The Horses

by William Lane

‘I wash my hands of him,’ said Val, and left.

  ‘Mr Gregory, eh?’ said Capon, rubbing his eyes. ‘First summon Mr C. I suppose this sort of thing is his brief. Maybe he can talk the boy around. If that’s what we still want.’

  Mr C, sitting outside impatiently, was allowed in.

  ‘I couldn’t help hearing some of what has been going on,’ said the minister. ‘Perhaps I could talk with David alone?’

  ‘Yes, we’ll let you do that – good idea! We’ve made no impression on him whatsoever, apparently. He doesn’t seem to understand his situation. He’s unexpectedly obdurate. Yes, yes, you may use the office. Now, fancy some lunch, Wiley?’ asked Capon, leading his deputy out, ‘capon on the menu, I believe.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked Mr C, sitting on the reflecting sheet of highly polished glass on the headmaster’s desk. ‘I couldn’t help hearing you’re leaving as some sort of protest?’

  ‘Well, it decided me, Mr C – seeing Ben beaten. It happened earlier today. He was so innocent when he arrived here. It took them a week to break him. But there’s more. I didn’t tell the other masters that I was scared. Scared of the horseman.’

  ‘That’s no –’

  ‘The horsemen. I’m becoming scared of the horsemen, of the horses. I didn’t tell the others that. Please don’t tell them I said that.’

  ‘But everyone’s scared of any coward or fool on a horse.’

  ‘I wasn’t, not before I came here. I’ve learnt it. I didn’t do anything to stop what happened to Ben, because I was frightened. So you see, I’ve been changed.’

  ‘David –’

  ‘And I saw some maids … and I kept walking. I went to parade. I can’t stand by while these things happen, Mr C. It makes me as guilty as the people who do it. I’m running, I know. But I don’t have to stay.’

  ‘Isn’t it the same everywhere?’

  ‘No! I saw Donald on the roof this morning reciting that poem. And what he was saying was right. It’s empty here, somehow. It’s not real. I don’t mean you, Mr C –’

  ‘I don’t like hearing a boy your age saying these things, David. There are good things here.’

  ‘The rest of the world is not like this. I know it’s not, because I’ve spent most of my life out there.’

  ‘Look, why don’t you talk to Mr Gregory before you make your final decision?’

  ‘I’ve thought about Mr Gregory and the play. I’ll stay until the play’s over, if he wants me to – and if they’ll let me, after this.’

  ‘Well, there’s a start. Just give it a little while, David, even a few days. See if things don’t improve.’

  ‘I’m only interested in the play, Mr C. I won’t stay on longer.’

  David left the staffroom, feeling so light he could hardly walk. Gravity found him finally on the parade ground, where he stood looking up. The clouds were massed, one on top of the other, the higher seeming to bruise the lower. Down near the oval a long, low marquee was being erected – hastily, almost in a panic, it seemed – in preparation for the annual school joust, due to take place that weekend. People from the outside were staring through the fence, fists clenched about the iron spikes. Then they looked up. Something monstrous eased from the clouds. It was a hardening of cloud, a form from formlessness. A silver skin stretched over a bullet-shaped frame, nosing forward. Some kind of blimp, David realised, a zeppelin … he thought it might be falling, that it would bump over the grass, or float down onto the marquee and brush over the hours of work. But it continued on its low plane, serene, on a path almost directly over where he stood. Men with binoculars peered down at him from the cabin suspended beneath the ship’s long belly. A camera flashed. The ship sailed into the gloom, motors humming in low cloud.

  21

  On the morning of the joust Gregory was lying in bed sick, listening to far-off cheers and car horns, when Mr C appeared unexpectedly in his room. Gregory moved his bandaged hand under the covers.

  ‘Are you up for a short talk?’ asked the minister, after Gregory assured him he was in no need of a doctor.

  ‘It’s about the boy David, isn’t it?’

  ‘How did you know?’

  Gregory shrugged.

  ‘David told us yesterday he is thinking of leaving the school. Has he talked to you about it?’

  ‘I’ve been unable to talk, I’ve been sending people away. So David’s leaving?’

