Julian winked. ‘Apparently you’re still not clean enough. Ain’t that funny?’ he asked innocently.
‘In you get,’ said Andrews tiredly. ‘I’m going to batter the pair of you tomorrow for this,’ he added, as if he’d do it now, but just couldn’t be bothered.
So it happened all over again. This time, straight from bed, the water felt colder than ever. Nick paused halfway in - he just couldn’t bring himself to do it - and Andrews pushed him down right under so he gasped and sucked down a lungful of water. He held him under for a good few seconds before letting him back up for air. He lay there, thrashing weakly, until the cold took him and he just lay still.
Andrews took a packet of cards out of his pocket, and the two prefects sat down on the floor and began to play brag for matchsticks.
After five minutes, Davey began to cry, a thin sobbing. It was just so miserable, so depressing, so cold. Neither of them had anything left, no fight, no strength, no warmth. Once he was off, it got to Nick as well and he started up. They lay there, the pair of them, side by side in two identical baths and wept like babies.
‘Oh, don’t start that,’ moaned Andrews. He and Julian rolled their eyes at each other and dealt again.
‘You can pack that racket in, you’ve another ten minutes yet,’ Julian told them irritably.
But the boys had reached an all time low and couldn’t stop. Toms had stumbled on just the right torture to break them. They were cold, they were exhausted, they had failed in what they set out to do. It felt as if they would never be warm again.
The game of brag went on, and the two boys lay there and cried, until at last they got so cold that the tears dried up and their eyes began to roll in their heads.
This time they were more supported than carried back to bed. Once more they were left to fall asleep, and once more they were woken up and dumped back in the icy water - freshly drawn, since water from the pipes was colder than that left standing. This time they had to be dragged back to bed and were dumped between the sheets still wet, since they hadn’t got the strength to dry themselves. Mercifully, this time they were left there until the whistle blew to wake them up the next morning.
They were sent to school despite the dry, hacking cough that had developed overnight, and snuffled and sneezed their way through the day. And not the colds, or the cut feet or even the nasty gash on Nick’s backside saved them from the official punishment, which came that evening - the flogging.
Toms laid in with more gusto than usual if anything, to make up for the broken window and the extra work, not to mention being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night twice, just because these two jokers wanted to walk. They got twelve each. They both wept and howled after the first three. As usual it was done in the room behind the hall so that everyone could hear.
When they got back into the hall, no one said anything about the screams. Same as always, the boys had to bare their backsides to see if they were a sergeant or a corporal. When Nick showed his, they fell silent.
‘Better get the nurse to have a look at that,’ Nick heard someone say, and then he fainted.
16
The Infirmary
It was a disaster, but one good thing came of it. Overnight, the sore throats spread down into the boys’ chests and they woke the day after their caning with blazing temperatures. Toms sent them to school as usual, but the teachers weren’t having it and sent them back with a note. Result - they got a call from the local doctor who prescribed antibiotics and a few days off lying in the infirmary, being taken care of by the legendary Nurse Turner.
The infirmary wasn’t really an infirmary, and Nurse Turner wasn’t really a nurse. It was just a room with a few beds in put aside for sick boys, and she was the wife of one of the housemasters. It was a bit of a joke really, but she was a kind woman and couldn’t do enough for you while you were there. The Turners were the best of the house tutors at Meadow Hill, and if Nick had ended up w ith them instead of Toms his would have been a very different story.
It was great. There was a telly, provided by the Turners, that you could watch all you liked. Nurse Turner spent the day trotting to and fro carrying trays with various treats piled up on them. In a place like Meadow Hill, it was next door to Heaven.
Nurse Turner was an odd-looking woman, with a wide, wobbly smile, dazzling bright blue eyes, too much make-up and hair puffed out at the sides which for some reason made her look rather like a toothless elephant bearing down on you as she came in with yet another tray load of squishy cake, rice pudding or ice cream. She was nearing forty, but she still had a magnificent figure, so the boys spent half their time pretending to lust after her and half the time pretending to be appalled that she might actually be trying to get off with them. She wore short skirts and blouses not exactly plunging, but low enough to give them an eyeful when she bent over the bed with her tray.
It was a great few days. The thought of how furious Toms would be that their misdeeds gave them all this time lying in bed eating ice cream and trying to look down Nurse Turner’s cleavage made it all the better. Endless TV, board games - it was pure bliss. Davey reckoned it was worth the cold baths and the flogging just to get the time off.
‘You never cut your arse open,’ pointed out Nick, shifting uncomfortably in his bed, which made Davey roar with laughter. For some reason, he thought Nick’s arse wound, as he called it, was hilarious.
The only disadvantage was, they weren’t allowed out of bed and no one was allowed to visit them, so once they got their strength back and their temperatures had gone down, they started to get restless. Whenever Nurse Turner caught them out of bed, it brought the day they were sent back closer and closer.
They did get one visitor, though. To Nick’s amazement and horror the door opened one day and in walked Mr Creal. He looked just the same as normal, with his black suit and his blond-grey hair and his V-neck jumper, with his bright smile and his crinkly eyes, like someone’s favourite uncle.
