by Wesley Stace
“I’ve got one,” he piped up. There was a giggle.
“Is that you, Fisher? Are you a member of the Blackout Society?” Campbell was the secretary, a job he was pleased to take quite seriously. “Your initiation is to tell a ghost story. Do you have one?”
George cleared his throat. “It’s called ‘The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God.’ ”
“Little? Yellow?” Someone sniffed.
“Shh!” said Campbell, encouraging a fair trial. There was silence. Recitation was one of the many ways that George and Queenie passed the time when it was just the two of them. Every Fisher knew “The Green Eye” by heart, and each gave it her own twist. George leaned up on his elbow and intoned, “ ‘The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God.’ ”
“Get on with it, then.”
And George began: “ ‘There’s a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu, / There’s a little marble cross below the town; / There’s a broken-hearted woman tends the grave . . .’ ” He took it slowly, seriously, mysteriously, his voice assuming a slightly metallic tone in imitation of Evie, the source of all monologues.
“Boring!” said someone.
“Shh!”
“ ‘There’s a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew, / And the yellow god forever gazes down.’ ”
“Was he a Chink?” squeaked a voice, but hecklers were nothing to the Fishers. As he continued, the dormitory slowly surrendered. Initially, they were enthralled rather by the medium than the tale — the urgency in George’s voice, the gathering pace, the dramatic pause, the relished word that darted at them from the shadows. By the time Carew “returned before the dawn, with his shirt and tunic torn, / And a gash across his temple dripping red,” there was a deathly hush. To maximize the drama, George crept from his bed and stole around the room, so his voice seemed to float in the darkness. As he brought the story to its chilling conclusion, he could hold himself back no longer: “ ‘His door was open wide with silver moonlight shining through; / The place was wet and slipp’ry where she trod —’ ”
He was on the point of a thunderous climax when, accompanied by a roar of anger, the room was suddenly flooded with harsh light. A dormitory of blinking eyes focused on Commander Poole. Everyone was in bed except George, poised midstab over an imaginary corpse.
“Fisher? What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Swearing was rare, serious.
“Telling a story, sir.”
“He was, sir,” agreed those who dared.
“I don’t care if you were stealing the Crown bloody Jewels. Get back in your hammock or I’ll have you keelhauled.” He left, then returned with his verdict: “And you can finish the story in detention tomorrow afternoon.”
George got back into bed, happier about the punishment than he should have been. When it was certain that the commander had returned to his cabin, a timid voice whispered, “Fisher . . . Fisher . . .”
“Shh! He’ll hear” came another.
“Fisher. What happens?” asked Campbell.
George didn’t answer. He’d had them in the palm of his hand.
The next morning, the commander was spotted in conference with the headmaster. George, who had until now been unable to see a downside, was instantly struck by the fear that his performance was the subject of their conversation. The headmaster looked directly at him, and George’s stomach fluttered. He couldn’t even speak to Pigling and Campbell, who were more interested in George’s point of view than at any time since his arrival ten days ago. His worst fears were confirmed at the end of assembly: “Fisher Minor. At break. My office.”
Classes went by too quickly and too slowly at the same time. Someone whispered “Good luck”; this made him feel even worse than Nick’s reprise of his flicking wrist mime, now with added relish. Legend had it that one boy had been thrashed severely and then charged for the resulting broken cane. Whack-O.
“Come!” thundered Hartley from the depths of his cave. George entered the book-lined room, a campfire of tobacco smoke, and speculated as to the fearful chair.
“Fisher! Delightful.” It was as if the headmaster enjoyed meting out punishment. “News, Fisher, news!” He brandished a letter. “An unexpected visitor!” He looked through thick-rimmed glasses. George didn’t answer. “Your grandmother has asked permission to visit you tomorrow, Saturday, bringing with her a tuck box and an overcoat. And I am inclined to grant that permission.”
“Thank you.” George felt blissful, if a little faint; it was the headiness of the fumes and the news combined. Queenie. No thrashing.
