Sandel

by Angus Stewart

  The other boys had now begun to talk and clink glasses. The boy David had addressed took a look at the man and said, 'I think he's the man that delivered the ice cream, sir. The headmaster told him to sit down there and have lunch.' David was unsurprised. Still, the man didn't look genuine. Perhaps he was a Pot Hall man pursuing some practical joke. At that moment the bewildered fellow caught his eye. David nodded to him, and turned to the boy on his right.

  'And what's your name?'

  'Hunter, sir: If the child rubbed his knees together as he spoke David couldn't see because they were under the table. He tried to picture the said Hunter in boater and the rest of it. He had a china-like sort of prettiness, and raven hair cut rather too lovingly in a fringe. David didn't think he would like Hunter very much. His question, however, seemed to have loosed thirty inhibitions, and he was suddenly besieged.

  'What are you going to teach, sir?'

  'Sir, were you in the war, sir?'

  'Sir, is it true that Stukas scream?'

  'Sir, Cason's got a Dinky Toy Javelin with drop-tanks on, but Javelins don't have drop-tanks, do they, sir?'

  'Oh, shut up, all of you,' said the boy on David's left. 'Let the wretched man eat.' Clearly he was the born shop steward every school discovers.

  The waiter boy had put a plate down in front of him. David looked up from it and caught the ice-cream man's eye again. He called down the table:

  'I recommend the ordinary ordinary!'

  The man grinned uncertainly. 'Good afternoon to you too, sir!' he called back bravely.

  David was convinced now that he was really a Pot Hall calvanist sneaked in to pour plant hormones into the choir boys' porridge, which was what the stuff before him most nearly resembled. The honour of St. Cecilia's stirred within him. The man must be watched. He turned again to the boy on his left who seemed disposed to regard his welfare as his personal responsibility. But the boy, who evidently considered that the wretched man had now had grace enough in which to eat, got in first.

  'Who are you?' he asked simply.

  'Tony Sandel's brother.'

  'You don't look like him.' A small boy with spectacles said this suspiciously.

  'Are you coming to teach, sir?' asked Hunter.

  'No. Just to take Tony out.'

  'Why are you here though?' The boy with spectacles had a spoonful of stew poised in front of his mouth with the tip of the spoon resting against his closed teeth. No doubt it was waiting for some river lock or portcullis to open.

  David sensed vaguely that Froebel had forbidden the use of irony when dealing with small boys, and so said nothing. Instead he turned to the neighbour on his left again. 'Who are you then?'

  'Crockett.'

  'He's related to Davy, sir!' called someone from lower down the table.

  'Really? Born in Tennessee?'

  'No, Anglesey actually. Or rather just off it.' Crockett seemed possessed of a superior social accomplishment.

  'On a mountain top?'

  'No, a motor yacht!'

  'But reared in the backwoods?'

  'Knightsbridge, I'm afraid!' Crockett acknowledged the breakdown of the game apologetically. 'All our names end in y,' he went on, evidently anxious to establish his descent from the hero of the Alamo beyond doubt. 'I'm Henry, and my father is Harley, but it's difficult to bias John Crocket: — that's my little brother. He won't be called Johnny, and he thinks Davy was silly anyway, because he says no one could really kill a bear when he was only three.'

  'Oh, I don't know' David was looking at the mess of steam pudding and custard that had been put down in front of him. Evidently the waiter boy had decided he was an ordinary ordinary customer whatever the fare.

  The noise in the room had risen considerably. David looked towards the man at the table on his left. He had the appearance of a Dickensian usher. Once or twice he said, 'Quiet!' but it was more like the commendation of a Romantic than an effective injunction. Meanwhile he eyed space and tucked into his stodge. Then he got up and left the room. Hunter interrupted his reverie reproachfully. 'Sir, Miss Poole has been making signs at you for seconds.'

  David looked up in alarm. The girl with the ladle was ogling at him, and silently mouthing vowels as if running up a do-re-me scale behind plate glass. He wondered for just how many seconds she had been making such signs, and for how many more they might be expected to continue. Crockett came to his rescue.

