Darkwells

by R. A Humphry

  “I’m alright, Manu.” The Captain took a deep breath. “Remember, we use you as a decoy for the first three moves, then you crash on my inside shoulder, got it?”

  “Yes Peter, I remember.”

  #

  Manu fell asleep in the locker room, forty five minutes before kickoff. The tension and the strangeness and the long night awake had finally got to him. The selected team had been given the morning off classes and he had found himself at a loose end and so had decided to polish his boots and check his gear and try to clear his busy mind. From there he had lain down on the wide wooden bench and before he knew it he was asleep and once again his dreams were curious.

  They were not of his parents this time, but were of other perplexing, oblique things. There was a hill with a small tower; a pretty girl with tears running down her face; an old, old spirit and everywhere a handsome boy with a limp and a walking stick peering into a silver and pearl dish, searching, searching and Manu would run and hide.

  After what seemed an age of avoiding the crippled boy, Manu stopped fleeing and had turned to face him, lifting his chin. The boy leapt back in total shock and fell, overturning his silver dish and landing with a pain-filled grunt on his bad leg.

  #

  The crowd was large and boisterous and they struggled to hear Peter’s inspirational team talk as they huddled together before kick-off. Before they knew it the whistle blew and the ball was in the air and Manu learned a lot about marauding Vikings.

  Blonde wave after wave of big, fast and merciless Greys boys poured over and through them. Their boots thumped into the ground like the thunder of stampeding buffalo and Manu was sluggish and slow and stupid and could not stop them. There was now a physical pressure on his limbs to go with the buzzing and the whispering and warping of his vision. He fought and strained but it was no use. Davis was carried off on a stretcher after twenty minutes. They trudged into the changing rooms in dispirited disarray. Peter bellowed encouragements as his head was strapped up to stop the streaming blood from a cut to his forehead. Manu threw up in a toilet and started shaking. What was wrong with him? Was he ill? He forced his leaden body up and out of the door for the second half.

  Manu tried to look bright and sparky but ended up trudging back to the half-way line with the other boys. What use was it? This Greys team were something special. They were a class above anything they could hope to match. Why try when you are just going to fail? Manu glanced up at the blonde boys, who waited for the kick off like hungry jackals and then saw by far the most bizarre thing in this, the most bizarre of days. In the dark cloud that hung over the pitch, pregnant with rain that didn’t fall, a bright shaft of light appeared in a complete circle and the face of the crippled boy from his dream appeared, his sandy hair a mess. He had a freckle dotted face and eyes a shade of blue that reminded Manu of a puppy he had once had.

  The boy was muttering to himself distractedly and then noticed Manu and broke into a delighted smile and spoke to Manu in the most refined English accent he had ever heard. “There you are! Ha! What’s a pointless endeavour now, Watkins?” The disembodied head was talking to someone over his shoulder. Manu didn’t know if he should be looking at the ball or the magic head. Was anyone else seeing this? The blue eyes swivelled back and looked around interestedly. He then frowned. “What is this? Something is wrong here.” The whistle trilled and the ball was kicked off. Manu stood frozen. “Someone has cast Agrippa’s Melancholia against you! I can’t believe it. I can counter, Watkins do be quiet, I said I can do it. And there! Ha! Oh bugger, that’s not supposed… uh, the mirror is boiling now so I’m going to…” the face vanished.

  And so did the buzzing and oppression and the feeling of defeat. Manu’s spirit sprung free and something caught fire in his belly. A rhythm built in his mind and it was an old song, his mother’s song.

  He would never admit it to anyone, but all Manu ever remembered from the match, afterwards, was the chant that went through his mind like a battle cry. It had come unbidden and seemed to infuse his limbs with energy. He would never admit it, but it was a haka that he screamed out in the privacy of his head.

  Ka Mate! Ka Mate!

