The Old Boys

by William Trevor

  A woman in a white overall broke in on his thoughts, pressing a plate of wafer biscuits on him. He sighed and smiled and took one. How nice it would be to hear a bell and run to its summons, to join a queue for milk or cocoa, and later to do prep and wait for another bell that meant the rowdy security of the dormitory. How nice it would be to slip, tired and a little homesick, between the cold sheets. He heard his name called. Somebody gave him a fresh cup of tea and asked him a question he did not understand.

  14

  At four o’clock, as Mr Jaraby was taking his first spoonful of raspberries and cream, Mrs Jaraby was offering sleeping pills to his cat. She had given Monmouth nothing to eat all day. Breaking the pills, four times the recommended adult dose, she mixed them into a plate of fish, knowing that they would be instantly and carelessly consumed. They were. Monmouth lay in a stupor on the kitchen floor, the empty eye-socket wide and sinister, flakes of fish lingering on his fur. Mrs Jaraby poked him with the end of a broom. She poked harder; she placed her foot on his tail and gradually brought the weight of her body to bear. The cat did not wake up. Mrs Jaraby fetched a sack.

  Monmouth was heavy and unwieldy, and Mrs Jaraby had difficulty in getting him into the sack. She wore gloves, removing them only to tie the mouth of the sack with a piece of string. She dragged the burden upstairs, panting with every step. Once she thought she felt the animal move, and stood back in terror in case he should tear his way to liberty. She stood at the top of the stairs, looking down at the sack, which was about half-way up. There was no movement now; she hauled it up the remaining steps, across the landing, over the smooth surface of the bathroom floor. She paused then, looking from the sack to the bath three-quarters full of water. Straining herself, she raised the sack from the floor and toppled it as gently as she could over the side. She had to wedge it beneath the surface of the water with a chair.

  At half-past five Mrs Jaraby returned to the bathroom, laid an old macintosh coat of her husband’s on the floor, removed the chair from the bath and bundled the sack over the edge. She folded the coat about it, tying it in place with string. She pulled it from the bathroom, allowing its own weight to carry it down the stairs. From the hall she dragged it through the kitchen into the backyard. She had removed the contents of a dustbin and placed the bin ready on its side. She shoved the sack in, levered the dustbin into an upright position again, covered the sack with tins, newspapers and potato peelings, and replaced the lid.

  Mrs Jaraby let the water out of the bath, cleaned away the scum, and set the house to rights. She put a hat on, took some money from her purse and walked to the bus-stop. She could have sent the telegram over the telephone, but she preferred to see the message in writing. She wrote in her spidery handwriting with a difficult post office pen. The ink ran into the absorbent paper, but the girl behind the counter was able to read it; Mrs Jaraby made sure of that.

  Your birds no longer threatened. Monmouth died today. Come as you wish. Love. Mother.

  15

  The portrait of H. L. Dowse, part of a gallery of housemasters of note, hung in the Dining Hall. Eyeing it, Mr Nox wondered if what Sanctuary had said was true. There was certainly nothing in the portrait to lend credence to his claim, yet one would hardly expect that there should be. The Headmaster was making a speech, thanking the Old Boys for their contribution to the new classroom block. Mr Jaraby wished he could make a speech too, with a couple of barbed remarks in it about the architecture. Sir George Ponders, who was about to make a speech, wished he wasn’t.

  ‘Of course, of course.’ Mr Sole expressed surprise when Mr Jaraby had questioned him about the presidency. ‘I am surprised you ask me: naturally you shall have my vote. And Cridley’s. I can vouch for Cridley.’ And Mr Sole had gone on to say that in his opinion Mr Jaraby would be elected without opposition.

  Applause was given by beating the table with one’s right hand. Some of the younger Old Boys, who had slipped down to the town between Reunion Service and dinner, were beating the tables with their brandy glasses, a couple of them with spoons. Far away in the Headmaster’s dining-room a dozen wives were listening to the Headmaster’s wife talking about domestic staff problems.

