Different Class (55 page)

Perhaps we should have stopped him, I thought. A citizen’s arrest, or some kind of a rugby tackle. But I was never a rugby man, and Devine, in spite of having proved himself unexpectedly resourceful in the matter of the gnome, was hardly a man of action.

‘Why the gnome?’ I said to him now. ‘Any blunt instrument would have sufficed.’

‘It was the first thing I saw,’ said Devine, rather crossly. ‘You’d run off to God knows where. The door was wide open. I went in to look for a walking stick—’

‘You left my door wide open?’

‘Of course not,’ said Devine. High emotion, combined with the cold, had turned his nose a tremulous shade of coral-pink. ‘But I could hardly let you go running off into the night without providing back-up.’

I was moved. ‘Why, Sourgrape – I had no idea you cared.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Straitley.’

‘Mr Straitley? Are you all right?’ That was Winter, looking concerned. I suppose that both of us were looking less than wholesome. Devine looked as if he’d given blood, and I was breathing heavily. The invisible finger had ceased to dance its cakewalk on my lower ribs, but I’d lost my hat somewhere by the canal, and my hair (which needs cutting) was in my eyes and stuck to my damp forehead.

‘Never better, thank you,’ I said.

Devine gave a derisive sniff.

Beside me, Harrington stirred again. I’d almost forgotten he was there. I could hear his breathing now, almost as laboured as my own. I bent down to examine him – he was still only half-conscious, and there was rather a lot of blood.

‘Harrington needs a doctor,’ I said.

‘What about Spikely?’ said Devine.

‘We’ll call the police from the hospital. Here, help me get Harrington into Mr Winter’s car.’

The next few hours were a blur. Triage; nurses; paperwork; Harrington’s wife, looking stunned at the news. Winter said I’d had a shock; told them about my heart condition; insisted someone examined me while they were dealing with Harrington. Meanwhile, Dr Devine remained, in spite of my fervent protests (the garden gnome tucked under his arm), like a reluctant sentinel.

Finally, there was nothing to do but await the arrival of the police. They’d given us a little room in which to recover and gather our thoughts. Winter was looking uncomfortable, repeatedly checking his watch, while Dr Devine sipped at a cup of lukewarm hospital coffee.

Until that moment, there had been no time to inspect the letter. Or maybe I had not
wanted
to: already those tumblers were falling, inexorably, into place. And I was so tired; I wanted to sleep till the next millennium.

What a terrible thing is wisdom, when it brings no profit to the wise!
Winter must have known from the start the quarry we were hunting. And he had tried to warn me against pursuing it too ardently, for fear that, like the Manitou, it would turn and tear me apart.

He saw me holding the envelope. An envelope of cheap blue bond, of the kind that Harry had used, the ink a little faded with time, and yet still perfectly legible. But the handwriting wasn’t Harry’s. I’d so assumed that it would be that I almost didn’t recognize the childish, neatly lettered script. But I knew that writing very well. I’d marked his books too many times to fail to know it now. But what had Johnny Harrington to do with such a letter? And why would the young David Spikely have been writing to Eric Scoones?

‘My mother found it,’ Winter said. ‘Of course, she knew what it was from the start. I told you she was no stranger to blackmail. She tried to find out what he was worth: what she could get away with. Spikely had been cashing in ever since the Clarke affair. Ma didn’t see why she should have to clean old people’s houses when there was a better way. She got me to investigate. It tied in with what I was doing for you. And finally, I began to see a means of getting away from her.’

I took a painful breath. ‘I see.’

And yes, I
did.
I saw it now. The tumblers had all fallen silent. Eric’s reluctance to testify during the Harry Clarke affair; his seven-year absence from St Oswald’s immediately after the trial. His destruction of Harry’s box; his decision to retire; even his words to me that night:
How well do we
really
know our friends? How do we know what they’re hiding?

‘I’ll get you a cup of tea,’ Winter said. I could see from his face that he was worried. He left me alone with Dr Devine, still sitting stiffly in his chair, with Harry’s gnome under his arm.

‘Don’t read it, Straitley,’ he advised. ‘What use could it be, after all this time?’

I started to explain. The gnome looked at me satirically. ‘If we could prove that Harrington lied – that someone
else
abused Spikely – then maybe at last we could clear Harry’s name. Harry could have his memorial.’

‘And then what? Get Eric arrested?’

I shook my head. ‘That doesn’t mean—’

‘Listen to me, Straitley,’ he said. ‘Think of what it would entail. Another scandal at St Oswald’s. The Head accused of conspiracy. Another member of staff accused. The whole of that old story dragged up as if it happened yesterday. And Eric’s retiring. He said so himself. Besides—’ The nose twitched fretfully. ‘Besides, it never happened again. Harry Clarke saw to that.’

‘Harry
?
’

He nodded. ‘Oh yes, Harry knew. Seems young Spikely confided in him. Of course, he couldn’t tell the
boy
, but he dealt with it, in his own way.’ Devine saw me staring, and bridled a little. ‘Oh, don’t look at me like that,’ he said. ‘Surely you must have suspected. I mean, you two were such old friends—’

‘Never,’ I said blankly.