  Ka tk te ihiihi

  Ka tk te wanawana

  So on a day of miracles there was space for one more. The mighty Greys were defeated. Peter and Manu were the heroes of the day and, years later, a portrait of the two of them would hang in the Stonehouse meal-hall – Peter looking very English and Manu looking very Maori.

  The celebrations went on for days and, in the rugby way, the Greys boys turned out to be interesting and friendly, once the match was done. Manu was happy for Peter, and was happy that they had won. But his mind was not at rest. What, exactly, was happening to his world?

  Chapter Five: Leaving

  Events moved at pace. Letters were exchanged between the schools in a brisk, purposeful manner. Character references were written up and Mrs. Stirling gave him a glowing report for his work in English and sent it bundled with a selection of his better essays. He was forced to take a raft of tests, sat alone in the creaky hall. It was the same room that they used for a cafeteria and Manu was distracted by the smells of roasting meat and simmering gravy.

  The exams were difficult and Manu had been given little time to prepare, but he finished them all and left thinking that he had done well enough. His peers were so enthusiastic about his success that he realised for the first time just how small and provincial Stonehouse was. The idea of one of their own being elevated somewhere as exclusive as Darkwells seemed to bring a little glamour to the old school.

  Eric proposed that they drink from his smuggled flask of vodka in the hidden spot deep in the coffee plantation but Manu declined. The one tiny taste he had braved after lights-out last term was more than enough for him. Besides, he had plenty on his mind and not much of it was putting him in a celebratory mood.

  After the all the self congratulation of the famous victory and of Manu’s success, no-one else at Stonehouse seemed to notice the strange behaviour of the weather. The school was bathed in the clear warm sun that had broken through the dark brooding cloud at the turning point of the match. The birds chirped in the trees and the wildlife that could be observed around the grounds did not appear to be behaving in any way out of the ordinary. Everything was restored to its customary place in the order of things - except for what Manu saw just outside the school’s grounds.

  There the sky inexplicably darkened and the cloud thickened overhead. Oppression hung in the air and Manu, within minutes of pacing along in the coffee fields, started brooding on the futility of everything, just as he had during that miserable first half. He had convinced himself that his father was disappointed in him and that his mother felt betrayed. He started to believe that Arap Milgo thought of him as arrogant and spoilt and entitled. He was worthless and stupid and only succeeded off the brilliance of others. He was a nothing more than a curiosity, a half caste outcast that belonged nowhere. His breaths came quick and shallow and Manu had to stumble back into the grounds before the bleakness overwhelmed him.

  He asked Irungu if he could see or feel it, as they sat together in the common room, playing one of their endless games of dominos. His friend shook his head with nonchalance, unsurprised at the odd question but with no real opinion. Eric, however, overheard and laughed in his face, suggesting that it was perhaps all the fault of the playful little fairies that lived by the stream. Manu kicked the table and set the carefully constructed card house Eric had laboured over for the last half hour tumbling to howls of protest.

  His friends didn’t see it, but something was clearly very wrong. The boy he had seen in the sky had done something; something that Manu was sure was fading. The circle of sunlight was contracting, he was certain of it. Every day it retreated from the coffee and across the playing fields, crawling like the shadow of an alien ship in a Hollywood movie. What did it mean? Who should he tell? What happened when the darkness closed in completely? Not for the first
time since he came back, Manu tried to assess whether he was fully tethered to sanity.

  #

  As he sat at his desk doing prep for teachers he would soon be leaving, he saw another curiosity. Compared to the unreality he had been living in it was a fairly mundane sight. An old Masai herdsman was walking around the outskirts of the grounds with an upraised spear. He was frail and weathered and quite alone. There were no goats or cattle. He moved around the grounds in a deliberate manner, following what looked like an unseen but definite pattern. Manu watched him for a good half hour as he traversed around in the coffee. The next day he rushed to the spot where the Masai had been and, as he expected, the sky was clearer. The oppression that stalked the edges of the bubble created by the mysterious boy were banished. He was mystified. What was the Masai doing? He resolved to ask Arap Milgo about it when he was next home, as he was knowledgeable about things like this.

