The Horses

by William Lane

  ‘I didn’t sell them.’

  ‘Quiet! Kneel. Crawl across the stage. Off you go. To Mr Val’s seat and back.’

  The boys began applauding, then clapping out a crawling rhythm. All this, and term had only just begun! Festus piped ridiculous, high, single notes as Oscar crawled back and forth.

  For a moment Gregory considered leaping to his feet. But he saw Val grinning and clapping with the others. He even felt his hands rise to clap too.

  ‘There’s a lesson in gratitude. I probably don’t need to say much about gratitude now!’ roared Capon, and the school roared back. ‘Draw your own conclusions! Heed the lesson! Go take a cold shower, Newbold! What do you say, boys?’ It was agreed Newbold should take a cold shower. The boy was led off by two tall boys in full armour. Two additional auxiliaries in light armour gathered his things and ran off stage.

  Light returned to the hall.

  ‘Now, returning to our theme of gratitude, boys. Gratitude is three things. An appreciation of what one has been given, an appreciation of one’s place, and a reflection of one’s relationship to God.’ The light grew brighter. ‘In this school, you have been given many, many things, not least the horses,’ continued Capon at a good clip, ‘you have been given privilege, position, a future, fifteen world-class sporting fields, our new Olympic swimming pool and diving pool, and so on. Now to an appreciation of one’s place.’ Older boys had begun to make a show of yawning and slumping in their seats. ‘The masters have their place, the monitors and senior boys have their places, and the junior boys theirs. Any upsetting of that natural order is, amongst other things, ungrateful. Thirdly, gratitude is a reflection of one’s relationship to God. For we should all be grateful to Him, and remember that we are sinful and only by His Grace are we saved.’ Suddenly Capon punched the air and screamed, ‘That is the lesson for the Oscar Newbolds of this world!’

  With that the headmaster turned on his box to some applause, and, accompanied by a quick snapping of his sleeve, he withdrew to his waiting chair.

  When it was over Gregory stood alone outside the hall. He put his good hand to his forehead: yes, he was definitely feverish.

  Val took him by the arm. ‘Don’t look so lost, young man.’ Gregory gratefully followed. ‘You’re doing all the right things. It hadn’t escaped my notice, Gregory, that you felt tired yesterday afternoon. Nevertheless, when asked, you didn’t hesitate to join me for football practice. I argued long and hard for your employment, I was the only one on the panel who did not doubt you were the man for us. I stuck my neck out for you, to tell the truth. Others said you weren’t experienced enough, I said you were full of ideas; they said you weren’t one of us, I said you would learn. That minister, Mr C – he had doubts about you. I had to go in to bat for you against him. Now you’re repaying the faith I’ve placed in you.’

  ‘Thank you, Val. I can’t wait to begin.’

  ‘I’m only stating the facts, Gregory. And you already have begun. If you keep this up the boys in particular will look up to you.’ Here Val gestured to the empty grounds about them. ‘The boys will be eternally grateful if you can inspire them. I’m not joking. They’ll never forget you. As a master, never underestimate your potential influence, Gregory. Boys at this age are like sponges. I’ve got pupils I taught twelve, fifteen years ago, who still write me letters, consulting me on life’s big decisions. Some of them are already in quite influential positions. Keep that in mind when you talk to the lads. You might be talking to a future minister, or judge.’

  ‘The humiliation of that boy seemed a bit harsh,’ Gregory ventured. His last job had been at an all-girls school; nothing like that had happened there.

  ‘Oh, he’s being made an example of, an example is always made on the first or second day of term. Sends a message. If you knew Newbold, you wouldn’t feel so sorry for him. He’s a rat.’ Val went on in a lower voice, ‘You’re a bit like me, I think, Gregory – born the wrong side of the tracks, had to work hard just to get to university, had to put yourself through your studies. Am I right? Always striving for something higher, something better.’

  Parsons had seen them. He propelled himself forward, hastening to catch up.

