The Shell House

by Linda Newbery

  Keith, the pool manager, had asked Greg if he could continue to do the early Wednesday slot as well as all day Saturdays. It meant hauling himself out of bed at first light, but was otherwise no hassle; the early morning was a training session, no-one likely to get into trouble, with the coach watching his group closely. The pool guard was a token presence.

  Greg did his routine jobs—checking the water temperature, taking a sample to be measured for chlorine, putting out lane markers—then got up on his high seat as the first swimmers started to arrive. He saw Jordan, in brief black trunks, come out of the changing room and walk to the deep end, dangling goggles from his fingers. Poised to dive, Jordan saw him and raised a hand, then took a neat header into the pool—the first to ruffle the turquoise-blue surface. Greg watched the deep, sure underwater curve, a long shape flickering against pale-blue tiles. It made him think of a line from a poem they’d looked at in English yesterday—something about ‘swimmers into cleanness leaping’. Flipping over, Jordan put on his goggles and adjusted them, then did two lengths of leisurely crawl. The coach, a small wiry man in jog-pants and flip-flops, sent his group into their warm-up routine, gradually building up speed and effort. Greg watched Jordan. A strong swimmer himself but with neither elegance nor impressive speed, he envied Jordan’s ability to make swimming so good to watch. When Jordan swam butterfly—a stroke which Greg could manage only as a laborious flounder—it was like watching a fast, graceful animal in its natural element. Poor or clumsy swimmers seemed to fight the water; Jordan rode it, like a human surfboard.

  At school Jordan rarely mentioned the swimming, even though he turned up every day smelling faintly of chlorine and with hair still damp, and ate his breakfast in the sixth-form common room, usually before anyone else arrived. It was odd that someone so eye-catching and powerful in the swimming pool could be so unobtrusive at school. Jordan kept himself to himself, rarely speaking up in class. In some subjects he could get away with remaining silent and letting others answer the questions, but when he was forced to speak up—in English, particularly, where Mr O’Donnell insisted on everyone taking part—he usually said something perceptive. He certainly wasn’t dim but, Greg realized, had an almost neurotic dislike of drawing attention to himself.

  At the beginning of term he and Greg, finding themselves the only two boys in their English class, had sat together with the defensive instinct of boys outnumbered by girls, and discovered that they had other subjects in common as well as being in the same tutor group. It had become habitual for Greg to look out for Jordan in the mornings, in the common room. If Jordan arrived first, as he usually did, he would sit by himself in the corner reading the sixth-form copy of the Guardian, which he collected from Reception on his way in; if for some reason Greg were there first, Jordan would give his diffident smile and come over to join him. The predominantly-girl tutor group took little notice of Jordan, so successful was his fading-into-the-background technique. Which was strange, Greg thought, because Jordan was a handsome boy—more so than Gizzard, for instance, whose mouth was too wide and nose too podgy for conventional good looks. Jordan was tall, slightly olive-skinned, with springy dark hair and eyes that Greg had noticed were an unusual clear green. Clever, athletic, good-looking—he had all the qualities that could easily, in someone else, have added up to arrogance. Yet there was always something cautious and guarded about him.

  That day in English, they were continuing the reading for their first coursework piece, on First World War poetry. Mr O’Donnell had given them various handwritten drafts of Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen. In one version, alterations had been made in another hand; these, Mr O’Donnell explained, were the suggestions made by another poet, Siegfried Sassoon.

  ‘That Wilfred had really neat handwriting, didn’t he?’ said Bonnie Johnson.

  ‘Yes, Bonnie—unlike yours,’ Mr O’Donnell said crisply. ‘Now listen. When they met, at Craiglockhart Hospital in Edinburgh, Owen was definitely in awe of Sassoon. Sassoon was a few years older and already a published poet. Not only that, he had a reputation for bravery and dash in the trenches. He’d already been awarded an MC—a Military Cross—for conspicuous gallantry, after he captured a whole German trench single-handed. Poet-soldier—it must have seemed a potent combination to Owen, the younger of the two. It’s not surprising he hero-worshipped Sassoon. Anthem for Doomed Youth is one of the poems Owen wrote at Craiglockhart. We’re going to spend a bit of time looking at the drafts I’ve given you, comparing them.’