  ‘He wants to stay on for your play.’

  ‘The play’s been axed. It’s off. They say it’s impinging on the school curriculum. And they say I’m too sick and too busy to run it. That I’m overexerting myself. Wiley told me earlier this week to drop it. I think I can see it had to be done. I feel relieved, Mr C, I think it’s for the best.’

  ‘Because Val says so?’

  ‘I actually am sick. As to Val – I have decided to go my own way, free of him, if I could put it that way. And if that proves difficult – we know Val can make life difficult – why, I’ll just leave. I can always leave.’

  Having said this, Gregory lay sweating. Cheers swelled in the distance.

  ‘But to leave when you’ve done no wrong, simply because –’

  ‘You know what he’s like, Mr C. Anyway, I don’t think it will come to that. When I’m over this infection, I’ll be stronger – able to stand on my own two feet. I’ll be all right. I have choices.’

  In the silence, the men’s thoughts came closer.

  ‘Is it still raining, Mr C?’

  ‘Not for the moment. Can I bring you anything?’

  ‘No. But you can answer me something.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You asked me once if I knew what was going on in this place. What did you mean by that?’

  ‘Spiritual warfare. You and the boys have been caught in the crossfire.’

  ‘I’m a rationalist, Mr C.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So what do you mean by “spiritual warfare”?’

  ‘It’s a time when everyone’s forced to stand by their beliefs and to fight for them. When everyone has to take sides. There are no half measures in spiritual warfare, no hedging, no hiding.’

  A great cry assailed Gregory’s window. Cars about the oval belligerently honked.

  ‘It’s been a tough environment for you to walk into,’ said the minister. ‘The following days will be the school’s most testing.’

  ‘This place seems so hard, Mr C. So needlessly hard. The world is not all like this.’

  ‘A part of the world is always like this.’

  ‘So heartless, so arbitrary, so violent? Where are the likeable people? I’ve felt so confused since I came here. Sometimes I don’t even know what parts of this place are real. I lie here at night listening to the strangest noises, the scrabbling at my walls is horrible. The roars outside the door actually terrify me. The horses gallop back and forth, I don’t know what’s making them run. Sometimes I even think, are the horses real?’

  Another wave of applause rose up from the oval.

  ‘I think they’re real,’ smiled the minister. He placed his hand on Gregory’s forehead. ‘You’re very fevered, Gregory. You need more medicine.’

  ‘Mr C, I’ll admit something. I don’t understand what all the insignias and colours mean. And what does it all mean, this business about east and west? Surely it’s meaningless. And the ceremonies – so many of them –’

  ‘It’s empty ceremony. The inside is gone.’

  ‘This is a vacuum, then.’

  They listened to the distant shouting, the mad bugle calls.

  ‘Someone scored,’ said Gregory.

  ‘The joust will start soon.’

  ‘That cheering, it’s driving me mad. Can you make sure the window is closed? And draw the curtain: even the rain hurts my eyes.’

  Mr C went to the window. ‘The game’s almost over,’ he said.

  ‘Have we won?’

  ‘Have we won? Yes, I think we’ve won.’

  22

  Shells w
ere being eased out of the ooze at the bottom of the bank that ran about the oval. Small, white shells. The covering earth had slid away in sheets, revealing colonies of fossils – ribs of fish and fern, the spirals and cones of invertebrates. A rash of ancient barnacles popped one by one from the rock. But no one saw. All eyes were on the oval. The joust was a great occasion at the school, everyone who could turned up. Today the football was merely the start of the day’s events. And Val’s winning run stalled: today the first fifteen tied.

  Once the game ended, the school was paraded in full armour up and down the road about the lower side of the oval. The original plan had been to parade on the oval, but the boys would have sunk. The school marched under dark clouds. They had been practising marching for weeks – The Whipper had given himself totally to supervising it, and now he ran up and down the ranks like a besotted rooster, and the parents clucked approvingly. The boys had been preceded by a procession of the horses, an exhibition of the school’s many different equines: Shetland ponies, steppe ponies, miniature horses, beloved Clydesdales, despised donkeys and asses, even the school’s two new zebras and its sole mule, these last three always falling behind and locking their legs and having to be dragged and pushed by groups of boys trying to outdo one another in yelling. Visiting students and parents from the other school looked on with faint distaste. In this highly electric interval before the commencement of the joust, Festus played a little pipe organ on the sideline under a special marquee. The rain eased. A yellow dog ran onto the ground, frolicked, grew anxious, whined. Then the opening skirmishes of the joust commenced in a crisp, clean, orange-pink light, which no one thought to remark on or explain.