  ‘Only ever relying on yourself, determined to go places. Yes? Then don’t be intimidated by these people. Together, you and I could really change this place.’

  Gregory smiled, while thinking, How does Val know all that about me? Is it something I said? Is it my voice?

  As Parsons joined them, Val said loudly, ‘You’ve got no command over the boys yet, Gregory. It was clear to us yesterday. We’ll have to work on that. Now, you go on ahead, and we’ll talk more about it later.’

  Gregory walked on alone, up the long series of steps towards the staffroom. The light had become the even light of noon in autumn. Through this tempered sun, beyond the thinly wooded grounds, he glimpsed again the flash of cars beyond the school fence. He caught himself wishing he were in one of those cars, before bracing himself, and dismissing the thought, and forcing himself to focus on the classes he had prepared, but was yet to teach. Perhaps he should rework his lesson plans, which he now began to think might be inadequate, or misdirected. It appeared he had the time.

  4

  No classes were held that morning. After lunch David joined some boys congregating about the horse yards. The yards were a maze of pens and runs and corrals, with slab fences running between stables and sheds. Boys sat on top of the fences, or leaned against the slabs, squinting into an almost permanent fug of horse dust.

  David sat on a high rail with a friend, watching rural boys brushing the horses. He was beginning to appreciate the logistics of looking after the horses. Almost daily, trucks arrived laden with feed and new fences. The school employed a permanent veterinarian, a farrier, and a blacksmith. No less than a hundred acres of school property were set aside for running the beasts. Always seeking further pasture, the school was continually buying up portions of the neighbouring suburbs and bush-land, in this way gradually consuming its surrounds. Horses as such were not formally on the curriculum. As far as David knew, they were not the focus of any subject. Yet information about horses was somehow essential, everyone knew that. Rurals had a decided advantage in this, being born to such matters. Yet perhaps only one in four boys could claim to be a Rural.

  At any given time of day boys would be hanging around the horse yards. Some came to pursue activities unrelated to the horses. Then there were those who never went to the yards, effectively excluding themselves from the school community. David was happy to go: he loved animals. He had already picked up a fair amount of information about horses. There were hundreds of different breeds of equine, each with specific characteristics. He had learned what to appreciate when casting an eye over a horse – to distinguish between conformation and condition, for example. He knew the basics of care and feeding and bedding: horses needed their stables mucked out twice daily; they should be fed 2.5 per cent of their weight daily; greedy horses were likely to eat a straw bedding; an animal with a large forehead was likely to be bad tempered; a horse’s eyes should be kind and large, set wide apart – and so on. He had yet to ride a horse.

  Boys were practising archery on the fields above the yards, first-formers, judging by their size and movements. Firstformers always kept close together, darting about the grounds like schools of tadpoles. Mr Val, in a black cape, was instructing them. Nearby, other boys, third- or fourth-formers, were being led through an impromptu display of the rudiments of swordplay by Mr Parsons and a second master, who looked like Mr Parsons. The men were jumping back and forth with surprising celerity, their bald, waxen crowns gleaming.

  David noticed for the first time a little slab timber yard at the rear of the stables, where small stocky equines with long ears nibbled hay.

  ‘They’ve brought in the asses,’ said the boy perched next to him, whose name was Donald. ‘Aren’t they stupid-looking things?’

  Donald, a lugubrious boy, appeared to be att
aching himself to David.

  Mr Val came striding down through the yards. David watched. He was indebted to Mr Val, he knew. It was Mr Val who had arranged for his unique scholarship, an arrangement which had taken a bit of ‘arm-twisting and horse-trading’, according to Mr Val himself. Mr Parsons had also told him this.

  ‘Are those escaped horses still running free?’ David asked Donald.

  ‘At least seven are,’ said Donald, ‘they can’t catch them. Cossington-Smith and his lot tried to rope one this morning. Didn’t you hear? They didn’t get to parade.’

  David’s eyes followed Mr Val as he disappeared towards the creek. The master’s black cape billowed. Low clouds threatened rain.

