‘Why me?’
‘Anything under forty in trousers is meat and drink to our Lucy. And there isn’t all that much competition.’
Manifold, running a mental rule over old Mr Diplock, the bluff Commander Gregory Gaze and young Constance Latrobe, was forced to agree that the candidates for the role of Lothario were thin on the ground.
It was after eleven when they left the pub. Nigel had stopped off at Elizabeth’s cottage and Manifold walked the four hundred yards from Boxwood Village to the school by himself. The grounds of Trenchard House occupied the angle between the secondary London to Chichester road and a side turning which took in Tinmans Common and Rudgwick Green and joined the main Chichester road a couple of miles lower down. Nigel had advised him to use the side gate on this road. There was a path from it directly to the north wing of the house where most of the staff had their rooms.
‘If you use the front door,’ he said, ‘you’ll probably find Mrs F waiting for you with a rolling pin.’
‘Or an open invitation,’ said Elizabeth.
Manifold was grinning at the thought as he let himself in and made his way to what had formerly been Mr Millison’s bedroom. He wondered about Mr Millison. The weapons in the hands of a preparatory school master are such that nobody, surely, needed to tolerate disorder. Perhaps he had been a masochist. Just as some men got a thrill out of being tyrannized over by women, he supposed that some men might get a similar kick out of being bullied by small boys. It seemed improbable.
The bed was hard, but not uncomfortable. Manifold was turning over for the third time and on the brink of sleep when he heard the creak of a board in the passage outside.
Mrs Fairfax? Hardly as quick off the mark as that, surely.
The door of the next room opened and shut. Commander Gaze, it seemed, had also been out late.
4
Once more, thought Commander Gaze, and he would have been round the cricket field six times. His face, normally brick red, was bright scarlet and his white hair was fluffed, but his breathing was unhurried and his heart seemed to be behaving properly. A lifetime in the Royal Navy taught you one thing at least. How to keep fit.
The pavilion. Two hundred yards to go. Commander Gaze had enjoyed the Royal Navy. The recollection of some of the indignities he had suffered as midshipman still had the power to make him squirm, but after that it had mostly been simple pleasure. There had been a few bad moments during the war, of course.
Sixth round accomplished. Now for a cold bath. He hoped that the new man was not going to be difficult about sharing the bathroom.
The headmaster gazed down at the school assembled for morning prayers. The boys looked reasonably alert. Like Commander Gaze, they had performed the curious ritual of plunging their bodies into cold water, although in their case from compulsion rather than choice. The new man looked reasonably fresh. Latrobe seemed to be half asleep. Arthur Diplock was a disgraceful sight. He liked to win an extra five minutes in bed by shaving after breakfast. Ware had not yet arrived. He would try to sneak in unnoticed during the hymn.
New every morning is the love
Our wakening and uprising prove;
Through sleep and darkness safely brought,
Restored to life, and power, and thought.
New mercies, each returning day,
Hover around us while we pray;
New perils past, new sins forgiven,
New thoughts of God, new hopes of heaven.
Did the words mean anything to the boys who were singing them? Were they aware of the perils? He very much doubted it. Ah! Here came Nigel, trying to slide in unobtrusively.
The lesson was read by the boys in turn. Today it was McMurtrie. A very satisfactory boy, and an excellent head of the school. His father, Sir Charles McMurtrie, was something high up in one of the curious outfits which operated around Queen Anne’s Gate. Alastair read like a veteran, casting his eyes ahead to sort out the awkward passages. No hesitation, no fumbling. He would go a long way.
‘O Lord, our heavenly Father, Almighty and everlasting God, who hast safely brought us to the beginning of this day–’
Bring us safely to the end of it, thought Mr Fairfax. He pronounced a blessing on his flock and watched them file into breakfast.
‘You will have to make arrangements to isolate Maxwell at once,’ said Mrs Fairfax.
‘Oh,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Why?’
‘Why? Because he’s got measles, of course. Didn’t you see his stomach?’
‘I saw his stomach,’ agreed Elizabeth. ‘But it can’t be measles. He hasn’t been outside the school in the first six weeks of term. And if he’d picked it up at half term, it wouldn’t have shown yet. Anyway, measles spots usually start on the chest and shoulders.’
