by H. S. Cross
John felt desperate.
—In that case, he said, I don’t see how you expect me to get anywhere with that lot. Seriously, cricket?
Burton sighed:
—Tend to the strong plants. Prune, fertilize, don’t overwater. Make them send their roots down for food. When they’ve established themselves, they’ll compete with the weeds.
—Are we still talking about cricket?
Burton snatched a book from his desk and lurched out of the study:
—Start with Wilberforce.
John flushed.
—But—he’s got no time for me.
—He trusted you enough to spill a rangy confession, didn’t he?
—That wasn’t my fault.
Burton paused at the quad door, slamming John with his gaze:
—Morgan Wilberforce is disobedient, headstrong, reckless, sexually immoral, a hard drinker and smoker, and nowhere near as clever as he imagines.
—That’s terrifically unfair!
Burton opened the door:
—Prove me wrong.
* * *
Morgan, Nathan, and Laurie disappeared from batting practice once their Deputy Captain had ticked them off the list. They’d stashed a change of clothes in the old lodge, and divested of cricket flannels, they crawled through the tunnel and traversed the woods to Fridaythorpe. At the Keys, Morgan paid for the first round and flirted, as they always did, with Polly.
Plump without being rotund, Polly wore her chestnut hair loose, pulled back in a kerchief. Her face was clear and rosy, and the color of her frock made Morgan notice that her eyes were a robin’s-egg blue. She laughed at his flirtations but did not reciprocate as she had in the past. Somehow she had become shy in a way that made Morgan feel he couldn’t touch her.
Not that he’d ever touched her, at least not in ways his father would construe as touching. He’d tickled her, kissed her cheek, squeezed her hand, but none of this, he felt, could be considered touching, per se.
The ale worked its way into his bloodstream, and Morgan began to feel as if he’d emerged from battle, though five days of an indifferent term could scarcely be considered battle. Still, as he gazed across the wobbly table, he saw Nathan and Laurie doing the same. He was exhausted. He’d been exhausted the entire hols, which according to his father’s physician was because his shoulder required extra sleep yet prevented him from sleeping properly. That was Morgan’s excuse and he was sticking to it, but he couldn’t see what Nathan and Laurie had to look so shattered about.
Nathan drained his glass and nodded for the second even though Morgan and Laurie were only halfway through theirs. When Polly brought the round, she caught Morgan’s eye and then looked away. He noticed a sprinkling of freckles across her nose. When she turned back to the bar, he saw that her frock clung to her figure and that her apron nipped it in at the waist. The seam in her stockings was crooked. Morgan was seized with the idea of straightening it using only his teeth.
He drank his pint.
—Is it Alex? Laurie asked apropos of nothing.
Nathan lowered his head.
—I’ve resolved something, he announced.
Morgan and Laurie looked up.
—I’m not going to discuss my brother, Nathan declared. At all.
Morgan did not know what to say, but Laurie had no such qualms:
—That’s a load of tosh. Why on earth won’t you discuss your brother with us?
—Because!
Nathan lowered his voice:
—If I start discussing him, I don’t know where I’ll stop, and there are things it isn’t right to say about family, no matter what.
—Is that your father talking? Morgan quipped.
Nathan’s jaw tightened and he took another long drink.
—It’s only because of your letter that I’m here at all, he told Morgan.
Morgan winced at mention of the unguarded drivel he’d written Nathan over the holidays.
—The medicine they shoved down my throat—
—Hang on, Laurie said. Are you saying you weren’t going to come back, JP?
—That’s right, Nathan said.
—But why?
Nathan exhaled heavily:
—My father wasn’t exactly thrilled about last term, was he?
—Which part of it?
—All of it. And once the Mail ran that piece, well, he wasn’t keen for us to come back.
—My grandmother was the same, Laurie said, but once the letter came explaining that S-K was ill and the Board were sorting things out and the fees would be reduced this term, she came round.
