by William Lane
‘Val, I feel I should tell you, I’m not that way inclined.’
‘Oh, come on, Gregory, there’s no harm here. This is simply what friends do. I like you, I don’t deny that. That’s all. What’s wrong with that?’
Gregory made for the door.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’ve said too much,’ said Val, nimbly dancing after him. ‘I’ve upset you.’
But Gregory only frowned, head on an angle, listening through the rain.
‘Gregory – what is it? What’s wrong?’
‘Something’s happening, Val. Listen. Hear the shouts?
They’re coming from the creek.’
He began striding into the rain. Val, snatching up an umbrella, ran to catch up. Rain was falling steadily, noisily. They jogged down the road towards the creek, towards the shouts and cries of men and boys, and the occasional screech of a woman. The rumble of thunder grew closer. ‘It’s Lance House!’ cried Gregory as they neared the water, ‘it’s sliding as well!’ They stood before the bridge with a growing crowd of boys and masters, looking up at the opposite bank. One of the boarding houses on the hillside – yes, it was Lance – was flexing all over. Like scales on a wriggling goldfish, the lights within winked repeatedly in the night. Little black figures had gathered at the windows, some flying out. Gregory became aware of two thunders: thunder from the sky, and thunder from the house, which began trembling. Then a series of firecracker pops and fountains of coloured sparks – and the lights in the house went out. Masters on the scene across the water could be heard shouting directions, contradicting one another. But their cries were oddly isolated, and the house itself seemed quiet, sealed off, already resigned to its end. One last boy jumped from the roof, crossing a car headlight like a bug, and up went a cheer. Then they could only watch, as the house slithered away, a matchstick house, swallowed up by the returning water.
16
It was Monday morning, and Val was striding towards the staffroom. The organ could be heard playing in the hall, a mournful medieval sound reaching over the parade ground. A fish-grey light struggled to separate out the features of the school, the massive hall here, the blockish classrooms there, the staffroom rising towards the low cloud. A nervous sheet of water rippled over the lawns. Val spotted a band of roaming youths. Mace boys probably – Martians had yet to really settle in any other boarding house. Or perhaps Lance boys. One in five of the school population was now without a house, Val reflected, and only three western houses remained standing to face the five eastern houses.
He had just come from seeing Gregory. He had tried to convince the young man to sign a Petition against Proselytising, a petition Val was rustling up in protest against Mr C’s activities. But Gregory, in bed with a high fever, had waved him away.
‘Any more news?’ asked Val as he entered the staffroom, addressing Cobblefield and the master named Pike, who stood chatting near the door.
‘About what?’ asked Pike, a little man with a small tense face bunched in a muscle.
‘Lance slipping, of course.’
‘Oh, the engineers will have a look at it today, I believe.’
‘But what’s the latest?’ Val asked. He felt very irritable. This was his third visit to the staffroom that morning. He had been pacing the school searching for Capon, hoping to corner him and find out what had been said about him at the council meeting. He had not succeeded in finding the headmaster, either that morning, or all the day before. ‘Any decisions made?’
‘About what?’ asked Cobblefield.
‘The situation with the slipping boarding house, of course! Any chance of saving what remains?’
‘I don’t know what the latest is,’ said Cobblefield. ‘Do you, Pike?’
‘I believe all the boys have been portioned out to other houses.’
Mr Chrome, the assistant headmaster, a man who maintained a low profile, appeared in the doorway. ‘Anyone seen Capon?’ he asked, rather hopelessly. His skin and hair were an unmodulated tobacco colour.
Nobody had.
‘I’ve looked for him everywhere,’ sighed Chrome.
‘What’s the news about Lance House, Chrome?’ asked Val.
Chrome sighed again. It was a disaster. Some of the structure was still standing, but lopsided. A group of eastern boys had been found cheering Lance’s demise. And the rain showed no sign of abating. Chrome kept repeating the phrase ‘damn rain’ in his slow, depressed way. He also complained that the boys were having a hard time keeping a dull green mould off their shoes and clothes – some boys even had dark patches on their skin. So many buildings were discoloured too, turning green or grey. One building was black.