‘If it isn’t measles, what is it?’
‘Heat rash. Probably brought on by overeating at half term.’
‘We can’t take the risk.’
‘There’s no risk involved,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Yes, Mr Manifold?’
‘I hope I’m not interrupting something important. I just wanted to find out about laundry arrangements.’
‘Laundry goes on Fridays and comes back on Tuesdays. There’s a basket in the bathroom you share with the Commander. If there’s some washing you want done urgently–’
‘I can survive until Tuesday,’ said Manifold with a smile. He had enjoyed the conversation which he had overheard. There was an unexpected touch of steel in Elizabeth. A nurse’s training evidently taught you more than how to empty bedpans.
‘Up, down. Up, down,’ said Sergeant Baker. ‘Throw those shoulders back, open the chest, breathe deeply. One, two. Now down and touch your toes. Gedge, you’re bending your knees.’
‘I’m not the right shape for touching my toes,’ said Gedge.
‘Then we must make you the right shape, mustn’t we. That’s what PT is all about.’
‘You’re out of date, Sergeant,’ said Sacher. ‘It’s not called Physical Training now. It’s Physical Education. It’s meant to be gentle and rhythmic co-ordination of mind and body.’
‘Lovely,’ said Sergeant Baker. ‘We’ll do a few gentle and rhythmic press-ups. On the front, down. Raise the body slowly, and lower it slowly, but do not allow it to touch the ground.’
‘I don’t believe he’s a qualified instructor at all,’ said Joscelyne. ‘He’s just a sadist.’
The staff-room contained one very old arm-chair, two wicker chairs, one revolving chair with a dangerous tip-back, and one deck-chair. Mr Diplock had prescriptive rights to the arm-chair. The others took pot luck. It was the eleven o’clock break.
‘The tea’s all right,’ said Nigel, ‘but I shouldn’t try the biscuits, not unless you’ve got good teeth. Mrs F buys a jumbo-size tin at the beginning of term and tries to make it last for twelve weeks.’
‘No milk or sugar, thank you,’ said Commander Gaze. ‘Never touch them. Nor biscuits.’
‘What a sad life you lead,’ said Nigel. ‘I eat everything I like, and I never get any fatter. What did you do at half term, Dip?’
‘I went up to London.’
‘For a weekend of lechery?’
‘I am, alas, too old for lechery,’ said Mr Diplock. ‘I went to stay with my aunts. They have a house in Barnet and keep a goat in the garden.’
‘What about you, Connie?’
‘I went to Guildford. They’ve got a new theatre. I wanted to have a look at it.’
‘If you went to Guildford on a summer weekend,’ said Manifold, ‘you were lucky to find room in a hotel, I guess.’
‘As a matter of fact, I didn’t. I slept in my car.’
‘You can’t sleep in an Austin 1100,’ said Nigel. ‘Not unless you’ve got collapsible legs.’
‘Well, I didn’t sleep much,’ agreed Latrobe. ‘But it was worth it. It’s a beautiful theatre, and it was The Three Sisters. Absolutely one of my favourite plays.’
‘Russian,’ said the Commander. ‘Long haired introverts sit
ting round in a darkroom talking psychological clap-trap.’
‘Have you ever seen one of Chekhov’s plays?’
‘No, thank God.’
‘Then it’s pretty stupid to criticize them.’
‘What did you do, GG?’ said Nigel hastily.
‘I took a bit of God’s fresh air into my lungs. Went for a hike along the South Down Ridgeway. Covered twenty miles. Spent the night in a pub, and walked home on Sunday.’
That sounds an excellent programme,’ said Manifold. Disregarding Nigel’s warning he had sunk his teeth into a ginger-snap biscuit and had some difficulty in proceeding. ‘Wha putch ayat?’
‘I beg your pardon.’
‘I said, what pub did you stay at?’
‘The White Horse at Tilgate. Why?’
‘Good pubs are always worth remembering,’ said Manifold.
‘I wouldn’t walk twenty miles to get a drink,’ said Mr Diplock. ‘However good it was.’
