In At The Deep End

by Anabel Donald

  ‘Why?’

  She thought. ‘I don’t know, but it just is, it must be.’

  Since her reaction was the same as mine, I didn’t give her a hard time. I went on, ‘And Brown asked me to dinner. I don’t know why. To get me out of the way? To pump me? To brainwash me?’

  ‘He could just like the look of you.’

  ‘I don’t think he’s seen me at all. I don’t think he sees beyond his glasses. He’s a closed system.’

  ‘Why didn’t you go?’

  ‘Because we had work to do. A whole dinner would be a waste of time. If there is something he wants, he’ll try another way to get it.’

  ‘So you think he’s up to something? He must be!’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  We kicked it around for another hour. By then it was ten o’clock and I felt tired and heavy. I wanted a bath, and bed. I wanted Martin Kelly not to be dead. Two out of three ain’t bad.

  Claudia went to her room. I lay in the bath for a while, saying dark armour and buttocks on the diving-board spotlight, to see if the sound of the words helped. It didn’t.

  I was in bed and nearly asleep when there was a knock on the door Claudia. ‘I can’t sleep,’ she said. She was wearing a short nightshirt under a silk dressing-gown, and clutching a battered once-pink rabbit. ‘I really find it difficult to sleep alone in hotels,’ she said.

  She took the other bed, and fell asleep very quickly. I heard her regular breathing for what seemed hours. I really find it difficult to sleep with pink rabbits in hotels.

  Friday, June 5th

  Chapter Nineteen

  I woke at seven, to another sunny day. It was worrying. Claudia’s bed was empty: there was a cooling cup of coffee on my bedside table. I drank it, gratefully, and put on tracksuit bottoms, an old white sweatshirt, and trainers. Running might help.

  I banged on Claudia’s door as I passed and told her where I was going. She responded with a warning squawk: ‘Mind your knees! Run on grass!’

  I started slowly, out of the hotel car park and along the grass verge towards Rissington Abbey. It was about two miles away, I reckoned. There and back would do me nicely.

  When I got there, I stopped at the gates and looked down the drive. Nothing. I couldn’t even see a fatigue party. I was hardly puffed, I’d been jogging so slowly, and I set off back at a faster pace. As I picked up speed, I noticed a car drawing level. It was going very slowly and I thought it might be someone from the Abbey I knew, but it wasn’t, it was two Japanese from the hotel. I recognized them easily: I can manage Japanese, it’s politicians I can’t tell apart. I waved and they waved, but they respected my exercise and didn’t offer me a lift. Or perhaps they wouldn’t have anyway.

  I did the two miles back to the hotel in sixteen minutes, which wasn’t bad. By the time I was bathed and dressed (today’s sweatshirt selection: dark blue, no logo) Claudia had finished what I imagined to be an arduous cleansing, toning, moisturizing routine and joined me for breakfast wearing yet another white shirt (lacetrimmed) and Gloria Vanderbilt jeans. The silver combs in her newly washed and conditioned hair remained the same.

  I said nothing at breakfast: neither did she. She was speaking when she was spoken to, I realized. Sensible girl.

  Back in my room it was just nine o’clock. ‘Telephone time,’ I said, and dialled the first of Kelly’s numbers, the Darlington one. ‘Department of Education and Science, Pensions Branch,’ said the female voice that answered as if it had just sat down, vaguely resentful that anyone would ring before she’d had time to check her stars in the Mail.

  ‘Good morning,’ I said, then took a flyer. ‘This number’ – I read it to her – ‘would it be your reference?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Do teachers have numbers, with you? For their pensions?’

  ‘Well, yes. Stands to reason.’

  ‘And the number. I just gave you. Is that a teacher’s number?’

  ‘It could be, but I can’t give you any information about that.’

  ‘It’s a standard format, I suppose? What year would this number have been registered?’

  ‘1986, of course.’

  The first two digits. Six years ago. ‘So, in the normal way, the teacher to whom this number refers would be in his or her late twenties?’

  ‘I suppose,’ said the voice. ‘Depends when they trained. There are plenty of mature entrants to the profession.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, cutting the line and dialling the other number.

  ‘Hello,’ said an oldish, female, Scots voice. Unsurprising since I’d dialled Edinburgh.

