Sandel

by Angus Stewart

  With sudden resolution David went to the lectern. He gripped the eagle's pinions, surveyed the school apologetically and dropped his head. 'Let us pray,' he said.

  There was a stirring in the Chapel. The school, he supposed, though his eyes were tightly shut, must be getting on to knees. So far so good. David reflected uncomfortably that this was one of the most revered places in the country, in comparison with which King's, Cambridge, was upstart, even a little vulgar.

  'Our Father,' he said loudly into the great vault.

  The response was instant and unanimous.

  'We chart 'n Heaven …'

  'And we're off,' David thought with relief.

  The school was rhythmically pleading for the corning of the Kingdom when he felt the tap on his shoulder. Jones must have materialised from the vestry: at least he was in full regalia. David gave way. Jones took over neatly. Tony, David saw, as he turned, had also reappeared, and had occupied the stall he had abandoned. He sank down beside him while the school begged to forgive unspecified trespasses. Tony raised pleading eyes to heaven; then rolled them at David. His rigid form was convulsed with giggles, whose impulses transmitted themselves to David. 'We didn't giggle, because we never do.' he could hear the boy saying primly in his memory. Tony put his right hand in David's jacket pocket, and David removed it. Tony put it back again, and there apparently it had to remain until the conclusion of the service.

  Eventually Jones stepped praying. A hymn was sung without music. It might have been better had David been able to conduct it; but then the entity was distorted for him by the Proximity of Tony who contrived to lend it the arbitrarily selected effects of Carmen, Madame Butterfly and the dying Mimi. David realised that he was being treated to an assertion of Sandel on something like the scale of a Moscow May Day. Tony, in a word, was demonstrating. The performance ended on an 'amen' which Tony embellished with the passion of a first-night Melba. In the few seconds of silence before Jones pronounced the blessing, David turned to look at him and was met by a mockery that was made the more unnerving by two patches of red and green light that were thrown on the boy's face from the rose-window above the altar. Tony moved his head; the lights played with his eyes, and David felt he must cry out aloud. A spasm of vacuity replaced his abdomen, as if a cold horseshoe had been laid against the skin beneath his sternum. Tony still had his hand buried in his pocket. As Jones pronounced his last recommendation, and what must surely be the ultimate 'amen', he withdrew it. He smiled so that the lozenge of red light touched his lips. Then he turned his face into the shadow.

  Chapter 25

  The morning passed quickly. Jones proved amiably disposed towards the misunderstanding in the Chapel, and was, as David had suspected, a different man when away from his wife. The morning's teaching resolved itself into little more than discovery of names. With the morning break David postponed Tony's first music lesson in order to get to know colleagues better. The occasion in the staff room was marked by thick tea and paste sandwiches. David eulogised as best he could on the value of raffia-work to one of the two ladies who came in by the day, and he also supplied the Major with three cigarettes. Rain and mist had descended on the Thames Valley, quickly choking the promise of the crystal morning., and the Major stumped out in a trench-coat with two subservient batboys to inspect the rugger pitches, and returned, with a frown to borrow a fourth cigarette. As the bell was going his morning was made by the arrival of a ready-mixed barrel of mild and bitter. He took the next period off to install it, and the form he was supposed to be taking, left to their own devices, apparently knew better either than to make any noise, or register a complaint.

  After lunch Jones peered into the gloom and said: 'French and English with the middle school in the Hall, I think. Rogers.'

  Finding Tony, David was told that in the days when he had deigned to join the game, he had almost been murdered as a result of being the only boy to change into gym things; and that he had better plug his ears with something.

  David soon discovered why. The game bore no resemblance to anything he remembered from his own prep school days, and in fact there seemed to be some dispute as to whether it was called French and English, or British Bulldogs. As far as David was concerned each title equally well expressed the spirit of militancy he refereed. The carnage was devastating. A minor Arnhem rendered the more horrific by the surreptitious expression of personal animosities as the civilised veneer melted in the heat of battle.

