Different Class (18 page)

Dear Roy
,

It’s been a while since I wrote to you, but really, nothing much happens here, and I’d rather hear about life in St Oswald’s than bore you with tales of the everyday. People have been generally good, and have kept me in touch with developments. Eric wrote to me once or twice, and the Chaplain, and ‘SS’. I heard he died soon afterwards. A pity. He was a good man. Certain men seem to project something of immortality.

But no one really escapes in the end. Not from the past, not from ourselves, and especially not from St Oswald’s. Which is why I write to you now, after a silence I hope you’ll forgive, but dying is a dull enough business, even for the interested party, without having to inflict the tedium on to others. Suffice it to say that I’m comfortable – at least as much as I can expect. One institution isn’t very much different from another, although here, of course, they have better soap, and rather more flexible visiting hours.

I thought of getting in touch again, once I was free to do so. I’m still not sure why I didn’t; except that, after what happened last year, I didn’t want St Oswald’s to suffer further embarrassment. An old friend is caring for me now, and will be with me at the end. So instead of writing, which tires me, I have made my Will, of which, as you’ll see, I have asked Dr Burke to be the executor.

There isn’t much to execute. I don’t have much, although I have left you and Eric a couple of keepsakes, which I hope you’ll accept in memory of our friendship. I’ve left the rest to the School, of course. My funeral is paid for. I’ve always despised those who left the arrangements to others. I’ve asked Dr Burke if he can hold the service in the Chapel. As for my ashes, just scatter them somewhere in the School grounds.

Ubi bene, ibi patria. (I think that’s what you used to say.) And thank you for staying in touch, Roy, when so many others slipped away.

Ad astra per aspera
,

Harry

I read the letter twice. How very like him it sounded. I could almost hear his voice; warm and somehow woody, like a good old piano. Gods, how I’ve missed Harry Clarke; his humour, his friendship, his decency.
Ad astra
. To the stars. If only I believed it.

I turned to the Chaplain. ‘When did he die?’

‘Last month. In an old people’s home. They’ve already had the cremation.’

Of course. A man of seventy, childless, unmarried, living off the state – of course. Why waste time with ceremony? Why even bother telling his friends?

‘But what about the service?’ I said. ‘The service in the School Chapel?’

The Chaplain looked slightly uncomfortable. ‘Not a good idea, Roy.’

‘Who says?’ I demanded.

‘Who do you think?’

The Head, of course.

‘And maybe he’s right,’ the Chaplain went on. ‘No one remembers Harry Clarke, and maybe that’s the way it should stay. Water under the bridge, and all that. Forward, not back.’

‘
Progress through Tradition?
’ I said, so angry now that I could see little flecks of brilliance dancing between us, like fireflies. The invisible finger that still sometimes jabs its warning into the caesura between my third and fourth waistcoat-button applied a note of pressure.

‘Don’t be like that, Roy,’ the Chaplain said. ‘You know it wouldn’t make sense. Don’t want the papers all over us, not after the year we’ve had. Not when things are looking up.’

‘And –
are
they looking up?’ I said.

‘Nowhere left to look down at, Roy,’ he said, turning back to his orchids. ‘Face it, we’re in crisis. That’s why we’ve got a Crisis Head. This Head fails, the School goes down. We’re all in it together.’

11

September 14th, 2005

I made my way home through Malbry Park. I’ve always liked that place. It’s safe; its changes are always predictable. The leaves are already autumnal now; a sparrow-like scatter of small boys were throwing sticks at a horse-chestnut tree, without much success. The tree is old, and takes its time; the conkers not quite ready. In a week or two, however, they will be plump and glossy.

I used to like conkers as a boy; of course, in those days there was no Devine to tell us all how reckless we were. In those days our pockets were full of them – strikers and chippers and smashers – and our combats were gladiatorial all around the Lower Quad, with the heroes carried in state on the shoulders of the adoring crowd, while the vanquished slunk off, unnoticed, unmourned, to rejoin the proletariat.

I thought about Harry, dying alone to spare his friends the tedium. And I thought about the last time we’d met, and felt a pang that it should have been so many years ago.

What happened to the three of us? What happened to our friendship? It’s hard to think back to those days now, not because my memory fails but because I remember too clearly. That’s the price we pay, of course, for having survived St Oswald’s so long. Current events blur and recede, while the past becomes clear and pitiless. Passing the Thirsty Scholar, I stopped for a modest libation, and found the place full of strangers, laughing and talking and living their lives.

A brandy, I think. For Harry Clarke. And another for myself.

I don’t suppose I shall sleep tonight. As if I didn’t have enough on my mind, with the Honours Boards, and the pigeon-holes, and Gunderson, for whom I shall draft a letter – a sharply worded letter, I think, pointing out the fact that when parents are incapable of curbing their son’s bullying tendencies, we of the Old Guard are forced to invoke the time-honoured rule –
in loco parentis.
What happens in School should stay in School. Isn’t that what they pay us for?

And as for the Head – whose toxic interference in every aspect of School life has become far too disturbing to be dispelled by a
podex
joke, a Liquorice Allsort or a Gauloise – I find myself, for the first time, considering our erstwhile
Mole
with something approaching sympathy. The interloper within our walls knew how to bring down a citadel with nothing but guile and a handful of stones – and tonight, as I drink my brandy, I wonder where that
Mole
is now. Gone to ground? In prison? Dead? Watching our decline from afar?