  The joust was an uneasy amalgam of rodeo and medieval costume drama, although the weapons were real. First up were boys straddling bucking horses; partisan interest from the reds and blacks soon turned acrimonious, and boys pelted one another with cans and bags and finally their fists. This outbreak was only ended by the distraction of an albino boy disappearing under a rolling palomino, boy and horse pale as two grubs in the gloom. After lying very still in the mud, the boy had to depart the field on a stretcher. Another boy’s lungs hissed as he was thrown flat on his back, and lay there in the muck, unmoving as a domino. The winner was a fish-eyed country boy with carroty hair, mobbed by his fellow jubilant reds as he left the oval. The Rurals always came to the fore in the rodeo. Then followed the unedifying spectacle of boys chasing steers about the oval in the sludge. The rain began to spit again, and thicken.

  The joust proper began with little set displays of swordsmanship between boys representing different houses. The crowd cheered loudly even during these introductory games. All events were moving painfully slowly, mired by the continual rain and the smothering mud. The boys were fighting in slow motion in bog-like conditions. Nevertheless they landed some hefty blows and each resounding ring of armour elicited a throaty roar. Many visiting families left.

  David had always loathed the armour, detested putting it on – so clammy on the skin, slippery, initially cold, then sweaty. You could feel nothing through the armour and, once inside, it was only a pleasure to strike out and hit things. He turned away from the oval. He was already angry at having contributed so little to the earlier football game, having been brought on well into the second half. Val had ignored him. Now he was angry he had come to school at all. As soon as he could he quickly showered and changed into jeans and a casual shirt and jacket. Emerging from the dressing rooms, he watched the boys marching from afar, expected to be chastised at any moment by the masters passing him. They all looked through him, however, and he realised they no longer knew him.

  He wandered aimlessly behind the lines of cars. He paused behind a roped-off area where masters and boys competed in an archery competition. Val and Mr C stood side by side, in black and white, shooting at the same target.

  David saw Capon nearby, deep in conversation with some dignitary from the church. They looked frequently at Val’s back as they spoke. The way the two men looked at Val’s back: it was the last thing David took in before leaving.

  23

  Things went badly for Val that day.

  ‘Either you go, Capon, or Val goes,’ the bishop said, casting his eyes towards Val, who at that moment was loosing an arrow.

  The headmaster hurriedly affirmed he would dismiss Val.

  He failed to tell Val of it after the game or during the parade and joust, however, and in the evening, at another extraordinary meeting of the council, Val turned up as usual. Capon did not. Wiley attended in the headmaster’s stead. Wiley looked stolidly at Val as the latter appeared. But he said nothing, and let Val sit. Also present were Cato Butter-Finch, Tait, Black, and the secretary, Crib. These four were jovial and a little inebriated, still infected with the carnival atmosphere of the day. Val appeared quietly happy too, his team having held the best of the competition. And he had personally defeated Mr C in archery.

  Wiley delivered a short address acknowledging the success of that day’s joust and yet another good game for the first fifteen. Cheers followed, glasses were raised. Wiley asked the secretary to read that meeting’s agenda, freshly written out that evening by the mysteriously absent Capon.

  First on the agenda was the breaking of a boy’s shoulder in the rodeo.

  ‘Yes, the boy’s broken a shoulder,’ said Wiley. ‘The hospital’s confirmed it.’

  ‘It’s part of the sport, I’m afraid,’ said Butter-Finch.

  ‘Every now and then we get boys who break their neck playing football,’ said Tait, ‘that’s the way it is.’

  ‘That’s right,’ agreed Black. ‘Are we going to ban football because of the occasional unfortunate accident? Of course not. It’s simply bad luck for the boy.’

