I wonder what Marlene thinks of it all. After all, she too has lost a son. I asked her today, in passing, as Pat was collecting his things (plants, books, cards, a barrage of Get Well balloons). And I asked her too a question that has remained unasked for so long that it took another murder to give it voice at last.
“Marlene,” I said. “What happened to the baby?”
She was standing by the bed with her reading glasses on, scrutinizing the label on a potted palm. I meant Leon’s child, of course—Leon and Francesca’s—and she must have known it, because her face became abruptly still, taking on a careful lack of expression that reminded me briefly of Mrs. Knight.
“This plant’s very dry,” she said. “It needs watering. God knows, Roy, you’ll never manage to look after them all.”
I looked at her. “Marlene,” I said.
It would have been her grandchild, after all. Leon’s child; the hopeful shoot; the living proof that he had lived, that life goes on, that spring comes round—all clichés, I know, but such are the small wheels upon which the big wheels turn, and where would we be without them?
“Marlene,” I repeated.
Her eyes went to Bishop, who was talking to Rosie some distance away. Then, slowly, she nodded. “I wanted to take him,” she said at last. “He was Leon’s son, and of course I wanted him. But I was divorced; too old to adopt; I had a daughter who needed me and a job that took time. Grandmother or not, they’d never let me take him. And I knew too that if I saw him—even once—I’d never be able to let him go.”
They had put the baby up for adoption. Marlene had never tried to find out where he’d gone. It could have been anywhere. No names, no addresses are exchanged. He could be anyone. We might even have seen him without knowing it, at an interschool cricket match, on a train, or just passing in the street. He could be dead—it happens, you know—or he could be right here, right now, a fourteen-year-old boy among a thousand others, a young half-familiar face, a flop of hair, a look—
“It can’t have been easy.”
“I managed,” she said.
“And now?”
A pause. Pat was ready to go. Now he approached my bedside, unfamiliar in jeans and T-shirt (St. Oswald’s Masters wear a suit), and smiled.
“We’ll manage,” said Marlene, and took Pat’s hand. It was the first time I’d seen her do that; and it was then that I understood I’d never see either of them at St. Oswald’s again.
“Good luck,” I said, meaning good-bye.
For a moment they stood at the foot of my bed, hand in hand, looking down at me. “Take care, old man,” said Pat. “I’ll see you around. God, I can hardly even see you now behind all those bloody flowers.”
8
Monday, 6th December
Apparently I’m not wanted. Or so Bob Strange told me when I turned up at work this morning. “For God’s sake, Roy. It won’t kill the boys to miss a few Latin lessons!”
Well, maybe not; but I happen to care about my boys’ results, I happen to care about the future of Classics in school, and besides, I feel a lot better.
Oh, the doctor said what doctors usually say; but I remember Bevans when he was just a little round boy in my Latin class, with a habit of perpetually removing one shoe during lessons, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let him order me about.
I found they’d put Meek in charge of my form. I could tell that from the noise that drifted down through the floor of the Quiet Room; an oddly nostalgic accumulation of sounds, among which Anderton-Pullitt’s persistent treble and Brasenose’s resonant boom were immediately recognizable. There was laughter too, drifting down the stairwell, and for a moment it could have been any time—any time at all—with the sound of boys laughing, and Meek protesting, and the smell of chalk and burnt toast coming up from the Middle Corridor, and the distant blam of bells and doors and footsteps and the peculiar slithering, sliding sound of satchels being dragged along the polished floor, and the heels of my colleagues tap-tapping their way to some office, some meeting, and the dusty golden air of the Bell Tower shining thick with motes.
I took a deep breath.
Ahhh.
It feels as if I have been away for years, but already I can feel the events of the past weeks dropping away, like some dream that happened to someone else a long, long time ago. Here at St. Oswald’s there are still battles to be fought; lessons to be taught; boys to be instructed on the subtleties of Horace and the perils of the ablative absolute. A Sisyphean task: but one with which, as long as I am still standing, I mean to continue. Mug of tea in one hand, copy of the Times (open at the crossword page) tucked neatly under one arm, gown flapping dustily against the polished floor, I make my way resolutely toward the Bell Tower.
“Ah. Straitley.” That’ll be Devine. There’s no mistaking that dry, disapproving voice, or the fact that he never calls me by my first name.
There he was, standing by the stairs; gray suit, pressed gown, and blue silk tie. Starchy doesn’t begin to describe his stiffness; his face wooden as a tobacconist’s Indian in the morning sun. Of course, after the Dare business he is in my debt, and that, I suppose, makes it worse.
Behind him, two men, suited and shod for administrative action, stood like sentinels. Of course. The inspectors. I’d forgotten, in all the excitement, that they were due today, although I had noticed an unusual degree of reserve and decorum amongst the boys as they arrived, and there were three disabled parking spaces in the visitors’ car park that I was sure hadn’t been there the previous night.
