by H. S. Cross
As he’d returned to the dorm afterwards, alone in the half-lit corridor, he’d sensed someone beside him. He saw nothing, but he could feel a warm arm bumping against his. The second boy was with him, not to gloat or to criticize but rather it seemed in fellowship, matching Morgan’s gait as if he were returning from the same disastrous ordeal. He offered no comment, but Morgan felt this one knew his distress—provoked in equal measure by the despicable JCR and by his own foolish self.
But that was all rubbish that belonged to the previous evening. Now he had to face the ruthlessness of day. On the way to the chapel, he had to pass Kilby; at prayers he had to listen to Barlow’s announcements about changes to the afternoon’s cricket matches; in Primus he had to face the Eagle’s viva on prosody, for which he was unprepared. Droit appeared at this point and cursed the Eagle for his intemperate demands and Barlow for meddling with the cricket timetable. Droit said nothing of the JCR’s crimes the night before, but he let Morgan know that they would not be thwarted. Morgan wanted to put his head in his hands. The bench was hard and close to the front of the room. If ever he deserved a bit of anonymity in the back, it was today. Droit told him to quit whingeing and focus on essential matters, namely Polly and her cunning fingers. Thanks to Barlow, the afternoon was impossible, but this evening, being Saturday, afforded ample time. What Morgan had to do, Droit explained, was recruit Nathan and Laurie. He need not visit the Cross Keys alone to canoodle with Polly. If his friends were there, they might usefully engage Polly’s father in conversation whilst Morgan and Polly got on with things in the kitchen.
Morgan wondered whether he ought to bring Polly a present. What did one bring a girl when courting her? Flowers? Droit was in his element now. First, he explained, flowers were bulky and thus out of the question. Second, they were not courting Polly, they were seducing her. Nevertheless, it wouldn’t hurt to bring an offering. Sweets from the tuckshop? A bit ordinary perhaps, but Droit explained it was all in the presentation. Polly would be delighted if Morgan made up his mind to delight her.
—Apostrophe, the Eagle said. Wilberforce?
—Sir?
—Stand up, boy. And try to wake up while you’re at it.
He stood by degrees, cursing Kilby and every JCR in existence. The Eagle repeated the word he wanted defined. Morgan glanced around, but no help arrived.
—Apostrophes show possession, sir, or missing letters.
—Very witty, the Eagle rejoined. And where is the apostrophe in, say, Batter My Heart Three-person’d God?
He was on weak sand.
—Before the d in person’d, sir?
The Eagle marked his ledger:
—Another minus. At this rate, the entire form is headed for extra-tu.
A clamor of protest erupted. Extra-tu wasn’t possible, sir. They had cricket. Some of them were in the first match, others in the second, and yet more in the third. The rest had been recruited to referee or keep score. Surely Mr. Lockett-Egan had heard the Head say that attendance was compulsory at all matches. They simply had no time!
And anyway, it wasn’t fair, sir. They’d only just returned from the hols. It wasn’t fair for the Eagle to expect them to remember so much from the Fourth. That was two years ago, sir! The Eagle reminded them that there had been prosody on their Remove last summer, but they protested it was still too long ago. And anyway, sir, how could they be expected to keep words straight when they had more than one meaning?
—Wilberforce wasn’t wrong about apostrophe, sir, Laurie argued. And if you’d given him another chance, I’m sure he would have said what you meant him to say, that the apostrophe is the speaker addressing God, which is more or less what he did say.
The Eagle was at the end of his tether, which Laurie muttered must be rather a short tether since it was not yet nine o’clock of a Saturday morning. The Eagle showered them with invective and then commanded them to copy out, again, pages four through seven of their poetry primers, to be passed in Monday morning, no exceptions, on pain of visit to his study, which, he assured them, would deprive no one of cricket as he didn’t approve of caning across the hand.
Morgan spent the remainder of the period uncomfortable in his seat but diverted, at least, by Droit’s double entendres as Morgan copied definitions for metonymy and synecdoche, apostrophe, anaphora, antonomasia, and any number of nonsense terms.
