Gentlemen & Players (3 page)

I could see the Germans watching me. Gerry—a poor liar—had the grace to look sheepish.

I addressed Dr. Devine. “You know perfectly well I wasn’t at that meeting. I was supervising exams.”

Sourgrape smirked. “I e-mailed the minutes to you myself.”

“You know damn well I don’t
do
e-mail!”

The Head looked chillier than ever. He himself likes technology (or so he purports); prides himself on being up-to-date. I blame Bob Strange, the Third Master, who has made it clear that there is no room in today’s educational system for the computer illiterate, and Mr. Beard, who has helped him to create a system of internal communication of such intricacy and elegance that it has completely overridden the spoken word. Thus, anyone in any office may contact anyone else in any other office without all that unfortunate business of standing up, opening the door, walking down the corridor, and actually
talking
to somebody (such a perverse notion, with all the nasty human contact that implies).

Computer refuseniks like myself are a dying breed, and as far as the administration is concerned, deaf, dumb, and blind.

“Gentlemen!” snapped the Head. “This is not the appropriate moment to debate this. Mr. Straitley, I suggest you put any objections you may have in writing and e-mail them to Mr. Bishop. Now shall we continue?”

I sat down. “
Ave, Caesar, morituri te salutant
.”

“What was that, Mr. Straitley?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it was the gentle crumbling of civilization’s last outpost that you heard, Headmaster.”

Not
an auspicious start to the term. A reprimand from the New Head I could bear, but the thought that Sourgrape Devine had managed to steal my office right from under my nose was intolerable. In any case, I told myself, I would not go gently. I intended to make Occupation very, very difficult for the Germans.

“And now to welcome our new colleagues.” The Head allowed a fractional warmth to color his voice. “I hope that you will make them at home, and that they will prove to be as committed to St. Oswald’s as the rest of you.”

Committed? They should be locked up.

“Did you say something, Mr. Straitley?”

“An inarticulate sound of approval, Headmaster.”

“Hm.”

“Precisely.”

There were five freshers in all: one a computer scientist, as I had feared. I didn’t catch his name, but Beards are interchangeable, like Suits. Anyway, it’s a department into which, for obvious reasons, I seldom venture. A young woman to Modern Languages (dark hair, good teeth, quite promising so far); a Suit to Geography, who seem to have started a collection; a games teacher in a pair of loud and disquieting Lycra running shorts; plus a neat-looking young man for English who, for the moment, I have yet to categorize.

When you’ve seen as many Common Rooms as I have you begin to recognize the fauna that collect in such places. Each school has its own ecosystem and social mix, but the same species tend to predominate everywhere. Suits, of course (more and more of these since the arrival of the New Head—they hunt in packs), and their natural enemy, the Tweed Jacket. A solitary and territorial animal, the Tweed Jacket, though enjoying the occasional bout of revelry, tends not to pair up very often, which accounts for our dwindling numbers. Then there’s the Eager Beaver, of which my German colleagues Geoff and Penny Nation are typical specimens; the Jobsworth, who reads the
Mirror
during staff meetings, is rarely seen without a cup of coffee, and is always late to lessons; the Low-Fat Yogurt (invariably female, this beast, and much preoccupied with gossip and dieting); the Jackrabbit of either gender (who bolts down a hole at the first sign of trouble); plus any number of Dragons, Sweeties, Strange Birds, Old Boys, Young Guns, and eccentrics of all kinds.

I can usually fit any fresher into the appropriate category within a few minutes’ acquaintance. The geographer, Mr. Easy, is a typical Suit: smart, clean-cut, and built for paperwork. The Games man, Gods help us, is a classic Jobsworth. Mr. Meek, the computer man, is rabbity beneath his fluffy beard. The linguist, Miss Dare, might be a trainee Dragon if not for the humorous twist to her mouth; I must remember to try her out, see what she’s made of. The new English teacher—Mr. Keane—might not be as straightforward—not actually a Suit, not quite a Beaver, but far too young for the tweedy set.

The New Head makes much of this pursuit of young blood; the future of the profession, he says, lies with the influx of new ideas. Old lags like myself, of course, are not fooled. Young blood is cheaper.

I said as much to Pat Bishop later, after the meeting.

“Give them a chance,” he said. “At least let them settle in before you have a go.”

Pat likes young folk, of course; it’s part of his charm. The boys can sense it; it makes him accessible. It also makes him immensely gullible, however; and his inability to see the bad side of anyone has often caused annoyance in the past. “Jeff Light’s a good, straight sportsman,” he said. I thought of the Lycra-shorted Games teacher (a Jobsworth, if ever I saw one) and winced inwardly. “Chris Keane comes highly recommended.” That, I could more readily believe. “And the French teacher seems to have a lot of sense.”

Of course, I thought, Bishop would have interviewed everyone. “Well, let’s hope so,” I said, heading for the Bell Tower. Following that full-frontal attack by Dr. Devine, I didn’t want any more trouble than I had already.

