Grievous

by H. S. Cross

  —You should be happy, she whispered.

  —Happy…?

  She took his sleeve:

  —Please don’t be cross. It wasn’t clever, I know, the game. But there’s nothing wicked in him.

  She touched his cuff link and the skin of his wrist:

  —You mustn’t send him away. For my sake.

  A flame branded him from the inside—drag through the school, backhand, malice thrown to the ground with the boy. The fault wasn’t hers, and it wasn’t the boy’s. The poison lay entirely with him, in his heart, his arm, his mouth. The boy was only a poultice drawing venom to the surface, just as he’d done the first time, resurrecting the man he thought he’d killed.

  —He worships you, you know.

  She had his hands between her own.

  —Don’t look like that, he does. Are you blind, Uncle John?

  He deserved this thorn, thrust like a bodkin between his ribs.

  * * *

  He huddled under the blanket like the hedgehog Morgan used to call him, but it was still cold even though he’d done star jumps until it hurt too much to continue. His right sock was torn, and his mouth throbbed where metal had struck it—ring? bed frame? The clock rang ten. You’ve got to think of how Grieves will feel—use your eyes, son, use your eyes and—

  Footsteps, rattle, he peeked out to an aching light.

  —You can go, it said.

  Flame flickered in a glass. His teeth chattered.

  —I was wrong, the light said.

  —Sir?

  —I’m sorry.

  —Please, sir—

  A pile of clothing thrust at him.

  —Put on your shoes.

  His shoes were there, but his feet were too cold, and the right one wouldn’t go …

  —That’ll do.

  Shoes snatched away, lamp taken up.

  —Follow me.

  His studs clattered to the floor, but the light had departed and he had to follow.

  —What did you do with that blanket? the man snapped.

  The corridor was warmer, but not enough to stop him shaking in his undershirt.

  —Oh, never mind!

  Study door breached. Pushing him inside, the man set down the lamp and continued across the room. And he understood, like rocks falling, that he was not being let go, that everything before this had only been a rehearsal. Within an inch of your life was an expression, but here in this room, tonight, now, he would learn how close an inch could be.

  The man turned from the mantel and held out a glass:

  —Drink this.

  He had to go and take it. The smell went up his nose and made him cough again.

  —Oh, very well!

  Water splashed in—could he swallow without gagging? Alice drank hers in one gulp, but Alice never stood before one such as this, whose coiled strength could—

  —Chop-chop!

  It warmed his throat. He finished and wished there were more, but the glass was gone, and the light was on the move, and they were leaving the crypt, up the stairs to the dorm, into another glare:

  —It’s you, sir.

  Moss lowered his torch.

  —Just bringing Riding to bed.

  They whispered as he fumbled for his nightclothes and sponge bag. In the washroom he stripped off the appalling garments. His foot wasn’t cut after all, but when he splashed water on his face, blood ran into the basin.

  —What the hell happened? Moss said, coming in the room. If he’s at it again, I’ll thrash him myself.

  Moss took his chin and turned his face to the torchlight:

  —Little beast.

  And it dawned on him that Moss had misread.

  —It wasn’t Halton.

  —Oh, no?

  —An accident.

  He spat metal down the drain. Moss let out a sigh.

  —Leave it under the tap, Moss advised. Bring down the swelling.

  He did, as long as he could stand the ice.

  —What happened, then? Moss said as he wiped his face. At bedtime Grieves said not to expect you, but now here you are half-dressed and frozen, looking like you’ve come from the scrum.

  He made for the door, but Moss blocked the way, new suspicion in his voice:

  —What did you do?

  —Nothing.

  —You’re an incompetent liar. You know that?

  A fit of coughing, stifled in his sleeve. Moss shone the torch in his face.

  —It’s her, isn’t it?

  His face responded, and Moss stared. He tried to stop smiling, but—

  —God’s nails, I knew it! I bloody knew it!

  He knew it?

  —I’ve seen her look at you, all the time, and you never look back unless you think no one’s watching.

  He knew from looking?

  —It’s true, isn’t it?

  He opened his mouth—

  —Wait, Moss said. I don’t want to know.

  Tell, don’t tell. Chamber of Death, dorm. These people needed to make up their minds.

  —Can I go now?

  —No.

  Moss had him by the arm:

  —What in hell were you thinking?

  —I wasn’t.

  —Obviously!

  Moss loosened his grip, trying to control himself:

  —Did you get it from Grieves, then, what your friend Halton got?

  His eyes, rebel hordes, began to sting.

  —No!

  —Well, Moss said, you deserve it.

  —What?

  —If Morgan were here, you’d be going to bed sore.

  —What are you going to do about it, then?

  The words had shot from his mouth. Moss stiffened, and he braced for a blow.

  —Thirteen hours, Moss said. Thirteen hours to the carol service. Could you please, for the love of God, for the love of Christmas, stay out of trouble until then?

  He started to cough again, and Moss took him down to the study, where Moss’s case lay open.

  —Finish it, he said, handing him a flask.

  Fire, more and stronger than the glass, stinging even warmer, burning away the tickle in his lungs.