  Mr Jaraby had made his annual round of old haunts. He had been introduced to a couple of new masters, had had a glass of sherry with one whom he had known for years, had talked to the editor of the School magazine and discussed with the Captain of Games the fixture list for next term. Earlier in the afternoon he had noticed Turtle wandering about the place with a small boy and had seen Cridley and Sole sitting at desks in a classroom, pretending they were back at school.

  ‘You won’t forget our last committee meeting, Turtle? Dinner too.’ Mr Turtle had promised not to forget. Mr Jaraby was to be the next President; Mr Turtle took it for granted. He said so twice.

  General Sanctuary was thinking he would rather go on drinking brandy in his hotel than watch the Dramatic Society’s production of The Mikado. He had seen too many productions of The Mikado, he was tone-deaf anyway.

  The Headmaster rambled on rather, then Sir George spoke and no one could hear what he said. He lost his place a few times and had to keep going back to the beginning of the paragraph, but nobody noticed because nobody could hear.

  ‘May I count on you, Sanctuary? May I count on you to back me as President, eh?’ But General Sanctuary had said: ‘Good heavens, what an extraordinary question to ask!’ and had walked away, whistling.

  Although it was still light, the heavily leaded windows of the Dining Hall necessitated the use of electricity. The tall, narrow windows were dark and uncurtained. When the sun fell on them it revealed scenes in stained glass of a mundane and familiar kind; profane rather than sacred. But the sun did not reach them now; here and there a dusty red gleamed, or an inky blue, little spurts of colour in a total gloom. The rest of the great hall was merry enough: tobacco smoke curled towards the high beams of the ceiling, decanters littered the tables. The House Cups and the silver had been polished for the occasion; there was an air of celebration and bonhomie; the panelling glowed, the human faces shone. The nostalgia that was present was certainly not for meals taken as a boy; rather it related to other Old Boys’ Days and other reunions. Remembered now was the moment at this very dinner when a maid had dropped a silver tray of walnuts on the floor; and when a young man from the Middle East had abruptly leapt on to a table and harangued his audience, demanding British troops for his country.

  Mr Turtle over his brandy felt nostalgic in his own way, and tipsy as well. They were right, he didn’t know his own mind. He would see Miss Burdock and explain. He must explain that one is too indecisive and absurd for marriage at his age. In these familiar surroundings he could not see why he had ever proposed marriage to her. Had he done so? Was it just some joke of Sole’s and Cridley’s? He had gone to the pictures with her and had lost his shoe; he had gone to the pictures again, and afterwards they had had tea in a café. But he couldn’t remember what they had talked about. He couldn’t remember the name of the young man in the park, the young man whom he had met again on the same seat and to whom he had lent a little more money. He had gone to see the man’s birds and had listened while he spoke about them. He would still have liked to have had one, but when finally he mentioned it to Mrs Strap she was angry, as he knew she would be. He knew the man’s house, he would visit him again, and talk to him about Mrs Strap. Perhaps the man, who was younger and abler than he, would speak to Mrs Strap about the bird. Perhaps, even, he would help him to find another Mrs Strap, a Mrs Strap who was not always going on and who did not always want to see his will. He might become quite interested in the bird and have others. He might visit the young man quite often and have the young man drop in on him unexpectedly. Hadn’t he said that he too was an Old Boy? Hadn’t he said so, and could not manage the membership fee? He could help him over the fee; perhaps next year they would come to the Old Boys’ Day together. Was it in the café he had proposed to Miss Burdock? She had worn something a
t her neck, a brooch with a dog on it. Miss Burdock, Mrs Strap: between them, like animals, they would tear whatever was left of him apart. His bones would crack, his flesh would fall away, his blood would be grey, hardened to powder in his arteries. He felt afraid, he thought he might already have gone too far along a destined course and that now there was no chance of turning back. He began to weep, and the man next to him nudged his shoulder, thinking maybe that weeping was like falling asleep.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Mr Jaraby. ‘I’ve been trying to have a word with you all day.’

  The man he approached was twenty years his junior, a man with half a cigar in his mouth, and spectacles and smooth grey hair brushed back from his temples.