  'Oh, it's second helpings. She signals, you announce them, and then the second-servers rush. It's quite easy,' he added sympathetically, 'you just say "seconds".'

  'Seconds,' said David.

  'No custard!' yelled Hunter after the flying heels of the second-server. There was no doubt that the Ghoul's mascot's voice would reach the St. Cecilia's eight. Conceivably it might shatter the hull.

  'L.e.s.s. n.o.i.se.,' the girl mouthed at David, quite silently, but with a labial definition that must have won the lip dictation prize at any school for deaf mutes.

  'Less noise!' said David.

  At that moment a heavily built man of about forty came through from the further room. Out of the corner of his eye David became aware of Hunter behaving like a budgerigar in expectation of another. He shifted his small behind on its perch, and puffed out his chest.

  'Who's that?' David asked, though he had little need to.

  'Sir, that's Mr. Gould, sir.' Hunter had clasped his knees under the table, and sucked his lower lip into his mouth. 'Sir, we're making less noise, sir, and can I ask you a question?' a boy half-way down the table said.

  David nodded gravely.

  'Well, sir, you still haven't told us whether you were in the war, sir, were you,'

  'Break-in a bronco, little boy,' David said slowly. 'Or take a canoe across the Atlantic. If that's not enough, trying sticking pins in a cat and letting it scratch you.'

  The boy began to giggle delightedly. Whichever of Crawley's families he came from could already be proud of him.

  'No, honestly, sir, were you?'

  'Fetch me a carving-knife. I'll stick it in your stomach; and perhaps you'll forget war.'

  The rhetoric was fatal. David couldn't have indulged little-boy blood lust more successfully if he'd tried. Half the table clutched their stomachs and began to groan in ecstasies of expectation, rolling their eyes at him.

  Some sort of fight seemed to have broken out.

  'Sir, Cason's going to blub!' a boy called.

  A boy opposite the one who must be Cason let out a kick under the table. Cason did begin to blub, silently into his custard.

  'He wets his bed!' the boy who had delivered the kick called out to David.

  'He has to have pills too, sir!' another yelled triumphantly, elbowing Cason contemptuously in the ribs.

  'And he has to see the doctor every week - drip!' The speaker addressed the last word bitterly to Cason himself.

  David eyed the principal protagonists warily. 'Really? I wet my bed, I have pills, and I see my doctor every Thursday.'

  He was aware of a stunned silence in the room, and of eighty eyes staring at him. Cason seemed to have discovered a guinea in his progress through the stodge, but was unable to believe his fortune.

  'Gentlemen!' David said, seizing on the silence. 'There will he no more talking in this room until the end of the meal.'

  He got to his fee and became aware of Jones standing in the doorway. Jones caught up with him in the hall. He said:

  'There'll be coffee in the Staff Room - your brother should be changed in a minute. Rogers?' he added, evidently troubled, 'about the question of that resident post. You will let me know, won't you?' He clapped David on the shoulder, and wandered off shaking his head.

  Tony appeared in the hall. He was carefully attired in his suit and what looked like brand new black shoes. As soon as they were in the car he asked, 'Did you talk to him?'

  'Who?'

  'The Ghoul?'

  'No.'

  He beat me again.'

  Why?'

  'We
ll, he was telling us that Pitt reformed London and introduced a new system of taxes. I said I didn't think there were taxis in London in those days.'

  'Then you deserved it.' David was uncompromising. 'Anyway, I thought the Ghoul taught maths.'

  'History too.'

  'Tony, let's forget about the Ghoul. You haven't said Hallo yet.'

  The boy slid down in the seat and grinned up. Hallo!'

  David stopped the car at the school gates to let a pedestrian pass. His stomach suddenly contracted.

  That's that man, isn't it?' Tony cried.

  David accelerated out into St. Aldate's. Lang stood staring after them.

  Chapter 14

  'I've been doing research,' David said. They were waiting for traffic lights. 'All the best wool comes from Neal Frazers. There's a branch in Cheltenham apparently. That's where we're going.'

  'Are you really going to buy me - new clothes then?'

  'Sure.' David took a quick look at the boy, and let in the clutch as the lights turned amber.

  'What about the white ones?'

  'The white whats?'