  —Next term, Moss said, things are going to be different.

  The last sip was smoothest.

  —You’ve got seven weeks to sort yourself out, and if you don’t, the JCR will do it for you. That is, if you can make it through the night without getting yourself disposed.

  * * *

  Jamie swung his lantern across the entryway of John’s House and found John hunched at the bottom of the stairs.

  —Are you quite all right? Jamie asked.

  John looked startled. A candle flickered beside him, and the light looked as it used to when they were children. Jamie came closer, smelled drink, and sweat. John put his head in his hands.

  He had to be as quick and as clinical as possible. John must go to his rooms, and Jamie would take charge of Riding. John must put this entirely from his mind, and later, in the holidays, when John was rested and the rankness had retreated, then Jamie would broach the subject of John’s goddaughter, her welfare and how sensibly to proceed once the holidays were done and the new year arrived. Whatever wonders or horrors the world and newspapers delivered, whatever ordeals the holiday inflicted, whatever bloodlettings, quarrels, or tedium Jamie’s family meted out, when they were over and the year had turned and the days had begun to lengthen, then he would sit with John, as long as was necessary, and tether him to a scheme for soundness and health.

  The candle in John’s glass had burned down to the nub, and when he finally looked up, sweat was trickling down his neck.

  —Now, Jamie said in his lightest tone, where were we?

  —Oh, John said. Never mind.

  —I beg your pardon?

  —It wasn’t …

  John’s candle hissed and went out.

  —It seems …

  —Just tell me where Riding is.

  —No! John said too loudly. I’ve se
nt him away.

  —You what?

  —To bed, to bed. It wasn’t … as bad as all that.

  Jamie bit back everything he wanted to say. John was standing now but only with the aid of the banister. Jamie put an arm around his waist, helped him to his rooms, and told him to get into bed. John muttered something, and when Jamie returned with a glass of water, John was sprawled across the blankets, dead to the world.

  * * *

  He feigned sleep as Jamie unfastened his collar and his shoes, but as soon as the door shut, he went to his mercy. The dropper fell and rolled away, though there couldn’t be much … oh, more than he thought, though how much was too much in a final sense? It wasn’t killing him, and even if it did …

  51

  The feeling was fear, Jamie knew, not the stimulating kind, but the fear that hung around and sapped one’s strength. He added a few sentences to the end of his homily and reread the draft. It wasn’t his best, but they’d be too eager for the holidays to notice. His father always said Christmas homilies were a gin and tonic on a silver platter. Don’t try to be original, just deliver the goods and sit down. Jamie read it one last time, removed the sentences he’d added, and dropped it in the box for Lewis to type in the morning.

  The fear still lurked in the corner like a wolf. No one ever told him that he’d sit up nights afraid once he became a Headmaster. No one ever told him how irrelevant the world beyond the Wetwang road would prove to be. Whether Japan abandoned the gold standard or Parliament granted self-government to the Irish Free State, such questions were ultimately trivial, whereas in some obscure but real way, the decisions he faced, the way he used his power and his weakness, these could turn the fundamental battle, one they, each of them, could aid or oppose.

  He took the lantern to the grate and covered himself in the rug Lewis used. Come on, you. Sit here beside me. Put your teeth away, and we’ll pour it out drop by drop.

  But no matter what lashes he used upon himself—how he’d handled the Audsley boy, what he’d told John that summer, his indifference to John’s troubles with the Líoht woman—no counterirritant dislodged the cold facts: a boy in the Lower Sixth had been caught, by his Housemaster, in a balcony out-of-bounds, in the chapel, in a state of undress with a thirteen-year-old girl. It was never pleasant to expel pupils, but the thought of disposing this boy made him feel ill. Riding was one of the rare ones. He’d have a scholarship to Oxford and earn himself at least one first. The theater business, though an infuriating nuisance, had been good for him; it had loosened his joints, revealing a less defended, more generous aspect. And despite the colossal irritation of the boy—the lying, the self-righteousness, the blindness to others—it was impossible not to see to his heart, just as it was impossible not to see John’s. St. Stephen’s was the best place for both of them, irregular enough to accept them yet austere enough to contain them. Wherever Riding went after this, it would never quite do, as St. Stephen’s had. And wherever Riding went, there would be no one the equal of John.

  * * *

  She tried to sleep, but something was sitting on her chest. She tried the breathing trick her mother had taught her, but the something touched her temple and she was out of the room and running down the corridor to the front hall table with the candles and matches. It was dark in the courtyard, but in the cloisters there was a light, and she knew then what she had to do and why she’d been chased from her room.

  * * *

  Jamie had never heard such a thing, but having heard it, he knew it was true. Riding had not taken advantage of her; the coercion had been entirely in the other direction. Until this moment, Jamie had considered girl children beyond his ken, but this girl sitting before him was starkly fathomable. He recognized in her the perennial temptation to stir a boy up and watch him go. The exchange of clothing, though, seemed not as he had supposed. Her aim had not been to see the boy’s body but rather, in a sense, to try it on.