  ‘I’m Jaraby. Look, shall we take a stroll beneath the elms? I’d appreciate a word of advice.’

  ‘Certainly, Mr Jaraby,’ said the man, smiling, and swearing inwardly.

  ‘Now you’re a medical man,’ Mr Jaraby told him. ‘You know – I’m sorry, your name escapes me.’

  ‘Mudie.’

  ‘Well, it’s really – look, Mudie, I’d welcome a word of professional advice about my wife.’

  ‘Oh dear, I’m afraid –’

  Mr Jaraby held up his hand. ‘This is quite serious. Our own doctor is long in the tooth, behind the times, against modern methods, you know the kind of thing. Now I think you as an Old Boy would be prepared –’

  ‘Mr Jaraby, what is the trouble with your wife? If you are dissatisfied with your own doctor you should change. It is quite a simple thing to do.’

  ‘Yes, yes, but I’d rather do this on a man-to-man basis, if you follow me. It’s an awkward and embarrassing case, not easy to explain to a stranger. You and I, as it were, belong to the same club, speak the same language. I am more confident with a man of your calibre.’

  ‘Perhaps if you told me –’

  ‘This is all in confidence, mind. Strictly in confidence. I would not like this to be noised abroad.’

  ‘All that concerns a patient is confidential, Mr Jaraby. But I must warn you this may be a fruitless conversation. Mrs Jaraby is not my patient. I may not be able to help at all.’

  ‘My wife is touched, Mudie.’

  ‘Touched?’

  ‘Touched in the head. A bit odd. Mad if you like.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘She will sit in a room with the television on but the sound turned off. For instance she might be watching a play. She will then turn on the wireless.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘One play on the television, one on the wireless, and she will attempt to match the voices on the wireless with the figures on the television.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘It is pitiful to see.’

  ‘Are there other signs of your wife’s unrest?’

  ‘My dear fellow, a ton of signs. She has invited a near-criminal back to the house after an absence of fifteen years. Between them they will fill the house with birds. She imagines the cat is a tiger. She speaks constantly of the hand of Death. There is madness in her family.’

  ‘If there is madness in her family –’

  ‘Her mother and father both, very queer people. Now dead of course. I fear for my son, you see. He is a deep, strange fellow with hardly a word to say for himself. Frankly, Mudie, if my son came back to live at Crimea Road I should immediately have to have both of them looked at.’

  ‘I am sorry to hear all this, Mr Jaraby. But I’m afraid there is absolutely nothing I can do.’

  ‘What I would like from you, Mudie, is pills to quieten her. Some gentle sedative she would take every day. I would have to put them in food, she would not cooperate at all. But if I could have something that would bring a little peace to the house …’

  ‘You have seen Mrs Jaraby’s doctor?’

  ‘A useless fellow, Mudie. I’ve seen him and argued and pleaded. I’ve left no stone unturned. I’m coming to you as a last resort. I’m sorry on a day like this to bother you, but the thing is on my mind.’

  ‘Yes, I can see it is a worry. But, you know, apart from imagining the cat is a tiger, I cannot see from what you have told me that Mrs Jaraby is unhinged in any way. Of course, one would have to examine her.’

  ‘No point. No point at all. She is up to every little trick and would be on her best behaviour.’

  ‘I could give you the name of a good man your wife might see.’

  ‘She would see no one. She does not go out except for shopping, which is another thing she has fallen asunder over.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘She brings outrageous produce into the house. Look, Mudie, I cannot go into all these details. The simplest thing of all is for you to write me out a prescription.’

  ‘That, I’m afraid, is not possible.’

  ‘Are there not good homes where a woman like that would be well looked after? It may come to that, I may yet be left to linger out my days alone. What would the process be to get her a bed?’

  ‘You are putting me in an awkward position, Mr Jaraby. I should not be discussing this at all. Let me give you the name of a man you might see.’

  ‘Come yourself, Mudie. Come yourself to tea one day. I will not say who you are, beyond being an Old Boy of the School. You will see how the land lies, and may feel bound to issue a certificate.’