“Ah. The Inquisition.” I sketched a vague salute.
Old Sourgrape gave me one of his looks. “This is Mr. Bramley,” he said, gesturing deferentially toward one of the visitors, “and this is his colleague, Mr. Flawn. They’ll be following your lessons this morning.”
“I see,” I said. Trust Devine to arrange that on my first day back. Still, a man who will stoop to the Health and Safety Maneuver will stop at nothing, and besides, I’ve been at St. Oswald’s for too long to be intimidated by a couple of Suits with clipboards. I gave them my heartiest smile and riposted at once. “Well, I’m just on my way to the Classics office,” I said. “It’s so important to have a space of one’s own, don’t you think? Oh, don’t mind him,” I told the inspectors as Devine set off down the Middle Corridor like a clockwork gazelle. “He’s a bit excitable.”
Five minutes later we reached the office. A nice little space, I have to say; I’ve always liked it, and now that Devine’s lot have had it repainted, it looks even more welcoming. My spider plants are back from whatever cupboard Devine had consigned them, and my books pleasingly arranged on a series of shelves behind my desk. Best of all, the printed sign saying GERMAN OFFICE has been replaced by a neat little plaque which reads simply: CLASSICS.
Well, you know, some days you win, some days you lose. And it was with a certain sense of victory that I sailed into room fifty-nine this morning, causing Meek’s jaw to drop and a sudden silence to fall over the Bell Tower.
It lasted a few seconds; and then a sound began to rise from the floorboards, a rumbling sound like a rocket about to take off; and then they were on their feet, all of them; clapping and cheering and yelling and laughing. Pink and Niu; Allen-Jones and McNair; Sutcliff and Brasenose and Jackson and Anderton-Pullitt and Adam-czyck and Tayler and Sykes. All my boys—well, not quite all—and as they stood there, laughing and clapping and yelling my name, I saw Meek stand too, his bearded face lighting up in a genuine smile.
“It’s Quaz!”
“It’s alive!”
“You’re back, sir!”
“Does that mean we still don’t get a proper teacher this term?”
I looked at my fob watch. Snapped it shut. On the lid, the school motto: Audere, agere, auferre.
To dare, to strive, to conquer.
Of course I have no way of knowing for sure if it was Miss Dare who sent it to me, but I am sure it was. I wonder where she is—who she is—now. In any case, something tells me
that we may not have heard the last of her. The thought does not trouble me as once it might. We have met challenges before and overcome them. Wars; deaths; scandals. Boys and staff may come and go; but St. Oswald’s stands forever. Our little slice of eternity.
Is that why she did it? I can almost believe it was. She has cut a place for herself in the heart of St. Oswald’s; in three months she has become a legend. What now? Will she return to invisibility—a small life, a simple job, perhaps even a family? Is that what monsters do when the heroes grow old?
For a second I let the noise increase. The din was tremendous; as if not thirty but three hundred boys were running riot in the little room. The Bell Tower shook; Meek looked concerned; even the pigeons on the balcony flew off in a clap of feathers. It was a moment that will stay with me for a long time. The winter sunlight slanting through the windows; the tumbled chairs, the scarred desks, the schoolbags strewn across the faded floorboards; the smell of chalk and dust, wood and leather, mice and men. And the boys, of course. Floppy-haired boys, wild-eyed and grinning, shiny foreheads gleaming in the sun; exuberant leapers; inky-fingered reprobates; foot stampers and cap flingers and belly roarers with shirts untucked and subversive socks at the ready.
There are times when a percussive whisper does the trick. At other times, however, on the rare occasion that a statement really needs to be made, one may sometimes resort to a shout.
I opened my mouth, and nothing came out.
Nothing. Not a peep.
Out in the corridor the lesson bell rang, a distant buzz that I sensed rather than heard beneath the classroom roar. For a moment I was sure that this was the end; that I had lost my touch as well as my voice; that the boys, instead of jumping to attention, would simply rise up and stampede at the sound of the bell, leaving me like poor Meek, feeble and protesting in their anarchic wake. For a moment I almost believed it as I stood at the door with my tea mug in my hand and the boys like jack-in-the-boxes jumping with glee.
Then I took two steps onto my quarterdeck, laid both hands on the desktop, and tested my lungs.
“Gentlemen. Silence!”
Just as I thought.
Sound as ever.
About the Author
JOANNE HARRIS is the author of six other novels, Sleep, Pale Sister; Chocolat; Blackberry Wine; Five Quarters of the Orange; Coastliners; and Holy Fools; a short story collection, Jigs & Reels; and two cookbook-memoirs, My French Kitchen and The French Market. Half French and half British, she lives in England.
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