* * *
—Wilberforce, Mr. Grieves said, a word.
It was barely half past nine; Morgan needed a cup of tea more than life itself, and here was bloody Grieves calling him out of his own lesson before it had even begun, no doubt to bollock him in the corridor like some oversize tyro. If Grieves thought he would get a reaction, he was bloody well mistaken.
The man closed the door and crossed his arms:
—I would appreciate it, Wilberforce, if you would leave me out of your egregious deceptions in future.
Morgan squinted.
—I don’t enjoy being accosted by Prefects of Hall first thing in the morning and asked why I saw fit to extend my nonexistent conference with you into evening prayers.
Morgan examined the brickwork.
—Take your hands out of your pockets and do me the decency of speaking to me when I ask you a question, Mr. Grieves snapped.
—What was the question, sir?
—You are on the thinnest ice, Wilberforce!
—Already, sir?
Mr. Grieves flinched, but then, rather than explode, he wrenched open the classroom door and stormed inside.
* * *
Something was the matter with his digestion. Everything that John put in his mouth—and that wasn’t much—soured his stomach, yet fasting left him light-headed and fractious. What’s more, it seemed his colleagues were laboring under similarly strained nerves. John felt that the departure of the Board’s accountants would offer some relief, but the Eagle demurred.
—It’s a classic scapegoating, he told John at break. The books are a disaster, and since the Board will never admit lack of oversight, they’ll fasten onto Burton and wring him till the pips squeak, as the saying goes.
John thought there might be something the matter with the cream in his coffee.
—Germany hasn’t proved a very productive lemon under Allied squeezing, he said, so I can’t imagine why they think Burton will pull missing funds out of a hat.
—Exactly, the Eagle concluded.
John thought it prudent not to reveal that he was once again failing to follow matters of accountancy and politics. He understood the undercurrents of the Board vs. Burton about as much as he understood the complexities of the TUC vs. Whitehall (or was it the Miners vs. the Mine Owners, or the Proletariat vs. the Capitalists?); that was to say, not much.
John wondered if it was his imagination or whether the world really was growing more irrational and more perilous with each passing month. A better man than he would be teaching at the slum school in London, serving those poor wretches whose fathers, in all likelihood, would soon take violently to the streets protesting wages and conditions down the mines. As it was, John’s most pressing responsibilities were his last two lessons of the day and his unofficial maneuvering on the sidelines of the cricket, both enough to turn his stomach. What had ever happened to standing against the world, resolute before white feathers, zealous and bold?
John left his coffee and went to splash cold water on his face. The sooner someone put him out of his misery the better.
* * *
The Headmaster pro tem upset their luncheon with a scandalous announcement: Saturday evenings would run differently henceforth. Tonight after tea, the school would repair to the gymnasium. There call-over would occur, and there, the Headmaster pro tem was pleased to announce, they would enjoy a moving picture. Burton perhaps misinterpreted the murmurs of consternation, for he smiled and assured them that the wonders of cinema had indeed arrived at St. Stephen’s Academy. Tonight, in common with city cinema—
—Proper cinema, Laurie mumbled.
—they would be shown a newsreel, after which they would have the very considerable pleasure of viewing—
—I’d rather be viewing the backs of my eyes, Morgan groaned.
The Headmaster pro tem informed them that REN had gone to considerable trouble to procure the equipment and reels; he asked them to join him in offering Mr. Eton-Knowles their hearty thanks.
Morgan cursed at length but decided the Flea’s announcement need not prove a disaster. They had not been deterred by Barlow’s fiddling with the Games timetable, and they wouldn’t be undone by the Flea’s cinematic ambitions. Morgan needed to relax before he did something drastic.