  ‘What’s the point,’ Bonnie grumbled, ‘if these are just the rough drafts? Can’t we stick to the one in the book?’

  Mr O’Donnell had a way of looking over the top of his glasses that could be completely shrivelling. Bonnie shut up and looked at the duplicated poems.

  ‘If Wilfred Owen was so much, you know, in awe of Sassoon, like you said,’ Madeleine Court pointed out, ‘he might have agreed to the changes whether they were good ideas or not, mightn’t he?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I want you to think about,’ Mr O’Donnell said, ‘by looking at each of the changes suggested by Sassoon, and at the finished poem. I want you to work in pairs, consider each one carefully, and think about what difference it makes. I’ll give you fifteen minutes, then we’ll hear what you’ve got to say.’

  ‘Shouldn’t it be Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon?’ Bonnie said, recovering from the non-verbal snub.

  Mr O’Donnell considered. ‘If I help you with your coursework essay, will you write on it: by Bonnie Johnson and Mr O’Donnell?’

  ‘That’s different. You’re paid to help me. You’re a teacher.’

  ‘And perhaps Sassoon taught Owen something. There are lots of ways of teaching that have nothing to do with school,’ Mr O’Donnell said. ‘Or not so much teaching, more a matter of Sassoon helping Owen to express what he wanted to say more effectively. Which, come to think of it, is exactly what I try to do with your coursework, Bonnie. Many people consider Owen to be the more promising poet of the two—in fact I think Sassoon himself thought so. Who knows what Owen would have gone on to write if he hadn’t been killed?’

  The class settled down to study the poem. Immediately Jordan pointed to the title: Anthem for Dead Youth in Owen’s hand, with Dead crossed out and the word Doomed substituted in Sassoon’s.

  ‘You can see why that’s better. Dead — well, they’re dead already, corpses, finished. Doomed means they’re fated, there’s a death sentence hanging over them, they can’t escape it. It makes you sorrier for them.’

  Greg nodded. ‘Yeah, that’s good. And there’s the sound as well— doomed youth. Oo oo. A sort of rhyme. What do you call it?’

  ‘Assonance,’ said Mr O’Donnell, looming over their shoulders. ‘Yes, Greg. And what difference does that make?’

  He moved on to Bonnie, who had taken her mobile phone out of her rucksack and was reading a text message.

  ‘Well, what difference does it make?’ Greg asked Jordan.

  Jordan’s pen traced oo ou on the printed page. ‘A longer sound. Oo instead of a short e. Dead is sort of cut off, finished—the sound as well as the meaning. Dead youth, doomed youth — I don’t know—sadder again?’

  Greg wrote sadder on his copy. ‘How do you spell assonance?’

  Jordan spelled it out, then pointed to the word Anthem.

  ‘Churchy, like a hymn,’ Greg said. ‘The National Anthem—well, that’s a sort of hymn, I suppose.’

  ‘Does it have to be religious?’ Jordan reached into his rucksack for a pocket dictionary. ‘Anthem,’ he said, finding the place. ‘ A piece of sacred music sung in church. Any dignified song of praise . And it’s got National Anthem: song used by any country as symbol of its national identity.’

  ‘So you’re right. It doesn’t have to be religious. Ours is, though, ‘cos it starts God save our gracious Queen.’

  ‘Anthem is good. Ironic.’ Jordan underlined it in the green pen he was using for notes. ‘Becaus
e you read the title, Anthem, but in the poem there are none of the things you’d expect. Instead there’s a list of no this, no that. No passing-bells . . . no prayers nor bells . . . I think he’s saying none of that has any relevance any more—church, hymns, prayers.’

  ‘Maybe he’s even saying God’s given up on them?’

  ‘I don’t know. Is it about God, or only about the rituals humans use to make sense of things?’

  ‘Rituals, I suppose.’

  ‘War makes all the old ones pointless and invents new ones of its own,’ Jordan said, writing in the margin.