—They’ve cut the fees? Morgan said.
—Keep up, Wilber.
Nathan’s jaw stayed tight. He looked wistfully from his second empty glass to Morgan’s and Laurie’s nearly full. Laurie moved them out of Nathan’s reach and resumed his inquiry:
—Not to put too fine a point on it, JP, but your pater’s stretched finding two sets of fees. Why wouldn’t he send you back once they reduced them?
—You are out of line, Lydon.
Laurie persisted:
—Was it Alex who didn’t want to come back?
—Please, Nathan scoffed. He was dying to, the little …
—Sod?
—Jackdaw.
—Well, Laurie reasoned, of course he’d want to come back. He just pulled off the biggest rag in the history of the Cad and got away with it.
Nathan sighed heavily.
—What did your mater say? Laurie continued.
—She was with Alex, as usual!
—You mean you didn’t want to come back?
Nathan signaled to Polly for the third round.
—Take it easy, Morgan said.
—Shut up! Nathan snapped. And quit nosing into my affairs. I’m here. What more do you want?
He left the table. Morgan felt he’d been slapped.
—That’s a yes then, Laurie murmured.
—But … why?
What had Alex told Nathan about him, in the sanctuary of home, never expecting to see Morgan again?
—When you left last term, Laurie confided, Nate was angry, an absolute black temper.
—Over what?
—Over what S-K did to you! Blaming you, messing you about, disposing you.
—Oh …
Laurie wedged a beer mat under the table leg:
—It’s possible someone did a bit of service-propagande on how you found yourself at that barn.
Morgan flushed to the roots of his hair.
—But the point, Laurie said, steadying the table, is JP. He went simply firebrand against S-K. Never seen him in more of a bate. He was writing his father twice a day about it. I only just stopped him writing his MP.
Morgan’s mind spun. Nathan returned to the table with the third round, which he drank aggressively even though Morgan and Laurie were still on their second. He avoided Morgan’s gaze as he did whenever he was furious.
Morgan addressed his pint to defeat the rising tide of revelations. Laurie began to babble about moving pictures, and Nathan knocked rhythmically on the tabletop, as if applying the technique to furniture. No one interrupted Laurie’s monologue, but somewhere at the bottom of the second pint Morgan sensed a new and more welcome twinge—the thrill of realizing that things did not stack up.
—One question, Morgan said quietly. Were there newspapermen hanging about the Cad?
—No, Laurie said.
—And did either of you go to out to the barn?
—Don’t be macabre! Laurie retorted.
Not stacking up, not even a bit.
—JP?
—I thought you said one question, Nathan growled.
—Right, Morgan said, here it is. How did the Mail get a photograph of McKay’s barn with its rafter fallen down?
Nathan helped himself to Laurie’s third pint. Laurie looked from one to the other.
—Hang on, Wilber, are you suggesting…?
Morgan narrowed his e
yes:
—Oh, I’m not suggesting, I’m knowing. You—
—Shut up, Nathan warned.
—You are a regular double agent. How could you go there?
—It wasn’t difficult.
—Wait, Laurie said, just wait—
—Who else knows? Morgan demanded.
—No one.
—Besides your pater, of course.
Nathan and Laurie both gaped at him.
—Keep up! Morgan exhorted Laurie. This one hacked out to the barn, took the wretched photograph, developed it, and sent it to his pater. Who sent it to the Mail.
Laurie laughed in astonishment:
—You can’t be serious!
—S-K deserved it! Nathan cried. Alex was getting away with his rubbish, S-K was treating Morgan like a beast, Spaulding was dead, and nobody was asking what a sewer this place had become. It was unforgivable!
His ferocity silenced them. Morgan passed Nathan his third pint as the news sank in. Upright Nathan, logical Nathan: in protest against injustice and out of loyalty to Morgan, he had leaked the story and photograph to the Mail, betraying the Academy and bringing down S-K.
—What were you planning if you didn’t come back? Laurie asked at last.