  One boy was chosen and stood in the middle of the floor. The others, gathered at one end of the room, had to rush past him and reach the opposite wall. The boy in the middle had to seize one of the masses and lift him clear of the floor, when there became two Bulldogs, or Englishmen; and so it went on. The obvious thing would seem to be to get lifted up with the greatest possible speed and the least pain, but few appeared to see it like that, and those who did were carefully ignored in favour of more violent and co-operative assault later on. Meanwhile teeth, nails and shoes were freely employed as the occasion required, and the floor was rapidly littered with the bloody and tearful forms of those left for dead.

  David watched with a fascination that at times he suspected as unhealthy while Crockett succumbed to his own personal Alamo, and until Hunter's struggling body had been dislocated by the simultaneous assault of four avengers, with the aid of a fifth who carefully strangled him with his tie, and then blew the whistle with which Jones had thoughtfully provided him.

  He turned desperately to the Bluthner as to Orpheus. Gradually, with muttered threats and sly, retributive kicks, the beasts were stilled. After some minutes of Tchaikovsky, which David would have found unthinkable except in such an emergency, they began to dress themselves and gather round the piano.

  David stopped playing and looked curiously at the company, seeing many of their faces for the first time. Without warning he exploded a fist over a chord that would have jarred Winifred Atwell. The jam session was on.

  When David subsequently looker back over the wild hour which followed it was to review a small miracle. Something called the 'junior percussion cupboard' was broken into, and there appeared a collection of tambourines, cymbals, drums and triangles. Pictures came off the wall for timpani, a washboard was mysteriously discovered, and as a crowning effect some wild-eyed genius brought a dozen steel foot-rules which he proceeded to scatter over the wires of the Bluthner. The makeshift orchestra went to work with a spontaneity and cohesion that was astounding. The spring of the boys' musical abilities was called forth by the insistent rhythms as the animal had been revealed by the Bulldog game, and, likewise, proved itself to be very far from square.

  In the middle of a dynamic interpretation of the St. Louis Blues David became aware of Tony standing in the doorway with the corners of his mouth turned down. He returned a moment later with what seemed to be a glass of tea, but which proved in fact to be whisky which David subsequently discovered him to have liberated from a bottle of the Major's in the staff room. Still without speaking, the boy returned a second time with a, mirror, which he placed on the music-rest and adjusted to reflect David's hands.

  Perhaps it was half an hour later, when St. Cecilia's middle school was savagely embroidering the hottest boogie David knew, that Mrs. Jones opened the door and switched the lights on and off twice in quick succession. She didn't actually say 'Time, gentlemen, please; but the intimation was there. David stopped playing. 'Tea, sir,' one boy said. Another looked at his watch. 'It's not,' he retorted; then hazarded: 'Mrs. Jones can't bear jazz, sir.' David nodded. The boys began to pack up their instruments and return the pictures, washboard and steel rulers to their more usual, if mundane places.

  At about six o'clock, when the lower school was rowdily enjoying its early supper in the tutelage of Jean Poole, David allowed himself to he persuaded out into the cold to buy the Major cigarettes. He was just leaving the tobacconist-confectioner's opposite the main gate of St. Cecilia, having discovered the Major was mistaken in supposing himself to h
old an account there, and subsequently having had to part with a pound which he never saw again. when he witnessed a sight that must have embarrassed any member of the currently sitting Roads Committee who happened at that moment to glance out of the Town Hall windows a hundred yards away. In the gathering gloom and rush-hour traffic Tony emerged suddenly from the college gates at the head of his choir in their opera cloaks. Barely looking at the triple stream of cars, and without breaking step, Tony led the choir straight out into the roaring thoroughfare of St. Aldate's. David held his breath in fear while on all sides the astonished traffic came to a standstill. Looking neither to right nor left Tony raised his four-cornered hat on behalf of himself and the other fifteen boys, and then they were safely across. David found his teeth were so tightly locked together that he relaxed his jaw only with difficulty before he could speak.

  'What on earth did you have to do that for?'

  'Hallo ' Tony was surprised. 'Do what?'

  'Cross the road?'