  That was good, Greg thought. He wrote it down too, then looked more closely at Wilfred Owen’s handwriting in the draft, noticing the firm downstrokes in black fountain pen, the precise shaping of the letters, the characterful ks and ps: it was neat but artistic. He imagined Wilfred Owen leaning over the page in just this way, considering his choice of words, crossing out, rewriting. Sassoon’s writing, in pencil, was scrawly, less careful. What would Owen think now if he knew that teenagers in a classroom were studying his every word, every change of mind? He’d have been amazed, surely, to find himself revered as the voice of the Great War; maybe he’d have found it amusing. Greg knew that Owen had been only twenty-four when he wrote this, twenty-five when he was killed a year later. From the convalescent hospital he had returned to the front line, knowing what he’d be facing. Would he have thought it worth dying, to be established for ever as a war poet, never to have the chance to move on to other subjects? It occurred to Greg that an Owen tragically killed at twenty-five was more interesting than an Owen who survived to become crusty, grey and hard of hearing . . .

  He was on the point of saying something about this to Jordan when the door crashed open and a Year Nine messenger came in. Chewing sullenly, the boy handed Mr O’Donnell a folded piece of paper. Mr O’Donnell, who had been explaining something to Jenny Sullivan at the front of the class, straightened and glared at him.

  ‘You know perfectly well that’s not the way to enter a classroom. Would you like to go out and try again? And get rid of your chewing-gum while you’re out there.’

  The boy, obviously not one to be intimidated by the curious eyes of sixth-formers, rolled his eyes. He slouched to the door, knocked, and came in again with mocking courtesy, proffering the note.

  ‘Yes?’ Mr O’Donnell prompted. ‘Try using words if it’s not too much effort.’

  ‘Got this note.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Dean.’ The boy’s tone implied that everyone ought to know.

  ‘Dean what?’

  ‘Dean Brampton.’ Again, the What’s it to you? inflexion. The boy’s gaze fell on Greg. Still chewing, he raised his chin and managed by a small adjustment of his features to give a look of contempt.

  Dean. Dean woz ere.

  There were lots of boys called Dean . . .

  ‘Well, Dean Brampton, you can come back here at break-time and we’ll have a little discussion about manners and why they’re rather important. And you can explain why you’re still chewing gum when I just told you to get rid of it. Off you go.’ Only now did Mr O’Donnell look down at the note he’d been given. He passed it, still folded, across the desk. ‘Jordan, for you.’

  Jordan read it. He didn’t let Greg see, but Greg saw the expression on his face. Immediately Jordan got his things together, zipped his pencil case, folded his papers and stuffed them into his rucksack. Everyone looked at him. ‘Got to go,’ he said, pushing his chair back. He didn’t ask politely, but this time Mr O’Donnell didn’t pursue his crusade for good manners. He just looked at the open door with an anxious expression as Jordan’s footsteps retreated down the corridor.

  ‘What’s that about?’ Bonnie asked, aggrieved. ‘Can we all go?’

  At Jazz’s

  Greg’s mental photograph: a packed room. The camera is held at head height, rather shakily. The shot is out-of-focus, as if seen through an alcoholic haze. There are figures, male and female: spiked hair, bare shoulders, one head aggressively bald. A girl’s head is caught in mid-turn, long hair flying as if in a wind machine. Someone is raising two fingers at the camera, and someone else holding up a joint and grinning inanely. The air is blue with smoke.

  With the new digital camera his parents had bought him for his birthday, Greg could download his pictures straight to the computer, bypassing the bother and expense of developing, then tinker with them using Photoshop. Last night he had downloaded his shots of Graveney Hall, and had cropped and enlarged and experimented. Finally he had printed out three, intending to show them to Jordan: the house from the dip in the driveway, then a view through the open doorway on the garden side, and the DEAN WOZ ERE rubbish and graffiti. In the common room at break he took out the three prints and looked at them, beginning to see how he could develop a sequence. From certain angles and in certain lights, you could easily think the house was still intact and inhabited; only at closer range did you see ruin and decay. If his photographs gradually closed in on the vandals’ territorial marking, it would give a sense of—what was that word Mr O’Donnell had used the other day?—bathos, that was it. Grand and imposing from some views, derelict and litter-strewn from others.

  Greg took out a slip of paper from his pencil case and re-read it. In photography everything is so ordinary; it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the ordinary. David Bailey, it said, in Jordan’s small, firm handwriting. Jordan had read it in a magazine and copied it for Greg, knowing of his ambition to be a photographer. They both liked the idea of learning to see. It was, Greg thought, more important than learning about apertures and exposures.