‘I’ll say more at assembly,’ replied Chrome to Val’s continued questioning, ‘for the moment I’ll keep looking for Capon.’
Parsons, who had been browsing the magazine table, selected a Penthouse. Wetting the tip of his forefinger, he slowly turned the pages. Behind Parsons, half a dozen masters were grouped about the diorama, speculating amongst themselves, apparently debating some strategy to do with the models.
‘There was a council meeting on Saturday night, Cobblefield,’ said Val. ‘Did you hear anything about it?’
‘No. Was there something to hear about?’
‘Mr C was going on and on, the way he does, about the school needing to give priority to his brand of born-again Christianity. It was bald-faced, I tell you. Now, I know you don’t believe in that evangelical rubbish, Cobblefield. Do you? It’s time to make your views known. Otherwise we will have a school in Mr C’s image before we know it. I’ve got a little letter here I want to give to Capon, to warn him about what Mr C is up to. If he sees it in writing, he might wake up with a jolt. If you’d sign here –’
‘What the …?’
Cobblefield reluctantly took the Petition against Proselytising proffered by Val.
‘A kind of religious hysteria is beginning to grip the school,’ continued Val, ‘you’ve got to nip these things in the bud. I was at a school once where every single girl in third form became a born-again Christian overnight. I’m not exaggerating. You couldn’t teach them anything for the rest of the term. The main part of their brains turned off. You wouldn’t believe the carry-on. Speaking in tongues, weeping, reading religious tracts in the playground. It was hysterical, utterly hysterical. Parents withdrew their children. And it could happen here. These things happen in times of crisis, when rational resistance is low.’
‘I don’t think this is the time for such a thing,’ said Cobblefield, holding the petition at arm’s length.
‘Still can’t find Capon,’ sighed Chrome, reappearing in the doorway. ‘Nor Mistress Capon.’ He looked at his watch, and his shoulders slumped. ‘Assembly can’t be put off any longer. The boys are waiting. They’re restless this morning. They want to know what’s going on. And the endless rain’s getting on everyone’s nerves. Oh dear.’
Cobblefield handed Val’s petition to Chrome. ‘I suggest you look at this, Chrome.’
Val barely arrested an impulse to snatch back his piece of paper.
Chrome frowned. ‘Best put that away, Val,’ he said, scrunching the paper in a ball before returning it to its author. ‘Now’s no time to spook the horses.’
The boys had been standing in the rain for some time. Mutterings rippled up and down the ranks. The Whipper was laying into those smaller boys at one end of the lines, but he could hardly keep a thousand lads under his baton. Finally the order was given to file into the hall, which the school reluctantly did, clomping through puddles in their sabatons.
The boys took their seats. But they wouldn’t settle. Perhaps too much had been happening. Probably they were still churned up about the Lance disaster, coming so soon after the horse falling and Mace slipping. The hall seemed too big, too empty without the horse above. And with no Capon to lead the assembly, Chrome struggled to hold the school’s attention. There were problems with the microphone, too, which was Capon’s pet and never seemed to work pr
operly for anyone else. Buzzes and screeches made the boys angry. They had been kept quiet by Festus’s creepy organ introduction, some ancient piece comprising of a few repeated high notes over a mesmerising drone, but with Chrome’s hurried and disorganised address, the trouble began. Big boys up the back walked out. Chrome perhaps did not notice. But then every second row from the back to the very front of the hall stood, and edged out the side doors. Val, and then some of the other masters, stood on the edge of the stage berating the deserters, but only the smallest boys hesitated.
David, seated towards the rear, trudged out with the others. He stood in a rare patch of sun on the parade ground, watching The Whipper lay into segments of armour lying in a rose bed. The segments, David realised, contained a torso. Horses stood off beyond the roses, some looking up nonchalantly, ripping at the grass now growing through the gravel and cinder paths. David could see Peter on the shadowy side of the hall, talking quietly to some others, including Thomas, by the jumbled, rusting remains of the horse sculpture. Peter wore a white patch over one eye.
