Will felt his blood boil with rage. He wanted to punch him. That would wipe that stupid smile off his fat, ugly face, wouldn’t it?
‘Banter?’ He said instead. ‘No, banter is joking around, playing, it doesn’t hurt anyone. What you did, beating up young boys, scaring the shit out of them, and doing … ’ He hesitated. ‘… doing God only knows what – that isn’t banter, that’s bullying. Bullying at best and abuse at worst.’
Alastair’s features hardened and Will saw a flash of the boy who had hurt him, who had beaten him, pushed his face into the ground until he thought he might suffocate, and an old fear materialised, a fear he hadn’t felt in a very long time.
‘Yes,’ Alastair said. ‘That’s what I call it because that’s what it was.’
They stared at each other. Then Alastair ran his hand over his head, rubbed the back of it a couple of times. He leant forward, turned his face so his scarred cheek faced Will and jabbed his finger hard against it a couple of times. ‘You see this? You see it?’ he said through gritted teeth, his voice low. ‘Am I moaning about that? Am I going on about needing an apology? No, no I’m not. Because it was just mucking around.’ He sat back and gave a dismissive shake of his head. ‘Jesus Christ, English, grow some bloody balls. School should have taught you to be a man rather than the wimp you are. That is what went on. At Eton, at Harrow, at Gordonstoun and at bloody Farringdon Hall. Men who had it a lot worse than you have managed to get over it. Bloody hell, some of this country’s greatest leaders would have seen the back of an older boy’s hand. Do they sit there like you, licking their wounds, feeling sorry for themselves, and asking for bloody apologies?’
Will couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It was like listening to his father all over again. All that repellent claptrap about how boarding school bred real men, men who ran the world, men who built the sodding Empire, men for whom this type of thing was character-building and expected.
‘It happened to all of us,’ Alastair continued. ‘It happened to me when I was in the bottom years, and the boys who had their fun with me had the same done to them.Yes, some got it worse than others, but that’s survival of the fittest. You might not like it. It might not stand up against all that namby-pamby, politically correct rubbish we’re forced to suck on today, but that’s the way it was. There were those of us on top of the pile and those of you at the bottom and, like it or not, the system worked.’ He reached for his drink, sniffing loudly, and rolled his shoulders a couple of times as if he was limbering up for a boxing bout. ‘Have you got children? A son, maybe?’
Will stayed silent and didn’t move a muscle. It was like being stuck in a parallel universe, surreal and nightmarish. He thought of Harmony, of how lovely it would be if he was sitting with her, sharing the packet of crisps that sat unopened on the table, chatting about everything and nothing. He thought of her smile, of the way she played with her necklace, the look in her eyes before she kissed him.
‘I’ve got a son, and you know what? He pulls the legs off beetles and the wings off flies. He punches his friends and they punch him back. For fun. For exercise. Because that’s what boys do to amuse themselves. And it’s not just Charlie. They all do it. We got sent away to school. What age were you?’ Will didn’t answer. ‘Well, I was six. All of us in it together, no parents anywhere near us. It was Lord of the bloody Flies and you know it. Most of the masters were wankers. They knew what was going on and it amused them. Those that didn’t like it turned a blind eye.’
Will pictured Drysdale then, that sick look of pleasure that settled over his face as he lifted his cane and bent it a couple of times to loosen her up.
‘So what did we have? No parents. All boys. Masters who didn’t step in. And you’re sitting there like a saggy-titted feminist wanting to … ’ He bent his voice into whiney sing-song. ‘… talk about what happened.’ He leant forward, his mouth turned down, his eyes narrowed, cold as ice. ‘You want to know what happened?’ he spat.
‘I’ll tell you what happened,’ he continued, not allowing time for Will to answer his question. ‘Nothing. Nothing bloody happened.’
Will stared at him, his round face shining beneath a thin sheen of sweat. ‘No, Alastair, something did happen.’ He kept his voice low and calm. ‘You know what you did and so do I.’