My head had suddenly started to ache; my eyes were streaming. I reached for my pocket handkerchief, and found instead the conker I’d put there several weeks ago; shiny then, and glossy brown, now shrivelled to a chrysalis. I haven’t played conkers in fifty years. And yet I still collect them, just as we did when we were boys, in the old days of St Oswald’s.

‘Did you ever play conkers, Devine? I mean, when you were a schoolboy?’

He raised his nose superciliously. ‘I was Junior Champion,’ he said. ‘Both in Lower and Middle School.’

I have to say, I found it hard to imagine Devine playing conkers. But that was all so long ago. So much water under the bridge. David Spikely
had
been abused. All the experts said so. Could Eric Scoones have been the one? Could he have hidden this all these years?

Once more I looked at the envelope. My head was sore. The cheap blue paper tore in my hand as I fumbled it open. And in all the drama, we found that Winter had quietly slipped away, and when I looked in the envelope, I found that it was empty.

8

November 4th, 2005

Dear Mousey,

I palmed the letter, of course. I couldn’t let them read it. Not because it incriminates me; I just couldn’t bear their pity. I want them to remember me as something more than that sad little boy who killed things because he was afraid to live. I want them to be full of hate, and disbelief, and wonder. I want them to remember me as more than just a survivor.

I read the letter. It wasn’t long. But even so, I remembered it. I remembered every word; each one chosen as carefully as in a Latin translation.
He’ll read it over breakfast
, I thought to myself as I wrote it out.
He’ll read it, and he’ll find me. He’ll find me, and he’ll do it again
. And that brought it back; the fear of him; the dreadful, paralysing fear that only one thing could exorcize.

October 15th, 1989

Dear Mr Scoones
,

It’s been a while. I don’t suppose you remember me. Even when I was a boy, I was nothing special. Perhaps that’s why you did those things: because I was nothing special. And because of my history, of course, which meant no one believed me. But all that’s changed. They’re listening now. Everyone’s paying attention.

You’ve seen what’s happening to Mr Clarke. That could happen to you, too. I’m still remembering things all the time. And, unless you want me to remember in court exactly what you did to me, you’d better do what I tell you.

First, a cheque for ten thousand pounds to the Survivors bank account. Donations are tax-deductible. And you’d better start saving up, because you’re going to be generous. You’re going to pay for what you did. I’m your responsibility now.

Goodbye, Mr Scoones. You won’t see me again. Except, maybe, in nightmares.

Yours sincerely
,

David Spikely

Except that
I
had the nightmares. Every night, for years and years. But all that’s finished, Mousey. I won. If only my dad could see me now. He never quite believed me, you know. Because of My Condition. And because my T-shirt was wet that day – you know, the day that Bunny died. He never said. But I saw his eyes. He knew, but never said so.

I tore the letter in half, then in four, then into a hundred pieces. They fluttered away like moths’ wings, under the hedge, into the canal. There, Mousey. There’s no going back. Those words cannot be recovered. They can never be made whole again, any more than a man’s life can be made whole once it has been broken into pieces.

They change the sky, not their souls, that run across the ocean
. Well, I could do with a change of sky. Maybe something blue, this time. America, Australia. No one would come looking for me. No one would care that I was gone. I’ve got money. I’ve got skills. I’ve got more than thirty years before I can think about dying.

And yet, the canal looks good tonight. It smells of the clay pits, and childhood. On a night like this, I could probably find a stray dog or cat to drown. Maybe even a homeless man sleeping out in a cardboard box. It wouldn’t take much. It never does. Just hold his head for a minute or two. A couple of fireworks in the sky above White City. Red. Green. I stick out my tongue to taste them, the way we used to with snowflakes. I see the bright reflections on the surface of the canal. I take a step. You could almost believe a man could walk on water.

9

Monday, November 7th, 2005

It was my birthday on Saturday. Sixty-six, and still chained to the oar. If anyone had dared to tell the fourteen-year-old boy I was that I would one day
volunteer
to spend more time at St Oswald’s, he would probably have given them a vicious Chinese burn, before stealing their lunch and retreating to the playing fields with Eric Scoones, to share the spoils of infamy.

Of course, in those days we both believed a friendship would last a lifetime. Now, in the light of recent events, I wonder if our friendship can. He tried to call me on Saturday night, but I was too troubled to answer the phone. We all have guilty secrets, of course. We’ve all done things that we regret. But if Eric abused a boy in his charge, then allowed Harry Clarke to go to jail, rather than name his blackmailer – that’s infamy of another kind than the odd illicit Gauloise taken in my form-room, or failure to declare a mouse infestation, or theft from Dr Devine’s stationery cupboard.

Of course, the evidence against Eric remains purely circumstantial. But if it is true – and my instincts, honed by my years as a Master, were screaming like a Greek chorus that yes, Eric Scoones was guilty as charged – then what did that say about Straitley? What price our friendship then?

I arrived in my form-room early today. Eric was already waiting for me. A bottle of claret stood on the desk, between two of my ugliest spider plants.

‘Bit early for that, don’t you think?’ I said.

Eric shrugged. ‘Happy birthday,’ he said. ‘I thought maybe we could celebrate.’

Of course, he must have heard the news of what happened on Friday night. The grapevine must be ripe with it now; and from his slightly awkward look, and the way he didn’t quite meet my eye, I knew that he was wondering just what I knew about Spikely.

I nodded. ‘Thank you. That would be nice.’