  ‘Good morning. Who am I speaking to?’

  ‘This is St Anselm’s.’

  ‘A Catholic church?’

  ‘The priest’s house.’

  ‘Could I speak to Father Corrigan?’

  ‘He’s away.’

  ‘When will he be back?’

  ‘Sunday morning, for early Mass.’

  ‘What time should I ring, to speak to him?’

  ‘After his breakfast.’

  ‘Which would be?’

  ‘Nine o’clock.’

  ‘One more thing – is that Father Bernard Corrigan?’

  ‘No, Father Patrick.’

  ‘Sorry, it is Patrick, of course. I misread my writing. Thanks. I’ll call back.’

  ‘Is there a message?’

  ‘No, thank you. No message.’

  I told Claudia about both of them. ‘Father Corrigan’s probably a friend of his, a priest from his past. I’ve no idea who Bernard is.’

  ‘So it might not be anything to do with Rissington?’

  ‘We’ll know on Sunday.’

  ‘I hate waiting,’ said Claudia.

  So did I. ‘Grin and bear it,’ I said.

  ‘We’re no further forward, then?’ said Claudia, disappointed.

  ‘Yes, we are. I’m going to try another flyer’ I dialled again.

  ‘Bartholemew O’Neill,’ said Barty.

  ‘Hi, Barty. I want you to ring the DES about your pension entitlement.’

  ‘Hi, Alex. Who am I?’

  ‘You’re Alistair Brown, employed since 1986 at Rissington Abbey.’ I gave him the school address, the teacher’s reference number, and the DES telephone number.

  ‘What do I want to know about myself?’

  ‘If the reference number applies to you. Beyond that, any other details of your employment record.’

  ‘OK. I’ll be back to you in ten minutes or so.’

  ‘So it’s Alistair Brown,’ said Claudia, as we waited.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘The evil. The person who’s doing everything.’

  ‘Doing what, exactly?’

  She gestured vaguely. Her vagueness mirrored mine.

  ‘That’s the problem,’ I said. ‘It may be Brown that Kelly was after, but even if it was we don’t know why. We don’t know beans, really, until we talk to Father Corrigan, and even then he may not help.’

  The ringing phone made me jump. ‘Hi,’ said Barty. ‘John Alistair Brown here. Maybe I didn’t like being plain John Brown, and I prettied it up. I wasn’t working as a teacher from 1984 to 1986, after I left university. Other than that, my retirement holds no fears for me, and I can always buy-in the two missing years. What are you up to, Alex?’

  ‘I’m not sure, yet.’

  ‘Do take care.’

  ‘And you.’

  This time, at Rissington, our one-man reception committee was a Chinese boy. ‘Good morning. Miss Tanner,’ he said. ‘I am Li Sung. Please call me Sung. I’ve been asked to wait for you and act as your guide.’

  He looked about sixteen, slender, suave, and very handsome despite a savagely short haircut. The uniform, khaki camouflage trousers and mud-green short-sleeved sweatshirt, emphasized his slenderness. His accent was old-fashioned Oxford English.

  ‘Hello. My assistant, Claudia.’

  ‘We met yesterday,’ she said.

  ‘Are you
missing your break, waiting for us?’

  He shrugged. ‘That does not matter. One can only eat so many Rissington Abbey buns. I reached my limit years ago . . . Please, wait a moment . . .’ Like the boy the day before, he nipped up the steps and into GHQ.

  ‘I wish we knew who they all report to,’ I said to Claudia.

  ‘Now I am at your disposal,’ said Li Sung, re-emerging. ‘The Major thought you would be interested in the playing fields. Follow me.’ He set off, back along the drive. I began to move, then stopped. So did Claudia. When he’d gone about five yards, he turned. ‘We’re very proud of our playing-fields. Please, let me show you.’

  ‘Another time,’ I said. ‘This morning, I want to speak to Mrs Brown.’

  ‘She may not be well enough. Shall I check?’

  ‘Please do.’

  Back he went to GHQ, I followed him: so did Claudia. I felt like the experienced, ageing half of a synchronized swimming team. He shut the door firmly in our faces and we turned away and went down the steps together. I raised one hand and waggled it.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Synchronized swimming. All we lack is pegs on our noses.’

  ‘What? I don’t understand.’