Will saw Alastair Farrow’s face darken like an approaching storm. Will’s heart began to race as the fear he’d felt on that late afternoon began to creep up on him again. The noise of his panting breath loud in his ears as he’d turned to run, Luke’s screams echoing in the trees around them.
‘You don’t know anything.’ Alastair crossed his arms and stared hard at Will. ‘I was there, when you said nothing happened. Don’t go making stories up now.’ He unfolded his arms and shook his head, reached for his glass and finished the remainder of his beer. Then he picked up his paper and made to leave. ‘I don’t know why I agreed to meet up with you,’ he said with poisonous contempt. ‘Why I had to sit here and listen to you whining. You know full well how it was. It was kick or be kicked, and keep your mouth shut.’ He looked at Will then like he was shit on the bottom of his shoe and gave a derisive laugh. ‘No wonder wankers like you got the crap belted out of them.’ Alastair shook his head again as he looked down his nose at Will. ‘Moaning and complaining, feeling sorry for yourself. I bet you blame your shitty existence on your dreadful schooldays, don’t you? Wondering what might have been if only you’d skipped through childhood in a rosy haze getting cuddles and love.You know, English, if you’d just played the game, showed some bloody backbone, maybe you and those other wastes-of-space would have been left to get on with your sad little lives.’
‘Played the game?’
Alastair smirked and stood. ‘It was good to catch up,’ he said.
‘Don’t bother trying to contact me again.’
Everything inside Will erupted then, every part of his body filled with anger and loathing. His hand shot out and grabbed Alastair round the neck, his body slammed against the table and knocked both glasses over. There was a loud shout from the barman. Two men nearby jumped to attention; one of them rested a hand on Will’s arm, the other told them to calm down, ‘Easy now, take it outside.’ Will watched Alastair’s eyes widen as he closed his hand tighter around his neck. Alastair’s hands lifted to grasp Will’s arm.
‘I could fucking kill you.You’re the waste of space.You, Alastair, not us. You don’t deserve to live.’
‘Hey, come on gents,’ said the man beside them. ‘Let go of him now. We’re all having a nice quiet drink here. Nobody wants this.’
Will glanced at the man, and caught sight of the barman walking over with an angry grimace. What was he doing? What was this accomplishing? Nothing. People like Alastair Farrow would never be made to see sense by talking. Their morality was set. He’d never admit what he’d done was wrong because he didn’t see it as wrong. Talking was futile.
Will let go of Alastair with a final push and he fell back onto the chair, rubbing his neck and swearing under his breath. The barman and one of the men nearby grabbed hold of Will.
‘Are you okay, Al?’ the barman said, his fingers digging into Will’s arm.
Alastair nodded. ‘I’m fine. Just a misunderstanding. My friend’s leaving now.’
‘People like you make me sick,’ Will growled, shrugging the two men off him.
‘Just piss off.’
Will stared at him. It was he who was pathetic, sitting there, denying what he’d done. Will saw what he was then, a foul bully with an over-inflated sense of self-worth. He glanced at the two men either side of him who were poised and ready to grab hold of him if they had to. He turned back to Alastair and shook his head.
‘You know something? You’re not worth it,’ he said through gritted teeth, the taste of bile pinching the back of his throat.
Will turned his back on him and walked out of the pub. He jogged through the rain and climbed into his car. He closed the door and rested his head against the
steering wheel. He shook as he thought of Alastair’s smug face, his lack of remorse that so baffled Will. He wished he’d been more eloquent, wished he’d been able to argue against Farrow with conviction, make him see how abhorrent his behaviour had been.
‘Fuck!’ he shouted then, lifting his head and banging it twice against the steering wheel. ‘Don’t do this to yourself, Will.’
He saw himself, back in his study, desperately trying to concentrate on his English essay, when his housemaster, Mr Fraser, came to find him. Mr Fraser was a short man with tufts of grey hair that fringed a shiny bald pate. He was decent, firm but fair, popular with the boys.
‘English,’ he said. His voice was quiet, almost apologetic, and his eyes seemed unable to meet Will’s directly. ‘Mr Drysdale needs to see you.’
Will’s stomach had turned over. ‘Why, sir?’