  'Oh, it doesn't matter,' Tony said quickly. 'I meant the shorts for cricket' he added after a moment. 'You see, we've got a match against Kings in Cambridge on Wednesday, and I think my verrucas will be better again.'

  David threw him a suspicious glance. 'I thought you didn't like cricket much.'

  'I don't. I want to see the statues in the Fitzwilliam Museum. I usually manage to escape for an hour.'

  'Doesn't the school provide the eleven with whites anyway?'

  'Oh, yes.' Tony was vague. 'But they lend them out to anyone who's playing, and they're not very nice.'

  'I see. Who else do you play matches against?'

  'New College, of course; and Christ Church. They're pretty useless though, and we always beat them. Once I hit a six right into Merton,' Tony added modestly.

  David smiled. 'Which reminds me. I've got a present for you - two, in fact. I'm beginning to suspect I shouldn't have got the first, though.' The car was coasting steadily along the Witney road. David reached into the back and produced the socks, still in their bag. Tony unwrapped them, gave a gasp, and then folded up with laughter. David found the flippers. Tony became grave.

  'You're very kind to me,' he said. 'How did you know I wanted some?'

  David inclined his head non-committally. Clearly the boy had forgotten. Tony now stripped off his shoes and socks and put the flippers on his feet. He pulled up the hems of his shorts the better to admire the length of his brown legs. The neon-topped socks were happily forgotten.

  Tony seemed to sink into a dream, alternating his attention between the countryside through which they were passing, and his own legs which terminated in the absurd rubber feet. The U.S. Air Force was being proved right. It was warm, and a light breeze shifted the boy's hair in the open car. They were running again along the valley of the Windrush; only today the air was clear, and they could see the silver ribbon of the stream as it meandered through the fields. In the distance was the spire of Burford church. I must find cherries and hang them on the boy's ears, David thought irrationally.

  'We didn't see any dragon-flies, did we?' Tony said.

  'No.'

  'Or where the Evenlode joins the Windrush.'

  David was strangely moved by the boy's remembering the names of the two streams.

  'There was something I wanted to ask you.' Tony still clutched the hems of his shorts. Holding his legs rigid, he moved them up and down while he looked at his feet 'It seemed easy last night ...'

  'Go on.'

  'Well, it's ... You don't think I'm like a girl, do you?'

  David let the cats' eyes kick rhythmically at his offside wheels. 'Crazy question. No, Tony. I think you're like a. boy.'

  'Good,' Tony said with finality. I think a boy can be better than a girl.' He seemed content to let David work out whatever he might mean. It was obvious that he didn't know himself. After a moment he added, 'Did you like me with those elm seeds or whatever they were at that place where we had tea?'

  David smiled. 'I know that if I say yes you'll produce a handful and sprinkle them in your hair now!'

  Tony became suddenly animated. He began to beat his rubber feet up and down on the floor of the car.

  'I thought we'd buy a cold chicken or something for tonight, and have it in my room,' David said after a while. 'I've laid in some stocks of film too.'

  Tony looked at him. 'Colour as well?'

  'Colour as well. But you get better effects with black and white. And you can't be as big as the wall in colour.'

  Tony compressed his lips. David glanced at him quizzically. 'Don't worry! We'll use them both. I'd really like you in your dashing opera cloak - as you were when you first broke in on my peace.'

  'As a matter of fact it was you who said "stop!".' Tony amended, truly enough. 'But the cloaks have been put away, and I probably couldn't get one. We have gowns in summer.' David was puzzled. 'But it was definitely a cloak you were wearing that Sunday.'

  'Yes. That was because our gowns had been to the cleaners, but they sent them back to your dons' Senior Common Room, I think it is, and they got lost. You see, they're long gowns much longer than yours,' he added in explanation.

  'Oh!' David said, visualising the mean proportions of his Commoner's gown. 'I certainly wouldn't put it past our dons to steal your gowns. Their own are shabby enough.'

  For some minutes the car ran on through the open-faced fields, and neither of them said anything. There were clouds like yellow satin cushions in the sky.

  'I know today isn't ended yet, but when am I going to see you again after today?' Tony asked this suddenly.