  ‘I don’t know that I much care for that idea.’

  ‘Look, come to tea, man-to-man. Give me an opinion afterwards. No obligation. Let’s say I issue the invitation in return for this unorthodox consultation. How’s that then? I am bending over backwards to accommodate you.’

  ‘It is very kind of you, Mr Jaraby. But I have not helped you at all; you must not feel it necessary to invite me to your house as payment.’

  ‘Come on Saturday, four p.m. Ten Crimea Road. A number eighty-one bus.’

  ‘It is very civil of you –’

  ‘It is also time for The Mikado,’ laughed Mr Jaraby.

  Mr Sole, Mr Cridley and Mr Turtle sat together. They could see the peak of Fujiyama and the occasional sinister Japanese mien, but to see more they were obliged to stretch themselves this way and that, in reverse time to similar movements on the part of the person in front. Familiarity with the plot, however, allowed them to relax, and microphones carried the sound at a magnified pitch. At the end of the second act Mr Cridley said:

  ‘Turtle talked to himself all during the first bit and slept during the second. There wasn’t much point in his coming.’

  ‘She’s on his mind.’

  ‘A pretty thought, God wot. He must set sail at once for Yalta, before it’s too late.’

  ‘She’d have him for breach of promise. Wake the old fool up. What’s done cannot be undone.’

  But Mr Sole was wrong. For Mr Turtle, who had slept peacefully through the second act, had died peacefully at the end of it.

  16

  Once when he was seven years old Basil had taken a nail from an open counter in Woolworth’s. The nail was no good to him, he had no use for it, and afterwards he threw it away. But taking it, slipping his fingers up over the glass edge and snatching the nail into the palm of his hand, that had delighted him. It delighted him even more than he knew; and he didn’t guess then that taking the nail from Woolworth’s was the real beginning of his furtive life.

  As he stood in the centre of his room, his stomach twitching with anxiety, he remembered the purloining of the nail. He was thinking that he should have told the woman about it. He should have tried to explain to her that bringing her little girl to see his birds was another action of the same kind; that his life had been constructed of actions like that; that he meant no harm at all. And the little girl hadn’t been frightened. She had done what he had asked her to do, and only afterwards – when he had led her back to the playground in the park, fearing that she might not know her way; when her mother had shouted at her and at him – only then had she said that she was afraid. But the mother said her clothes were torn, which was true because she had torn them her
self, snatching the child from his hand. The mother had said that she would go with her husband to the police, and then in her fear the child was suddenly on the mother’s side; and he knew that she would lead them to where he lived.

  He spoke to the birds, explaining what had happened, and what must happen now. He sobbed for a while, and when he ceased the room was silent except for the sound of movement in the cages. Then Mrs Jaraby’s telegram arrived.

  17

  General Sanctuary remembered Turtle at school, long-legged, thin, and good at the high jump. He tried to find out about the funeral, but nobody could tell him anything. He was sorry that Turtle was dead.

  Mr Nox thought Turtle had been about to marry rather than die, and wondered how serious the former prognostication had been. Jaraby would live to a great age, Jaraby was made like that. So, he decided, would he.

  ‘A bad business,’ said Mr Sole, ‘but all for the best in the long run.’ Mr Cridley agreed. They looked forward to telling Miss Burdock.

  Sir George Ponders reminded his wife that they had never had Mr Turtle to dinner. ‘Poor old man,’ said Lady Ponders. ‘One thinks of these things too late. At least we can go to the funeral.’

  Mr Swabey-Boyns, who had not been able to attend Old Boys’ Day because of a stomach upset, tried to take the death philosophically but failed. ‘I shall be next,’ he murmured. ‘I shall outlive no one now.’ (In fact he was wrong. He outlived all his fellows on the committee. He died at ninety-two, nineteen years later, as a result of carelessness on the part of a man in a motor-car.)

  Mr Jaraby was shocked by death. Turtle had worn badly. But someone should have seen what was happening and taken him out of the Assembly Hall. No one could wish to die during a performance of The Mikado.