‘Boys!’ he exclaimed, when he saw them, sounding as if someone had just given him a bowl of a particularly juicy trifle. ‘Making the most of it, eh? All tucked up like a pair of little toads in the hole,’ he added. He behaved exactly as if he was Nick’s best friend still. He brought them treats - bottles of Coke, chocolate and a couple of bottles of beer, which he slipped down under the covers next to Nick as he sat on the side of the bed.
‘Don't tell Mrs Turner,’ he said, with a wink. ‘And don’t drink it all at once. I know what you boys are like.’
Nick edged as far away from him as he could, terrified that he might start to try and touch him up, or even worse, start referring to what had happened in the Secure Unit. That night had given Mr Creal a strange and terrible power over Nick. He felt that just to mention what happened would destroy him utterly, and he spent the entire time he was there terrified that Creal was suddenly going to talk about it.
Already, Nick had learned never even to think about that night, but he couldn’t stop his feelings. The memory came to him when he was helpless, tired or in his dreams, and he’d wake up yelling and screaming. He’d woken Davey more than once in the infirmary since they got there. Just being this close to his abuser gave him the shakes - literally. His hands were quivering like leaves.
He hated Creal like he’d never hated anything before in his life. The worst thing about it was, he made him feel so helpless.
What on earth did he want? They were in their nightwear - in bed. It seemed obvious, but in fact, Mr Creal never touched him. He knew better than to sniff around for favours while there were two of them there. He put his hand on Nick’s forehead to see if he had a temperature and smiled sympathetically.
‘I heard that bastard Toms was his usual brutal self,’ he said. ‘If I could do anything... ’ He shook his head. ‘But these people, they’re a law unto themselves.’
Then, to Nick’s disgust, he started feeling sorry for himself. He got all sad and doey-eyed about how he could be such friends to the bo
ys if only he didn’t have to be in charge all the time, how tired he got of his role in the Home, how his job got in the way.
‘I may seem popular to you,’ he told Nick, ‘but I’m lonely, very lonely a lot of the time. If it wasn’t for boys like you ... ’
It was an amazing performance. How could he feel sorry for himself, after what he’d done?
There were threats too. ‘Don’t try running away again, boys,’ he said. ‘You know what can happen, especially you, Nick. Don’t you?’ And he smiled at him and bared his teeth, and dared Nick to say either yes or no. He seemed pleased when Nick was unable to answer.
And promises. ‘You need to knuckle down and get on with life here. I can help. I can make your lives a great deal easier.’ And he patted Nick in a familiar way on the leg.
By the time he had gone, Nick was shaking with anger, fear and shame. If he didn’t get away, he would have to deal with Creal again sooner or later, that much was obvious.
He had to escape. There was no choice.
They couldn’t try the night run again. Every time it got broken, the window got boarded up with inch thick ply screwed to the wall, and no way was that coming down in a hurry - at least until the next fire check, when the fire officer would insist. That left Bunker’s Lane, and very few boys made it out down Bunker’s. Really, there was only one way it could work. They needed a bribe. Something to get the prefects on their side.
‘Fags,’ said Nick. It was a known fact that almost all the prefects would do almost anything for cigarettes. That's how things worked at Meadow Hill. Fags, beer, chocolate and girlie mags. If you had constant supply of those, you could do anything.
‘I can't get enough ciggies for myself, let alone that lot,’ declared Davey.
‘Then we’ll just have to work out how to get some more, won’t we?’ said Nick.
They wracked their brains but they couldn’t think of anything. If you got home visits you could smuggle some fags in, but that wasn’t likely - they’d lost any points they might get for about a thousand years. They could have used the beer Creal gave them, except they’d drunk it before they even had time to think about that. Nick tried to drop hints to Nurse Turner that some cigarettes would go down well, but she was scandalised.
‘Cigarettes? With a sore throat? In hospital? It’s ice cream or nothing in here, my lads!’
They had to think of something else. It was a pity they’d fallen out with Oliver. He always had loads of ciggies.
‘Creal smokes, dun he?’ suggested Davey. ‘You get back in with him, you can ’ave some away.’
Nick gave him a look. Davey didn’t press it.
They sat there and wracked their brains. They were going to have to steal them, that was obvious. Their best chance, they realised, was while they were here in the infirmary. Dilys the receptionist smoked; so did Creal, who had his flat in the same building. If they could only get out, just for a single hour, they could surely pinch some ciggies from somewhere.
As luck would have it though, they’d run out of time. Nurse Turner came to see them the following morning with Andrews, to tell them they were better. They were to get their things together. They were going back to school that same afternoon.
17
The New Boy
It looked as though Nick and Davey were just going to have to keep their eyes open and wait for a chance to present itself, either to pinch the ciggies or perhaps to find a way to sneak off to the fence when no one was looking. But that could take forever.
Nick, however, had a plan, as always. It was called Oliver.
Davey was not impressed.
‘Why’d he help us?’ he wanted to know.
‘Because he’s comin’ with us.’
‘Sez who? Any road, what’s he got to run for?’
‘Same as you and me.’