  'I don't know.' David flexed the sprung steering wheel, thinking. Out of the corner of his eye he could see that the boy had produced a diary. 'When are you next free? You've got Cambridge on Wednesday. What about Monday?'

  'Funeral,' said Tony. 'One of your dons. Then on Tuesday I've got a wedding.'

  'You certainly see life.'

  'Yes, we do.' Tony was thoughtful. 'We usually get five shillings for weddings, because it's overtime. We don't get anything for funerals though. Not that we'd want it,' he added as if sensing some impropriety.

  'That brings us to Thursday then.'

  Tony turned another page of his diary. 'Blast! I've got a concert at Christ Church. Their first soprano was run over crossing St. Aldate's and they've asked for me.'

  'Of course,' David echoed hollowly; but he was appalled,

  'Was he badly hurt?'

  'I don't think so. Just bruises. It was only an undergraduate on a bicycle.' Tony considered his rubber feet for a moment.

  'He must have felt rather a fool.'

  'Who?'

  'The man.'

  'Yes. I suppose he must. So it looks like the weekend again?'

  'I'm afraid so.' Tony was apologetic. It's an awful nuisance when one's professional life interferes with one, personal engagements. Shall we say Saturday then?'

  David nodded. 'Two-thirty on the fence.'

  Tony had turned to the back of his diary and appeared to be studying something intensely.

  'David?'

  'Yes?'

  'What's a homosexual?'

  David glanced at the boy, but he was concentrated over the diary. 'It, a person who's attracted to someone of the same sex;

  'Same sex?' Tony had looked up.

  'Yes.'

  'It's a Greek word then?'

  'You're a bright boy! The homo part is: the rest comes from Latin.'

  'Am I one because I'm attracted to you?'

  'Well, no. It means a more mature attraction.'

  'Like grown-ups' love?' The boy, tone was one of aggressive inquiry.

  'It can be.'

  'I see.' Tony turned another page of his diary studiously. 'The other word is pederast. What's that?'

  'Tony, where on earth did you get these words from?'

  'Sermon,' Tony said simply.
'I asked one of the matrons what "pederast" was, and she said she thought it was what you stood statues on. When I asked her about the other word she said she was busy, so I assumed it must be one of those words we aren't supposed to know, and that I'd better ask you. Our dictionary is someone called Chambers' and it doesn't have either.' He'd become quite heated by the idea that knowledge was being withheld from him.

  David smiled. 'I see. Well, your Greek should help you with that one too. What's åñáóôÞò?'

  'Love - no, lover.'

  'And ðáéä?’

  'A boy.'

  'Exactly, So you put them together.'

  'Love-boy?' Tony hazarded. 'Or lover-boy? But that sounds like one of those modern songs with impossible harmonic groupings.'

  'Your diction can be priggish, to say the least.' David laughed. 'No - it means someone who loves boys.'

  'Not "Jesus loves us" and all that stuff?' Tony said suspiciously.

  'Not really. It's difficult to distinguish between the different meanings of love. Words don't always help because people put different interpretation upon them. That's one reason why I write music.'

  'But wait a minute.' Tony was confused. 'There is only one sort of love, surely?'

  'Probably; at least I think so. A second ago, though, you were a bit reluctant to admit God's love at all.'

  'Well, we get religion about three times a day,' Tony said, 'yet our masters are atheists or hypocrites. It's muddling. If all loving's the same what's the connection between praying which I don't want to do thoroughly, and kissing, which I do? I mean, Sanders, I think I told you about him, the boy who had hair, used to have this photo of Bardot, you know, and take his shorts off in front of it and say he loved her. Then ...' Tony broke off; gathering his concentration furiously. 'Then, Mrs. Jones says Saint Francis loves the birds she means the feathered sort. So - so think of Mrs. Jones saying that, and of Sanders taking his shorts off and going stiff in her drawing room at the same time. Do you see?'

  'I didn't meet Mrs. Jones this morning,' David said. The outburst had startled him and he needed time. 'I think you must think of all forms of love as aspects of a single force which none of us can completely understand. It's because love can take so many forms that it can be used for good, or it can be used selfishly.'