  'Oh, I see.' Tony indicated the confectionery shop in which the choir were now milling, having broken ranks. 'We sometimes come over to buy sweets after Evensong .. Only it's strictly unofficial, and you aren't here ... Understand!'

  The boy had taken hold of David's lapels and was pulling him backwards and forwards on his feet. He followed the direction of David's eyes, while the crowds making last-minute dashes to newsstands and the general post office jostled around them.

  'I should make the best of it,' Tony smiled, pulling him forward particularly violently so that for a moment he was almost engulfed in the black cloak. 'I'm retiring soon.'

  'The hat is ridiculous,' David countered weakly. 'It makes you look like a diminutive Venetian nobleman ... a baby Doge, perhaps. As to the whole effect, well . .. A Dark Angel. The sort of thing that might have sent Milton or Bunyan diving under the bed.'

  Tony gripped the wings of the cloak, and with a rapid movement locked them about David's waist. Just as unexpectedly he released him. 'If I wasn't here in my professional capacity I should have to attack you for that, David,' he said slowly. There was only dream-logic in his tone.

  The choir were beginning to assemble on the pavement; stuffing bars and paper-bags into their pockets. Hunter had a slash of brown blackboard chalk running from his collarbone to his knees. Tony had been following David's glance. Tow their eyes met.

  'He was cheeky,' Tony blurted, and turned scarlet.

  'Don't you want to buy anything yourself?' David asked. The question made time. He was revolted.

  Tony shook his head, silently counting his raven-like flock. Some of it was still in the shop. 'I'm cold,' he said, shivering suddenly. 'Have you had the fire on in your room all day?'

  'Since lunch.'

  'Will you play me some of the B Minor Mass after supper? ... Oh, and I've got something I want you to help me with.'

  'As long as you don't appear in that hat.'

  ' "Somebody's Academic and Ecclesiastical Robe Makers",' Tony read, having taken off the hat, and peering inside it in the fading light.

  'You're the ecclesiastical part, absurdly enough.'

  ' "Episcopal" would be more dignified,' said Tony. I should really be made a Boy Bishop to terminate my career ... Hunter could wash my feet.'

  'There are times when you're quite as revolting as anyone at that place.' David said, nodding towards St. Cecilia, 'Probably I'll never know why I tolerate you the way you are … God save Sandel at least from an Eton and Cecilia, varnish.'

  The choir were now collected on the pavement.

  'Right away in your pocket, Lattimer,' Tony said to a child who couldn't have been four foot high. He grinned at David.

  'Now we return.'

  David looked at the seemingly impenetrable streams of traffic. 'I think I'll throw in my fortune with yours.'

  Chapter 26

  Tony sat on the bed with the cricket bat clasped between his thighs. He was making no progress in his attempt to roll on a new rubber grip. The gramophone scraped for a second, and there was a metallic click as it switched itself off. It was the curate, whom David had discovered had read maths at Jesus, and held a diploma to teach the violin, who was on duty. In the silence it was his voice that could now be heard, together with the dragging of slippered feet, and the running of taps and banging doors, which were the sounds of the school going, to bed. Tony had apparently intimated to all the staff that he had made Mr. Rogers responsible for seeing that his light was out, so that they needn't trouble to make the trip to the east wing.

  David put the B Minor away while Tony watched him. 'When do you think my record will come out?'

  'I don't know. What did they say?'

  Tony stopped struggling with the bat handle. 'They didn't. It was recorded five weeks ago though.'

  'Probably should be quite soon now.'

  Tony looked doubtfully at the gramophone. 'If we're still here.'

  'What do you mean?'

  The boy moved the bat handle about between his legs as if it were a joy-stick and he was fighting to control the plane in a storm. 'Doesn't this place bore you, I mean, you must be able to get a better job ... not teaching little boys with immature minds? What was that miserable drip Hunter doing dancing round you this afternoon with a piccolo?'

  David sensed Tony had reached his point. He wasn't altogether sure what it might be. 'It wouldn't be quite proper to be bored on my second day, you know. I've got the teaching to do ... and meanwhile we're together. I don't think you could have it better than that.'

  The boy said nothing for a moment. David frowned at the floor.