A rainbow briefly appeared, stretching from the school gate to the classrooms. Water lying on the parade ground ran pink, yellow, green. David turned to walk down the slope towards the dining hall, with no purpose in mind. To his left little dark animals scurried on the bank, in and out of the jumbled horse. Down the hill he could see the swimming pool in front of the gymnasium begin to overflow, the water spreading over the concrete concourse, pouring through the bulging wire fence. Scattered armour lay under the trees of the intervening slope – helmets, breastplates, shields. Coloured streamers curled around the bases of trees, or, leached and sodden, twisted from the branches. Withered balloons strayed over the oval.
David left the path and picked his way over waterlogged grass, following a balloon. He still had no purpose in mind. He was just plodding around in a suit of armour, wasting time. When was he going to leave this place? After the play, for sure. But it was harder to go than he had imagined. How was he going to tell Mr Val and Mr Gregory? What would they say? What would Mr Val do? And his grandmother had spent all her savings on some stupid helmet that would be a useless museum piece after he left.
Boys were assembling on the grass between the oval and the perimeter fence. Unencumbered by armour, they floated and settled like cockatoos, with more little flocks approaching. They gathered about the seated figure of Mr C.
David kept wandering in a big circle, returning towards the hall. With every step he sank into the mud. The armour about his calves and shins was waterlogged. The grass had begun to harbour bright green frogs. They kept popping out from under his squelching boots, launching themselves at his greaves. Some way off, nearer the hall, a group of boys were setting on a group of smaller boys. Catching sight of David, they hesitated in order to watch him, discussing his presence, and perhaps his plight, amongst themselves. He altered course again, heading for the higher ground of the classroom area.
A few horses moved about a stone’s throw in front of him, stopping to rip at weeds in their clouds of flies, then swishing on as he drew near.
He was almost back at the parade ground, where some of his friends stood.
‘Are there classes?’ he shouted to Steven and Donald, who were laughing about something by the roses.
Steven looked at him as if angry at the interruption. He shook his head brusquely. Helmets lay scattered in the grass about David. A few conical helms, the type of helmet worn by fourteenth-century knights, with the reinforcing cross over the eyes and nose, lay in high kikuyu. Conical helms weren’t cheap. He picked up one, but saw The Whipper immediately strut, tin soldier-like, towards him. He dropped the conical helm. The Whipper halted.
Renewed rain began clothing the parade ground, dispersing the figures scattered about. The school seemed to physically dissolve as the rain got heavier, disappearing building by building. Everything seemed to be floating apart. And there were no classes, nothing planned, no masters to be seen, other than The Whipper, who walked away stiff-legged into the rain.
David decided to go home. He began heading towards the school gate as fast as the mud allowed. ‘The horses are out, the horses are out!’ he heard boys crying; but he walked on, through the school gates, until he reached the bus stop on the main road. There he was pelted with a can of soft drink from a passing ute. The can bounced off his armour with a light ping, and began fizzing on the path. ‘Fucken silvertail!’ a man bawled.
David felt curiously reassured. Grateful, even.
He almost stayed home the next day. He talked to his grandmother about leaving the school. He loved the play, but he disliked football more and more. The pressure Val put on everyone unsettled him, it was hard to say why. The general atmosphere of the school, which he found very difficult to describe to his grandmother, or anyone outside the place, was somehow depressing.
His grandmother urged him, between fits of coughing, to stay on, at least until the end of the term. He said he would try.
The school gate was padlocked that morning. David had to wait some time before The Whipper rode up to let him in. The Whipper cantered off without a word. David found all the bigger boys on horseback, riding the highest paths. Riders on sturdy ponies occasionally ventured over the grass. Almost everyone, it soon became obvious, had endured a sleepless night. Yawning and docile, a sizeable portion of the school trudged into assembly. There were no mutterings this morning, only a few snores and clatterings of armour as some boy’s head fell on his neighbour’s shoulder. And Capon was back; yes, he looked different, slighter, shorter – yet he stood straight, if not tall – and, as ever, sported his flowing gown.