2

You see; it was almost too simple. As soon as they saw my credentials they were hooked. It’s funny, how much trust some people lay in pieces of paper: certificates, diplomas, degrees, references. And at St. Oswald’s it’s worse than anywhere. After all, the whole machine runs on paperwork. Runs rather badly too, from what I gather, now that the essential lubricant is in such short supply. It’s money that greases the wheels, my father used to say; and he was right.

It hasn’t altered much since that first day. The playing fields are less open, now that the new housing developments have begun to spread; and there’s a high fence—wire on concrete posts—to reinforce the NO TRESPASSERS signs. But the essential St. Oswald’s is quite unchanged.

The right way to approach is from the front, of course. The facade, with its imposing driveway and wrought iron gates, is built to impress. And it does—to the tune of six thousand per pupil per year—that blend of old-style arrogance and conspicuous consumption never fails to bring in the punters.

St. Oswald’s continues to specialize in sententious titles. Here the Deputy Head is the Second Master; the staff room is the Masters’ Common Room; even the cleaners are traditionally called bedders, although St. Oswald’s has had no boarding pupils—and therefore no beds—since 1918. But the parents love this kind of thing; in Old Oswaldian (or Ozzie, as tradition has it), homework becomes prep; registration, appel; the ancient dining hall is still referred to as the New Refectory; and the buildings themselves—dilapidated as they remain—are subdivided into a multitude of whimsically named nooks and crannies: the Rotunda, the Buttery, the Master’s Lodge, the Portcullis, the Observatory, the Porte Cochère. Nowadays, of course, hardly anyone uses the official names—but they do look very nice on the brochures.

My father, to give him credit, was extraordinarily proud of his title of Head Porter. It was a caretaker’s job, pure and simple; but that title—with its implied authority—blinded him to most of the snubs and petty insults he was to receive during his first years at the school. He’d left school at sixteen, with no academic qualifications, and to him St. Oswald’s represented a pinnacle to which he dared not even aspire.

As a result, he regarded the gilded boys of St. Oswald’s with both admiration and contempt. Admiration for their physical excellence; their sporting prowess; their superior bone structure; their display of money. Contempt for their softness; their complacency; their sheltered existence. I knew he was comparing us, and as I grew older I became more and more conscious of my inadequacy in his eyes, and of his silent—but increasingly bitter—disappointment.

My father, you see, would have liked a son in his own image; a lad who shared his passion for football and scratch cards and fish and chips, his mistrust of women, his love of the outdoors. Failing that, a St. Oswald’s boy; a gentleman player, a cricket captain, a boy with the guts to transcend his class and make something of himself, even if it meant leaving his father behind.

Instead, he had me. Neither fish nor fowl; a useless daydreamer, a reader of books and watcher of B movies, a secretive, skinny, pallid, insipid child with no interest in sports and whose personality was as solitary as his own was gregarious.

He did his best, though. He tried, even when I did not. He took me to football matches, during which I was heartily bored. He bought me a bicycle, which I rode with dutiful regularity around the outer walls of the School. More significantly, for the first year of our life there he kept reasonably and dutifully sober. I should have been grateful, I suppose. But I was not. Just as he would have liked a son in his image, I longed desperately for a father in mine. I already had the template in my mind, culled from a hundred books and comics. Foremost he would be a man of authority, firm but fair. A man of physical courage and fierce intelligence. A reader, a scholar, an intellectual. A man who understood.

Oh, I looked for him in John Snyde. Once or twice I even thought I’d found him. The road to adulthood is filled with contradictions, and I was still young enough to half believe the lies with which that road is paved. Dad Knows Best. Leave It to Me. Elders and Betters. Do as You’re Told. But in my heart I could already see the widening gulf between us. For all my youth I had ambitions, while John Snyde, for all his experience, would never be anything but a Porter.

And yet I could see he was a good Porter. He performed his duties faithfully. He locked the gates at night, walked the grounds in the evening, watered plants, seeded cricket lawns, mowed grass, welcomed visitors, greeted staff, organized repairs, cleaned drains, reported damage, removed graffiti, shifted furniture, gave out locker keys, sorted post, and delivered messages. In exchange some of the staff called him John, and my father glowed with pride and gratitude.

There’s a new porter now—a man called Fallow. He is heavy, discontented, lax. He listens to the radio in his lodge instead of watching the entrance. John Snyde would never have stood for that.

My own appointment
was made St. Oswald–style, in isolation. I never met the other candidates. I was interviewed by the Head of Section, the Head, and both the Second and Third Masters.

I recognized them at once, of course. In fifteen years Pat Bishop has grown fatter and redder and cheerier, like a cartoon version of his earlier self, but Bob Strange looks just the same despite his thinning hair; a lean, sharp-featured man with dark eyes and a poor complexion. Of course back then he’d only been an ambitious young English master with a flair for administration. Now he is the School’s Eminence Grise; a master of the timetable; a practiced manipulator; a veteran of countless INSET days and training courses.