“This will unfortunately spare you games. Well? Be off with you, then! Oh, one more thing . . . ‘The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God’?” George didn’t commit himself. “Wonderful stuff! ‘An ugly knife lay buried in the heart of Mad Carew.’ And how about ‘They speak of a dead man’s vengeance’?”
“ ‘The Pigtail of Li-Fang-Fu.’ ”
“Wonderful. Wonderful.” It seemed as if they were just about to head off on a picnic together when the head’s mood abruptly changed: “But not after lights-out. Best do your detention and recite ‘The Green Eye’ at Talent Night.”
“Sorry, sir.” Queenie was coming!
“And one more thing,” said his unlikely champion. “Only you and I know what has passed in this room. Sometimes boys have pretended to be caned to gain the respect of their peers.”
“Oh, I would never . . .”
“Feel free, Fisher, feel free. Have you ever tried public speaking, oratory, debate? Just a thought. Bear it in mind. Away.” The headmaster returned to a volume of Robert Benchley. As George reached the main corridor, he felt light as air. He slowed down, however, mindful to move a little less freely.
Of the many shocks that school had offered, the greatest were the lack of privacy (some of the toilets were doorless) and the overabundance of masculinity. As far as he could tell, there were more women in his immediate family than there were on the entire school grounds. From the row of chestnuts that separated them from whatever civilization lay beyond, to the metal fence at the bottom of the great lawn, on which boys perched crowlike, gazing wistfully at nothing in particular, they were almost exclusively male. The thin-lipped, flat-chested matron, Mrs. True, who derived pleasure only from wielding her scalpel on verrucas and cutting toenails too close to the skin, offered as little mothering as she could manage. Her junior assistant, Miss Hutchinson, could show no evidence of humanity in front of her superior. Of the rest, the music teacher was full of smiles but rarely seen, for Upside attached no particular importance to the activity, and the headmaster’s wife was not ideally suited to being around small children, for fear that she would crush them. There was a rumour that the Spanish who ran the kitchens had a daughter, but this was unsubstantiated.
So when Queenie came the next day, driven in an old grey Bentley by a man George recognized and knew as Reg (clearly costumed, rather than uniformed, as a chauffeur), it wasn’t the generosity of her affection that made George cry, or the gifts she had brought, or the fact that her visit spared him the daily competitive mud bath: it was being so close to a woman. When she pressed his head into her cavernous cleavage, he couldn’t stop himself. He pretended he wasn’t crying, as did she.
George was unaware that the headmaster had recently written to the Fishers, suggesting that this unorthodox visit might be beneficial for the recent arrival, who was not mixing with the other boys as hoped, nor making his presence felt in the classroom, nor speaking much at all. The letter had also advocated a black overcoat, which might help the boy’s integration, and the purchase of a tuck box: privacy built confidence.
Reg walked around the motor. George considered him from the bench on the grass ridge where he sat with Queenie. He had previously wondered why this perenially unoccupied bench was there at all. Now he knew it had been waiting for him.
“You know Reg,” she said to George, tutting with amusement at her chauffeur’s humming of the Billy Bunter theme. “Don’t kn
ow what I’d have done without the lift. He made it quite the outing.” She gave him the latest on Fisher matters: Evie sent her love but wasn’t doing well, Frankie was sold out every night, and the Variety Club had moved to name a Children’s Awayday van after Des. Everything made George sad.
They watched a mess of dots running around in a distant haze to the ghostly echo of whistles and yells.
“Look at them playing rugby,” said Queenie.
“It’s football.”
“How can you tell?”
“They’re not picking it up.”
“Which reminds me . . .” From her handbag, Queenie took out a stack of flat items (postcards, notes, cut-out shopping coupons, unfinished crosswords) secured with a rubber band, which she put around her wrist for safekeeping, and flicked through until she found what she was looking for. “She listened to the radio and wrote in all the football scores for you as they came through.” George unfolded the newspaper cutting, where Evie had filled in the goals, when she could quite easily have cut out the official version the next day. And why did she suddenly think he wanted football results? Had she forgotten him in a week? Then he saw the trouble she had taken. Every number, every goal scored by every team, was the labour of her spindly arthritic hand; he remembered the way the Bic biro perched awkwardly, how it hurt her to press hard on the page. When he cried this time, he couldn’t pretend he wasn’t. So Queenie held him close, a dead fox’s glass eye poking into his cheek.