  A fortnight passed and things settled down. With all the tests done and the letters sent, the matter of his potential scholarship seemed to be quite forgotten and he soon eased back into the comforting routine that was life at Stonehouse. Eric persuaded him to audition for a part in the school play. He joined the debating club and discovered that he was hopeless, his inbuilt moral certainty making him unsuited to the quick-witted and dexterous arguments presented by others. He simply could not argue for something in which he did not believe.

  He won a prize for an essay he wrote about Siegfried Sassoon. Talk started to turn to the upcoming match against Kings. The First Fifteen won a heroic encounter away in the city and there was a hope that the Under Fifteens could follow it up and make it a clean sweep for the season. House competitions were starting and Manu signed up for more and more events.

  So it was that his acceptance letter took him very much by surprise. As Mr. Cooper shook his hand in congratulations across the polished oak of his desk, Manu felt stunned. “They want you to start right after half-term, which is a bit unusual but no difficulty. I dare say that you’ll have a bit of a shock surviving your first English winter though, eh?”

  Manu tried for a smile and the Headmaster chuckled to himself, quite used to his jokes falling flat. “Your parents are coming to collect you first thing on Friday. Oh, and I thought you might want to look at this,” he pushed what looked like a glossy magazine towards him over the shining table.

  It had a picture of a grand looking building with imposing square pillars and unadorned, almost minimalist lines. The word Darkwells was stencilled across the top with Prospectus written in underneath. An enormous picture of the school crest dominated the page. It was a kite shield with elaborate drawings of towers and books and even had a dragon coiled around a sword. The top of the shield was dominated by a raven in flight with its talons gripping the top. “Good to know what one is heading into, eh? Their Headmaster left it here. Great chap, thought he was fond of you. I wasn’t too impressed with the other fellow. What was his name? Well, we shall be sad to see you go, Master Wardgrave, but we wish you all the best.”

  #

  Darkwells. Manu obsessed over every glossy page. The buildings were cold and bleak and majestic. Manu had a vague expectation of them to be Gothic, with scowling gargoyles and ornate decorative facades with pointed arches. What he saw was, as he would later learn, an older Norman style. The walls were smooth and unadorned by grimacing faces or showy flourishes. The arches were curved and crowded together and the structure was neat and symmetrical and functional. The colour of the buildings was not the weathered stone that Manu had seen on pictures of other grand English monuments but seemed to be somehow inherently darker in its native colouring and untouched by age. It was as if made by an altogether different material that only appeared to be stone. He flicked the pages, staring at all the smiling faces. Everywhere were students holding up test tubes; students working on computers or engaged in sports; teenagers playing large and expensive instruments. The pictures were all done to an superb standard and Manu felt a sense of professional respect to the photographer. The excellence of the facilities in the pictures was beyond Manu’s understanding. While they were impressive, they just fit in with his general perception he had of England - of course things were better.

  Darkwells. A quick leaf through the prospectus made Stonehouse seem a pauper’s palace. Deficiencies that were once of no consequence were now glaring to Manu: such as the poverty of the sports store. Was it right that they only had four tackle bags? That they had broken cricket nets and had to bring their own pads? Was it normal not to have the hot water working in the showers every other week? Did the parents of Darkwells students have to donate all the sumptuous costumes he had seen on their theatre page? Even the library, once a hallowed place for Manu, looked tatty and out of date the more he marvelled at Darkwells’ magnificence.

  Darkwells was founded in 1390 by Gerald FitzGerald, 3rd Earl of Desmond. We are one of the original nine schools listed in the 1868 Public Schools Act. Allied to our long history is a commitment to having the very best modern facilities available.