This Head fails, the School goes down.

At least, the Chaplain thinks so. But Caesar was killed to
save
Rome from his monstrous ambition. And now, for the first time, I think I can see why a loyal son of St Oswald’s might contemplate that treachery, and I wondered if, in
our
Senate, there might perhaps be a Brutus to Johnny Harrington’s Caesar.

12

Michaelmas Term, 1981

Dear Mousey,

It’s been a week since Poodle confessed to me about his Condition. Since then, he hasn’t been looking too good. People have started to notice. In Poodle’s case, it didn’t take long for those telltale signs to reveal themselves. Besides, he has a history. And history always repeats itself.

No, not like
my
history. Something from his junior school, involving a local boy from the estate. Nothing much, just show-and-tell. But Poodle’s mother went crazy. Not so much because her boy was doing the dirty round the back of the bike sheds, but because of the
other
boy; a boy who wasn’t One of Us. That’s why his little secret could never stay a secret for long. And now this thing with the magazines and the hidey-hole by the clay pits, which everyone knows is a meeting place for perverts and drunks and scum of all kinds, as well as boys from Abbey Road, the technical school on the estate, which has bars on the windows and pebble-dashed mobile classrooms all around the central building, like calves around a concrete cow.

That’s why they sent Poodle to Middle School instead of starting St Oswald’s. They thought that the healing presence of girls would cure whatever was wrong with him. And of course they prayed – well,
everyone
prayed – so that when the trouble died down at last (or Poodle learnt to control himself), he could make a fresh start as a Seventh Term Boy, all neat and clean and virginal.

That was the idea, at least. But now, with the start of Advent, it’s open season on demons. We’ve had some new faces in Church recently, with lots of visiting speakers. Mr Speight is one of them. He’s very big on demons. He gave a talk on Dungeons & Dragons, that American role-playing game, and how it preys on the weak-minded and encourages boys to use magic and to conjure Satan in their hearts. Then there was the speaker who was cured of homosexual thoughts by fasting and electricity; a woman whose son was lured away from her by the gay community; and this Sunday, a preacher from one of our sister churches in America, who brought a ton of leaflets directing parents how to deal with sons who might be having gay thoughts, and who wore yellow cowboy boots and a T-shirt that said KICK OUT THE SIN, LET JESUS IN!

That was a good one, actually. We got chocolate brownies. And all the time, Poodle was looking at me, like
I
was the one who had done something wrong. Which is unfair, don’t you think? It’s not
my
fault he has gay thoughts. I’m not the one who should feel guilty.

Afterwards he came up to me. We were having brownies and squash. Goldie was talking to Mr Speight in the little chapel. ‘You told, didn’t you?’ he said, making sure no one else heard.

‘No I didn’t,’ I said (it was true).

‘So how come everyone’s suddenly talking about it?’ He glared at me. ‘Coincidence?’

I shook my head. ‘Don’t be paranoid. No one’s mentioned you –
yet
.’

Poodle pulled a face. ‘They will. My mum’s been going through my things. My dad’s been asking questions. It’s not like they’re subtle, or anything.’

‘So? You just deny it.’ I didn’t see why he needed to
tell
. He could have lied, even to me. But Poodle isn’t like that. He always ends up confessing things. So far, he hasn’t spoken out about his Condition to anyone else. But his complexion speaks for itself, as does his greasy hair and the fact that for the past few lunchtimes he’s been hiding out in the library and not eating anything—

He says it’s a stomach bug. I know it’s not. It’s a cancer, eating away at him. And he hates himself. The more he talks about it, the more you realize that. He thinks his Condition is something that he can put aside, not think about, not deal with. He thinks he deserves to be punished, and so he pinches and slaps himself. I’ve seen him doing it, when he thinks that nobody’s looking. And the other day in Games, there was a row of sticking plasters up his arm. Well, Mousey, you know what
that
means.

‘I think I can help,’ I told him.

He looked at me with hopeful-dog eyes.

‘But only if you
want
to be cured,’ I said. ‘I mean it. This is serious.’

Poodle nodded eagerly.

‘Plus you can’t tell
anyone
. Not your parents, or Straitley—’

‘I’d never talk to Straitley, Zig.’

‘All right,’ I said. ‘We’ll give it a try. Meet at the clay pits this afternoon. Four o’clock. Tell Goldie to come. And tell him not to tell anyone.’

By four o’clock it was nearly dark. I’d been there for almost an hour. That’s how long it takes, realistically, for the rats to start to come out. There are rats by the clay pits. There’s always something to scavenge. Leftover sandwiches. Dead things. Stuff that people have dumped there. I’d brought some bait. Not cheese, though. That only works for cartoon mice. Rats like meat. I brought dog food. Dog food always worked before.

The trap was simple. I made it myself. Chicken wire on a frame, with a door that slides open and shut. You put the food inside. You loop a piece of fishing-line through the top of the door. You pull the door up, using the fishing-line. You practise pulling the door up, then letting it drop. You do it a few times, to get it right. Rats are pretty clever. If you miss, they’ll never come back. Then you run your piece of line somewhere quiet and out of the way. Like an old abandoned car. Then you wait for Ratty.