That afternoon Droit appeared on the sidelines wearing spotless flannels and smoking a French cigarette. Interspersed among droll remarks about the SCR and criticism of the batting, bowling, and fielding of both sides, Droit revealed his Cunning Solution. With Nathan and Laurie they would attend call-over and then slip out once the lights had gone off. The gym would be a sardine box, and none of them would be missed. Morgan declared that he was in no mood for another dose from the JCR, but Droit instructed him to buck up. If Morgan would merely keep his eye on the ball, figuratively and, yes, literally, now as a matter of fact, minding his head—
Morgan recoiled and flailed the bat before his face. A thwack and a clatter. He spun around to see the off stump toppled to the ground.
He had dragged the ball on. His chest clenched. A ripple of applause for the bowler, and Nathan appeared, bat in hand:
—That was close. He almost nobbed you. Who knew Bux had a bouncer?
Morgan’s lungs strained.
—What’s the matter? Nathan asked.
Morgan staggered from the pitch. The air was too thick. He needed to sit down out of the sun.
Inside the mildewed pavilion, he collapsed on a bench and put his head in his hands. The ball had nearly hit him, and then it had gone right past. For the first time in his life, he’d been out for a duck, and a golden one at that. Bux wasn’t even a bowler of note; he’d never been anything but Spaulding’s lieutenant, but just now he’d bowled as if … It made no sense. He couldn’t bear to think about it.
Only a child would complain about Bux. Only a child would expect justice from the world. Certainly it had been wrong for Spaulding to die, but did that mean it was right for other people to do it? Criminals, perhaps, but others? The Old Boys in Long Passage were said to have made a great sacrifice, but from the way everyone behaved, especially those who’d known them, their so-called sacrifice seemed like a monstrosity. If it was wrong for his mother to have died at the age of forty-four, did that mean it was right for Nathan’s grandfather to have died at eighty-nine? Justice, plainly, had nothing to do with death.
He could sometimes feel his mother very near, and he could recall, somewhere not in his mind, her lips on his forehead, her whistling of hymns as she moved through the house, the way she would come and sit on the edge of his bed when he called in the night, listening to his dreams and then recasting them, whimsical or heroic. Was she really not waiting at home, having merely been delayed, hungry for everything Morgan could tell her?
The world was ill to the core.
He pressed the heels of his hands against his eye sockets. His chest still stabbed, but he was managing to breathe. His father, too, was breathing, and his sisters, not to mention Spaulding’s lieutenants and his Captain of Games. They were all of them breathing: Veronica, Emily, Flora, Bux, Ledge, Andrewes, Morgan himself. This carrying on was nothing short of perversion.
Applause filtered through the cracked window. Nathan had either scored or been bowled out. It was hot. Perhaps he had heatstroke. Perhaps he was unfit, on some level, for living.
The bench teetered as weight settled at the other end. Morgan didn’t turn, but he could feel him, an arm’s length away, the other boy.
—I don’t know who you are, Morgan said aloud, and I don’t know what you want.
He pressed thumbs against his eyebrows and the icy pain there. The other boy said nothing, as usual.
—You’ve got bad manners at any rate, Morgan muttered.
If he was going to start cracking up, he might as well do it properly.
The bench didn’t wobble, but the boy moved near and rested elbows on knees. A lock of dark hair escaped his cap. This boy wasn’t gauche, not really, but he wasn’t Droit, not shrewd, not witty or worldly. Morgan didn’t know what to call him; he was simply … the other one.
With dusty hands, the boy removed his cap, a Lower School cap in Morgan’s House colors. His arm did not touch Morgan’s, but Morgan could feel its heat through the fabric of his sleeve, just as he could feel the pressure of this boy’s leg against his own. Out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed the boy’s palm, bruised from play, and the name tag inside his cap. Written in ink neither blue nor black but a smeary red, the letters I, A, M … that was all he could read.
23
Some days John wasn’t sure whether he was employed by a public school or by a training camp for young cricketers. They’d spent more hours playing cricket that term than they’d spent aggregate on any game since 1919.