The housemaster seemed reticent. ‘Best get to his office,’ he said.
‘Am I in trouble, sir?’ Will asked as he closed his exercise book and put the lid on his fountain pen.
Mr Fraser had rested a hand on his shoulder. ‘Just tell the truth and you’ll be fine.’
All he had wanted was to lay the ghost of Alastair Farrow to rest, but he knew now it would never happen. He sat up, turned the engine on and threw the car into reverse, then drove out of the car park without a backward glance. Will sped along the roads, his mind full of Farrow’s barefaced denial. The man’s unshakeable belief that he was blameless. Had he heard right? Had Alastair said that what had happened was his – Will’s – fault? When he got to the main road he pushed his foot to the floor, feeling the engine strain, feeling like he wanted to drive faster and faster. The windscreen wipers worked overtime against the heavy rain. As he gained speed, his anger and frustrations boiled over and he began to shout, loud and guttural, banging the steering wheel with one hand as hard as he could. When, finally, he couldn’t shout any longer and his pent-up rage had begun to dissipate, he eased off the accelerator and breathed heavily, emotionally spent and desperate to be home.
He walked into the flat and closed the door and found Harmony on the sofa, feet up, hugging a cushion and watching the news. She was wearing a pair of leggings and an old baggy T-shirt, her hair loose, a little straggly. She glanced up at him and gave him an unconvincing smile.
He sank heavily into the armchair opposite her. He wanted her to pat the sofa beside her like she usually did, ask him to sit with her, but she didn’t move. He closed his eyes, resting his head against the back of the armchair. He was exhausted; his limbs felt cast in concrete, as if he’d never be able to move them again.
Just then her phone rang. He opened his eyes and watched her pick it up. She turned it off without answering it and put it back on the coffee table. Her mouth twitched like it did sometimes when she was angry. He felt as if he was about erupt; his emotions, the pressure of keeping it all inside him, dealing with it all alone, suddenly became too much.
‘I saw that guy earlier today. The one Luke mentioned. Alastair Farrow.’
‘The one from school?’
Will nodded. She turned the television off with the remote and looked at him and he noticed there was a softness about her that he hadn’t seen since the night Luke had come to supper.
He pushed the heels of his palms against his eyes. ‘I lost my temper. I shouted in the middle of a crowded pub. Christ, I grabbed him by the bloody neck.’ He sighed heavily and looked at her. ‘I thought he might show some sort of remorse, might at least seem embarrassed, but he just laughed. He couldn’t have cared less.’
‘What did he do to you?’ she asked then. ‘This man. At school, I mean. Why did you think he would show some remorse?’
‘He made people’s lives hell for fun, that’s what he did. A bully, a vile one at that.’ He broke off and looked at her. He knew he had to talk to her. It was out now, everything he’d worked so hard to keep hidden had re-emerged. He took a deep breath and braced himself.
‘There was this one afternoon,’ he said, starting slowly. ‘The day before Luke was expelled. He and I were in the woods. There was this den thing we went to, a small clearing with some logs to sit on. We used to play there. It was late October, we’d had supper and were supposed to be in prep, you know, doing homework. But we’d crept out, bunked off. I had my Polaroid camera and was taking photos of stuff and Luke was trying to make a harpoon with the Swiss Army knife my dad gave me, but these guys, proper nasty bastards in the sixth form, found us. Farrow was one of them.’
The incident he described had been buried for twenty-five years, he’d never discussed it with anyone, but as he recounted the skeleton of the story to Harmony, every single detail played out in his mind as if it were happening there and then.
‘They asked what we were doing in their smoking room, said this part of the wood was for sixth form only. They said we were trespassing.’
Will recalled the malice in Alastair Farrow’s voice. He was much older than them, a senior prefect and captain of cricket. He was popular and respected in his peer group and the staff room. He had brown hair that flopped over his eyes and that air of confidence that came from a combination of good looks and sporting prowess. But there was a look in his eyes, the Devil’s look, Luke called it. He had a way of staring at the younger boys, his nose flared, lip curled, as if he wanted to draw and quarter them. When the group had found them, cigarettes clamped to their mouths, beers clutched in their hands, Farrow’s eyes had lit up in a way that turned Will’s stomach, in a way that told him he and Luke were in big trouble.