  Where was Jordan now? Greg looked up at the doorway. He would have had Geography before break if he’d got back from wherever he’d been summoned. Madeleine, coming in, caught his eye and came over, with Bonnie trailing.

  ‘Why did Jordan have to rush off like that?’

  Quickly, Greg put his photographs away in their folder. ‘Don’t know—he didn’t say.’

  ‘Is he in trouble?’ Bonnie asked eagerly.

  Greg gave her a withering look. ‘Yeah, caught dealing crack behind the bike sheds, I bet.’

  ‘I expect it’s to do with his sister.’ Maddy’s friend Safia, who had been in Jordan’s form last year, was getting coffee from the machine. ‘She’s always in and out of hospital. There’s something wrong with her kidneys. He cleared off like that once before.’

  ‘How old is she?’ Maddy asked Greg.

  Greg shrugged. ‘Didn’t even know he had a sister.’

  ‘Honestly—blokes!’ Maddy huffed, looking round at Safia. ‘They go round together all the time and don’t even know about each other’s sisters!’

  ‘We don’t talk about that sort of thing,’ Greg said, defensive.

  ‘She’s Year Ten, I think, only not here,’ Safia said. ‘She goes to St Ursula’s.’

  ‘Must be serious then,’ said Maddy, ‘if Jordan’s gone haring off?’

  Safia shrugged. ‘I s’pose so. Don’t know any more about it than that, only what Suzanne told me.’

  ‘It must be so boring,’ Bonnie said, ‘going round with Jordan, after Gizzard. I wish Gizzard hadn’t left—he was always good for a laugh.’

  ‘Maddy doesn’t think Jordan’s boring, do you, Mads?’ said Safia, with a teasing glance. ‘She likes the silent type.’ Maddy coloured up. Greg looked at her in surprise; she saw him noticing, blushed even more furiously and turned away. ‘Oo-oo-ooh!’ Bonnie crowed. Jordan would hate this, Greg thought: being the subject of who-fancies-who gossip. But Madeleine . . . maybe she was the sort of girl Jordan might like—bright, unflashy, with a mind of her own.

  Jordan didn’t reappear that day. Greg wasn’t sure what to do, not knowing how drastic the situation was. It must have been more than a routine alarm: Jordan’s face, when he read the note, had registered first mild curiosity, then shock and dismay. In the evening, he got the McAuliffes’ number from Directory Enquiries, unsu
re whether to phone or not—he didn’t know Jordan well enough to probe into a family crisis. But, in the end, he did phone; there was no answer, so he left a message on the answering machine and Jordan rang back just as he was thinking of having an early night.

  ‘Greg? Got your message—sorry it’s late.’

  ‘Thought I’d better phone. I thought someone must have died or something.’ Stupid thing to say!

  There was a small pause, then: ‘We’ve all been at the hospital.’ Jordan sounded quite calm.

  ‘Safia said it must be something to do with your sister.’

  ‘Yes. Michelle. She’s OK now, but she was taken ill at school—she was having trouble breathing, so they took her into hospital as an emergency. They’re keeping her in for a couple of days. We’ve just been back to take the things she needed, and my mum’s spending the night there.’

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’ Greg asked, uneasy with illness and disease.

  ‘It’s a long-term thing. Her kidneys don’t work,’ Jordan said. ‘She needs a transplant. But till that happens, she has to go into hospital three days a week for dialysis. That means being plugged into a machine that filters all her blood. It takes five hours each time, and leaves her feeling washed out.’

  ‘It’s serious, then?’ Greg managed.

  ‘Oh yes, it’s serious. She nearly died two years ago when she had acute kidney failure. And if she doesn’t get the transplant she’ll be stuck with this for ever. She’s on a list, waiting. But she’s not actually in danger now, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘I didn’t even know you had a sister.’

  ‘Haven’t I said? Yes, Michelle’s great—imagine putting up with all that! But she does. I’ve got a little brother as well, Mark—he’s only eight. If I’m a bit late tomorrow it’s because I’ve got to get him ready for school and take him there—I’ll have to miss training. Look, thanks for phoning. See you tomorrow, OK?’

  Greg hung up and wandered into the kitchen, where Katy was arguing with their parents about getting her navel pierced.