  —I wanted to see what it was like, she said.

  —What precisely?

  —To be a boy.

  To dress as a boy, to act as a boy, to have everything there was to have as a boy.

  Jamie pulled his chair back so that her knee no longer touched him. He felt dizzy, if not physically then in a deeper way. I know! he longed to tell her, but he forced himself into the present: this pale girl, resolutely not what her kin supposed her to be, was confiding to him her true, undaunted self.

  —What’s wrong with being a girl? he asked.

  —They’re all unhappy, she said, and cruel.

  She spit it out like a bottled accusation. The bayonet sunk home to hear it from this time traveler, except she wasn’t one. Resemble Marion though she did—and now that Jamie examined her, he could see the pout of Marion’s lip and the color in the same places of her cheek—this girl carried a life not only separate from his wife’s, but one just now more broken.

  —Tell me about your father, he said.

  She buried her head in her arms, but he made her sit straight in the chair. He may or may not ever be a good father, but he could refuse to stand nonsense. He repeated his question, and she began to describe her father, his provenance, his profession, his tastes. Jamie redirected: How did her father punish her when she deserved it? She looked appalled.

  —He never did!

  —Your mother, then?

  —I was never naughty!

  Jamie snorted, meaning it as humor, but she flinched as if struck.

  —But I’ve been so bad, she blurted, so wicked! And no one, no one knows it!

  She looked as though she would cry, but she didn’t. He wondered if he would instead. He’d long ago condemned Marion’s parents and her whole Irish brood, but this girl testified to a more subtle barbarism. Did modern parents ruin everything they touched? Or was it only the pacifists who murdered truth on the altar of their vanity?

  * * *

  —Headmaster to see you.

  Mrs. Firth pulled back the covers and stood over him with a lamp. Gray grappled for his spectacles as she lit the candle on his bedside table. The time, she said, was quarter past six. The Headmaster expected him presently.

  Fear, fire, whirlwind, all came and went before he finished washing his face. Steel water, steel truth: term ended today. Whatever the Headmaster said or did, in only eight hours the most brutal punishment would begin.

  * * *

  Riding kept trying to suppress a cough in his sleeve. Jamie lit a second lamp to discharge his aggravation and opened the drapes so they might benefit from daylight should it ever deign to arrive.

  —What’s happened to your lip?

  —Tripped on the ice, sir.

  The room was dim, but Jamie could see well enough to know he was being lied to. This point, perhaps, was not germane, but Riding’s willingness to tell the truth was. Jamie took his seat behind the desk.

  —You know why you’re here. Explain yourself.

  —Shouldn’t we wait for Mr. Grieves, sir?

  Jamie hesitated, parsing the question, not long enough to give Riding the upper hand, but …

  —Mr. Grieves will not be joining us.

  Riding seemed to expect him to say more, but Jamie folded his hands and turned his stare upon the boy. Riding’s bravado evaporated, and he began to speak, incoherently at first, but when Jamie didn’t interrupt, he found his thread and provided an account that essentially tallied with what Jamie already knew. What irked him was the jaded voice the boy affected, as if none of it meant anything. Nerves were one thing, but this? Jamie wasn’t having it, not at this hour and not from this boy, who seemed to have nothing better to do than make life difficult for John, and anyone else who came close to him.

  —This is becoming a habit, isn’t it, Riding?

  —Sir?

  —You and I being forced to discuss your conduct.

  Silence.

  —Just last month in this very room, if I am not mistaken.

  Sullen.

  —And what was the subject
of that little chat?

  He waited for the answer.

  —The play, sir.

  —Ah, yes! The play. And what did I give you for that?

  Riding mumbled but admitted it.

  —And earlier this year, the business with McKay’s barn … remind me?

  Technique, and more technique. Feign senility and make them say it. Riding was beginning to look uncomfortable, but he made his way through the barn debacle without contradicting Jamie’s memory.

  —And tell me, Riding, was your testimony about that barn entirely truthful at the time?

  A cough, into his handkerchief at least.

  —Not at first, sir.

  —But eventually?

  On his face, a chasm.

  —Mostly, sir.

  —I see. And your account just now?

  —The truth, sir.

  —Mostly?

  —Entirely, sir!

  He said it with such bitterness that Jamie knew he meant it.

  —And yet here you are a third time.

  Something very close to a glare. Jamie ignored it.

  —It would seem our efforts with you have failed.

  Pressing instead for the heart.

  —Or perhaps you are simply unsuited to our ways here?

  —No, sir!

  As if his courage had been questioned.

  —In that case, Riding, what will it take to persuade you to use the sense you were born with?

  Jamie’s voice had risen, and Riding’s face was shifting, not to a suitable expression of shame, but to an impossible, defended self-righteousness. Jamie took a breath.

  —Listen to me, Riding. Love is not a crime.

  He let that sink in. Riding coughed, surprised but adamant. Love, Jamie continued, was not what the Headmaster objected to. What the Headmaster objected to was impropriety. The Headmaster objected to indiscretion. The Headmaster objected to his abject lack of common sense.