guess which was which. One accumulated points by guessing correctly, but also by writing definitions others believed. It was difficult to find words John didn’t know, but after a while he feigned ignorance and voted for definitions that would even the score.

  —I’ll take number two, a tomb in Egypt containing mummified flies.

  The point, of course, wasn’t vocabulary, but humor, and on this John trounced them, too. Gill would grin and vow to beat him in the next round. He was like Jamie at that age, the same golden air and irrepressible smile, but more unruly than Jamie, more frank, less cruel.

  * * *

  The next morning it rained. They drove him to Scarborough in their motorcar even though it was miles out of their way. Soon, too, his boys would be evicted from home to the sharp crush of term. He supposed there were people in the world, perhaps even these, who did not arrange their lives around school. In some parts of the earth, one didn’t even have to worry about winter.

  He made a halfhearted stab at conversation, and Gill responded with a cheerfulness that seemed forced. His favorite site in Whitby? Doubtless the abbey. One could sit in its churchyard and pretend to be Lucy, staring out to sea and thinking of Jonathan. Or the wishbone! What would it take to break the wishbone of a whale?

  —Time? John offered.

  Centuries of salt water and all the creatures too small to perceive, eating away at the bone, until it, like everything, crumbled.

  —At least you can be sure of beating anyone at Definitions, Gill said. Unless you’re a poet, or a philosopher.

  Joe glanced at his son in the rearview mirror.

  —You aren’t, are you?

  —Don’t pry, his father warned.

  —I only—

  —People should be free on their holiday. Don’t spoil it.

  —I don’t mind, John said.

  He didn’t mind, and more, he wanted, suddenly, to tell them everything. Not that he’d been concealing, but the way the man spoke made him feel that they were strangers who’d passed an agreeable spell side by side, not like a band, a household.

  —As it happens, I’m a schoolmaster.

  It sounded alien on his lips. Gill breathed in sharply.

  —What? John said.

  They began to speak at once. Probably, it was only half a minute, but he felt that they gabbled for ages before he understood. They were sending Gill to school for the first time. Their holiday had been taken en route. In a few days they’d be delivering him …

  There was a way time got heavy, everything extraneous crushed. St. Stephen’s Academy had never sounded more foreign. To them, it was exotic, and they spoke as though the pages of literature were about to become real. Gill described the uniform, gray suit weekdays, tailcoat Sunday, two different ties, a cap. Shut in the back of a motorcar winding up to Scarborough station, Gill would not stop talking.

  —The purple-and-white tie matches the cap. Those are the colors of the House.

  —Purple and white? John croaked.

  It had always seemed penitential, but now it reminded him of bruises.

  —The school’s colors are red and black, but the House is purple and white.

  —How many Houses are there?

  —Four, Mother, I told you! Of course Grieves will be the best House. At least we all must say it is.

  They laughed. The car had come to a halt. He had to tell them. It was too barbaric to learn as a surprise.

  MICHAELMAS

  32

  Michaelmas Term, pigeonholes reassigned. His new one was empty and so was the old. He went so far as to examine them all, but there were no airmail letters, no parcel promised through the morning post. On top of that, the notice boards: Studies—Riding, No. 6.

  —Where have you been? The train was two hours ago.

  Pious Pearce, badgering already.

  —I was driven. What business is it of yours?

  But Pearce was about their Housemaster’s business, and their Housemaster wanted him, posthaste. In the study, Grieves wore a sunburned smile:

  —Ah, Riding, welcome back. How is your mother?

 
His mother? He said she was well.

  —Glad to hear it.

  The smile had vanished and the lips were being pressed, as if Grieves had heard how he’d behaved, heard of the things he’d said to her.

  —You may have noticed I’ve given you number six.

  Study number six belonged to Wilberforce—punishment?

  —It’s a prefect study, sir.

  Mr. Grieves’s face softened, the look he used to crave—

  —Moss and Crighton moved to number one, and I thought you deserved some consolation for slogging it out in the library all summer.