  'You know we all have to learn an instrument here?' Tony went on.

  David looked up.

  'Well, somehow you'd just expect a drip like Hunter to learn the piccolo, wouldn't you?'

  'You're making an ass of yourself, Tones . . . No, you're quite mad,' David added more resolutely. 'And I don't believe you're specifically jealous at all ... What is it then?'

  'There are tramps behind the station,' Tony said, tapping the bat against his shoe. 'Did you know that? I might go and visit them. Or I could walk out of here. You'd feel pretty silly then, wouldn't you?'

  'Probably,' David said, watching him steadily.

  Tony took out a pen-knife. 'See this? Which bit would you cut off Hunter? Because I'm going to do it . . . And torture him ... Why are you looking at me like that?'

  'I'm thinking you're upset, and that it's making you very unpleasant. Just why I'm waiting to find out.'

  'Upset!' Tony snorted. 'First you're the Ghoul only twice as dirty and now you're Mrs. Jones. You think I wouldn't let the tramps touch me, don't you? You don't think. I'd dig this in Hunter's balls!'

  'Tony, I don't suppose for a moment that the tramps exist; and if you wave that knife in front of another boy I shall have to take it away from you.'

  The boy reversed the knife in his hand; holding it like a dagger. At the same time his body tensed on the edge of the bed. 'Go on! Just try! Now!' The words ran into each other with the fluidity of hysteria.

  David went towards him holding out his hand; and the next moments developed the characteristics of a dream sequence, or something filmed in slow motion. The knife curved savagely down. He saw the skin of his wrist gathered like a worm-cast or the paring of an apple; then the blood rising sluggishly as if startled in its nakedness. The fury faded in the boy's eyes to be replaced by something duller, but equally dangerous. His body didn't relax at all. David stepped back to find some part of his mind dispassionately acknowledging that the boy's gipsy blood had bequeathed him something more than his beauty.

  'I want us to be away from here and just together,' Tony said. There was no apology, or any other concession in his voice. He tossed the knife to David, careless of the fact that the blade was still unclasped. 'You can't kiss me and next minute think you're my schoolmaster. It's ridiculous. And I'm not just anyone's boy, you know.'

  'Then you might abandon revolting fantasies about tramps behin
d stations,' David suggested.

  'That Hunter needs his new suit dragging round the garden,' Tony said, not listening.

  'You've already made a pretty vicious symbolic job of it,' David said, remembering the chalk mark.

  'I'll do it again.'

  'It was a thoroughly ugly gesture,

  'What do you think of his suit?'

  'I don't notice these things!' David protested. 'As far as I'm concerned there are a crowd of children here and one lunatic Amazon.'

  'Like hell you don't notice them! You're going to be a typical soft, sticky queer like the Ghoul in no time. Probably you'll brush Hunter's hair fifty times on duty nights. And that's all you'll do.'

  'I'm sticky all right,' David said grimly. There was blood on the carpet now. 'And the jerkier moments of your adolescence seem likely to leave me mashed, never mind soft. Since when, incidentally, have you been calling people queer, like any jealous girl who's failed to make a conquest?'

  'Don't change the argument,' Tony said irrationally. 'You're not getting cissy and ineffectual and giving orders and I'm getting you out.'

  'Thank you,' David said dryly. 'Meanwhile you might refrain from either torturing my pupils or wrecking their clothes because neither are your rivals.'

  ' "My pupils" ', you see!' Tony shouted triumphantly.

  'I'm going to get this wrist bound up,' David said.

  'Can't you take over my regular piano lessons from old Mrs. Culham?' Tony asked when he returned.

  David studied Jean's bandage. 'I don't think I've met any old Mrs. Culham yet, and anyway I'm not qualified to teach the thing, I just play it.'

  'Balls!' Tony retorted. I'll tell Jones you're a Fellow of the Royal Academy.'

  'You'll do nothing of the sort . . . Besides, I don't think Mrs. Jones would believe it.'

  'The jazz, you mean?' Tony guessed. 'It takes my aunt to deal with that woman. I think she's probably the only person who can.'