“Shall we go out for tea?” she asked.
“I don’t think we can.”
“Think again,” she said. “Queenie’s here.”
She got up, made a comment as she passed Reg, and marched through the front door with the confidence of the school chairman. Reg bowed and clicked his heels rather unnecessarily, before huffing his breath on the Bentley emblem, polishing it with a rag, and smiling mischievously at George as though they were both in on a big joke.
While they waited, Reg continued his charade of chauffeury, which involved taking the tyres’ pulse. George hadn’t been overjoyed to see him. For some reason, this apparently benevolent but slightly comical man, whose wide mouth, inappropriately small nose, and somewhat protruding eyes had always brought to mind a Muppet, was a controversial figure among the Fishers.
Reg was a driver by trade, no mystery there — although not generally in uniform or with this sort of motor at his disposal. George knew (though he didn’t know whether he was supposed to) that Reg sometimes drove Queenie to and from her parties, but she never had him pick her up at the front door, nor was the lift referred to again. George would gloss over the unexpected cameo in his next letter home, where the mere mention of Reg’s name spelled trouble, a frosty silence, once even a harsh snort of “That criminal!” Evie never wanted to hear his name again, Frankie thought him not so bad really, and Queenie simply didn’t mention him.
“Evie? Oh, he’s not her favourite,” she once said with a shrug, after patiently explaining that it was best not to mention that they’d bumped into him at the market. George and Reg had never actually been introduced, though Queenie always casually said, “Oh, you know Reg,” as though introductions weren’t, had never been, necessary.
When Frankie teased Queenie — “I know who you were out with today, and wouldn’t she like to?” — Queenie threw her a look and said pertly, “That’s not funny. I was out with Georgie, wasn’t I, Georgie?” George nodded but widened his eyes. He didn’t like to lie to his mother.
Foot on the back fender, the chauffeur had momentarily fallen out of character. He’d removed his cap, revealing greasy black hair that looked a relic of the rock ’n’ roll years, and was exploring his gums with a toothpick. When the Muppet saw Queenie emerge from the portico, he snapped to attention, flicking the toothpick into a hedge.
“I have, in my hands, a piece of paper,” proclaimed Queenie grandly as she strode towards them. In fact, there were two. One was a chit allowing them to go for tea, the other directions to Mrs. Cakebread’s Tea Shop.
“You call ’em out,” said Reg, “and I’ll do me best.”
George would ideally have done without Reg, who came in and ate with them, but could allow nothing to dampen the festivity of the occasion. The only bad thing was that it would soon be over. To compensate, George ate with a hysterical appetite, cramming down scones and flapjacks. Queenie laughed. “Don’t they feed you there?”
“The food’s not bad, actually.” He was in a mood to be generous to Upside, to make his family feel better.
Before it was time to leave, he and Queenie sat on the bench again while Reg kept a self-consciously low profile. A stream of shivering boys passed them on their way to the showers.
“He looks a nice lad,” she said, randomly waving at a muddy straggler. “Have you made any friends?”
“Not really.”
“Are you talking much to the others?” He shook his head. “It’s hard at first, George. But it gets better. Oh, we have a present for you.” He smiled without feeling like smiling, creasing each side of his mouth outwards while the rest of his face frowned.
“Reg!” she called. He carried up a wooden tuck box with George’s name painted on it like the credits on an old adventure movie.
“Jimmy Props made it,” said Queenie, “and there’s a treat too. Open it.” Within, there was a dense mass of dark material. “Oh, don’t worry about that. You have to have that. It’s a black overcoat. There’s something else. Look.” Overcoat removed, the box was empty except for a shelf on the right with two smaller compartments. “Something special from Frankie and Evie.”