  ‘Never mind . . . Here’s Li Sung again.’

  ‘Mrs Brown can see you,’ he said, and we all moved off.

  ‘Are you a private?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m an NCO. A prefect. As I am in the first year sixth I can only be a corporal. Perhaps, next year, I shall achieve higher things . . . The canteen, the CDT block, the squash courts.’ He was taking us the long way round and we could hardly see the buildings: they were hidden behind towering old trees, some of them oaks, the only deciduous tree I can reliably identify. It didn’t matter, because by now I could have conducted a tour of the place.

  ‘I hear the school squash team is very successful,’ I said. ‘Are you in it?’

  ‘I have that honour, yes . . .’

  ‘We must cover it in our documentary,’ I said.

  ‘Ah. The documentary. Yes. The younger boys are very excited.’ His tone was condescending.

  ‘And you’re not?’

  ‘Well there’s many a slip between the cup and the lip, is there not?’

  ‘Do you have any particular slip in mind?’

  ‘No, not at all. My first English teacher, at home in Hong Kong, was very keen on proverbs. We had to learn lists of them . . . I try to use as many as I can . . . The playing fields are—’

  ‘The swimming pool’s up there, too, isn’t it?’ I said, peering through the trees. ‘Built during the Second World War, I believe.’

  ‘Yes. It was intended as a temporary structure. I so admire the British capacity for making do . . . fifty years does seem a lot to ask of such a ramshackle construction.’

  Behind his opaque black eyes, under his short blue-black hair, silently, Corporal Li Sung was laughing at me. Because he laughed at all adults? All Europeans? All women? Because he knew more than I did about something which, affected me? Whatever his reason, I wasn’t going to pretend I hadn’t noticed.

  ‘I expect it’ll outlast Hong Kong,’ I said cheerfully.

  He was unfazed. ‘You may be right. My father would agree. Unfortunately, we were unable to obtain American visas, so we have transferred some of our assets to this country, and bought a pleasant house near Oxford.’

  ‘Why do you suppose the Major picked you to meet me?’ I said.

  He smiled. ‘Because of my whole-hearted loyalty to the school, naturally. On our right, beyond the trees, is the First Eleven cricket pitch ...’

  He’d set a cracking pace, faster than a normal walk. Claudia and I were both handling it, but I slowed down and looked through the trees across the expanse of grass. It was flat, green, with two wickets. Exactly like a cricket pitch. It was, however, the one part of the school I hadn’t yet seen: presumably Alistair Brown had told Sung that. Or told the Major that, and the Major had told Sung.

  Below us on the drive, a crowded minibus passed, heading for the gate. ‘We can make our own way from here,’ I said. ‘Mrs Brown’s flat is on the end of the Duke of Wellington Annexe, isn’t it? I know the way.’

  ‘Surely . . .’ he began, but I’d had enough.

  ‘He travels fastest who travels alone,’ I said. ‘Perhaps your list of proverbs included that.’

  ‘It did. Just before “look before you leap”,’ said Sung.

  I wasn’t going to win a proverb war. The English teachers at my comprehensive had thought them outdated, elitist, and middle class. For ideological reasons, they only ever spoke to us in words they thought we knew already.

  I nodded to the boy and turned away, Claudia at my heels. My abruptness dared him to follow us. He didn’t. He said: ‘Go up the steps of the Annexe, then turn left and follow the terrace round the building. The flat has a separate entrance.’

  It did. It had flowers in tubs on each side of the door, and hanging baskets, and a flagged patio. The door was opened by a woman in a wheelchair.

  ‘Can I help?’ she said, and I looked down at Mrs Brown, beloved mother and master organizer.

  She was in her fifties, with shortish fluffy hair probably dyed from a packet which called itself Glowing Chestnut or Blazing Autumn. The strength of the colour didn’t help her skin, which was pale, crumpled, and dry, but her teeth were good and she showed a lot of them in a determined smile.

  I introduced Claudia and myself. She paused for a moment, watching me, still smiling, then spun the wheelchair backwards down the small vinyl-tiled hall with skilled turns of her wrists. ‘Come in! Come in!’ she said. ‘Corporal Li said you’d be dropping in. I’m Mrs B. My Alistair’s busy at the moment, training in his study.’ She waved at a door as she passed. ‘How exciting! Television! You work in television! You are so lucky. Have you met Terry Wogan? I’m a real fan. Come in, my dears.’ Her voice was high and sweet, with the breathy softness of a Highland Scot. As she spoke, she smiled.