  A scrawny boy named Steven appeared out of the dust, and clambered up the railings. ‘We’ve got English now!’ he piped to the boys about. Steven’s voice had not yet broken, David realised. ‘Mr Val says we’ve got to be there in ten minutes, or we’re in trouble!’

  ‘Ten minutes!’ complained the boys below. ‘We’re going to have to run.’

  ‘Classes already? We’ve only just started second term.’

  ‘It’s definitely on,’ said Steven. ‘Mr Val told me then, he’s on his way to class now. He told me to tell everyone.’

  ‘Isn’t there some kind of timetable?’ asked David.

  Steven and Donald looked at him blankly, and asked, what was a timetable?

  The three of them left the yards together. They jogged the half mile or so to Steven and Donald’s boarding house, Mace House – boarding houses west of the creek were named after weapons, those to the east after horse breeds. Steven and Donald collected their books. Then they jogged down to the creek bed, up the hill and across the parade ground to the classrooms, another half mile. Even David arrived doubled over with the effort.

  Mr Val sat on his desk, irritably timing each boy’s entrance. ‘Just in time,’ he muttered. ‘Nine minutes fifty-two. You’re late!’ he roared at the next figure appearing in the doorway. Which was Mr C, with his white gown and ginger beard.

  The boys laughed.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ asked Val in the short tone he adopted with the minister.

  ‘This is my class.’

  The boys laughed again.

  ‘Haven’t you heard?’ asked Val. ‘I’m taking 5A this term. You’re on 5B.’

  ‘But I wasn’t –’

  ‘You weren’t told?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well I’ve only just heard of it too,’ snapped Val, ‘and I’m not entirely happy about it either. I should have been told last term.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Best you go and see Capon.’

  Mr C looked about the classroom. ‘Why don’t we go together?’

  ‘What, don’t you know the way?’ Val looked at his boys, who laughed. ‘No, I’d rather not waste the boys’ time. Enough time wasted as it is.’

  ‘I’m not happy about this,’ said Mr C.

  ‘Let Capon know, in that case.’

  ‘There’ll be more to this,’ said the minister. He scanned the class again, and left.

  A few more boys entered, each upbraided by Val. Then Bishop Gray and Jock Smith-Weston strode in unchastised.

  ‘How come they get off?’ whispered David to Donald.

  ‘Their great-great-grandfathers attended the school.’

  ‘What?’

  Now three small boys entered, backs arching under towering piles of books.

  ‘And what’s this?’ bellowed Val.

  The three halted.

  ‘The books, sir,’ said the boy in the front, only a first-former.

  ‘What wretched books?’

  ‘The reading list for this term, sir.’

  ‘I haven’t ordered any reading list. I’ve yet to submit my reading list.’

  The first-formers stood in fear and confusion, teetering under the weight of the books in question. 5A began smirking.

  ‘I did not say put them down!’ Val yelled at one boy who had presumed this a sensible thing to do. ‘What’s this?’ Val snatched a book from the top of the first boy’s tower. ‘The Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky? Thirty damn copies of The Idiot! Good God! What’s this about?’

  ‘I’m not s-s-s-sure what it’s about, sir.’

  Val threw the book over his shoulder. ‘And what’s this?’ asked the master, taking the top sample of the second boy’s pile, ‘Riders in the Chariot, by Patrick White? Thirty damn copies of Riders in the Chariot? What do you think of him, eh?’

  ‘I don’t know the author, sir,’ admitted the boy.

  Val threw this book out the window.

  ‘And at the bottom of this particular lot I detect the execrable Jude the Obscure, and the poems of that limp little faggot Gerard Manley Hopkins. What utter rubbish. This is Mr C’s book list, that’s clear. But it’s not mine.’

  The boys looked abject, damned by the book list.

  ‘At least we’ve got something of worth here,’ said Val, taking some of the third boy’s burden and placing it on the desk. ‘Richard III. Well, that’s something. As for the rest, take them back.’

  The boys looked unhearing.

  ‘Take them back, I said.’