All right, but if he couldn’t indulge in a little hyperbole, what could he do? Nothing worthwhile was happening in the classrooms, but at least conduct hadn’t deteriorated further. Burton had been relentless in his Arnoldian pursuit of Games, and the ceaseless cricket had been joined by cross-country, fives, and even badminton. At first the boys ridiculed the badminton, but Burton directed the DCs to work up ladders and offer prizes. Observing the success of prizes with the badminton, Burton introduced them for running and for achievements in cricket. Rewards took the form of points, which could be used as credit in the tuckshop. The Upper School regarded the prizes with thick irony, but the Lower School began to compete for them. John knew that no amount of busy athleticism could ameliorate grief, much less eliminate unsavory practices, but since all this compelled vigorous exercise daily, it went a long way towards draining their energies.
And it happened that the cricket was improving. John couldn’t deny that it would make a good impression come Patron’s Day in June, nor could he deny feeling a certain vindication watching the game work upon their characters. Jamie had always been philistine about cricket. There’s nothing to it, he’d declare. Their men lob cork at your men, repeat until ten wickets fall or your side wins. People were always scandalized, but that, John supposed, had been the point.
John himself was no cricket sage, but given St. Stephen’s aging SCR, he could do more on the pitch than most. If he were the genuine article, he would be coaching them not merely to hit a cork, but to understand the delicate art of building a partnership, two batsmen coming together, watching each other down the pitch, taking their runs and jointly building a fine total, their change of ends after each over bringing the side one step closer to a famous win. And then he would throw in the technical aspects—the off stump of your wicket is the most important of the three, the most difficult and critical to defend—except his remarks would ring beyond the cricket pitch, echoing into the battles they were all of them fighting without even realizing it.
It seemed a great injustice that no competent authority existed to educate St. Stephen’s boys physically, intellectually, or morally. When he was at school, they had ridiculed every master for one foible or another, but he had always regarded his masters as reliable on the most basic level. They possessed a mastery of their magisteria beyond reproach. The ways of those men may frequently have been incomprehensible, but there had been reason and experience behind them. The two times John remembered being punished unfairly by a master (once at prep and once at Marlborough) happened because the master in question had been unaware of his circumstances or motives. Boy justice, by contrast, was often unfair, and often an instrument of vendetta. Men were above this. They knew what they were about and had something to impart.
Now that John was a man himself—at least he knew he had to consider himself one;
he’d turned thirty in January—he felt he’d somehow fallen into perpetrating a magnificent fraud. Some amongst his colleagues knew their subject matters deeply—Burton-Lee, the Eagle, and Clement—and some possessed a talent for imparting that knowledge—Burton-Lee, the Eagle … actually, just those two. He didn’t condemn his colleagues whole cloth; he observed each of them doing something of value daily (or at least weekly?). The trouble was, he didn’t think any of them had anything authoritative to convey. They were busking. Circumstance demanded he act the role of master, yet he was painfully aware of how poor a specimen he was.
* * *
Polly had let him do almost everything except the thing boys aimed to do with a girl. Little else occupied his mind but the sight, touch, and taste of those parts of her body she kept concealed beneath her clothing. She was coy on the topic of actual … what to call it? Nathan called it making love, which struck Morgan as abstract. Morgan wasn’t sure if he loved Polly enough to marry her, but she was very pretty, and he was very fond of her. Laurie referred to the act as coitus, a term surely too academic for such a girl. The Pearl employed a plethora of verbs, all of them unthinkable vis-à-vis Polly.
Surely the point, Droit mused as they watched the First XI play Pocklington, was not what to call the act, but how to achieve it. And if Morgan was still clinging to the hope that Polly would raise the subject, then it was high time he stopped dreaming. No decent girl would ever suggest l’amour complet unprompted. L’amour complet! Morgan liked the term. It had continental flair. Furthermore, it made clear that while lesser acts might spring from l’amour, it was necessary to penetrate the final barrier to achieve romantic completion. How, though, to raise the subject without coming off a cad?