  Sarcastic?

  —I’ve also given you a new boy. He’ll be in the Fifth, but I thought you two might suit.

  Thought he deserved Coventry, or that he needed a friend?

  —Thought you’d prefer it to being thrown in with another study. Can I count on you to help him about? It’s his first time boarding, astonishing as that sounds.

  Sounded like suicide, but who was he to say?

  —This makes you his Keeper, I suppose.

  The irony grated, that he should be assigned Keeper to a new boy in the study where Morgan had been Keeper to him. He was lost in the woods of this viperous conversation, and now Grieves had sprung from his chair and was shaking his hand.

  —Thank you, Thomas.

  Grieves shook firmly, but never let the center of their palms touch. His hand felt as though it should throb, and his ribs as though they’d been tickled without pity. He couldn’t say what had just happened, but the list of objections, when he made it, would be long. Time never went backwards; you only got second chances with prep, and then only sometimes.

  Moss was rifling the pigeonholes as he emerged:

  —Ah, Riding, in trouble already?

  —No!

  Moss grinned:

  —Cut along, Easy Draw. You know what Morgan would say if he caught us slacking.

  These people! He barked his shin dragging his tuck box upstairs. The study key hung in the lock. The room smelled wrong. On the table, parcels.

  Two parcels, and a stack of blue envelopes tied with twine. Promises delayed but paid sevenfold? Madness couldn’t reign forever!

  On the floor of the chair loft he sat and trained his torch on the parcels. One was dated July. The other, last week! Inside each parcel were brown envelopes, opened, addressed to her mother and written by the father. Contents rescued from a rubbish bin? Opened by whom? Did she expect him to read? Who sent opened letters and expected you not to?

  He arranged them by postmark and did the same with the blue envelopes, which were addressed to himself from the girl. The first set of brown bore postmarks foreign and domestic, dating back to April. Her blue letters picked up in July, just after they’d broken up for the hols, and continued in tandem with the second set of brown. The floor looked like an elaborate game of Patience. Should the decks be shuffled together or read through separately?

  There was a delicious torture in studying the envelopes, resisting the urge, greater than Christmas morning, to open them all at once. A detective, someone worthy of such a puzzle—such a story—would proceed chronologically. You could always read a book again, but nothing compared to the first time when you didn’t know the people or what became of them.

  The father’s April letters had been posted from America, but the rest had come from England. He’d written Mrs. Líoht in Paris, Vichy, and Bad Wörishofen, but the letters had not followed them to Budapest or beyond. The second batch, beginning mid-July, were posted to and from various locations in France, and the last were addressed to her simply by name, delivered who-knew-where, presumably by hand. The girl’s to him had also been posted from France, but her last few came from a place with stamps he couldn’t read.

  She had thought of him in these far-flung places. She’d written his name time and again, Thomas Gray Riding, St. Stephen’s Academy, nr. Fridaythorpe, Yorkshire, England. He should wait until he was calmer. Like a wave on the sea you come riding to me. He should savor them, stretched across the long days of term.

  Dear Tommy Gray,

  The page full of her hand.

  You’ll be horrified, I know, to hear what I’ve done.

  The world was full of secrets. In or out of order, these belonged to him.

  My Darling Little Girl, I’m home at last, but where are you?

  The man addressed his wife in a way Gray supposed was typical of the Irish.

  It’s horrible, I admit, but you must understand.

  I’ve found a clue. A little bird told me.

  One, my father loves her, no matter what she says. He’s been writing since April. At first she refused to open his post and hid them in the lining of her trunk. Two days ago, I found them in the wastepaper basket, opened not by me!

  I know you’re reading my letters, even if you don’t reply.

  Hopefully, you’ve got the parcel by now. Proof, you’ll agree, of his love.

  I’m a sorry old fool, you know, always have been, weak, so weak!