Nathan glowered.
—They were quarreling over it. Father knew someone at Giggleswick, but she said we couldn’t afford it.
Morgan’s father had never discussed money with him or before him. The subject was unsavory.
—Colossal bore, her on about fees and him about cesspools. But then your letter came.
—It changed his mind? Morgan asked.
—No, Nathan said. But he telephoned your pater, and when he put the phone down, he came in and told us we were going back. So here we are.
Laurie had a thousand questions, but as far as Nathan was concerned, the conversation was finished. They settled the bill and trudged back to the woods. Nathan was dragging, having polished off five pints to their two, but they pressed on to make call-over. At the fallen tree near the tunnel entrance, they stopped to catch their breath.
—There’s only one part you haven’t told us, Morgan said through stitches, and that is what Alex has to do with anything.
Nathan tried to be sick, but failed.
—He got what he wanted, Morgan continued. You both came back. So what’s this resolution not to speak of him?
Nathan spat heavily. A chill cut through the spring afternoon.
—Tell me it isn’t true, Morgan begged.
Nathan bent over, hands on knees.
—Oh, sodding hell! Morgan complained.
—What? Laurie demanded.
—Alex knows, doesn’t he? He knows about the Mail and he knows about the photograph. Little beast has JP right under his thumb.
—Hell’s bells, Laurie said as the full enormity dawned on him.
Morgan felt the strength leave his limbs. Laurie cursed with every word in his vocabulary. Nathan finally achieved his ambition and vomited.
* * *
—Wilberforce, a word?
Mr. Grieves assaulted him on the way out of tea. Morgan cast about for rescue, but Nathan and Laurie had gone ahead. He had so far avoided direct encounter with the man and hoped he might pass the entire term without speaking to him. If Grieves said anything—one single word—about last term, Morgan would abandon him where he stood. And if he intended to set upon him with pity, Morgan would cut him to the bone. I don’t intend to discuss it, sir, at this time or any other. That he would deliver frostily. Why the devil had he ever—ever!—said to the man the things he suspected he had said? Never mind! If he prevented Grieves from speaking of it, if he firmly blocked any vulgar stabs at intimacy, if he presented Grieves the face of cynical youth, then he would never have to mind.
—You weren’t at batting practice this afternoon, Grieves declared. Why?
A brief but tactically disastrous moment passed while Morgan absorbed the salvo.
—I certainly was, Morgan retorted. Ask our DC.
—Oh, I did, Grieves replied. Unfortunately, his clipboard didn’t bear any resemblance to what I saw on the upper pitch.
—I wasn’t on the upper pitch, obviously.
—No, and you weren’t on the other pitches either.
—You seem to have had quite a bit of free time, Morgan said acidly.
—As a matter of fact, I had no end of free time.
Morgan scowled. Rather than lose his temper, Grieves lounged against the arch.
—Have it your own way. The point is you weren’t batting when you should have been, so you can bring me this—
He fished a newspaper cutting from his breast pocket.
—copied over six times by break tomorrow morning.
—What? Morgan balked.
—You heard me.
—But—you’re not—it’s none of your—
—Let’s take that as read, shall we? Grieves said coolly. Like it or not, I’ve taken an interest in your cricket, and unless you pull yourself together, you’ll find yourself victim to these little injustices on a regular basis.
—But—
—If you’ve any complaints, take them to the Headmaster pro tem. Otherwise, lines, my desk, break.
Grieves folded the cutting into Morgan’s jacket pocket and gave his good arm a clap.
—And you can mind your tongue. Masters in this school are still addressed as sir, whether you like what they have to say or not.
Morgan’s ears burned.
—Good night, Wilberforce.
And the man left him there, alone in the pointless archway, outmaneuvered—trounced.
* * *
—What the hell is that? Laurie demanded at Prep.
Morgan had sparred with a punching bag in the gym rather than complain to his friends about Grieves’s monstrous injustice. He couldn’t face Nathan’s outrage or Laurie’s scrutiny. Now he had no choice.