Davey shook his head impatiently. ‘Oliver has it made. He gets no school. He gets no rough nasty games, everyone leaves him alone. He gets loads of sweeties and anything else he wants and all he has to do for it is take it up the arse from dear Tony Creal. And since he obviously likes it up the arse from dear Tony Creal, he doesn’t ’ave a problem, does he?’
‘Who says he likes it? And who says he’s still getting it? 'Aven’t you noticed? ’E’s not been on the Flat List, lately,’ said Nick.
‘Yer still lookin’ then.’
‘I like to know what’s goin’ on.’
Davey shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t trust him with my pet hamster’s peanut, let alone bringin’ him in on anythin’ like this.’
Nick was right. Oliver didn’t like the things that were done to him, or the things he was asked to do, and he didn’t liked Mr Creal, either - but he did like having a protector. He liked having a bag full of chocolate and cigarettes and girlie mags on demand, and not going hungry and getting nights away from the other boys in front of the TV in a warm flat. He liked feeling special, and Tony Creal knew how to make him feel exactly that. It wasn’t love, it was prostitution; but it was the nearest thing to love Oliver could hope to get, and so he took it.
He’d had a long run with Tony Creal, but now it was coming to an end.
For one thing, his voice was breaking. Mr Creal had wide tastes in boys of all ages, but he liked Oliver because he was pretty and young and looked like a girl. His gruff croak spoiled the effect. Mr Creal had started to take an interest in other boys - Nick for example. That worried Oliver, which explains the anxious looks Nick had noticed during those evenings in the flat. But a few weeks earlier, while Oliver was recovering in the infirmary, there had been a new development.
Mr Creal had visited him regularly there, bringing goodies and treats.
‘There’s a new boy at the Home,’ he told him one rainy Tuesday afternoon. ‘I think you might like him, Oliver. I think you and him might have a lot in common.’
Oliver saw the new boy soon enough - he watched him crossing in front of the infirmary several times with Mr Creal’s hand on his shoulder. He was slight, blond and pale, just like Oliver, but a year or so younger. Oliver recognised him at once - not that he knew him in any way, but he knew at once what he was like. He could see in what ways this boy was like him, just as Mr Creal had. He couldn’t have put his finger on why he knew, but he did.
Mr Creal had found a new plaything.
He knew what the new boy looked like, and soon found out his name as well. He crept out and had a look on the Flat List one day, and there it was, a new name - Jeremy Style. In the few days that Oliver had been in the infirmary at that point, Jeremy’s name had already been up twice.
It was no surprise, but even so, it hurt. In fact, hurt was too soft a word. To his own amazement and disgust, Oliver was devastated. His head knew clearly enough that Creal was just using him, but his heart would simply not believe it. In the absence of genuine affection, he responded to the substitute, however cheap.
The weeks passed. Oliver came out of the infirmary. Nick and Davey went in. The new boy’s name continued to appear on the Flat List while Oliver’s visits began to die away. He wasn’t dropped entirely, as yet. Creal needed some other lad around to make his new boy feel at ease, as well as a back up, in case Jeremy was slow in handing out his favours. Oliver was a good back up, but he was less use for providing a convivial atmosphere, as he had shown when Mr Creal was trying to groom Nick. He got jealous, and he showed it. Jeremy, with a true instinct, had told Creal early on that he didn’t like Oliver, and so Oliver’s visits dropped sharply. In the next weeks he got up there only once, whereas before he might have spent an evening at the flat two or three times a week.
Every time Jeremy’s name turned up on the list without his, Oliver felt as though someone was pushing a blunt rusty nail right through him. He had thought he had been dropped so often in the past that he’d be used to it by now, but he wasn’t. It hurt more than ever each time it happened. He didn’t know what amazed him more - the fact that it hurt so bad, or the fact that he was still surprised every time.
Oliver’s life was pretty grim at the best of times, but for whatever it was worth, he was watching everything he had go down the pan. He didn’t deal in friends, but he was aware that he was going to need a new protector. He didn’t trust Nick, of course, but trust had long ago ceased to be an issue with him. Besides, abuse and affection was a combination he was very familiar with. Since he couldn’t live without the second, he had to put up with the first - that was life. He had begun to think that Nick was different. He was wrong - so what? It was the usual, that was all. Now, Nick was useful to him again, and he began to feel his way cautiously back in.
But Davey was right not to trust him. Boys like Oliver dealt in treats and favours, and there were always going to be people in a place like Meadow Hill who could provide better treats and favours than Davey and Nick.
‘Soon as someone shows up who’s got more to offer, he’s off. He’s only hanging around ’cos he’s got no one else to pat him dry behind his little ears.’
‘I owe him,’ said Nick fiercely.
‘You don't owe him, mate. He had it coming ‘Not from me he didn’t. I owe him. OK?’
Davey lifted up his hands.
‘I’d do the same for you mate, any time.’
Davey nodded. He knew it was true. Nick simply never let go.
So when the other lads started on Oliver when Nick was around, Nick stepped in. It wasn’t a popular move. Davey stood back and let him get on with it - he figured they’d had enough trouble because of Oliver. But finally the inevitable happened. Nick got into a fight with a couple of lads over it. There was no choice.
Nicholas Dane Page 16