  Second, doctors will say anything to keep you under their thumb. Whatever your problem, they have a cure! If you keep putting yourself in their grubby old hands, you’ll keep getting the same old grubby results.

  I know you’ll forgive me, my darling girl. You always have, and you mustn’t stop now.

  Third, penicillin is almost guaranteed to kill you. Americans carry rifles and knives; they sing stupid songs and don’t care who they hurt.

  America, my girl, is every man’s dream.

  All right, I confess: I wired him from Paris.

  The grandest land you’ve ever seen.

  Mais c’était un cas de force majeure.

  The size of it is enough to humble any man.

  He arrived in Le Havre the night before our sailing and left a letter at our hotel.

  The people haven’t two pennies to rub together,

  She drew the shades and made me keep the lights off.

  but they haven’t forgotten how to laugh, my girl.

  The garçon came and said a gentleman was waiting.

  We’ll go there together, start a new life.

  She said she’d been Struck. That means she had a message about what she must do. She was Struck last year about the charity fête for the German children, and last month about Zoltan Zarday. The fête was a wild success, and so was ZZ, until he had to leave.

  Fear in his blood as he watched the mother improvise: the escape out the back of the hotel, the retreat south to Lourdes.

  Even if it was wicked of me to wire him originally, it was all for the best, you have to agree. At least we’ve escaped death by Penicillin.

  Gascony, at the foot of the Pyrenees, beautiful mountains, she said, full of brown bears and eagles.

  As soon as we arrived, she was filled with energy, like Budapest, but brighter.

  Beautiful, really? If eagles, then vultures.

  Lourdes, you know, is a holy site. She is sure it will cure her.

  My darling little girl,

  The father wrote to Lourdes, to a place called Hôtel du Fin. Couldn’t she see it was macabre?

  Every doctor has made her worse, but this morning she ate more than she has in months!

  I cannot sleep anymore for thinking what I can do to win you back.

  I’ve never seen a miracle, but then I’ve never seen a lot of things—99 percent of the globe, for example!

  If it weren’t for the hope that we one day will be together,

  Physicians are bunk! That’s our new motto.

  I’d have done myself mischief a hundred times over.

  Did you know, Tommy Gray, that in 1858 a girl my age named Bernadette received eighteen apparitions of the Virgin Mary? Now pilgrims come from everywhere to see Bernadette’s cave. Its healing powers are fully documented, they say.

  You could go to farthest Mongolia,

  She’s taken the waters six days in a row.

  and I’d send you a letter. If I knew no address I’d
write it the same, and the angels would find you and bring you my love.

  Da was asking for us at the hotel this morning.

  If you crossed the Styx to the underworld, I’d pay my coin and board the boat.

  She’s shut herself in the bath the last two hours. If she doesn’t come out soon, I’ll get Monsieur to break the door!

  And I’d bring a gilded mirror to see what was keeping you,

  She made me pack our bags, but she won’t say for where.

  and the mightiest sword to sever its head.

  He arrived at the station as our train pulled away.

  And I’d play on my whistle the saddest of songs,

  Lourdes is full of frauds.

  to win your release from that jealous gaoler.

  She’s been Struck again.

  And if you hired an aeroplane to take you to heaven,

  The ship at the harbor leaves with the tide.

  I’d write to you there.

  A page and a half to make him understand:

  Being Struck isn’t a joke, and it isn’t a fraud. I met a girl in Lourdes who said Jesus had lain in her bed, asked her to be his bride, and filled her with his love and other disgusting things. My mother said this girl needed to eat some bread and butter and stop reading Catholic leaflets, which is to say, my mother is levelheaded. When she’s Struck, she doesn’t go into a trance or imagine things. It just happens. Think of it this way, sometimes you’re wondering what you should do, or maybe you aren’t even wondering, maybe you’re thinking about how maddeningly awful your hair is, and a separate idea just jumps into your head. Being Struck is like that, except the idea is unexpected and not like what you’d think yourself, and most important, it is very loud.