  All across the prospectus were pictures of the strange pointed hill and tower that loomed in the background. Manu only identified it after he found a picture of a Cricket match in progress, the players all a blur of whites as they appealed to the umpire, that had a caption underneath it saying ‘Darkwells First XI vs. Shrewsbury with Tor in background’. Manu shut the book and ran his hands over the cover, tracing the motto on the banner under the crest with his fingers: faber est suae quisque fortunae.

  #

  In the hours before his father came for him Manu walked around Stonehouse one final time, saying farewell to the small parts of the school that were close to his heart. He paused in front of the large pine honours board and ran his eyes down the names and dates, conscious that his own would now never appear there. He went one last time to the library and returned his final book. He posted the little thank you notes he had written to his teachers. He took a walk across the pitches to the edge of the coffee, along his favourite stream and sat watching the road under an acacia.

  His father was late, which was unlike him. He greeted Manu with a firm, grown up handshake and congratulated him on his success but Manu could sense a tension in him. It was the grim set to his jaw that would appear as soon as his proud smile slipped as he focused on some other task, like loading Manu’s meagre possessions into the Landrover. He slammed doors and ground the gears. He was curt and quick with the Stonehouse teachers who had come to see him off.

  The dream that he had about his father and Robert, which seemed so long ago now, came to his mind and he almost spoke about it, but then thought better of it, not wanting to sound like a silly child. It took them a while to get away once they were loaded up due to bundles of forms and paperwork and it was full dark before they started off towards home, little more than rolling headlights drifting away from the warmth of the school.

  The drive was awkward and almost silent. The spectre of unsaid things hung about father and son and neither took the step to break the unfamiliar distance. Manu slept and only woke again with the cacophony of barks that signalled his arrival home. He made his way to bed after greeting his mother.

  When he awoke he got a surprise looking out of the back window across the grazing land. The grass was scorched and blackened and the earth looked freshly ploughed. He asked his father about it over breakfast and got back a terse reply.

  “We had a bush-fire,” his father explained. “We were lucky the herd was up by Chui farm.” Manu wanted to ask more questions but was ambushed by the second surprise. “You better help Arap Milgo choose your things today Manu. You are booked on the Wednesday flight. You’ll be met by my cousin David, you remember him? He’ll show you to the train. Your new Housemaster will pick you up at the station.”

  “But…” Manu stammered in shock.

  “No time for a holiday, Manu. Your mother and I have work to do and we can’t have you underfoot.”

  Manu sagged in his chai
r. His father was never like this with him. What had he done? What had he done to be sent away like this? Sent off alone?

  At length he found his voice. “Where is mum?” he asked, keeping his voice neutral. “I’ve not seen her at all this morning.”

  “She’s had to leave early on unexpected business in the territory. She wanted to see you off but,” his father shrugged, “life is like that, when you’re grown-up. We’ll make it up to you at end of term. Now, don’t mope about. Arap Milgo needs to get your trunk sent off on the next truck heading to the city.”

  #

  Manu discovered that there was very little he wanted to take, unless it was everything. He moved about the house in a daze, listlessly picking up items and putting them down again. Arap Milgo had already packed the things he would have packed anyway, and plenty he would have needed and forgotten. He wasted his final days home in a sulky fit of bad humour, not savouring or enjoying anything the way he should. He worked himself up over leaving the stupidest little things. His heart ached at not being able to run past the weed choked little lane where the old farm equipment sat rusting. The old rotting stump that he had used as a phantom enemy in all his shadow rugby training would be gone by the time he returned. All the forgotten little corners that were the realm of little boys seemed to recede away from him forever and the sensation left him reeling with a sort of vertigo.

  Ominously, his father was often out of the house and Manu would watch him as he would circle the perimeter of the farm checking a series of marker posts that had been driven into the ground. This, blended with his bone deep foreknowledge of the terrible homesickness he would later feel and with his anxiousness about the dream and the boy and the impossibility of everything, stole away any excitement that should have been his.