  ‘What’s next, Crib?’

  Crib read slowly, deciphering the hastily written agenda.

  ‘The art master’s resignation –’

  ‘Oh yes. So be it. Let’s move on.’

  ‘Next item is the termination of Mr Val’s contract.’ Crib frowned, and squinted at the notes. ‘Hang on, let me read that again – the – yes, the …’ He tailed away, eyes slowly rising to Val.

  Val had blanched. He looked at Wiley, who was staring across the table at him.

  ‘Capon hasn’t told you, has he?’

  Val smiled, twistedly. ‘No.’

  ‘Must have been a cock-up. I’m sure Capon will outline the reasons –’

  ‘I know the reasons,’ rasped Val. ‘They’re not good enough.’

  ‘This is not the way to do things,’ said Tait. ‘He wasn’t told.’

  ‘Surely – what does Valerie … Mistress Capon say?’ asked Val.

  ‘She has no say in it,’ said Wiley. ‘This matter is entirely in the hands of Capon and the council. I’ve seen the letter of your dismissal myself.’

  ‘Pity I haven’t,’ said Val. ‘How reassuring that you have.’

  ‘Capon was to have given it to you this afternoon. Perhaps it’s in your pigeonhole.’

  ‘My pigeonhole? Rather sudden, all this, isn’t it?’ said Val. He kept clearing his throat. He seemed to have shrunk into the carapace of his tweed jacket.

  ‘Of course you’ve been given two weeks to go.’

  ‘What can I say?’ said Val. ‘My team excelled themselves today, yet again … and this is how I’m treated?’

  No one answered him. Each member of the council had developed a sudden interest in the table.

  ‘Well, here’s some home truths, gentlemen,’ said Val. ‘I think you’ll find whoever replaces me will have rather a hard time reproducing the sort of results I get. I’ve worked in many schools, and the boys I’ve had to work with here are probably the poorest material I’ve ever had to deal with.’

  ‘Sour grapes,’ said Black. ‘The game’s up, Val, the decision’s been made. Don’t make things worse.’

  ‘We appreciate your contributions, Val,’ said Wiley, ‘but we must protect our reputation. Now, you still have
your reputation. You’ll find employment in any school you wish if you go quietly. No one need know you’ve been asked to go, nor the reasons why. As I said, with your record, and the good word we’ll put in for you, you could work anywhere.’

  ‘Except here. Where was I? Oh, yes, the poorest material I’ve ever worked with. And yet I’ve been getting results. Another home truth: you people need the likes of me. You need men like me to lift your game and keep you from the complacency that grows with your position in the world. I know you think I’m not one of you, not good enough for you. I know I was born on the wrong side of the tracks. But your children are lost without a dose of the real world the likes of me provide – the real world, which you so despise.’

  ‘Val,’ said Tait wearily, ‘you’re not doing yourself any favours by insulting us.’

  ‘Those boys won’t succeed outside of that gate but for the likes of me. No man was more dedicated to their success than I was. I gave myself heart and soul to this job.’

  ‘No one doubts that, Val,’ said Wiley.

  ‘And this is the thanks I get? The world won’t always be as good to you and your kind as it now happens to be.’ Val stood.

  ‘He’s going,’ said Black.

  ‘At the moment stock prices are up, wool prices are high, and there’s money to be made on the land. But for how long? Do you think you can go on treating people like this forever? Do you think you can ignore the outside world forever? Well, let me tell you, gentlemen, you can’t. The world is changing. I was good for this school, and the boys know it. You lot can keep sticking your heads in the sand, I don’t care. You won’t be so high and mighty in ten, fifteen years time – believe me. Well, what do I care – you’ll get what’s coming. I’ll go elsewhere, I can do better elsewhere. But this isn’t the last you’ve heard of me.’

  With that he stalked from the room, strode down the corridor, burst into the staffroom, where only a little light seeped in through one high window. Large drops of rain adhered, expanded, and spread over the glass. Tables and chairs were perched about in the gloom, reduced to their blocked-in outlines. Even they seemed to quail at this intruder. No one saw Val destroy the diorama – but it was safe to assume he had.