“I can’t see anything.”
“Let me put it this way: you’re allowed to have a tuck box, but you aren’t allowed to lock it.”
“Somebody brought back a tortoise and it died.”
“But we didn’t think that was terribly private. So if you look closely, you’ll find there’s somewhere else in there, to keep things.”
“A secret drawer?”
“I’ll say no more.”
“What if I can’t find it?”
“Write and I’ll give you a clue.”
Reg, Queenie, and George walked the tuck box into the school, right through the front door, and into the tuck box room, where he had previously had no reason to go. All the other boxes were shop-bought, in dark blues and greens like the endpapers of old books. His stood out, in a good way: handmade, unpainted, new.
As they walked back to the car, Queenie commanded Reg brusquely, “Open the door, then.”
“Ooh, sorry, ma’am!” said Reg and winked at George. Regally, Queenie flicked the fox once more around her neck, and then reconsidered. “Oh, I’ll drive. You cringe.”
“I’m giving her lessons,” said Reg. “She’s a natural.”
Queenie hugged George again. “If you want to run away, run away. But write to me first, and I’ll have Reg wait at the bottom of the drive.”
“Psst!” said Reg, as she got in. “If they push you around, go for the goolies. Don’t think twice. Just . . .” He lifted his knee in unambiguous demonstration. “That’s the last you’ll hear of them.”
“Thanks, Reg,” said George thoughtfully. He’d never been given advice by a man before.
“Don’t forget your medicine!” Queenie shouted out of the window in classic style. The car grumbled and lurched as she dithered between forward gears. George stood waving.
Halfway through dinner, the tray of preserves arrived at his table. When the others had removed theirs, one remained. A large jar of Mrs. Cakebread’s strawberry preserve made its way towards George. On the top was written in black marker pen: “FISHER MI — from Queenie. Take once a day as prescribed. Refills available.”
In the dormitory that night, they asked him if he knew another story. He thought about giving them “The Pigtail,” but his mind was absorbed with the tuck box and its secrets.
“Tomorrow,” he said. By then they would have returned from their day at home and
the mystery would be solved.
The next morning, he watched with impatience as the school emptied until it echoed with pleasure. He spent as much of the day as he could alone in the tuck box room. Sundays were ideal for this kind of privacy. The bottom of the box seemed solid, and this he confirmed with a ruler. If it wasn’t a false bottom, it must be the side obscured by the overhang of the shelf. X marked the spot, but how to get to the treasure? He felt under the shelf for a button, and finally, as he pushed in a particular spot, the right wall came down with a ping, pivoting elegantly at its base. From behind, there fell a rather tatty green book with a golden design stamped on the cover. He took it out and clicked the now empty compartment closed again.
This ornately designed, Victorian-looking book was called The Life and Adventures of Valentine Vox the Ventriloquist, by Henry Cockton. He opened the front cover. In it was scratched: “For My Georgie, Impress your friends! See you at half-term. Love, Evie (Sep ’73).” Above this, in the faded ink of a fountain pen: “For Joe, Practice makes perfect — I know! Echo (April ’27).”
A piece of paper fluttered from the book: a show bill for a national tour to benefit the Sunshine Club, with “Peter Pan” in bright bulbous green lettering, decorated with shooting stars and fireworks exploding spectacularly upon a sea of deep blue. There was a list of the cast members, Frankie’s name slightly larger than everyone else’s, against the sand of a desert island on which stood one lone palm. On the back, a list of dates, venues, and ticket prices was presented more conservatively. One stop in particular was circled. His heart beat faster. She was coming! She’d be in Whitley in four weeks’ time, just before half-term: “Fisher Minor. Bring some friends, and don’t forget to think happy thoughts! See you there! Frankie xx.”
By the time his mother came to Whitley, George had come to understand all he ever would of the mysteries of Upside. His popularity as a monologuist was short-lived, and the suspicion in which he was originally held, on account of his late arrival, curious breeding, and offhand attitude to teamwork, never ebbed away.