‘Before I address our latest concerns, boys, let me divert you with a little tale about what I was doing yesterday, and the day before,’ he began. The microphone buzzed. Capon tapped it. It obeyed him. ‘Some of you may have wondered where I was.’ (Here two or three of the masters sitting behind him nodded out of habit, then looked sheepish.) ‘Well, I’ll tell you. We’ve had a wonderful two days. Mistress Capon and I sat to have our portraits painted. It was quite a singular experience. The preliminary sketches and two studies have turned out remarkably well. It was quite difficult, actually, sitting still for that long – it must have been almost an hour. Two of the studies will be hanging in the staffroom from tomorrow morning, and any boys wishing to view them need only sign the register in the front office. Now, I see a few tired faces. Been out all night rounding up the horses? I understand. Excellent job, boys, excellent. Now, I won’t beat about the bush. We’ve had some setbacks this term, assuredly. Assuredly. But we’re all holding together remarkably well. What faith I have in you all. This is a school only for the best characters. If ever I needed proof of that, I have received it in these last few weeks. What an astonishingly close-knit and enduring community we have proved to be. Let me reiterate: This is a school with very long waiting lists. If you don’t like it, you can leave. Do you understand?’ asked Capon, pointing randomly at the front row.
‘Yes,’ several boys squeaked back.
‘You can thank your parents for their hard work that you’re here at all. All I can say is this: over the last few days you have repaid some of the trust they have shown in you. Well done, boys. Now, today I would like to talk to you about turning the other cheek. On how many occasions, boys, are we sinned against? The names we are called, the slights we suffer, the many little setbacks we endure along the road … we must turn our cheeks …’
Capon’s sermon, however, after an upbeat start, proved to be short and dispirited. He seemed to fizzle and peter out, and he broke off abruptly, wandering from the lectern. He walked up and down the front row of masters, taking some time to find his seat. Festus played a patchy accompaniment to the long hymn that followed, at one crucial point launching massively into completely the wrong chord. The entire school winced, wilted, and more plaster fell from the roof.
Then Mr C sprang to the microphone to announce the time and place for that day’s
‘meet’.
After the assembly, Val walked with a determined step after Capon, who was just ahead. Mr Wiley, the head of the science department – a dour, ruminating, forbidding man – could be seen keeping conspicuously close to the pale Capon, taking his elbow, whispering in his ear. Val was almost upon the headmaster when the stony-faced Wiley, a man of imposing stature, turned and led away the twittering headmaster, heading off Val’s approach.
Val stood alone on the path, cut. He turned about on his heel to hide his scowl – only to find Mr C standing close behind.
The folds of Mr C’s gown swayed. The minister might have been suppressing a grin.
‘You enjoyed seeing that, didn’t you?’ said Val.
‘You’re losing your touch,’ smirked the minister.
Val’s gob landed on Mr C’s beard.
17
That morning David bumped into Steven in the corridor outside a classroom. ‘How’s Peter?’ he asked. Peter was having surgery on his eye.
‘How would I know?’
‘Steven, what’s up?’
Steven blushed, and blurted words he must have rehearsed. ‘You’re strong, David. I’m not so strong. And you can go home at the end of the day. I have to live here.’
Then Steven pushed past.
While most of the school was in class, David had a free period, and wandered down to the gymnasium to collect some gear left mouldering in a locker. By the pool, despite it being winter, eight lines of first-formers, shivering and goosefleshed, waited in their Speedos to plunge into the water. David entered the building, climbed steps, and walked along a high gallery that led to the showers and change rooms. Below was the gymnasium floor, echoing and trembling with thuds. Skinny boys were dangling above mats, before plopping to the ground. More scaled a climbing wall, high above the floor. As he approached the change rooms he heard a ruckus; a master appeared with a little smile on his face. ‘There’re some high jinks going on in there,’ he grinned, and winked. Entering the change room, David saw a semicircle of first- or second-formers bent over with laughter. Two larger boys held down a small, writhing boy, and a third lad held a pornographic magazine above the captive. ‘Keep his eyes open!’ cried one excited spectator. ‘Look, it’s happening! He’s cracking one!’ Another boy, almost in tears with merriment, cried, ‘Show him the one with the horse! Look, look, he’s cracking one!’