—The most putrid pool of putridness ever published.
Laurie read over his shoulder:
—Everything, small and great, from Summer Time to the aseptic method of surgery, has been fiercely opposed and ridiculed in the period of its innovation. Why are you copying this swill?
—The spite of Grievous, J.
—What, lines?
—I’m not discussing it.
Miraculously, they accepted his word. Laurie retreated to the window seat with a book. Nathan occupied himself repairing their wireless aerial. Morgan sat at the table and began to copy the protracted article. Within recent memory, lawn tennis has been thought effeminate and selfish. He’d never thought it any such thing. He’d thoroughly enjoyed it at Longmere every summer. As a matter of fact, lawn tennis had been the occasion for his first seduction of a girl. At least, Nathan had said that it counted as seduction even though he had only kissed her and touched the front of her dress. He was getting hard at the thought of it even though the Rosemary Romance was years ago, an Easter in many respects like the one he’d just passed: handicapped, imprisoned, agitated beyond measure.
The passage moved from lawn tennis to the game of cricket, declaring it the source of that spirit of unselfish team-work which has undoubtedly made England what it is. Did Grieves believe this excrement? The clipping went on to recount cricket’s humble beginnings as a coarse and dangerous pastime which men of breeding ought at all costs to avoid; to describe a number of spectacular injuries sustained by players over the years; and to extol the puke-worthy refiner’s fire that was an afternoon of overs spent in defense of wickets and pursuit of runs. It took him nearly a quarter of an hour to copy the thing out once. His hand was sore.
A knock at the study door interrupted their labors. Alex let himself in without waiting for permission.
—Bugger off, Laurie commanded.
—That, Alex said.
—What? Nathan replied.
—I need it.
Nathan lurched to his feet, snatched a book from the shelf, and bundled his brother into the
corridor, closing the door behind them.
Laurie, slack-jawed, turned to Morgan:
—Tell me that isn’t what it looks like.
—How much d’you think he’s giving him?
Before they could say any more, Nathan returned, replaced the book, and resumed the wireless:
—I’m not discussing it.
Morgan flushed with outrage:
—If he’s blackmailing you, you ought to tell your pater. It isn’t right.
—I said I’m not discussing it!
Laurie fled behind his book. Morgan exhaled aggravation and embarked on the second copy of Grieves’s abominable clipping.
* * *
Morgan Wilberforce delivered his imposition, though with such naked contempt that John felt he’d miscalculated. He accepted the lines, and as Wilberforce waited, John opened a fresh exercise book he had taken care to procure that morning. Uncapping his fountain pen, he wrote the date at the top of the first page and extended the book to Wilberforce:
—Sign.
Wilberforce was too shocked to comment. He took John’s pen as if it might bite him and wrote his name below the date. John capped the pen, blotted the page, smoothed out the clipping, and unscrewed a pot of paste. He wasn’t handy and had never kept a photo album, but he took his time and behaved, as the minutes of break ticked by, as if nothing could be more soothing or satisfactory than applying adhesive to the back of a clipping and pressing said newsprint into an exercise book beneath Wilberforce’s sloppy signature. Despite a deliberate iciness, Wilberforce fidgeted, absorbed and horrified by John’s actions.
By the grace of God, John managed to affix the article and to close the paste pot without spilling anything, tearing anything, or getting anything unpleasant on his clothing. He placed the exercise book in the drawer of his desk conspicuously beside the attendance ledger. This accomplished, he tore up Wilberforce’s unexamined lines and deposited them in the wastepaper basket.
—That will do, John said with forced cheer, off you go.
He could not recall a more murderous expression. His hands were still shaking when he poured his coffee in the SCR. None of his colleagues had mentioned the business, so presumably word had not got round. Not that it was significant! It was a workaday episode of school discipline. There was no reason for anyone to think about it for a single second.