  The book bearers, exchanging looks of trepidation, shuffled out.

  The class did not last long. Val took a roll, told the boys to read the one book he had handed out, and dismissed them. The boys bundled out, tripping, elbowing. Outside, the day had become darker and colder, and black clouds were rolling over the school. Val shouted that the lights be turned on, and at the last moment, through thunder, he called back David.

  ‘Yes, sir?’ asked David, standing in the doorway.

  ‘What are you doing over in the door?’ said Val. ‘Don’t stand so far away, David.’

  David moved a few steps closer to Val’s desk.

  ‘Closer, now. I won’t bite. Come on. That’s better. Don’t frown! You ruin your looks.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘David, I want to let you know, you’ve been chosen as a breakaway for the first fifteen.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Surprised?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Well, you’re repaying my faith in you. There are those who say we shouldn’t have offered you a scholarship.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘They raised personal objections, such as your family not having the resources necessary to participate in the school community.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘Others thought you were not ready for the first fifteen, given you’ve only been with us since midway through last term. It’s a big job.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘But you’ve got talent. Keep in mind, however, that talent is only one thing. What you do with it is quite another. Now what you need to show me is you’ve got the mind for it, the determination, the mental strength. The will. Because it’s not much good having the talent and not the will. If you do possess the will, you’ll go far. Without a will you’ll go precisely nowhere, whatever your talents.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘You won’t waste your talent, will you, David? It’s a kind of ingratitude. The worst kind.’

  ‘I hope not to, sir.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound very reassuring.’

  ‘I won’t, sir.’

  ‘That’s better. I rely on you. I’m looking forward to seeing what you’ve got. Another thing. I was wondering if you’d like to join my personal little club. The Alexandrians, we’re called. Only a small affair. Six boys and myself.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘I choose the six boys I think display the greatest potential in a number of areas, not only sporting prowess. Those with the potential to develop into leaders in their chosen field. Those with a certain … charisma, with personal persuasion. The top six. The ones with a definite future.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Thomas is in it, and Bishop Gray. What do you say?’

  ‘It – it’d be an honour, sir.’
>
  ‘Do you like Gray?’

  ‘He hasn’t spoken to me, sir.’

  ‘He will, now you’re in the first fifteen. Good. Oh, the Alexandrians generally don’t advertise their membership.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘Another thing. I heard you were looking for Simons this morning. You needn’t worry about the injury you gave him at football practice yesterday. It wasn’t your fault you spiked Simons. It was dark, he was at the bottom of the ruck, and you trod on his head. You can’t be blamed, and no lasting damage was done. The wound will heal. And you know Simons. A not bad footballer, but a turtle.’

  David said nothing.

  ‘You do know what a turtle is, David?’

  ‘No, not really sir. I did hear people use the word last term. I’ve never used it myself.’

  ‘A weakling, in one way or another. Not physically, in Simons’s case. I mean morally, mentally. Simons is a potentially good footballer, I’ll admit that. But he’s weak inside. And that’s evidenced by his beliefs. Well, we’ll see you in class tomorrow, David. And at training tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘Off you go.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘Wait!’

  Val, smiling at last, leant forward and brushed something off David’s shoulder.

  5

  After school Val joined Cobblefield on the football fields. It was the turn of the fourth-formers to be put through their footballing paces. The simian Cobblefield was being aided by a master named Pike, a small blonde man with an impassively aggressive face. Val wanted to run his eye over the fourth-formers. There was always the chance of some precocity rising through the ranks, and he loved precocities. ‘Always excellence’ was his motto. It soon became apparent that this year’s fourth-formers, although a solid cohort of talent, possessed no wunderkind. Nevertheless Val remained until the end of the session. He always enjoyed watching the boys. It was dark and chilly, the clouds were low and curiously fluffy and mauve, and it began to rain with still forty minutes to go. Val put up his umbrella and raised the collar of his long black overcoat. He noted with satisfaction that no boys complained of the wet, the cold, or their involuntary shivering.