Farrow and the others had laughed and jeered as they drew on their cigarettes and drank from their bottles.
Look at him! Thinks he’s David fucking Bailey with that stupid camera.What a wanker!
‘How many of them were there?’ Harmony asked.
Her voice broke his reverie. ‘Five,’ he said.
Will had looped his camera over his neck and looked desperately around for an escape route, then glanced at Farrow who smiled and shook his head slowly. Will felt sick. He turned to look at Luke. His eyes were set like stone, staring at the boys like he wanted to kill them, his lips twitching, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides like beating hearts.
‘Don’t do anything,’ Will had pleaded silently. ‘Please don’t do anything.’
He kept telling himself they were okay, it was just Farrow and his friends having a laugh, messing about, that soon they’d get bored and leave them alone. He willed Luke to keep calm, willed him to keep his temper in check, but he could see him seething.
‘Alastair asked me to give him my camera,’ he said to Harmony. Will closed his eyes as a vivid image of Farrow flew into his head. The older boy putting his arm around his shoulders, drawing him close.
So, we have David Bailey and Puke Crawford – Bible Boy – hiding out in the woods like a couple of homo-hobbits.
Will recalled the smell of his warm, sour breath laced with cigarettes and beer.
‘He said if I didn’t give him the camera they’d beat the living daylights out of us.’ He glanced at Harmony. ‘Those were his words. The living daylights.’
Harmony shook her head, lips parted, eyes reflecting her horror.
‘I didn’t want him to have my camera so I took it off my neck and threw it as far as I could into the bushes. I don’t know what I was thinking about, looking back on it. It was only a stupid camera, but it was my favourite thing in the whole world and the thought of him breaking it or stealing it was unbearable.’ Will sniffed and clasped his hands in front of him. ‘Anyway, Alastair Farrow didn’t like that too much.’
The older boy had angered like a wasp.
Go and get it.
But Will had stood his ground.
Farrow shoved him so hard he went down on his knees. Then a kick to the stomach. Luke began to scream.
Don’t hurt him! Get off him! Get off him!
Will tried to tell him to be quiet but was too winded to speak.
�
��Alastair was … ’ Will hesitated, ‘… he was hurting me. The others were laughing. Luke was screeching at them to leave me alone and all I could think was: shut up, Luke. Shut up. Stop screaming at them, you idiot, you’re making it worse.’ Will paused and laid his head back against the chair. ‘The next thing I knew Farrow was on top of me, had my face pressed into the ground. I had all these leaves and dirt in my mouth, and he was punching my head and body again and again.’ An unwelcome memory of the earth and grit in his mouth passed over Will and made him want to spit.
‘My God,’ whispered Harmony. Her voice stuck in her throat. Will didn’t look at her. He didn’t want her pity. His skin crawled with guilt.
‘Luke began to make this awful sound, like some weird war cry, and he ran at Farrow and the next thing I knew he’d pushed him off me. Then I heard Alastair scream.When I looked up I saw his face was covered in blood. Luke had sliced his face open with my penknife.’
Dread filled Will as he watched Luke standing there, panting, his eyes crazed, hand lightly clasping Will’s knife. The silence that fell around them was terrifying, all he could hear was the slight rustle of the wind in the leaves of the great oak tree that towered over them. Farrow’s eyes glinted. A sheen of bloodied saliva coated his lips , there was more blood on his teeth. One side of his face was scarlet, blood flowing from a cut that ran from his eye to his chin.
You little bastards.
Will closed his eyes as he recalled Alastair’s words. He’d stared, horrified at the blood on the older boy’s face, the fury that blazed in his eyes, his lips curled back to show gritted, bloodied teeth.
I didn’t do it! Don’t hurt me. It was him, not me. It was Luke!
Will remembered the look on Luke’s gaunt face, one of bewilderment and shock. Will’s hand flew up to his mouth, but it was too late, the words were out.
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