  Training in his study? Intellectual exercises? Advanced time-tabling? Preparing the Standard Aptitude Tests in evil? She was still talking at us: now she was out of sight, because the hall had an L-bend. ‘And Sir Jimmy Savile? Have you ever met him? That’s a truly good man.’ I followed her, answering her nonsense as sensibly as I could, wondering why there was such an overpowering smell of a smart Italian after-shave. The smell hung in the corridor, it didn’t come from her. But if it was the Second-in-Command’s, it must be an off-duty luxury: he didn’t wear it normally.

  She’d stopped her chair outside a door at the far end, waiting for us. ‘The living-room’s at the back of the annexe, with what we think is a charming view of the trees, and our private garden.’

  ‘No boys?’ I said.

  She laughed. ‘How right you are! It’s a joy to get away from them now and then, I must admit, though I do love the boys! Heartwarming young rascals, they are!’

  The living-room was very light and too warm, I felt a radiator as I passed: it was hot to the touch. Perhaps, being ill, she felt the cold. A large glass sliding door to the garden occupied most of one wall, and the sun poured through it on to the beige fitted carpet and the light blue, newish sofa and matching chairs. There were no little tables: the floor area was mostly clear, to give space for the wheelchair, I supposed. A fitted bookcase held romance paperbacks and an assortment of gardening and cookery books. The walls, painted light yellow, displayed watercolours of Highland scenes, including a particularly hapless cow. ‘Sit down, both of you,’ she said, still smiling. ‘Can I offer you refreshment?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ I said. I was trying to work out what it was about the room that rubbed me the wrong way. The sofa was comfortable, everything was clean – what was wrong?

  Nothing. That was it. Nothing was wrong, out of place, individual; it had no meaning and no character, like the emptiness of her smile. ‘I hope you’re feeling better today,’ I said.

  ‘Quite well enough for visitors,’ she
said, and waited.

  While I asked her automatic questions (How long had she worked at Rissington? Eight years. How did she like it? Wonderful! Wonderful! The Major’s an inspiration, and Mrs Ellis such a gracious lady, and so kind!) I tried to imagine the life the Browns led. I couldn’t, and the room didn’t help. But maybe that was just a failure of my imagination.

  Claudia asked to go to the lavatory. ‘Second door on the right,’ smiled Mrs Brown, and Claudia shut the door behind her.

  By the time she came back, five minutes later, I was well into the particular needs of the sanatorium at Rissington. ‘Because they’re so active, we do get a higher than usual incidence of sports injuries – broken bones, strained muscles, etc., but they’re very healthy otherwise.’

  I remembered Tim Robertson, in the san on the night of Olivier’s death. ‘And I suppose the normal run of colds and flu and things,’ I said.

  ‘Bless you, they wouldn’t go to the san for colds. Influenza, perhaps, if it was serious.’

  ‘And you’re not in charge there any more?’

  ‘Sadly no, not since my illness. I do help out, I’m always glad to help, when I’m well enough. And of course, I keep house for my Alistair, and I’m unofficial housemistress. When the boys need a motherly shoulder to cry on, I’m always here.’

  She seemed to me as motherly as a combine harvester, as genuine as a two-pound note, and as warm as an Eskimo’s ice-box, but I never like false smilers or gushing women, and I couldn’t forget Martin Kelly’s loneliness which somehow I connected with her. I’d probably suspect anyone, this morning.

  ‘One thing that interests me,’ I said. ‘I didn’t go to boarding school myself—’

  ‘Neither did I, dear, neither did I! I came from a very simple home.’

  I bet it wasn’t half as simple as mine, I thought, but I wasn’t going to get into a ‘we were too poor to afford a hole in the road’ contest with her. ‘So I don’t know much about boarding schools at all. But I’d think the boys might feel homesick, and so on. I suppose the chaplain would be a help? Do you have a chaplain here?’

  She looked puzzled, as well she might, but said, ‘Oh, yes, of course! Not a resident chaplain, but the school attends St Peter’s near by and the vicar there conducts confirmation classes.’