Needless to say, I recognized the Head. The New Head, he’d been in those days; late thirties, though prematurely graying even then, tall and stiff and dignified. He didn’t recognize me—after all, why should he?—but shook my hand in cool, limp fingers.

“I hope you have had time to look around the School to your satisfaction.” The capital letter was implicit in his voice.

I smiled. “Oh yes. It’s very impressive. The new IT department especially. Dynamic new tools in a traditional academic setting.”

The Head nodded. I saw him mentally filing away the phrase, maybe for next year’s prospectus. Behind him Pat Bishop made a sound that might have been derision or approval. Bob Strange just watched me.

“What struck me particularly—” I stopped. The door had opened and the secretary had walked in with a tea tray. It stalled me midphrase—the surprise of seeing
her
more than anything else, I suppose; I had no real fear
she
would recognize
me
—then I carried on: “What struck me particularly was the seamless way the modern has been grafted onto the old to create the best of both worlds. A school that isn’t afraid to give out the message that although it
can
afford the latest innovations, it hasn’t merely succumbed to popular fads but has used them to strengthen its tradition of academic excellence.”

The Head nodded again. The secretary—long legs, emerald ring, whiff of Chanel No. 5—poured tea. I thanked her in a voice that managed to be both distant and appreciative. My heart was beating faster; but in a way I was enjoying myself.

It was the first test, and I knew I had passed.

I sipped my tea, watching Bishop as the secretary removed the tray. “Thank you, Marlene.” He drinks his tea as my father did—three sugars, maybe four—and the silver tongs looked like tweezers in his big fingers. Strange said nothing. The Head waited, his eyes like pebbles.

“All right,” said Bishop, looking at me. “Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty, shall we? We’ve heard you talk. We all know you can spout jargon at interview. My question is, what are you like in the classroom?”

Good old Bishop. My father liked him, you know; saw him as one of the lads, completely failing to see the man’s real cunning.
Nitty-gritty
. A typical Bishop expression. You can almost forget that there’s an Oxford degree (an upper second) behind the Yorkshire accent and the rugby player’s face. No. It doesn’t do to underestimate Bishop.

I smiled at him and put down my cup. “I have my own methods in the classroom, sir, as I’m sure you do. Outside it, I make it my business to know every bit of jargon that comes my way. It’s my belief that if you can do the talk, and you get the results, then whether or not you’ve been following the latest government guidelines becomes irrelevant. Most of the parents don’t know anything about teaching. All they want is to be sure they’re getting their money’s worth. Don’t you agree?”

Bishop grunted. Frankness—real or faked—is a currency he understands. I sensed a grudging admiration in his expression. Test two—I’d passed again.

“And where do you see yourself in five years’ time?” That was Strange, who had remained silent for most of the interview. An ambitious man, I knew, clever beneath his prissy exterior, eager to safeguard his little empire.

“In the classroom, sir,” I replied at once. “That’s where I belong. That’s what I enjoy.”

Strange’s expression did not alter, but he nodded, once, reassured that I was no usurper. Test three. Another pass.

There was no doubt in my mind that I was the best candidate. My qualifications were excellent: my references first-rate. They ought to be; I spent long enough forging them. The nicest touch was the name, carefully selected from one of the smaller Honors Boards on the Middle Corridor. I think it suits me, plus I’m sure my father would have been pleased that I’d re-created him as an Ozzie—an Old Boy of St. Oswald’s.

The John Snyde business was a long time ago; not even the oldsters like Roy Straitley or Hillary Monument are likely to remember much about it now. But for my father to have been an Old Boy accounts for my familiarity with the school; my affection for the place: my desire to teach there. Even more than the Cambridge first, the reassuring accent, and the discreetly expensive clothes, it makes me suitable.

I invented a few convincing details to carry the story—a Swiss mother, a childhood overseas. After such long practice I can visualize my father quite easily: a neat, precise man with musician’s hands and a love of travel. A brilliant scholar at Trinity—that’s where he met my mother, in fact—later to become one of the leading men of his profession. Both killed, tragically, in a cable car accident near Interlaken, last Christmas. I added a couple of siblings for good measure: a sister in Saint Moritz, a brother at university in Tokyo. I did my probationary year at Harwood’s Grammar School in Oxfordshire, before opting to move north into a more permanent post.

As I said, it was almost too easy. A few letters on impressive-looking headed paper, a colorful CV, an easy-to-fake reference or two. They didn’t even check the details—disappointing, as I had gone to such lengths to get them right. Even the name tallies with an equivalent degree given out the same year. Not to myself, of course. But these people are so easily blinded. Even greater than their stupidity, there’s the arrogance, the certainty that no one would cross the line.

Besides, it’s a game of bluff, isn’t it? It’s all to do with appearances. If I’d been a northern graduate with a common accent and a cheap suit, I could have had the best references in the world and never have stood a chance.

They phoned me the same evening.

I was in.