The discussion was broken up by the bell.
‘Are you coming down to the Lion?’ said Nigel.
‘Not tonight,’ said Manifold. ‘I’ve decided to be a conscientious schoolmaster every other night. A history test for One-B and a bit of French translation to get ready for One-A. Linguists like Sacher and Joscelyne keep you up to the mark.’
He had worked steadily for half an hour when Mr Diplock drifted in and settled down in his arm-chair with The Times crossword. It took him twenty-five minutes to finish it.
‘My record is nine minutes thirty seconds,’ he said. ‘It’s set by different men on different days of the week. Did you know? The Tuesday puzzle is always the easiest. The man who sets it clearly did Hamlet and Midsummer Night’s Dream for School Certificate.’
‘I must be one of the few people in England,’ said Manifold, ‘who have never solved a single clue in any crossword puzzle in my life.’
‘It’s a terrible waste of time,’ agreed Mr Diplock. ‘But then, most hobbies are a waste of time. Have you got one?’
Manifold abandoned the history test and considered the matter.
‘I’m very fond of motor bicycles. I like taking them to pieces and putting them together again. What about you?’
‘I’m a keen photographer. I’ve got three cameras. A Nikon EL f1.4 with a fifty-five millimetre lens, a Hassalblatt and an Asahi Pentax SV. They all take interchangeable telescopic lenses. I keep them up in my room. If I brought them down here that oaf GG would probably sit on them.’
‘Any particular subjects?’
Mr Diplock said, with a secret smile, ‘I take a great many pictures of animals in their natural surroundings.’
‘Like your aunt’s goat.’
Mr Diplock looked blank for a moment, and then said, ‘Oh, yes. I have a number of studies of my aunt’s goat. She’s a female. But I mustn’t disturb you.’
When Mr Diplock had pottered off, Manifold returned to his test but his mind seemed no longer to be concentrated on it. At a quarter to ten he sighed, got up and put away the papers. They went into the cupboard which had been allotted to him and which still had, on the door, a neatly typed label “M H Millison Dip. Ed.” The sight seemed to amuse Manifold.
The building now occupied by Trenchard House Preparatory School had been constructed in the form of an E, with a thick backbone, which held all the important rooms, and three thinner wings. Originally it had been a finely proportioned building; but, just as the youthful body becomes overlaid in later life with unfunctional and disproportionate excrescences, so had Trenchard House deteriorated in the hands of subsequent owners. A horticultural enthusiast had added a conservatory. A stockbroker had added a billiard-room. The final indignities had been committed in 1919 when it first became a preparatory school, and had added to it a number of huts, purchased at knock-down prices from the army. One was now used as a gymnasium by Sergeant Baker. Another as a changing room and a third as a carpenter’s shop, under Mr Bishop who came up from the village twice a week and watched patiently as boys tortured pieces of wood.
Manifold set out along the corridor, which ran right round the building, from the common-room at the tip of the southern arm, through the centre of the main block and out to the end of the northern arm which held classrooms on the ground floor and the bedrooms and bathrooms of the resident staff above. He walked slowly, his rubber-soled shoes making no sound on the tiles. From time to time he stopped, as if to get his bearings, or to fix some particular point in his mind. Anyone watching him might have taken him for a burglar, memorizing the lay-out of a house which he intended to visit later in the dark.
When he reached the northern wing he paused for a long moment, as if debating whether he would go up to his room. Then he opened the side door and stepped out on to the path, crossing it in three quick strides to get on to the grass verge. Then he slid across the lawn and his big figure melted into the summer dusk by the clump of trees which masked the gate into the side road.
McMurtrie, Sacher and Joscelyne shared a turret bedroom at the junction of the north wing and the main block. As seniors they enjoyed various privileges, including that of going to bed half an hour later than the rabble and of turning their light out, within reason, when they liked.
Joscelyne had a copy of a Sunday paper. It was not one which the School would have encouraged, being devoted almost entirely to sexual aberrations. It was sent to him, under plain cover, by one of the housemaids of the aunt with whom he spent most of his lonely holidays. There was a short account in it of the search for Ted Lister. It must have been telephoned to the paper late on Saturday evening.
‘They found the kid that night,’ said Sacher. ‘It was in the Record yesterday. He’d been pretty well mucked about.’
‘Why do they do it?’ said McMurtrie.
‘Sadism,’ said Joscelyne. ‘Don’t you remember that cat in the woods behind the village? Someone had strung it up and cut all its legs off. It was still alive when they found it.’
‘I don’t mean that. I mean men going crazy about boys. Look at Connie. Every time he sees Jared he turns bright pink and his knees start to give way.’
‘It’s their bottoms,’ said Joscelyne.
‘They are rather a nice shape,’ agreed McMurtrie. He was rotating, naked, in front of a small looking glass.
‘You’re talking nonsense,’ said Sacher. ‘It’s nothing to do with their bodies. It’s psychological. It’s based on sex. And sex is based on sadism. And they’re both an extension of the power complex. Take TEF.’
‘Take him yourself,’ said McMurtrie. He was still admiring himself in the glass.
‘He’s a complete Freudian study. A repressed homo, of course. A lot of schoolmasters are. But in his case I think he really worries about it. You know that old gag about the schoolmaster beating the boy and saying, “This hurts me more than it hurts you.” With him it might even be true.’
‘He certainly hurts you,’ said Joscelyne.
‘I think he’s impotent,’ said McMurtrie.
‘Whatever makes you think that?’ said Joscelyne.
‘If he banged Lucy regularly she wouldn’t have to chase everything in trousers that came into this place.’
‘There might be something in that,’ said Sacher thoughtfully. ‘Freud has got a very interesting chapter on the side effects of impotence–’
They heard the squeak of the useful board at the end of the short passage which led to their room. McMurtrie whipped his pyjamas out of sight and dived into bed naked. The others followed suit more decorously. Mr Fairfax opened the door. He said, ‘When I allowed you to turn your light out for yourselves I did not mean you to hang round talking till all hours. Do you know it’s nearly ten o’clock?’
‘Sorry, sir,’ said McMurtrie, pulling the bedclothes up to his chin.
‘Well, don’t let it happen again. You’re meant to set an example to the smaller boys. Good night.’
‘Good night, sir.’
When he had gone McMurtrie climbed out of bed
to put on his pyjamas. He was shaking with suppressed laughter.
‘What’s the joke?’ said Joscelyne.
‘Example to the small boys,’ said McMurtrie when he was able to speak. ‘I was just thinking. If they had a tape recording of our recent conversation. Hullo!’
He was standing at the window.
‘What’s up now?’
‘It’s that new man. Nipping across the lawn like an old stag. I wonder what he’s up to.’
‘I don’t fancy he’s impotent,’ said Sacher.
5
‘To get this down to ninety minutes,’ said Latrobe, ‘is going to mean some savage cutting. And the first thing that will have to go will be most of the jokes. The scenes between Sir Toby and Sir Andrew are full of them. I don’t doubt the Elizabethan audiences split their sides at mentions of Mistress Mall’s picture and Castiliano Vulgo, but no one could possibly find them funny now.’
‘Do you think they were dirty jokes?’ said Paxton.
‘Probably.’
‘It’ll mean a lot less to learn,’ said McMurtrie.
‘If you analyse the play,’ said Latrobe, ‘you’ll find that it’s a love story mixed up with a Whitehall farce. It’s summed up by Viola at the end of Act Two Scene 2.
“How will this fadge? My master loves her dearly;
And I poor monster, fond as much on him;
And she, mistaken, seems to dote on me.
What will become of this?” ’
‘I’m not sure that I’ve quite worked it out yet,’ said Sacher. ‘Who’s she meant to be talking about?’
‘Her master is the Duke Orsino.’
‘That’s you?’
‘That’s me.’
‘And she’s in love with you? But you don’t know it because you think she’s a boy?’
‘Correct.’
‘And you’re desperately in love with me?’
‘That’s correct,’ said Latrobe hastily. ‘Now I think we’d better read the play right through. I’ve indicated the cuts by putting pencil brackets round the speeches and scenes I think could be left out–’
Night of the Twelfth Page 4